Archive of Our Own

I'm high above the city
I'm standing on the ledge

Lucia stood at the 49th floor of the Dragon’s Egg. This was where Guildmaster Rock requested her presence. It was a strange thing to be asked, especially without the rest of her hunting party, but she knew that he must have had a reason for it.

She knew that she was “blessed by the stars,” as many people have told her, but her magic really didn’t feel like a blessing. It didn’t feel like a curse either. It just felt overwhelming. So much was expected of her, and how was she supposed to know what to do?

Her parents may have been known by the guilds as powerful hunters, but she wasn’t her parents. She knows very, very well that she wasn’t her parents. It’s hard not to know that she wasn’t her parents, when everyone tells her that they knew them so well when she had never seen them in her life.

Guildmaster Rock made dinner for the two of them. The room felt empty and, truthfully, sort of scary. Lucia was not the type of person to be okay on her own. Even with the Guildmaster here, talking to her, it felt more lonely than anything she has felt in the past month, with the exam, travel, and latest hunt, she was always surrounded by people who she could be relaxed around.

She wished she stopped by her room to pick up Amber, just so she wouldn’t be as alone.

The view from here is pretty
And I step off the edge

Looking at the trees from so high up was something Lucia never expected to be able to see. They were dark green clouds, with the branches and trunk not even visible because of how high they were in the Egg.

She didn’t like looking out of windows all that much, especially windows this high up. Every time she saw the sheer height of it, her eyes would go in and out of focus. Sometimes she couldn’t hear other people talking to her when she got like that. She would feel like nothing at all. Like a body with no soul.

She didn’t like windows. Her sister needed to avoid them. They boarded up their windows at home with spare wooden boards her parents found. She liked the dark grey blinds in her new room here much more. They at least offered some sort of protection from the gross distance between her and the gravel walkways below without seeming like someone was hidden inside. Even if she felt the need to be hidden.

“Don’t you think that the approach could be different?” Lucia tried to stay in the moment. It felt absurd to say this to someone who was tasked with killing monsters, but the thought of even more death, even if it wasn’t human, made her feel sick. “Less violent?”

Lucia saw her sister’s face in the window. She really didn’t like this. There were times when she was thankful that her sister looked so much like she did, save for the scales and horns. Their faces had almost exactly the same shape. They had the same noses, like their father’s. When it was just the two of them, she would do her sister’s hair in a low ponytail and put hers up the same way. Her sister’s hair was basically the same texture, maybe just a bit straighter than hers, so she didn’t have any trouble. She would sometimes get her hand smacked when she pulled a little too hard, but it was better than accidentally hurting her.

Her nose was getting hot and her throat was closing slightly. She didn’t want to think about that anymore.

She felt a large hand on her back. It didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel safe. It felt heavy. It felt bad, beyond what she could even describe. It felt disgusting.

And with a strong push, she tumbled forward.

And now I'm fallin', baby
Through the sky, through the sky
I'm fallin', baby, through the sky

Her stomach dropped faster than her body did. As did her heart. Her lungs were tight and so very empty. She needed to breathe, but with the jolt of her rapid descent, she wasn’t sure if she could.

The wind blew her hair back, whipping it around her head like a crown she never deserved. Tears were getting involuntarily pulled from her eyes with the wind, but she expected the same to be happening even if there was nothing blowing into her eyes.

Everything. This was everything happening all at once. It was too much. Her mind spiraled, it ran to everything that has happened in her life.

Her mom said that her life flashed before her eyes a few times while on hunts, when the monster nearly killed her, or nearly killed her father, or was just so dangerous that just being in its presence made you scared.

She didn’t think that this was how it felt. She assumed there would be all-consuming fear, fear that froze you and made your mind retreat inwards. But the fear that enveloped her right as she was pushed disappeared, making peace with knowing that she would be dead by the time she hit the ground.

She didn’t know any spells to make you fly. Lucia didn’t know if they even existed. Or maybe spells to teleport you somewhere safer? She didn’t know any like that either.

So the ground was her only option.

It's my callin'
Baby, don't you cry, don't you cry
I'm fallin' down through the sky

Her younger sister, Shaylin, was crying. Her parents had been gone for about a week at this point. Usually, one of them made an effort to return every few days, just to make sure they both had the food they needed. But something must have popped up, making it so that neither of them could come back.

