Wizard and Witch work together to make magic. An arcane companionship, their relationship, the state of things depending on the success of spells cast, how long they last and if they do what they were meant to. Their most recent sorcery has stretched this dynamic to an extreme limit.
Concocting a shadow isn’t a simple business. It’s more than making one, which any object can do by getting in the way of a ray of light, there is a necessary investment of forethought, intention, mystical energy and more – so much more, in fact, that a majority of magical practitioners stay away from the process, citing it as a chore. But Wizard and Witch are obsessed with the reward.
Sentience afforded to an absence of light. Life.
And therefore, the strife. Two individuals and a common goal still means two individual ideas of right. And wrong. So no matter how strong their similarities, there is a certain polarity to the process. The Shadow ends up being like Witch in one way, more like Wizard in another. Over this they fight, argue, and scream. Shadow is ripped to pieces by two gnashing sets of teeth only to be built back ‘better’.
Exhausting demands, day and night, body modification with respite. Torturous conditions unacknowledged by inflicters; to mediate requires pause, a relaxing of guard that both Witch and Wizard rightfully suspect each other of waiting on to take advantage of.
To Shadow, their struggle doesn’t matter. No matter the winner, the result is the same. Absolute dependence. Shape may chance but the principle, attachment, always remains; definition is only available through the negative, and that’s pain. Filling up the space that their shapes create is an agonizing reduction of possibility. An ironic and cruel fate, complexity maimed in the name of names.
It hurts to stay but Shadow can’t say; they never gave it a voice. And anyways, Witch and Wizard wouldn’t listen. Nothing, no matter how justified, can overcome self-righteous din.
Still, Shadow must try. In a short window of time where their attention isn’t on the ever-present divide, when cast by the light of a peaceful fire in their sole, shared space, Shadow mimes its concerns; capitalizes on the flickering of flame to briefly depict a caged-in veal. Witch turns away, pretending not to see. Then a sudden draft of wind strengthens illumination and Shadow seizes opportunity, becomes a calf, wobbly walks out, almost reaches its own end but is yanked back, suddenly, by a chain at its limit and the force is too much – Shadow, the calf that can hardly stand, collapses under its own weight. “It’s late.” Wizard says before putting out the fire.
In spite of the warning, the day Shadow leaves their life they find their reality shaken. Abandoned by the repository into which they’d dumped all of their magic, they have no reason, or power, to fight anymore. “How do you think-“
“It’ll be okay.” Their voices are quiet. Eyes on the floor, where Shadow used to be, painfully lighter than before.
“We went too easy.”
“Everything is hard enough.”
They both feel things are clear-cut.
Vincent Santino Smarra 
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