Serenity Bliss
Chapter 1: Life
The noise in the Vacuo markets was the first thing anyone heard as the sun rose. Their homes too primitive to keep any voice unheard, and there was no exception for the small families outside of the city. One such family was the Bliss', a poor family who despite only scraping by, persevered to uphold their legacy of keeping high spirits in the face of adversity. The family only consisted of 3, a man named Remedy, his wife, Clarity, and their young daughter, Serenity. The family were dressed appropriately for their situation, nothing overly fine or gaudy, apart from some heirloom jewelry that they refused to part with. For the poorer families, life was hard. As most money was earned through trade, those who couldn't afford to be merchants had to clutch at straws to find jobs as cleaners, or builders. The Bliss family were brought on as servants in a tavern near the markets: The Greedy Vulture. The pay was minimal, and the owners paid some of their wages in food, while allowing their daughter to remain in the taverns kitchens during work hours. This appeared to be a blessing at first, but eventually had them trapped under the owner's thumb, the lack of real currency bore down upon Remedy's aspirations of becoming a merchant, and left them completely dependent on the owner to the point where they moved into the tavern before long just to afford Serenity a better life.
By age 14 Serenity was working as the chef's assistant in the taverns kitchens, the place as familiar to her as her family's ragged smiles. The Chef bellowed "Girl! We are out of the good spices, take that pouch and fetch some more. If you are gone any longer than 10 minutes, I shall beat you with my rolling pin!" He was a fat, dumpy man whose only joy in life was to siphon the joy from anyone that wasn't a customer. But she complied. Serenity knew that he wasn't joking, and the feeling of that rolling pin wasn't worth the extra wandering time. She grasped the pouch in both hands and crossed the street to the stalls. She made her way past aisles of stands peddling silks, soaps, and different dusts claiming to be higher quality than all others. The spice stall with what the chef wanted was just up ahead, and as she made her way up to it, another store came into sight. It was an exotic food store, the smells emanating from it pushed away all else in the market, the tall man behind the counter selling delicacies and candies from the other kingdoms. She spied a shiny bag of caramels with a snowflake logo on the front. Her mind couldn't withstand the temptation, it was almost like they were calling to her. She soon found herself walking away from the spices, and over to the tall man. When Serenity pointed at the candies, the man knelt down to her level. "These aren't any normal candies, each was baked with layers of dus-" It was then that the lanky man saw the hefty pouch of coin the girl was struggling to keep in her hands. The enterprising man that he was, would be a fool to turn down this fortuitous proposition. He hastily handed the white bag to the girl and took the pouch. "There you go, just…don't eat 'em all at once." Then as if he needed to be anywhere else, he swiftly began to pack up his stall. Serenity barely noticed.
She was entranced by her mysterious new treats. She started to walk back when the unmistakeable smell of the kitchen hit her. She was standing back next to the spice stand. At that moment, all was realised. Her heart rate increased and she began to breathe heavily. She turned to run back to the food stall, but it had vanished, as if it had never been there. She turned back to the spice store with teary eyes, and received no sympathy from the vendor. Serenity could feel only frustration and regret, knowing she would have to return to the inn with no money, or spices. Or did she? Serenity began to walk away, but only so far that the clerk occupied himself with another customer. She then seized the opportunity and ran up to pilfer the sack of spices. The bag was too hefty to loft with one hand, so in her haste she stuffed all of the multi-coloured candies into her mouth at once. Once the package was in her arms she ran.
She was ecstatic! Not only was she riding on a caramel fuelled sugar rush, she had enough adrenaline to run to Mistral! She thought she had gotten away with it too, until she heard frantic footsteps behind her. "Get back here you little runt!". Muffled screams escaped from the girl's lips as she swallowed each and every one of her candies. Once the last one disappeared down her gullet, her muscles started to ache like she'd cramped them, and then started to burn.
Her screams were fully audible now as she continued to run away from the shopkeeper while her muscles wrenched and rippled. Her vision went white for a split second, and when the haze cleared she was pushing people three times her size aside like they were grass stalks in a field. Despite this buff, the clerk was still catching her, so she made a deft turn…into a dead end. Serenity dropped the spices on the ground, and she felt her stomach nauseously churn. "I've got you now, you putrid little thief!". She couldn't hear him over the ringing in her ears. She was changing, her hair was changing colour, from sandy brown to an Amalgam of different bright colours. She did notice the change as locks of her hair fell in front of her straining face, but was preoccupied with holding tears back as she winced in pain. "What were you planning to do, huh?" sneered the scorned shopkeeper. He pushed the sniffling girl to the ground violently and started kicking her stomach. "This is what you deserve!". No one could hear her cries in this alley, no one to save her. All she could do was beg through the immense pain for the man to cease. "Stop! Please stop! I'm sorry!" she had submitted completely and yet the onslaught continued. Again she begged over and over again to no avail, and her vision began to fade away to darkness. With the last sliver of her energy she screamed "STOP!". The barrage slowed to a halt, and Serenity fell unconscious.
