Magic Information
Magic Name; Faunal/Animal
Magic Rarity; Rare (Parallel with Plants/Floral Magic)
Magic Eye Color; Light Browns
Faunal Magic; Connection to the Web of Life
Faunal/Animal Magic (Rare) is the parallel to the already existing floral/plants magic, and similarly connects to the life of the earth. While Floral magic is connected to the plants that grow from the earth, Faunal magic is connected to the animals that live off of the earth. More specifically, faunal magic surrounds the communication and control of animal life outside of other cats. One with minor faunal magic has the ability to speak to and understand any other animal on earth, though much like how some languages are more difficult to understand to non-native speakers, some languages of animals (specifically predators), are more difficult to understand with minor faunal magic. Roleplay wise, Faunal magic also allows for a cat to go on a full diet of plants without any harm to their body.
Major faunal magic allows not only for the communication between animals, but for the control of smaller animals such as mice, birds, and other prey-animals. Faunal magic allows for a cat to control groups of prey animals in order to defend them or to cause a distraction. While outsiders may believe that this is due to manipulation of the minds of these creatures, it is actually due to a strong emotional connection and companionship with these creatures. Fully mastered Faunal magic allows for this same companionship and connection to extend to predators such as bears, dogs, and birds of prey.
Physical effects of beyond-mastery include permanent animal-track markings on the fur, magic-mastery eye wisps with white pupils, animal allies that consistently surround the cat, and minor gene-splicing which may cause a cat to have aspects of their body that belong to a different animal, such as a bat-like nose or goat-like pupils as examples. This may also sometimes be used to add limited and legendary traits such as goat/ram like horns or a tail like another animal. The eye color for born faunal magic storkatten are light browns.
-------------------------------
Cat Information
Name; Valerian Meowing Skies
Nicknames; Val
Gender; Male
Valerian Meowing Skies; A Kit Displaced
Valerian was born in an environment where the magic he saw in everyday life was not what he held. He saw the elemental magics and beyond, but none of them would ever end up being any use. His mother was a born Plant-Magic user, and though his other parent was unknown to him, it's assumed that they were an animal-magic user such as himself. The first time he saw magic being used was of course by his mother, with manipulation of the plants that grew around their home. Of course, as a young kit he was enthralled by this and wanted nothing more than to do magic. However, at a very young age his mother forbade him from using his magic in public, and if he was ever to be asked, he was to say he was an earth-magic user with a physical disorder that affected his eyes. He agreed to this, if only to keep his mother from being too worried about him.
However, No matter how much his mother would try, there would be no stopping what would occur when Valerian got his first sparks of magic. That ended up manifesting in something that would be quite strange to see, magic or not. And that was the young kit talking to a rat that had wandered into Empyra territory. Faunal magic has only recently been discovered, and little to no cat had any knowledge of it. Of course, when the cats around him saw him talking to rats and other animals that were meant to be food, he was looked upon with shame and distaste. His mother, who knew that if he would suffer if not killed if his strange habits were discovered to be this new and strange faunal magic, asked for her child to leave the city of empyra and never return, for his own sake. Valerian of course did not want to leave his mother or his siblings, but it certainly seemed like he didn't have much of a choice.
Thankfully, he was not all alone in the wild, as his mother had called for a friend to take care of this kit in her place while Valerian lived in the wild. Over a small time, Val even started to call his caretaker his aunt, finding comfort in referring to her as family despite not being blood related to him. His caretaker was an earth-magic user who had been thrown out of empyra after being blamed for the death of one of the leaders. However, all that Valerian knew was that she was nice, and she cared for him like a son. It certainly became more obvious that this was true when Valerian had found a rune that responded to his touch, glowing a light brown and swirling with magic. Though he was unable to bring it with him, he did bring his caretaker to it, allowing her to see how the rune reacted to his presence. He had assumed that she would be able to pick up the rock for him, but alas that was not the case. However, she had allowed Val to sleep on the rock during the night, which seemed to have given the kit enough peace to leave the stone unturned.
