[attr="class","hkappbody2"]

[attr="class","hkappbody3"]

you're alone, you're on your own

---

a house that echoes, a house that dwarfs, a house where the tick tick tick of an old grandfather clock is swallowed by the vast, stifling silence that blankets the grandiose rooms. dust motes in just cleaned corners, velvet upholstery hidden in secret rooms, a staircase that sweeps up from the hall and spirals into the depths of a too big house.[break][break]

"children should be seen and not heard"[break][break]

she grows up invisible - inaudible footsteps on marble floors; she is as much ghost as the portraits of her long forgotten ancestors depicted in oil and pigment, consigned to a steady stream of tutors and teachers that see only her name.[break][break]

she is a porcelain doll, a pretty little figure to complete the familial picture in photos and public and to be dressed up and paraded about when image matters most, then taken back home to be shelved and never looked upon again until another situation demands her presence. [break][break]

it is not so much loneliness as quiet resignation.[break][break]

so what, have you gone blind?

---

she remembers this: [break][break]

[break][break]

she doesn't remember this:[break][break]

falling, yanked from the debris as the sole survivor to a destroyed house, desperate medics and healers and a steady rotation of doctors and purifiers as they try to break the tangle of spells upon her, fretting relatives she never even knew existed and the wrath of the Fei house decendent

[break][break]

she wakes up to this: [break][break]

nothing.

[break][break]

never-ending, all-consuming, terrible terrifying darkness. [break][break]

she wakes up blind to an unknown spell no purifier was able to break.[break][break]

have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?

---

"what use is a blind child to the house of Fei?" - said with distain.[break][break]

"poor child, must be traumatised" - said with pity.[break][break]

"blind? how weak. pathetic. should have died with her parents" - the worst of the whispers behind her back.[break][break]

hushed voices follow in her wake like a cape of tattered gauze, sheer and insubstantial like the wind but ice cold and sharp like a thousand tiny papercuts slicing into her skin. she is a Fei of the main bloodline, strong magic, powerful magic flowing through her veins no matter her physical condition; she is true-bred, noble-blooded, magic-saturated - and that is enough for them.[break][break]

adopted by her childless aunt and uncle, she is suddenly heiress with a silver circlet, bitter irony forged into the heart of her crown.[break][break]

you've got it all

---

there are lessons crammed into each waking hour - ikebana, ceremonies, traditions, history, diplomacy, magecraft, etiquette - but she cannot afford to falter here, not when the iron weight of her family's reputation and expectations rest upon the slope of her shoulders. her disability already sets her apart, sets her behind; she must excel in all other areas where she is not so lacking.[break][break]

square your shoulders, hold your head high

[break]

home is even grander than that of her childhood, grander and more obsequious for the farce they play for society, and she wants for nothing that money can buy; but home manages to be emptier than ever despite the ever-present servants and the attention of her new parents.[break][break]

you lost your mind in the sound

---

sweeping motion of a violin bow, crystal notes drawn out from taut silver strings. fingers against ivory keys; sable and ivory and golden pedals with nimble hands. humming, songs and lyrics and chords gilt on her tongue, colouring the world in the only way she knows. music needs no sight to be beautiful.[break][break]

an escape suitable for a girl of her standing, an intuitive understanding etched in her bones, a passion she will never be able to pursue as she wishes.[break][break]

music.[break][break]

there's so much more

---

they are so bright when she meets them; fire, water, and earth, brilliant and passionate and charismatic in a way she can only ever wish for. aisling is air, is wind, invisible until seen, insubstantial until she's not; she's quiet and calm and pale and so very different.[break][break]

but they are all the same, in a way, all slaves to the shackles of societal constructs, tradition and expectation and an old old name weighing heavily in their eyes. aisling fits right in (not really), clicks in a way she has with no other (but she has met so very few); she is the soft touch, the pale ivory of aged parchment and history written in fine ink, she is the soothing murmur of a light breeze, the dove grey of a universal constant-[break][break]

you can reclaim your crown

---

theirs is a time-honoured tradition of serving in the helios knights, crimson and gold and justice in a mantle of strength. she will be no different, is no different from the ancestors she has been taught to revere; she follows in steps far too deep to ever fulfill - but duty is a weight she willingly bears for the divine gift that is life.[break][break]

she is not alone however, and there is strength to be drawn from the presence of her closest friends, their bonds like glimmering gossamer chains embedded deep in her skin; she blinks and the stars scatter in their wake, swept up into the fabric of reality that seeks to hold everything within its grasp; she turns and there is the ghost of a song underlying the movement of the universe.[break][break]

you can be king again

---

she has long since resigned herself to the darkness that permeates her world, long since gotten used to functioning without the sight she'd once loved. her familiar sees for her where she cannot, whispers into her mind the pitfalls and obstacles present, a guiding presence on her shoulder and in the air such that sometimes it is as if she were not blind.[break][break]

but it is a flicker of light, of blue-grey in an instant-[break][break]

[break]

-gone within the blink of an eye with nothing to say it had ever been; but she knows- she knows; and when it happens again, a wavering of the veil over her eyes as if a mirage had flickered momentarily to release a phantom of the true world, aisling... hopes.[break][break]

(the spell is fading, the purifiers say; the spell, your condition, it is fading)[break][break]

and aisling dreams.