Style Quest: Varick Latent Element Fire

Varick didn’t want to go to school that day. The mean boys already made fun of him because he dressed nicer than others. Being tailors, the Clydesdale’s parents had decided to use their son as a walking advertisement for the clothes they could make. Varick didn’t mind that; he liked dressing nice. The problem was that his mom had used the young horse as a mannequin to pin a dress, and one of the mean boys had seen him. This task was something that Varick had done many times before for his parents, and he didn’t understand the problem. Dresses felt more freeing and fun, so the Clydesdale liked occasionally wearing them.

 

    “Look, everyone, it’s dress boy,” the brown goat, the unofficial leader of the bullies, called out when he spotted Varick walking towards the school entrance. Suddenly all the boys were in Varick’s way, blocking access to the school. Each of them hurled an insult more ignorant or derogatory than the last, as teens were liable to do. Varick looked around frantically for a teacher or someone to help him when someone pushed him down. A rip appeared on the horse’s new pants.

 

    “Leave me alone,” Varick yelled as he pushed his way to his feet. Heavily breathing, rage filled his eyes as he wanted these boys to leave him alone. Blue and purple fire lit up in the Clydesdale’s hands. His blonde mane and tail flickered with the same blue and purple flames. If they weren’t leaving him alone, he would make them. Varick started to reach out to burn one of the now scared boys when he found himself suddenly drenched in water.

 

    “All of you get to class,” a tiger teacher ordered as she tucked a decorative comb back into her fur. “Varick, go get dried off and then to the principal’s office.” The nurse had towels Varick used to clean himself off. His rage extinguished with the flames that once licked across his body. He was worried that his parents would be mad at him for having magic and trying to use it to defend himself. Varick’s parents weren’t angry, nor was the principal, but they all agreed that the Clydesdale needed someone to teach him how to use his powers correctly for everyone’s safety.

 

    About a week later, Varick was under the tutelage of the soot-colored Dragonborn, Kriv. The Dragonborn had trouble understanding that the horse boy didn’t want to use his fire powers for combat or in a quest for glory. Varick was more interested in how he could use his powers to help his parent’s in their clothes shop. The fire wasn’t the best element to combine with most tailors’ work, so that would have to wait until the mahogany-colored Clydesdale mastered the basic technique. At first, it was difficult for Varick to form a small ball of blue and purple fire that he could manipulate. However, after a few days of practice and encouragement from Kriv, the blonde horse performed the task successfully.

 

    The more fire Varick channeled, the more blue and purple flames lit up his mane and tail. Kriv insisted that Varick learn some fighting techniques for self-defense defense and to help with the horse’s control. Once he knew some basic punches, grabs, and blocks, the Clydesdale moved on to trying to work his fire powers into his fighting style. With the silver scissors from the sewing kit that was his talisman, Varick made an improvised flaming dagger or a set of shears capable of cutting through metal. Needles became flaming projectiles that pierced metal, but the horse’s aim wasn’t the greatest.

 

    Through his studies of magic, Varick realized that he could store spells in threads sewed with the silver needles from his sewing kit talisman. He could make the article fire-resistant with a single thread sewn into clothing. Sewn threads could also cast minor single-use fire spells if stitched in the correct patterns. Someone wearing a dress with magic sewn into it could create a firewall or cast a bolt of fire at an attacker. Afterward, the spell threads usually just needed to be recharged by a fire user, but if overused, they would need resewing. By far, Varick’s favorite trick he taught himself with the threads of the spell was how to glamor something. Spell threads need to be sewn to precise specifications, often adding several days to a week of craft time to a garment. After it was finished, though, with the activation of a code phrase, the garment could change color or look like a different garment completely magically. With his magic under control, Varick set out to master tailoring to help his parent’s shop and hopefully catapult his career forward.