Delphine
These children are surprising her. Although, she supposes, desperate times call for desperate measures, and survival often stretches the boundaries on children's capabilities. For instance, how could a three year old conjure up a mirror pool, a speaking image, capable of repeating speech? How could her Nimue, her prize pupil who had difficulty tapping into her other elements, suddenly transform herself into a vologara, a lightning girl, without effort? Delphine eyes the bubble above her somewhat jealously. An elemental bubble is something she has struggled with all her life. Her last one was no more protection than a cage of watery jellyfish. Without the sting.
Her mind turns over and over, like it does right before she goes to sleep. The children call her a night owl because of her insomnia, but to her knowledge, it's always been that way, her flapping around, checking, taking midnight forest walks...
Alita, her mentor, used to say it was because of her childhood. Delphine doesn't like to think of that, preferring, instead, to watch over the children she calls her own. A shudder runs down her spine. But her backstory is nothing compared to Nimue's, and this she knows well.
This is all her fault, and she knows it. This whole thing, everything about the situation right now. It makes her want to drop her head into her hands and bawl for the rest of her life, knowing that she willingly put a child - children, actually - in danger because of a stupid fantasy that she thought could work. But it won't. It can't. Yet either way, she has no sway. She is forced to stand here for all eternity, bound magically and physically, and watch it all unfold like a horror show.
Who brought it into Nimue's mind to go to a fortune-teller?
Who suggested that specific teller?
Who made excuses, who planned it, who set it up, all so she could go watch her fate? And see her past. That may have been the most fatal thing of all, even more so than the fate.
It was so perfectly calculated, yet she'd never seen it all going wrong, all spiraling out of control. She was short-sighted and stupid and selfish, and now someone else would be paying her penance. Multiple people in fact. Her plan had been so down to the nose that, and this she should have seen, the smallest detail could throw the entire scale off balance.
YOU ARE READING
Water and Wind
FantasíaEvery year, in the old log cabin in the heart of the woods, a face appears at the window. A haunted face, illuminated by the light of the moon with the backdrop of the dark forest. It is the same story each year, the same cabin, woman, circumstances...
