Twelve Years Later
Maggy Rynon was jumping out the window of her bedroom, flying high with Aura. And then she was lifting herself far higher, soaring on wind. Her wind.
It was so wonderful for her - flying! A wonderful feeling. A feeling that always seemed to help her mind to relax, and help it to remember, after a fashion; a warmth of arms around her, a voice in her ear. Vague and wispy things, feelings more than actual memories. It was all just feelings.
But it was never just those feelings: it was a whole lot of other ones, much less pleasant ones too.
They were similar feelings to the ones that came over her when she'd brush a hand over the right side of her face, trace the thick, long scar that started at very corner of her lip and went back to below the ear: guilt, and remorse enough to make her chest hurt and her throat close up. To make her start to really cry and hiccup all over the place. And once it got going, she always had a hard time getting it to stop again.
And, she always felt like...like she didn't deserve to have it stop.
Her mom, and her older sister, Bae, along with people in her life like Neo or Emerald, would always tell her these were about her other mom - Cinder. The time they'd spent together in life. They'd all even told her about those times themselves - but Maggy could never join them in that reminiscing. Why she couldn't, she'd never even known. Just like she had no clue why her mom had disappeared from her life, years ago, right out of the blue. Why she'd left her!
A lot of people seemed to think the two things were related; Maggy agreed, but she didn't really care to find out more.
She was scared to find out anything more.
Maggy was just sure that her mom's disappearance was all her fault.
That was why she had decided to disappear tonight, too.
Leave home, leave it all behind, and never look back!