Dee had assumed that his life would be spent as an arcane doorkeeper like his parents and ancestors before them. His parents would entrust him with one of the three keys and all he would have to do would be to keep his part of the magic in the portal active and working properly. This wasn't meant to be.
When Dee was fifteen, his world came crashing down in a very literal sense. There had been rumors for some time of a ghost who traveled from city to city, searching for someone to help with a plan from which he'd been thwarted in life. It was said he was the ghost of an unbonded artist whose ego and pride had warped his magic into something sickening and unstable; unable to ground his magic, it had burned through his body and left nothing but a shadow behind. Always he demanded the same thing: the magic of others so that he could again have a physical form. Always he was denied. The Creator people were kind, yet their sympathy and pity only angered the spirit more. They could give freely what they made, but never would they give to any person, society, or world who wanted it for power or harm. How could they when they were tied to their creations and their children tied so long as the magic remained active inside what they made? They refused to give a part of themselves to someone who had previously twisted what he himself possessed. He was safe enough as a spirit; they could only imagine the harm he could cause if he was given the opportunity to again be fully Creator.
Dee's town was the last place the specter tried-- and it was the first place he threatened. On a clear summer evening, the sky lit up as though it were midday. Lightning painting the world a sickly red-violet arced upwards from the ground. Every Creator felt a low, painful charge as it clashed with their own magics. With the cloudless storm came an ultimatum. The ghost had tried to play by the rules. Now he was going to take the magic if no one stepped forward to give it and he would render their world and their magic unstable until he got what he wanted. When the Creators didn't immediately respond, he carried through with this threat. The lightning distorted their magic, the charge striking their bodies growing more and more painful as it nullified or distorted everything they created.
The Creators met together and reached an agreement. They wouldn't help. Instead, they would leave. If they were spread out to other worlds, the worlds where they had friends, this angry spirit wouldn't be able to reach them or hurt them. If they split up, it would be unlikely to find them all. Three families held the area safe while the rest of the population fled through an ancient portal, scattering them across the galaxy in small groups. These families had been tied to the portal since their ancestors had created it generations ago. When their children tried to help, they were handed the keys and sent through with the others. Someone of each bloodline had to survive to keep the portal closed from the other side. Dee, Petra, and Elda made it safely through, but at the cost of losing everyone they loved.
This wasn't the only loss that day, although it was the most tragic. Everyone lost contact with friends and loved ones when the population scattered. Dee and the rest of his group found a home on the small island where past Creators had visited a sentient magic. There they joined up with a small population of once-sick humans. Life became a new normal as the two groups began to stitch together a culture from the remnants of both.
Four years later the portal was ripped open. The spirit had found a way through.
At nineteen Dee's life again turned upside down when he went from being mostly ignored to being told he was the newly-formed Concordia's best hope. He was the only person who could use the gate for its original purpose. The two young women also tied to the portal stood with him, but their magic could only power it and piece it back together after their enemy had crashed through. Dee alone could use it to harness his voice to send his words across the galaxy. He sent out the call for help. No response. Withdrawn since the death of his parents, he hid himself away now more than ever to avoid the questions and the demands of what he should do to get an answer, all of which felt wrong in his heart. A formless voice in the grotto at the center of the half-built city had lent its magic, granting some of the Concordians power over wood and trees so they could be housed more securely. It was not enough. Dee heard those four words of inadequacy repeated so many times that they began to replace the death of his parents as his regular nightmare.
Then a different voice, a hesitant voice, spoke new words. There was no demand, no guilt, only a soft heart who wanted to help. This boy had answered Dee's call, even though he was unaware that he'd done so. Piquant gave Dee hope. If one lone imp was strong enough to face everything that scared him in order to help people who despised him for what he was, maybe Dee, too, could find the strength he needed. He called out again. This time, with Piquant by his side and in his heart, Dee's voice carried farther. This time his magic was heard by more than one person.
There weren't many of them. They weren't the wisest or the best or the most powerful. Most were young, like Dee and Piquant, and none truly knew what help they could give. The Concordians were initially unimpressed, but history later turned this group into Concordia's greatest legend. Daegan's group of misfits -- the best of the mediocre, as he called himself and the others -- must have done something right to earn their status as Muses.
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