Aurora Orako's Story

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”Ha! Look at the giant orange, thinking she can actually climb a tree! Fat oranges are too heavy to climb trees!”

“If you just come down on, we won’t beat you up too hard, you fat, ugly orange!”

“What a silly fat orange! Careful, the tree might break under all of your fatness!”

A string of low snickers spread throughout the boys, who stood down below in a circle around the base of the large oak tree. High above them perched a little girl, who looked no more than seven or eight years old, who clung to the truck of the tree, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks.

“Go away! Leave me alone! My Mama and Papa are going to be really mad at you!” she cried, her voice a slight wail.

More snickers made their ways up to her ears, and one of the boys in particular stepped forward, hands shoved into his pockets. He looked up at her with a dark glint in his eyes, his lips a sneer.

“Why don’t you use your ‘magic powers’ to beat us all up, fatty!” he called, ending on a chortle. The little girl sniffed loudly, more tears streaming down her cheeks, and she curled her fingers into the bark of the tree, looking down at her legs through the stream of warm liquid.

“Stop it! Why are you being so mean to me? I th-th-thought you were my friend!” she sobbed.

The boys lips twisted into an even uglier smile, and he turned towards the group of boys, laughing loudly.

“Hear that guys? She actually thought I was her friend!” After a solid minute or so of laughter, he turned back to face her, the darkness in her aura causing her blood to run cold. “As if I would ever actually want to be friends with a fat, ugly orange like you! You’re even shaped like an orange - fat and round!” Casting a glance over his shoulder at his friends, he jerked his head. “C’mon, let’s throw stuff at her until she has to come down!”

Chatters of agreement rang out, and within moments there was an arch of rocks and tree branches thrown up at the child. A chorus of thwacks echoed off of the tree and the following thud of them making contact with the ground pushed her to grip even more tightly at the trunk. When none of the first wave hit her, the boys rushed to gather their rocks once more, starting the attack anew. She gently pried open her eyes to watch for any rocks that may actually hit her - and at the exact moment that one appeared directly in her line of vision.

She swung her hand quickly in an attempt to block it in some way, not even necessarily with her powers, but just block it, but it was too late.

A splitting pain splintered throughout her head, tracing back to the center of her forehead. Black stars speckled her vision, her fingers slowly lost their grips on the tree trunk, and a second later she felt her body pitch forward and off of the tree. The boys yelled out in a mixture of surprise and alarm, but she very dimly heard it, her half-closed eyes focusing on the ground that was currently flying at her face.

---

Harmonix shot up, her hand thrown out as though to catch herself, and in the process she threw the blanket on top of her to the side. Mio and Dusk jolted off of her body in surprise, maneuvering easily onto the back of the couch near her head. Her breathing was immensely deep, her chest heaving, and when she placed her hand over her heart, she could feel it thundering powerfully.

Why? Why were the dreams coming more and more frequently?

Casting a glance around the living room, she slowly drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped one arm around it. The hand attached to her other arm pressed against one side of her face as she blinked away what was left of her sleepy state, attempting to gather her wits.

Was it because she had made the decision to come back to Earth?

No. That couldn’t have been it. She had been experiencing them since before she ever even thought of the idea to run away, so to think it was the fault of being on the planet itself wasn’t logical.

Puffing out a breath, she swung her legs over the side of the couch and rose, stretching as she did so and appearing very similar to the animals that followed her everywhere. Once done, she scratched her forearm, making her way out of the room and towards the stairs, her destination very clearly her bedroom. A quick look at the grandfather clock in the hallway told her it was just barely past sunrise, along with the light streaming in through every window that she passed. When she finally reached her room, she quickly crossed it and into her enormous walk-in closet, obviously intent on dressing herself from the coming day.

Her sense of fashion had always been a bit odd, at least by the standards of the current human industry. It was without a doubt that she would be looked at with weird expressions should she wear anything remotely close to what she and her siblings normally wore when living with their parents, but the fact of the matter was that she couldn’t care less. She’d rather wear something that she loved and feel confident, than attempt to fit into society’s standards and wear something dull and uncomfortable. This explained the outfit that she finally decided upon; a beautiful brown and white dressed, embroidered with gold sinews, and adorned with a brown leather pouch that was attached to two straps that attached to the hips of the dress. It was definitely extravagant, and as she tugged it on, she gave herself a soft smile in the mirror.

