Liliene, a blond girl of nine years, ran through empty, white corridors. She darted to the metal slab that served as a door and back to her guardian-cum-big sister.
“Nex! Hurry! Neeeex!”
That day was going to be Liliene’s first magic lesson. She had been raised and lulled to sleep for years by tales about her mother’s sisters. Not that she had ever met them; apparently, they were sleeping in tubes?
But Liliene could tell how awe-inspiring they must have been from her mother’s proud voice when she recounted their prowess. One could split the earth in two, another melt a mountain, and yet another freeze an ocean. Liliene had no idea how vast the ocean was, but it was said to be so big that you couldn’t see the other end.
Nex walked at her own pace, hands folded over her belly.
“Patience, Lili. Your attitude is unbecoming of a princess.”
Yes, she was a princess. Apparently. Nex had been drilling that part into her head since she was little, well, littler. Still, if she truly was a princess, that was a very peculiar castle, and she had no subjects.
Liliene stopped, raised her left hand in the air, and gave Nex the big eyes, the ones that always worked.
The sigh leaving Nex’s mouth was the sweet sound of victory. It was her favorite sound and a daily occurrence.
Now side by side with her big sister, Liliene dragged Nex to the door’s controls and pressed her palm against the panel, above the crude drawing of a hand. A line of green light ran down the panel from top to bottom, and it flashed green.
Liliene ran to stand in front of the round metal door; she had always liked the part that blew air before the door actually opened. A big pshht accompanied the blast of air in her face, messing up her hair and eliciting a carefree giggle.
The two of them left the flat, clinical white of their home and made their way deeper into the forest until reaching a spring. Liliene's mother stood still and looked at the sky.
“Mama!” The girl ran and tackled the blue-haired doll. “Where were you? You were gone all morning.”
“Patrolling,” Luna answered, dropping her hand over Liliene’s head. She looked at Nex and shook her head. “Nothing around, as usual, save for the settlement south.”
“Will you really be able to teach her how to use her blood? I can teach her the shadow’s side if she awakens to that side of her mother’s powers, but I know nothing about blood magic,” Nex said as she joined them.
“I know the theory behind it. It’s very similar to hydromancy, just more specialized.” Luna looked down at the little girl still clinging to her leg. “Look, Lili.”
The air grew dry as a ball of water gathered above Luna’s palm. It shifted, taking various forms: a running horse, a flying bird Liliene didn’t know the name of, then the sculpture settled into a small version of herself dancing.
“Hehe!”
“That’s your power. You will be able to do the same, just with your blood.”
“My blood?” Liliene had bled a few times when she had fallen or run too hard into a wall. Best not to ask about the last part. But they all had one thing in common: they weren’t particularly enjoyable experiences. “But how?”
“You could harden a drop into a pike and pierce your skin from the inside; that’s how Theresa used to do it,” Luna offered neutrally.
What about no? “I… I don’t really want to.”
“You need just a few drops to start with, Princess,” Nex said encouragingly.
Before Liliene could decide on her own, a thin layer of mist slid around her hand, and when she looked at it after the mist dispersed, the tip of her index finger was cut. Nex shot a disapproving glare at Luna but said nothing.
“She needs to start training,” Luna said, then looked at Liliene. “Did it hurt?”
Liliene could only shake her head. She hadn’t felt a thing.
What followed were gruesome and boring hours of Liliene staring menacingly at a droplet of now-dried blood.
“Mama, how do you fight?” Liliene asked, more as an excuse for a distraction than anything else.
“I need to prioritize efficiency now,” her mother answered. She gathered a ball of water and thinned it into a blade. “I arrange water in a monomolecular lattice structure and vibrate it.” To illustrate her point, she picked up a branch and let it fall over her water blade. It continued its course as if nothing had been in its way. When Luna picked it up, it was perfectly cut in the middle.
“Mole-kul? Lattice?” Liliene looked at Nex for help and found none.
“I’ll teach you in time. But first, you need to move that drop in your palm.”
In the end, Liliene moved the drop. It wasn’t anything impressive, but she jumped for joy. She hoped that in time she would be able to make moving sculptures like her mother.
“Do we have to go back?” Liliene asked, still riding the high of her first success. “I want to stay outside more…” She pleaded, giving Nex the big eyes. It had never really worked on her mother. “And you said there was nothing around, right?”
“Nothing dangerous lives around here. I didn’t even spot bears or wolves,” Luna said to Nex.
“Alright, but you can’t go south, you hear me?” her big sister agreed. “I’ll know if you do.”
“Yes!”
Liliene liked the forest. It was certainly prettier than their home, the air felt good, and the canopy was thick enough to protect her skin from the sun.
“Now… which way is south?” she asked herself and picked a direction at random. Even at random, the odds were against her going south anyway. It was only one direction against… all the other ones.
