Eclipse's tale.

She was born in fire, in the year that had set records of the hottest in recorded history, in the month that had been hotter than any other in recorded history. The five days leading up to her birth had all set records for being the hottest days in recorded history. As if the world was trying to beat it’s own records over and over again, and the day she was born…

Nothing breathed.

Nothing dared to go in the sun.

Birds fell dead from the sky.

It’s a sign.

It’s a sign.

Did you hear? The reergent of fire has been born.

Her parents were amazed when the child was born loud screaming desperate as if her soul couldn't be contained in her body. The name rolled from her father’s lips, not yet understanding why

“Eclipse...” he said, his voice a whisper, the mother nodded slowly, repeating the whisper then louder.

“Remove her soul marks.” The woman’s voice was strong despite what she had just gone through, the father stood shocked, soul mark removal was dangerous everyone knew that.

She screamed when the surgeon took her.

The room heated up.

She was fire incarnate.

She was the reergent of fire.

The marks were gorgeous, she would’ve grown up the apple of everyone’s eye. With six gorgeously colored makrs, three under each eye, the doctor worried she had been born too hot, and when her marks were removed she nearly died, her elemental flairing, her mark flickering even on the removed skin.

Around the world others felt it.

Of the six two others were born.

They saw the girls mark flicker.

They screamed in pain.

The pain of a soulmate close to death.

She survived, but barely. Her parents were proud, they suspected their child was the reagent of heat. Powerful and destined to turn the tide of the war, and she had survived one of the most deadly surgeries known to the world, at barely a day old.

Eclipse was drawn to the moon, not the sun, the cold, not the heat, it was wrong she was fire, and who had heard of a fire drawn to ice?

Wrong

Wrong

Wrong wrong wrong

Words have power, anyone who says otherwise is nothing but an empty shell, unable to understand the world around them. Eclipse knew the power of words, she was desperate for it, to hold the words to understand them and to make them understand her so she started talking before a year old.

“I can do it all by myself,” were her first words, less than a year, spat in fiery determination her parent’s were ecstatic. The potential reagent of heat, and a progeny no less, they didn't realize what this meant, that a child who speaks early may struggle to read. The child who spoke her first words in a full sentence, who was born a survivor was destined to continue to struggle.

Her first struggle was with others. She sat still under things, on top of things, separate from others, she complained about it being too loud or too bright, she struggled away from touch, and shook her hands in a loud room and more than anything she stared watching everyone intensely unblinking, barely breathing.

“There’s something wrong with her,” her mother’s friends whispered it was the first time she felt a soulmate. Something touched her arm, she hated it when people touched her arm, the dim fire flickered and she backed away from the phantom touch only to stare at the air where it had been. Another touch to her arm, she swatted at the air, eyes sharp and burning.

“She’s got to be reacting to something,” she heard her mother’s friend whisper, bringing her attention from the phantom touch. “It looks like a soul mate,” the friend hissed.

Soulmate

Soulmate

Soul….mate, those are bad

Those are week

Those are different

Different, different, different

And different is wrong

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

The fire in Eclipse’s eyes flickered

“There’s no way it’s a soulmate,” her mother retorted, walking over to Eclipse. “I had her soul-marks removed the day she was born,” she said, forgetting the things a five year old can understand. Eclipse doesn't remember the reason she hates people touching her arm. She doesn't remember this conversation or how her mother always grabbed her by the arm but like many things the consequences outlast the incident.

“The day she was born, you must be right, no child who’s not a reergent can survive something like that,” the friend hissed as Eclipse’s mother dragged her by the arm.

“Yes, and soulmates don’t show up if the marks are deliberately removed,” her mother doesn't realize that soulmates cannot be removed by someone else, that the removal of the marks did nothing since it wasn't Eclipse's choice.

She was put with other children who shook their hands, who flinced from touch, who covered their ears when things were too loud, or any number of other things. She got along with them quite well, but she hated going to these groups. She hated the doctors who tried to fix her and the others; the way they put them in rooms with too much light and too much sound they way they grabbed the children who freaked out by the upper arms and dragged them out. The fire flickered, the ice comforted her, when she curled up to avoid the sound covering her ears, the ice placed a comforting hand on her. Eclipse met all her soul-mates during these sessions but she couldn't react to them, or else she would be dragged off, she would get yelled at, the sound far too loud, left unable to cover her ears.

Quiet did it for her, quiet could make the sound stop. They were one of the few people she let touch her upper arms, because she knew they were only trying to help, and the quiet they brought made her feel safe. The fire flickered even more, with no fault of anyone, the cold was just more comforting.