Lucia didn’t know what to do. She missed her parents too, but Shaylin was a baby. She didn’t know that they would be back. She couldn’t talk or say that she missed them or that she wanted to be in her dad’s lap or that she wanted to eat food that her mom made.

Lucia held her in her arms and tried to rock her to sleep. It didn’t help with her incessant wailing.

She just wanted someone to be back home. She didn’t know what babies wanted. She didn’t know if her scales were too dry or if she was hungry again or if she wanted to go to bed or if she wanted her parents back home just as much as Lucia did.

She moved Shaylin around to hold her in one arm, allowing the other to move more freely. She held up a finger, trying to get her to follow it. It was a game they had played a few times. It made her eyes sleepy.

She moved her finger slowly beside her, in good view of her sister. She was still crying, and Lucia hated how she wanted to cry too.

She kept moving her finger back and forth, trying to get her to pay attention. Lucia sniffed back tears that were starting to gather in her eyes, body tense with frustration that she had no outlet for.

And then suddenly, Shaylin stopped crying so loudly. Actually, she was silent. Tears still dripped down her cheeks, snot down her nose, but she was completely quiet.

Lucia looked at her own finger, and the tip of it was glowing an iridescent green.

Toward the street that I'm from
Oh, Broadway, here I come
Broadway, here I come

The next time she heard four knocks at the door, Lucia bolted to open it as quickly as possible. Her parents taught her that she should only ever open the door if she heard those four knocks in quick succession. That meant it was her parents and not someone else. She let them both come inside before she hugged them tightly.

“Wanna show you somethin’,” Lucia said.

She ran back to Shaylin, who was sitting on the couch, scratching at a flaky scale. Lucia swiftly picked her up with one arm and held her finger up. Her sister perked up, eyes wide, ready to witness the show.

Lucia couldn’t hold back a grin. “Look!”

As she moved her finger, she made it the same iridescent green. It followed her finger as she moved it, leaving a small trail of green and yellow shimmers in its wake.

Lucia giggled as she watched it. It was still so exciting every time she did it. It was so pretty, and it made Shaylin happy too, which made Lucia happy.

She looked up to her parents who both looked completely shocked. She let the glow fizzle out which prompted a noise of disappointment from her sister.

“Was that bad?” Lucia asked, scared that this was something else that she would need to hide from the town. She didn’t show anyone, but that was mostly because she didn’t go outside if her parents weren’t home too.

“No, that’s- that’s incredible,” her mom said. She motioned for her dad to take Shaylin as she grabbed Lucia’s hand.

“This is a gift. A very rare one too.”

Her father looked at his children with joy in his eyes. “You were both given blessings by the stars. They knew you were going to need each other.”

“Lucia,” her mom added, “practice this. And keep practicing it. And you will grow to be the kindest, most loving mage that this world has seen.”

And Lucia had stars in her eyes, placed there by the blessing that she found out that she had.

The pressure it increases
The closer that I get

Lucia let out a frustrated breath. She was trying to fix the tear in her sister’s dress made by the new spikes growing from her upper arms. They weren’t too sharp, at least for right now, but with them being kind of pointy and rubbing at old fabric, it was only a matter of time before it broke.

She felt like she could fix it with magic, if only she could focus more. Her sister was sitting on the ground beside her, with one of Lucia’s only other dresses on. She swam in it, but that was fine until she was able to fix Shaylin’s dress.

The dress already had some patches on it, but those were made by her mother when she was home. Neither of them had been home in about two weeks, and this had broke only a day after they left for another mission. Lucia didn’t know how long it would be until they returned, but she didn’t want Shaylin wearing this dress with such a big hole in it. It seemed uncomfy just looking at it, with the way it made the sleeve droop much further than it should, covering most of her hand when it would usually not even meet her wrist.

She saw the fibers begin to twist around each other as she held the rip in her hands, staring intently. It was a much more vibrant red than the rest of the fabric. Was this how bright the colors were when this was first made? Had the fabric really been that faded?

The fibers began to unravel again as she lost focus. She growled under her breath as she tried again. Lucia repeated the words, “dress, hole, fix, dress, hole, fix,” just to make sure her mind didn’t accidentally wander.

And just like that, after focusing on it for about a minute, she was able to hold a fully mended dress, the hole being patched as if nothing happened. Well, as if that spot had been dyed by the berries in the Village’s community farm. But there was no evidence that there used to be a hole there.

She was cooking a grilled cheese. It made her stomach hurt, but it was easy to make and tasty to eat.

