Exchanging Pasts
Azraeus left Laura's room, closing the door quietly on the way out as Laura had fallen asleep, she was emotionally exhausted due to the relief she felt at finally being able to move and physically exhausted even by the simple movement she had done. Azraeus had helped her back into her bed after she calmed down a bit from crying and would have left to tell the others the good news only for Laura to stop him, she said she didn't want the others to see her sorry state after crying so much. Even when the traces of tears had faded from her face she requested Azraeus to stay and not inform the others just yet and requested that Azraeus continued to stroke her head, which he accepted.
He was surprised by the lack of reluctance he felt as normally he was very reserved when interacting intimately with people and naturally tried to form a boundary, but he felt nothing of the sort when interacting with Laura. He suspected it was due to the pity he felt and the similarities he noticed to his past in her desperation that allowed him to interact without fully putting up his barrier.
They talked for a while once Laura was lying back on the bed, mostly talking about their past. Laura explained that before she was paralysed she was a child filled with an adventurous spirit, she loved to roam throughout the grounds of her family's mansion and enjoyed running through the forested area, this was before her parents passed away.
When she was 13 her parents went on a joint subjugation of a monster with other members of the Golden Circle. The subjugation was of a monster bear which had appeared in Canada, it had destroyed a couple of towns and had already killed a few awakened sent to subdue it, thus a stronger team was formed and Laura's parents volunteered as a part of it. They were both wind elements awakened and, surprisingly for the awakened of earth, only ever married each other and only had a single daughter. Thus when they joined the subjugation they left 13 year old Laura in the care of her grandfather in England who, at the time, was steadily working his way up the internal structure of the Golden Circle.
Unfortunately the monster they were sent to subjugate was far stronger than anyone expected, estimated to be a high fifth circle after it was finally killed. Due to the nature of monsters being animals that have awakened to mana they are able to use it instinctively, thus, despite not being able to use magic in complex ways like a human might, the bear was able to use magic very fast, making it very lethal. The team that eventually killed the monster included Laura's mother and father, who were 4th and 3rd circle respectively, as well as another three 4th circle and 7 3rd circle. Sadly, in the process of killing the monster Laura's father was killed along with two other 3rd circles and her mother was seriously injured due to becoming reckless upon seeing her husband die. Her mother later passed away in hospital, unable to be saved by either science or light magic.
Laura then spent the following year in depression over her parents death as she was brought to live in her grandfather's mansion a bit aways from the Golden Circle headquarters. She never fully recovered from her depression but was able to keep herself motivated with her love of magic, she studied and trained hard with the goal of becoming the strongest awakened so nothing like the tragedy of that monster subjugation would happen again. Still, the world seemed to be against her as her excessive training and practice, in Azraeus' opinion, awoke a portion of the dormant spirit blood flowing through her on her 15th birthday, but instead of boosting her strength and potential it paralysed her. She was then brought into the building they were currently in due to her grandfather's request in an attempt to find a medicine or healer who could cure her. She spent the next couple of years hoping that some light element awakened or a doctor could help her but even with all their tests and experiments nothing worked. When the people sent to heal her started declaring one after another that they couldn't even find the cause, she fell into despair. She suspected that her family might be cursed with miss fortune and lost her hope of moving again.
Azraeus had listened quietly to her story by her bed, gently stroking her hair as per her request. Whilst listening to her story he finally realised where the sense of familiarity he felt with her was, the feeling of being hit hard by some tragedy only to climb back up with motivation of improving yourself only to be hit back down again as soon as you started getting somewhere. In exchange for her story Azraeus told a portion of his.
He explained that he was an orphan who grew up in Las Vegas in America. The orphanage was small and in a part of the city that calling it the slums wouldn't be wrong. He lived there as long as he could remember, supposedly he had been left there when he was a child just a few months old. He grew up to be a very curious child, he constantly pestered the adults working at the orphanage and explored the orphanage grounds until he could describe them with his eyes closed. He would spend most of his time in thoughts or simply observing something in his childish way of understanding how things worked. The other children at the orphanage avoided him and excluded him when they played as they found him strange and different from the rest of them.
