oleander

0.1: POWER

Odette Michaels was a normal girl. Born in Australia to a pair of completely normal parents. Nothing seemed odd or out of place. Except for the white hair. And the nightmares.

After she made five years old, the girl would wake up screaming from nightmares and wouldn't stop crying for hours. When she turned nine, the girl began to scribble drawings. Stick figures with striking blue eyes wielding swords or bows. When asked, she would refer to him as "the boy from my dreams".

Unknown to any of them, the boy from her dreams was more than a child's scribbles.

Saul Silva was very real. He was 10 and having nightmares of his father that would cause him to be inconsolable. He was 14 when he picked up a sword for the first time. He was 15 when he began seeing her in his dreams too. When he began his training at Alfea, he asked a mind fairy if they could look into his memories and draw her. Despite being scolded about focusing on his training by the then Headmistress, he continued to carry the drawing with him. He carried it with him when he graduated from Alfea, and he carried it when Rosalind recruited him to fight the Burned Ones.

When Odette was ten, she developed a fascination with fire and water. Her parents would often find her staring at the flame of a lit candle and fought to convince her to get out of the bath. She would only go to bed when her parents reminded her of the boy. And she wouldn't dare tell them he was no longer a boy. When she turned twelve, Odette found herself waking from nightmares again. Nightmares of monsters with charred, black skin and eyes that glowed orange. Nightmares of the boy turned man turned warrior fighting them. Losing those fights.

By her thirteenth birthday, she had learned to stifle her sobs when she dreamt of the man losing his life to the creatures. Fire and water called to her, relaxed her when she couldn't calm. She came to realize that when she dreamt of him, and her emotions were strong, they bent to her will. She'd dreamt of him for as long as she could remember, but on the day of her fourteenth birthday, something changed.

2004

She'd been staring out the window of her classroom, daydreaming of him.

He was running. Fighting. Killing.

At that moment, the fire alarms in her school started going off. She jerked from her daydream and saw her reflection in the glass. A reflection with bright orange irises. They faded within a second as the students were ushered to an area of school grounds away from the buildings.

One of the ovens in the cafeteria had "malfunctioned" and caught fire. Then the sprinkler system failed to activate.

But as Odette watched the flames lick at the building as sirens approached, there was no doubt in her mind that she had caused the fire.

That night, she was in her room, watching in the mirror hung on the closet door as her eyes turned a startling shade of orange when she concentrated on fire. She was scared of it. Scared that she was becoming one of the monsters that the man fought. So she dumped all her school supplies out of her bookbag and stuffed as many clothes as she could into it. She left a note on the kitchen counter and slipped out of the front door.

Her parents found the slip of paper the next morning, with the words:

I can't hurt you. I'm dangerous. Please don't look for me.

-Odette

But they did look for her. For months.

She had managed to get out of the small town and made it to the next, where she learned she could trick shopkeeps and security cameras, allowing her to slip in and out of stores undetected. It wasn't long, a few days, two weeks at most, before she was approached by a woman. She was confused. How did this woman find her on a random rooftop when she was projecting an image of nothing?

"Hello. I know you think I can't see you, but I know you're there. Your magic won't work against mine."

Reluctantly, the girl let down the projection, the rich purple fading from her eyes.

"My name is Farah. Can you tell me your name?"

Eyeing the woman cautiously, the girl mutters, "Odette."

"Odette. Like Swan Lake?"

"It was Mom's favorite ballet." She plays with the fraying hem of her shirt.

"I think you're very powerful, Odette. A fairy. If you'd allow me to, I'd like to search your memories, and see if I'm right."

"Why? Why can't I just show you my powers?"

"This is safe. I've trained my entire life to master my magic. I've been tracking you since the day of the fire. We don't want another one, do we?"

After a moment's silence, the girl relents. "Fine."

Farah slips into Odette's memory easily. The day of the fire, the dreams of Saul at different points in their lives, Aster Dell. "Well, you certainly are powerful. You've been unconsciously tapping into the memories of someone you've never met. I know him. He's a dear friend of mine."

"He's hurting," Odette mutters, her eyes glowing purple. "He was close with the man he killed. I can feel his sadness."

"Yes. His name is Saul. He's struggling right now. But I'd like to focus on you. I want to bring you to people that can help you learn to master your magic. One day, you'll get to meet him. Would you like that?" She steps closer to the teenager.

"Please."