Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 1: Nicolynn

She remembers very well the last time she saw him.

The words he said.

The things he promised.

The life he wanted.

For him.

For them.

But when he left, she asked him, begged him not to think of her. A selfless plea for him to do this, to leave, to train, to get strong and powerful, not for her but for himself.

He had listened. She honestly didn't think he would. But he did and she had not received a letter from him since. The silence it left within her was deafening. She saw and felt and learned and heard everything while he was gone but it was as if it was the shell of her that was absorbing it all. She retained the knowledge but it did not affect her as it should have.

This was not to say that she was, is, empty without him. She was not. She has joy in her life; happiness and laughter, enjoyment. But some part of her, some deep down, tethered but shredded, lonely and remorseful part of her soul felt... detached, distant, broken. As if that other part of her left with him. As if his absence broke it away from her, stealing that ability to breathe fully unless he was at her side.

But the day had come, would come. In a few short weeks it would be here. She would mourn and cry, and grovel, plead with the Gods, old and forgotten, to bring back her parents, to retrieve them from the abyss that is death. Only this year, this fifteenth anniversary of their slaughter, she would not mourn on her own.

He would be beside her. He would care for her, even as she was a mess, even as she wailed and begged and screamed. She thought with time the wounds they left in her would go away, that they'd fall into the darkness as easily as the forgotten memories of their faces. But the injury, the hurt, the pain that their deaths caused her, they resurface every year, ripping her open, tearing her heart to pieces.

She knows why. She knows that her father's gift, however powerful and great, dwells within her, burning. Faintly, but still burning. She knows that its enormity, its untrained and untamed capabilities are what amplify her emotions on this day. She knows that if she struggles too hard to reign it in, if she fights it and does not win, if she lets it consume her, it will turn her into something she cannot face. It will use her for sport, to kill, to maim, to harm, and defile. That, she cannot allow.

So she allows herself this one day. This one day of unimaginable pain and anguish, sadness and disbelief. She allows herself to be swallowed whole by the ability that lurks beneath the surface but when dawn breaks the next day, she breaches the waters and breathes in the fresh air, not letting it drown her in her own self pity and sorrow.

It is enough to make her dangerous to herself but not enough to wield or summon or use as she wishes. Her magic does not come to light by her will, but by its own. She cannot discuss this topic with him though.

It has happened before. His rage was palpable. No. No that was the wrong word. Teeming. Unyielding. Insatiable. He was furious when she told him that she could feel it burning just beneath that veil within her that held it back. He should have known the moment she found out. But she kept it from him. For years Nicolynn kept the secret of her fluttering and weak-like magic from her best friend. To protect you, that is what she had told him. But even she knew that was a lie. She was afraid of what he would think of her. So she would not bring it up. Would not tell him that the magic was slowly eating her up from the inside. Would not tell him that each year she could feel the veil within her soul become a little thinner.

Only this year she knew it would break. It would shatter and splinter and shred, caving in on itself and her. She had to make sure she could stanch it until he left.