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there is no magic in magic ,
it's all in the details

──● walt disney
DISNEY

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Dai knew he was asleep.

He knew he was asleep, and yet, he couldn't really bring himself to wake up at all. His curiosity, beaten into submission long ago began to press on his insides. He sat in his lovely home, presently, dark skies bleeding and blurring with twilight rays that streamed through the low-lit interior of the lobby. Dai sat on a deep red couch, curled in the center of the room, below the catwalk that connected the two staircases that erupted into the wings of the house. Before him, sat twelve books.

Books that seemed oddly familiar.

It took him another moment to realize that they were his children's books, the ones that had been gifted to them by his father, and their grandfather, Benjiro Morrigan. Dai huffed to himself, unbelieving that he hadn't understood that immediately. If his children had been here, they likely would have given him shit about getting old, or something like that.

The books were neatly set on the table, face up, and in two rows of six. Moonlight beamed into the overhead skylight, illuminating the matching carpets laid out before the grand staircases. For a moment, silence filled the hollow space of the lobby, and then the light hit the books, brightening the titles.

As soon as white beams set against the books, the pictures seemed to sparkle. Silvery trails of glitter and light slowly tracing the titles, bouncing from one book to another. It started with Yume's gift, his mother's journal. Or, what was left of it at least. Tracings of magic sparking across the words, dancing over the page with graceful beauty. After finishing the date marked on the first page, it leaped into the sky, arcing delicately before splattering onto Keitaro's piano book.

There was no title, so Dai assumed that it was a collection of his father's favorites that he'd gathered into a single book for his grandson. That same silver lining began spreading over the front, decorating the short image of a chord into a powdery shimmer of monochrome.

Then to Kasumi's book, gentle writing over the words implanted on the page, and running over the edges of splotches of paint that decorated the cover. Then Reysa. Delaney. Jasiri. Junpei. Elijah. Merlene. Akiho. Elliot. Jady.

The bouncing spirit of some kind danced between them all, illuminating the images and letting on each of the covers. Dai could only manage to watch in awe. Even if he did know it was a dream, it certainly didn't make it any less enchanting.

The house was still silent, and in the back of his mind, a haunting feeling plauged him with horror and suspense, but before him was the grand, and well-worked distraction of effortless beauty and enlightenment. Twilight shimmer glided across the ground and floorboards below, beckoning to the twelve gifts from his father, to rise.

They did.

Ominously, they stood up themselves, pulled by invisible puppet strings hung from the ceiling. Darkness around them swirled and dipped, stark in contrast to the silver spirit that continued to dance across the room, spinning with the utmost grace and dexterity. It spun on an axel of glitter, pulsing to a silent thrum. 

When he was a child, his father and mother both used to tell him stories of magic. It's a fragile thing, flexible, and easily manipulated. His mother had said that one has to treat magic like a young child, with patience and care, waiting for it to grow and develop. Magic is it's own thing entirely, something so much to a point, that it's completely unexplainable.

They used to tell him of these immortal beings, originally from far off somewhere in the universe, who cupped it in the palms of their hands like a baby bird, watching it spring into a bird of prey - ready to strike at anything that threatened it, or anything it chose to protect.

He can recall a particular dream he had once. Of wings born of angelic white, defending him against a nightmare that plauged his thoughts into his early teens. Could hear a feminine voice, soft, but sweet, calling out to him, pleading with him to awake.

Dai had the most interesting dreams - even as a child, and they were always full of one, unexplainable phenomenon. 

Magic.

Of course, you could use psychology, or dream analysis to determine what was the true root cause of his frequent dreams, but Dai wouldn't have believed it. They felt different, they felt a little too real sometimes. Dai believes in magic. He believes in ghosts, and spiritual things. Not so much Zodiac signs, even if he'd heard far too much information about it when Yume was in that particular phase of hers, but he believes in magic.

Maybe not in the most traditional version of the word - but more of the magic of reality. The magic of fate, and luck, and timing, and everything in between and beyond whatever that is. He doesn't tell people often, because luck and timing isn't something he specializes in. But something they fail to consider, is that he isn't referring to his romantic luck or anything like that - because he has to agree it's pretty shit.

It's because of his kids.

Dai knows he wouldn't have made it without them, and he thinks there's a little bit of magic in them showing up exactly when he needed them too. He just hopes that he was able to be there when they needed him too.

So Dai believes in magic, even if it is a little childish.

And well, despite his misgivings, he believes in love too. And more than anything, he wants his kids to be able to find a fulfilling kind of love. In others, and themselves. Not inherently in the romantic sense, but just in general. Familial, platonic, romantic, or otherwise.

