Perfectly Imperfect

There had been a constant prickle of power in the air, magic shimmering and shifting and drifting, weaving into everything and soaking into what was being made.

She had loved everything her family had made so much and her family had been happy to teach her everything she wanted to know. They let her wear whatever they made before they sold it to heroes and archmages and mighty kings and queens – and the things they purposefully hid all across the world, so that people going through dark times or on impossible quests could find hope and light before they gave up.

They let her drape herself in oversized clothing and armor, rings slipping down her too small fingers as she basked in the weave of magic all around her.

Here, she had been at home. Here, with possibility at her fingertips, it felt like the whole world was open before her. As if she could do anything, and do it well, too. As if she could overcome any challenges laid before her, no matter how terrible and demanding.

It was, therefore, truly a shame that out of everyone in her family she had about as much capacity for magic as a dry, dead twig. It hadn't been as much of an issue when she had been a toddling, little thing, eager to learn everything and happy to watch her family craft and create.

But as she grew older, as she started to learn and understand that the world was so much bigger and more complicated than her happy, busy home, things changed.

No matter how hard she tried and no matter how hard she worked, magic refused to spark alive within her. Not even divine magic answered her call, the temples she visited lying still and silent and the priests and clerics who could perform magic gifted to them by the gods gave her pitying, sorry looks, waiting awkwardly until they could usher her back home again.

It happened sometimes that children were born without magic, her parents told her with soft voices and apologetic faces. Every so often, when a family possessed particularly strong magical bloodlines, a completely mundane child was born. It was a way for the universe to level itself out a little again, a price paid so the rest of the family could keep their magic. So the magic could still be passed on through the generations.

"You allow us to do amazing things," her uncle said, thick glasses perched on his nose that made his eyes huge and bug-eyed as he stared down at the tiny beads he sowed onto a shimmering cloak. "We'll take care of you, no matter what. It's alright, kiddo."

For them it might be. Jule never protested their reassurances and promises, because she didn't want to sound ungrateful and she didn't want them to lose their magic, either, just so she could have some of herr own. But deep down, she mourned. It wasn't fair, she thought, that she loved magic so very much and yet she would never be able to wield it.

Jule could only look at magic, but she couldn't use it. Not even the magical effects granted by the things her family made answered to her call. Mage staffs didn't conjure fire and storms, teleportation scrolls refused to work even when she read every word on them with careful, perfect pronunciation, something that even well-learned mages sometimes struggled with and still the spells worked for them.

Potions didn't heal her and protective wards slid right off of her.

Her touch didn't ruin magic, of course, so she still helped out around the various workshops. When her family was done enchanting things, she put the finishing touches on the project, polishing jewelry and putting a last protective coating on carved wooden pieces. Whatever could be done without magic, she took care of.

She could do prep work as well, sewing clothes out of enchanted fabric, using enchanted needles threaded with strings of magic her family conjured out of thin air. She knew how to spin yarn and weave cloth, how to prepare and cut leather, how to heat iron and sow neat, strong lines. 

Whenever she wasn't needed by one of her relatives, Jule started to man the little shop-front where patrons could commission pieces, taking care of mages or royalty or powerful adventurers. Her family was only too happy to leave the paperwork of their business to her, trusting her with the haggling and arguing and deal-making in their name.

It was fine enough work overall and Jule knew she led a fortunate life. She had a stable income, a loving if sometimes bullheaded family and if she ever decided she wanted to so something else with her life they would support her every step of the way.

And still, in her heart of hearts, there was a little girl grieving the things she'd never have. To only see magic but never actually interact with it. To touch it but never feel its answering call. To never feel the very thing that made the eyes of all their patrons light up with sheer awe and elation whenever they donned what her family had made for them.

Sometimes Jule considered leaving. Traveling somewhere far away from here, to build a life that had nothing to do with her old one and the lingering pain of what was denied to her. But in the end, she loved magic too much to leave. She loved her family too much.

