Chapter Text
It was the same dream, like all nights.
She has wings. Made of pure white, two pairs of the swan wings. The necklace with a crescent moon in her neck, and she could see the silver iridescent lock of hair going down her waist. She is sit in the meadow, with flowers in her hands. She is nervous. Because of the man by her side. Is he a man? He has three pairs of pure white wings, much stronger than hers. The black hair in a contrast with his blue eyes, those remembering her the blue of the sky just before the dawn. He is the most beautiful one she have seen in all her existence, and he is the one she loved the most.
Of course she loved the twins a lot too, but that love was different. The love for her others brothers didn’t hurt. Didn’t make her feel wrong, as someone against the most sacred rules.
“...I can’t give up. I’m sorry” she whispered, as someone who admits a defeat.
“Why not? I think you own me an explanation at least”.
They face each other, his fingers touched her face. If she have the courage to kiss him just this one time...
But before she moves, she feels the ground left her. She is falling. She feels the pain of arrows in her wings, she feels the last one trespassing her left bosom. She can hear the twins calling her name, but she has no force to answer.
Before she hits the ground, Emma opens her eyes.
At least once a month she had that bizarre dream, she thought while looking at the clock. Five am, she could just try to sleep again, but the uneasiness in her chest would not give space to her mind rest.
Emma did not remember when she had that dream for the first time. When she was younger she usually woke screaming for help and crying after it, but now the tears and terror had left her. Just the feeling of her heart breaking would not leave her.
“Okay, Emma, time to get up” she murmured to herself.
She looked to herself in the mirror, the pale face with a lot of freckles, the aquamarine eyes looking at her. She knew she was a relatively beautiful girl, but was her eyes always keeps people away.
In the orphanage, the potencial parents would always get interested in her but it would last in the best of cases half an hour only.
“There something in her eyes” she would listen they say to the caretakers - secretively of course - “It’s something which let us uncomfortable, we don’t know how to explain better than that, I’m sorry, let’s see other kid”.
Of course, her quiet personality didn’t help. The other kids would see her as a strange one because of her nightmares, often mocking her, and because of this she lost the interest in playing with them.
“It’s all right Mr.Snuggles” the five years Emma would whisper to her stuffed toy “They are only kids, you know. They could not fly or do the magic things you do. But of coooouuuurseee, I know you likes to take naps too, Mr.Snuggles, but it’s not so fun just sleep, you know. But I will sing for you to sleep, as I always do”. She liked to think MrSnuggles kept the nightmares away if she sang enough to him to sleep.
Fifteen years later, the old purple bear could still be found in her bed.
She held the blonde loose curls in a ponytail. They were messier than usual and she would have classes and work. She still had to pay her roommate the money she borrowed, and buy some material for classes.
Of course, she could consider herself lucky, after all. She found some good place to live soon after left the orphanage and one place in a good University. If she could live after her graduation as a music teacher, she would be happy, Emma told herself.
Only the most rich or charismatic girls could be idols and live by their songs, and she did not fill any of this requisites. But her voice was beautiful, and she could play piano and was learning how to play harp in the classes. So everything was fine.
“So why... there is still something unsettling me?” She asked for the girl in the mirror, who looked at her with the same puzzled eyes.
“Grace, Emma. The director wants to talk with you”.
What the fuck, passed to her mind. Her applications were fine for all she could remember. First class of the morning and she already have problems? She should not be grateful to universe, after all.
Without a word, she nodded to the professor and left to the director’s cabinet.
In the room she found two man. The director and his always stern expression and a younger one, with red-brown hair and hazel eyes, smiling.
“Congratulations, Miss Grace” the director gave her a smile, gesturing a chair for her to sit.
She looked at both men with suspicion. Maybe someone put her name in some raffle? Or maybe her ID Number was written for some mistake? She did not remember anything to be congratulated for.
“Err... thank you?”.
“Oh, right, I suppose you don’t know what’s happening,” the ginger man started to talk enthusiastically “I’m Pietro Regio, it’s a pleasure to meet you” she made a gesture in greeting and the man continued “I came in the name of prestigious R.A.D Academy. We were looking for promissor students, and your curriculum got our attention, so we would like to give you one year of scholarship with us”.
There was something oddly unsettling about that man, Emma thought, but she could not figure what. So, she took the paper he offered her.
“R.A.D Academy? Where the hell this place is located?” she murmured to herself too loudly. The director whispered a harsh “Miss Grace!” but the ginger man laughed.
“It’s not so far from here, Miss. But most people don’t pay attention enough or usually mistaken the path”.
She replied with a “hmm” and continued to read the paper. First degree professors? A coral classes which she could enter as soprano? Thematic weeks? And best of all... one year of scholarship with dormitory and food provided by the Academy’s itself.
It’s all too good to be true, actually. She was not the first ranker in her classes, but maybe the ones before her had refused the invitation?
“I accept, grateful. When do I begin?” nothing to lose, right? It was a good saving after all, and she always could look for a job near the new campus.
The ginger man smiled more openly. His canines were slightly prominent, she observed “Wonderful! It will be an unforgettable year, Miss Emma, I promise you. I’ll do some arrangements and I contact you as soon as I can, right?”.
He watched while she signed her name in the application and gave him back. They shook hands. Emma felt a chill down her spine in the moment they did. But, she was overreacting with the news, right?
Emma looked at the list of things she should do before she go, that night before going to bed.
She already paid her roommate and told her she might vacate the room soon.
The ginger man did not give her a forecast about how much time would require his arrangements, but she imagined could be days, maybe weeks. So she still had some time.
“Well, it seems we will move again Mr Snuggles” she told the old bear in her desk “I hope it’s a good place to us to go”.
The blue butterflies caught her attention. There was a strange gold glow in the wings and lightness in the way they moved. She just saw that tone of blue before in his eyes.
The little ones entered in her window, playing around Mr Snuggles and her hair. “What?” She tried to touch, but they flied to the open air, as waiting her.
Emma... The smoothing, familiar voice echoing through them. One she always waited to hear within her heart.
When she tried to explain later, she would never be able to tell how she left her home and went after that glowing insects. The gold glow left around her while the butterflies played with her and conducted the path, the only natural light in the moonless sky.
She never could explain either how nobody saw her while she entered the University Campus and went to the lake.
She did not remember to jump.
But when she wake up, her nightgown was drenched as her hair, and she felt cold.
“It’s fine, she is awake now”.
What...
With her head dizzy, she looked around. Antique stone walls around her, so different of the ones she recalled from the university.
The air around her seemed somehow denser, too. As like there was less oxygen there to breath.
She sit in what seemed an infirmary bed, and looked around.
There was two men looking at her.
The first was the strange ginger man of the morning.
The second make her grasp.
He was astonishing similar to the man in her dreams. But the man she dreamed had blue pure eyes, not blood red. And definitely did not have the ominous aura around him like that one, piercing her with an inquisitive expression.
“Welcome the Devildom, Emma” spoke the ginger man with a grin.
“WHAT”
...
continues