Winged

~~2~~

 The platform hung low under the weight of flowers and tree boughs, reminding her of a secret garden. But this place was no secret.

"Alander, what have you become?" the Curer asked in rumbling solemnity, the white robes wrapping around his ankles and brushing the wood beneath his feet. Only he had the ability to remove your old heart and replace it with something new. With something that could cure you from mundaness. Only he, the Curer, could summon fate in this ceremony that Changed you.

"I--I'm Changed. I'm Changed!" the young man shouted, his eyes opening as the shimmering glow dissipated in the air around him. The Curer removed his hand from where it lay on the boy's chest, and released him.

All eyes turned to her.

"Silvana," the Curer summoned with a bony hand.

The heartbeat hammering in her hollow chest and thundering in her ears would only last so long. The boy walked past, his green eyes looking at her quizzically as if reading her thoughts. Maybe now he could.

Heartbeats. Fear. Justice. It was all she knew right now, all she wanted. She needed a new heart, and after her 8 and 10th solar season, she was weaker than ever before. Hurting more than ever before. She just wanted to fly. She just wanted to rise above and escape the stones carelessly pitched by so-called friends on the harsh earth they called home.

She wanted wings. And she dared pray the Curer could stop the ache in her heart.
Her steps took her up to the platform where her Change of Heart would take place. 

If fate smiled on her without derision, her new heart would pump uniqueness through her pale veins, and would give her abilities beyond the natural realm.

The Changed were unique.

Some could draw with fire, etching burning poetry onto the very fabric of the air. Others had eyes like the birds', seeing unknown details from a thousand heartbeats away, even things done in secret under cover of darkness. Some breathed the essence of power that lit up the stormy skies, the electricity that crackled in their bones and shattered the static woods.

But she wanted wings. Like her dear mother, with the transparent panes of membrane that stretched and embraced the wind, carrying her to glorious heights in fluttering synchronisation. To her, her mother had been an angel.

But Silva was just a worm, as the leering smirks on her friends' faces reminded her daily.
The Curer's wrinkled hand made contact with her chest, just above the pounding that echoed over the otherwise silent clearing. Grey clouds sat and crouched overhead, flames of fire danced on the altar, and the hushed rustle of leaves assaulted her delicate ears.

Hard to breathe. A tightness in her chest that took her breath away. She scrunched her eyes shut to the vacuum that suddenly engulfed her. The Curer's wrinkled eyes forced hers open with a glare. Silent screams reverberated in her throat, unable to reach beyond the chasm of her mouth. It felt like her heart was being ripped out. Because it was.

Through blurry eyes she saw the old man smiling and reaching high above them. Suddenly, the impact in her chest nearly made her stumble back. Her knees buckled, her whole body shivered as electricity tore through every cell, jumping from nerve to synapse and back again, ricocheting between her very core.

Then it was all over.

She gasped, doubled over as the image of striated timber swam before her eyes.
"Silvana, what have you become?"

Nothing happened. Nothing changed.

"I--I don't kno--" she was hurried off the platform and kicked into the dirt by the next in line. 

"Worthless." "Useless." "Unchanged." The words were spat around her, and for once she wanted to be a worm that could crawl into the dirt and never see their twisted faces again.

Then she felt it.