If she were to look at herself from a human’s perspective, she would look as though she were dressed for one of those conventions that humans dressed so beautifully at, or for their celebrated holiday by the name of ‘Halloween’.

Harmonix couldn’t muster any care for that, though, but instead performed a small twirl in front of her large mirror, the skirt flitting up and around her waist. She blushed slightly, smoothing the material back down and making a mental note to watch out for any stray breezes.

Tying a bow made of matching material into her hair to hold half of it back from her face, she slipped on a pair of brown leather boots that ended at her knees. She gave in and twirled once more, stifling a soft giggle.

You look so pretty, Harmony!

The girl in question turned her gaze downward, beaming at Dusk, who had slipped into the closet to admire her mistress’s outfit choice. Picking her up, Harmony cradled the beautiful cat in her arms, who purred in delight at the affection. It was easy to make her way downstairs while carrying the animal, for she did it often enough to not have to worry about falling.

As she made her way into the kitchen, she paused. The lack of sound throughout the house betrayed the fact that her siblings were still fast asleep. She squinted slightly at the sunlight streaming through the windows and glinting off of the beautiful counters, making her way towards the fridge and allowing Dusk to hop from her arms as she did so.

“Might as well start breakfast, don’t you agree?” she asked, rifling through the fridge and pulling out a horde of ingredients as she did so. By the time that she had finished pulling everything out, there was a vast array of items covering the counter top that she used for all of her ‘prep work’. Harmony snagged one of the many alligator clips that were magnetically attached to the fridge, quickly drew her beautiful locks back into it, and tossed a pretty orange apron over her head, expertly tying it into an intricate bow at her lower back. Immediately she went into motion, her body easily following the rhythmic actions that it had become oh so accustomed to over her years of cooking with her mother.

The saying goes that one should whistle while they work, but in Harmony’s mind, that’s drawing oneself short of their vast capabilities. Why not expand one’s horizons and evolve into the level of singing? Whistling showed restraint, which one should not have when doing anything musically inclined.

Music was freedom.

This was her reasoning for why she shouldn’t be ashamed for her vocalization of My Most Precious Treaure; and besides, her voice was her gift. While her siblings were more physically instrumentally inclined, she was gifted in a more inward way - with her vocal chords. Of course, she knew how to play piano, as did all of her siblings, and she had taught herself guitar, but that was the extent of her playing talents. Ryou was the one skilled in the art of string instruments, and while she adored music, she had learned all that she figured she needed to know instrument-wise in order to flawlessly conduct and write music.

The singing made the time practically fly by. In fact, when she next looked up, while she was setting the table for everyone and had already finished the cooking, an hour had already passed. It was the normal time for anyone in their house to rise, and so she sped up her movements, quickly settling the dishes for each of her siblings in their respective spots.

For Phoebus, she had cooked spicy chorizo sausage with potatoes and eggs in a wrap, ensuring that his food with too spicy for her to consider edibles, and so hot that it would burn the tongue to the touch; however, for Aurora, she had prepared a delicious broccoli, cheddar, and spinach frittata, ever careful not to include any type of meat in her food. For Ellyion she placed a plate with three deviled eggs and two large blueberry crepes with powdered sugar and whipped cream before his seat. And for herself? Dark chocolate waffles with ganache, strawberries, powdered sugar, whipped cream, and twinberry syrup coating it.

Footsteps tapped in the hallway just outside the door, so twirling around, Harmony beamed in the direction of whoever was entering the kitchen, wooden spoon held up in greeting. Flour and powdered sugar was dusted across her apron, and a bit of it had formed a line across her cheek without her knowledge, but even if she knew it was there she wouldn’t care. As always, she was forcing herself not to be bothered by anything - forcing herself to push an outward facade of joy and happiness when around others. It grew tiring, but what was even more exhausting than that was dealing with the worry and pity that came along with showing her true emotions.

Besides, if one forces the appearance of everything being okay, and of being in an elated mood, wouldn’t that just force the facade to become a reality?

She didn’t know for sure, but that was her reasoning.

“Good morning!” she sang out.

---

Velonix felt tears well up in her large eyes as her sister placed the pretty flowers around her neck. Biting her lower lip in an effort to keep it from trembling, she threw her arms around the other girl in a tight embrace. "I love it," she said quietly. It was clear that Aurora was trying to make her feel better, but instead of the action being irritating, it made her spirits lift a bit.