She was cutting the blocks of cheese for both her and her sister. This had become a nice routine. But routines meant that she wasn’t paying attention.

She felt a slicing pain on her finger, crimson blood spilling out of it. She squeaked, not from pain, but from the shock of seeing her blood on the knife. She didn’t want any blood getting on the cheese, so she ran over to the sink, knife in hand.

She turned on the water and rinsed the knife of the little amount of blood on it. She then took her finger and held it under the freezing cold water. She winced at the pain. She knew that it would heal eventually, but knew that it would take a lot of time. She also knew that she probably wouldn’t be able to do as much around the house with her finger bandaged.

She decided to see if she could heal it. She read the book that her father got her about different mages around the world. A lot of them were able to heal people, which was why they were so valuable to hunting parties.

She turned the water off and shook her hands to dry them. She held her hand over her finger and thought about fixing it. Mending her finger just like she mended her sister’s dress a few weeks ago.

In just seconds, she felt the pain dissipate. Upon inspection, the cut was completely gone. There was nothing there to even suggest the injury that was there moments before. She would have been proud of her idea if she weren’t so confused by how well the spell worked.

Lucia heard a knock at the door. It was not four quick knocks in a row. It was three, and they were pretty slow. She didn’t know who this was, but they were almost certainly dangerous.

She built up the courage to open the door. She saw a boy, barely older than her. Maybe 14? He said hi, and before Lucia could do almost anything, she touched his arm.

And he fell to the ground with a resounding thud.

She stared for a second, not knowing what to do. It was startling to say the least. She walked out the door, closing it behind her. She bent down to check his pulse on his wrist. It was completely gone. She checked again. Still nothing. She checked his neck. Nothing. She laid her ear against his chest. It wasn’t moving.

She had killed him.

When he opened the door, all she was hoping was that he didn’t see Shaylin. He didn’t, and even if he did, he was dead now. Which was almost certainly 100 times worse.

Lucia couldn’t help the tears bubbling in her eyes. Her face felt scalding hot. She couldn’t hold back the sounds residing in her throat, letting little hiccups and sobs escape. They tore out of her, they were getting ripped from her body, like she ripped the soul out of this boy she didn’t even know the name of.

She didn’t leave his side. She was waiting for someone to find her and take matters into their own hands.

Lucia curled into a ball next to him. She didn’t want this to be real. She was a killer. She killed him. She killed him. She couldn’t look at him, it hurt so much. She never wanted to be like this.

She stayed curled up for so long. She couldn’t move. She had no clue how much time had passed. She was just a ball. No body, no soul, just a ball that barely existed.

“What’s wrong?”

Lucia jolted up out of her ball, her back aching slightly. She saw the confused face of the boy. Her own face was probably more confused.

“What… Uh… I’m Dalton?”

Most of what they talked about was lost to her memory. Her dad said it was because she got so scared that her mind decided that it was safer to not remember it. She thought it made enough sense at the time, but wasn’t too sure if she agreed now.

She stood beside Everett and Jin, the body of a dying man laying before them, with two skeletons at his side.

I could almost go to pieces
But I'm not quite there yet

Lucia felt so deeply nauseated. The stench of death was foul, and she discovered that she would prefer to never smell it again. He was decaying before their very eyes.

“Lucia,” Everett demands, “can he be healed? Lucia!”

Lucia looked at him again, to which she instantly regretted. She didn’t need a second look to know that this was far, far more than she had ever healed. She didn’t even know if this was something that could be healed if she tried. He was already so… dead. His breathing was labored. The bones in his legs were visible. He was bloody, but not bleeding. She held a hand over her mouth, breathing as little as possible to avoid the smell.

Lucia shook her head, “This is more than- no. I don’t- I don’t know…”

She looked at his legs again. This is so much more than she could heal. She didn’t think she could reconstruct whole legs, or get rid of the necrotic blight in him.

Lucia looked to Everett and sadly shook her head no.

See I've been bravin' crazy weather
Drownin' out my cries

Lucia took a metered breath. If she wanted to stay focused on the situation here, she would have to stay out of her head.

It was sort of difficult to stay out of your own head. Especially if you wanted, needed, to stay out of it.

The only thing she could hear was screams outside of her house. She saw her own knees, too scared to look outside. She smelled the bonfire she knew was in the center square. Tears fell before she could bear to do anything about it, frozen in place.

“Lucia, look at me.” Lucia whined, her whole body shaking.

