yo, whaddup fam. my name is Kian, your friendly neighbourhood trans dude. Sometimes I attempt to write. Most times I stare at blank word documents for an hour. follow for literary chaos.
"In the same way that your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don't, then it doesn't." -- Brennan Lee Mulligan, D20, Fantasy High
Rain beats against the darkened window, a pretty nice storm welling up out there in the night. The lights have been flickering every once in a while and you wonder if the whole power might go out. Certainly not the worst time for it, what with the tiny vampire you've invited into your home for the night. For a sleepover, no less, and you keep asking if she can sleep but she never answers. Just smiles at you, offers a conspiratorial wink that maybe? You're supposed to understand?
You don't.
Alice kind of makes you feel like you were dropped on your head as a baby. Nothing too major, Charlie didn't spike you onto the kitchen floor, just a fumble. A little bonk somewhere down the line. A reason why your brain refuses to work around her and, you know, why long division is so fucking hard.
"Nobody does makeup, Bella," Alice chastises you. Her pale fingers pick through the little bag she brought over, a small thing that probably costs more than your phone. She has some kind of station set up on your dresser and you wonder, idly as you smoke in the window of your bedroom - cracked just enough to let it out and not let the rain in. Mostly. You wonder how she fit all that into the little bag. It's... a lot. "You wear makeup. Or apply it. Or both!"
"How about neither?"
"How about boo! Boo on you! Come on, it's a teenage sleepover staple! Everybody does makeovers!" Alice whines. She lifts onto her tiptoes, the pout on her face somehow more powerful, with a loose toss of her inky spikes. "Please?"
God, she's pretty. Too pretty. Too pretty for you and your sarcastic foot in your mouth. "Popcorn is a staple too, but we gave you a pass on that, didn't we?"
"Bella."
"Alice."
Those big golden eyes flutter and the pixie quickly turns her head away - just as you cock yours to the side. She's been acting strange tonight - which is saying something. Alice Cullen is strange. Before you can dwell on it, she's in front of you with her hands on her hips. "I will do it very carefully."
"You sound certain of that."
"It's happening."
"Did you see it?"
"I don't need to," she says and lifts her chin. "I know you-"
"-debatable-"
"And you cannot say no to me. So, whenever you're ready, lay down on the bed."
Your dark eyes slide over to the bed on the other side of the room. A single. You've spent the better part of the night trying not to think about that, think about if Alice can sleep, think about where Alice can sleep. "Why the bed?"
"I'm being careful," Alice says, as if it's obvious.
With a final puff, you stamp out your smoke and slip off the edge of your desk. You stretch your arms up -sticking your tongue out at Alice who watches, playfully impatient- and flop backwards on the bed. "Alright, do your worst. But you're eating popcorn next time or I'm inviting Emmett."
The pixie gasps. "No, Bella! He's a hog! You'll spend the night playing video games and ignoring me!"
"Popcorn it is. Prove your love for me."
Alice says nothing and you feel your joke fall flat on its face. Just as the silence becomes too uncomfortable, you lift your head to look at her, and she's tossing the bag onto the mattress next to you. Strange. You can't put your finger on it and it's driving you just a little bit crazy.
Of course, what little sanity you had left is tossed right out that dark window when Alice hops onto your lap. Actually. Literally. She's far too light - if she were human, you'd be concerned, and settles on you like it's nothing. You're pinned to the spot, each muscle in your body locking up as you stare into gold with wide eyes and, embarrassingly, feel your own heartbeat roaring wildly in your chest. A smile curves her lips up and she reaches a dainty finger out to tap you over that stupid muscle, that idiotic organ, the fucker that's trying to spill all your secrets. "That's lovely," she tells you softly.
"Thanks," you croak out. Why are you always a bog frog around this enchanting, ethereal pixie? "Is this okay?"
"Very much, so." Alice pulls something from the little bag and wiggles her hips, inches up towards your bellybutton to get closer to your face. You can see faint muscle flex under pale skin where her black tank top rides up as she easily holds herself over you. Your fingers twitch and you dig them into the blanket beneath you.
Maybe... maybe makeup isn't so bad, if you get to be this close.
when your born with magic your eyes reflect what type your born with. Fire users have eyes like pools of magma, air users have swirling tornadoes, ice users have glacial expanses. You where born with eyes like black holes.
Nobody ever looks at you, despite you explaining what the Elders explained to you. It's your eyes, just your eyes. They're not just the advertisement of your magic, they are the catalysts, they are your hands, your tools, your embodiment of the power that coils within. No magic spills from your fingers, the air around you doesn't shudder with the power of what you are - ironically, you might be the safest of your kind to be around.
Now, that is.
They don't look at you for a reason, after all.
~~~~
You had green eyes, before. Back when you were just human. It's an important distinction that the Elders teach all of you; not to refer to yourself as more or less human than others. You are human... but also magic. That's all. Especially because some humans are fully capable of magic; enchanters, alchemists, and the like. There's just a few more steps they must walk, while you and your kind house the magic within yourself. All you do is let it out.
It must come out, is the reality that haunts you. There is no containing it, not fully, not for long. The harder you hold onto it, the more it shatters you, the more it seeps from the cracks of your very being, and then accidents happen. Wild tornadoes tearing through villages. Earthquakes that rattle the Mortal Cities, shaking the very foundation they were built upon. Tsunamis swallowing ships, trying to wash away the port cities. Wildfires scorching through the Evertrees.
But people can resist those. Prepare for those accidents. Duck and cover, as it were.