Finding work of faunal magic in the natural world was simple really, and it surrounded Valerian every day, no matter where he was. Be it the fish that would move in groups upstream, or the birds that would communicate with their voices and with dance. There was always communication between animals around him, and it simply was a blessing that he would be able to understand the conversations around him if he took the time to listen in. Though the most obvious example he had ever encountered was two species being able to communicate with each other. He hadn't the thought to connect that all languages of some animals might be similar enough to facilitate interspecies communication, and seeing a mouse verbally assist a mole back underground was quite the sight. However, while he was able to admire the sight and the sounds around him from a distance, his caretaker would often times be confused, and sometimes scare away the animals whose conversations Val was overhearing. Val would be upset with this of course, but it was nothing that a few berries and a nice rest couldn't fix.
One struggle of childhood that Valerian had, was the fact that there was not exactly an overflow of Faunal-magic users that could help teach him how to control and use his magic. His caretaker couldn't teach him of course, without having the magic required, along with her age beginning to make her struggle sometimes with properly teaching her own magic to young storkies. In a way, Val had to teach himself, but he also got small lessons from kind birds...after they had a mild panic over a cat being able to speak to them. Some of his teachers were more skittish than others, the poor mouse that taught him about rats and mice having pretty much the same language almost collapsed upon first seeing Val being able to speak mouse.
Alone yet Unafraid; The Forest's Child
Valerian didn't have much of a goal for his magic really, unless if you count survival. Of course, as time passed, so did his caretaker, which left him alone in the forest with no direction back to Empyra, and no desire to return as he not only feared what may happen to him if he returned, but also a fear of the state his mother might be in if he returned. So for a long while, his primary goal was to use his magic in order to survive in the forest on his own, though a minor goal of him was also to find out the languages of the animal world and how they connected to each other. He was a bit of a linguist as a child, as much of one as a cat could be, and had a big overarching goal to make the forest just a little bit more peaceful, even if it was quite a large task to take on.
But the path to greatness is not paved with easy times and simplicity, and when it comes to communication with others, especially in a language that isn't your own, you can tend to have some hiccups at the start. There would be a good few times when Val would mess up, either on pronunciation, sentence structure, or mistaking one language for another, which then resulted in whatever animal he was trying to talk to running away or otherwise making it clear that he wasn't going to get another chance to talk to them anytime soon. It certainly happened quite a bit, as learning a new language, let alone multiple new languages at the same time through magic, was quite a feat. Though it wasn't impossible of course, because of the magic that made conversations go smoother the more he practiced his abilities.
Making friends with other storkies out in the wild was a much tougher feat than one might have imagined, due to most of the storkies in the wild being aggressive rouges or being found due to Valerian accidentally wandering into a territory, only to be chased off without much conversation. However, due to his magic, he didn't exactly need other cats around him in order to have friends, especially as he got the hang of some languages more and more, particularly the rodent languages, which all seemed to be similar to each other. Because of all these factors, Valerian's first friend was actually a small gray mouse named Sunflower, who Valerian would take to protecting by keeping him inside of his fluffy mane of fur, while sunflower would help Valerian find berries that both of them would be able to eat in the forest. And while they did do quite a bit for each other in this way, they were still friends, and would have cared for each other even if they weren't directly having a symbiotic relationship.
And yes, berries became what Valerian started to eat primarily, as the idea of hunting became more and more disgusting to him after being able to talk and communicate with other animals, especially the prey animals. Thanks to the helpful side-effect of Faunal magic that causes cats like Val to become more like herbivores, he didn't exactly need to hurt any animals, and instead would ask other creatures about where he could find edible plants in the forest. Some would be a bit apprehensive due to being asked such a question by a storkie, but most would lead Valerian and Sunflower in the right direction to some fresh berries and fruit that grew in the forest, as long as the two promised to only take as much as they needed, and neither of them had any reason to hoard, as the forest was plentiful with edible plant life.
There was no real motivation to the magic at this point, Valerian didn't want anything specific, if anything he just wanted to learn his magic so that he could become closer with his friends in the animal world and to make new ones in the future. In a way, he supposed the motivation he had to learn magic was so that he didn't have to feel lonely, so that the days wandering the woods weren't as painful, and so that life itself wasn't an aching void of loneliness. He couldn't find a place with other storkies anymore, but at least he had the other creatures he could speak to, knowing that some of them would accept him...much more than any storkie he had met prior ever could.