“Lucia, please,” her father begged, “look at me for a second.”

She looked up, face blotchy and red and soaked with tears.

“You couldn’t have done anything. This wasn’t your fault.” His voice was shaky. It hurt her even more to hear just how sad he sounded.

Lucia just shook her head and shoved it deep into her knees again.

The blighted man was trying to tell them all something. She didn’t know what. She couldn’t hear him. She heard the village’s screams of anger and her mother’s screams of grief.

“None of this was your fault,” her father said.

She sucked in a shallow breath and wheezed out a choked sob.

Her dad bent down to give her a hug. She didn’t uncurl from her ball. She didn’t want to. She just wanted to be small. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to smell the fire. She didn’t want to hear her mothers screams. She didn’t want it, any of it.

Lucia had let her eyes drift and mind go mercifully blank in her father’s arms, letting everything happen around her.

Lucia’s mind allowed her back to the present.

Everett had a dagger in his hand.

I pull myself together
I'm focused on the prize

Lucia turned around. She knew what Everett was about to do, and knew that she would not want to see it happen. There were tears flooding her eyes that she discreetly wiped away. It felt like something was stuck in her throat.

She felt the weight of the horn in her brown, cross-shoulder bag. She didn’t deserve this. She couldn’t lead them. This was so much worse than she thought was possible. She didn’t want to lead them to what could be their deaths.

She heard Everett say something, and then the choked gasps of the man. She didn’t turn around until the wet gasps stopped completely. Lucia pointedly avoided looking at what remained of the man.

The horn was for someone who could actually help with the hunt. It wasn’t for someone who couldn’t handle the sight of blood.

She took it out of her bag, feeling the rough texture. She poked Jin with her elbow and handed him the horn. “You should have this.”

He looked at her with an expression she didn’t recognize, “No, you keep it–” He handed it back– “I’m going to be in the middle of battle. It would be better for you to hold onto it in case I- yeah.”

She quietly took back the horn and placed it in her bag, heavy. She would lead them. She would keep them safe. She had to.

And now I'm fallin', baby
Through the sky, through the sky
I'm fallin', baby, through the sky

Shaylin’s hand had cracked scales. They bled from a lack of moisture that she didn’t know how to fix without the ointment that they ran out of last week. It looked like it hurt, like it was itchy and irritating and all together upsetting.

Lucia took Shaylin’s hand in hers and tried to heal it the same way she fixed her finger.

The cracks mended themselves, but they still remained just as dry as they were before. She wrapped her hand in a wet towel. It didn’t help before, but maybe this time it would.

It's my callin'
Baby, don't you cry, don't you cry
I'm fallin' down through the sky

It was a bad day, and Lucia didn’t know why. Her mind was louder than normal and it felt bad. It felt so bad. She couldn’t stop her bitter thoughts about her parents. She loved them, but when they were gone for longer than a month, she started to get antsy.

And, of course, her sister was not making it any easier today. She was being so loud. She was just a kid, but it hurt her head, and she just needed to make them dinner. Even a grilled cheese felt like too much. Maybe she would grill a cheese for Shaylin and just eat hers raw.

Shaylin screamed for no discernable reason, and Lucia couldn’t hold her anger in.

“Stop, just be quiet! Everything hurts! I’m trying to make dinner for us and I can’t.”

The anger melted from her body as she yelled. She never yelled at her sister. The feeling sat like heavy rocks in her stomach.

Lucia guiltily looked over to Shaylin only to see that her mouth was moving, but with no sound coming out.

“Oh my god, wait, Shaylin, I’m so sorry. You can talk, you can talk, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,” Lucia anxiously rambled.

Sounds were once again able to leave her mouth. They were quieter than before. She didn’t know if it was because of magic, her sister’s fear, or her sister trying to be kind.

She didn’t want to know the answer.

And it's a tune you can hum
Oh, Broadway, here I come

She felt the wind in her hair again. Everything around her was a blur. Looking at the black walls of the Dragon’s Egg, seeing similarly dark windows and stories fly by her as she plummeted to the ground.

She wondered if she would be able to tell when she fell past her floor.

Will I remain the same, or will I change a little bit?

Her parents were gone again, and for the first time, she was completely alone. She didn’t know what to do. There was no one to look after. It was just her, alone, in the house. It was large enough as is with only two kids.

One kid living in it was even worse.

