DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
Chapter 01: RUDE AWAKENING
It was the simplest thing.
"Mom, look!" A little girl, about seven years old, walked up to her. She looked positively hopping with excitement, holding out a clench fist, waiting expectantly.
She smiled, affectionately tucking a loose strand of blonde hair away from her daughter's face. The sun glinted on the little girl's bright eyes, pronouncing their colour even more than usual. "What is it, dear?"
The little girl beamed as she opened her hand to reveal a small, white, garden flower perched and unmoving on her palm. The woman frowned slightly. "I hope you didn't pick this out of it's stem."
The little girl sighed and rolled her eyes as if she had never met anyone more hopeless than her mother. "No, mummy. Watch!" undeterred, despite being told off.
The woman watched her daughter closely, her brows furrowing slightly as the little girl stared fixedly at the flower, concentrating as if trying to move it by mere thought.
The small flower swayed, as if a strong gust of wind it alone felt just hit it. There was nothing out of the ordinary from its behaviour. Flowers are very light things that could easily be moved by very slight forces.
But the tiny flower that should have fallen gracefully down at their feet now stopped suspended in mid-air, hovering a few centimetres above the little girl's palm.
"Brilliant!" a man's voice cried with glee. "Asha! Come see what your sister has done!"
For a moment the woman shared the happiness and excitement etched and unmistakeable on her daughter's face.
But that moment ended as it had begun.
Neither of her daughters, their friend nor her husband noticed how the look on her face turned from ecstasy to sudden anguish. Something inside of her shattered, and she felt it. A force so strong it was almost like a physical blow to the head.
She stood up suddenly, and simply walked away from her jubilant family. Her face was blank and white. Confused and yet purposeful.
She heard her husband from the distance. "Where are you going?" but she didn't stop. She didn't turn around. She walked on, going faster by each step. Before she realized it, she was running. The movement gave her the sense that she was catching up. It didn't matter that there had already been a fourteen-year head start.
All she knew was that she needed to see him.
...
She gripped the wand tightly by the handle, it's tip emitting bright sparks and shooting shocks of magic inside her arm. It was painful—like being electrocuted every couple seconds.
She knew her magic was attacking her own body, angry and rebellious for all the years they coursed through her bloodstream, unused and forgotten but she didn't care. Of all the things she was feeling at that moment, the internal battle of blood and magic in her veins were the dullest of them.
Right now, most of all, she was furious.
I need to see him.
Her hand clenched around the wand so tightly that she could feel the small embellishments around it puncture her palm.
Finally, she was in front of the gate. She could hear a low rumble coming from the opposite direction. She mustered all her will power and fought through the urge of turning around. "Not yet," she whispered to herself as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I need to see him first."
She pushed at the small gate and walked up the familiar covered pathway towards the front door. Her heart was beating so fast and so strongly, they felt like rapid punches insider her chest.
She knocked at the wooden door twice. There was nothing.
She knocked again. There was a faint grunt coming from inside the house.
She knocked a third time, this time more urgently than the last. "I'm comin', I'm comin'." a grumbling voice said from the inside. It sounded annoyed. For a moment she gave her unceremonious visit a second thought but shook her head of the uncertainty. It was too late to turn back now anyway. And she knew in her heart she won't be able wait.
She needed to see him.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she heard the unmistakable sound of a doorknob turning.
On the other side of the door was an old woman, her back hunched and her face hidden by the hood of a cape she was wearing to keep warm despite the summer weather outside. "What d'you—" the old woman started as she slowly raised her head to look at the woman's face.
She stopped short at the sight of her, her mouth dropping open and her eyes growing wide, looking like she had just seen a basilisk.
The woman wore a look of shock as well. The old woman wore the fourteen years that had passed by since their last meeting. She was so frail and ancient, wrinkled like one strong breath could blow her away. The woman blinked and pulled herself together. "Where is he?" she said, her voice surprisingly demanding.
The old woman gave an intake of breath as if she was going to answer but instead, fainted.
"Oh!" the woman cried, kneeling down to check if she hadn't dropped dead. She certainly wasn't intending to frighten her. She felt for a pulse and found it quickly enough. The old woman was still alive. She gave a sigh of relief.
She knew she needed to take the old woman to the couch. Her efforts of carrying and pulling her proved futile. The old woman's small frame deceived her of her weight. She knew that there was no other recourse but one.
She would have to use magic.
The woman stood up and raised her wand, pointing at the unconscious body at her feet. Her hand was trembling. It was a simple enough spell. Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, she thought.
"Swish and flick. Swish and flick." she murmured under her breath, wishing her hand wouldn't tremble so much.
She had no doubt that there was still magic left in her. She wasn't afraid the spell wouldn't work. She was now afraid of how much it will hurt for her to use it. She felt her magic angrily coursing through her body, making her heart thump faster than she ever felt it before.
She took a deep breath, and then, darkness.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Reviews speed the creative process up, funnily enough.