Marvolo Harper was a man of charm, wits and intellect. He held himself with a superior grace and though hailing from a humble background, he was well connected with the affluent be it royalty, nobility or the government.
From gold in his pocket to the gold of his hair and the gold within his teeth, there was not much he lacked. His wife too was a gem of high society, beautiful and thoughtful as they come, with whom he had two loving children.
But the brighter you shine, the darker are the shadows you cast.
Marvolo Harper enjoyed his prime in the prime of his life, for what followed next was hidden misfortune.
Mrs. Harper passed of some strange ailment that was never outed to society. Her toddler son could not bear the loss of his young mother and the sudden dependability over his maids, so he too followed his mother within the next four years.
The eldest daughter, suddenly deprived of two of her closest relations, was coddled into brattiness by Marvolo Harper. The ever so busy man would leave his daughter for long periods of time and the willful teen would do as she pleased. Half a decade in, her behaviour got out of hand and no maids wanted to serve her anymore, no relatives wanted to look after her.
Succumbing to societal pressures, Marvolo Harper remarried for the sake of his daughter.
Among whispers with good and bad intent, there were mumblings about fate. How two people, born with their strings of fate, intertwine with destiny and create a new fate together. The superior of the two fates would usually diminish the lackluster of their partner's fate, and hence, balance out their position in life.
Late Mrs. Harper's fate was presumably superior than Mr. Marvolo Harper's. For after her return to dust, Mr. Harper was said to have set his trail on a downward spiral.
But the remarriage made it worse.
One's fate is not a factor one can rebelliously change but a fact that they can only amiably accept. New Mrs. Harper was lass lorn of brilliance and the owner of rugged fate strings.
Society whispered that it was her mere presence fuelling the doom of the once glorious Harper name.
Mr. Harper lost his job, sold his mansion, sacked his maids and returned to the countryside for a more cost-effective life with extended family. He had never been one for saving and once a person steps down from richness, it does take a while to reform expensive habits and cut down on unnecessary expenses which once were the defining part of his daily regime.
Hair dressers, tailor made custom outfits, expensive diets— middle class frowned upon all such luxuries with what they had in their wallets.
Returning to their ancestral home, the Harpers were temporarily happy amidst extended family. His first daughter was set to be married to one of her mother's family friends. She was going to make a comeback into the lap of luxury and leave behind her stepmother and father in a country home.
To whom was born, little Aurora Harper, a gorgeous little girl with the most complex string of fate under her name.
The Harper's extended family began feuding with new Mrs. Harper over the minutest of things. Be it morning breakfast: "Why should my maids cook for your lowly daughter? Just do it yourself!"
"Do not touch anything in our fridge, mind you, it belongs to my son!"
To slowly shunning their presence from the common rooms, "Who even needs you here?"
"Can you stop existing? You are distracting my son from his studies. Something that your dumb daughter has no idea of."
"Just get out, my family is not your guest. Stop trying to win favours."
Mrs. Harper and little Aurora were ostracised and confined to one room. Mr. Harper, struggling but failing to find another job, too gave in and started living off the crumbs of his savings.
"He lived off his first wife's fate, you see. Ate her all up. Now his new one is eating him all up. HaHaHa." Words as such, mocking someone's life as a mere shrug of entertainment in their day, pushed Mr. Harper down the pavement of ill behaviour. Gone was the charm, and good heart, lost in the broken cracks of the mirror that life had faced him with.
In only a room to call their own, the couple got bitter amidst the four walls of that small space, grew up Aurora Harper, diminishing the walls with imagination, full of dreams and ambitions, crushed by all around. She wasn't the brightest of all children. Math had never been her forte, science made her squirm and social studies bored her to sleep. But what she did love was art. Performing Arts.
It was a small little dream buried in her heart for she was too scared to say it out loud in a place where no one would listen. They would all mock her, she knew. Compare her to her cousins who were pursuing science and commerce or computers, future making aspects, not struggling to alternate dreams with reality.
Introverted little Aurora, blamed for her mother's sickness and father's ill fate, abused verbally, shun by all relatives...she was choked, metaphorically.
Her imagination, her creativity, her talent, her hands which itched to move to every beat, her heart that fluttered upon hearing a musical note, her brilliant blue eyes which would brighten up upon the faintest mumble of a dialogue— every passionate cell of her body was waiting for a chance at expression.
And when it did come to her, it was taken away too soon.
She died.
And was reborn with all her skills back at scratch.
For what was it all worth? The twenty years of her life ultimately amounted to nothing. All her life, nothing had been more easier than her demise.
So, in a new world, clinging onto a different set of morals, as a new person, Iris had ran up to the crystal enclosed Lake and jumped at the fleeting sight of the opal necklace, deciding to discard any and all further regrets. But, whilst desperately flailing her limbs in the bubbly fluid of Lake Virae, chasing after the last glimmers of that 'A' engraved opal, for hope, for freedom, for riches, she realised that this body could not swim.
Had she given it a moment's thought earlier, she would have came to a similar conclusion with her two feet still grounded safely on grass.
And as the fluid overtook her senses and will of life, weighed her body down, and made it embrace the cold crystalline depths of the bloody Lake, the memories of her past life flooded in.
The disappointed face of her mother when she failed math for the first time in her life.
The furious face of her father when he found her dancing.
The mocking gaze of her cousins when she would speak, everyday.
The desolation of a barren Christmas tree.
She was sinking. Steadily. Again, but not metaphorically this time. Regrettably.
That was then, this was now.
But she seemed to have forgotten what she couldn't achieve in twenty years on Earth, she had attained in two days on this strange land.
A person who would call her a friend even when she had nothing to offer.
When her empty hand felt fingers clasping around it, intertwining, she felt at ease. A protective hand on her waist held her up, anchoring the chaos within her. And as they swam up, Iris' burning eyes caught glimpses of black and gold before sight escaped them.
And the fluid rushing through her nose, burning in her throat, lulled her to sleep.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"We'll find her in no time, you said, but I see no girl begging for her life. Though I do see a questionably enormous amount of hair and an unhealthy collection of fingernails. What are you on about?!"
"Shhh, lay low, I collected these from all the corpses—"
"YOU DID WHAT—?! YOU ARDENT NUCLEUS OF A CREEP—"
"HeY, tone down, it is for the locator spell, unlike SoMeOne, I have been laying groundwork all around town—"
"And what if she isn't in town, you rotting braincell, verminforbid, what if she isn't even in the country?! What are you going to do, start an empire-wide campaign for hoarding dead-people-genes?! Or will Your Dastardly Highness target world dominion through bloody morgues?!"
"Hey! Don't jinx it! I'm trying, don't you see?!"
"Well you should have tried harder when we were summoning her!! Her soul could be walking around, inhibiting any dead person all over the planet — and for the love of our Priestess, may Virae bless her, if she is in the body of a child— you better start writing off your wills or whatever."
"Why did I not think of it...?"
"That is an overstatement. 'I' for you and 'think' should never be used in the same sentence again."
"Well if you ever got rid of demeaning my entire existence—"
"Hey! I only do that because I love you!"
"Said the reaper to the soul, but if her soul is in the body of a child then we cannot locate her...for the next, say, what, sixteen years? Until she comes of age, right? It could be anytime!"
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"I...will start planning your funeral."
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