Thousands of years ago a war broke out on a distant island, splitting its occupants into factions. Alifero, Cornucopia, Querencia and Aranea. The tension between them that has been unyielding for centuries only grows when their precious water starts...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
After the doctor disappeared, everything happened on its own. I processed nothing and let my muscle memory put on the mask. Like a good girl, I smiled for the boys whilst they were excited, then said I was tired and told them to go and eat something. They all hugged me one last time and then left me in that bleak hospital room with all the thoughts I couldn't control.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry or shout or leap up and down just to feel something. My body and mind became disconnected and I had no control. Occasionally, my act would fall through after a bout of silence lasted too long, or through a stare I'd left unfocused until someone snapped me out of it. They'd ask me what was wrong, and I'd smile and say that I was just tired.
Just as the doctor had said, she returned with the nurse to debrief me. She gave me a set of instructions to follow including how to change my bandage for the next day and the physical therapy exercises I needed to regain strength in my new wing. All the while, her dark eyes never left my face, I knew she was the only one here who saw straight through me. She must be a good doctor to be able to understand her patients with just one look.
After they gave me a shit tonne of healing potions, Ranboo teleported us back to Querencia. The slowly turning orange leaves greeted us on the edge of the forest by Tubbo's house. It looked too picturesque, the quaint house nestled in a garden that bloomed no matter what the season. A deep breath of the sweet air was enough to make me teary. I wanted to be carefree with them. Whilst Tommy and Tubbo dashed into the house, gushing about my new flight training, Ranboo offered to take me home. The look on his face told me he knew something was up. I just shook my head, assuring him I was fine; home wasn't going to feel like home for a long time anyway.
I couldn't sleep, no matter how close Tommy pulled me into his chest at night. No matter how warm I was in the cold, scruffy house, I couldn't feel a thing. Thoughts kept me up all night until the golden sunrise peeped through the little patchwork curtains in Tommy's bedroom. Regrets made me restless and the weeping girl in my chest could not be consoled. The moments that had given me joy only a few days ago paled in comparison to my wild imaginings.
We never spoke of how I really felt aloud, but Tommy wasn't dumb enough to fall for my actions after the second time I shrugged and said "I'm fine". Each time he laughed at himself or a mistake he had made, I could feel his glance on me, waiting for me to wake up and laugh too. There was nothing he could say or do that would snap me out of this listlessness.
My head had become a beehive of thoughts. They all usually went the same way.
My own mother, the woman who was meant to love me the most out of anyone else, neglected me and rejected me because of my wing. The wing that was now perfectly healed, waiting for me to start exercising it so that it can take me into the clouds. To my family, I am the tainted part of an otherwise seamless legacy that was founded by my great, great, great grandmother. I am the fifth generation of Craftiers, and I somehow managed to ruin everything.
