The mid-afternoon sun shined down as Nashi stared out her bedroom window. Her parents had gone out to get boxes so they could start packing up to move into the new house, taking the younger children with them, allowing her a moment alone.
Which, despite how much sleeping in a dog pile with her siblings had helped her last night had helped, was exactly what she needed. She needed a moment to herself to just breathe and reflect.
Besides, she was sure her parents had a lot they needed to talk to Layla and Igneel about. They'd certainly been surprised to find all five of their children sleeping in the middle of the floor, covered by a makeshift blanket fort. A conversation was due to be had.
They just probably didn't want to have it around Nashi for fear of triggering something, and that was fine by her. She had other things to tend to.
Specifically herself.
She'd been thinking a lot about her conversations with Mirajane from the day before, but one thing in particular had been going through her mind. The last thing Mirajane had said to her.
"You decide who Nashi is. You decide how Nashi's life is going to go. Only you should have that power, and I think it's time you took that power back."
Nashi drew her knees to her chest, leaning her head on top of them as she sat on her bed, still staring out her window.
What did that mean? Taking that power back?
Nashi sighed, wrapping her arms around her legs. Had she even really claimed that power?
Had she ever stopped to think about who she wanted to be?
Now that she was actually thinking about it, she was realizing she hadn't.
Ever since those Twilight Ogre boys had called her a freak and tried to kidnap her all those years back she'd been grossly aware of other's opinions of her.
And those opinions had terrified her.
But...why?
Why was she scared of what they thought about her?
It was because she was scared they might have been right but...why?
Why was that such a horrid fear of hers?
Like Aunt Mira had told her, she was the only one who got to decide who she was going to be, so why was she afraid she'd be the monster those people told her she was? She could just decide not to be a monster. That's what Aunt Mira meant, right?
But was it really that easy?
Nashi sighed and turned her head, looking back at her room rather than her window.
She'd already begun organizing her things to make packing easier when her parents got back. It also had given her something to do while she processed everything from yesterday. Eventually, though, she'd gotten to the point where she just needed to sit a minute.
As she stared about her room she noticed her dresser, actually clear for once, leaving the mirror uninhibited.
She stood, walked to it, and stared at her reflection.
"Who are you?" she asked, staring at the girl in the mirror, as if waiting for an answer.
Of course no answer presented itself. She hung her head, noticing that her dresser wasn't completely cleared after all. A thick notepad, some pens, and a couple of hair pins still laid scattered about it.
As she stared at her still messy, but less messy than usual, dresser she began thinking.
Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Maybe she should write down everything she knew she wasn't, everything she didn't want to be, first. She could figure out who she was from there, maybe.
Nashi picked up the notepad, grabbed a pen, and thought.
She then opened the pad, realizing most of the pages had already been torn out for various projects she'd undertaken. Still, that didn't deter her.
She uncapped her pen and, on the first page, wrote in big letters:
MONSTER.
That was one name she'd been called for far too long that she no longer wanted to give thought to.
She ripped the page out, laid it on the dresser, and then wrote on the next page:
DANGEROUS.
She ripped the one out as well, and kept writing, page after page after page in big words.
EVIL.
WRONG.
FREAK.
MISTAKE.
APPALLING.
SAVAGE.
CORRUPT.
NASTY.
HORROR.
She ripped the last page out and then realized she'd run out of paper.
She huffed a sigh of annoyance.
Well, THAT, went well. Now what?
Nashi raised her head, staring at her reflection. An idea suddenly popped into her mind. A horrible idea, but an idea nonetheless. Nashi began looking through the various pens on her dresser, looking for one that had a felt tip. After finding one she uncapped it and pressed it against the glass of her mirror, writing her name in big, bold letters.
She stepped back and stared at the word now scribbled across her mirror:
NASHI.
But who was Nashi?
Nashi stepped back to her dresser and looked at the pieces of paper now scattered around it. She reached down and picked up the one with the word HORROR written on it.
If she wasn't a horror, then what was she?
A horror was something that terrified people. She didn't want to be that. She wanted to be someone that made people feel safe, and happy, and just...good about themselves. Maybe even proud? Or impressed?
She wanted to be...to be…
Nashi nodded to herself as she reached up and wrote a new word next to her name:
WONDER.
A wonder. Yeah, she liked that. She'd be a wonder rather than a horror.
