Blood, Gold and Broken Lace

Chapter 2

The boy had a lot of scars.

Underneath the grim, the dirt, and blood sticking to his chestnut skin, were scars. Lots and lots of scars. Long ones, short ones, ragged ones that looked like claw marks. Bites of all kinds. Lichtenberg scarring and knotted burns. Strange, wispy scarring that Steven couldn't place, despite his medical background.

It was a lot.

But Steven dutifully ignored them and cleaned the Green Ninja's injuries. He seemed subconscious about them anyway, it wouldn't help if Steven asked where they came from or how he got them. Some of them...

Well Steven wasn't sure if he wanted to know where people sized snake bites came from.

Steven carefully began cleaning the wound on the boy's head, the wound on his side was the worst of it besides his ankle, which was just sprained. (It would heal in a matter of days.) Steven felt The Green Ninja's magic under his fingers. Under from where he was cleaning. It was powerful. It was almost overwhelming, especially the first time he felt it.

When he first touched him, moving to clean out the glass in his hands, he felt the magic reverberate deep in his bones, writhing as he cleaned, already moving to heal it's master. It was as if he stepped underneath a waterfall, it poured and pounded and was moving so fast. It roared in his ears, loud and powerful and raw and unrestrained. It was Green and ancient and infinite and connected to everything. Part of it hissed and coiled and was dark and corrosive and sinister and foxish. Destructive and dangerous. And the other part that was Gold and kind and elegant and twisting and clever and very, very tired. Hurt almost. Sleeping and bleeding out creation itself.

It was...

Incredible.

The amount of magical potential the boy had was staggering. Steven was almost intimidated by the sheer force of it all. The amount of it all. And he didn't even seem to be aware of the amount that he had. Well, perhaps he did but not entirely. Steven could feel the layers, thick, rich and deep. God-like power just waiting. Sleeping in the boy's bones and waiting in the depths of his soul to be unlocked and used.

And with the way those layers of magic were interacting with each other. In perfect harmony while still rebelling against parts of each other—it was...

It should have been impossible.

It should have torn him apart from the inside out, sending piercing deadly light through his molecules and tripping him apart at the seams. It should have been painful. It should have been excruciating to just...live.

Steven knew, he's seen it happen in visions and happen to colleagues. It was horrible and gruesome and never left anything untouched after the poor host was burnt to little more than a black stain and a memory by their own magic.

Everything in moderation—and that included magic.

And yet the Green Ninja was juggling it all. Doing a dance that must've taken years to perfect, years and years of practice and meditation to just be able to breathe properly with unraveling your own tissues and incinerating whatever was around you.

It would have been awe inspiring if the boy wasn't a boy. Because at his age that kind of practice would have been impossible to complete. Not nearly impossible—just, impossible. It took time to master your own magic. Time, lots and lots of time.

And at the age the Green Ninja probably was at, he wouldn't have had that time. Nevermind the fact that he shouldn't have had that time in the first place. As it should have killed him.