Burnout.

Burnout.

Sunny woke up sprawled out in her bed with an assortment of blankets weighing her down.

“Don’t try getting up.”

Harmony? What was she doing here? The last thing Sunny remembered was seeing red. The kind of vision one acquired when rage managed to sink its talons into them. Then she remembered the memory crystal, and the horrible truths it revealed. Sunny squeezed a handful of the bedding in her fist. Red started spotting her vision, fueling her spout of rage that hadn’t simmered in the slightest. Instead, the pot was ready to boil over.

Sunny tried sitting up.

“Mage! What did I just—”

Sunny screamed.

“Told you, idiot.”

Sunny plopped back on the bed. It felt like a million needles were jabbing into every section of her flesh. Moving her body, even a little, caused a domino effect of pain. “W-What happened?”

"Great, she can still move her mouth.” Harmony rolled her eyes.

A tall figure appeared on Sunny’s left. She shifted her gaze. “Mr E?”

Ervin looked down at her with a concerned frown. “What happened to you? Harmony ran to my office and told me that she found you passed out on the floor. I thought it was something I could help with, but I had to call Goodley to give you a proper work up. She had to leave to deal with other patients but she got your vitals under control before she left. There's a potion from her with your name on it." He pushed his hair out of his face, "You should’ve seen the look on her face when she saw you—she was whiter than a ghost."

"W-Why does it hurt when I move?"

"Goodley told me that your magic flared.” Ervin said.

Sunny frowned. Flared?

“It’s when a mage over does it with their magic.” Ervin rubbed at the bags under his eyes. It made Sunny wonder how long he and Harmony were waiting up for her. “We talked about this a little bit before, about how a mage’s core has a certain amount of magic, and how they can continue to increase that load with the proper training. But we’ve never talked about this. I didn’t think I would have to, it’s not something that’s meant to happen this early in your career.”

“Why not?”

“Because, solar flaring isn’t something you want to make a habit.” Ervin tried to explain, “It goes back to the basic tenets of magic. Our bodies are meant to hold our core—which holds our magical essence in its purest form. But when our bodies become weak, they don’t have the ability to keep holding in all that magic.”

“Oh, so my magic sorta leaked out?”

Harmony snorted. “More like, busted out.”

“Basically.” Ervin said, “That’s why you were glowing, your magic seeped into your bloodstream. But Goodley managed to get here in time, thank the Sages. She collected every trace of your magic and put it back in your core. All you need to do is give it time to heal back up.”

“Wait, can't she take it back out?” Sunny asked. “I felt—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. I mean it. This isn't something to play with.”

“I don’t get what the big deal is, all you’ve been trying to teach me is transferring magic from one object to another. Didn’t my magic jump from my core to my blood? How is this any different than what you taught me? I’m living your lesson plan, you should be happy.”

“Your core cracked, Sunny.” Ervin’s voice sounded colder than the harshest winters in the North. Even his stare kept Sunny frozen. “You’re right, the most skilled mages shed their cores and have their magic leak into their blood. That’s called sage level. You’re nowhere near ready for that scenario.”

But it worked. The words threatened to spill from Sunny's mouth, but she bit her tongue.

Sunny wanted to tell him how exhilarating it felt to have all that power racing through her veins. Wanted to tell him how she casted a time-jump spell on herself. And how she moved at a speed that felt faster than lightning, while the world lagged behind her. But she knew he was right. Reaching her flare point shouldn’t make her feel like crap in the aftermath.

---

Tag List: @k--havok @writeblrsupport

Glad you liked it! Sunny and the others were on level 3 of a tournament they entered and things got a little hectic…so they had to go to the infirmary to get patched up. Sunny froze the head nurse so she and Harmony could sneak off to get some answers.

Answers.

Harmony took a staggering step back. “Did you just freeze her?”

“I did.” Sunny stared at her hand, not quite believing it herself.

“Mage!” Harmony whisper-shouted, “You can’t just freeze people!”

“You know she can’t hear you, right?”

Harmony glowered. “Why’d you even do that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sunny pulled Harmony by the elbow and led her down the infirmary halls. “C’mon, we only have five minutes before my spell breaks.” The mention of their time limit sped Harmony’s footsteps. Together they scoured the empty cots until they came across the twins in the back of the room. A tiny slice of light shined out from the split in the red curtain keeping them enclosed.

Through the split, Sunny could see Aiden and Axel resting in separate cots. Aiden’s face was gray. Like all the color had been drained from it along with his magic. His chapped lips were parted, as if a scream of terror clung to his tongue. And maybe there was one, trapped in his mouth. Sunny didn’t recall hearing a sound from him when Damien tried sucking his life away.

The springs in the cot next to Aiden’s squeaked. Sunny met Axel’s frightened eyes through the crack in the curtains. He grabbed a handful of the bedspread and pressed his back to the headboard. Those frantic eyes made him look like a cornered animal.

Harmony held her hands up. “Don’t worry, Zimmerman.”

Axel darted his eyes between the two of them as they stepped inside.

“We just wanna talk.”