Nashi glanced back down at the piece of paper in her hand. What was she going to do with this now, though, since she wasn't going to listen to it any more. Nashi held it up to her face, blinked, took a deep breath, and incinerated it. She watched as her ashes fell to the ground, then picked up another piece of paper.
NASTY.
Well, she definitely did not want to be that. No, no. She didn't want to drive people away. She wanted to bring them in, to, again, make them feel safe and happy. She wanted to be…
ATTRACTIVE.
Yeah, attractive was good. She'd be attractive.
She burned the paper in her hand to ash and then reached for the next.
CORRUPT.
Nashi barely missed a beat as she wrote HONEST across her mirror and burned the paper.
SAVAGE was next.
Well, I guess there IS a bit of truth in that one, Nashi thought to herself. But maybe there's a nicer word I could use.
She thought about it for a moment, chewing on the end of her marker before deciding on one and scribbling down:
FREE.
She let out a deep breath as she read that over once more. Yeah, she really liked that one. Free. Free to be a little wild. Free to be rambunctious. Free to be adventurous. Free to not worry about others opinions. Free...to just be free.
She smiled as she burned the paper in her hand and reached for another one.
APPALLING.
Hm. Nope. She definitely did not like this one. Her differences didn't have to mean she was appalling. In fact they could mean she was-
Nashi smiled as she uncapped her pen again.
AMAZING.
She watched the paper disintegrate to ashes, and then let the cinders fall from her fingers, feeling as if the fears she'd carried for six years were slipping away with the ashes.
She brushed her fingers off and reached for another piece of paper.
MISTAKE.
She didn't like to think of herself as a mistake. Sure, she wasn't planned. She knew that from her parents stories. But that didn't mean she was a mistake. She was here for a reason, right? She had-
PURPOSE.
Nashi brushed the ashes off her hands again as she picked up the next word.
FREAK.
Hm. Well, she was certainly...different. But did they have to keep calling her a freak. Rude! She wasn't a freak, she was-
UNIQUE.
She wadded the paper up, lit it, and tossed it over her shoulder.
WRONG.
RIGHT.
These were actually getting easier. Nashi smiled as she picked up the next paper.
EVIL.
GOOD.
She tossed another flaming wad of paper over her shoulder as she picked up the next one.
DANGEROUS.
Nashi stared at it for a while. She'd been thinking to herself this whole time about how much she wanted to keep people safe. She nodded to herself as she uncapped her pen once more.
PROTECTOR.
The ashes had just finished falling through her fingers when she heard-
"Nashi!"
Nashi whirled around to find Lucy standing in her bedroom door.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked.
"Mommy, I can-"
"You forgot to put hero up there," Lucy said with a smile as she pointed to the mirror.
Nashi just stared at her mother for a moment. Did that really just happen?
"And beautiful," Lucy continued. "And brave. And confident. C'mon, Nashi, I raised you better than this."
Nashi shook her head to free herself from her stunned state and wrote the words her mother had said onto the mirror.
HERO.
BEAUTIFUL.
CONFIDENT.
"That's better," Lucy smiled with a nod as she drew closer to her daughter. "Except you missed one. Lucy held up the final piece of paper.
Nashi took it and read it.
MONSTER.
Well, hero was a good comeback for that. Beautiful and confident were just extras. And nice ones at that. Nashi smiled as she burned the paper and then stared at herself in the mirror, surrounded by these newly elected words she'd chosen to imprint onto herself.
WONDER.
ATTRACTIVE.
FREE.
AMAZING.
PURPOSE.
UNIQUE.
PROTECTOR.
BEAUTIFUL.
CONFIDENT.
HERO.
Lucy moved and stood behind Nashi, wrapping her arms around her neck, and tucking the top of Nashi's head under her chin.
"So, you're not mad at me for this, right?" Nashi asked.
"Nah," Lucy answered. "It looks better that way, actually."
Nashi smiled, looking at herself in the mirror once more before deciding to add one more word.
POWERFUL.
AN: That's the last for this mini-series. I just want to say thank you guys for supporting these "trauma" one-shots. I know they've been a bit depressing but...they're something I had to write. As I'm sure you all know I escaped an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship earlier this year and a lot of Nashi's journey in these past four chapters have been similar to the one I've had to take. However, being a writer, this is how a decompress and clean out wounds so they can heal. So, thank you for the support, and thank you for making me feel safe sharing this with you.
God bless you all.