Frostbitten Past

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 "YOU NEED to stay focused. Picture yourself standing over there, by those trees."

Andorra was training again, this time with a different task. Teleportation was not a skill every faerie possessed, but it had been common knowledge that her parents both honed this skill, and it made perfect sense that Andorra may as well.

So far, practicing had gotten her nowhere. Instead, she had a headache and she was growing more frustrated.

"Maybe I don't have it." She muttered, focusing on a cluster of pines across from the path they were standing on. The cluster was covered in snow, and the patch beneath them that she eyed was shady and untouched. She pictured herself over there, standing ankle deep in the snow, waving to her trainer with excitement. But the more she tried to picture it, the harder it became to focus.

"I think you have it," the trainer said, placing his hand on her head. "This was how your parents moved between worlds, from the human plane to the fae plane."

She turned towards her trainer, eyebrows drawn. "I thought they opened a gate."

He removed his hand from her head and sighed. "They did. That was how they got others to come over. Think of the gate as a rip in time and space. When they teleport, they slide through time and space to get to different places. When they invite people with them, they rip a hole while doing so."

She didn't understand him, or what that meant, but she kept trying to picture herself over there, beneath the trees. She narrowed her eyes, projecting herself over there, but still she couldn't quite get it to work.

She stomped her foot in frustration. "This is impossible." She wished she'd just grown up as a faerie so that by now, it was second nature to use her powers. She felt it unfair that she was so behind, struggling to do the most basic magic tricks.

Her trainer shook his head. "No, not impossible."

As far as her trainer was concerned, she could learn her powers after they arrived in Anlithamy. For now, they just needed to focus on getting there.

The snow fell around them, and Andorra tried not to focus on the tremors running through her body. It's not that cold, she told herself while focusing on the bunch of trees. Cut a hole... cut a hole... slip through space and time... It was impossible, she felt. She wished her birth parents were there to teach her how they did it, since they were great at it already. She wondered how they learned how to do it in the first place, and who taught them.

She felt her trainer's hands on her shoulders, grounding her. It felt almost soothing, and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to pull up her magic from inside. But, it was no use; she didn't feel an ounce of magic inside of her.

She opened her eyes, focusing back on the cluster of trees. She wished, not for the first time, that her powers were more physical. It would have been so much easier to learn her magic if she could see it, or if she could touch it. Instead, it was somewhere hidden inside of her, deep down.

She thought of Lithe's words from the day before. Pretending you're some ignorant damsel in distress. Was that how Andorra came across? As some ignorant damsel? She hated that people thought that of her, but that was her. She was lost, and she was ignorant to her heritage.

But, she didn't have to be, and that thought burned through her. It burned down her spine, into her limbs, into every crevice in her body. She didn't have to be this way. When she remembered killing the man in the hallway of her high school, it had been someone else. Someone carved out of anger that had taken over her body and her mind, but even so, her powers had flowed so easily.