She took a step back, her hand swiping at her wet eyes, and fixated a more genuine smile on Phoebus as he entered the room. A nod of understanding in response, she made quick work of wrapping his food and placing it in the microwave to be reheated later. She also boxed up Ellyion's food, taking special care with the cute white laced bow that she wrapped around the box.

When she stepped away from the counter, a package of sweets were thrust near her face, catching her slightly off guard. She smiled, however, through the surprise and accepted the goodies, going on her toes to peck Phoebus lightly on his warm cheek.

"I cannot wait to eat them! I'll take them with me to work and share them with Mr. Zwemmer!" she exclaimed excitedly, accepting the peace offering with glee. Slipping the package into her bag, she quickly boxed up her own breakfast, having only just noticed the time. "Speaking of, I really need to get going to work. Don't worry about dropping off Lio's food - his little home isn't too far from the bookstore, so I can do it!" She slipped the cute little blue and white box into her bag atop the package of sweets given to her by her elder brother. The two boxes rested beside her large book with its matching ink bottle and quill alongside it. Her wallet lay atop that, alongside some music sheets that she planned to transpose from their current Bb Clarinet status and instead into their Eb Clarinet counterpart. Working at a bookstore was fun, but definitely not eventful. It was a fairly busy shop, due to it being only one of two bookstores in the entire town, but it really didn't see a lot of outstanding action.

With that, she lifted her apron above her head, dropped it onto its peg beside the door, tugged on a gray colored sweater and then flattened it out over her skirt. With a quick wave over her shoulder and a mental word with Dusk and Mio, who scampered down the stairs to meet her, she took off out of the kitchen, quickly slipped her brown boots onto her tiny feet, and was out the door in a matter of moments. As she walked outside, she drew on her ever present brown leather gloves, enjoying the warmth of the sun shining above her. Instead of taking her flashy - she cringed at the thought - car into work with her, she opted to walk, having planned out enough time for her to walk to Lio's private home and then to her work with a leisurely pace in between.

Her movements faltered a bit, however, as she passed by a specific diner that she had been at the night before. As she proceeded by the windows, she couldn’t help her straying gaze. It looked through them, ignoring the slight glare that the morning sunlight made on the panes, and almost instantly locked in on the orange mess of hair that belonged to a certain busboy who was employed there. His back was to her, so she took a moment to pause and look in at him. Dusk and Mio propped themselves up on the outside ledge of the windows, craning their heads to look at Takeo too, obviously curious as to what had gotten their mistress so distracted.

Despite the distance and the separation of windows between them, Velonix was able to make out the slight outlines of muscles underneath his shirt. Her siblings and herself all had enhanced physical abilities, of course - their strength and speed were above that of a human’s, and their stamina and agility were on par with those. Their hearing, sight, taste, smell, and sense of touch were above that of a human’s, also, although her brothers definitely surpassed her by far in her sight and sense of smell, and if her own were phenomenal, she could only imagine how incredible her brother’s were.

She would definitely be lying if she said that the sight of his lined muscles - he had a leaner physique, giving his muscles more definition - didn’t stir something deep inside of her. The sensation of her cheeks growing warm caused her to slap her free hand over one, her eyes growing wide as her breathing hitched slightly. His aura was a perfect match, with its mesmerizing swirls of blue, orange, brown, red, and black. It was one of the most colorful of auras that she had ever seen attached to a single human being, and it had caught her eye instantly. She may be a goddess, but she was far from blind, and to her, the young man standing a mere fifteen feet away was extremely, extremely attractive, in both appearance and aura.

Takeo moved slightly, his motions that of someone lifting an object, and when he turned he was holding a tub filled with dirty dishes, his attention focused over his shoulder as he shouted something indiscernible undoubtedly to Ruri or Yousuke. In that moment, it was almost as though time froze for her. Her heart stopped in her chest and her breath went with it. He looked so ungodly familiar that it almost hurt, and she felt a feeling in her chest that she couldn’t quite place a name on. Was it longing? She couldn’t ever remember feeling the emotion, but it was something that seemed familiar, almost as though she had felt it before, even though she knew that her parents had ensured that she had never wanted for anything growing up.

When she looked up from where her gaze was focused on the center of his abdomen, it was to meet his intensely focused hazel eyes. The darkness in them caused a small well of anxiety to twirl in her stomach, and she quickly looked away. After standing there for a moment longer, she bit her lower lip, fighting off the well of tears that threatened to overflow, and turned away.