I was dreaming.
My naked body floated on the ocean's surface, weightless. My eyes fixed on the night sky, where stars shifted hues like iridescent rainbows. The water was safe, patient, even as I lingered. it continued to keep me afloat. As if it knew I belonged there.
I closed my eyes. My lungs filling with the scent of the salty sea as I took a deep breath, for just one overwhelming second I belonged.
Then—
Fire
It burned the skies, drained lakes, caused droughts. The forests shrieked—a chorus of splintering tree trunks and burning leaves—and The taste of charred wood and ash coated my tongue. A Shadow Lynx cub, flames consuming its black fur, yelped. A Mossback Turtle groaned. A tectonic sound more akin to pressure than noise. A Sylph Bat screeched loudly, its semi-translucent wings torn to shreds by undying heat.
But my eyes locked on the creature below.
It wept silently, the small Flora Fawn's usually bone-white fur, a sickly moss-green—its serrated, leaf-like tail whipping back and forth in a rhythm of stress, panic, fear. Its wide black eyes glossy with salt-water tears—A hydrological anomaly—my mind noted before I even realized it.
My heart dropped.
I tried to speak, but my body felt heavy, like stone.
So, I watched the forest burn—a prisoner in my own body.
I watched water rise to douse it—not from the ocean, but from the earth—as if the land itself was weeping.
I watched smoke rise from the ashes of charred wood and seared flesh.
The scents changed—a scent of salt or crushed petals or ash and i—
I awoke with a gasp, jolting upright with a suddenness that Sunny—my flora fawn who had been comfortably curled on my stomach—jolted awake with a soft whine. His moss-green tail flicked in irritation, a cloven hoof tapped my forearm as he shot me a reproachful look. A passive read flickered in my awarness—slight confusion, no lingering resentment or irritation from yesterday's berry incident either.
I gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry, Sunny... bad dream."
My fingers sank into his soft leaf-like fur. Sweat made my nightdress and raven-black hair cling to my skin. My hands clammy as hydro had responsed to my distress.
Sunlight filtered into the room from the slight gaps in the embroidery curtains. Illuminating the sterile white marble walls and floor that covered my room, adorned with obsidian black and pyro ember rubies—luxury that felt more like a pyroclastic cage
I didn't get up. my eyes drifted to the ornate plasterwork of my rooms ceiling.
"just get through the day Lena... just get through the day"
The words tasted sour. A lie. A necessary lie. But a lie nonetheless.
I reluctantly stood up, a sigh escaping me. My eyes flicked to the mirror as I approached. With a brush in my hand, I sank onto the cool chair. A rare indulgent pleasure, a pocket of resistance from the warm, smoldering breath of the mountain. Seeping in even through the walls.
Bright ocean blue eyes met me. Not my mother's warm brown or father's piercing green. My messy, raven-black hair long enough to brush my shoulder blades, framed a heart-shaped face, pink lips, a delicate nose set in skin too pale, too soft, too watery for this mountain. Unlike most of my family. I didn't even inherit the commanding height.
Perhaps I would be considered "pretty" in a different nation?
In Camnius? The thought never even crossed my mind.
I didn't feel it here
Sunny's soft whine snapped me out of my thoughts. His branch-like horns prodded my stomach. He rested his chin on my lap, his leaf-like tail whipping once, twice. A silent command of "stop moping" that didn't come as words, but feelings lingering in my skull. I smiled.
The black and red of the dress felt like a bandage wrapped over my hydro core. It took twenty minutes of wrestling with the laces—another small, daily rebellion against the heat that made my fingers clumsy—before I could face the hall. Leaving sunny to bath in the sun's warm lights to photosynthesize.
As I walked through the long hallways of the Vayne family house, I kept my eyes straight forward. Yet every passing maid and servant sent a fresh jolt to my headache, their loud emotions, unfiltered thoughts, and the reader charms they wore buzzing like angry aero wasps in my mind. The psychic buzz layered over the smoldering heat, making my already shriveled skin feel like a wrung-out cloth.
