The Awakened Association headquarters in New Haven was a monument to bureaucratic anxiety masquerading as modern optimism. Glass, steel, and hopeful greenery fought for dominance in a vast atrium that echoed with the shuffling of feet and the low murmur of nervous conversation.
Astraea stood in line, holding Mrs. Evans's hand. She was a speck in a river of humanity, all drawn by the promise of the gates, by the chance to be special. She observed the process with the keen eye of a naturalist studying a new, frantic colony of ants.
I remember when this land was a marsh. They drained it in the 1850s to build the first courthouse. Now they build temples to a power they've just rediscovered.
The line snaked past posters with bold lettering: "Discover Your Potential!" "Serve & Protect with Your Gifts!" "A New Chapter for Humanity!" They had written whole chapters, entire philosophies, based on a paragraph's worth of rediscovered knowledge.
The evaluators, in crisp blue uniforms, moved with harried importance. They directed people to kiosks for "Preliminary Mana-Sensitivity Scans," handed out thick packets of waivers, and barked instructions through tinny speakers. It was a ritual of categorization, a desperate attempt to shoehorn the mysteries of a reawakening world into spreadsheets and power tiers.
[Environmental analysis]
[Location: Awakened Association - Processing Center]
[Observed activity: Collective societal processing of paradigm shift]
[Inefficiency rate: 74%. Optimization opportunities: Numerous!]
"Next! Family name?" a woman at a desk asked, not looking up.
"Evans. This is Astraea. She's my foster. Her paperwork is from Social Services, it's all there," Mrs. Evans said, her voice tight with a mix of pride and worry.
The woman scanned the documents, stamped something, and slapped a numbered sticker on Astraea's shirt. "Wait for your number to be called in Sector C. Manifestation waiver is signed? Good. Proceed."
They moved into a larger holding area—Sector C. Rows of plastic chairs faced a set of heavy metal doors labeled "Evaluation Chambers." The air smelled of sweat, antiseptic, and ozone. People clutched their numbers like lottery tickets. A young man in the corner was repeatedly making a small spark jump between his thumb and forefinger, his face a mask of intense concentration.
"Look, he's practicing!" Mrs. Evans whispered.
He's exhausting his core before the test, Astraea thought. Like a runner sprinting to the starting line. She said nothing.
Her ancient senses stretched out, delicate as spider silk. She could feel the faint mana-signatures of those around her—flickering candles of potential. She could feel the stronger, steadier pulses from behind the evaluation doors, where the Association's own, slightly more trained "Awakened" worked. And underneath it all, a steady, distant draw from the east—the gate, a gentle siphon.
A commotion erupted two rows over. A teenager was shouting, his hands crackling with unstable arcs of electricity. "I'm not a D! Do you hear me? I am at least a C! Your machine is broken!" Guards moved in, their hands glowing with a dull, neutralizing energy. They subdued him, their practiced technique a stark contrast to his wild bursts.
"It's for everyone's safety, sir," one guard said flatly, leading the distraught boy away.
The room fell into a deeper, more anxious hush.
[Incident log]
[Mana dysregulation]
[Cause: Emotional volatility paired with underdeveloped control]
[Conclusion: Proper classification is essential for safety!]
Astraea watched the boy go. His power had been a jagged, screaming thing. Untamed. But there had been force there. A raw voltage humanity hadn't seen in centuries. They saw a hazard. She saw a storm cloud that had forgotten how to rain properly.
The impatience of ephemerals, wanting mastery in a season. I have practiced patience for longer than their written history.
"Number 247 to Chamber 3. Number 247."
That was her. Mrs. Evans squeezed her hand. "Go on, sweetie. Just do your best. However it turns out, I'm proud of you."
Astraea gave her a small, genuine smile. This ephemeral woman, with her fleeting life and boundless, transient kindness, was a beautiful thing. "Thank you, Maggie," she said, using the woman's first name with a softness that made Mrs. Evans blink.
Then, the Ancient Juvenile slid off her chair, her little legs carrying her toward the metal door. She passed the sullen, the proud, the terrified. She felt the weight of their hopes, their fears, their tiny dreams in the face of a vast, re-awakening world.
She did not share their anxiety. After four hundred years of waiting, what was a few more minutes? She was not here to be categorized. She was here to be measured—to see how far the sight of this fledgling Association truly reached. And to get legitimate access to the mana she desperately needed.
The door to Chamber 3 hissed open. Inside, it was a sterile, white room with a padded floor. Two evaluators sat behind a clear polycarbonate screen. A man with a tablet, and a woman with a kind, tired face.