When the fatigue after days, and days, and days of clenching your eyes shut in terror finally wore you down, finally corroded your away every last shred of strength, of endurance you had... you blinked.
You blinked. And Elder Vorus was gone.
~~~~
It's not always people.
In fact, it's rarely people - usually it's books. You've sequestered yourself away, up in the Tower Of Spines. A rather morbid name for the largest library in all the Mortal Cities but it keeps the less read from venturing inside, and you're very okay with that. Less people, less risk. Mostly, just the Elders venture this high up and they speak to you from the next aisle of tomes, careful to keep out of sight.
It's not worth mentioning that you've gone years without an accident. The only things your eyes swallow these days are words. Knowledge. Stories. You have gorged the swirling, coiling beast within on stories, and most days it sleeps like a kitten. When it awakes? Well. Your nook up here, nearer towards the rafters, is made almost entirely of tomes. You have surrounded yourself with a feast to tame that unending hunger within you.
~~~~
So it's a shock, a jolt through your entire being, when this girl looks you directly in the eye.
You don't even really see her, at first. Just her eyes; so very bright and blue. Not a frozen expanse or waves crashing against a rocky cliff, not the calm pools of a pond, or the depths of the ocean. Not even the reflection of the sky.
They're just blue.
And they make your knees wobble.
"Hi. I'm looking for a particular book and they said you'd probably know where it is?"
You're caught there, like a fish in the net that has accepted its fate. Utterly still, eyes wide, simply staring. Waiting. Unable to bring yourself to move, to thrash, to try and escape.
How many years? How many years has it been since anyone has looked you in the eye, never mind casting their gaze near you?
"Sorry, am I interrupting?"
Her head tilts in a way that takes you a few long seconds to identify. You've never seen it before - maybe as a child? But you've read the words that describe it. Concerned. She is concerned. About what? The book?
You shake yourself a little and finally blink - she doesn't even flinch at it. Does she know? Has she any idea who you are? "Which book?" you ask in a voice that sounds twice drowned.
Her smile is back and the hunger within you rumbles as it remains asleep. Instinctively, you look away; aim your gaze down and to the left. Her voice sounds different, after. You cannot identify how. "I don't actually know the name but one of the Elders said it's the only tome the Tower has on the World's Heart?"
Your teeth sink into your bottom lip in an entirely guilty manner. Without meaning to, you glance back up at her with a wince and she looks... amused? Her smile is crooked and you suspect she already knows what you're about to say. "It's gone."
"The only information we have on the World's Heart is gone?"
"Yes. Well, no. I have it but I haven't written it down again. It was a very long book."
"Did you eat it?"
"So you do know who I am?"
The girl's smile never dims and you find yourself comparing it to the sun. Countless days, you have spent looking directly at it, swallowing the light to fill your void with warmth. It's not the same as books but it feels nice inside. Warm.
She makes you feel warm.
"They're lighter than I thought they'd be."
"They're not."
"Do you look at them often?" she challenges.
And you have to relent because, no, you do not look at your reflection ever. It gives you a nosebleed when you do and a migraine for days. Your twenty second birthday was the last time, too curious to see how you had changed from a teenager into an adult, and you woke up on the floor hours later.
So you chew the inside of your cheek and turn away from this girl who keeps staring at you. One of the desks is nearby and you busy yourself with shuffling papers, grabbing a mostly empty one and a pen. "Where do you reside? I can make a note to send you the book once I've written it again."
"How long will that take?"
"Infinitely longer, if I am not left alone to do so," you grumble without thought. Her laughter sounds like chimes in a summer breeze and your wide eyes snap back up to her, drinking in the sight of her happiness. Another satisfied rumble from within, and you cannot look away as your fingers tremble with the pen. "What is your name?"
"Claire. What's yours, Gloomy?"
You frown. "What does that matter?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
"I... yes. I will start working on the book tonight," you assure her. The pen creaks in your hand until you look down at it, and you tap the tip to the paper. "Where shall I send it when it's completed?"
"How about I just keep checking in?" Claire suggests. There's movement that you're unwilling to bring yourself to look up for, until you see her street dusted shoes beside you. She is so very warm, in every sense, and you can feel yourself teetering in that gravitational pull. You've never felt so cold before. "Keep you on track, you know? It's a very important book that you ate."
"More than you know," you find yourself agreeing. There's a reason you ate it, after all. A reason that the beast raged and your knuckles went white, a reason your fingers bled from the dozens of paper cuts in your haste to flip from page to page as fast as you could. The empty tome still sits beneath your hammock, you can feel the energy of the knowledge it once contained. It is, perhaps, the most special book in the entire tower. "Why do you want it?"
"Why not?"
Flummoxed, you can't help but lift your head to look at Claire and find her gazing thoughtfully back at you. You cannot remember a single moment of your life that someone had been this close to you, had looked at you this long. Not since before your eyes changed and that was so long ago the memories are... degraded. Fallible, open to inaccuracies.
"You shouldn't be here," you tell Claire urgently.
Her voice is soft. Her voice is the morning sunrise. "I wander where I may."
"Wherever the sunshine takes you?"
Her smile twists into something fond. "That was pretty sweet, Gloomy. Can I return tomorrow?"
"You shouldn't."
"I'll bring lunch and I expect the first few pages to be written. It's a terribly important book."
affirmations for writers: i know how to write. i have seen sentences before, and i know how to make one. i can identify up to several words and their meanings. i am not afraid of semicolons.