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║buried snow, angel flakes ━━━ (CHAPTER FOUR)
IT WASN'T MY FAULT, eleven-year-old Anemone defended herself nonchalantly without sounding offended by the accusation, or at least what she assumed was an accusation by the Master of the Grimoire Tower.
"Tell me the whole story from your perspective, then." Drouot said calmly. Anemone would've thought he was going to reprimand her but fell briefly distracted to the glimmer in his eye that every elderly seemed to possess that she still couldn't decipher. Like wisdom compressed into a star. She'd like something like that very much, to seem wiser than she is.
This wasn't the first time he had asked for her to speak on her own behalf. Every time she caused trouble elsewhere in the village, the shallow-minded villagers pictured her as an unstable child. Not a monster nor a villain at least, but they deemed her unusual like they were excluding her from being human which she really think she is, otherwise, why else would she look like them and have magic like them?
Sometimes, Anemone imagined herself over an electrical line burned to a crisp like a rotisserie chicken ready to be plated on a golden platter for God's meal, as morticians would crack open her skull once they drop her on the table and peek inside her noggin', only to find out that her brain had been chewed-up bubblegum that God found on the pavements when creating her, slapping it inside her empty skull. Then she'd imagine God's lips to curl back into a distasteful frown as He'd throw her away despite the morticians haven seasoned her with lemon and some cumin. And it was only because when He cut into her, the ancient bubblegum He slapped inside her head eleven years ago made a companion rotting away at the crown of her skull. Some sort of grey matter, or maybe it wasn't even grey, maybe it was tar-black or some sort of universal colour darker than black, clinging itself to the pinky decaying flesh and meshing circular thoughts together saturated in perennial nothingness. A waste of space, ashes of a corrupted consciousness representing the tragedy she was.
(Ugly thoughts for an empty child, perfect ain't it?)
"Axel Burns..." She began, recalling the countryside noble's name and unwinding herself from her uncomfortable sitting position (always sit properly and no slouching, her mother's words echo in her head of nothingness). "He insulted Asta the other day, called him a magicless nobody. I was supposed to punch him yesterday but then Yuno and Asta held me back so I didn't punch him yesterday. But today I did."
"Because you wanted to punch him yesterday?"
"Because today he... he stole my worn out shoes and made fun of it." She furrowed her eyebrows together and only now realises that it must've been stupid to punch someone twice her size over them making fun of her shoes. She could've asked him nicely.
"You could've asked him to stop and give your shoes back."
"But he was annoying." She protested. Drouot had a funny expression cross his features. She slumped in her chair, dropping her shoulders as her mother's rebuke about having to sit properly left her head.
