Summary | (a/u) When even a ghost of insanity strikes, the simple solution is to send the victim to an asylum. When Sydney Sage finds her supernatural abilities, her family sends her away, but perhaps her death will come from a green-eyed moroi rather than true madness.
Disclaimer | I do not own Bloodlines.
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"Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
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Sydney Katherine Sage was eighteen years young, born of an unlived life filled with discipline and calm order. She was young, but she was not free—her life had been filled with a desire to please her father and the people who worked above him, and even her childhood was made of strict order.
She had never stayed out past curfew, never drank until she passed out, never kissed a boy, and never screamed at her parents until her voice was hoarse like an ordinary girl her age would do as a routine.
Then again, Sydney Sage wasn't an ordinary teenage girl.
She was born from a strict father and following mother who lived by a tattoo of moroi and gold, and was raised to believe the same things they believed. She had learned to think the same way they did, and she had learned to share their beliefs. She had been taught the ways of a training alchemist, and she had been raised to share their morals and taboos.
She had learned that everything in life could be deducted to simple math and science, and she had believed that every feeling could be pushed away or ignored. Every thought of love or rebellion, thoughts she had yet to have, could be suppressed under walls of knowledge. Every liberty she had as a human could be tamed by the ink of the tattoo.
She believed that the day the golden lily was tattooed upon her cheek she would be protected from the dangers of the human world, and she would be given knowledge that the barriers of being a simple, closed-minded human would not be able to process.
To her, the golden lily was more of a blessing than a curse, but subconsciously, she held it as what would be safe. Knowledge was power, and the more knowledge she acquired, the more protected she would be. Running away from alchemy would be running away from the only life she had ever known.
She had never considered turning her back on alchemy because she didn't know if she would be strong enough to handle being away from the familiarity of the alchemists.
Turning away was impossible, but being forced away was inevitable.
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Though she had wanted to all her life, she had never seen the room in which believers were marked as an alchemist by the glimmering golden flower. She had asked time and time again when she was young, but she was always rejected by her father, telling her to wait until she was older.
When it was her time for the ink to bore into her skin, she found the room to be much of a disappointment.
The room was large, white, and clean. She wrinkled her nose—though she generally enjoyed cleanliness, the smell of rubbing alcohol and latex gloves burned her nose. Resisting the urge to cover her nose with her hand, she looked up to her father.
"Where is…whoever is supposed to be here?" Sydney inquired. Aside from herself and her father, the room was dead. "Are you going to tattoo me?" The thought of her father painting her face with a needle was unsettling to her, and she winced at the thought.
Her father let the sound of an opening door answer for the questioning blonde, and her golden eyes were brought to a man clad in a white laboratory coat and an expressionless face. His face was slightly alarming to Sydney—he looked to be dead in the eyes, holding a look that was near glassy.
"I'll assume you are Mrs. Sage?" Sydney held back from correcting the man that the addressing title was to be used for a married woman. She had learned that remaining quiet unless spoken to was often the easiest way to be respected by her uppers and elders.
She nodded her head once, commanding her platinum hair to fall in her eyes at the movement. The fallen hair was a way to busy herself, and she occupied the silence by tucking the long hair behind her ear and pinning it back with a bobby pin hidden in her hair.
"Lie down facing upwards on the mattress." Sydney went by his commands without argument. She laid gently on the papered mattress—more of a cot than a mattress—and let her golden eyes fixate on the ceiling.
"How long will this take?" Jared Sage asked, already seeming to be bored with the ritual. The man who she had identified as "Mr. Harris" from his nametag ignored her father and went to the counter.
From what Sydney could see he was arranging needles, comparing sizes and lengths before picking one up and holding it up to the too-bright lights. Seeming satisfied, he dipped the needle into the mixture of gold and moroi blood, filling the needle with the substance and going to the Sage daughter.
"Stay still," he pulled latex gloves on with a rubbery snap and used one of his gloved hands to hold her chin in place, "or else the spell will not hold."
"Listen to his words, Sydney—if you manage to ruin this, your chances of becoming an alchemist will dim or disappear completely." Sydney wanted to tell her father that she knew that already, and was too wise to thrash under a simple needle, but stayed still and silent.
Even her breathing was quiet, her chest barely moving with each breath. She avoided his mechanical eyes as he brought the needle closer to her cheek, tilting her face so that her cheek was more easily accessible.
The needle came into contact with her cheek, but did not touch her skin. Sydney's eyes flickered upwards, wondering slightly why she felt nothing from the brush of the needle, but the tattooist looked just as confused as she was. An uncomfortable feeling built inside her, but she only clenched her jaw and waited for him to attempt to mark her cheek again.
The second attempt came, harder this time, yet the golden needle did not leave a mark on her cheek, and she felt no sensation of pain from the needle touching her cheek.
"Is there a problem?" Sydney asked finally, waiting a few moments for the doctor to give some explanation.
"Your body is rejecting the blood and gold the same way a moroi's body would reject the mixture."
"I'm not a moroi." There was a tone of offense in Sydney's voice, some disgust at being compared to a creature of the night laced in her voice. The tattooist gave her a hard look, shaking his head.
"I made an analogy, Mrs. Sage. Your body will not take the ink."
"That's impossible." Jared's voice cut through the confusion, "I am an alchemist, as were my ancestors and her mothers ancestors. Her blood is mine, and she is able to take the tattoo. Either you are not trying—"
"Mr. Sage, I am trying." His voice was slow, using the same voice one would use with a small child, "But your daughter is the issue. Not I."
Sydney slipped away from the mattress, standing and walking about the room while her father and the tattooist continued to argue about Sydney's blood. Their fighting made the issue no easier—she was more confused than she had ever been, and a blanket of panic was beginning to settle over her.
Why can't I take the ink? She felt dizzy, overwhelmed by a tilting sensation. The world seemed to be pulling away from her, tugging itself away from her feet and leaving her to fall. The ground she had known was shaky, and the security alchemy offered seemed like less and less of an option as her father and the tattooist argued.
"She will not be an alchemist." Sydney made a noise that seemed to be both a gasp and a choke and gripped onto the edge of the counters to hold herself up. The sound commanded the attention of both the elders, and they both offered concerned looks to the blonde girl who looked like she were about to faint.
"Sydney? Sydney, are you all right?" Her father's voice sounded like she was listening to it while under water, and she herself felt like water was filling into her lungs. She was drowning in her mind, and she felt her grip on the counter tighten.
"I—I need—" She stumbled to the sink, splashing water onto her face with a quick movement. The water only seemed to burn her skin, and she looked up in the mirror to see if her face was physically burning.
Instead, she saw a reflection of herself with eyes glowing too brightly to look at. She blinked at herself for only a moment in some stun, watching as the gold color of her eyes seemed to burn with a fire as gold and hot as the sun would be.
A shriek escaped her throat, a sound she had never before made, and she pushed herself away from the mirror in a mad escape from her reflection.
This isn't happening. You're dreaming.
She wasn't dreaming.
Her hands caught onto the edge of the mattress she had been lying on, and the mattress caught fire underneath her fingertips. Sydney pulled herself away from the mattress just as the fire swelled and consumed the mattress, a fire that was produced from her fingertips.
She felt arms around her, ushering her out of the building as the fire swallowed it much more quickly than a natural fire would. Her molten gold eyes caught sight of the flaming building, and she felt her hands tremble.
I caused this.
She was blanketed by darkness, and welcomed the unconsciousness as an escape to the burning building behind her.
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