It wasn't their fault that they couldn't give her the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. If anything, they did their best to distract her and cheer her up, to make her laugh and they encouraged her to chase happiness at every turn.

So, in her free time, she went to events all over town, to theater performances and listened to traveling bards, she went to boxing matches and visited local taverns to play card and dice games. It helped, it eased the ache and almost made the wounded part of her childhood heal.

But then she came home and she looked at her family, at the wondrousness they created, the way magic danced around them, at the awe and wonder on their faces that never ceased, no matter how many magical artifacts they created.

She could not help but feel gray and meaningless beside that wonder. It hurt, it probably would never stop hurting, to know that she would never make something like this herself. That she would never be able to create something awe inspiring and wondrous with her own hands.

She never told her family about her troubling thoughts, made sure there was a smile on her face when they looked up to greet her, their loving warmth easing the ache and the hurt, even if it could never chase it away.

Her mundanity was the price, after all, for their joy and their magic and she would never be cruel enough to take that away from them just so she could have it instead.

And the world seemed to know it, too. The one time a curse master entered the shop, they took one look at her and she stared back at them, full of certain defiance and love that was stronger than pain and they left again silently, never to be seen again.

She would make no bargains, no deals, just to have what her family had. Not when she knew that they would end up paying the price, just like she currently paid it. She would not switch their fates. Besides, everyone knew that those kinds of magical bargains always ended in misery.

Sometimes, though, people came to her parents for help, but for all their capabilities, they were not healers, nor were they mages. Their magic had limits, too. All they could do was guide the people in need towards someone who might be able to help instead, sending them away with addresses and directions scribbled on little notes.

So when the door to the shop swung open and no one seemed to come in, Jule paused, standing up to peer past the front desk. She saw a palm-sized fairy walking towards her, trailing little glitters of magic in their wake, tear tracks down their cheeks. They held their big, butterfly wings in their arms.

"Please," the fairy said with a voice like summer breezes and gently rustling leaves. "I made... I made a terrible mistake. Can't you help?"

Jule swiftly rounded the table, opening a door at the side to call for her grandmother. Her grandma had worked with magical creatures the most over the years and likely knew best what ought to be done.

"Someone will be with you shortly," Jule told the fairy, who bowed their head with relieved gratitude. 

The fairy waited in the middle of the room and it was, admittedly, strange to see them standing instead of flying, but Jule bit down on the urge to ask questions. The fairy was visibly distraught, after all, and it wouldn't do to poke at someone's wounds just to sate her curiosity. Besides, it was painfully obvious that they couldn't fly, considering they carried their wings.

Her grandmother appeared soon and Jule really tried not to eavesdrop as they conversed quietly, but it got impossible when the fairy broke out into keening cries.

"I'm sorry," her grandmother said with genuine regret in her voice, her face one of quiet sympathy. "There is nothing that can be done."

"By anyone?" the fairy sobbed and Jule's grandmother shook her head.

"I don't know of anyone who can reverse this, forgive me. But the world is a vast place and magic is an ever-shifting current, perhaps you can still find someone." She stepped back then and excused herself with soft words.

Jule sat there awkwardly for a long moment, the fairy crumpled to the floor in a tiny heap that would easily fit into the palm of her hand.

"What happened?" she couldn't help but ask, unsure how else to approach the fairy. It felt wrong to throw them out just because her family couldn't help them, but she had no idea how to comfort them, either.

"I was a fool," the fairy answered, voice thick with tears as they sat curled over their wings, cradling them close. "I thought I could make a deal with one of the hags."

Jule bit back the urge to grimace. Hags were not known for their kindness. There were stories of people outsmarting them and walking away with incredible prices and powers, but those stories sounded more like fairytales to Jule and were outweighed by far by those who failed. Who spent their lives cursed as a result of their attempted trickery, crawling through the days in endless servitude and agony.

In her opinion, nothing could be gained by making deals with entities, be it curse makers, fae, hags or witches and sorcerers or any of the other beings that liked trading a spell or a sliver of their power for something far more precious.

