Girls like her were born in a storm

I am never told that I look like my mother or my father, I have never even been told I look like any of my grandparents. That privilege, that right, it seems has always been reserved for my siblings. My eldest sister looks nearly identical to my mother, and my eldest brother has our mother’s eyes and our father’s smile, and hair like our grandfather. My second eldest brother looks exactly like our father, while my other sister, just a bit older than me, is a dead ringer for our grandmother, but she has our father’s nose, with our mother’s hips. And then they turn to look at me, and their tongue halts in their mouth. “You know, maybe she looks a bit like Aunt Lilith. There, in the chin.” Is the closest I have ever been offered. I tell them that I am my own, no pieces borrowed, but original. I say it, they laugh, I cry silently. My mother will try to comfort me, she says that knit in my brow, when I am focusing, the same look could be found on my father’s face when he was reading his books. And my laugh (on the rare occasion I do), she says, I sound exactly like her.

~ ~ ~

The day after my great-grandfather died, my hair started turning white. I thought maybe it was because I was cursed. I still think that, maybe, because my family stays dark blacks and sun kissed browns and I keep getting lighter. As if there is something in this world is so determined that I should not be a Foster.

~ ~ ~

Ebony and ivory. Like the keys on a piano. Ebony and not-quite-ivory. That is what I am. I am not the brilliant white of a new piano, but faded, like one that has been cherished—or one that has been forgotten. If I could be a note, maybe I would be a C-sharp. For the sharpness of my cheekbones, for the slope of my shoulders, for the curve of my hip bones. My grandmother called me her little dandelion, for how they started out so boldly colored, but faded with time. I would tell her that I hoped I didn't fly away like one.

~ ~ ~

I was told once, at a party, that my eyes look like the sea during a storm, grey and rolling. I didn't believe them, I didn't want to, my family full of dark eyes and forest greens. It was not until I saw the wild ocean in winter off the coast of Terrastella and thought I saw myself in the waves.

~ ~ ~

Oh, my feather? Yes, I’ve had it since I was little, since I can remember. My parents do not allow me to wear it to our parties and gatherings (“It looks—untidy,” is what they would say), but I am allowed to wear it in my hair at more casual meetings, around town, and in our home. It reminds me of the blanket I used to sleep with as a child. It is decorated with pegasi of all different colors, all with extravagant wings, but there is one of bronze, with white and black spotted wings. When I used to sleep with that blanket, I would always make sure that this particular pegasus was tucked closest to my heart.

chaos in their bones

strong coffee, curiosity, and rain

I hate introducing myself. Now, don't take that the wrong way, I love being a Foster, I am proud in fact, quite proud. But with being a Foster comes a certain amount of recognition, a certain expectation. There is a reason you have never heard of a wild, partying Foster. It is forbidden. Those who do are quickly swept under the rug, forgotten. I don't want to be forgotten. Besides, there is hardly time for fun when one is expected to have mastered three languages at the end of their second year. So when I introduce myself, there is almost always that look, that twitch of their smile and an “oh, a Foster,” that follows. For once I would like to say my name and no look of recognition would pass through neither their eyes nor their teeth.

~ ~ ~

I have felt many things, but I have always been able to hide it so carefully behind a learned hardness that I wear in my eyes, a mask that I have practiced since birth, my mother’s fingernails in my back, a silent reminder. In our family, emotion is weakness, that feeling create holes and vulnerabilities, gaps in your armor.

The apathy that had settled in my veins has nothing to do with the trials and tribulations of life. There was no great catastrophe to turn me bitter, nothing that had shattered my heart and left the fragments iced over. I just simply didn’t care because I have yet to find a reason to.

When my grandmother died, I wept in front of a mirror not because I wanted to feel self-pity, but because I wanted to know if I could cry.

~ ~ ~

I’ve taken care of Isabella since she was just a tiny baby. She has always been strong, but there have been times when she has been so unsure of herself. Although, it is then that I often see her eyes steel over with some sort of resolve and she pushes forward. I have always had to keep an extra eye on that child. The only way to ever get her to sit still was to put a book in her hand. Just like a Foster! -Alma, Isabella’s Nanny

~ ~ ~

Despite having everything I could ever ask for, despite the fact I will never have to work a day in my life, I can still feel the way my veins open up and I bleed. It falls down my legs, hits my elbows, sometimes I can feel it running down my cheek like a tear. I go light-headed. I stagger from our dining table and collapse in shameful agony in my bedroom, hoping no one in my family would notice, especially not my mother.

~ ~ ~

I feel like the sand girl that saved Mohegan. That I will suddenly crumble away into nothing but fine dust. I told my mother this one time. “I feel like I wasn't made like my brothers and sisters,” I admitted. “Maybe I was made from sand,” I said. My mother ruffled her mane just once, even this was considered a great act of affection, before replying. “Don’t be ridiculous Isabella, you are made of flesh and blood and bone.” But I looked at her with more urgency. “But what if I am made from sad?” I had asked with worry. My mother shook her head, signaling the end of the conversation. “And what if back to sand I will return?” I ask, quieter, knowing better than continuing an ended conversation. She cant hear me ask it, but I ask all the same.