That haunting, supsensful feeling sunk it's teeth into the back of the couch, swallowing up the surroundings of the house, reminding that with all magic, comes it's risks and consequences. With magic, comes madness. 

His mother told him once, a story of one of those far off immortals, who bled darkness like it was the only thing that pumped through her veins - whose eyes held stars, and whose heart held nothing but the prison where evil spirits resided, walking old, lonely paths of void and nothingness. He doesn't remember her name, but he doesn't need too. The story was imagery enough.

There were other immortals too, although he cannot recall all of them. Some of them he does think his parents made up, if only to ease the anxiety of looking up into the stars, and not knowing who is out there, what is out there.

In this case, the answer was simple.

Magic.

Magic resides in every crack, every crevice. Every hill, valley, mountain, and sea. It gathers in trenches, and lava-infested volcanoes. Tundra's of blowing winter wind, and the vast jungles of the undiscovered. Deserts so achingly dry, the sand stabs into your skin, and grasslands flooded with fish and water. Magic is everywhere. You just have to know where to look.

Dai knows it's out there, and he does look for it. Often and frequently. He sees it sometimes in the sky, when the constellations form perfectly within sight on a crystal clear night. He sees it in rushing waterfalls, and moon-kissed views of the city. He sees it in the change of the seasons, and the shift of creatures big and small to attune to their adapted surroundings. But most of all, he sees it in his dreams.

Dream magic, his father had said, was one of the most powerful. One of the most influential things that a mortal could touch with their own soul. It was a breach of power, and a bridge from one realm into another. It was a place to convene and communicate, and receive messages from the interplanar and otherworldly.

Dai can only recall one time, where he'd recieved such a message.

It had been a young girl who had showed up in the nothingness of his mind, instantly dissipating the already forgotten dream his memories had dredged up. She had long, raven-black hair. It hung to her waist, curled in ringlets and held back with more than a couple black, butterfly, barrettes. She looked cold and empty - solemn in a way, and lonely in another.

She spoke eloquently, a haunted look in her dark eyes, like she'd seen a thousand lives, and lived through them all. "You're Dai Morrigan?"

He'd barely managed a nod, paralyzed by the demon of sleep.

She sighed in relief, glancing down at a small notepad in her hands, scribbling something against it before it too vanished into nothingness, and she peered back at him. "Good. My name is Karma, and, well, I could get in trouble for this, but-" She shrugged, and in the distance, Dai could hear a clamor. Hurriedly, she looked back at him. "Divorce your wife. Sara Briars. Divorce her, Dai. It's the only way."

And then she was gone, in nothing but a white mist of vapor, and he was left alone in the darkness until he awoke.

He hadn't listened. Not at first anyway. But within the month, he heeded her words, and produced the divorce papers that Sara far too quickly agreed to for his comfort. Only later, had he discovered she'd been cheating on him. He was fortunate enough to be able to take nearly everything that had belonged to him in the first place.

He hadn't seen Karma since, and even now, he couldn't quite picture what she looked like, as if she had been erased from everything and everyone. 

That silver dot had stilled in front of him, and at some point during his inner monolouge and reminescence, the books had gathered in a circle around him, flipping open in unison, and glittering with a powerful spray of silver light, the same light that had been originally sparked by that single ray of moonlight.

The shower of magic rained down on him, droplets of monochrome grey flickering onto his skin before vanishing entirely, and a voice, familiar, but unrecongnizable all at the same time spoke out to him. It was distorted, and distant, as if muffled by something. Dai strained to listen.

"Magic is in your midst, Dai Morrigan." A labored pause, heavy breathing echoing across the room, filling empty and hollow hallways. "Magic is as much of a grief, as a gift, watch your step." Another raspy draw of oxygen hung in the air, but that moonlight magic was eating away at that darkness, fighting back the abyss of nothingness that threatened to swallow them whole. "Keep this much in mind. Magic is not something to be trifled with. So let it do it's work."

Like his father always said. Magic was as much of a grief, as it was a gift.

What a strange dream indeed. It didn't last much longer, as the last of the magic was snuffed out entirely, consumed by the oncoming abyss of starry nights and jet black.

Dai could only wait, to wake up.

✦

✦ OPHELIA ✦

- hard day today, sorry
this chapter got out
so late <3

- it's also a little on
the shorter side

- part one finished !!

- ily allll

- hope you are all as
excited as I am for 
this storyyyyy cause
now it actually begins

no question today ! as part
one is finished , and we'll be
moving to part two shortly !
so i need all opinons on delany
done as soon as possible <3
if this is already done feel free 
to just comment as such !

──● answers