The problem with deals, compared to curses, was that they were incredibly finicky in how they could be undone again. "What did you ask for?" Jule asked.

The fairy released a hiccupy sort of humorless, exhausted laugh. "I wanted to be free, free of the burdens of my life, of the birthright that I never asked for and that I have hated for so many years." They looked up, tears glimmering like dewdrops on their cheeks. "In exchange for all the freedom I wanted, all I had to give up was one current freedom."

They held up their wings then and whispered, "I had no idea it would be my wings and the hag won't trade them back anymore, not even when I offered to give up everything I gained since. The hag said the only way for me to have it all, is to make my wings move out of my own free will once more."

Because their misery over losing their wings was greater than the misery earned by being forced into a life they didn't want or choose. And many deal-makers lived off of the deals they made, the things they could leech from them. This fairy had likely been incredibly unlucky and had run into one of the hags that lived off of misery.

"No one can help," the fairy whispered, curling up more over their wings. "It's all useless." Jule could see the devastation and the emptiness in their gaze as they stared into nothing. "I don't want to live like this."

Jule sat still and silent, unsure what to say, for there were no words that could possibly console someone in so much agony, when suddenly an idea found her. She pushed to her feet.

"Come with me," she said and the fairy's head snapped up. "I can't promise it will work, but I want to try something."

The fairy scrambled to their feet, rushing after her, holding their large, glittering butterfly wings in their arms. Jule waited by the door until they had caught up and they followed her into the hallway beyond. 

She walked past the doors leading to the various workshops, magic gleaming and glimmering faintly in the air as her family worked. After all these years, she had learned the cadence of sounds their creations made, could tell what was being enchanted by the way magic shifted, by the very taste of it. Her mother was making a sword somewhere, her uncle a bracelet and her grandmother was making a gown worthy of an aspiring queen.

She reached the storage room a moment later, opening the door and carefully made sure she wasn't knocking it into the fairy. Everything her family had made that hadn't gotten used or used up was stored here. The room was so full of magic that it always stole her breath away a little.

This room felt a bit like a dream, as though she was drift-walking along the bottom of the ocean without much trouble, light dancing all around her and wondrousness brushing past the edges of her being. It was possibility in its purest form.

Jule looked through the boxes with fabric scraps, looking for that particular feel and taste of magic that she needed. She remembered her cousin once sewing a dragon-scale tunic for a noble, allowing them to transform into a dragon for hours at a time.

Her cousin had made a special fabric for that, one that Jule had sown dragon scales on top of afterwards. She swore a little leftover strip of that fabric had been stashed away somewhere around here.

There! She pulled the fine, thin strip free from the pile it was shoved beneath. It was far too little for a human to do anything with it, but it might just be enough to make something for the fairy.

Jule grabbed some magic-thread, as well, so fine and thin it was hard to see with the naked eye. Taking one of the sewing glasses reserved for that thread and a sewing kit for that particular fabric from the nearby tools room, she returned to the shop front and helped the fairy up on the desk.

She took their measurements and then got to work. It took nearly the entire rest of the day for her to sew the smallest of vests and to get the wings affixed to it, her fingers feeling big and clumsy in comparison. The wings especially had no desire to be sown onto anything at all, for a first stitch made them start to flap awkwardly.

The fairy, eyes widening, had quickly reached over and soothed them, so they settled and stopping their panicked flapping.

The fairy had stared up at her with such naked, impossible hope Jule knew it would destroy them completely if this didn't work.

At last she was done, offering the fairy the vest and they took it with trembling hands.

"Put it on," she encouraged them with a quiet voice, her fingers feeling rather cramped after making something so tiny. "Let's see if it works."

*.*.*

Feel free to head over and check out my patreon for my Patreon-exclusive short stories!

If you'd like to check out more of my writing, feel free to give the masterpost a poke!

Also, the first volume of the Short Story Collection is out now!