Sunny closed the curtains behind them.

~~~~~

Tag List: @k–havok (let me know if you want to be removed)

Intro Post

(Every few days I remember something I forgot or have new links to add lol it's constantly changing a little bit)

So I go by Lyra (or Library lol) and I use she/her pronouns. That's all I can think of to put here lol.

I'm a reader and a writer. I love romantic fantasy in both, but I'll read almost anything. Not really into horror, but I've dabbled in most other genres when it comes to reading, all the way to non-fiction. I'm always accepting new recs even though I have a ridiculous tbr and wishlist lol.

Always happy to talk about books with anyone, but be wary of that once you get me started I won't ever stop annoying you about it lol.

Some of my favorites right now are:

The Folk of the Air trilogy [the cruel prince, etc]

The Grishaverse books [my favorite is either Crooked Kingdom or Rule of Wolves]

Once Upon a Broken Heart series (as of Oct 15. I'm hyperfixating on this one, so you're getting a lot of fandom content for them)

I have ADHD (if you couldn't tell from my overuse of parenthesis and brackets [every thought comes with a bonus thought and sometimes an extra bonus thought like this!]). I'm a Christian with more progressive theology, but this blog is a safe place for everyone as long as we're all loving to each other and respect each other's beliefs and identities (and I love having good faith dialogue [not debates!! 0 interest in theological debates.], I love hearing other perspectives and getting to talk about it, so feel free to dm me about that, too). I'm an ISFJ and a 9w1, and I don't know that much about it yet but I love typology. I also love video games, mostly Stardew Valley and the sims right now (thinking about making a secondary blog for that).

I post fandom stuff and writing things for my wips. You'll probably get lots of stuff for my wip Idk, Dragons ocs once NaNo starts. And just random stuff for whatever I'm hyperfixating on in the moment lol. I'm totally open to asks about anything involving my wips or fandom-related asks. I participate in Storyteller Saturday and Worldbuilding Wednesday every week, and feel free to ask for any of the other events, too. Tag games are also cool!

I also have an instagram @lyra.brie and you'll find a couple pics of my crocheted dinosaurs, some random faith thoughts, and song. I'm very inactive there, but feel free to check it out.

And now the fun part!! Intros to my wips and ocs:

Short overviews of all three here.

Wisteria and Wanderlust: you can find the blurb here, as well as the link to my wattpad which has a few snippets and skits and full character intros. An overview of Zal and Clay's dynamic here.

I Don't Know, Dragons [this is a placeholder title, but I might just keep it lol]: this post isn't exactly a blurb, but it's everything I know so far that I can share without spoiling. (I actually need to update it and make a real post for it soon lol. The main development is that Elara's love interest is a werewolf boy.) This one is still in the planning stage so everything is heavily subject to change. I'll be doing it as my NaNo project this year, so it's posted about a lot right now. New Cynthia post here.

The Flourescent Iguana: here's the intro post. I've finished the first draft of this one, but it needs heavy replotting/rewriting.

Writing Snippets

I only have two actual writing bits on here so far, but I intend to have more, so I'll update this as I go! (Let me know if you guys want me to post the Wisteria and Wanderlust stuff I have on wattpad here, too, cuz I can totally do that.)

Fanfics:

EvaJacks "Who Are You?" FanFic

EvaJacks Bunny Saving FanFic

EvaJacks Baby Dragon FanFic

Wisteria and Wanderlust:

Just a quote

~~~

So that's me! I'm always happy to make new friends and my dms are open, feel free to message me just to ramble about your wip or a hyperfixation!

@writeblrsupport

Unsure.

“For what though? And why him?”

Harmony rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know yet.”

“How do we find out?”

“I don’t know, Sunny! Shit.” Harmony snapped, “I don’t know everything, okay? I know what you know. That’s where we are.”

Sunny knew she shouldn’t have, but in that moment she saw the little girl from the dream realm. The same one who strived for perfection. The kind of perfection she hoped would finally help her gain her mother’s approval. And knowing that the little girl—that Harmony—might never get it, made Sunny’s heart sink.

“Sorry.” Sunny whispered, eyes to the floor, “You don’t need to know everything. We’ll figure this out together.”

Maybe one day, she could look Harmony in the eyes and actually believe it.

Decided to change my prologue to chapter one. The inciting incident happens there, so I’ll just have a brief time skip at the start of chapter two.

Tricks.

“Your dad’s the director of the security district?”

Sunny nodded.

“How? Isn’t he a hollow?”

Sunny bristled. “So?”

Harmony raised her hands. “I didn’t mean it like that. Well, I kinda did. I just meant…how did he even get that job? Not a lot of hollows work for the District.”

“Dad’s good at what he does.”

“And what’s that?”

“He’s smart. Makes all these gadgets that mages can use to amplify their magic, and preserve it. He started off at a lower level position in the security sector, but then one of his inventions got real popular so they bumped him up. After a few years he ended up running the place.”

Harmony appeared star stricken. “What was the gadget that got his foot in the door?”

Sunny dug in her pocket, “Smoke bombs.”

“No way.”

“His version of them blocks a mage’s vision of their opponent and distorts the user’s magical signature. It’s the perfect storm for a sneak attack.”

Harmony crossed her arms. “So that’s how you always got the upper hand on me during our fights.”

“Nope. Mine don’t distort magical signatures.” Sunny grinned, “You just fell for a cheap trick.”