Secrets In the Glass

(Currency Table for later)

{ Copper

   Silver

   Gold

   Pryium}

{ 15 copper= 1 silver}

{ 50 silver = 1 gold}

{ 100 gold = 1 pryium}

~7~

 Ivy Parke never knew a true normal. People looking at her funny, her parents treating her like she was made of glass, no one in school having the gall to be her friend, all of it was strange and off-putting to an outsider. Yet still, Ivy thought this was normal because she never knew anything else about childhood, so the weird was her normal, and the normal was her weird. Tv shows showing doting families and the main characters having more than two friends was something she could comprehend.

 It didn’t make any sense.

 It couldn’t make any sense. What did they have that she didn’t? What made things so different for her?

 When she couldn’t figure out what it was, she just stopped. She simply accepted. Accepted the fact that normal was weird, and weird was normal.

  Accepting the fact that her parents would never want to touch her for long. Accepting the fact that she was a comfortable loner.

 Accepting the fact that not everyone has a birthmark in the shape of an ivy vine spiraling down her arm, and that it was growing down every day.

~11~

 Another day, same results. Ivy has long accepted it. She’s stopped talking to her classmates, even for group projects. She’s stopped trying to make friends, she was alright with making her own up. She’s stopped talking to anyone, really. 

 They seemed happy. She was happy. 

 Or at least...she tried to be. People, whenever they did have to talk to her, they acted as if they were treading around a minefield, that one wrong step could start an apocalypse. The biggest thing is that everyone received a penchant when they were 10, but not her. Her 10th birthday passed by and no one bothered to even give her anything, not even a crumb. Surely her parents would at least give her something everyone else had, right? The penchant was an item that could tell you what your future held, and daily fortunes for 5 coppers a week. They didn’t even cost that much either, just 20 silver for a new one.

An itching at the back of her brain grew further and further still, demanding a further explanation, about her birthmark, and her entire existence. 

 This would never come to a boil until years later.

~16~

 What was she thinking? This would get her in so much trouble. But the urge for answers finally hit its peak. She needed answers of everyone’s distance from or else she would go stir crazy. 

 When she was younger, her parents had put down some rules for her. Don’t leave the house after curfew, don’t talk to strangers on the internet, and never ever go inside the attic. 

 All of them were fairly reasonable to her back then. She never had any friends to break curfew with, strangers were scary, and the attic was filled with creepy crawly spiders she never wanted to see in her life.

 Her younger self would shame her if she found out she would break one of those rules.

 Climbing the ladder she had seen her parents hide so dutifully from her, Ivy opened the hatch and climbed through, pulling the ladder up when she was done. 

 And well, to say the attic was dusty was to say the sun was just only a little hot. The attic was absolutely filthy. Dust forming layers on layers on boxes and the floor, cobwebs forming in the corners, yet no spiders were present. (Much to her relief).

 Perhaps the most magical, or the most confusing, if she focused hard enough towards the roof, yellow and pink sparkles were dancing in the quiet breeze from the window in the front. All of them seemed to be softly expelled from a mirror in front of the window. Her viney birthmark seared in pain as she clutched her arm. Weird. Her birthmark never reacted this way before.

 Stepping towards the mirror, her birthmark spiraling around her arm grew to burn into her skin more and more. Ivy winced, she wanted to go back, to never question what she was made for. 

 But this was new. She never felt anything like this in her life! She’s wanted answers for so long, so doesn’t this give a sign that she's getting closer? Closer to what she was meant for? While she has been enamored with being special, like something cool was made for her, this felt like this was it. This is what she was made for, it had to be!

 Persisting through her burn, she slowly trudged over to the mirror. Closer and closer, the burning growing more and more, she never felt like she wanted more pain in her life. 

 At last, she reached the mirror, her arm felt like it was on fire. Hot as the sun with nothing to put it out, but she was so close. A single message was etched into the mirror.

 “Speak not the truth in front of Mirror Lavennza. Speak those of lies to prompt a truth.”

 Ivy’s breath hitched. Could this be? Is this a turning point for her entire life? Shaking, quivering, she spoke nervously in an uneven tone,

 “I-Ivy Parke’s life will be m-mundane and b-boring.”

 The mirror said nothing. It shook, once, twice, but not a third time. Ivy felt her entire world break before her. So she wasn’t special after all. All those doubts she had, all those feelings she had of being cut off, they were for nothing. Bowing her head in shame, she turned around to leave.

 That was the plan until the mirror’s face erupted in sparks. The mirror shook and shook as if it was facing the highest earthquake it had ever seen. Purple steam blocked her path, beckoning her to see the path it did. It brought her in and turned her around as if it had a mind of its own. 

 Then, just like a scene from a movie, the steam cleared from the glass to show a passage of words.

 “Ashes and dust,

 Disaster will strike,

 Fall is must,

Betrayal by spikes,

 Ivy spiral,

 Set in skin,

Should she learn,

The death of her kin,

The swallow is large,

The eagle is small,

A secret barrage,

They who walk will crawl.”

 Ivy’s skin shuddered. She blinked once, and suddenly she was in a completely different environment. 

 Another version of her, but much more tattered and mature-looking. Before she stood someone of her height, midnight hair with forest green highlights, with clothes in a similar fashion to her, all tattered and torn. They seemed to be in a fight of sorts. She tried to run, but her legs were stuck to the ground as if something was keeping her there. They drew a weapon from their belt. The different Ivy a combat knife, and the boy a scythe. They charged, and wait, is she killing-

 Ivy blinked again, and she was back in the attic. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she held. Her heart was hammering against her chest, if her ribcage was any weaker, her heart would have flown out from adrenaline. The purple smoke seeped back into the mirror, looking as normal as it did when Ivy first encountered it. The sparkles once dancing around the room were now gone.

 No voice could be heard, not even her own. Gears were still turning in her mind, still processing what she just saw. 

 The ivy vine birthmark she never knew what it was for.

 The reason why everyone was so hesitant towards her.

 The reason why she felt excluded from society.

 Gods, above, am I a chosen hero?!

fin.