She didn’t know what to do with her time. She spent almost all of it with Shaylin. And now… she couldn’t.

She didn’t have any hobbies, except for her magic. But the magic felt far too gross and ugly to use right now. She didn’t dare trying to do anything with it.

She needed to do something. She needed to so badly. She couldn’t just sit here. And she really didn’t want to see anyone in the town either. She never wanted to see any of them ever again.

She hadn’t cut her sister’s hair in a long while. Maybe 8 months? More? That meant that she hadn’t cut her own hair in just about that long.

She grabbed a knife and held the hair taut. Her hand shook, badly, as she sawed a chunk off from the bottom of her hair.

This was control. She was in control of herself. This was how you gain control.

Will I feel broken or totally complete?

Her dad had given her a hammer to help them remove the boards from the windows. It felt like a crime. She didn’t like the light in the house. It felt so wrong.

The hammer was heavy in her hand. She didn’t like how the nails would bend all strangely as they were pulled from the wall. They couldn’t even be reused if she wanted to put the boards back up.

Maybe when her parents were gone again, she would put something up to block the light.

It was so bright inside. Inside was meant to be dark.

“It’ll be good for you to get some sunlight,” her father said. “You are so pale, and should get some color on you.”

She didn’t want color. She didn’t want the sun. She wanted the darkness and the safety of the boarded windows. She saw drawings on the bottom from when she and her sister wanted to draw. They couldn’t draw on the walls, of course, but this was almost like a wall, and it fulfilled that fantasy. So they painted on the wood together.

She hoped they would let her keep it.

She continued pulling out the nails, broken by her hammer, tugging roughly.

Will I retain my name when I'm the biggest, hugest hit?

Lucia sees a half-elf girl with short, blue hair staring at her after their first hunt. She stared, and then looked away, then looked back from the corner of her eye.

She looked like she was manually breathing to calm some sort of fear, and then timidly called out, “L-Lucia?”

How did this girl know Lucia’s name?

She started to walk over and introduced herself. “Uh-um I’m Raven. I’m sorry for Alf… Him leaving to go to your hunt after ours.” She looked Lucia up and down, “Wow, you don’t look hurt at all!”

Lucia momentarily looked back to Everett and Jin, both having their own conversations. “Uh…”

“I mean, except for the fear in your eyes. Oh, sorry, um, I can read people very easily.”

Lucia felt her jaw beginning to open as she continued rambling, just nodding along to her words. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to listen. This felt so intimidating. Why does she know her? She only had ever seen her once, when she came into Alf’s room after they cheesed it.

Raven cut her own rambling off in the middle of a sentence, realizing that Lucia had barely spoken at all. All Lucia could think was, “How do you know my name?”

“Everyone knows your name.”

She didn’t realize she said that out loud. Well, she got an even more concerning answer.

“Um.”

“You have- well, you were blessed by the stars!”

She cringed slightly. “I wouldn’t say that…”

“I mean, magic is so rare, I’d say it’s a blessing.” Her large bow strung across her back was intimidating. Everything felt like too much. She looked around to see if anyone else was staring at her. She didn’t know that literally everyone would know of her. That seemed like a lot.

A tall man with glasses tapped her shoulder and said that the Guildmaster requested her presence.

Or will I blend in with the rest of the street?

He saw her. Oh god. He saw her using magic.

Her legs were shaking as she ran away. They were going to kill her. They were going to kill her just like they killed her sister. Her parents weren’t even going to be around to see it happen and she would die.

Her breaths wheezed in and out as she tried to get her short legs to run any faster. She didn't want to die yet.

Lucia knew that she was not going to be able to run for much longer, so she ran to an alley that no one ever went into. It wasn't dangerous, it just had no real reason to be used.

Except for when you want to hide from the cheese merchant who saw your fingers start to glow as you counted.

She slinked down the wall of the alley, curling into a tight ball, just in case he saw her run here. The ground was moist and the gravel was sharp. Her dress was not much protection against the rocky road.

She closed her eyes. She knew it was childish, but it felt necessary. If she couldn't see it, it couldn't see her. It was simple.

Unfortunately, life isn't simple.

A hand tapped on Lucia’s shoulder and she screamed. Screamed so loud that birds flew from nearby trees, like she was getting killed. Which she was going to be, in just a few seconds.

“Lucia! Shhhh!!” the merchant commanded. She stopped screaming, a fresh tear rolling down her cheek.

“I don't want to hurt you.”

