Let Me Fall

Magic has and always will be part of life.

It has an essence, began with a proverbial seed, and has shifted and changed into the magic that is known today. Generations of magical creatures and humans have spawned across the globe, setting apart from each other.

Travelling west coast to east coast, north to south, it's seen that each nation handles magic differently. Its people, for hundreds of years, dealt with what it meant to be magical in their own ways.

More often than not, any sign of magic meant a sign of evil, corruption, embodiment of Satan, and sickness. People showing magical abilities were shunned, exiled, and often met with death.

Throughout history there have been stories of witch burnings, sacrificial killings to save towns and inquisitions. Innocent people murdered, tortured, chased out of towns and removed from families.

As different as each nation was in accordance to how the magical people dealt with their powers, each non-magical, or muggle, all had the same feeling associated with them.

Fear.

Fear of the unknown. They couldn't describe it, couldn't touch it. They could not hold it in their hand, examine it and make a rational decision of what it was. So they eschewed it, dreaded it and rid themselves of the horror that was primitive magic.

But these castaways banded together, forming their own towns, lives, trades and existence. They were often found out and ransacked, burned, drowned, beheaded, raped, and in some communities, skinned to see what gave them this extra ability. Tribes of the Americas would wear the bones of the magicals, claiming it warded off evil. In the oldest, most sacred and feared history books, some tribes ate the flesh of the victims, wanting the magical ability bestowed upon themselves of the enemy they so feared.

If they believed eating the meat of a bear made them stronger, jaguar made them stealthier and falcon made them faster, then there was no reason to believe otherwise with the magical's flesh and blood.

Narrowing down the nations, countries of today, and early folk, the history books lead us to a northern part of the western world.

James Bay, the lower loop of Hudson's Bay, is magical on its own.

Throughout Muggle textbooks used by scholars and students, it tells of Henry Hudson, an early founder to Canada. He voyaged from England, below Greenland and over Quebec to enter, what is now known as Hudson's Bay, in the year of 1610. But back then; there was no James Bay. The lower region was all land, no water, and furthermore, tribes inhabited the area.

Now, Henry Hudson had travelled Lower Canada in 1609 and was somewhat familiar with the idea of native tribes. Even Champlain, a founder only a few years before and recently the founder of the city Quebec, had told him about other clans. But tribes like this he hadn't seen nor heard of before. Unlike the normal natives, these people's skin was a lighter tan, showing they spent less time in the sun. How was that for communities who supposedly lived off long days of farming, fishing and hunting?

The people's huts and tepees weren't of animal skins, wood and stone, fastened together with rope, bark and hardened mud.

The housing held itself up, no matter the material used to build it. It was if magic kept it together.

Utter nonsense, Hudson had thought. He and his settlers grew friendly with the tribesmen, learning of their kind and how to communicate between the white and tanned. The tribesmen, very secretive, were wary of any questions asked.

The Englishmen especially grew worried of the native's eyes. They were powerful. Looking into them kept you captivated, and tearing their gaze seemed to become more difficult each time. Each colour, hue and detail of the native's irises seemed of perfection. The colours in them were strong and resonated strength.

Hudson, along with his son, John, and ten other crewmembers soon began to fear the ancient tribesmen who watched, whispered about, and kept from them. The children played far from their eyes, the men hunted and fished without any help or watch of the English. The women cooked, wove and raised the children away from the crew.

All the paranoia began to eat at some of the crew, and they felt that the natives would do them in.

Quarrels ensued, and physical fights separated some crewmembers until the chief of the tribe put a stop to it.

The British were scared witless as the chief, tall and strong, produced a blinding light with his bare hands. Birds went flying, twittering into the night, rabbits, deer and foxes ran off.

But the British remained where they were, too frightened to move.

The chief talked to them in his native tongue, a language they had barely begun to understand. Hudson, positive they could make rich with what this tribe had to offer, insisted that they stay, set up housing and return to the King with what they saw.

The crew that he had argued with before mutinied against him and left with the ship back to England. The mutineers reported back to their leaders, saying they set Hudson, his son and seven of the loyal crewmembers adrift in a small boat, never to be found again.