Wandering Sights; Under the Watch of the World
When you live in the forest, you don't get letters. That's not something that makes sense for the location really, but what you do get is gossip, especially so when you can listen in to the gossip between rats and birds. They made it clear what they saw, storkies hiding in bushes and watching as Valerian talked to the wildlife without a care in the world. After all, he didn't have a worry in the world, and in a way, he still didn't. He could worry about intentions of those storkies, imagine what sort of horrible things they might think of him, but that wasn't necessary. He was confident in the idea that they wouldn't do anything to harm him, and most likely only saw him and was confused by his actions. And even if they had returned to their colonies and told about a storkie talking to a rat like a close friend, who would really believe them?
Translation errors got more difficult to deal with with stronger Faunal magic. The languages of bears and wolves was an entire different beast (pun not intended) than the languages of rats and small birds. Though just as it was difficult one time around, the second time around had a similar solution, to practice, to improve, and to run away from some animals who Valerian had accidentally insulted with an incorrect pattern of words. However, some could understand his plight of having trouble with language, and would assist in his magic as best they could, even if the creatures weren't magic themselves. Any assistance they could give was good enough, any sense of community with the world that Valerian's magic meant for him to converse with was great help indeed.
And in that process, he would learn something very key about the world. Sometimes, talking out differences can go a long way. When you attempt to communicate with animals that could very easily take you out, there can be some risky moments when a language barrier becomes a bit tricky to navigate, magic or no magic, but that doesn't always mean that Valerian has to run off and hide to avoid being torn apart. He learned that with his magic, he could recover from a conversation gone south, with a few key words and a knowledge of apologies from the different cultures of the animals he conversed with, he could keep his head without losing his breath.
Faunal magic isn't for everyone. It doesn't let you control the elements around you, it doesn't let you commune with the dead or affect the life of others, it certainly doesn't allow you to control the blood flowing through your veins or the shadows that cover the world. It's simply talking, it's communicating and becoming closer to your fellow animal far more than any other storkie would. And some may see it as useless, only imagining it to have any use once they're able to control the very beasts that some fear. Valerian would wonder sometimes, if that was why he had to leave home and go into the forest, if he was seen as useless by Empyra. He truly didn't know, not having seen the colony in many months, but sometimes his heart would ache at the thought of being seen as worthless. And yet, he knew he wasn't. He was aware that the world around him was better thanks to his abilities, so the feelings of pain in his heart never lasted long...and if they did, Sunflower was always around to try and make Valerian laugh until he felt better.
Mastery of the Wild; The Mage of the Woods
Valerian heard of some cats going to visit masters of their element, and of course, some masters were far more easy to find than others. However, when the magic you practice involve the connection with other animals, it may not be as surprisingly to find a master of your element not being what you expect. As for Valerian, while he couldn't find a storkie that was like him, he could find a certain bear that practiced the same magic as he. Of course, it was different- magic ran through the veins of a bear much differently than it ran through the veins of a storkie, but that was part of it. Part of the mastery of Faunal magic was connecting to those unlike you through what was similar. Control of animals through Faunal magic doesn't come by manipulation or cruelty, but by cooperation and understanding with those around you.
Learning more about the magic meant languages, lots of languages, even some that Valerian knew he would most likely never use in all of his years. He learned the language of the big cats, finding them to be easy to grasp from their similar feline traits. He learned the language of the equines, a language that was a struggle to comprehend, but a breeze to speak. He learned the language of the bats, grating on the ears if not spoken properly and fluently. And yet, because of his magic, none of it ever became too much, it never seemed to be confusing to the point of break. He could not only handle all of this information, he could flourish with it.
Just as magic can be learned, it can be taught, passed on through the ages and tweaked over time, much like language. The first storkie that Valerian ever met that was similar to him was a small kit, who had, much like him, been forced out once his magic began to show. Of course, the kit too was ecstatic to see someone like them, someone who had the magic that they had been shunned for. Valerian had taught this kit something about Faunal magic that he felt basic, the very root of faunal magic's effectiveness. In a way, Faunal magic, and growing into it, was like developing a friendship with the web of life, not as a leader, but as a member of the web. Friends give each other respect, no matter what. To learn faunal magic, and to excel at it, is to respect ever creature, both like you and unlike you, and not letting the fears of another magic's storkie control how you see those who could be friends. Of course, the kit would learn more about that later, but Valerian started simple, respect for birds. Kits found birds interesting, terrifying, and majestic with their ability to fly, so it was an easy first step. Respect the birds that fly in the sky, and one day that respect will grow and contain more of the animals of the forest, until every animal is respected and loved as a friend.
