Ungifted

Mira sat at the bottom of the staircase of her enormous house, wishing that she had something better to do. She didn't. She was ungifted. Everyone in the town knew. She was an embarrassment to her family, and for that reason, she guessed, her parents had never considered her their child.

It wasn't easy being ungifted in a town of human and animal hybrids. An extremely famous town, no less, known for the nobleness of its people, who used their supernatural gifts to do good for the rest of the world. Being the first, and only ungifted one in the town had ruined the people's reputations, according to her parents, as they scowled at her. Guessing from things her parents had said to her over the years, she supposed that she had especially ruined their reputation. Her parents were one of the most gifted hybrids of the century, her father a leopard hybrid, and her mother a fox hybrid. Gifted with the spirits of strong predators was always an honor in their town, and Mira's parents were blessed with that honor. Until she was born.

Her parents had been overjoyed at first when Mira was born, as she was naturally beautiful. Mira snorted silently to herself. Beautiful. Like that meant anything. Yep, she was definitely beautiful, with flowing caramel curls, glowing copper skin, and glittering amber eyes. Beauty was important in their town, as beauty usually meant one was especially gifted. But Mira was a disappointment. Her beauty meant nothing and was in fact one of the other reasons the townspeople hated her so much.

It was now rumored that her beauty was a trick. An illusion. A lie. Something to give the people false hope for an extremely gifted town member, but in the end, she had shattered that hope. People thought she was some kind of evil spirit, sent to bring destroy the town's reputation. And so, Mira had always been an outcast in her town.

However, Mira didn't accept this inequality. She had always been a defiant child. She had always been looking for ways to prove herself. Mira was always especially kind and respectful to the town elders, and she did all her chores in the house with expertise and precision. But as Mira grew older, she slowly realized the truth. These things didn't matter. It still came down to her gift, which she didn't have. Mira realized that she wasn't becoming helpful to her parents. Not exactly, anyway. They treated her more like a servant now that she had learned to do chores. Life hadn't gotten any better. It had gotten worse. Mira felt a slight lump in her throat as the thought struck her. She swallowed it down with a quiet hiss. She would not cry. She would not show weakness.

The doorbell rang. Mira debated whether to go and greet her parents. She decided against it. Instead, she entered the kitchen just as she heard the door creak. A second later, she heard footsteps shuffling into the living room and the sound of people sitting on the couch. Her parents were probably tired from the day of assisting the world with their gifts. Like she cared a tiny bit about how tired they were. Mira turned to the stove and started to prepare tonight's dinner without much enthusiasm. She knew that while her parents were enjoying their dinner, she would be munching on leftover scraps. How fortunate. Still, she prepared the meal with care, as she knew that her parents would no doubt beat her up with their gifts if the meal wasn't delicious enough.

After dinner was served, Mira only had the pleasure of curling up against the wall of the hall that divided the kitchen and the dining room. The tinkling of silverware made her mouth water, but she swallowed down the saliva. "Mira!" called her mother's voice from the dining room. Soon after, a china plate, covered with cracks, was pushed into the hallway. On the plate were 2 or 3 tiny scraps of meat, and a piece of stale cracker. Typical. Thought Mira as she silently swallowed down her piece of dinner. After her "meal", Mira carefully tucked the China plate in a little cabinet in the top corner of the kitchen wall. Then, she tip-toed up a set of hidden stairs in the back wall to the attic. Her bedroom.

The tiny room was just as she always remembered, covered with a thin layer of dust. Mira had managed to shoo away all the spiders that were in the room when she had first been forced into it. She had tried to make the attic a little more welcoming and comfortable, but that wasn't easy to do with a tiny room that had a tiny broken yellow lamp for lighting. However, Mira did manage to weave some broken twigs that she had fetched from the house's gardens into a neat little basket to hold all her belongings, and she had also gotten herself a broken log as a nightstand from her days of working with the lower class laborers. Her bed was still extremely uncomfortable, as it was just a metal board covered with two thin pieces of fabric, but Mira had slightly improved it as she sometimes cleaned the sheets and hanged them in a hidden little corner in the gardens when her parents weren't home. Strangely, the "bedroom" had grown on her over the years, and it had begun to feel more and more like a secret haven than a prison.