She cowered away like a frightened animal, like a fawn that had just seen its mom slaughtered for game. She didn't uncurl from her ball.

“I want some help, if you are able to do it,” the merchant whispered. Even quieter, almost inaudible, he said, “it has to do with your magic.”

She looked at him with fear glazing over her eyes. She needed to stay in the moment because one wrong move would end with a blade in her stomach or cutting across her throat or-

“I need you to heal a burn on my child's arm.”

“Huh?” Lucia squeaked out.

“They got it while tending to our fire and a huge gust of wind sent it in their direction. It's not too bad, I promise, but they're in pain and I just want them to be alright.”

Lucia breathed in, trying to get control of the overwhelming fear still trapped in her body. She breathed out. She needed to be calm. Even if he seemed gentle, it could disappear with ease.

“Okay… Please don't hurt me if I can't do it,” Lucia pleaded.

“I won’t.”

Lucia forced her hand from the tight grasp she had on herself to raise it to the man. She could see it nearly vibrating with how much leftover fear was in her system. She held out her pinkie. The merchant smiled and locked his pinkie with hers. He kept his hand extended to pull her from the ground. Her legs were wobbly, but still held her up well enough.

Lucia followed him back to his house to see his child. They were visually a bit older than Lucia, but had a familiar distant look to their eyes. One arm was completely covered in bandages.

“That them?”

“Yep. Don’t worry, they won’t bite.”

Lucia swallowed a mean thought about how her sister didn’t either.

She walked over. They were breathing very steadily, like they were doing it actively. Based on how much was burned, she could see why.

“Hi,” Lucia said, “I might be able to help your arm. Maybe.”

“Wh- oh. Please, anything at this point,” they closed their eyes and took another forced breath.

Lucia was going to ask if she could remove the bandages, but then thought against it. If it was causing this much pain while being covered, she didn’t want to agitate it at all if possible.

“Just, uh, sit there. I’ll try something…” Lucia held her hands to their right shoulder, above where the bandages ended and where their skin was an unburnt, rosy brown. She rubbed her hands across their shoulder, hoping that she could mend their broken skin, just like her finger, just like the dr- just like her finger.

Lucia quickly looked over to their face for any signs of this magic working. There was nothing yet. She continued, looking back to her hands. She saw the green glow wrap around her hands and focused.

Not a moment later, she heard a gasp. Lucia looked over to the patient and saw tears welling up in their eyes.

“Oh my god, did I hurt you?!” Lucia exclaimed, “I didn’t mean to, oh god, oh god. He’s gonna kill me!”

“No, no, you- you,” they sniffled, “it’s not as bad anymore.” They swiped their hand underneath their eyes, smearing the tears across their face. “It still hurts a little bit, but nothing I can’t handle.” Their lip trembled as more tears fell down their face. They didn’t bother wiping them away. A breathy, “thank you,” left their mouth as they continued to cry.

“You’re… welcome? I’m sorry for making you cry.”

They nodded, “It’s okay.”

The merchant walked over to Lucia and gave her a hug. Lucia stood stiff as a board before realizing that she should probably return his hug. She wrapped her arms robotically around him.

“Thanks, Lucia. Real glad I saw that magic thing you were doing earlier.”

Lucia nodded as he let her go.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

Lucia rapidly nodded her head. She still felt a bit raw and just needed this confirmation again. She held out her pinkie.

He laughed a few times and took it in his own again. He gestured for his child to do the same. They wrapped their pinkie around hers and then kissed it. Lucia gave them a very confused look.

“It’s for a bit of extra reassurance. The kiss makes the promise stronger. Seals it.”

Lucia nodded and kissed their pinkies. She then held out her pinkie to the merchant again, who let her kiss it to seal the promise.

The people all are pointing
I bet they'd never guess
That the saint that they're anointing
Is frightened of the mess

Huntmaster Hawk expected them to capture a black blooded monster for their first hunt. It was only because she was there. Does the Huntmaster know that she doesn’t know that much? That she can barely put up a fight? That killing monsters make her feel sick? That every monster gives a pang of grief for her sister?

She was chosen to lead. She took it in stride.

Guildmaster Rock asked to see her. It didn’t turn out well. Did he know how weak she was? He knew she was scared. She told him that she was scared. But she also said that she knew that this was part of her duty. It was Lucia’s duty to her sister and to her parents.