To Embody faunal magic for Valerian ended up being a teacher for this young kit as they grew. To share the respect he felt, to care for this kit much longer than he was cared for in his own youth. This was what faunal magic was to him, this feeling of sharing the world in a positive light, with the chance to remove the need for violence, remove the fear from other animals, and to simply become part of a community larger than a colony. Faunal magic to him was being able to pick and choose who you become friends with, who your family are, storkie or not, and it meant everything to him that he could teach these ideals to this young soul, to be the mentor he might have had if the world were a bit differently.
Paw of the Paragon; Reaching the Peak
To master Faunal magic, to become a paragon of the magic of the animals that live around you, one is to become less of a storkie, and more of a creature. To have aspects not of a cat's, and to adore them as your own. To not see your differences that you gain as being special or extraordinary alone, but to find them as blessings given by those who you commune with. It's a subtle process. The more you converse, the more you change, and the more you change, the more you can understand others in a perspective different than your own. And to be a creature with a mastery of faunal magic, you must be marked by your friends, your companions, to be unable to disassociate with them, because you would have no reason to desire such.
Valerian didn't notice.
He wasn't supposed to.
To notice and accept himself as a paragon would be to put himself above others, to put himself above his former mentor who was not able to achieve such physical mutations through the way their magic moved within them, to put himself above his friends which he had only gained more of over the years. He would never do something such as that. So the uncleanable marks on his pelt went unnoticed, the way his nose morphed accepted silently, and the ways his ears began to droop down and change were nothing more than a mild scratch. His eyes changed too, yes, they changed the way he saw the world, but if anything, it was only a mild complaint that he would laugh about with friends. Friends that would now never leave his side, loyal to a fault.
After all, his friends didn't see him as a powerful paragon they were forced to listen to.
They saw him as a kind soul, and they wanted nothing more than to see him happy.
After everything, he deserved it.
Magic Name; Faunal/Animal
Magic Rarity; Rare (Parallel with Plants/Floral Magic)
Magic Eye Color; Light Browns
Faunal Magic; Connection to the Web of Life
Faunal/Animal Magic (Rare) is the parallel to the already existing floral/plants magic, and similarly connects to the life of the earth. While Floral magic is connected to the plants that grow from the earth, Faunal magic is connected to the animals that live off of the earth. More specifically, faunal magic surrounds the communication and control of animal life outside of other cats. One with minor faunal magic has the ability to speak to and understand any other animal on earth, though much like how some languages are more difficult to understand to non-native speakers, some languages of animals (specifically predators), are more difficult to understand with minor faunal magic. Roleplay wise, Faunal magic also allows for a cat to go on a full diet of plants without any harm to their body.
Major faunal magic allows not only for the communication between animals, but for the control of smaller animals such as mice, birds, and other prey-animals. Faunal magic allows for a cat to control groups of prey animals in order to defend them or to cause a distraction. While outsiders may believe that this is due to manipulation of the minds of these creatures, it is actually due to a strong emotional connection and companionship with these creatures. Fully mastered Faunal magic allows for this same companionship and connection to extend to predators such as bears, dogs, and birds of prey.
Physical effects of beyond-mastery include permanent animal-track markings on the fur, magic-mastery eye wisps with white pupils, animal allies that consistently surround the cat, and minor gene-splicing which may cause a cat to have aspects of their body that belong to a different animal, such as a bat-like nose or goat-like pupils as examples. This may also sometimes be used to add limited and legendary traits such as goat/ram like horns or a tail like another animal. The eye color for born faunal magic storkatten are light browns.
-------------------------------
Cat Information
Name; Valerian Meowing Skies
Nicknames; Val
Gender; Male
Valerian Meowing Skies; A Kit Displaced
Valerian was born in an environment where the magic he saw in everyday life was not what he held. He saw the elemental magics and beyond, but none of them would ever end up being any use. His mother was a born Plant-Magic user, and though his other parent was unknown to him, it's assumed that they were an animal-magic user such as himself. The first time he saw magic being used was of course by his mother, with manipulation of the plants that grew around their home. Of course, as a young kit he was enthralled by this and wanted nothing more than to do magic. However, at a very young age his mother forbade him from using his magic in public, and if he was ever to be asked, he was to say he was an earth-magic user with a physical disorder that affected his eyes. He agreed to this, if only to keep his mother from being too worried about him.
