Ashes to Ashes - An ADSOM Series FanFic

Clemency

My first memory was of burning my house down. I didn't do it on purpose, of course, but then again how many people do. I was four years old, and tiny. So tiny that I could fit into a small chest with a candle and the top closed when my dad came home drunk and beat my mom. It was a nice little place, and I would practice my magic with a slender blue candle until I heard heavy footsteps going upstairs, then I'd come out and practice my magic more by healing Mama's cuts and bruises. I couldn't heal any on her face, though, because then Papa would know that I'd helped her and he'd bring people to take me away.
It was a night like any other when I burned the house down. I was in the chest in the corner practicing my magic. I made the fire spin and dance around me like my own little parade. I put the flame back down in the candle where it belonged, and tried blowing it out with air. It was easy, and usual. Then, I grew a little pedestal from the base of the chest and placed the candle on it carefully. I smiled sleepily and tipped my head back, allowing the heat to radiate through my cold little bones as quiet sobs shook through the house.
I don't remember falling asleep, but I know I did, because I woke up with something light as air falling in my peripheral. I looked up to see the sky, stormy and dark, above me, filled with ash that I thought at first was falling snow. I peered at it carefully, noticing how it seemed to tumble away from me, like I was in glass dome. It was then that I felt the familiar clench of magic in my stomach and realized that I was shielding myself from something. It wasn't unusual for me to throw up shields as a protective measure against any number of things. It had almost become unconscious at this point, but the darkish hue of the veins in my hands told me that I had been holding this shield strong for a long time. I dropped the shield and let the ashes fall into my area. One of them drifted past me face and I stuck out my tongue to catch the snowflake on its tip. Instead, the bitter taste of death filled my mouth, and suddenly I realized that it was far too hot to be snowing. It was so hot it felt like a mid summers day, but the sky was black as pitch. I put my shield back up, not caring how the magic hurt me. I curled up as small as I could get, and closed my eyes, as tears that felt like fire jammed their way between my lids, and scorched burning lines into my cheeks.
I didn't move for a long time. My family's home was far away from the nearest village, so there was no one to see the rising smoke, or smell the acrid stench of bodies burned to nothing. There was also no one to find me, buried and weeping until thirst and hunger drove me from my home. I was only four then. Small and boyish and barely said a word. I walked from my home and didn't turn back. I managed to walk a week living off plants I knew were safe, and water I didn't, until I reached the nearest town. I was so young, and clueless I didn't even know where I was, only that I was the daughter of a Veskan and an Arnesian, and we lived somewhere in between. I stumbled into the seemingly boring town of Sasenroche with nothing but the tears dried on my cheeks and the grayish ash the covered my hands and feet. Of course, I also had my magic and my mind, both of which would do me more good than any money or wares ever would.
I was terrified and lost, but when I stumbled into Sasenroche that day, I made myself a vow. I wouldn't stand by when people where hurt. I wouldn't hide in a box. I would be center stage, and I would fight with all the life in me. I blamed myself for the death of my parents, but I knew, somehow, that the ash on my hands wasn't going to go anywhere, just be joined by blood. Lots and lots of blood.
That's why I changed my name. It used to be something soft and nice like Lila or Ashley, but I wasn't soft anymore. Not in any way. I also had my fathers last name. The same treacherous name that had drawn my mother to him all those years ago. A name that had money and power and left a sick taste like bile in my mouth whoever I said it or heard it said. So I changed it to the only other name I knew. My mother's maiden name, which she whispered to me at night as I healed her cuts.
She was weeping and telling me about how she would escape. How she would take me away from Papa and we would go to the nearest town and she would take back her family name and disappear. I could only nod at her and smooth her hair, because I knew that even though she talked about it every night in between soft sobs, she never would. I knew that she was so scared. So scared she wouldn't make it, so scared that I'd be hurt in the process, that she never tried. My mother was a painting of contrast. Both the strongest and weakest person I've ever met. I still puzzle over how she would have been before she met Papa. Maybe she would have been happy and vibrant and bright. I like to picture it sometimes, my beautiful mother, smiling at boys and trying on dresses in quaint corner shops.
All those nights my mother would whisper her real name to me like a secret I wasn't allowed to repeat. Like something shared between us. A sliver of hope in the darkening sky of our lives. Her name, now my name, was Clemency.
And, because I've always been a fan of irony, the first name I took was Sin. That's my name, Sin Clemency. It's my sword and shield against the world. It's my armor to hide behind. It's my most valued possession, because it's the only thing that's truly mine.