He asked so many questions. He talked about her parents like they were close. That “they were good hunters.” That it was “unfortunate that they died.” She would only hope that truly did die in a hunt and not from a window.

But even though I fear it
I'm playin' all my cards

The Horned Primate was absolutely terrifying. It was unlike anything she had seen in her entire life. And they were not only supposed to hunt it, but to keep it alive for research. That may have been the scariest part. She wondered how they would sedate it enough to even run tests on it without it trying to tear the first person it saw to shreds.

Everett was looking bad. Jin was unsteadily standing right at the monster’s massive legs right after getting absolutely brutalized by it.

She didn’t know how to help. Everything was too much. She wanted to run away. She wanted to go home and say that she shouldn’t have ever joined this guild because she never wanted to see something like this again. She didn’t like seeing her party almost dead, she didn’t like seeing other people almost dead, and she definitely didn’t like thinking about how her party could die because she wasn’t doing her job correctly.

Lucia nearly fell over while trying to move out of the way of one of the attacks heading toward Jin and fell into Everett.

“Thanks, but you should be attacking it instead of helping me.” Lucia looked down confusedly at her hands, just to see them glowing slightly. “I can handle myself.”

“Okay,” Lucia said, definitely intending to heal him and not doing it completely by accident. She righted herself on the muddy ground, ready to try and help Jin. Even if Everett said that he didn’t need help, Jin so clearly needed it. He was going to pass out if she didn’t get there quick enough.

The ground was so muddy that she knew that she couldn’t risk falling. She knew that this would be the time that she would fall flat on her face and be unable to help Jin when he desperately needed it.

She cautiously stepped to avoid the worst of the slick mud and got to Jin. She slapped his stomach, needing to get her healing into him as fast as possible.

“Good?”

Jin heaved a sigh of relief, in less pain and more able to hold his sword in his usual stance. “You’re a life safer. Maybe literally. You know what, I’ll process that later.”

Lucia was silent for a moment. Maybe two. “Okay!”

She ran away from Jin once again to get out of the range of the hulking beast that they had to fight. This was going to be long and even bloodier than it already is.

Baby, you are gonna hear it
When I give them my regards

She opened her eyes to the feeling of being shaken. She was laying on the damp, but not muddy, ground. Jin was standing over her.

“We got it,” Jin said, panic and exhausting dripping from his voice, “Everett’s dying and we need the horn.”

Lucia’s eyes opened wide, pulling out the horn as she searched her surroundings for where Everett was. She saw him slumped against a decaying tree trunk, limp and, yeah, he looked like he was dying. Her heart stuttered, thinking about her sister too.

She knew in order to get everyone out safely, she would need to blow the horn first and do anything else later. She could only do so much with her limited supply of magic, and she was sure that whoever comes to pick them up would be much more help.

So Lucia took a very deep breath, chest and stomach sticking out with how much air she sucked in, and blew on the horn with as much power as she could muster.

The horn’s roar with deep, brassy tones rang out through the rainforest, loud enough to hurt her ears. But it being that loud meant that whoever was watching them would hear it too.

She blew it again for good measure. Just to make sure that they knew that they were done. That they needed help. She looked at Everett and sighed shakily as she ran to heal him too.

I'm fallin', baby
Through the sky, through the sky
I'm fallin', baby, through the sky

Lucia tried to talk to the people in her village the next time her parents were gone. They said that she needed practice interacting with others. The silent, “because your sister is gone now,” held heavy over her chest.

The practice was incredibly difficult, because how was she meant to talk to the people that killed Shaylin? The mere thought filled her with anger. Why should she have to stay strong when she should be allowed to yell at them? Why did she have to be the bigger person?

Lucia just wanted to be the smaller person. She wanted to scream at them until she was red in the face. She wanted answers besides that “she was a monster,” because she wasn’t. Shaylin simply wasn’t. She was nice and only yelled on occasion. That’s not traits of a monster. Monsters are evil and want to kill you and live alone in the wilderness.

She fit too many descriptors of monsters to be happy with it, so she decided that she no longer wanted revenge. She didn’t want to scream in everyone’s faces. She didn’t want them to hate her, to want her dead, too.

The only thing she couldn’t change was that she lived alone in the wilderness.

It's my callin'
Baby, don't you cry, don't you cry
I'm fallin' down through the sky

Lucia’s days turned to routine without anybody else around.