"Astraea Evans?" the woman asked. "Step onto the marked circle, please. When you're ready, demonstrate whatever ability you've manifested. Anything at all. Don't be nervous."
Astraea stepped onto the circle. She looked at her small hands, then up at the adults behind the screen. They were waiting to put her in a box, to give her a label their young civilization could understand.
She decided to give them exactly what they expected.
But first, a tiny rebellion. As she gathered the ambient photons for her "sparkle," she let her control slip—just for a nanosecond. The air in the room twitched. A single, inaudible subharmonic frequency pulsed out, the kind that only creatures with attuned senses might notice.
In the observation booth, the man's tablet glitched. The woman's pen rolled off her desk. Neither connected it to the small girl in the circle.
Just checking if anyone is actually paying attention.
She closed her eyes, not in concentration, but for theatrical effect. Inside, her ancient mind performed a calculation of exquisite minimalism. She needed to manifest something that would register as a legitimate Awakening, but something so benign, so trivial, it would raise no alarms.
*Minor Luminescence / Photon Governance - Output: 0.00001%*
She opened her eyes and raised her right hand, palm up.
There was no strain. No dramatic build-up. Just a gentle, silent poof.
A cluster of tiny, silver-white sparkles appeared just above her palm. They were no bigger than dust motes, each one a perfect, shimmering point of light. They didn't move with power or intent; they simply were, popping into existence and then winking out after a second, like a miniature, silent fireworks display for one. A faint, sweet smell, like ozone and sugar, tickled the air.
It was the most deliberate underachievement in the history of magic.
The man with the tablet stared, then frowned slightly, typing. The woman watched the sparkles fade, and a gentle, dismissive smile touched her lips. It was the smile reserved for a child who shows you a clumsily drawn picture—a smile of obligatory encouragement masking the recognition of utter mundanity.
"I see!" Dr. Aris said, her voice warm with practiced kindness. "Well done, Astraea! That's a lovely little light show. Very pretty."
[Observation recorded]
[Ability: Aesthetic luminescent generation]
[Scale: Minimal]
[Utility: Ornamental]
[Control: Passive]
[Initial classification: Luminous - Tier 0 (Provisional)]
"Can you do anything else with them?" the man asked, his tone bored. "Make them hotter? Brighter? Move them around?"
Astraea widened her eyes, crafting an expression of faint, childish effort. She stared at her palm again. After a moment of "strain," another tiny pop of sparkles appeared and vanished. She let her shoulders slump slightly, as if tired. "No," she said softly. "Just... sparkles."
Dr. Aris's smile became more fixed. "That's quite alright. Not everyone has combat or utility talents. The world needs beauty too." She said the words, but they were a euphemism, a polite dismissal. Ornamental. Non-threatening. Irrelevant.
They had her perform a few more tests. She placed her hands on a mana-sensitive platen; it registered a faint, steady trickle, consistent with a "low-output, stable latent." She looked into a retinal scanner; her eyes, though unusual, showed no signs of active mana-channeling structures. To their instruments, she was exactly what she appeared to be: a small girl with a cute, useless parlor trick.
The entire time, Astraea's mind was elsewhere. She was mapping the room's mana flow, noting the protective runes etched into the polycarbonate (crude but effective for their purpose), tasting the distinct signature of the evaluators' own powers.
Finally, Dr. Aris stood. "Thank you, Astraea. You've been very brave. Wait outside, and your guardian will receive your preliminary classification and information packet."
Astraea nodded, a picture of quiet, possibly disappointed, obedience. As she turned to leave, she caught the tail end of a whispered conversation between the evaluators.
"—practically a null. Pretty, though."
"File her under Luminous. Tier 0, obviously. Standard CYAP pamphlet."
"At least she's stable. No risk there."
The heavy door hissed shut behind her, cutting off their voices. The sterile silence of the corridor replaced the sterile silence of the chamber.
A sparkle. A Tier 0. A null.
Astraea felt the deep, hollow hunger in her core give a single, ironic pulse. She thought of the castles she'd seen built, the languages she'd heard die, the slow dance of continents she'd sensed in her long vigil.
And she smiled. It was not a child's smile. It was the smile of a mountain that has just been told it is a pebble.
She walked back to the waiting area, her back itching slightly between her shoulder blades. The warmth in her T5 and T6 vertebrae had increased. The wing anchors were preparing.
They see a null. I feel the first stirrings of wings that have been waiting since the Elizabethan era.