Of Whispering Leaves and Storms Beneath the Skin
949 Words
After Marvin helped her up and pressed a gentle, weary hand to her back, like a brother who’d seen far too much magic misbehave, Seraphina walked away in a daze.
Not the poetic kind that left you humming in meadows. The headachey kind. The sort where the world looks like it’s wearing too many coats of paint and none of the colours match.
She found herself beneath the Sacred Tree, without quite remembering the steps it took to get her there. The Pufferkins were already bobbing on the branches, glowing like soft lanterns as the dusk folded around them. One of them hiccupped bioluminescence and promptly fell asleep in its own fluff.
Seraphina sank to the roots, Baobao beside her, unusually quiet. She absently stroked his plumage, which was unusually well-behaved and not biting her fingers.
Her voice came low, raw at the edges.
“Why does everyone keep secrets from me, Baobao? First I’m a saviour, then I’m fragile. First I’m powerful, then I mustn’t know anything. Why won’t anyone tell me why my flame is white like ghostfire? Why does my hair shine like someone spilt moonlight on it? Why am I now apparently having chats with spirits?”
Baobao ruffled, clearly trying to look wise without understanding most of the question. “Because they love you,” he offered cautiously. “And love makes people silly. Especially grown-ups. Love thinks secrecy is protection. Like blankets made of mystery and guilt.”
Seraphina huffed. “Then love should try a better tailor.”
Just then, the leaves rustled above her, though there was no breeze. The sound was thick, ancient, like a sigh woven from oak rings and rainwater.
The Sacred Tree stirred.
Its voice came not in words, but through the soles of her feet and into her bones, until meaning bloomed like ivy curling round the rafters of her soul.
“Heroes are rarely born,” it said, voice the colour of soil and the taste of wind. “They are carved by choice. By pain. By love that burns and fails and rises anyway.”
Seraphina stilled, breath held.
“You say you didn’t know. But if that were true… how then did you hear my voice when others cannot? How did you soothe thorn and root, speak to beast and fern? How did you sense the spirits and know them not as strangers, but neighbours?”
She had no answer. Only silence. And a sudden weight in her chest she didn’t know how to name.
Baobao squinted up at her. “Did the tree just speak to you, it's my role to give you wisdom?” he huffed
Before she could reply Elena appeared, pushing through the field brush, hair tangled from haste and eyes apologising before her mouth opened.
“I ran into Marvin. He said you’d be here and asked me to—” she hesitated, “—check on you. Comfort you.”
Seraphina’s spine stiffened. “So now everyone’s sending each other to manage me?”
“No! I just—”
“Do you think I’m fragile, Elena?”
“What? No! I think you’re angry and rightly so! But it’s not a reason to shut me out!”
“I should’ve known,” Seraphina bit out, voice rising. “Everyone knows everything about me before I do. You all have meetings about me, watch me like a caged beast waiting to manifest.”
“That’s not fair,” Elena said quietly.
“Well, I’m done with being fair,” Seraphina snapped, and turned.
Baobao leapt to her shoulder with surprising grace, a flurry of feathers and visible disapproval.
Just as she was storming off, Yara her mother appeared from between the trees.
“I was looking for you,” she said gently.
“Let me guess. Marvin sent you too?”
Yara blinked. “He told me what happened.”
“So he’s spreading it around now?” Seraphina’s voice cracked at the edge, the words thin and sharp. “Does everyone need to be briefed before I even understand myself?”
Yara stepped closer. “Seraphina—”
“I want to join the Order of the Bards,” she interrupted suddenly. “Elder Rozlin said I might be gifted, right. I’ve always felt drawn to the songs and the way they speak with life. It’s what I want.”
Yara’s jaw tightened, just a little. “That path isn’t yours.”
“You don’t get to decide that!”
“It’s not about decision, it’s about truth,” Yara said, her voice like flint against stone. “You were born under a constellation that only rises once every hundred years. You’re marked with all five threads. Your place isn't in the gardens composing lullabies. It’s on the field, rewriting fate.”
Seraphina stepped back like she’d been struck. “So that’s it then? You made my choice for me before I was old enough to have one.”
Baobao whistled low, which in bird meant tense, dangerous, possibly duck now.
Seraphina turned without another word and walked off into the deepening twilight.
Behind her, Elena called, “I’m going to the herb grove. We’ll talk later, okay?”
But Seraphina didn’t answer.
Baobao huffed. “If this gets more dramatic, I’m starting a diary.”
She was nearing the living quarters, the ancient stones cool beneath her bare feet, when she spotted a figure emerging from the garden path.
Revina. Carrying a basket of cut herbs and with that same aloof poise that made her look like she’d just won an argument with the weather.
They locked eyes.
And Seraphina, without a word, kept walking.
- Writer