However, No matter how much his mother would try, there would be no stopping what would occur when Valerian got his first sparks of magic. That ended up manifesting in something that would be quite strange to see, magic or not. And that was the young kit talking to a rat that had wandered into Empyra territory. Faunal magic has only recently been discovered, and little to no cat had any knowledge of it. Of course, when the cats around him saw him talking to rats and other animals that were meant to be food, he was looked upon with shame and distaste. His mother, who knew that if he would suffer if not killed if his strange habits were discovered to be this new and strange faunal magic, asked for her child to leave the city of empyra and never return, for his own sake. Valerian of course did not want to leave his mother or his siblings, but it certainly seemed like he didn't have much of a choice.
Thankfully, he was not all alone in the wild, as his mother had called for a friend to take care of this kit in her place while Valerian lived in the wild. Over a small time, Val even started to call his caretaker his aunt, finding comfort in referring to her as family despite not being blood related to him. His caretaker was an earth-magic user who had been thrown out of empyra after being blamed for the death of one of the leaders. However, all that Valerian knew was that she was nice, and she cared for him like a son. It certainly became more obvious that this was true when Valerian had found a rune that responded to his touch, glowing a light brown and swirling with magic. Though he was unable to bring it with him, he did bring his caretaker to it, allowing her to see how the rune reacted to his presence. He had assumed that she would be able to pick up the rock for him, but alas that was not the case. However, she had allowed Val to sleep on the rock during the night, which seemed to have given the kit enough peace to leave the stone unturned.
Finding work of faunal magic in the natural world was simple really, and it surrounded Valerian every day, no matter where he was. Be it the fish that would move in groups upstream, or the birds that would communicate with their voices and with dance. There was always communication between animals around him, and it simply was a blessing that he would be able to understand the conversations around him if he took the time to listen in. Though the most obvious example he had ever encountered was two species being able to communicate with each other. He hadn't the thought to connect that all languages of some animals might be similar enough to facilitate interspecies communication, and seeing a mouse verbally assist a mole back underground was quite the sight. However, while he was able to admire the sight and the sounds around him from a distance, his caretaker would often times be confused, and sometimes scare away the animals whose conversations Val was overhearing. Val would be upset with this of course, but it was nothing that a few berries and a nice rest couldn't fix.
One struggle of childhood that Valerian had, was the fact that there was not exactly an overflow of Faunal-magic users that could help teach him how to control and use his magic. His caretaker couldn't teach him of course, without having the magic required, along with her age beginning to make her struggle sometimes with properly teaching her own magic to young storkies. In a way, Val had to teach himself, but he also got small lessons from kind birds...after they had a mild panic over a cat being able to speak to them. Some of his teachers were more skittish than others, the poor mouse that taught him about rats and mice having pretty much the same language almost collapsed upon first seeing Val being able to speak mouse.
Alone yet Unafraid; The Forest's Child
Valerian didn't have much of a goal for his magic really, unless if you count survival. Of course, as time passed, so did his caretaker, which left him alone in the forest with no direction back to Empyra, and no desire to return as he not only feared what may happen to him if he returned, but also a fear of the state his mother might be in if he returned. So for a long while, his primary goal was to use his magic in order to survive in the forest on his own, though a minor goal of him was also to find out the languages of the animal world and how they connected to each other. He was a bit of a linguist as a child, as much of one as a cat could be, and had a big overarching goal to make the forest just a little bit more peaceful, even if it was quite a large task to take on.
But the path to greatness is not paved with easy times and simplicity, and when it comes to communication with others, especially in a language that isn't your own, you can tend to have some hiccups at the start. There would be a good few times when Val would mess up, either on pronunciation, sentence structure, or mistaking one language for another, which then resulted in whatever animal he was trying to talk to running away or otherwise making it clear that he wasn't going to get another chance to talk to them anytime soon. It certainly happened quite a bit, as learning a new language, let alone multiple new languages at the same time through magic, was quite a feat. Though it wasn't impossible of course, because of the magic that made conversations go smoother the more he practiced his abilities.
