Title: Alteration
Author: Rosé
Note: It's a silly little short, but I liked the idea.
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When she was younger, she always had trouble with spelling: those who knew Maria would be surprised to learn that she, someone so sharp and clear, someone who valued precision would have once confused that with persimmons, or mistake taking flight for fight. It was with her parents that she first worked through her problem, and later with her guardians: tackling each word with care, their voices soft in her ears (though they both surely had other, more important things to do over helping a young girl to spell) coaxing Maria to sound out the difference between persimmons and precision, and helping her learn that it was fighting she preferred after all.
She told this to him the next time they met. It was a confession almost as surprising as his company: they sat, two precariously balanced mugs filled with coffee between them and the snow fallling soft outside. He was silent as she finished her story (long enough that Maria found herself wondering if she had perhaps overstepped the tenuous boundaries of their relationship in some bizzare fashion) before he opened his mouth and suggested that perhaps it was not so much her inability to spell as it was her first gift of alteration taking form.
And Maria smiled.