Chapter Text
The first time Alina ever called up her sunlight, she had been a young girl. Her and Mal had been half playing, half sharing an interactive story about a princess, a knight, and a dragon. Mal had taken on the role of the knight; stick in hand, he bravely stood against the fearsome dragon. Alina had taken on the role of the dragon. When they had been coming up with their story, Mal had first made the mistake of suggesting she’d be a beautiful princess.
“Who needs beauty?” Alina had retorted. “I’ll be a terrifying dragon and inspire fear in the hearts of all who look upon me! I will burn my enemies to ash!”
Although young, Alina had already felt the sting of others disregard and bullying for her heritage. She had been told she had ugly, slanty Shu eyes or had people talking over her head as if she couldn’t speak Ravkan. She could have shrunk at their harassment, made herself small and tried to avoid notice. But instead, Alina had felt a spark of pure fury. If they wouldn’t accept her, then she didn’t care about them at all. She would not allow their words to touch her, and she certainly wouldn’t be playing a dainty princess.
Mal had accepted her words without surprise or objection, which was another reason why he was her favorite; favorite playmate, favorite (and only) friend, favorite person in general.
“Alright, you’re a terrifying dragon. And I have to fight you? What if I don’t want to?”
“Then the princess is mine forever and the king will punish you,” Alina told him matter-of-factly.
They both looked to the bouquet of wildflowers that was supposed to represent the princess.
“Maybe I don’t like the king,” Mal suggested. “Maybe I want to fight him instead.”
Alina latched onto the idea instantly. “Then we band together, dragon and knight, and destroy the king.”
She looked around for a suitable representation of the king. “There!” She pointed out a big rock. “That’s the king.”
“I’ll hit him with my sword, and you’ll throw fire at him,” Mal encouraged.
He hit the rock with his stick and then looked to Alina, waiting for her fire.
She pulled her hands apart, closing her eyes and visualizing a great flaming ball to burn the king, planning on pretending to throw it at the rock. But when she opened her eyes, there was a ball of light in her hands! It was no pretense, but it also wasn’t fire. Instead, it was pure light.
“Alina,” Mal gasped, awe in his voice, “You really are a dragon!”
Alina looked at the light in her hands and felt triumph rush through her.
-
Over the following months, Alina had learned more about her sunlight. She had also, over the course of playing with Mal, taken on the role of various monstrous creatures. She had gotten a taste for monsters.
Mal, bless his heart, was nothing but encouraging and delighted about her powers. He had already assured her he wouldn’t breathe a word about it to anyone, especially not Ana Kuya. Alina wasn’t quite sure what Ana Kuya would do about her sunlight, but she couldn’t imagine it was anything good. She was already told off for being “mischievous”, and this was far worse than a few pranks. Mal’s word was solid though, and so they played together without fear or hesitation.
Alina was attempting to create many small lights, like fireflies, at Mal’s request. She could only manage a handful of them before they winked out of existence. It wasn’t that it was too much sunlight, but that there were too many of them to manage at once. But she kept trying, determined to master this skill. Mal’s gleeful cheering certainly helped.
She had gotten a decent amount swirling around her hands, winking in and out of her fingers like little stars, when she heard Mal gasp. Glancing up curiously, she saw he wasn’t even looking at her. Turning her head to follow his line of sight, she froze when she saw a man at the edge of the meadow.
Her little sunlight fireflies blinked out of existence as her focus was broken. Heart pounding in fear, she stepped closer to Mal. It was as if the moment had been paused, but her movement caused time to restart again.
The man turned abruptly away and disappeared into the tree line.
-
For weeks Alina avoided the meadow. She lived in fear, constantly checking Ana Kuya’s face to see if anything had changed, if she knew Alina’s secret. The few times the orphans were allowed to go to the village market, Alina scanned the faces of the men she passed, looking for the man from the meadow. She clutched Mal close to her, refusing to let him leave her alone except for at night when he slept in the boy’s section of the orphanage; some strange fear that he would be taken away gripped her tight.
However, as more time passed and nothing happened, Alina relaxed. Whoever that man was, clearly he hadn’t told anyone. Or maybe he hadn’t even seen anything, and Alina was worried for no reason. Her and Mal returned to their meadow, and with Mal’s encouragement, Alina returned back to her practice.
In a different life, perhaps Alina would have continued to learn about her abilities and grow into them in safety and innocence. Perhaps she would have done wonderous things with her powers. Perhaps she would have been a gentle and kind person, warm as the sunlight in her hands.
But that was not what happened.
-
Alina hadn’t been practicing her sunlight at all, that’s how she knew what happened was because of the man from before. Her and Mal had just been talking, sharing stolen peaches between each other, acting like any other kids from the village. And then suddenly, there were men in the meadow.
It was a group of them, all in black and silver. Alina’s first thought was that they were military, except they didn’t look like any First Army soldiers she’d ever seen. And then everything seemed to happen very fast, with two of them lunging for her, each grabbing one of her arms. They had such a strong grip on her, that when she struggled, they lifted her clear off the ground, with her feet kicking uselessly in the air. She thought she might have screamed, but her hearing was strangely muffled.
And then Mal bit the arm of the man on her left, just as Alina jerked herself forward. Abruptly, she found herself face down in the dirt, her right arm in absolute agony from where the other man was still holding it.
“Run, Mal, run!” Alina yelled to him.
She got a short look at Mal’s terrified face, blood smeared across his lips, eyes round, and then the man he bit jerked towards him with a furious expression. Alina’s vision tunneled until all she could see was the man moving to grab Mal. Bringing her newly freed left hand to her right, she focused as she never had before on creating a ball of sunlight. Like a prayer answered, it appeared in her hands, near blinding in intensity.
She could have thrown it at the man still gripping her arm in a bruising hold. She could have been free and ran. But so could have Mal. Instead, he had tried to help her. She could do no less.
Throwing the ball with all her might at the man charging towards Mal, she watched in satisfaction as it hit his face. While he clawed at his face, screaming, Alina made eye contact with Mal.
“Go!” She yelled at him, and without any hesitation this time, he turned and fled.
Alina had hoped that she could summon another ball of light and that she’d be able to slip away in the confusion. But then she heard a snarl, animalistic and hair raising, and turned in time to see a large white wolf, just as it tore into her freed left arm with its fangs.
She screamed again and didn’t stop screaming until one of the men hit her in the head, and then she knew only darkness.