Aeonia

Chapter 6

"I don't have a gift," Aelia groaned, tilting her head back as if talking to the sky.

"You do, sometimes they just take a while to show," Leilani comforted Aelia, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Sighing with frustration, she continued trudging through the mud in the afternoon heat, towards the Core-Gifts classroom. Turning her head to look at Leilani, Aelia raised her eyebrow at her.

"She hates me,"

"I told you, she takes time to warm up to people," she reassured Aelia, smiling with a quick laugh. "Cheer up, before Professor Igna gets mad at you for insulting her class."

Aelia shuddered jokingly at the memory of only a few days ago. Her short and stout teacher with fluorescent pink hair had given Aelia trouble after she wasn't able to give any thoughts or show any improvement on the discovery of her gift. Until she found a gift, her teacher had explicitly instructed Aelia to sit and watch her classmates, unable to participate in any of the gift competitions that Fortuna Institute held. Professor Igna was young and usually cheerful, but the lack of improvement from Aelia had gradually tipped her over the edge.

Slouching and bowing her head to hide her face from her teacher as she lined up, Aelia put her hands on the shoulders of the person in front of her to keep her head down.

"Boo!" She whispered directly into the boy's ear, making him jump.

Aelia entered the classroom, her hands still on Jaspa's shoulders, laughing at his reaction after she had jump-scared him. She flinched as he gave a soft punch to her shoulder, his eyebrows raising in confusion to the question that even after over a month together, Aelia had not answered. Hurriedly shuffling over to a chair, Aelia sat down and faced the other way, trying to avoid a conversation she knew would one day come.

A delay won't cause any harm, will it? She wondered.

Unprepared to tell the story of the scars on her arms. Unprepared to tell the story of why she would flinch at the slightest attack, even after being trained in combat for a month. Unprepared to answer the questions that would come after the story.

Why didn't she run earlier, why didn't she do this, or do that? Why did she ever do anything?

But no, she wasn't unprepared. Instead, Aelia was unwilling.

Refocusing on what Professor Igna was saying, she turned her head pointedly to the front of the classroom, hinting to Jaspa that she wasn't listening. Out of her peripheral vision, she observed him as his face dropped and he followed her gaze towards the teacher. Unable to pay attention from the pounding of blood in her ears and the thoughts swirling throughout her head, Aelia let them resurface.

The people around her began to move, signalling the end of Professor Igna's speech. Aelia glared hotly as they left their multicolored chairs and bustled around the room to do a practical lesson on their gifts. Aelia huffed and forced herself to unclench her jaw. Reminding herself to stay calm, she leaned backwards in her chair, trying to collect her emotions so even the classmates who doubted that she would ever discover her gift would be surprised by her resolved nature today. Pairs of judgemental eyes glared back at her, causing Aelia's gaze to harden.

She knew she didn't have a gift, no matter what the Headmaster told her, but there was no need for her classmates to give her that attitude.

Flicking her eyes up to the ceiling, she let out another huff of breath and crossed her arms, waiting for the tedious lesson to end. It seemed to drag on, with Aelia continuously wishing for a way to get out of the dull arrangement she was in. With nothing left to do but wait, she studied her classmates.