Cerita Pendek Plot Twists Fantasy & Novel Family Emotions

When my sister and I were born, a prophet foretold that my sister would fall into a deep depression because I was more gifted than she was. On the day of the Fire Dragon Clan's Trial, she would throw herself into the frozen lake and never resurface. To protect her, my parents locked me in the freezing chamber on the day of the Trial. I knelt and begged them until my knees bled. My mother shoved me inside and sealed the door from the outside with a barrier. "You know your sister will die because of you, and you still insist on taking the Trial? How is that anything but trying to get her killed?" The chamber had already dropped to a hundred and twelve degrees below zero, yet I was wearing nothing but a short-sleeved shirt. I threw myself against the barrier, desperate to break out. "Mother, it's freezing in here! Please let me out!" "You're a fire dragon. A little cold can't hurt you. Who are you trying to fool?" My mother's voice was edged with impatience. "The barrier blocks your magic, but we didn't even turn on the refrigeration system. Your sister will be safe soon. Can't you think of her for once?" The sound of their wingbeats faded. My scales cracked from the cold, and blood dripped onto the floor. The barrier had sealed away my magic, and the chill quickly sank deep into my bones. I knelt on the floor as my body stiffened, inch by inch.

I spent five years beside Kaelan, heir to the Elf King, and bore him a son, yet he never once acknowledged me in public. He said that when he became Elf King, he would give us the highest standing there was. Instead, at the Elven Assembly, he announced that another woman was his fiancée, then personally handed her our son's life-saving elixir to use as a facial treatment. Later I took my child away to the border, and he was finally willing to acknowledge us. But the child who used to run after him calling him Dad no longer needed a father.

"Today is supposed to be a good day. We're choosing Wendy's dowry. Stop standing there bringing bad luck down on us!" My mother pulled my sister back in disgust, afraid the blood I had coughed onto the floor would splash the silver-bound chest. When a forest elf girl is born, her family plants a bonded tree for her, a tree that lives and dies with its owner. When a daughter marries, her eldest brother takes the old branches the tree has dropped on its own and builds her a dowry chest, a sign symbolizing a lifelong covenant of love and kinship. The chest is filled with gowns and with whatever the family gives her, and the larger the chest, the deeper the blessing. My brother cut my tree down and damaged its roots as well. "Wendy's tree is too thin and weak. It isn't worthy of the Royal Court. I had no choice but to saw yours into boards and put together a respectable chest for her." My sister stroked the silver-bound chest made from my ancient tree like a highborn princess. The whole family gathered around her to pick out what would go inside, as though they had forgotten that I was a bride that day too. My voice shook. "Then what about me?" My mother looked at me shaking there, and her face filled with disgust. "You insist on marrying that short-lived human. A wicker basket is dowry enough for you." Only in that moment did I understand that to them my life mattered less than Wendy's dignity. So I no longer had to treat them as family.