The steady flow of tears from her eyes was all that Harriett focused on for quite some time. How long did she lay face down in her pillow, waiting to die? Ten minutes? An hour? It had to be some time, for her pillow had grown quite damp. And yet, strangely enough, the end never came.

Her crying had become little more than a whimper, and her outflow of tears had decreased heavily. In fact, before she had realized it, she had moved her head to the right, her eyes unconsciously fixated on the S.A.M gauntlet. But her focus still wasn’t on anything external to herself. The only thing her mind could think about right now was one small, simple thought: How useless she felt.

Her father was one of the most powerful warlocks in the world, and perhaps one of the most powerful to ever exist. Her mother was one of the most sought out priestesses in existence. So why couldn’t Harriett, the only child of such prodigious individuals, not also shine as brightly, if not more? No matter how hard she tried to ignore or remove the thought of uselessness, it remained. If only she could have been born without all of this power, then maybe… just maybe… she could actually be someone who could help, even if that help was given just for an instant.

Harriett was so lost in thought that she hadn’t even heard Feron come downstairs into her room, nor had she felt the bed slightly move when he had sat down on the corner nearest her. When she finally noticed his presence and switched her current gaze from the gauntlet to the other side of her bed where he was, she found that her best friend wasn’t singed in any way from the flames Harriett had expected. Nor was he harmed in any way. Instead, he sat silently on her bed, his face currently forming about 80% of his usual, judging smirk of her actions, and 20% of what Harriett could only describe as actual sincerity. Regardless of what was going through Feron’s head, Harriett decided to ignore it and turned her gaze back to the gauntlet.

“Not in the mood to talk about it, huh?” Feron calmly asked.

“Hmph,” Harriett silently muttered.

“One syllable answers, huh? I see this is going to be a bit harder than I thought,” Feron joked before finishing his sentence with a small chuckle. Harriett was not amused.

“Go away, Feron,” she angrily declared more into her pillow than at Feron. “I just want this day to end.”

“Well there are only about 4 more hours until Wednesday rolls around. So if you can hold out a little longer, you’ll get your wish!”

“Feron…?” Harriett asked.

“Yes, Harriett?”  Feron playfully replied back.

“Since I’m currently a bit occupied with my face in my pillow, could you please punch yourself in the face and act like it came from me?”

“Sorry, Hare, but the punch doesn’t happen unless it comes from you. That’s one of my rules… as of… well, as of right now,” Feron good-humoredly stated back to Harriett.  “So wanna try that again?”

“What’s the point?!” Harriett’s voice betrayed her in volume for but a moment, causing her to curse her own emotions under her breath. It was bad enough that she couldn’t control her own magical power, but not being able to control even the basic, normal human parts of her being truly brought her to a new low. She tightened even more into a ball and squeezed her pillow tighter. “Feron, what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, Hare,” Feron replied.

“You know that’s not true. And don’t you dare make a joke because I’m being serious right now.”

“I will hold my tongue,” Feron jolted. “Please continue, Hare.”

Though Harriett couldn’t see his face, she could sense that his words were now sincere and that for the next few minutes, she would actually be able to have a heart-to-heart conversation with him. So, after taking in the deepest breath she could, she let it all out.

“I’m useless, Feron. The amount of magic that grows on a daily basis in me cannot even begin to be explained by the top researchers, educators, and scientists about the world. Every day, it’s like I add another magical nuclear missile to my internal reserves of magic. And yet, you would think that magic would bequeath understanding and skill, right? That having two of the best parents around would allow me to make them proud, to prove that their conceiving of me wasn’t a waste, ya know?” Harriett sniffled before continuing, the tears beginning to reform in her eyes already. “And I know that they’ve all been patient with me. Heck, I have you guiding my every action. You, the prodigal son of the magical world, one of the only few people who understands an ounce of what it’s like to be me. And even you can’t help me help myself.”

“Hare…,” Feron muttered lowly.

