He looked at the girl, thoughtfully, she rocked slightly on the cliff outcrop, smiling slightly.

"You can talk." A statement, not a question.

"Yes."

Breathy, that answer, like the wind that rattled her feathers. A naked girl not much older than he, sitting on a cliff with silver wings.

"Why don't you talk to anyone else?"

"I used to talk to people, they laughed. I didn't like it when they laughed, so I don't talk."

"Why did they laugh?"

"I don't know, I wasn't trying to be funny." A sad look crossed the girl's face.

"What did you say?"

"I told them about this place, before I came here, I mean, and they laughed."

The boy looked about the windswept crag, down towards the calmer valleys where the gothic mansion of the Academy resided.

"It's a hard place to believe if you haven't been here." He smiled.

"Now you're making fun of me."

"I'm not, I promise!"

"Why do you stay here?" The boy asked after a pause, "It's dangerous, black practitioners and Dark wizards and things."

The girl smiled, "I like it here."

"That's it?"

"That's it. That's all the reason anyone needs."

"Doesn't anybody miss you?"

The girl thought for a minute, then; "No."

"Why did you come here?"

"I knew I'd like it here."

"How?"

"Because I did."

The boy thought as the soft wind blew mournfully around the crag. The girl sat so still she could have been a statue of soiled alabaster and silver.

"Aren't you cold? You're not wearing anything." He asked.

The girl smiled and suddenly looked older than her three quarter score years. "Nothing in this place can harm me."

"Wh-" The boy stopped, then, "You built this place, this testing ground for magic, from the forum to the guardians, you built it."

The girl giggled, like a schoolchild sharing secrets with her friends."Shh, big secret."

"Why?"

"I didn't build it from anything," The girl murmered, as lost in thought. "I created it from lost dreams and the fabric of thought, one day when I was alone and bored; I birthed the guardians, built the walls with my bare hands, gave it the soul it posseses and instructed it to summon those mages whos power was great enough to survive its tests and to provide all they wished should they succeed, all this I did in the space of one day, then I surrendered the power and came to live here."

"Are you a Goddess?" The boy asked.

"No, I am an artist trapped in her masterpiece, an author trapped in her books, have you ever heard of Pygmalion?"

"No." The boy admitted.

"He was a Greek sculptor and magus, who fell in love with his most beautiful creation, an ivory sculpture of a goddess. The power of his feelings brought Galatea to life."

The boy laughed. "Is that what happened to you?"

...

"Come on, tell me."

...

"...Is it because I laughed?"

*nod*

"Sorry."

*shrug*

"You could leave at any time."

*nod*

"...you're mad, aren't you?"

The girl smiled sadly, and nodded.

"So was what you told me true, or just the ramblings of one insane?"

*shrug*

"Or doesn't it matter?"

*smile*