Chapter 3-65: Sifting Through the Past (2/2)
There were pages missing...
They’d been carefully cut out. Having an idea of what might be on those pages, I continued reading and memorizing faces, names, pictures, positions, and power, accumulating some useful general knowledge of the world of the Powered that might be useful in the future.
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The deed to the house was in the name of the Trust feeding her money. So, she didn’t really own the house. A bird in a cage, just stay out of sight, exist in the shadows, and die quietly, please...
I found the scrapbook in the early morning, and went through it slowly.
I don’t know when she started collecting the stories and the pictures, but I was pretty sure I could have found when the pictures were taken, and it would have given me a date.
It seemed she had been collecting stories of her mothers and sisters for a lot of years...
Aelryinth had been a Div Spec. I wasn’t, but I knew how to parse Detects like a master, even as a One. The simmering anger, desire, resentment, and regret attached to these photographs and stories were like little flames. The life that should have been hers, and because she had no magic, she was denied it.
Because she was Shroudborn, she couldn’t even take a Warlock Pact, which I’m sure she would have tried for, too. Anything to get the magic that was supposed to be hers...
I grimaced as I turned the pages of the album, and the three daughters of the beautiful Jaelez Morningfire grew older and lovelier as they did so. The rarely-seen youngest, Azaia Morningwind, with her light blue locks; the golden-haired Sinead Morninglight, whose fame grew with her musical talents; and the fiery-tressed Brigette Morningflame, taking after her uncle and going into the field of martial endeavors with her mastery of fire magic.
Getting older, getting more beautiful, getting more powerful, more famous, richer, more desired.
Ugh...
I came to the last pages, clipped pages featuring Morningfire and Morninglight at a gala in Nice. The star-studded mother and one of the most famous Minstrels in the whole world definitely set the place off.
The resentment clinging to the page was almost palpable.
Caged bird, never to fly free...
I could only sigh and close the book, before setting it aside...
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My hand paused, and came back to touch the little pony on the shelf next to her bed.
It was wonderfully crafted; made of wood, QL 25, amazing for a little thing like this, with superb musculature display, and a magical mane and tail of pale blue hair, like a palomino with an alternate color scheme.
And it was magical.
I focused on the hair, and the color... and the Bloodline.
No dust on it. I reached up, and stroked the mane.
It animated instantly, a little jerkily, stroking its wooden head against my fingers and giving me a caring look before neighing, running around in a circle on the shelf with little clickety-clicks of silvered hooves, mane flying, tail flapping, and ending up in a rearing neigh of warmth and welcome and greeting.
It returned to all fours, and the Cantrip-level magic faded away. It wouldn’t be able to do that again for another hour.
I touched it again, feeling and seeing the aura of magic around it, more accurate than a fingerprint, if the color of the mane hadn’t given it away.
Azayla had made this.
I could feel the defiance and the regret in the magic. It was clearly a beginner’s effort, not smooth at all, and there were marks where it had been held for long hours, fairly aching with grief and many, many shed tears.
I closed my eyes, very unsettled by the emotions that came from the horse, but had definite echoes in these bones.
Fully half of those pictures in the scrapbook had been stabbed viciously, torn, marred, marked, ripped, or scribbled angrily upon.
But none of Azayla...
It seemed the little sister knew of her lost half-sister, after all...