She has always seen spirits. She knows it was a gift.

Her mother and sister died when she was born (she has always known that the woman currently giving her father children has never been her mother. She accepts that, and loves her siblings.) She was never told their names, but she found her mother's name on the back of an old photo, and the wind on the river whispered her sister's name to her. Chihiro. Sen. In the middle of the night, when she can't be caught, she says them over and over, like a good-luck charm to get through the lonely darkness.

Her life isn't so bad, really. No human friends, but the spirits love her more than any human friend ever could. They whisper about the many fantastical tales of her family, her real family, the one that soars through the skies of the dreaming world, three mighty dragons. Chihiro. Sen. Kohaku.

She was slapped once, for asking the name of her real father, though he asked forgiveness immediately. She knew that him, with his blonde hair, blue eyes, could never be the father of a child with eyes sea green and hair a liquid shade of black, especially with a mother with eyes of chocolate and hair like a river of caramel and forest shadow. It has faded back into memory since, as a lesson to her. Never let anyone know that she knows. That she knows that she's being raised by two humans, but isn't human at all. That she knows about the strange looks they give her, the murmurs of 'autistic,' 'hallucinates,' 'crazy.'

They'll see one day. And for now, she takes comfort in the fact that she knows.

She'll be a true dragon one day.