LadyAbyssal presents...
Aurora
1.1 Emergence
"Mama?" I ask. A nervous finger flicks a strand of golden hair behind an ear, and my eyes flit from the Caelish rug to my baby shoes. "What are those?"
"These are Gate Keys, sweetheart," comes the easy reply. I look up, see the smile on Mother's lips, and look back down with a blush. She is the epitome of a Victorian lady, all regal beauty and soft grace, but the affection in her blue eyes- "They're Mama's Magic. She can ask friends from a wondrous world if they would like to come and help her."
"Woah..." A memory – a two-dimensional, animated figure, with three 'Spirits' kneeling before her. Could it be…? No. It couldn't possibly. "What do they look like?"
"Would you like Mama to show you one?" At my shy nod, Mother laughs warmly. There is a rustling of metal and cloth, a flare of white light, and then- I look up.
The room- it isn't a room. In my previous life, I have never been in an indoors space so large. There was the gymnasium-cum-cafeteria, back in grade school, but- that hadn't been a room, either. A forum, maybe. Or a chamber. A room? No.
Tall, Greek ("Caelish," a voice whispers, "There is no Greece, anymore.") pillars hold up the starry sky, a massive, domed construct of stained glass and painted constellations. A royal blue rug stretches from one side of the forum to the other, and, on top of it, a sinfully soft king-sized bed. Mother lays on it, staring up at the glass sky above her.
I notice none of this, because there is a beautiful mermaid swimming through the air. Her blue-white hair is long and soft, her scales sparkle in the dim light, and her eyes fill with warmth. She holds a delicately sculpted vase and wears a tiara of spun gold, and she is magic.
I remember her. I remember watching her on a computer screen, raising tidal waves and drowning Dark wizards with righteous rage twisting her fair features. I remember her admonishing a blonde-haired mage for being single and alone, but always being there to help regardless. I remember her being strong, and wise, and caring, and magic – and not real.
"So pretty," I breathe. Half is truth, because surely such beauty is impossible to attain, but the other half is carefully affected – product of an older mind, a more cunning mind, which wants this bearer of might and magic to protect me against the enemies in the night. Deceitful, perhaps, but I feel no guilt. "Are you my sister?"
Aquarius melts. "If you want me to be." She smiles down at me, glances to her Summoner, and vanishes in a haze of vapor and magic. My heart constricts. I wanted her to stay longer.
"Mama?" I shuffle slightly, my eyes falling back down to my feet. Strange. I was never so shy, before- "Will I ever see her, again?"
"Of course, sweetheart," she says. Mother raises a hand in silent comfort, and I scuttle over and onto the bed. She pulls me close. "Mama isn't as strong as she used to be, is all. She needs her rest. How about, when you turn twelve, she gives you her Key?"
"Mm!" I smile and nod and giggle, but, inside, my heart twists and breaks. Because, if Aquarius is the same as from my memories, than so is Mother; and she won't live long enough to celebrate my twelfth birthday.
She'll gather eleven of the Zodiac Gate Keys, and, with her life force substituting for the twelfth, will open the Eclipse Gate. She'll be responsible for bringing the Dragon Slayers forward through time, a plan concocted by her ancestor, Anna Heartfilia, the fire dragon Igneel, and Zeref himself. The loss of life force will give her Magic Deficiency Disease, because she couldn't find… Aquarius'… Key…
"…I love you, Mama," I say. What else could I do?
Somehow, I get the feeling that I'm not going to be the only thing different from what I remember.
1.1 Emergence
It's been six years since I was born.
It's been six years since I died.
I don't remember how it happened. Some nights, when the world is quiet and I feel so very alone, I can't help but be thankful. Morbid curiosity demands I know, but then I recall flashes of sterile white walls and the tick, tock, ticking of a clock and all I can do is scream into a pillow and cry. I want to remember and I don't want to remember and I wish I was Lucy, just Lucy, and didn't flinch every time I looked into a mirror, because that isn't me, my eyes are greengreengreen and my hair is blackblackblack who is this it isn't me it can't be me-
In. Out. In. Out.
