Softly

An average day it was. Soaking in the sun. But sun was not for her. Softly knew she'd never feel it's warm rays on her skin, nor see it in it's full might. This saddened her, for all she wanted was to see the sun. All her life she had been confined, trapped so you will in this dark dungeon wall where all she saw were shades of gray.
Then how did she now the day was sunny? She felt it in her soul, she heard it with all her body. The children playing, the birds singing. And the knowledge that she'd never know...
Softly closed her eyes and imagined the soft burning of the sun on her skin. She imagined that must be what it was like. Though she could never be sure. She tried to imagine how it would feel when she really was in the sun. Even if all they had told her was false, her skin wasn't used to the soft rays of light now anyway. It was white without any colouring, no freckles, no moles, white. Her hair was light gray as if it wanted to blend with the surroundings. The soft gray of the kitchen smoke she knew. They had let her out when she was young, but now it was almost like they hated her. Or maybe they had forgotten about her.
Sometimes Softly wondered if her eyes were as gray as gray as her hair. She tried mirroring herself in the pools that were always on her dungeon floor, but the water dripping from the ceiling made it impossible to get a steady image, nor could she see any colour in the dark of the evernight of her cell.
Softly sighed. She felt as if she was going crazy. She had too much and too little to think about. Too much time to reminisce her past, yet too little in her past to fill her days. The irony of the situation made her grimace. She would give her life, her heart and her soul, which was all she had to live even a single day in another's life. She'd have to give her life if she was only allowed one day, she knew once she was out she could never go back. She hadn't really lived up to now. Like a baby safely tucked away in it's mother's womb. She desperately wanted to be born.
There had been a time when she had been afraid. Afraid to go out. Even in the days when they had still allowed her to go. Only at night had she gone out of course, but even the moon, with it's soft white shimmer alerted her of the danger of the morning sun. But she could have lived with that. The moon had never hurt her. The others had. The children. Adults by now and she was only a faded memory in their brains, a fairy tale perhaps... The girl locked in the dungeons, the same age they were. White and gray and afraid of the light.
Softly remembered the last night she had gone out. The moon rising in the distance, a little spot of bluish purple still on the horizon... But then they had come and yelled had her. thrown bricks at her. Her father had protected her. He had grabbed her hand and covered her body with his. But he couldn't close her ears for what they were calling. Vampire.
A tear ran down her cheek and into the upper corner of her mouth, making her taste the salt. Her father hadn't come the next day, nor the day after that, nor any of the following days. He had kept her in. Maybe he was afraid of her too.

Softly awoke from a dreamless sleep. Still groggy she got up and tried to walk to her favourite wall. The dry one. She had a headache and her arms hurt from a bad sleeping pose. She was thirsty.
There was no water at the door. The last soul that knew of her existence had gone too. She had seen the old woman who brought her food and drink. She was small and wrinkled with a hump on her back. She was blind and deaf so Softly couldn't talk to her. But although she had only seen her, she had known someone knew her to be alive and that was comforting.
If she's not here to feed you, then how will you live? a voice in her head started wining.
I don't need much food. she told the voice.
Maybe, but you'll need it eventually.
Softly fell down to her knees and started to cry. The voice was right. She could go for days without food, but eventually she'd be to weak to stand. She had tried it once, thinking she needed to die before she could be born again. But the old woman had found her and nursed her back. More tears came to her eyes.
Softly knew she had to go out. Maybe the old nurse had fallen from the stairs, she couldn't let her die. She walked to the door. It was locked of course. She was an abomination after all. A creature of the night. She placed her hand on the knob and pushed. The door swung open.
A sudden memory sifted through her brain. Her father.
"Honey come, they don't know better..." he had said.
Her heart started pounding harder. He had come for her! But then why wasn't he coming anymore?
"I'll be waiting on the outside, whenever you are ready..."
She started running after she heard his words again. maybe he was still out there waiting. She ran up the stairs to the throne room, for he had been a prince. Well, maybe not a prince, but he ruled this castle. At the door she hesitated for a moment. What if he didn't like her anymore?
"I'll be waiting outside..."
She had to go through with this. She flung open the door and gasped. Where the throne room had been there was nothing left but open space. She turned and saw the ruins of the old tower. She looked down and saw grass growing through the floor.
Nothing was left. A nightly breeze chilled her and she wanted to go back to her cell where she was at least safe and warm when her eye fell on a white that wasn't supposed to be there. She kneeled, for she couldn't bend in her long silver dress. An Ivory mirror.
She looked away. What would she see? What would it tell her? Vampires she knew had long teeth and black eyes, as black as the night of a new moon. Would she see that when she looked back down? Hours she stood there, watching the sky. Suddenly she remembered Vampires weren't supposed to have a reflection. But she had seen herself in the pools in the dungeon. Not entirely, but the shape of her face and the colour of her hair.
Softly looked down and saw.... purple eyes like the shimmer of dusk. Violet, Indigo they swirled when she changed the position of the mirror. And her hair wasn't gray, it was silver when the moon lighted it. She touched the mirror and felt disappointed when nothing happened.
"Your not supposed to touch me." the mirror said.
"Then what should I do?" she asked back.
"Say the words inscribed on my back." it told her.
Softly turned the mirror and saw the words: "I want to live again." She nearly dropped the mirror.
"Where is my father!" she cried out.
"He died, like all the others, but you don't have to. You can escape this doomed world and be free."
"But the sun..."
"It will not hurt you know that you are grown. Go, my pretty. Discover the universe!"
"I'm evil!" she told it.
"No, just immortal, they wouldn't understand, but I do." the mirror said.
"I want to live again." she confided the mirror and felt a soft pulling as she was transported elsewhere.

"I don't need your life, only your heart and friendship..." a young voice told her.
She was home... at last.

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Softly wandered through the twilight of the day. It had been cold and rainy and the sky was still bruised with clouds. Softly relished these evenings as they reminded her of home. She sighed. Home was far off. And desolate as well. She had told the mirror she wanted to live. And she really had at that point. But having a safe haven was important as well.
"Aren't I your safe haven?" Schemering asked.
"Of course you are my sweet shimmer. But I want to see the castle again."
"I can take you there..."
"You are too small..." Softly started.
"Don't give me that! I've grown a lot and my wings are big and strong. I could carry you easily."
Softly thought for a minute. It was true. Schemering had grown a lot since she had gotten her. If she felt confident enough...
"Ok, I'll do it, but only if we make a test flight first!"
Schemering cheered and grabbed her rider in her arms, dropping her in her neck and flying off.
"Still think I'm too small?"
"No. I stand corrected."
Not much later she and Schemering were  flying over the desolated places Softly had once called home. Nothing had changed. Not a brick had stirred in the months Softly had been away. Maybe the place had been enchanted.
"I see colour!" Schemering suddenly cried.
"That's impossible! Even the trees are gray!" Softly shouted back to be heard over the wind.
"And still I see colour! Blue and Yellow."
Softly shook her head and held tight as Schemering flew faster to catch whatever she thought was coloured.
"There!" Schemering cried triumphantly.
And indeed Softly saw colour. Another dragon that had gone between dimensions. A small blue-yellow Eclipse it seemed. Not much younger than Schemering. And a male.
"How did he get here?" Softly asked.
"Through a crack in time?" Schemering suggested.
Softly shrugged. The next statement confused her even more:
"Can I go play with him?"

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Smoke
 

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Softly is a Candidate at Spectral Rhea