Emerald · It is a precious jewel, rarer and often more expensive than diamonds.  The color represents wealth, harmony, and safety—three principles her family lives by. It also signifies the De Lisles' loyalty to their house, as generations of their family have been sorted strictly into house Slytherin. 

She remembered walking into her father's office on Christmas morning.  Her parents were arguing.  There was rage in her mother's eyes.  Her father was calm.  Collected.  Like he had all the control in the room.  She didn't know what happened, and why no one was happy on the best day of the year.  She was six years old at the time, but one could imagine how upset the little girl was.  Her parents were fighting.  They weren't supposed to be fighting.  Her father and mother loved each other.  Or so she thought. 

She met Braeden LaClaire when they were young.  Their parents were friends, so naturally, they wanted their kids to be friends, too.  They were the same age and quickly learned that they were very much alike.  They spent most of their time together when they weren't in school (they went to different schools), and this gave their parents hope.  It was so perfect for them, too.  Their families were both rich and pureblooded.  Emerald was growing to be an attractive young lady and Braeden was become a handsome young man.  Unfortunately for them, Emerald saw Braeden as nothing more than a best friend and perhaps even a brother, and the same goes for him.  

She was excited when she finally received her Hogwarts letter, the moment she turned eleven years old.  Her magic had started showing just a little bit before.  Her parents tried to teach her how to control it, of course.  But a child would never know how to without proper instruction.  Her parents only wanted to make sure she wasn't making a mess out of their perfect mansion, especially when her father always had a lot of guests over.  Parties.  Her father always liked his perfect parties.  

She remembered what it was like, walking down Diagon Alley, excited to pick up everything she needed to get to start school.  She went with her mother—her father was too busy being an all-star quidditch player at the time—who tried her best to give her daughter the best things money can buy.  Of course, most of those were necessary, and little eleven-year-old Emerald only cared about one thing: her wand.  

Ollivander told her that not everyone found their match right away.  Some took a long period of trial and error, and Emerald was no exception.  She spent fifteen minutes wrecking poor old Ollivander's shop, just trying to find the right one.  Her mother tried to help, too, but she wasn't very productive.  Ollivander didn't want to tell her that the pretty and interesting looking wands were not always the most powerful.  And it was true. 

The wand that chose Emerald had a dark, polished wood, that had a silver, braided band around the end and where the handle and the body of the wand met.  The design was relatively simple, perhaps a little too simple for her mother, but Emerald didn't care.  This was her wand, and she loved it.  Especially after Ollivander told her that dragon heartstring wands were for powerful wizards, of course.

She remembered the first time it happened.  It was when this girl, who she had never seen before, was crying in the corridor by the staircase.  Perhaps she thought that no one was around, but Emerald was.  She had reached out and offered a shoulder for the girl to cry on, but the latter refused.  She said that it was stupid and it wasn't a big deal.  But it didn't take an idiot to know she was upset.  Her face was stained with tears.  But even through her words, Emerald heard words and saw pictures.  She couldn't describe it.  It was all a blur and vivid at the same time, and it was like she was looking into her mind.  No, it was like she was thinking it herself.  Feeling the sadness and despair and heartbreak.

She remembered seeing him.  He was a chubby kid, with little to no knowledge of how to talk to people.  He was unruly, and perhaps even unattractive with all of that acne.  But that wasn't what pulled her in.  Everett Seong was kind and his mind spoke truth of a brave heart.  None of it showed, however.  And so she took him in and gave him just a little makeover.  But she did it with not the intent to change him, but have his outer self reflect the inner. 

She had begun to wonder what goes on in her father's mind.  Why he was always so secretive.  Why his answers always seemed empty.  Why he didn't look at her mother like a husband should their wife.  That's when she saw his face—blue eyes as deep as the depths of the ocean, with a downturned mouth that almost looked like a snarl.  He wore a suit.  It made him look like he could kill with just a single look of his eyes. His eyes.  They strangely looked like her father's.  He looked like an older version of her father, but he had blonde hair.  Like hers. 

She had had enough.  Of all the lies.  The pretending that they were a perfect family when they were not.  They had a perfect house but not a perfect family.  She didn't remember the last time she told them she loved them.  She wasn't sure if she did, especially her father.  Nothing felt right in that house.  She had gone home after leaving Hogwarts for Christmas.  She had demanded answers from her father, who had the audacity to call her crazy.  To call his daughter crazy.  He blamed it on her mother.

She remembered it all, although it was all a blur.  She raised her wand at him and yelled out a spell—the same one she used to strip herself of her brown hair to reveal the deceitful monster hidden underneath.  

And there he was.  Silver-blonde hair and bright blue eyes.  Just like the man she saw in his mind that killed a part of her for her curiousity.

He was the first light she had seen in a world of darkness.  Like an angel that had come from above.  But he was not pure.  He was tainted.  Didn't know love.  He was the most unlikely man, but maybe that's what made him so special.  What drew her to him.  Beneath his charismatic and flirtatious façade was a man who showed more heart than anyone else she had ever met.  He showed compassion.  Kaladin Ravenwood was broken, but not unfixable.  But she didn't need to fix him.  

December 18, 2020 was the day her life changed.  She had bumped into him one night at the highest tower in Hogwarts during ungodly hours; an unlikely encounter, but had soon proved to be the most fortunate, fateful night.  She shared herself to him then, shed all of her worries and doubts, in exchange for the heartbreak she saw in his mind.  

It was cold that night, but he kept her warm.  And he would keep her warm every single day from that night, forward. 

 

intelligent · intuitive · intelligent · compassionate · quick-witted · calm · creative