Prompt 48 (21 April) – Envy
Title: All the Luck
Words: 290
Feat. Sarralyn Salmalín
For as long as she can remember, Sarralyn has envied her brother.
Plenty of other people envy him, too, of course; but perhaps not for quite the same reasons. A number of his colleagues at the Royal University, for example, would give their eye-teeth for a Gift like his; the more enthusiastic students, too, are constantly angling for invitations to dinner, the better to question the two Salmalín mages on their particular topics of research (for both Numair and Rikash – and Daine, too – will happily declaim for hours on nearly any magic-related topic) and thus get the inside edge on their peers. And the more Rikash's disarmingly unselfconscious charm attracts young women, the more young men grumble under their breath that some people have all the luck.
Sarra's envy has quite a different source.
It is only too easy for her to make herself an object of flattering male attention; but flattery has grown empty with the years, and there seems no possibility of attracting the trust, friendship and genuine affection that Rikash so effortlessly inspires.
It is true, of course, as Sarra tells herself, that there are many who find his power as frightening as hers; it is true that he is by far the more sensitive, and suffers from dreadful nightmares and crises of self-confidence. It's also true that Sarra can disappear far more completely, and thus evade all manner of unpleasantness – parental lectures on the importance of honesty in relationships, for example. And Sarra, of course, is by nature more panther than wolf.
But to be looked at by anyone as that young Rider was looking at Rikash when the Lucky Cats brought him home …
Yes, thinks Sarra, some people really do have all the luck.