That day, Liliene would catch a glimpse of a girl carrying wonders. A shame the girl would run away immediately.
***
Little Laura wasn’t one to play with the other children. Not that she didn’t like their company, but she simply failed to connect with them. She couldn’t hold the boys’ attention, nor did she share the other girls’ fascination with dolls and flowers.
The newly founded frontier settlement left a lot to be desired, at least when it came to passing the time for children. The surroundings were still wild and empty, and the adults were busy; all she had were the fancy relics crowding the shop’s storeroom.
As she did every afternoon when she didn’t have to attend lessons or help in her parents’ shop, she dove into the nearby forest, clutching a small cube in her hands. Said cube was inscribed with fine letters along the edges in a language she didn’t understand. In truth, it was a toy far too expensive for a child to possess.
Laura followed the well-trodden path in the woods, then turned left, knowing that behind the thick bushes lay a quiet clearing only she knew about.
She plopped herself on her belly, little feet dangling in the air, and carefully placed the artifact on the ground. She then pressed down on a small, hidden switch. Gears turned, and little clicks could be heard from inside the cube until the lid at its top opened.
It wasn’t anything grand, just a recording of snow falling. Laura turned and lay on her back, watching fake snowflakes fall around her. The sight drew a sharp intake of breath, but not hers.
At the other end of the clearing stood a small girl, probably around her age, with long blond hair and red eyes, wearing a nondescript white dress. Her eyes and mouth were wide open in wonder.
Laura wasn’t looking at the snow anymore: her eyes were glued to the other girl. Her hair waved in the breeze, sometimes catching the light beyond the tree line to shine gold, and her skin was almost as pale as the snowflakes twirling between them.
Then their eyes met, and the unknown girl gave Laura a little wave.
Laura picked up the cube and ran away.
Is that girl from the village? Who is she? My parents can’t know I took the projector. Her thoughts swirled, giving way to panic.
Back at the village, Laura sneaked into her parents’ shop from the back door and replaced the borrowed artifact. She let out a breath. No one had caught her.
Laura knew everyone in the village. At least, she thought that she did. But it wasn’t exactly a big place with its total of six children, so she was rather confident. And the other little girl she had seen certainly wasn’t from here.
When it was dinnertime, Laura asked her mother, “Mom, is there another village close to ours?”
“Not for leagues. Why?”
“I think… I think I saw a fairy.”
***
Snowflakes falling in the summer. They passed through Liliene’s hand, leaving neither cold nor water behind. Were they an illusion? If that was magic, she wanted to learn something as pretty as that spell.
“Mama! Can I play outside?”
Luna’s eyes unfocused for a second. She then nodded and resumed her work on a screen with letters and numbers scrolling so quickly that Liliene couldn’t even read a single one.
“You can. Don’t go south… this time.”
Liliene pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling. She had no idea how to whistle yet, but she felt the urge to, for some reason. She wanted to run outside already and see if the girl from yesterday would be there, but she was also curious about what her mother was reading. She understood little about her own home.
“What are you doing?”
“Reviewing logs.”
“Logs?”
“Records of what happened here.”
Liliene tensed. Did her mother know about the cake she wasn’t supposed to eat? Was it written in there?
“What are you looking for?” Liliene asked, taking a discreet step backward.
“To this day, I still don’t understand how we lost.”
“Hm? Lost what?” The cake wasn’t exactly lost, per se…
“Long before I belonged to your father. Long before he was born, even. I was out on a sortie when I received the order to shut down. So I did. My memory is blank between then and my awakening at your father's hands. By comparing celestial maps and calculating axial precession, I estimate I slept for 2,400 years.”
“Oh…” Those certainly were complicated words.
Liliene wasn’t exactly sad; she had never known her dad. Besides, her mama was enough. And Nex, too, was as cuddly as she wanted her to be.
“Was he nice?”
Luna paused, blinking as she reviewed her memories of him. “Not really,” she answered plainly. “But… I think he was what people call a good man.”
Did that stir something in Liliene’s heart? She wasn’t sure; she just felt a vague, warm feeling about her father being a good person. She pulled the small medallion out from under her neckline and fiddled with it. It was gold and bare, with the profile of a man roughly carved onto it. After giving it a small smile, she put it back under her dress.
“Now, I estimate you have around ten minutes before Nex wakes up from her nap and starts stalking you.”
Liliene nodded and ran away with a grin. After slamming her hand against the panel and feeling the usual burst of air, she bolted outside. She went north like a good girl, circled the mound hiding their home, and headed south unnoticed.
As she approached the clearing from the day prior, Liliene killed any noise she could make while walking. Except for the small twigs cracking under her feet, the bushes scratching her clothes, and the few times she lost her footing and fell.
The girl from yesterday was already there. But today, she wasn’t playing with anything yet; the little girl, with her tousled orange hair tied in a loose, messy braid, was looking left and right as if searching for something.
