Chapter 8

*Eleanor POV*

After the fight had finally finished, my mothers ice dissipated, the only scars of battle left behind was the charred grass from my fathers lightning. I clench my fist in anger as I'm forced to recognise the distance between my father and I. Eli hasn't seemed to notice, nor does he seem the type to care, but we are all alone. Our house is encased in forest on all sides, nothing for miles. After about a half mile, fog obscures all. Nothing can be seen except the vegetation at your feet, minus a few steps ahead of you.

The only reason I know this is because during the training to condition your body for the strain of mana, we would have to sprint for as long as possible through the forest, climbing, vaulting and jumping over any obstacle or onto the best path needed for our direction.

I soon snapped out of my stupor as Eli tugged on my sleeve, looking up at me with concerned eyes.

"I'm fine Eli. Do you want to play a game?" I asked, but at this point I think he knew that it was more of an order. 'After all I'm higher on the pecking order' I thought while puffing out my chest proudly, something that didn't seem to go unnoticed.

"Pfft. Alright, how about hide and seek, afterall you never find me" Eli replied slightly mockingly, causing my eyebrow to twitch, because hes right.

*Eliza POV*

'She may tease me when I have a request, but outside of that i rule the board' I thought smugly.

"I'm so finding you this time" and with that she began counting as I fled back into the house... or well onto the roof. Through the window in the upstairs bathroom is a ledge, with that you have access to the lower side of the roof, easily allowing me to scale up with the relatively large foot holds and not so distant target. Technically I was out of bounds but this is revenge for her previous antics, and my parents didn't seem to mind as I cheated my way to a win. As I made my way to the other side of the roof, I watched as Ella ran into the house looking for me. Knowing she wouldn't give up for a while I started meditating, with a slightly smug smile on my face. Roughly an hour later she screamed. "ARGH! I give up, you win!".

With that I nimbly went back into the bathroom, walked down the stairs to find my sister in the living room to see Ella tapping her foot to the beat of her frustration. 'Oh if looks could kill, I would die 100 deaths' I thought noticing the glare accompanied by her pout, to which I chuckled slightly, much to her annoyance. I then ran up to her and hugged her.

"Good try" I said with all the innocence I could muster, and her annoyed facade broke into a smile as she ruffled my hair. I melted in joy at that, feeling the her familial warmth was very refreshing compared to her usual competitiveness.

"Why don't we read together now?" I ask. I had grown to love reading, or at least always had, but something felt missing when I did it, and for obvious reasons I didn't know why. Nodding her head in agreement she took my hand and lead me to the study/library area, picking out a book, we sat at the desk together and read in peace. While it may have been a fairy tale, I absorbed it nonetheless. My mind acting like a sponge for anything I found entertaining or useful. We read book after book, but she seemed to avoid the more complicated stuff, which is reasonable considering my physical age. Even still, every moment I spent in her company was blissful and I knew that I had already very much accepted her in my heart, that seemed to reject my father, and avoided accepting my mother. It honestly tore my heart that I didn't know the reason as to why I couldn't, and I cursed the god that had clouded my memories and left me with nothing but information and broken emotions.

That night, you could hear stifled sobbing as I cried into my pillow. Hating the way I treated my parents despite their kindness. After crying myself to sleep, I drifted into the land that had mostly eluded me, and scenes that felt so familiar to me played.

I was at my dad's house, it was his turn to see me and my brother for the weekend. I was roughly 8 or 9, and I was just sat there, in a corner of the sofa. Alone. Invisible. Unfeeling. As I sat there I stared into the screen of my table as I did nothing, every attempt to gain attention from my father resulted in a fresh bruise being wrought upon me like I was a bother, while he was clearly spending time with his girlfriend and her son, leaving me to attend to my 3 year old brother. He blatantly kicked us out of specific rooms, labeling them off limits, just to spend more time to his girlfriend and her son. As a child your parents word is law so once again I was left alone. The day I returned to my mother's, I cried into her arms at the overbearing loneliness, and thoughts like "am I not good enough" " why doesn't he love me?" "is it my fault?" "does he hate me?". This dream continued over the span of a few years as more and more favouritism was displayed for the girlfriend, and I became increasingly lonely. I also noticed that my brother stopped appearing relatively early. Each attempt to persuade my father to change and start paying attention to us was ineffective as he soon returned to his usual manor. I didn't stop seeing him until I was 12, it felt obligatory to visit him until at that point I couldn't take it anymore. So I cut him off.

Luckily for him my brother wasn't old enough to comprehend all his mistreatment. However it seemed he finally decided to become a decent person, at least for the son that. Too late though, as in my mind there was nothing but resentment for him. I had become unable to open up to a vast majority of people as I learned very quickly expressing yourself would just get no response, or a hateful one. I hid my feelings from my dad anytime we spent time together, and continued to stare into a screen.

After waking from that accursed dream, that accursed memory, I found my cheeks stained with tears, as all the resentment had resurfaced. Finally I understood a little of the reason as to how I am. I had been caused to question myself by one of the people who were supposed to unconditionally love you, and to be made lonely by that person was heart wrenching.