The dining hall's massive doors swung open. A wave of smoldering air lashed across my face, making me flinch.
The dining hall was a long, narrow room, dominated by a cinder-bark table radiating stored heat into the atmosphere. Two eternally burning hearths on both sides of the room. Above the head of the table hung a portrait. My father's stern face. My mother's wide smile. My two older brothers identical polite smiles.
Too bad I couldn't be in it.
The floor was scorchingly hot even through my shoes as I stepped inside, my magic recoiled at the feeling. But I pushed through it.
My father sat at the head of the table, his long fingers drumming a restless rhythm on the table, an impatient pyro tell. His green eyes—sharp and piercing—landed on me as I walked in. My hands clasped before me like an obedient daughter. Even while my mind shuddered at the sheer impossibility of such a thought.
My mother sat on the right side of the table, her raven-black hair tied into a meticulous bun with an ember ruby gemstone. Her eyes tightened when she looked at me, her smile polite, but strained at the edges in a way that curdled in my mouth like sour milk. Around her neck, a necklace thrummed with a constant low hum. Not the cheap, buzzing charms of the market district. This was a masterpiece—a pyro-sculptor's work, woven with silent, absolute wards—a physical wall that blocked my passive reader sense with sterile silence. A legendary item. Paid in oaths, and favors to nobles much older than our own.
A low cost if it meant keeping me out.
Kalan—my older brother—gave me a practiced polite smile. Meanwhile Soka simply rolled his eyes. Both looking like a carbon copy of our father, and It made my stomach twist.
My father finally broke the silence, his voice gruff as if inhaling ash. "You're late"
unlike mother, he didn't bother to hide his thoughts behind trinkets. The words hung in the air, smoldering, undeniable, expected from him.
My smile was as thin and brittle as the dress over my core.. "good morning father." I sank down on my designated chair at the far end of the table. Exactly five meters away, just outside of my passive sensing range. A silent spatial rejection.
I didn't bother to greet my mother or siblings. A small tiny rebellion that I don't think I could live without. My eyes flickered down to my plate, steaming hot meat, likely a local farmed ember hyena. The steak was medium rare. Seasoned and cooked to perfection, yet bile still clawed at my throat.
Father ignored my obvious disgust, his head tilting towards his two sons. "Kalan, your teachers at the academy. They say you've been... Distracted." He remarked, cutting into his own steak with ease that felt off for some reason.
Kalan stiffened, his impeccable posture faltering for a second. "Oh... is that so?" he said. I didn't need my reader sense to hear the sudden shakiness in his voice.
Soka snickered. "probably too busy smooching with alic—" he yelped as he was suddenly kicked hard under the table.
Kalan's smile turned brittle; his tanned cheeks reddened. "Oh. Alice yes she's quite a good friend" he said a little too fast. Ignoring Soka's pointed glare.
Our Father pinched his brow, yet even I could see his lips quirking up slightly in amusement. He too was hot-blooded youth once.
mother laughed softly, a wave of pyro-infused warmth that made me shrink and ache at the same time. "ah. Well, you are a hot-blooded youth after all. Just make sure to not..." She trailed off. Eyes twinkling as Kalans cheeks burned brighter, and nodded vigorously. A language of intimacy, of family that I didn't speak.
My fork scraped too loudly on my plate. Shoving the scorching hot meat into my mouth, it burned my tongue, yet I swallowed it anyway. Even if my magic lashed out internally in protest.
Soka laughed openly at Kalan. Kalan tried to keep a straight face—failing miserably—Mothers gaze softened as she looked at them, her chin propped up on her palm. Father didn't say much, but he didn't need to I could tell that he was amused even without my senses. A perfect bubble of family time
They never even glanced at me. And I wondered... if they hated me, rather than pretending I didn't exist. would it hurt less?
I took another bite of the meat.
It tasted like ash.