#teslanava

Tesla is ten when she flies for the first time. This is something of a big deal. Her parents can see her magic, can see that it’s wind based and strong as a hurricane. She’s easily the smartest child in her school, already moving up grades like a dog chasing a cat. The thing is, most witches can’t fly. It’s difficult to twist the threads of reality enough to do it. Manifesting wings big and strong enough to fly with is exhausting and manipulating wind to carry you requires an intimate understanding of the science at work. There’s the static friction that keeps people anchored to the earth, the velocity of the wind, the weight of the individual. There’s also the fact that if the wind is too strong it could kill. Controlling a current like that, it’s math on a level most people, particularly most ten year olds, are not comfortable with. But Tesla is not like normal ten year olds.

She does the math between classes and during her lunch breaths. She practices on dolls and glasses and library chairs that she drags into quiet corners. Tesla figures it out over a weekend and is so delighted she can barely contain herself. She doesn’t tell her parents what she’s about to do. They’ll try to stop her and she’s not interested in being told what to do. She goes to her backyard, braces herself in the middle of the grass.

Deep breathes, in and out. She feels the wind around her, starts to call it to her. Her fingers are spread, arms at her sides, feet shoulder length apart. The air around her gets thick, almost soup-like. Limbs shake on trees. Tesla thinks she can hear her mother calling from inside the house. She blocks all of it out. Her brown eyes are shut tight, her thick, curly black hair becoming wilder as the wind takes shape around her. On an inhale she is standing firmly planted on the ground. On an exhale she is in the air. Five, ten, fifteen feet above the ground. She opens her eyes. Below her, her parents are watching, hands over their mouths. She looks up at the sky, out at their suburbs. For a moment, there is no time, no space. Tesla and the air are one. It tells her its secrets. A smile breaks over her face. She can fly. But she’s already exhausted from the effort of will bending reality this much takes on her. She lowers herself back to the ground, into her parents waiting arms. She can hardly wait to do that again.

2) Look into your eyes and the sky’s the limit

Tesla wakes up to the morning sun peeking in through the edges of her blinds. She turns around and there she is. Navâ  looks so stunning in the dim light of morning, just as she had the night before. Her long, thick, gently curling hair is piled around her. Tesla reaches up and moves some of it from her face. She has never had an ounce of artistic talent but if she was a painter, her hours would be spent painting this beautiful woman, her Navâ. She wants to live in this moment, in this place where she and Navâ never have to worry, never have to leave each other’s sides. This is where she wants to live and die, in this moment.

How long they had waited for this moment she didn’t even know. First the long patch of time between falling for Navâ and admitting it, then the months and months as they kissed and shared touches before this at last. It wasn’t even that the sex was good (it was) but just how comfortable they had both been during and after it. Tesla had never felt less shy, less unsure of herself, than when she had been with Navâ.

It reminded her a lot of the first time she took flight, the first time she had seen just how much power she had in her tiny body. Navâ made her feel powerful. There is no time, no space, only this bed and this moment.

Then Navâ opens her eyes. Her smile is bright and sleepy. Her hand comes up to cover her cheek, light brown skin against black. “Morning, T.”

“Good morning, little bird.” They kiss and Tesla thinks, in that moment, that this must be what worship feels like.

3) Just stay alive that would be enough

Lonnie’s not breathing. Tesla registers it the moment she gets to her side. Hells and Heavens, there’s so much blood and Tesla’s not this kind of doctor, not the kind that knows what to do with a bleeding best friend, one who isn’t breathing. They weren’t fast enough, if she had just pushed the wind a little faster, made them get here in time. She’s pressing her hands against Lonnie’s wounds, trying to stop the blood.

Navâ is there, pushing Tesla aside as she bends down and puts her hands over Lonnie’s wounds. Tesla has seen Navâ heal before, but it usually has to be done in pools or at least with a running water source. She’s never seen what Navâ does when there isn’t water at the ready. What happens next is not something Tesla could have predicted.

Navâ closes her eyes and draws in breath. Water, in beads, starts to pull itself from the ground and Tesla realizes that Navâ is drawing water from the roots of the grass, of the trees nearby. It all pools, collecting at the worst of Lonnie’s wounds. Tesla falls to her knees, watching in awe as Navâ’s face twists in effort. The will required for this kind of magic… Tesla recalls the first time she flew, how exhausted the effort had made her. She reaches out, touches Navâ’s shoulder. She presses her will into Navâ, giving her strength while draining her own. How long they stay like that she doesn’t know. But suddenly, below them, Lonnie lets out a breath. When Tesla looks, she sees that the wounds on Lonnie are closed, the blood drying.

It’s not a miracle, it’s more than that. It’s magic like Tesla hasn’t seen before, magic stronger than hers. She knew, of course she did, that other people had magic stronger than her own. How could she not? But she’d never seen Navâ work hers like this, never seen water magic sucked from dry air before. It’s like discovering a new element, the implications and applications of such power swimming fast up the streams of her mind. She’s not even aware of time existing as she thinks of what magic like that could do.