~ ~ ~

Isabella is a natural in her lessons, she is focused, not easily distracted and quick to pick up on new material. Studious and quiet, though I worry, she seems to be indifferent about many things. When she receives the highest marks in class, she often gestures with little more than a shrug. I have found she has interest in cartography. —Emmett, Isabella’s teacher

~ ~ ~

I saw him writing notes one day in class. Saw him drawing hearts. And he closed a rose between the pages of my book. I flipped through the pages last night, my door locked, against the rules, but I didn't care as I flipped page after page.
Nothing.

Later, my eldest sister flipped through her own book, smiling as she did so. “Do you know a boy named Phillip?” She asked, my rose in her hair.


I went to our families’ garden and from every bush, I tore off every rose.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes I hear this roar in my head—this wild need to break free of tradition.

old books, balconies, smudged ink

I measure every grief I meet

They say when you find the beginning of Terrastella’s history, you’ll also find a Foster holding a pen at the end of it.

~ ~ ~

I have memories that are not my own.

A promise.

A doorstep.

A goodbye.

A hello.

I sometimes wonder if I stole them. But sometimes too, worse yet, I worry they are my own—that I had simply forgotten

~ ~ ~

My mother tells me that I am a blessing that was given to her. After Ansley, poor, sickly Ansley, she was not meant to have anymore children. But then I came, her miracle baby. She said she always wanted five children and I made that dream come true. That’s why I’m special. While each of my siblings are unique, none of the others had made my mother’s dream come true.

~ ~ ~

My entire family calls me Isabella, but, my favorite cartography teacher, he gave me the nickname Bella. And I have always liked it, and wish my parents would introduce me as such. Bella Foster. Doesn’t that sound nice? But at every party, at every function I must attend as the dutiful daughter, the youngest of my parents five children, I am always Isabella Foster.

I think someone else used to call me Bella, before all the rest, but it was a long time ago, I think she might’ve been an old nanny, or maybe a teacher. Shame I cant remember her.

~ ~ ~

I remember him calling out to me. “Isabella.” He had shouted as I raced ahead. “Not so far.” I was not running, just walking quickly. It was unbecoming of a Foster child to run, especially through the streets of the court. My father finally caught up to me. “Perhaps this trip would best be done on my own,” come his words. He does not yell, his voice does not raise an inch, instead it is said through hushed tones, tense and terrifying, no one would hear by me. There is a threat in his words and I immediately bow my head respectfully. I did not wish to be left at home, stuck with only books and my siblings for company.

~ ~ ~

The first funeral I went to, my great-grandfather, I didn't understand what had happened. “Did Grandpa Blake dye his hair red?” I had asked. “No,” said my father. “He had not.”

~ ~ ~

“You failed your lessons? Maybe you aren't even a Foster.” I had once teased my brother. My brother was not made for school, despite all Fosters being made for studies. He was a much more sensitive boy, filled with thoughts of love rather than a desire for school work. I sometimes think he was my mother’s favorite. (It was a common pastime of my siblings and I to all declare we were mother’s favorite). I had been quickly reprimanded by my father for my words. “Do you know what happens when you use such careless words towards others, towards family?” His voice is eerily calm, it is the only way I know that I am in trouble and my steely gaze grows weak. “When you use them, that person, that family, that brother, begin to love you a little less. That’s what careless words do. They make him love you a little less.” And he is careful to stand behind my brother, point from him to me.

I stood under the water for hours, trying to wash the shame from my skin.
And then I joined the family for dinner in the dining room.
And I thought, this is what it feels like to be loved a little less.
I felt the same as I did before.

I wondered if maybe I had always been loved just a little less.
(portion inspired by God of Small Things.)

~ ~ ~

Before I was Commander, I was just a girl.

A cadet. A child, even. Not that I would have ever thought that of myself at the time—but looking back, I cannot believe I was ever so young.

I became Commander at three. So even younger than that. A child. A child.

Back then my father was alive; but it was still well after he squandered away all my family’s money, so when I wanted to visit my family, I was already made to trek out to the slums and find them there, an hour’s journey from the barracks and not a pretty walk, either.

(I don’t know how I could have left her there. How could I have left here there? I have to remind myself: leaving her there, and feeling okay about it—which I don’t—are two different sins. I have to remind myself: a child cannot really take care of another child, and pretending otherwise might have killed us both.)

She looks more like her father than she looks like me. Part of me resents this. Why should a villain like him be allowed to create such a beautiful thing? But another part of me sighed in relief when I saw the pale gold of her skin, nothing like mine; the bright warmth, nothing like mine. Perhaps most strikingly her lack of wings, nothing like either of us, which might be a gift (she could never come back to the Halcyon, and find me as her Commander) or a curse (she can never come back to the Halcyon and find me as her Commander).

There are parts of me that wish I hadn’t done that. There are parts of me that know I had no other choice.

There are parts of me that wish, every time I go out on the street, that she might recognize me, or I her; and there are parts of me that pray to every statue that what I want will never really happen.

It’s hard to know where she is now, what exactly happened to her. I know that my mother could not take care of her, either, and that we had to send her somewhere… else. I know she is safe now. I know she would be almost five.

I know: no one else can ever know what I do, or the world might end, and ruin me all over again. --final section written by rb from Marisol's perspective. <3

and wonder if it weighs like mine

Accessory: Isabella has a black and white spotted feather that she often wears in her hair.

Weapon: Isabella has a bow and arrow that is typically used for her archery lessons. She is...surprisingly talented