Making friends with other storkies out in the wild was a much tougher feat than one might have imagined, due to most of the storkies in the wild being aggressive rouges or being found due to Valerian accidentally wandering into a territory, only to be chased off without much conversation. However, due to his magic, he didn't exactly need other cats around him in order to have friends, especially as he got the hang of some languages more and more, particularly the rodent languages, which all seemed to be similar to each other. Because of all these factors, Valerian's first friend was actually a small gray mouse named Sunflower, who Valerian would take to protecting by keeping him inside of his fluffy mane of fur, while sunflower would help Valerian find berries that both of them would be able to eat in the forest. And while they did do quite a bit for each other in this way, they were still friends, and would have cared for each other even if they weren't directly having a symbiotic relationship.
And yes, berries became what Valerian started to eat primarily, as the idea of hunting became more and more disgusting to him after being able to talk and communicate with other animals, especially the prey animals. Thanks to the helpful side-effect of Faunal magic that causes cats like Val to become more like herbivores, he didn't exactly need to hurt any animals, and instead would ask other creatures about where he could find edible plants in the forest. Some would be a bit apprehensive due to being asked such a question by a storkie, but most would lead Valerian and Sunflower in the right direction to some fresh berries and fruit that grew in the forest, as long as the two promised to only take as much as they needed, and neither of them had any reason to hoard, as the forest was plentiful with edible plant life.
There was no real motivation to the magic at this point, Valerian didn't want anything specific, if anything he just wanted to learn his magic so that he could become closer with his friends in the animal world and to make new ones in the future. In a way, he supposed the motivation he had to learn magic was so that he didn't have to feel lonely, so that the days wandering the woods weren't as painful, and so that life itself wasn't an aching void of loneliness. He couldn't find a place with other storkies anymore, but at least he had the other creatures he could speak to, knowing that some of them would accept him...much more than any storkie he had met prior ever could.
Wandering Sights; Under the Watch of the World
When you live in the forest, you don't get letters. That's not something that makes sense for the location really, but what you do get is gossip, especially so when you can listen in to the gossip between rats and birds. They made it clear what they saw, storkies hiding in bushes and watching as Valerian talked to the wildlife without a care in the world. After all, he didn't have a worry in the world, and in a way, he still didn't. He could worry about intentions of those storkies, imagine what sort of horrible things they might think of him, but that wasn't necessary. He was confident in the idea that they wouldn't do anything to harm him, and most likely only saw him and was confused by his actions. And even if they had returned to their colonies and told about a storkie talking to a rat like a close friend, who would really believe them?
Translation errors got more difficult to deal with with stronger Faunal magic. The languages of bears and wolves was an entire different beast (pun not intended) than the languages of rats and small birds. Though just as it was difficult one time around, the second time around had a similar solution, to practice, to improve, and to run away from some animals who Valerian had accidentally insulted with an incorrect pattern of words. However, some could understand his plight of having trouble with language, and would assist in his magic as best they could, even if the creatures weren't magic themselves. Any assistance they could give was good enough, any sense of community with the world that Valerian's magic meant for him to converse with was great help indeed.
And in that process, he would learn something very key about the world. Sometimes, talking out differences can go a long way. When you attempt to communicate with animals that could very easily take you out, there can be some risky moments when a language barrier becomes a bit tricky to navigate, magic or no magic, but that doesn't always mean that Valerian has to run off and hide to avoid being torn apart. He learned that with his magic, he could recover from a conversation gone south, with a few key words and a knowledge of apologies from the different cultures of the animals he conversed with, he could keep his head without losing his breath.
Faunal magic isn't for everyone. It doesn't let you control the elements around you, it doesn't let you commune with the dead or affect the life of others, it certainly doesn't allow you to control the blood flowing through your veins or the shadows that cover the world. It's simply talking, it's communicating and becoming closer to your fellow animal far more than any other storkie would. And some may see it as useless, only imagining it to have any use once they're able to control the very beasts that some fear. Valerian would wonder sometimes, if that was why he had to leave home and go into the forest, if he was seen as useless by Empyra. He truly didn't know, not having seen the colony in many months, but sometimes his heart would ache at the thought of being seen as worthless. And yet, he knew he wasn't. He was aware that the world around him was better thanks to his abilities, so the feelings of pain in his heart never lasted long...and if they did, Sunflower was always around to try and make Valerian laugh until he felt better.