In the back of a tavern, twenty years later, one humid summer eve in England, a mutineer had one too many whiskies and felt the urge to tell the tale of the chieftain to impress the ladies. Some other men in the bar overheard, not by purpose, but the mutineer had a rather loud voice. These men had gotten their school degree under a leader named Salazar, from a school in Scotland called Hogwarts.

They pressed the man for details, buying him drinks until he passed out and later died of alcohol poisoning. That is where their plan started, their plot began and their tale unfolded.

Not a month later, these men, with many others, set sail to Canada without the knowledge of the King. They travelled the route of Hudson, coming to rest many nights later near the landing of Hudson and his crew.

A few days of trekking and they found John Hudson, the son of the late captain, bathing in the water. Cajoling and saying to him that they were there for their rescue, the men had John lead them back to his father's camp. A fatal mistake, as John would learn the next day.

Captain Thomas James, the leader of the new men from England, pressed the remaining first shipmen for details and whereabouts of the tribe. After telling all they knew, the remaining four shipmen were slaughtered the next day, including John Hudson.

Thomas James set off for the tribe, and found it exactly where he was told it would be. Thomas met with the new chieftain, Hiamovi, who was not trusting of these new Englishmen, especially when any remains of the old ones were not to be found. Thomas and his crew tried many a time to persuade the natives, but to no avail.

Thomas used intuition and produced a simple, thin carved stick. Waving it once and muttering an incantation, birds shot out the end with a loud bang. Watching the doves fly away, Hiamovi embraced Thomas, not seeing the look of disgust on the Englishman's face, or malicious grin.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks to months before the language barrier was nearly broken to simple conversation. The prominent natives spoke English to a degree of understanding, catching on quickly, and Thomas and his crew began to learn the words of the tribe. Thomas soon called the clan Nymphae. He was fascinated with the eyes of the Nymphaenians, and named them so because of how they reminded him of mythological nymphs and fae.

Thomas taught the Nymphaenians about eastern magic, wands, schools and the magical creatures they had across the Atlantic. He helped them carve their own wood, gather fur from the jarveys and clabberts, spikes from knarls, legs of bundimuns and feathers of jobberknolls nearby to channel their power through a magical core.

The Nymphaenians explained their way of life, joining in the Englishmen on their hunts, celebrations and ceremonies. They showed Thomas potions, magical plants they had sowed, and the magic they had refined in their own rights.

Thomas began to learn of their civilization. Women and men held equal rights, in that all were needed by the community to survive. As the natives hadn't a hold on their magic as the wizards and witches of the United Kingdom and Europe did, they were not as powerful. Thomas took that thought into account.

Each Nymphaenian had a talent, some sharing them and working together to promote their use. A talent may be in hunting. The hunter's eyes and keen sense of sound was heightened above others, and the hunter(s) would use this to gather food and livestock.

There were croppers who worked in the fields, knowing and understanding plants and trees more than anyone else could. They truly felt the growth and aided in it, pushing the plants beyond imaginable limits; having them grow at alarming rates.

Builders were necessary and had magic that moulded material together, having an eye for construction of houses, utensils, et cetera. They built, as there were many of them, the towns and boats. The list was endless as Nymphaenians were born, and more talents were recognised.

The people of Nymphae, all few thousand of them, were intrigued by the Englishmen's abilities to transfigure. Nothing of the sort had been done or thought of by the natives. Each tried his or her hand at it, but barely any results came of it. Resigning to the fact that they were not simply made to create such things, the chief of the Nymphae's halted the attempts.

Life, he had said in his native tongue, was meant to change on its own course. Taking drastic measures to shape something to our will is not what our people are about. We let life flow, and from it we live.

Hiamovi told Thomas of how their tribe became full of magic. He had explained how they, too, were shunned from their original tribes. Far and wide searchers (another one of the many talents of some Nymphaenians) looked for outcasts. Across plains and tundra's, marshlands and mountains, seeking out any magicals that had been rejected and exiled. Myths of them began: Ill thought natives tearing up communities of their fellow men, looking for root magic, it was called. They would recruit the root magic natives, and after a good many of them, bring them back to their settlement.

