#(maybe a *little* bit of Locked Tomb inspo. Don't tell Tamsyn)

[ben-drabbles]

Meat Magic

The magic of life is well understood. Walking, independent creatures that feel, think, breathe, and live - these are impossibilities in a world devoid of the unexplainable. That is not to say, however, that people have not tried.

The lowest magic is that of bones. That is not to say it is the weakest - it is simply concerned with first principles, the baselines of reality. By bending, snapping, and changing the bones of the world around us, bone magicians are capable of terrifying feats of power. But, they must always be careful, lest they break something beyond repair, or cause a fracture deeper than they realize. Some call this the element of metal, but it goes deeper than that - it is better to say it is the element of rules, of structure, of physics and the very nature of the world we inhabit.

Meat magic is much more commonly used. It is the magic of support, protection, arrangement, and the earth. If a bone magician might slam puzzle pieces together, a meat mage would arrange them tastefully - well, depending on the mage, of course. While they never bend bones, they may rearrange them, find new ways for them to be structured, and coax the world into a new, more pleasing shape. While some meat mages clamor for a distinction between skin and meat magic, we simply must draw the line somewhere, else this explanation turn into a ramble.

Blood magic is the magic of connection, binding, sensing, and water. It is by blood that energy reaches our bodies, and it is by blood that we are family all. Without blood, we are forms without power, or power without forms. It is by the blood that we are granted the total union of life - that we live at all. Blood mages may bind great breaths to great works of meat; they might see into the bones and soul of the world around them, flow like water through it all. As with so-called skin mages, some purists think of blood not as a distinct school, but a synthesis of other disciplines. Either way, we have blood, and our blood is wonderous.

Breath magic is the magic of energy, purpose, direction, power, and air. It is the intake and outtake, it is the ebb and flow. Through breath we move - through breath the world moves. Breath mages might give life to inanimate objects, impart power to machinery, direct their energy in a calm focus. They are often light and ethereal, but driven - they move and change like the wind itself.

Soul magic is, like Bone magic, poorly understood - it is at the fringes of our current understanding. Those who study it claim it as the magic of fire, to the chagrin of feisty breath mages who see it as part of their purview. To bend the Soul is to bend the immortal essence of life itself - to bend identity, to bend the very nature of a person, to reach past the boundaries of the physical and tap into something grander than any may know. Suffice to say, those who steer into this field are thought to be quite mad at best, and quite dangerous at worst. Still, what is to say what they will find, at the fringes of our reality?