Void was protective, she named him because she could barely feel him sometimes. He helped her hide, held her hands when she wanted to shake them, helped her memorize morse code when she was old enough so she could talk to everyone; the tapped signal .

“Not broken,” was one she could recognize anywhere, and a huge signal that void was nearby, he would tap ‘not broken’ when he held her hands still. When Shadow would cover Eclipse’s eyes with her hands to filter the light, when Quiet covered her ears to filter the sound, Void was always there.

Shadow was dark, she was comforting, she could make the world dim, and she was happy, always there to play tapping long stories into her forearms. It would be helpful if she could read properly, but when she was frustrated struggling to convince others about things. Shadow was her rock.

Flower was nice, a little too soft, actually far too soft, and too clingy. She hung on Eclipse’s back, touched her arms and layed in her lap, she pushed her towards other people and encouraged her to take a break when she was stuck in loops. She pet her head when tears stung her eyes struggling to hold the power of words in her hands. Despite the fact that Flower was too clingy, Eclipse still loved her.

Rock was nice; he guided her. Present at times her parents were not giving her pants when she finally learned how to read, when she finally started understanding in the incorrect way of hers how words formed, he was a friend but he was also a guide. He was almost always present when she needed it even more so than anyone else.

Soulmates are week

Soulmates are wrong

Soulmates are different

different is bad

You’re supposed to be normal

Supposed to be perfect but you can’t even be normal

You need soulmates because your week

Because you can’t be normal

Weak

Wrong

different

Weak

Wrong

different

She was supposed to be fire, but all she wanted was ice. She felt ice, and it was a comforting hand to cool her down when her fire burned over.

When Eclipse was six years old, the coldest winter in history happened, just like with her birth. There were five days leading up to the coldest one in record. Her country celebrated two reergents that must be the most powerful in history born so close to each other. However, it was not to be, the sixth day, a woman gave birth, a baby boy, beautiful and pale, he was born without soul-marks, strong and perfect, but it was not to be.

Eclipse felt her fire flicker, she already knew she was wrong, different broken, she ran, ran from her home out into the blizzard on the coldest day. Of the coldest month, of the coldest winter, of the coldest year in history, the ice felt like a comfort, as did the moon bright in the sky. She ran far from her home, away from the city and the hospital that contained the child that was to be the reagent of cold. Only that child had a fever, boiling hot the child baked in its body, no one could save the poor thing. It died in under an hour, the media reported it as a tragedy as they had reported Eclipse’s birth as a miracle. The media wouldn't know that the ‘reergent of heat’ was dying cold in the middle of the public park.

The media wouldn't know that the unrelenting cold didn't touch the child, that the near death that caused her mark to flicker on all her soulmates. The near death that caused them all to cry out in pain with the near death of a soulmate was because she burned through her magic in frustration the first time she called on an elemental and it was cold not heat. Her frustration made her lash out and then pass out in the park overnight, not that her parents or anyone else knew when she crawled back into her room that morning. Before the sun had even started to rise, she never told anyone about this, only her soulmates knew.

Eclipse graduated from the class of kids who were ‘like her’. She could tell they were different; not all of them had the same things. The girl who ran around and struggled to stay focused was more like her than the kids who had more similar ‘issues’. Something deep inside her knew it was wrong to do this, to set the kids off to scare them and hurt them for the kids who didn't respond to fear. Her mother and father told her it was for the best, it was fixing her and the others that she had been born a prodigy and had to be normal and perfect, but in order to be perfect she had to be normal first because she had been broken and so were all of the other kids here.

“Not broken,” Rock tapped agarly. It was one of the many things they had a code for, a square with a slash. Flower drew a spiral on her arm code for ‘safe’, ‘I’m here’, or ‘it’s ok’. By this point she had started getting used to her soulmates touching her arms, and it didn't bother her as much as it did from anyone else.

School was hard, really hard, she struggled to focus. Void was the most helpful, Rock tried, but he was just so soft. Void tapped and prodded and shook her when she lost focus. Rock tried to gently coax her in the right direction, the fire barely flickered anymore, only barely alight she had missed a year of normal school to be ‘fixed’ she could write her name, and list every letter of the alphabet, and could play pretend, sounding out words. Eclipse didn't know why the adults lied about words, because no matter how many times she had to sound out words, they simply didn't work like that.

There supposed to work like that

It’s you that’s the problem

You’re always the problem

Shadow slinking around, she seemed to enjoy spending time with Eclipse who was slowly getting frustrated trying to spell the word ‘school’. It was pronounced ‘scool’ after all, just like ‘said’ was pronounced ‘sed’. Eclipse sighed, frustrated she had to take home another book to read.