It had been that way through many chiefs, keeping the Nymphae blood thick and wholesome.

Thomas soon introduced duelling to the native people, claiming that they should not hide in fear from their oppressors. The chief downright refused fighting when their clan, as large as it was, was doing perfectly all right. They enjoyed giving sanctuary and learning new ways of hunt and magic by new comers.

Hiamovi did not want to fight his fellow man.

Late night discussions on magical theory became debates. Thomas and his men were growing impatient with Hiamovi's stubborn attitude about staying where they were. He did not want to take over the lands of their ancestors, harming nature and killing men.

It all came to a standstill when the chief, one cold spring night, calmly asked Thomas James and his men to leave their territory.

We have been kind, Hiamovi had said in a voice filled with authority, we have given you food, shelter, and taught you of our ways. Now you speak of hate, anger and death. If you cannot get that off your mindset, then I am saddened to ask you and your crew to leave these shores and not return, save you be cleansed of your misgivings.

But Thomas James had grown comfortable where he was over the past ten or so months. He had even admitted that heating charms and furs greatly helped the winter cold.

Thomas withdrew his wand, and legend says he pointed it directly between the eyes of the seated chief. Forgiving his rudeness, he demanded control of the people, claiming that ownership of the village, and soon the entire land, were to be his.

Salazar, he had said smugly, would have been proud. Is this not great ambition I carry upon myself?

Resisting a battle, Hiamovi stood and spoke of peace and amity. He once again asked Thomas to leave, only to be denied the privilege.

Many sparred words later, Thomas had provoked the chieftain into a duel, knowing his enemies weakness in such a fight. Bringing the final battle to the edge of the Nymphae territory, where what is now known as Quebec, the two leaders stood face to face.

Hiamovi, showing no fear, stood with his new wand directed at Thomas James' chest, ten paces before him. The entire Nymphae race stood behind him, aging from the very old to the newly born. All couple thousand of them, spanning tribes from Cree to Blackfoot to the Iroquois, Algonquin's and Crows, Inuit's and the Montagnais, and then some. They all watched and waited with baited breath.

Thomas, keeping a conquering look about him, mock bowed and had one of his men signal the beginning of the fight. The men created a wall behind him, standing in a half circle. Thomas's first mate, Alexander Chambers, was his second.

The chief had chosen no second.

The battle of spells, ancient and Latinised, ensued and soon both men sported burns, cuts and bruises. The chief had heralded once more about peace, but was met with a jet of indigo light to his arm, enabling it useless.

Taking up his final strength and calling to his ancestors for power, Hiamovi threw his wand aside and gathered up all the magic he had in him, into the core of his being. He wished for the Englishmen, and any other people that may come looking for them to leave them be. He wished to ward off any more men in pursuit of their magic.

Taken aback by the light surrounding Hiamovi, Thomas thought quickly of a spell to place on the entire Nymphae people. Feeling that having them all become subdued was the best route, he began channelling all thoughts on that one spell. He focused on having the Nymphae's mean no harm to him, his men, or any man ever again. It was a long shot, and he knew it, but his bigotry towards the people of Nymphae had reached its peak.

Unleashing their powers at the same time, the spells hit with ground trembling force, dazzling the evening sky in a multitude of lights, flashing on for minutes at a time. Both men held their ground, keeping focused. Hiamovi with his good hand pushed forward, concentrating deeply on his task, and Thomas, wand held straight, arm shaking under the pressure of such magic.

What seemed like an eternity to all watching, and longer to the two performing, the spells twisted amongst each other, seemingly reaching the stars and surrounding the Nymphae people, their village and entire territory. Crackling sounded across the bright lights, shooting off a darting arrow between each Nymphaenian, until each lay on the ground unconscious. The magic dome over Nymphae turned blindingly bright, and the darting light shot up through the centre core, exploding on contact.

And then the people of Nymphae and the land were no more.

Pushed back from the final explosion, Alexander Chambers stood some forty paces back from where he originally was, now covered in dirt and pine needles. Alexander searched for his friend and captain, Thomas. He found him lying where the battle began, every vein flashing colours like a kaleidoscope, risen to just a layer below the skin.