Mastery of the Wild; The Mage of the Woods
Valerian heard of some cats going to visit masters of their element, and of course, some masters were far more easy to find than others. However, when the magic you practice involve the connection with other animals, it may not be as surprisingly to find a master of your element not being what you expect. As for Valerian, while he couldn't find a storkie that was like him, he could find a certain bear that practiced the same magic as he. Of course, it was different- magic ran through the veins of a bear much differently than it ran through the veins of a storkie, but that was part of it. Part of the mastery of Faunal magic was connecting to those unlike you through what was similar. Control of animals through Faunal magic doesn't come by manipulation or cruelty, but by cooperation and understanding with those around you.
Learning more about the magic meant languages, lots of languages, even some that Valerian knew he would most likely never use in all of his years. He learned the language of the big cats, finding them to be easy to grasp from their similar feline traits. He learned the language of the equines, a language that was a struggle to comprehend, but a breeze to speak. He learned the language of the bats, grating on the ears if not spoken properly and fluently. And yet, because of his magic, none of it ever became too much, it never seemed to be confusing to the point of break. He could not only handle all of this information, he could flourish with it.
Just as magic can be learned, it can be taught, passed on through the ages and tweaked over time, much like language. The first storkie that Valerian ever met that was similar to him was a small kit, who had, much like him, been forced out once his magic began to show. Of course, the kit too was ecstatic to see someone like them, someone who had the magic that they had been shunned for. Valerian had taught this kit something about Faunal magic that he felt basic, the very root of faunal magic's effectiveness. In a way, Faunal magic, and growing into it, was like developing a friendship with the web of life, not as a leader, but as a member of the web. Friends give each other respect, no matter what. To learn faunal magic, and to excel at it, is to respect ever creature, both like you and unlike you, and not letting the fears of another magic's storkie control how you see those who could be friends. Of course, the kit would learn more about that later, but Valerian started simple, respect for birds. Kits found birds interesting, terrifying, and majestic with their ability to fly, so it was an easy first step. Respect the birds that fly in the sky, and one day that respect will grow and contain more of the animals of the forest, until every animal is respected and loved as a friend.
To Embody faunal magic for Valerian ended up being a teacher for this young kit as they grew. To share the respect he felt, to care for this kit much longer than he was cared for in his own youth. This was what faunal magic was to him, this feeling of sharing the world in a positive light, with the chance to remove the need for violence, remove the fear from other animals, and to simply become part of a community larger than a colony. Faunal magic to him was being able to pick and choose who you become friends with, who your family are, storkie or not, and it meant everything to him that he could teach these ideals to this young soul, to be the mentor he might have had if the world were a bit differently.
Paw of the Paragon; Reaching the Peak
To master Faunal magic, to become a paragon of the magic of the animals that live around you, one is to become less of a storkie, and more of a creature. To have aspects not of a cat's, and to adore them as your own. To not see your differences that you gain as being special or extraordinary alone, but to find them as blessings given by those who you commune with. It's a subtle process. The more you converse, the more you change, and the more you change, the more you can understand others in a perspective different than your own. And to be a creature with a mastery of faunal magic, you must be marked by your friends, your companions, to be unable to disassociate with them, because you would have no reason to desire such.
Valerian didn't notice.
He wasn't supposed to.
To notice and accept himself as a paragon would be to put himself above others, to put himself above his former mentor who was not able to achieve such physical mutations through the way their magic moved within them, to put himself above his friends which he had only gained more of over the years. He would never do something such as that. So the uncleanable marks on his pelt went unnoticed, the way his nose morphed accepted silently, and the ways his ears began to droop down and change were nothing more than a mild scratch. His eyes changed too, yes, they changed the way he saw the world, but if anything, it was only a mild complaint that he would laugh about with friends. Friends that would now never leave his side, loyal to a fault.
After all, his friends didn't see him as a powerful paragon they were forced to listen to.
They saw him as a kind soul, and they wanted nothing more than to see him happy.
After everything, he deserved it.