But Harriett held up a hand in his direction to silence him before turning to look directly at him. “No, let me finish. I have to say this. Otherwise, it’ll just keep eating at me well into my twenties and then some.” Feron nodded at this, to which Harriett appreciated. Then, she continued, “I’ve tried so hard to learn how to control who I am, Feron. I’ve researched as much about magical control as any research scientist has. I’ve gone to enough specialists for twenty people. Heck,” she looked over at the gauntlet and snickered at it before looking back at Feron, “I’ve even been reduced to technological ways of trying to control my magic. And yes, I know what you might say here. That there is nothing wrong with what I’m trying to do in order to control who I am. And you know what? You’re right! You are absolutely right. The problem isn’t in my methods. The problem is me. Just me. No matter what I do, no matter what I try, it doesn’t work. I wish I could be more like you. I wish I could be more like all the kids who went to class with us way back then. They were all like us and yet of the ten or so of us, you are telling me that only I ended up this way?! I can’t believe that. I won’t! I can’t be the only useless one of us… I can’t… Feron… can I?”

Her emotions felt raw, her mouth felt dry, but most importantly, her heart felt spent. She had let out almost 18 years of pent-up anxiety and sadness, and even still, she knew there were inner barrels upon barrels of anxiety still welled up deep below her surface. And although Feron’s facial expression was sincere, which was a rare sight to behold in and of its self, she could tell on his face that even he didn’t have the answer.

“Hare, I… it’s… well…,” it seemed like Feron was struggling to find the right answer. Feron, the genius of Harriett’s magical generation, couldn’t even help her.

“You should just accept it,” a voice that Harriett most definitely did not want to deal with uttered from the basement stairs. “You’re useless, and you might always be useless. And it sucks, doesn’t it?” Kylia was the last person Harriett wanted to be hearing from right now. Feron and Harriett watched as Kylia, with her hands deep in her jacket’s pockets, harshly descended the stairs. When she finally reached the bottom, she stoically made her way over to the two best friends as though Kylia’s mere stature was that of Absolute Power. “Is it so bad for a human such as yourself to be useless? Lord knows enough of them already are.”

“You really don’t know how to read a room, do you?” Feron shot at the daughter of Lord Aesir.

“And you really don’t know how to see that I don’t care,” Kylia coldly replied.

“Should you, of all people, even be down here after what you were going to do upstairs?”

Kylia huffed and looked away from Feron’s gaze. “What? You think I feel bad for that little uproar upstairs? Please, that was tame compared to what happens at mine and my siblings’ get-togethers. Man, if there aren’t at least three concussions given out each night, then the nights aren’t even considered worth it.”

“Well, we aren’t like what I can only assume are the upstanding citizens that are your siblings. So, if you don’t have anything good to add, could you please stop wasting our time? And if you are going to continue to waste our time, can you at least do a better job at it?” Feron’s usual smirk returned to his face. It was obvious to Harriett that despite all that had happened so far that night, Feron had not lost his childish sense of seeking mischief and/or seeking out drama, even if he had to incite it first.

Kylia veered an angry gaze back at Feron directly. “You really want to test me, monster boy? Do you think your fake demon genetics can hold up against a real demon?”

“Half-demon,” Feron corrected.

The air about the room instantly went up by twenty degrees. Harriett wasn’t sure whether it had been Kylia’s or Feron’s doing. Perhaps it had been both. But despite the fact that Kylia looked like she wanted to put Feron through one of the basement walls, she suddenly collected herself enough to visually relax a bit. Though Harriett ballparked this next reading, the temperature felt like it had just then decreased by about ten degrees. And upon Feron noticing as well that Kylia had relaxed a bit, the air temperature decreased another ten degrees and went back to normal.

“I’m ignoring you for a minute. Just a minute, hybrid. First, I have to get out this apology or else my dad is going to kill me.” Harriett wanted to ask if Lord Aesir was joking with such a threat, but she knew better than to request an answer to something she already knew.

Kylia brushed past Feron without so much as an “Excuse me” and came to stand in between Harriett and Harriett’s viewing of the gauntlet. The sheer presence of Kylia towering over Harriett felt to Harriett as though gravity itself had quadrupled in strength directly over where she was sitting. In fact, it took everything Harriett had remaining just to remain in a sitting position before the princess of a Demon Lord of the Underworld. But even if Harriett was able to negate Kylia’s mere presence, the anger in Kylia’s eyes alone would have given off the same effect.

Kylia gave a light huff before Harriett, her own eyes appearing to act as a shield that was actually holding in her rage more than it was protecting Harriett and the surrounding area. But several seconds later, Kylia let out a strangely defeated sigh as her eyes suddenly glossed over with a look that Harriett almost wanted to describe with the word: Humiliation.