Sparkle (KOTLC) {Completed}

29

The first day of searching was the worst. Sophie had immediately shut down, which Janessa noted worriedly, and even Keefe's jokes couldn't make her react. On her nightly calls with Amy, Janessa could tell both her sisters didn't know what to say, and everything left unsaid hovered between them menacingly.

Janessa tried to lighten the mood as best she could, but neither of her sisters could ever manage a genuine smile, and, if she were being honest with herself, she couldn't either. Through the stress, Janessa could feel the pressure to call down flames growing, though she easily prevented unwanted flare-ups.

Every walk through Atlantis felt pointless, and Janessa almost wished she had only been put on research duty. At least in the library, there was the illusion of an infinite amount of places left to check, whereas Atlantis grew smaller by the day, with no luck.

Even when she and Biana were "shopping" in Atlantis as a ruse, neither of them could muster up a real smile or laugh, halfheartedly trying on gowns which once would've excited them. Their internals clocks were ticking louder and louder until it felt unbearable.

They had had no luck in Atlantis, Dex and Bronte hadn't accessed any cache secrets, and Lady Cadence and the ogres who had been looking for a cure to soporidine had no better results than the rest of them. The only thing that had remotely moved forward was working with Sophie on a speech to tell Prentice when she healed him, which led to a whole new brand of tension.

Then, before Janessa knew it, it was her first day at Foxfire, and for the first time, she entered the building as a student, wearing the same amber uniform as her sister, although, instead of a family crest, she found the pin holding her half-cape together to be empty. They really couldn't even pretend she had a family. At the realization, Janessa did her best to smile through the pain.

Finding Sophie, she quickly made her way over to her sister, who was surrounded by all their friends, including Ro, who was getting many unfriendly stares from the other students. While Ro didn't mind encouraging the stares, even flashing her claws and teeth at the students, Janessa glared at the students and made a point to give a loud, friendly greeting to the ogre, complete with a handshake she'd forced Ro to make with her. Every time she smiled, the desire of the flames panned down.

Her friends looked at the exchange curiously and Dex nudged her shoulder carefully.

"You seem shockingly ok with the ogre princess, all things considered." He commented, a relieved gleam in his eyes.

Janessa grinned at him. "Ro and I are besties now. She taught me how to throw a knife and we pranked Keefe's dad." Dex smiled proudly as Janessa began to fiddle with her thumbs, looking away slightly. "I took your advice, you know? I'm not... hiding or anything anymore."

There it was. Dex's dimple. Janessa beamed back at him as she noticed how happy he was, and as she brushed her hand against his arm briefly, she could feel all the warmth in his emotions. Any urge she'd had to conjure flames passed.

"Thanks for waking me up." Part of Janessa was sad she couldn't feel his emotions through the air as she saw his cheeks flush slightly at the comment as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm just glad you're back."

Magnate Leto, also known as Mr Forkle, then began the morning announcements, insisting that Ro was an honoured bodyguard and should be treated as such, though the gazes did not stop. Some people stared instead at Janessa and her sparkly hair and scars, though the scars on her face had faded to pale pink lines after using all of Kessler Dizznee's ointment.

Biana had offered to show her to her first class, which Janessa was grateful for as she would've gotten lost otherwise. Her first class was Alchemy, with Lady Galvin, whose capes Sophie had apparently destroyed on multiple occasions.

"So you're Sophie's sister, I hear." Lady Galvin said tartly as she pointedly pushed her cape behind her.

"Yes, I am. I'd like to assure you that I didn't inherit the same... gift for explosions as my sister, based on what I've heard." Janessa reassured, laughing internally despite her stress.

Lady Galvin sniffed, still standing far away. "I'll believe it when I see it."

When Janessa successfully made the elixir Lady Galvin had asked her to with no difficulties, the woman's eyebrows raised. 

"I see you are indeed very different from your... troublesome sister. I look forward to teaching you, Miss Quincy." The woman didn't smile, but despite her bitter face, her relief was evident.

Her Elvin history class with Sir Rosings was similarly successful, and Janessa found that, in general, a childhood with no friends her own age and all the time in the world to study had prepared her very well for school.

When it was time for lunch, Janessa hurried to the cafeteria, getting turned around in the hallways a few times but eventually finding her way there. Most of her friends were already seated, and she found a spot between Biana and Sophie. There were two people she hadn't met yet there. A blonde girl with small braids and a dark-skinned girl with braided hair, some of her braids being blue. 

Immediately the blonde caught her eyes as she noticed the heat accumulating around her. So she was the other pyrokinetic. Judging by the way the girl was looking back at her, she could tell something was off, but didn't realize they had the same ability.

"I don't think I've met you two yet." Janessa said, glancing between the two girls.

The pyrokinetic introduced herself as Marella and the other girl was Maruca, Wylie's cousin apparently.

"How come you don't have a family crest?" Maruca asked as she looked down at the empty pin on Janessa's uniform.

All of Janessa's friends then craned their necks, not having noticed that she didn't have one. Janessa shuffled uncomfortably, trying her best to smile, though the pain in her eyes was evident. "Oh, well, my family died when I was really young, and I was never adopted or anything." Unable to stop herself, Janessa looked at all her friends' family crests, proudly pinned to their capes. Even Sophie had the Ruewen crest, which Janessa wouldn't have.

"I thought you were Sophie's sister." 

Sophie elbowed her to shut up, but Maruca paid no mind to it. Janessa swallowed thickly.

"I am, we've just never had the same parents." Janessa mumbled.

Maruca didn't seem to get the hint that she was overstepping as she continued her questioning. "You don't have any parents then?"

Janessa took a deep breath. "My human parents are dead, Calla was the only one I would really consider a parent, but she's a tree now, so no, I don't have any parents, unless you count the few Black Swan members I interacted with maybe once a week at most."

The table fell silent, and Dex, Keefe, and Biana exchanged sad looks, being those closest to her.

The conversation soon moved on to Prentice's healing, which would happen sometime the following week, while Janessa fell silent, only smiling when Biana grabbed her hand comfortingly. It didn't matter that much if she had parents, she had friends to make up for it. That's what she told herself at least.