Nova was sitting in a dimly lit club all alone. She had been here for hours, doing nothing really, but thinking. Her mom had given her life and her dad had taken away her mom's life. It was inevitable that she would think about this on her birthday. Although Nova hadn't always been her name, her original name wasn't worth mentioning.
She wasn't really sure how Aria had fallen in love with Larry in the first place. Her mom wasn't exactly ugly, but her dad was just a typical commoner. She didn't know what her mom's background was, but she knew that it wasn't normal.
Nova glanced down at herself and how well she filled out her dress. As soon as she had released the magic changing her appearance, she gained back the body she should have had all along. I didn't feel like her body though, she felt like an imposter. She was the girl who never grew up.
It was all her mom's doing. Her mom knew that her dad was going to sell her to a brothel just as soon as she hit maturity. The messed up part was that Nova was Larry's biological daughter. He just enjoyed drugs more than an extra mouth to feed. Not that she had ever eaten much of anything after he'd beaten her mom to death.
It hadn't taken much for him to decide to kill her mom. They had been in a heated argument about a woman that he'd decided to bring home and announce her as his concubine. Tina had mostly basic facial features, but she was quite curvy, and willing to carry out whatever sexual fantasy Larry could come up with. Nova knew far more about this than she should have, because Tina wasn't exactly subtle while trying to seduce Nova's dad.
Commoners rarely had concubines, because they couldn't afford them, and her parents hadn't been an exception. Even though Aria wasn't pleased about another woman coming into their home, her biggest concern was that they didn't even have enough money to eat for themselves.
She had to go out into the woods just to find food, because her husband refused to keep a job, and frittered away any money he made. Now he decided to bring in another freeloader who expected Aria to provide food for her while she was busy sleeping with Aria's husband.
During one of their arguments, Aria had lost control of the magic around her eyes. Her eye color changed from chocolate brown to purple while they were yelling. Nova had seen her dad's shocked appearance when he saw her eyes, followed by horror.
"A Mystic," he had whispered.
Nova remembered her mom's face going pale white, as she glanced back at Nova who was sitting on their straw couch. Their eyes locked onto each other's and she mouthed the word run. Then she turned towards the front door, just as a baseball bat came crashing down on the back of her head. He didn't stop with just one swing, he yelled out while repeatedly beating Aria into a battered mess of broken bones and pulp. Nova sat still in shock and disbelief, but was brought out of it by Tina who came waltzing out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a robe.
"Have you lost your mind? I don't like her either, but now how am I supposed to get anything good to eat? I'm certainly not going to cook for myself. This body was meant to be sexy, not functional. I'm not the homemaker type!"
Larry threw down the bloodied bat next to Aria's corpse and reached out towards Tina to give her a reassuring hug.
"Don't touch me, you're covered in filth! What caused you to lose your mind randomly anyway?"
"She was a Mystic. I have to get rid of the body," Larry said in an urgent tone, while turning back towards Aria's corpse.
Tina's eyes widened and she lifted her hands to her mouth while gasping. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure! I saw her eye color change right in front of me. If I wasn't quick enough, she might have put an evil curse on me or something. I have to get rid of this thing fast," he said while kicking Aria in the side. "I can't have anyone thinking I'm a dirty sympathizer."
"Wait!" Tina said while rushing towards Nova's mom and crouching down.
Nova watched while Tina flipped over her mom's dead body. Then Tina gasped when she saw Aria's wide open, light purple eyes. A look of greed shone in her face, as she reached down with her long manicured nails, and carefully pressed her nails into Aria's eye socket; popping an eyeball out.
"Quick, get me a jar with some water in it!" Yelled Tina while holding Aria's eyeball in her hand, as if it were a treasure. "We can get a lot for a set of these on the black market. I'll be able to eat well for a while."
Nova slowly backed away from the scene of her dad searching for a jar while Tina bent over her mom's dead body, to pluck out her other eye.
Purple eyes. I have purple eyes. They're going to pull out my eyes. Mom said to always keep my magic in place. Never show my real appearance. This is why. This is what happens.
Nova slowly backed away until her back hit the window. She lifted it as quietly as possible and then felt a tight grip on her shoulder.
She turned her head and realized that her dad had grabbed hold of her.
"Good job grabbing that thing, honey. Now bring it over here so that I can get a good look at it," said Tina.
Nova tightly closed her eyes, nervous that she was going to make a mistake like her mom did. She needed to not feel anything. Not feel anything. But, all she could keep on seeing in her mind was her mom telling her to run and then getting her eyes ripped out. Over and over she saw that scene on repeat.
