SoC: Unconditionally

-Falven Shelar (Azre’s father) to Rashad

People said I didn’t feel any emotions at all back then, because not even empaths could feel anything real from me. But I could. It was just so small that it wasn’t detectable by them, and that was how it had to be to make it easy for me to control. Discard what wasn’t wanted, and filter off the emotion that made me react in a way that got the best response from Mother. It didn’t always work, and I never knew what that emotion was since it was too small, but it was the best I had figured out to do.

When I was ten my uncle came to Mother’s home. I don’t know what discussion went on, but at one point I was called into the room and given the choice to go with Rashad or not. I always thought Mother had the last say in everything, was the one who was in control of everything. But she wasn’t the one who explained what was going on, she didn’t even speak. Rashad said that if I wanted to go with him, and stay with him from then on, then I could. I just needed to go gather whatever material items I wanted to take with me.

I’m not sure I fully understood what that meant, but it was the first time I was able to react on the emotion I wanted for myself instead of the one that I thought would please Mother. There wasn’t anything I wanted from that house, so I just took Rashad’s hand and went with him. Mother didn’t say anything, and didn’t even watch as we left. I didn’t look back.

There isn’t much that I remember about that first bit of time that I spent with Rashad. It took several months for him to gradually chip away that barrier that I had built around my ability to feel. I remember there was one day, I don’t remember what we were doing, but he stuck whipped cream on my nose. I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. Having food on your face was extremely sloppy manners for a noble, but at the same time if I rubbed it off then I would be opposing the action he had taken. Both choices seemed like they would lead me to getting punished, so I ended up freezing up. In the end I had to react to what I wanted. The cream was distracting, and I kept looking cross eyed at it, so I rubbed it off with a napkin. Proper manners, and it made it so I wasn’t going cross eyed anymore. I expected Rashad to scold me, whether it was physically or just with one of those gazes that seeped disapproval, but he just smiled and pat my head.

A lot of what Rashad did left me confused back then. But each little action, little situation he put me through, chipped away at that seal I had spent all of my life constructing around my emotions. Until one day, a little more than half a year after being with him, it suddenly shattered. Like a pot full of milk dropping on the floor, breaking, and having everything splatter everywhere. It’s a mess to clean up, and sometimes you cut yourself on the pieces.

I had just had my hair cut. Mother always kept it systematically long and tied back with precision, I just wanted to know what having short hair was like. My aunt and uncle let me get it cut, and somehow they made a game out of it or something. I don’t remember what they did, just that I’m pretty sure it was the first time I’d laughed. It scared me. It was just a normal laugh, not all that loud at all, but I thought it was and was afraid I’d gone too far and this time for sure I would be punished. Rashad just smiled, like he always did.

I felt... something strange. Everything was strange. This time it was both good and bad, and I felt the need to test them for sure then. After the haircut I had to change clothes, and I wanted to wear something like what Rashad did. Mother always called them ruffian clothes, and said that no respectable being dressed themselves like that unless it was the only thing they could afford. Rashad just said that being comfortable was better, and that I looked better in them than I did the noble’s clothes. I knew it wasn’t because he thought they made me look like a ruffian, but something else. Something good.

I remember that I smiled, but I also started crying. I hate crying. It’s ugly, and leaves me feeling helpless. I have no idea how to stop crying, so when I do I always end up crying until I’m exhausted and fall asleep. I couldn’t stop then either, and that time I couldn’t hold anything back. Rashad pulled me into his lap and all that emotion that I had locked away just spilled and I had no idea how to deal with any of it. Some strange pit of weird things that I couldn’t wrap my head around. He just said that he was there, and it was okay, that I could cry all I wanted. And I did. I sobbed, and screamed, and everything hurt, I felt like I was falling apart.

It was then that we learned how much magic I really had. Mother had never thought to give me magic lessons, and because I didn’t know how to use it and didn’t have enough emotion to accidentally use it we didn’t know that I had much more than the little bit she and Derris have. But when I started crying my magic flared erratically. We learned that at that age I already had levels that were several times higher than I should have had, but everything was completely chaotic since I had absolutely no practice in controlling it.

Rashad just calmly held me the entire time. Rubbing my scalp and back without saying much and keeping my magic from doing too much damage until I eventually fell asleep. Thinking about it now he probably already knew about my levels before then. There had probably been currents through the shadows whenever an emotion broke through that barrier.

I was a mess after that. I clung to Rashad a lot, whenever he would let me, and it was easy for me to get distressed. It must have been exhausting for Rashad to have to take care of me with my emotions and magic always fluctuating dramatically, but he never even considered putting a seal on me. And he told me that no matter what happened, what anyone did around me or to me, or how much it hurt I was never to lock down my emotions as far as I had ever again. It’s harder than it sounds, but most of the time I just have to remember that he said that in order to keep from doing it.

-Azre Shelar