Alexander lifted his tearing eyes and searched the area for the Nymphaenians, only to find water before him. Commanding the men, now his men, to scour the entire area, Alexander dragged Thomas' dead and limp body away from the water that lapped at his fallen comrade's feet.

The crew came back empty handed, saying all of the Nymphaenians were gone, along with their land and village. All they saw was water, reaching out to the larger bay at which they had arrived nearly a year ago.

Giving up after two days time, Alexander and the crew left with Thomas James' body, declaring the new bay, James Bay, and sailed through Hudson's Bay, back below Greenland and to their homeland.

England, it seems, never knew of the adventures of Thomas James or why he and his mates were gone for a year, only to return with their captain dead, his veins black.

Yet over in the Nymphae territory, the Nymphaenians began to awake. Children called for their parents, babies wailed on the ground, and mothers collected the young. The men gathered around the fallen body of their chief, Hiamovi, who lay with his fur-skinned feet where they were standing only hours ago.

The Nymphaenians all stood and looked for the Englishmen, but found no sign. Taking a step forward, two Nymphae men walked past the feet of Hiamovi, only to hit a barrier, creating a jolting buzz. Jumping back, and gasping with all the others, the two men put a hand up to where they had treaded. Crackling and buzzing lightly sounded, along with the gassy colour surrounding their hands.

Assured that it wouldn't hurt them, other men and women moved around, hands outstretched, finding a barrier where the dome of light had rested before they had all fallen.

Shouting, crying and cursing was underway as the Nymphaenians slowly took in their fate. Spells were attempted, only to shoot right through, showing no sign of a barrier existing. They could see the land at which they were once free to roam, but were unable to touch it. Gathering up Hiamovi's body, veins a host of wild colours, the Nymphae's set off to their village for a sacrificial burial, to elect a new chief and begin life with their new adaptation.

Each with a mindset against the white man, and any outsider, native or not, would not be welcome for many, many moons.

But of course, as many things in life tend to do, their plan did not go as wanted.

Over two hundred years later, unknowing to the Nymphaenians, wars had been fought between the French and English over ownership of this land called Canada. Towns, cities and provinces were being made. Treaties were being signed with all the other tribes, some handing themselves over, such as the Chippewa, one of the closer tribes to the Nymphae's.

Towns had been built around James Bay, and the Hudson's Bay Company had been formed only thirty years after their captivity. People were fishing in the bays, not knowing of the magical community that rest over it, and likewise with the magical natives. All they ever saw was the wildlife that passed freely between their borders and the trees that grew over the hundreds of years.

In Nymphae, the tale of their imprisonment had been passed down from truth to legend, and would make its journey into myth, had the barrier not still been as strong as it was the day it was made.

Near the year of 1865, a British settler woman by the name of Miranda Horksford had gone looking the Nymphae community, not believing the tales told to her. She had demanded that no one had done a thorough search, frightened about the magical powers the Nymphae's had.

Miranda, herself, was a witch in disguise. Hearing the tale passed down through her forefathers (one of them a shipmate with Thomas James), she married a man who was to go to Canada and farm. She set off as soon as she could to look for this village of make-believe.

Unwittingly, she stood right where Hiamovi and Thomas had duelled and looked out into James Bay. Thinking thoughts of Nymphae and its location, she took one step forward into the shore, and with the force of a running horse, wind knocked Miranda off her feet, sending her forwards onto... land.

She had stood immediately and gazed into the most brilliant eyes she had ever seen. Miranda couldn't look away, but the amazingly purple eyes before her blinked repeatedly.

The child, for the body the eyes belonged to was only a child, backed off, shouting words she didn't understand. Miranda looked at the lightly tanned boy, clothed in what seemed of cotton, but was of a very different style to her own. He had feathers and wooden beads around his neck, and had what seemed a gnarled wand sashayed to the band of his pants. The boy turned and ran.

The British woman, clad in her light pink dress, and holding wild flowers she had picked on the way, stood stock-still.

"Where the bloody hell am I?"