Alura | The Alura Trilogy, Book 1 [She-Ra 2018] ✔

27 | Stripes and Spots

*Reader discretion advised: the first illustration portrays Light Spinner with her self-inflicted scratches (from Chapter 26). If this is triggering, shimmy on past that picture.

My arms are bleeding. Thankfully, there is still gauze in the bathroom.

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Hours passed into the morning with no sign of Light Spinner. When his stomach started rumbling, Micah walked down to the café nearby to purchase breakfast in his broken Meyan. He returned with a few pastries and baguettes, things he'd never eaten before but that Light Spinner had said she enjoyed. Perhaps eating her childhood food would be enough to make her smile.

When he returned to the townhome, Light Spinner was sunken on the couch, her eyes red and swollen. He'd grown used to the fact that she cried in her sleep - it wasn't something he could control, nor did she want help with it - but there was something new. Her arms were slashed with pink marks to the elbow, some of the marks scabs rather than simple scratches.

Micah cautiously stepped forward, and she glared at him. "Why did you leave?"

"I was hungry," he said. "The food didn't cost that many crescents. Here, have some."

"No thanks," she mumbled, shifting the blanket to cover the marks on her arms before Micah could further study them.

He took a bite of one of the pastries - he would definitely visit Delvala every now and then to savor their sweet, fancy food. "What's with your arms?"

"I was getting firewood while you were out. They don't hurt." She rose. "I'm going to get ready for the day."

That's not right. Light Spinner never wore her nightgown in front of him during the day, and if she'd been collecting firewood while he was gone, she would have either used kinesis magic or worn long sleeves, like she usually did in the winter. But what other explanation was there? Nobody was around to hurt her here. She could only have gotten those scrapes from some sort of jagged edge.

Why is she avoiding me? He finished his food, then went into the master bedroom, though she didn't approve of it. Sure enough, more firewood rested by the hearth near her bed. He sighed; perhaps the weather was just so cold it was interfering with her concentration on spells right now.

Light Spinner exited the restroom, wearing a velvet shirt and a pair of long half-finger gloves. Her purple skirts swept the floor as she dusted makeup on her eyes, not even caring that he was in a place he wasn't supposed to be. Or maybe she's too tired to care. How late was she awake last night?

Micah inhaled. Talk gently. Seems like she had a rough night. "So...where are you going today?"

She frowned, turning her back on him and exchanging her blue veil for a purple one. "To the shop. I'm buying a potion of absorption."