Azraeus didn't mind being excluded, he felt the alienation but strangely he felt it was normal for him to be alone even as he watched others play together, he had noticed from a young age that something about him was different. The only person he got close to was the old lady who looked after the children, even though he was different and a bit strange she always spent time with him. He quickly grew attached to the only person who spent time with him, several years passed and Azraeus had begun to show his genius, he quickly learned and understood every topic that was taught in the orphanage and was eventually selected to be a part of the local governments scholarship program. At the age of 11 he was to join the local school as a part of this scholarship program, joining mid term would naturally be awkward especially for a young child, Azraeus ,on the other hand did, not care much for it as by this point his focus was fully on learning and that was what he derived the most joy from.
Unfortunately tragedy struck a couple of days before Azraeus would join the school, he received news that his only pillar of emotional support had passed away from an illness. Azraeus quickly fell into despair, realising for the first time that he had come to love that old woman as a mother figure. He had no one to support him through this first dose of the cruelty of reality, he had grown even further apart from the other children in the orphanage as they grew older and he was not close to any other member of staff. Naturally the staff tried to console him and help him through his despair but none of them understood him or spent enough time to come to understand him, leaving him almost alone to get over the death of his one and only loved one.
A few days passed after the news was received and Azraeus' first day of official education had arrived, but he no longer had the motivation, having lost it along with the only person he wanted to share his thoughts and understanding with. He was urged by the adults in the orphanage to attend the school as it was a great opportunity and something sponsored by the city, thus he accepted attending his first days of school still drowning in despair and falling into depression. The state of depression he was in stopped him from joining one of the groups that had already formed in the class. His attitude in school was one of idleness, he didn't participate in group activities, he didn't actively answer questions, he didn't even move from his desk when it was free time. He just sat there lost in his own thoughts or imprinting the information of the classes in his mind.
The teacher worried about him and contacted the orphanage he was from to understand why he didn't behave like a normal child, he learned that Azraeus had never exactly been normal but his abnormality had been made worse by the recent death of the worker who took care of him. The teacher tried to support Azraeus but by this point he had already begun closing himself off, retreating back into the isolation he was used to. A few months passed and Azraeus' state remained the same, he didn't interact much and just sat there following the classes, his scores on tests were not bad but also not great as he didn't really try, just letting time pass.
The first change occurred at the beginning of the new school year, a new student had joined the class and she was like Azraeus, a scholarship student selected by the City for the potential she had shown. Once she joined she quickly fit right in with one of the groups of girls in the class despite being a new face and her slight eccentricity. A few weeks into the new term she learned somewhere that Azraeus was the same as her, a scholarship student and this caused her competitive side to flair up, wanting to beat someone who was similarly accepted due to his great potential like her. Only to be disappointed when she easily surpassed him on the first test.
From that point on she began to grow more interested in Azraeus, wanting to understand why he scored badly compared to her, and finally noticed that he was the oddity in the class. Another few weeks past as she observed the strange boy who just sat quietly at the side of the room not participating in anything, at this point the class had unanimously formed the opinion that Azraeus was strange and they all stayed away from him, the teacher was also losing hope of getting Azraeus to become a normal member of the class. Over the girl's period of observation she had come to the conclusion that Azrraeus was actually very clever, he did not take much time to do his classwork proving he had a good understanding of the subject, she thus came to the conclusion that he wasn't even trying.
"Why did you not get a good score? Are you even trying?" The girl asked him, angry that Azraeus had got a scholarship but didn't even seem to care. She was stunned by his response.
"Yeh." That was it, a response that wasn't even a full word.
"Why don't you try? You are clever, you got the scholarship like me so you should be clever!" The girl didn't understand why he didn't try, she assumed all people who got the scholarship would be like her, someone who loved learning.
