Denomenate

Prologue

The drip of water off the cavern roof was somehow comforting and nerve-twangingly irritating at the same time. I decided to ignore it and the sound faded into the background as my mind wandered. 

It did that a lot lately. I couldn't seem to concentrate properly on anything useful. All that mattered was boys and looking pretty and having my first kiss. It was amazing how desperate I had become for an attractive and funny 'male' of sorts to notice me. It was almost demoralising, actually. Part of me was completely wrapped up in fantasies while a small, other part noticed exactly how stupid and meaningless all of it was. After all, if all girls swanned around in a boy-filled haze, who would be the next influential female politician? Or the next legendary Queen? Or even the next down-to-business Head of Kitchen Staff? You needed someone with their feet rooted to the ground for that job. Those scullery maids were a handful and a half (and often still wrapped up - in more ways than one - in men). 

But this part of my brain was largely overruled and hardly had a say in anything at all these days. I guess that's the part that becomes more dominant with maturity; the part with logic and sense, two very foreign ideas to me. 

I hummed a little to myself and held out my palm, creating a small beam of silvery light a few centimetres above it. The light began to dance and weave a small intricate pattern in the air around my hand. I grinned and created two more lights, making them move in the latest popular Court Dance. Laughing, I made a few more lights and created a small ball, all performing together. Something inside me rose up, a deep well of unheeded joy coming to the surface and also a desire to create something big. I twirled around and threw my arms outwards. Small silver beads of light exploded forth and rushed around the cavern, twisting and turning in the air like salmon rushing upriver until they ran out of steam. A wave of magic rushed back towards me and caught me in the stomach - 

For a few seconds, there was stillness. I opened my eyes, seeing the roof of the cavern shimmer into slightly unsteady focus. I slowly began to sit up. The world swam before my vision, as if I had been spinning around and around. I gently put a hand to my head in an effort to steady it. 

I stood up, dusted down my awfully gothic dress and began walking back. 

"Alastríona! What in the night's sky happened to you?" Mother rushed over and tried to comb her fingers through my tangled hair, plucking leaves and stones from it as she went.  

"Your dress is a ruin!" she wailed. Mother was particularly fond of wailing. Her and her sisters seemed to think of it as their duty to be as morbid, dramatic and self-pitying as possible. Wailing came with the territory.  

I stared at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying. She didn't seem to need an answer because she carried on regardless of my silence. 

"Are you hanging out in those dreadful caves again? Darling! How many times have I told you that you mustn't go there! Those things are velvet's worst enemy." 

I frowned. Slowly, as if testing the words in my mouth before I said them, I replied, "Yes, Mum." 

She narrowed her eyes at me, deciding whether or not I had been unnecessarily rude before sending me off to my room with specific instructions to make myself "presentable". 

As I trudged up the gloomy stairs, I tried hard to walk in a straight line. I stumbled into my room and slumped in an old armchair by the fireplace.  

I heard a gasp behind me and cringed. 

"Miss!" I closed my eyes. "We can't have you dirtying your chair like that, miss. Now come with me and we'll get the miss all cleaned up and presentable for your mother, right? This way, dear."