[i]Ahnn.[/i]

Exposure burns through her, igniting all the scaffolding she's used to cover the broken patches of her heart. All the wounds are open again, old and new. The haphazard attempt at healing is undone in a stroke and what she'd thought was recovery was merely bouncing off the bottom. 

She wasn't ready for this.

She hated being seen like this. She wished her power was invisibility. She wished the things she did never connected back to her, wished that she could pass through the world like a ghost. She'd never asked for the friends, the fame, the [i]duty[/i]. They'd added to her burden brick by brick until she was lifting the whole world like Atlas. Of course she'd dropped it. She couldn't even lift herself.

[i]Ahnn.[/i]

What was she doing? She couldn't even beat Asterion, let alone all the people Asterion couldn't beat. She had all the authority and potency of a stop sign. What was it about her that made people think she could?

She grasped her hood and pulled it up over her head. It'd do until she found a proper veil to hide behind.