"I have no reason to try." Azraeus' response was very apathetic, he responded as if he didnt care, which at this point he really didn't. He just let time pass, doing what was expected of him but nothing more, he never put any extra effort into anything. The girl was stunned, she didn't understand what he meant by not having a reason to try, wasn't the reason to get good scores? She struggled to understand his answer before coming to the conclusion that he meant there was no one to beat, this idea came from her competitive nature and her naive thought that if you were better than everyone else what was the need to try even harder?
"Then I'll be your reason, try to beat me in the next test. We're both scholarship students afterall." She replied with the solution she arrived at with her still childish logic, along with a simple provocation she stated proudly before walking back to her group of friends who were looking at her in confusion. Halfway there she turned back realising she had forgotten something.
"I'm Tisseta by the way, you can just call me Tissa." She turned back towards her friends not expecting a response. Azraeus also did not intend to reply but his dormant competitiveness stemming from his genius had been roused by Tisseta's provocation. Causing him to call out his name, a name that no one would remember, replaced by Azraeus due to the system's interference.
Over the rest of the term Azraus' scores increased bit by bit, he wasn't intending to try but was slightly driven by the provocation and constant gloating from Tissa whenever she beat him in a test. Ever so slowly, over the course of several months, Tissa's childish solution eventually came true, Azraeus had begun to see Tissa as someone to compete with, someone who motivated him, someone to surpass. This desire to surpass Tissa was also the first time Azraeus began to show ambition.
A full two years had passed as 15 year old Azraus' finally got over the death of the Old lady of the orphanage, he hadn't forgotten the pain and sense of loss but he now had a new goal and pillar of emotional support in the form of Tissa. Once Azraeu's had begun to beat her consistently in the tests she had started coming to him for advice, she showed no arrogance or disdain at asking for help from someone she was competing with. As Azraeus' genius had reemerged he began teaching and discussing the subjects with Tissa. They both grew closer over the time they spent together and eventually became best friends, they shared their stories with each other as Tissa understood why Azaeus had been like that when they first met and Azraeus was surprised to find that Tissa was an orphan just like him. Towards the end of their third year together Azraeus and Tissa had spent so much time together that they started developing shallow feelings of love towards each other. Tissa's personality didn't change much, she was still as competitive as ever, Azraeus, on the other hand, changed greatly. He became more open, joked more often and became more assertive, he had become a rather charming teenager at this point, although he only showed this side of him around Tissa.
Unfortunately, just like Laura, the world seemed to have it in for Azraeus. During the break before their final exams Tissa was caught up in a car accident, she had been visiting her old orphanage from her apartment in the public housing she had been given when she turned 15 from the scholarship program, when she was hit by a car that had lost control and mounted the pavement. She was hit in the back and flung forward several metres before crashing into the side of the building, half crushed by the car. She was extracted from the wreckage shortly after and airlifted to the closest hospital and put on life support.
When Azraeus was informed of this he quickly rushed to the hospital she had been admitted to. He waited for 4 hours outside the operating theatre, praying that she would be ok despite not believing in gods. During his anxious wait the memories of the time he spent with Tissa crossed his mind as he eventually came to the realisation that he had slightly fallen in love with her. His realisation was cut short as a nurse came out of the operating theatre 6 hours after Tissa had been admitted. She looked sadly at Azraeus and pronounced that Tissa had passed away due to internal bleeding.
Azraeus' mind blanked. He felt like something in his mind had shattered as he heard that proclamation. The wound in his heart that Tissa had healed was wrenched back open. This time, wider than before. His heart was wounded when the only person he loved as a mother passed away. Now the person who had filled that gap and he loved as a woman was gone too. He hasn't even got to say his feelings to her.
Azraeus' mind slowly recovered from its blank; however, it was slightly different from before. The shock had broken something in him and now he had lost his motivation again. His eyes dulled as he ambled towards the door to the hospital. His mind devoid of thoughts but his subconscious coming to a twisted realisation that would form his personality for the next few years.
'If I don't get attached to things, don't love things, then I won't be hurt again when they're gone.'