…I was never so high-strung, before. When I learned that I was born with a genetic disorder, my face was stone and my heart, ice. I screamed and cried and panicked, but, later, when I was home alone and there was nobody around to hear. I didn't break so easily, not from mere thoughts and not in public. Never in public.
"Mm, Miss? Where can I find the books on magic?"
"Take a left and follow it straight, dear. They're just past the political section."
The Heartfilia Library isn't technically a public place. Closed to all but close allies of the Heartfilia Konzern, the massive theater of texts, ancient and new alike, dwarf every library I have been to in my previous life. Considering I spent years just browsing the aisles, reveling in the silence and the smell of ink-on-paper, I can consider myself an expert on the matter. Had someone shown me this place in a dream, told me it was real and called it the famed Library of Alexandria, I would have believed them.
I will not suffer a breakdown here. I never have in a library before and I won't start now.
It takes three minutes of walking to pass through the political aisle and reach the 'magic' section. When I arrive, I bite down on my tongue and swallow a crass remark. Father's prejudice shines through, even in a library he has never stepped in.
There are no more than thirty books, each more fit for the 'history' section. There's Caelish Wizard-Kings of the Pre-Cataclysm Age, there's How Ancient Magic Becomes Lost, there's even The Tale of Verana the Virtuous, as if fairy tales deserve to be placed here. The suppression of information, even in a private library, fills me with a righteous fury.
I flip through Molding Magic: Architecture in the Modern Age and force back a scowl. Worthless. I don't give a damn about Fiore's version of the Taj Mahal, not even if it was built in a day. I want to learn how to cast magic myself, not read all about other people casting magic. It is horribly childish of me, but I am a horribly childish person. All children are.
It takes all of ten minutes reading The Tale of Verana the Virtuous with a pout twisting my lips for Mother to find me.
"Sweetheart," she says, her voice as soft as the silken sundress she wears. She kneels down next to me, pressing her floppy hat to her thighs. "What are you doing, down here?"
"I want to learn magic," I say petulantly. I widen my eyes and allow shiny tears to gather. "I want to be a wizard like you, Mama."
Mother attempts an appeal to rationality. "But if you become a wizard," she says, "Then who will lead the Konzern, in the future?"
"But you're so young, Mama." Attempt failed, Mother. My eyes widen further. "Don't I have time?"
"I suppose." One look into my chocolate brown eyes and she melts. Silver linings to reincarnation, silver linings. "I'll hire a magic tutor, sweetheart. But, only so long as you get good grades. If your other tutors come to me, then…"
"I understand, Mama." If I fail a six-year-old's classes, I deserve that punishment. "I'll be good."
"You're always good, Lucy." She presses a kiss to my forehead. "How about we get some ice cream?"
"Mm!"
1.1 Emergence
Every day at nine o'clock, I meet with 'Old Crone' Odelia for my general education course. Mathematics, Fiorean Language and Literature, Natural Philosophy, Art, and History of Fiore. One a day, for three whole hours. Even with a fifteen minute 'recess,' that's ridiculous.
I'm a six-year-old merchant's daughter, not Plato's vaunted Philosopher King. Are all rich people raised this way? That's horrible. Respect, rich people. Respect.
Odelia is, nice, I suppose. She's the quintessential angry math teacher, who, after sixty years of crushing her student's weak excuses, sees inadequacy around every corner. She demands perfection with every stroke of my pen. But she's polite about it, has a plastic container of melt-in-my-mouth blueberry cookies for whenever I ace an assignment, and there is obvious fondness in her eyes. I can't help but like her.
After a short lunch, two hours are devoted to dance. Miss Ria is far less strict than Odelia. She's young and kind and warm, and acts more like a fun girl-next-door babysitter than an upper-class dance instructor. Time flies in Miss Ria's care, though a part of me wishes it didn't.
The next two hours are spent in quiet contemplation in father's office – that is, I sit and watch an old man fill out paperwork. For two hours. Every day. I can't even doze off, because he likes to spontaneously ask me questions about the Konzern. If he asks me one more time to list off the names and wages of every manager we have, I'm going to burn his Manor to the ground. While he's still in it.
It didn't take me long to decide to fake ignorance on everything I'm taught. I don't falsify my intelligence and comprehension, though, leading to me being 'outed' as a child prodigy. I don't do this out of a lack of trust; I simply don't want father to up the stakes on my education and responsibilities more than he already has.
