Theron liked to pull wings off of butterflies.

He would lie very still beneath the trees at the edge of the forest with a daisy sprouting from his mouth like a bizarre flowerpot, and wait. Eventually one of the colorful insects would alight and he would move, almost too quickly to see, and clap his hands around it. The first few times he tried this, he crushed the butterfly, but afternoons of practice lent him a delicate hand, and now he could snatch them out of the air without so much as ruffling the powder on their wings.

Theron's favorite butterflies were enormous, long-legged, green-spotted creatures with flailing, furry antennae. Whimsy called them King's Guards and loved to watch them feeding from the butterfly bushes outside her home. They always struggled when Theron tore off their wings, long legs waving feebly and antennae stabbing accusingly into the air.

They made Theron laugh when they fought back, and he would pluck out their legs, one by one, before slicing them in two with his knife.

Bren never said anything, because he'd seen plenty of children take delight in tormenting insects. Normally they stopped doing it once they turned thirteen, but Theron was young in so many ways- and there were so few things that made him laugh. Besides, what were a few butterflies? Caterpillars damaged crops, and they never lived long anyway.

The cruelty never bothered Bren, but when Theron took the wings in his hands and breathed life into them, the sight of them fluttering off into the forest without a body always made him feel a little sick to his stomach.

But then Theron would always turn to him and smile, and he could never resist answering that smile.

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Theron, you corpse fucking bastard. Ugh. Brenon, you so desperately need to grow a spine, it hurts. (And I need sleep, so this won't be coherent at all.)

The story, which is going to be called Mourning Star, takes place in Radrezaria, which is actually a neighbor to Rothcar, the other country where all my fantasy-ish ideas take place. That doesn't really matter, though; Rothcar won't be involved in this story. The important thing about Radrezaria is that it's one of the countries formed after the Crazy Fantasy Story With Too Many Characters takes place. That actually isn't important, except to me, so nevermind it.

There are three primary types of magic: Weaving, Whistling, and Smithing. Craftspeople are at the top of the foodchain, both socially and economically; the government is a thaumocracy, run by an elite circle of crafters and the Voyance- who really runs everything. Most people have some small amount of crafting talent, whether it's magical or not. Very few citizens are completely unable to create anything constructive, and very few jobs involve absolutely no creativity.

Receiving a crafter's licence allows you to add a suffix to your name; you can't do so otherwise unless you're a foreigner, as Whimsy is. Even merchants have crafter's licenses, if only to be able to appraise the stuff they sell. (It's not especially difficult to get a license; you send samples of your work (between five and ten pieces, generally) to the registrar in Radrezyne, where it is examined by a board of examiners and whatnot. You're tested for quality and consistency, and if you can prove you know what you're doing, you're given a trial examiner (there's one in every town and province, at least) who will watch as you craft something, to prevent crafter fraud. As long as you can prove yourself vaguely competent, you get a license and the appropriate suffix.)

Obtaining a magicrafter's license involves a meeting with the Voyance, because he oversees all magical dealings in the kingdom. The requirements are a bit more stringent, as even whistling can be dangerous if done poorly. And once you fail to get your license, you must train for five more years before attempting it again. You can still practice magic without the license, but there's a cap on the size of the project you're allowed to undertake, and a limit to the kinds of things you can craft, and the materials you can use.

Whistling is supplementary magic; a whistler can call down the elements for a weaver or a smith to use, and can lend strength and support to another crafting. Technically they aren't crafters, because they don't make physical things; they are the artist and musician equivalents, and they usually use musical isntruments to focus their talent. Whimsy is a very powerful whistler, which is almost unheard of because she isn't a native. (Magic outside of Radrezaria is your typical stuff- the mage draws from the aether through a particular focus, and shapes it to his will. No one does this in Radrezaria- outsider mages have a history of being lynched, so they tend to avoid the place.)

Large scale weavings or smithings usually require the presence of at least one whistler to keep their work from unravelling; the number of whistlers needed depends on the skill of the crafter, but it isn't at all uncommon for whistlers and crafters to enter into partnerships with each other. The better rapport the whistler and the crafter have outside of their work, the more secure the crafting will be.

Weavers combine things to get other, similar things, sort of. Magic is based off a five primary element system, and a crafter is generally only able to work with one or two elements really well; most weavers have some amount of proficiency in all five, but specialization is necessary unless they want to spend their lives as a Mender. A weaver weaves together various elements to get various effects. A lot of weavers are illusionists, but they can also create packaged spells, and they do a lot of actual cloth weaving as well; enchanted cloth is a big fashion thing.

It's sometimes a little difficult to discern the difference between a weaving and a smithing, but it's a little like the difference between a physical change and a chemical change in elementary science. Weavers can't change the stuff they work with; they can tie it to other things so that it resembles something else, but if you took it apart, you'd just have threads of fire and earth or light and water or aether and cotton.

A Smith is almost like an alchemist- they transmute things into other things, using the elements. Smiths are rarer than whistlers or weavers and their limitations are more severe. A windsmith, for instance, cannot work with any other element when smithing. Not only is it against the law, it's also incredibly difficult and very likely to burn out the crafter and leave him dead.

I think the primary difference is how the smiths and weavers use elements; a weaver works directly with the elements and combines them together but can't actually make them interact with material things; a smith uses the elements to transform and create new things. That's a very shoddy explanation. Let me try again.

Brenon is able to weave Theron's gaping wound back together using earth and water- the basic elements of living matter. He specializes in earth, I think, which constitutes most material things. Theron wouldn't be able to bind his wound together anywhere nearly as easily, because he can't put things back together- had he had chunks of skin removed, he could have created more skin by smithing it out of a handful of dirt or anything else he had on hand. Generally a smith's element will determine the limits of what he can and can not create; a firesmith can't create water, for instance, but he could create metal out of water. Yes, the laws of physics, I know. A crafting on that scale would require a brigade of whistlers. Smiths are rarer, and generally not very powerful. A very powerful smith usually has to be bred, the way Theron accidentally was.

More on that later. I hope things are sort of explained here.