Liliene hid behind the nearest tree, pressing her body against its trunk. Her hand came away tacky with sap. “Ew,” she couldn’t help muttering, and tried to clean her hand by scraping it against the tree’s bark.
She heard a giggle coming from the clearing, followed by mechanical ticks. Liliene expected snow to appear, as on the previous day, but instead heard a slow tune playing. The sound wasn’t that good; it was constantly interrupted by a scratching, grating noise that reminded Liliene of someone running a nail along fabric. But there was a feminine voice, ringing clear as crystal during the clean parts.
“It’s old, and you can’t change which tune it plays. But I like her voice,” said the lone girl to no one.
Liliene poked her head around the side of the tree, and the girl was already looking in her direction, a shy smile on her face. She had been found.
“H-Hi,” the girl said with a wave. “I’m sorry for running away yesterday, Miss Fairy.”
Fairy? Liliene wasn’t too sure what the girl meant, but she returned the wave. “Hi. I’m Liliene. But you can call me Lili.” She proudly brought a hand to her chest and stood straighter. “I’m not a fairy. I’m a princess!”
“Lili…” the girl repeated as if in awe. “I’m Laura.”
A beat of silence passed between the two of them.
“Do you like that song?” Laura asked.
“Hm.” Liliene nodded. “Her voice is pretty. Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” Laura answered, shaking her head. “Most artifacts… we don’t know what purpose they serve, or who made them.” At least, that was what Laura had heard her mother say, so it was probably the truth. “Do you want to come closer?” Laura offered gently.
“I… I can’t.” Liliene extended her hand and exposed it to the sun. Her skin slowly turned redder. “The sun hurts.”
“The sun?” Laura said, then looked at the clear summer sky. Liliene was really pale; maybe the sun was particularly harsh on her skin. “Then I’ll come.”
She picked up today’s artifact, some sort of sphere with two flat sides, and joined Lili in the shade.
“Wow… You’re really pretty up close,” Laura said, then quickly covered her mouth as if she could somehow take the words back. Time didn’t work like that.
“Thanks!” Lili answered, unbothered. “You’re also cute. I like the… What are they called? The spots on your nose?”
“Freckles?”
“I like your freckles!”
The two girls shared wonders and secrets, already best friends as only children their age could be in such a short time. Their time together came to an end when a girl with pitch-black hair and horns curling around the top of her head appeared behind Liliene.
“Nex!” Lili exclaimed, grabbing Laura’s hand. “That’s Laura. We’re friends!”
Another girl, her hair a vivid blue, appeared next to them.
“Mama?”
That’s her mother? Laura thought. She looks so young.
Luna and Nex exchanged a glance. “I can fill her lungs with water; it’ll look like pneumonia.”
“Mama?” Liliene asked again, feeling the shift in the atmosphere more than she understood what they were talking about. Her grip on Laura’s hand tightened.
Liliene knew she had done something bad. She went south again, and she met someone. She knew her family had to always play hide-and-seek, never to be found, never to talk to anyone. But she already liked Laura; she didn’t want to be separated. Following an instinct lodged deep inside her, she pulled Laura against her.
Chomp.
Her canines, newly grown past her other teeth, sank into the girl’s neck.
“Lili, you can’t!” Nex grabbed her and hauled her back, separating them.
“But I want to see her again!” Liliene fought against her big sister’s hold on her.
Nex pulled Liliene against her, biting her lip. “Luna,” Nex said in a weak voice, drawing the doll’s attention to her. She then shook her head. “She needs a life.”
“That’s an unnecessary risk,” Luna answered flatly.
“What were your orders?”
“To give Liliene a peaceful life.”
“You certainly nailed the peaceful part. It’s time we give her the other half. She needs friends.”
Luna said nothing for a while. She blinked once, twice, and then nodded. “Acknowledged.” Liliene breathed a sigh of relief. It was hard to make anything out of her mother’s expression, yet she could feel that whatever tension had been there was gone. “You’re still grounded,” Luna added, looking at Lili.
“Yes!” Lili agreed with a wide smile. She turned toward Laura and gave a timid wave, just as she did the first time they had seen each other. “I-I’ll come back soon. Promise!”
Nex knelt in front of the human girl. Killing her would be the proper thing to do, as far as security was concerned, but her princess liked that one.
“Do you like Lili?” Nex asked, her voice gentle.
“Y-Yes.”
“Can you keep what you saw today a secret?”
Laura glanced between the girl with blue hair, the horns on Nex’s head, and Liliene’s red eyes, and pursed her lips. She nodded timidly.
“I promise…”
Laura stood still, stunned and lost, as the trio retreated deep into the woods. Her hand absentmindedly rubbed her neck. How weird; she had been bitten, and yet she had felt no pain at all.