If he realizes that he could give me even more work, he would. As it is, Mother is already holding him back from giving me a Statistics and Economics tutor on top of all my other work.
To be fair, I'm not against that. This mind is quicker and cleverer than my old one, and I want to use it to its fullest potential. I had been aiming for a journalism degree in my past life. I'll never get that degree, now, but the desire for higher learning is still there. Why shouldn't I take on another class, especially in a subject I'm unfamiliar with?
Magic, mostly. Magic is a pretty good reason for a lot of things. Learning how to barter like the merchant's daughter I am would be cool, but learning how to throw fireballs like a wizard is even cooler. If I start studying economics, I won't have the time to study magic. That's unassailable logic, right there.
Not that I'm learning Fire Magic. I'm not learning Celestial Spirit Magic, either.
"Yo," my magic tutor introduces himself. Sleek black suit, check. Spiky orange hair, check. Cool dark eyes, check. He turns and winks at a passing maid. Check. "My name is Leo. I'm going to teach you how to crush snitches, find riches, and get bitches. And then I'm going to show you how to do it all over again, with style."
He preens, ruffling his mane of hair and smirking to himself.
"Your mother press-ganged me into teaching you Regulus Magic. Shame, then, that only I can use Regulus Magic. Why? Because I'm awesome like that. But I can teach you the next best thing. It's called Radiance Magic."
Leo is… different, than I expected. A moment's thought gives me the answer: this is before he risks his life to save Aries from that Blue Pegasus chick, what's-her-face with the beautiful green hair, and gets excommunicated from the Spirit World. That must have mellowed him out a fair bit, like a less extreme Sirius Black Effect.
"C'mon, midget Layla, we got magic to learn." He leads me out of the Manor and into a small, out-of-the-way courtyard. It is soothing and peaceful, a garden glade ringed by water fountains and koi ponds, with high trees filtering the sunlight. It can't be any later than two o'clock, but the air is chilly enough and the glade dark enough to be seven.
"How do we start?" I ask, when he relaxes against a fountain and seems happy enough to sit and watch the fish. He hums but doesn't say anything in response. "…Mister Leo?"
"Sorry, kid," he says. "I can't hear you over the magic barrier I trapped you in."
"Magic barri- eek!" A shimmering, white-gold barrier manifests all around me. I jerk backwards gracelessly, but only collide against that very same hardlight field- it curves and slopes, surrounding me on all sides. "Leo!"
I see his mouth move but can't hear any words. He smirks for a moment before noticing the incomprehension on my face and flushing. He reaches into a coat pocket and pulls out a miniature notebook. A minute later, he rises to his feet and presses a torn-off sheet of paper against the barrier.
It's a Hardlight Rune, it says, followed by an arrow pointing downwards. In between my ankles, I can see a sharply glowing symbol, what appears to be a cross between an 'H' and two 'J's, etched into a black stone. When I look back up, the note has been replaced with another, which reads, Fill with magic dispels.
…Now if only I knew how to pump something full of magic. It's a shame that I don't have a magic teacher who could teach me how to use magic.
The Spirit is soon joined by a pair of maids, each carrying a platter full of delicious-looking seafood. Salmon, mostly, with a pair of buttered crab cakes, a slice of tilapia, even mashed potatoes. Leo thanks them, flirts with the prettier one, than happily begins eating his lunch.
I stare at him balefully. When he finishes, he notices me looking, and shrugs. He presses a third note against the barrier a minute later.
Meditate, maybe? it reads. I dunno.
"…You suck."
He lets me out six hours later.
"I thought Boss Lady said you were some kinda child prodigy," he immediately insults. "You figure everything out real quick-like, and remember it all perfectly. Smartest child in Fiore. The future of the Konzern. Twice the intellect she's ever had. I could go on."
I was mostly cheating, I want to say. I also want to say, I had actual teachers for those subjects. I say neither, and continue to stare at him balefully.
"Well, I get paid by the hour, so whatever. Meet me back here tomorrow." He turns and vanishes in a ray of sunlight. I make strangling motions at his back.