There are immortals, and then there are those of us who are nearly immortal, who live so long that our beginnings have faded from our memories, bleached away by ten thousand years of life on earth. I feel as though I have never been a child, as though I have been ancient since time began.
My companions, too, have been here forever with you, with the animals and plants, the rocks, the wind, the tides. We are the original magicians, the alchemists. We are the witches and wizards who collaborate with the elements, the forces of nature, to conjure, to dazzle, to bewitch.
I remember the day I realized that I was different from all the people in the valley where I lived. That night I left. I wandered the earth, searching for others like myself, slipping through villages and towns, a master of disguise. I bluffed my way through tribes of wild men. I shifted my shape into a bird and watched the world from high above. I drifted out over canyons. In my travels I began to hear of others like myself, of witches and wizards, of sorcerers who knew how to summon the forces of nature. I heard how one, with the wink of an eye, made rock run like water. I heard of another who, with a single word, could fill a room with light, or laughter, or blinding dust. And there was one who tapped her wand and made chestnuts rain from an empty blue sky.
And I slowly met them, one by one, and together we formed our clan. We shared what we knew of the world and of our unique powers, and we continued to look for others like us.
from "The Witches and Wizards of Oberin" by Suza Scalora
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