Before leaving to shop for what food she needed for the day, she would eat a single red apple. The shopping she did at the market was more akin to bartering. She would offer her time to work on whatever they needed help with. If they were willing to be secretive enough, she could even offer her magic. That was worth a lot. Those days she would buy as many apples as she could alongside her daily cheese.

She would go home after working and make a grilled cheese for lunch. It was quick. It was easy. It made her stomach hurt, but that was a small price to pay for the simplicity. If she was feeling extra energetic and was able to buy more in the morning, she would add apple slices as a treat.

Dinners were also usually grilled cheese. She would practice magic after dinner, alone in her parents house. It was never anything too dangerous or loud. It was a way to pass the time. Maybe her mom would be proud of how she practiced. She didn’t feel very powerful, but maybe this was just part of the process.

The time between the two meals was usually filled with nothing. Sometimes, if she had the energy, she would work a little bit more. She usually didn’t have this energy though and just took a nap to pass the time until she needed to eat again. Even less often, she went on walks around the village. They were never very eventful.

But today, hiding in an alleyway that no one checked was a kitten, sick, cold, and hungry. She set down her bag and let the kitten crawl inside.

She bought a small bottle and milk the next day, forgoing the apples she usually bought with her magical tasks.

And I refuse to go numb

She was alone. Completely alone. Her parents were gone. Her sister was gone. She was alone.

She made herself a grilled cheese for dinner.

It was easy. It was simple. It was fast. It was what she always made.

She wanted to feel more hurt by it, but she expected this to happen eventually. She almost thought that her parents would have been killed alongside her sister.

It was just a normal hunt. She got a letter that they would never return home. It was after she was already alone for three months. She got the letter today. They had died a month prior.

She picked off the charred bits from the grilled cheese and put them in her mouth. She left the rest for Amber. She wasn’t very hungry.

Oh, Broadway, here I come
Broadway, here I come
Broadway, here I come
Broadway, Broadway, here I come

“Lucia,” the market merchant asked. She didn’t remember his name, and it felt mean to ask now after buying from him for years. “Are you going to take the Hunters’ Exam?”

She was looking at the selections of cheese. “What?”

“The exams are coming up. I wanted to know if I should dial back my cheese supply if you were leaving.”

“Oh.” Lucia didn’t know that this exam existed. She never asked her parents about hunting before they were gone. She didn’t really know it was something that she could do. It felt a bit scary. “I don’t know.”

The merchant gestured for Lucia to get closer, which she did. He whispered, his long curly black hair hiding his mouth from passersby, “Someone with your skills would be a very, very valuable asset to any Hunters Guild you want. They would be begging to take you.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

Lucia didn’t know what being wanted felt like. She had only ever been needed. It sounded like it might feel nice. And also scary.

“Yeah, I think I might go.”

“Let me know if you change your mind, I don’t want you going without your cheese if you decide to stay here.”

Lucia nodded and bought her daily cheese. She placed it in her bag next to Amber.

“Did you hear that?” she asked Amber, “They would want me. Me!” She pet Amber’s soft fur.

She wrote her name when the Master Letter arrived. She was the first on the list for her village. And when she checked right before the Letter was taken back to the Guilds, she was also the only one on the list from her village.

Here I come!

The boat was arriving to the island for hunt schooling. She saw who she could only assume were her two potential hunting party members.

One of them had long, curly, ginger hair. His chest had a black hole in it. Lucia wasn’t sure if it was realistic makeup, or if it was actually just a part of his body. He had a permanent scowl on his face and no weapons that she could see.

The other was a bit taller with straight, black hair, held back by a red headband across his forehead, probably tied in place in the back. His weapon, on the other hand, was absolutely massive. It looked like it was made out of pure stone, and it looked so heavy that she had no idea how he was meant to carry it, let alone fight using it.

She gave a cursory wave to the pair. The man with the red headband waved back and shouted for her to come over to meet them. She happily complied.

And the last thing I hear
As the impact grows near

The ground was so close. Everything was blurry, but even with the blur of speed and cloudiness of tears, she could tell that the ground was very, very quickly approaching. She let out an unsteady breath. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die.

There was no safety in death, no one knew what was beyond it. Her dad told her that when she dies, she will see her sister again, but she doesn’t hold out any hope for that. Her mother never quite agreed with that thought process, but still hoped it was true anyway.

She closed her eyes and braced for the eventual impact.

Is it a scream

“Lucia?”

or a cheer?

“LUCIA!!”

Well, never mind, I'll never find out
'Cause Broadway, I am here.