At least, she could say whatever she wanted in the attic, as none of her parents ever liked to go up there, and she could also keep hidden secrets in the dusty corners of the tiny room. She had actually stolen a little dragon doll from the many vintage animal dolls and figurines her parents had collected. These dolls were typically displayed on the enormous main shelf in the sitting room, but there were so many of them that no one would ever notice that one was gone. She hoped so, anyway.

But Mira had a bigger secret...

She had been sneaking into the house's sitting room every night after she was sure that her parents had gone to bed. Of course, she was never completely sure, so it was, in a way, a thrilling experience, as there was always a suspense in the air. Was her parents really asleep? Or were they waiting so that they could beat her up after she started tip-toeing back to the attic. However, it seemed that her parents had never discovered her behavior, as they never appeared out of nowhere to beat her as she sneaked around at midnight. And so, Mira had learned to trust her instincts. 

The strange thing was, however, that Mira never knew why she was sneaking down to the sitting room every night. It seemed that the only thing that was causing her to do this was her body, while her brain debated the consequences. It didn't matter though. Her brain had no say in this. It was just her body carrying her down to the sitting room and back again. The sitting room housed many of her parents' vintage collections and "magical objects". Mira did wonder if that was what brought her down here every time, the temptation to take them and somehow, make herself magical. Still, she never knew the true reason. Thankfully, her body didn't ever make her destroy one of these objects, as that would definitely have earned her a thousand beatings, perhaps more. Mira shuddered at the thought as she lay still on her hard metal bed.

She didn't know what time it was, but her instincts seemed to tell her that once again, it was time to sneak down to the sitting room. Reluctantly, Mira complied as her body made her sit up and quietly tiptoe out her bedroom door. As she had expected, the main lights of the house were off, and the only light came from scented candles her mother had always used to tint the air in the house with the fragrance of jasmines, violets, and roses. Mira carefully closed the door of the hidden staircase behind her as she slowly sneaked against the hallway to the door that opened up into the sitting room. A huge, neatly woven Persian rug sat on the floor of the sitting room, and the room smelled like violets, making it seem more welcoming. Glass shelves filled every wall, displaying clay figurines and gems from the older times. 

Mira's body took her down to the main display at the end of the room, with its own marble stand and known far and wide across the land. There it was---the legendary imperial vase, in her parents' possession. The vase was beautiful, as it was described in stories, it was made out of fine white porcelain, and painted on the vase---the graceful figures of the snow dragon and the fire phoenix, in all their glory. Mira felt a strange warmth in her heart, as if the painted snow dragon and the fire phoenix was glowing at her. She reached for the vase, trying to touch it---it all happened so fast---the vase crashed to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces, releasing a loud sound that must have woken up both of her parents. Mira jerked back in shock. Then, she turned and saw both of her parents, still standing in their nightclothes, both with their arms crossed over their chests and an enraged scowl on their face.

"Mira...."Growled her mother, "Do you understand how much that vase was worth?" "Y-y-yes m-mother." Mira stuttered, trying to cower behind the marble stand, but her father grabbed her by the collar before she could move. "You disgrace!" Her father snarled, his face morphing in between that of a fierce snow leopard and a scowling man, "You will pay for this!" He released Mira and sent her stumbling toward the stand. She caught herself before the stand could break her back. Her father turned toward her mother. "Malina, I think that thing has been taken under our hospitality for too long." Her father said, his voice slightly more even, "This requires more severe measures." Her mother nodded. Mira, thinking that they were about to torture her even more today, shrank toward the marble stand with a shudder.

Her mother turned to her again. "You will be exiled from this town. From now on." Her mother said, all calm now, "You shall never be seen by anyone from our village." "If anyone happens to see you," Her father added, "You shall be sentenced to prison and you shall be doing labor for the rest of your life. Assuming that you live through your exile, considering how useless you are." He added with a hint of a smirk. "W-w-when does this begin?" Mira managed to stutter. "Oh," Her parents smiled, but it wasn't a kind smile, "Right now."