"Open your eyes," said Tina.
Nova kept her eyelids tightly pinched closed.
"Open your eyes or I'll take this knife and cut your eyelids off," said Tina.
Nova took a deep breath, calming her nerves. She was good at magic, her mom had told her that she was good. She could do this. Nova opened her eyes and they were the same shade of dark blue that they always had been.
"Tch! She hasn't hit puberty yet. We won't know if she's inherited her mom's magic until then. As soon as she hits puberty, and we see that her eyes have turned purple, we'll sell her. I hope she is one, we could get a fortune for a child Mystic on the black market!"
"How do you know that she isn't tricking us?" Said Lary.
Tina chuckled. "She's just a baby. Her mom isn't alive anymore to change her appearance. How could a young child like this have enough control over her magic to control a transformation while watching her mom being slaughtered? She'd either be a heartless atorianz, or a great magical prodigy; I doubt she's either.
"Alright, that's what we'll do, but don't tell anyone else about this, and never mention that she's my daughter," said Larry.
"Well, obviously. We can't let people know that you actually bred that thing and gave it a spawn," said Tina.
Two years had passed since that incident and her dad hadn't even gotten punished for murdering her mom. He just threw Aria into a sack and had dragged her to where the commoners were buried at the edge of town. When they checked the body, he told them that his wife had cheated on him. No more questions had been asked, except if he wanted her to be put in the mass unmarked grave or wanted to pay for a separate plot with a gravestone. He chose for her to go into the mass unmarked grave that was far out of town. It was called an open grave, but that was just a nice way of saying that it was a pit to bait in wild mafou. The commoners couldn't even get a break in death, they had to either pay, or become bait to lure in monsters for the nobility.
No one cared what happened to a few commoners here and there. Commoners were rarely considered much more than slaves to the nobles. Commoners rarely had much more magic than what it took to fill up a cup with water. This was how the nobles were able to look down on them and control them so easily. They could operate basic magic tools, but that was only if they could afford them. Or if they were lucky, they could be hired by a noble. It was almost every commoner's dream to be hired by a noble. Otherwise life was too basic and hopeless to be worth living.
Most commoners' lives consisted of working themselves to the bone just to be able to eat and then dying from starvation after they weren't able to work anymore. There was no safety net for commoners, unless they were able to get a good job with a noble. Some of these jobs were frightening or illegal, but what other options did they have?
Nova hated nobles, hated them with a passion, but most of all, she hated the Ice Emperor. Everything was his fault. Women weren't allowed to live alone in this country and those without anywhere to go, were sold into slavery. Her mom should have left that beast a long time before he ever killed her, but she had nowhere else to go. Nova didn't know what a Mystic was, but she knew that that's what her and her mother were. She also knew that they were hated for some reason and that was also the royal family's fault. Somehow, she would get revenge for her mother.
That day Amber showed up, Nova wasn't sure where to go from then. Tina and Larry had been arguing about what age Nova was. Larry couldn't remember Nova's age and Nova still 'hadn't hit puberty yet'. Tina wanted to quickly sell Nova because she was starting to run out of money from selling Aria's eyes to the black market trader.
Then Nova had seen Amber stop and look at her. She had seen those big beautiful purple eyes that reminded her of her mother's. Looking into Amber's eyes, she couldn't stop her long buried emotions rising to the surface. She had missed her mom more than she had wanted to face. She had blocked out her feelings for so long that she had become an empty shell. Then fear filled her. Why was this woman walking around without changing her eye color? Wouldn't she just die a horrible death or be sold as a slave?
Nova jumped up and chased after Amber, so that she could put some illusion magic on her; changing the appearance of her eyes. It was her first time trying to put an illusion on someone else and she was still too young to have strong control of her magic yet. Therefore, the illusion only worked on people that Amber considered to be outsiders. It had been tricky keeping in physical contact with Amber long enough to place the illusion spell on her in the first place.
Nova felt incredibly lucky to have been picked up by Amber, but she was also frightened. What would Amber do and how would she react if she ever found out that Nova had been tricking her right from the beginning? Amber was not a person to mess with, but Nova was now too involved to just disappear. Amber was her home, her family, she couldn't imagine her life without Amber in it anymore. She didn't know how to open up to Amber with the truth, without destroying all of Amber's trust in her completely.
Nova's eyes, which she had kept dark blue, widened in surprise when she recognized Fortis, who walked into the club.