28 Mae 1436

I have no motivation…for anything.

With that, Zara closed her journal, set the feathered pen down on her table, and crawled back into bed. This way, she could read her favorite book as comfortably as possible. She had believed writing a journal entry would help her productivity but apparently, that was not going to be the case. Perhaps reading will do the trick.

But as soon as Zara flipped open a page, she was overcome with fatigue. As usual.

How annoying.

She closed the book and left it next to her, wondering how exactly she fell into this rut in the first place, and what she could do to get out of it. Not even her favorite genre with the best romantic heroes were as enticing as they once were. She lay flat on her back feeling no worse, but no better either.

For the past year, Zara had spent most of her time in bed. Whenever she thought of a task, she had very little energy to actually do it. She could never finish what she started, be it her studies, reading for fun, or taking a walk around the perimeter of the house. It caused too much exhaustion for her mind and body to handle together.

Zara blindly reached for a piece of paper on her bedside table and glanced it over. It was her to-do list for tomorrow:

To Do:

1. Study History: 1 chapter

2. Chores

3. Walk—if there is time

4. Study Religion: 1 chapter

5. Journal—should I not be feeling faint by this hour

She made a habit of keeping these lists, hoping it would get her life more organized. The limp, overused piece of scroll paper she’d written the next day’s tasks on were a mess of ink lines from too many other tasks crossed out from days before. Not that Zara had actually done most of those tasks, besides the house chores required of her. General laziness and that damn out-of-the-blue fatigue had induced her into crossing them out ahead of time.

Doing the bare minimum of everyday duties had proven to be burdensome. Zara wasn’t sure whether any studying, walking, or writing would be possible when she was burnt out by the time chores were done.

Maybe she really was the laziest person ever, like her parents scolded her for all the time. Even people with little purpose to live had more energy than Zara did.

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She crumpled the list and dropped it, not caring that it drifted to the stone floor and would eventually find its way under her bed, forgotten until she would find time to sweep under there again.

After an hour’s rest, Zara sat on top the clothes chest under her open window so she could stare out at the late afternoon skies and enjoy the refreshing breeze. A butterfly landed on the sill, its wings a mosaic of blue and purple. Zara smiled, taking this opportunity to carefully reach out and touch one of its wings. The butterfly froze the instant Zara began focusing the little energy she had left for the day on her fingers and onto the wing.

The eventual tingling sensation felt good. Exciting, even. Zara watched the little wing slowly grow a couple centimeters wider than the other.

Magic.

A terrifying, yet exhilarating phenomenon.

Zara let the butterfly go, watching its unbalanced form limp to the outer edge of the sill and drop off to the grounds below.

Zara remembered that the first time she had discovered this ability had been on complete accident, causing her and her family the biggest shocks of their lives. From there, the years passed in a downward spiral of forced confinement and threats of verbal and physical punishment if she dared think of experimenting with this newfound power again.

But knowing she still had it in her, as weak as it was, gave her some internal motivation. Instead of walking the perimeter of her house tomorrow for daily exercise, Zara planned to convince her father to drop her off at the library on his way to a work meeting. There was, of course, the possibility that he would reject taking her, but she wouldn’t allow herself to cower out from asking this time.

She wanted to learn more about herself, and this strange ability she’s had since early adolescence.

Magic—and any living being that wielded it—was forbidden by law. This made Zara’s very existence a societal threat that could get her and her family killed if anyone were to find out about her—which was why Zara’s parents were extra cautious when presenting her to outsiders, the rare times they ever did. It was why her movements outside the home were so limited.

And this law had eventually extended to the education and positive depictions of sorcery and its past. If Zara were to find herself at the library come the next day, she knew she would not be able to find any useful texts that would actually teach her the basics of magic, or any means of controlling it, on public shelves.

All of those texts have surely been burnt to ashes. Or maybe confiscated and hidden elsewhere. Zara could only speculate.

The only knowledge she could consume at this time was the tumultuous history of magic and its many powerful wielders. Historical texts tended to paint this subject in a very negative light, but at the very least Zara could, perhaps, still learn something useful.

She found it hard to believe that she could be the only inexperienced mage left in this world, even though most days it sure felt like she was. So Zara often let her mind wander about how many were out there now, lurking deep in the shadows, searching for ways to break themselves out of this vicious cycle of perpetual concealment.

Wishful thinking. It wasn’t possible.

Zara shut the window and drew the curtain. It was still afternoon, but she was going to call it a night.