Moonlark Turned Evil

Inktober Special: Golden

Set somewhere just after the chapter "Everglen". I never really mentioned just how Marella trained her Pyrokinesis, and thought this would be a good idea to talk more about it.

TOMORROW'S SPECIAL IS A FINTHEN FLUFF-FEST

Marella came to Havenfield on the weekend with an overnight bag. Sophie had withheld the exact details regarding the sudden sleepover plans, but Grady and Edaline naturally assumed it had something to do with the newly manifested Pyrokinetic's mother and didn't press the subject.

"Hi Sophie," Marella said. She had bags under her eyes, like she hadn't slept for several days.

Sophie thought back to when she'd first learned the ability from Fintan. Pyrokinesis liked to act up during the night, and there had been no shortage of times when she woke up to find her room on fire. At the time, her mind had been strengthened enough by the pervious events of her life that she barely felt any sort of panic (or maybe it had just been suppressed), and she'd wrangled the ability into her control before a few days passed, anyway.

Marella, on the other hand, was the kind of person who would (rightfully) have a panic attack if she found her room going up in flames.

Sophie took one of Marella's bags wordlessly, escorting the girl upstairs to the room Grady and Edaline had given her.

"Oh, um, Sophie . . ." Marella whispered.

"It's fine," Sophie said, and if her voice was overly gentle it was only because she pitied the girl for falling into the clutches of the Black Swan. It wasn't because of any sort of camaraderie. "You won't be damaging anything in your sleep if we have today to practice."

The other girl breathed a small sigh.

They entered Sophie's room, discarding the bags near the door. A second bed had been set up beside the one that Sophie was sleeping in, neatly made. Marella dropped a pillow on top of it, and then flopped down.

Sophie took a seat at the edge of her bed, unsure of how to broach the whole subject. It sounded overly tangled together, from Caprise Redek to Mr. Forkle meddling to Marella wanting to be an Empath. If only the girl had come to Sophie instead of Forkle. She would've granted that wish in a heartbeat.

Or not.

Who was she fooling?

There were other things she should be thinking about right now, anyway. Sophie dismissed any thoughts of holding friendship over her mission to the back of her mind.

How had Marella even known Forkle could trigger abilities to begin with? Tiergan hadn't mentioned whether Marella approached Forkle or Sir Astin or someone else entirely, and Sophie's knowledge of Forkle's aliases was limited.

"Granite—from the Black Swan." Marella added on the clarification, and then winced, as though she had mentally berated herself for adding on information Sophie was already aware of. "He mentioned that you're a Pyrokinetic?"

Would it kill the Black Swan to actually give her decent information?

Why did Marella know about the Black Swan? And why was Tiergan taking credit for the Pyrokinesis she'd learned from Fintan?

She repressed a sigh. She would just have to 'wing it' and hope that the conversation didn't end in memory erasure.

"Mm," Sophie nodded. "The Black Swan gave me a few different abilities."

"I wanted to be an Empath," Marella muttered.

"Because of your mother?" Sophie blurted. She closed her mouth, almost cutting off the last syllable.