Annabelle

I have heard it all my life. Judgment, comparison, scrutiny. Different ways of no matter how much better I am, I won't be good enough. Whether it be because I am different, I dont have the commanding presence like Shadow, or I dont act the right way. There is always a reason.

So I just stopped trying.

It is still unbelievably frustrating, knowing that I am more powerful than Shadow but not being able to do anything about it. I don't care if everyone knows, I just wish Shadow knew. She knows I have powers and that I am powerful, but I cannot directly challenge her. Just because I look scrawny and small, doesn’t change the fact that I literally am stronger than her.

It’s whatever.

I just keep walking, trying not to shiver. In my haste to leave, I don't bother grabbing a jacket. It’s freezing, with some stray snowflakes falling here and there. It’s fine, I’m fine.

I decide that I have walked long enough and become invisible. I shrug out my wings and soar off. I love that I can fly whenever I want. With people having phones chosen ones have to be so careful not to get outed by the humans, except not me of course.

As I soared to nowhere my mind wandered again. My whole life Shadow has been my parents' golden little star, she is famous to all chosen ones, even Pandora too, she has modeled and her beauty makes her famous. Shaymin is young but at least people know of her. Most people don't even know I am a Rider, that I am related to Shadow and My father.

Call me bitter.

I look down and below me is a dense forest, perfect. I land and breathe in slowly. Just because I can’t talk about my powers doesn’t mean I don't use them. I find joy in using my powers, I love the rush, the feeling of control, everything. I have all the elementals, but my favorites are wind and electric, and can turn into the elemental forms of each. I think I would like my fire and ice powers more if shadow wasn’t so associated with them, it would just be another thing I would be compared to her with. Regardless, those are also strong, just not my main focus. 

I cast my wind out forming a small controlled tornado and ripped a rock out of the ground with it. I switched to my ground powers and hurdled my own rock at the one falling, causing them both to explode upon impact. I switched to my electric power and put my hands on the ground. Small lightning bolts danced out of the ground around me. I spun quickly shooting ice daggers as I spun. And formed a fire ball. I jumped up using my wind to carry me into the air and flung the fire ball towards the ground below me making a circle of flames poof out as it hit the ground.

Sure, I may vandalize random people’s properties, but I am not about to burn them down. I let myself fall and open my wings slowly allowing myself to glide, still hidden in the tall trees and use my water power to extinguish the fire. Water and plant are my two least favorite elemental powers. But hey, at least the water one comes in handy for dehydration and potential forest fires.

Wind has and always will be my favorite power, with my power being as strong as it is, I don't even need my wings, I can just float anywhere with it. But my favorite thing is using my wind as I fly to let myself be able to glide for as long as I want, it makes flying feel like I am just laying down. Normally flying does put a strain on the body after a while, especially our abs, keeping ourselves in the plank position can get quite exhausting.

I find a nice tree branch to perch on and pull my wings in. I run my hand through the medium fade haircut that I am forced to have, the longest parts of my hair barely go in front of my eyes. My hair used to be long, when I was very little. The thing is, the longer my hair gets the more the strands start to change from black to pink or blue. So in order to blend in, I need to keep my hair short. I also need to wear blue contacts, because my eyes are purple. For some reason these things are bad. My father thinks the reason I look different is because of how powerful I am. Which is a bad thing apparently. We are at war with powerful beings, so just in general why would my father prevent me from showing my strength so that I can protect everyone as well? 

I look at the sunset on my perch in the tree as the last streaks of color fade away and sigh. I’m not going home tonight.