One rule of magic says:

A magic user’s choice of writing instrument really doesn’t say much about them. Magic is difficult and fickle work, so anything that puts words on paper will do. There is one exception, however, and the reader is strongly advised to take caution; for should they ever observe someone using a fountain pen to take down notes during any performance of magic, an immediate retreat must be performed, since a hand that inks calmly under a storm of spells is truly to be feared.

There are countless stories about lovers being separated by magic, but what if instead of falling apart, they grew too close?

Imagine.

A wizard that traveled the lands, selling their art to those who need it for just enough to make a living with it. Their power without comparison. Nobody knew how they did it, what their secret it. It was too much strength for one, and the rumours spoke of dark contracts or monsters inside.

Only when their apprentice, a young one that was still learning and endlessly curious in their character, asked the one question: “Master, how are you so strong?” Then, the wizard said:

“It is a story that you have heard a million times. My magic came through lost love and the power that it gave.”

“Oh,” said the apprentice, shocked how their admired master could do such a thing. “You sacrificed someone to gain something.”

“Not quite.” And the wizard began to spread out a story of a human so beloved that nothing they shared felt close enough. No breath could be taken too near, no hand held for enough hours to feel two pulses as one. The apprentice sat still and with a wildly beating heart when the wizard stood and bared their back, shoulders to waist, and cruel eldritch lines slither across skin that was filled with old scars.

“We wished to be closer than anyone.”

The wizard’s face was white in the night, and their eyes carried the same darkness that curled in the shape of a human figure over their back. A whimper rose in the apprentice’s throat. The shape on their master’s back shifted, black tearing open until skin twisted in the hollow mouth of a thing that could have been human millenia ago.

“Oh, our wish was granted. Closer than anyone, that we are. Nothing is closer than making one out of two.”