3: Creation

If Sanjuio Alexandrie Aerith Vanessa Elamys Normaer Donadieu had not been “Sanjuio”
If she could have chosen any occupation rather than considering only the list of things that she perceived would make Maman et Papa proud
If there had been an option to be who she was when people began to ignore how she looked, or moved, or spoke

Alexa would have been an inventor. Or a biologist. Or a botanist.
Or something like that.

From a young, young age she was fascinated by the way Grandmère pruned and encouraged certain plants in their extensive gardens to grow. She loved her famille and, knowing what she came from, enjoyed identifying in herself the traits of her family. She could see she was small like Maman, and straightforward like Grandmère. She was observant (in her own way) like Papa and Aunt Aerith, and though she had grown distant from Maman as she reached adolescence, Maman was prone to spontaneous affection in the same way as she.

More than anything, Alexa missed hugs.

Seeing those similarities in people, and sitting in the garden with Grandmère as she explained what she was cultivating led to several situations in which Alexa was… corrected for trying to raise frog spawn in her room, or climb out the window at night to tend it elsewhere.

The frogs in the pond were, looking back, some of her present inspiration.

She became endlessly curious about Chevalier’s origins as a child – because Chevalier did not change, because there was no way to tell how he had acquired certain traits, but also… working the other way, she realised she could not trace back what the family of someone she’d seen would be like. It took a long while to dissuade a young Alexandrie from the idea that there must be a city of Praetorian just like Shining Capital somewhere – but dissuade her they had to - a child walking around with her golem was one thing. The idea of a city of these freely thinking and moving creatures seemed horrifying to dinner guests for some reason.

As she grew, Maman seemed to mistake her fascination with familial traits for interest in bearing children – lots of children. She decided there was no better way for Alexa to investigate biology than to have her own brood. Maman had wanted more children, but got Alexa, so this was a good decision. For her. Alexandrie wasn't opposed to children, but it wasn't easy to describe what she did want from life without having seen it. 

Until now. 

La Chanson had given her the ability to heal wounds and regrow or grow limbs or organs. She could grow or destroy, hurt or help. As she created the materials, then summoned a robin into being, the most frustrating thing to her was its lack of self. She knew the robin was generic – knew it moved or squawked or sang or hopped around because that met her expectation of how or what a robin should be. And if she wanted it to do something different, it would only do what was different to the limits of her imagination. Because that was all it could be. And that wasn’t what she wanted.

She didn't want a golem. She wanted a Praetorian.

So she dropped the spell and began again. She thought of all the things Chevalier had said about free will – about how decisions and consequences developed. Alexandrie thought about the fact that Grandmère had exercised free will refusing the power she had now - and her mind drifted through decisions until she began to realise the flower petals and stones and leaves she touched had begun to shimmer as if with tiny, distantly blinking stars.

As they grew nearer, the light grew brighter, so she closed her eyes and began the summoning spell she knew again. And thought of how strange it was that so many things come in pairs but there was only one Chevalier.

Eyes glistening, she opened them to finish the spell. Not blinding (not to her), and as she finished she considered that perhaps now she wouldn't feel lonely.

And it was done.

Had Grandmère done anything like it before? Where were they, if so? At first, she feared that failing to concentrate on them would make them disappear like the others.

They were far too loud for that. 

And they seemed, even after a meal, content to travel with her – something she was grateful for. As Scramble and Oat explored their new world, Alexandrie wondered how it might change while they lived in it – and how it might stay the same.

All Spider wanted was to have enough money to go back home to put someone else in charge. Someone who might be just as flawed. Or just as dangerous.
Or worse, because there would be new rules to learn and it took time to learn new rules… If Cedric Edgewater wanted money and the power it commanded, Spider wanted money and Lucas wanted power…

What was the difference?

And why would La Chanson go to all this trouble to bring a member of the same family to it only to ask it to do something that had already been deemed unacceptable by a prior generation? What was so unacceptable, and why would it not tell her what it was?

Alexandrie was quickly realising a lot of uncomfortable truths and while she was grateful to La Chanson for leading her on such a journey, she didn’t understand why it was happening, nor could she really trust that what it wanted was…good? Not good as in pure, but good as in… thoughtful? Acceptable? Kind? Balanced? She didn’t know the word, but she didn't like it. She didn't like that she was being led to a secret location by an entity that never spoke but Sang. She didn't like that it called to her and she didn't like that it showed them all visions seemingly to scare them - her - into doing something Grandmère categorically decided not to do. And she hated being watched. Which was happening now. Or attempted. She pulled the birds to her, hoping they would stay where she placed them in her hood.

 She didn't know what would happen if she actually tried to do a tarot reading.

But it looked like that might be about to happen.