“Not broken,” Void tapped as she got more and more frustrated. The fire stayed out when the teacher screamed at Eclipse to start giving effort to stop pretending and just get her work done .

Why aren't you giving effort

I know you think you are

You’re just wrong

different and wrong

Wrong and different

It took a year and a half, she brought the assigned reading home, and read it with her parents, she memorized the short stories and recited them soon she started recognizing words. It was wrong, the teachers said words were made up of letters, but that was wrong, the words were just shapes. The teacher said she would recognize words based on the letters but that was wrong. She just saw the shape, like a face. The teacher said in order to recognize a face you must FIRST see an eye, an eye, a mouth, a nose, and other features, but Eclipse knew you just needed to see the whole thing. When she tried to explain, the teacher grabbed her arm and yelled, “Quiet!” She sat there, covering her ears with their hands.

Eclipse knew words had power, she was desperate for this power. She had started speaking early in her life to learn words, and yet here she was desperate to hold on to the flowing turning writhing thing made up the words.

Words ebb and flow

Words drift and float

They’re hard and sharp

They’re soft and smooth

They turn the tides of war

Influence, inspire, distory, create, they are what dreams are made of

And Eclipse wanted them, BADLY

“Not broken,” Quiet insisted, covering Eclipse's ears so the teacher's shouts would be muffled. Shadow dimmed the lights, Rock held her hands so she wouldn't shake them, Void sat at her back guarding her from anyone coming behind, and Flower clung to Eclipse. The only people that would interact with her other than her soulmates were the ones from the ‘broken class’. Even they had trouble with her since she wasn't in their class. Eclipse wasn't in her body, she stared in that intense way she did, so she wouldn't remember, so she didn’t have to be here while the teacher shouted. She hadn't realized the fire had not recovered, she hadn't realized the ice that had been comforting her stopped when she started like that, she called it drifting. When she didn't drift the ice was with her, when she drifted there was nothing, but at least she didn't have to deal with what was happening around her

Normal children don’t have to drift

Normal children don’t hate noise

Normal children aren't useless

Normal children aren't you

Useless

Useless

Useless

You are nothing but useless

Your hand’s unable to write properly

Your brain barely able to read

Useless

Useless

Useless

Never let them see that

At home her soulmates drew spirals, all over her, waking her up when she drifted, tapping out the triangle with the long line that meant ‘again’, ‘keep going’, and ‘you can do it’ when she got frustrated. They tapped ‘not broken’ when her parents yelled at her for not trying, but she drifted more and more.

Eventually she did learn how to read, but she also learned how to be silent, how to stair, how to drift, and had the innate knowledge that she was broken, but that couldn't stop her from walking forward. No matter how many times her soulmates drew out that swair with a slash, she knew she was broken. It was a fact and there was no point fighting it, so she might as well just pretend so no one could say she was broken and yell. Even though they were always right.

Every winter from the time she was six she left her house and spent a night in the park, she never realized she nearly died in the night most years, she never realized her soulmark flickered every year. She just knew she had to let out the tension in her heart, by screaming into the wind, by unleashing all her magic, and coating the world in an even thicker cover of snow, she spread her magic so aggressively that she passed out most years, and after she passed out she was nearly at the point of no return. Her soulmark flickered, her soulmates held the mark in pain, they nicknamed her ‘flicker’ for how often her mark flickered. By the time she was six it had basically been decided that there was a mistake, she wasn't the reergent of heat. That honor now went to a child born the same day as her, a prodigy, who unlike her never grew out of that title. They presented magic at six, but it wasn't to be.

Eclipse was the reagent of hot and cold, of fire and ice, but she had never learned to make a flame and the fact that she was the reergent was one she hadn't learned.

You were supposed to be fire

You were supposed to be fire

You were supposed to be perfect

You were supposed to be a prodigy

But now you’re not even normal

Your different

Useless

Useless

Who heard of a fire who could summon ice

Who heard of ice born of fire

Useless

Useless

Useless

When Eclipse was ten she joined the military school. Where she would learn magic and how to fight, where her continued education would go, she wouldn't graduate until sixteen, and then she would go into basic. At eighteen she would see combat, or at least that was the plan.

The world didn't often work the way humans planned.

---

Notes:

hello! welcome to my first work!! this one is by far one of the best I've written.

Huge thank you to my friend who proofread this so my dyslexic grammar would be fixed.

https://youtu.be/RoMx5UY1lN8 youtube link to the narration!