New Hearts

I've lost my mind.

This is the only logical conclusion Pyara Dana can come to. She's experiencing a psychotic break and has been hallucinating. That's much better than the alternative.

I really hope I've lost my mind.

But... if she hasn't lost her mind...

She looks down at her hand. At the conductor's baton she still clutches in said hand. It's white. No wait. She holds it up to the pristine white walls of Cadence Academy. Not quite white. White with a slight pink tilt.

The conductor's baton she got from a fairy.

No. NO. She's lost her mind. Fairies aren't real. And there's no chance in hell that Beeston was going to be attacked by a horde of demons. Are demons a horde? Do demons have a collective word? A hatred! There's no way Beeston was going to be attacked by a hatred of demons.

Pyara looks at the baton again. It's very difficult to convince yourself something didn't happen when you have physical proof that it in fact did.

Even if she wasn't crazy, this still made no sense. Why would she of all people be chosen to protect the world? I mean, Kali is right there. Her older sister was bigger, smarter, stronger. Her only real problem was that she worried too much about Pyara. Not that Pyara blamed her overmuch. When your sister is the only family you have left then yeah. You worry.

A fairy though? Telling her that she was intended to save the world from a horde hatred of demons? This is insane. She's 14. She's barely started her Lúmenai lessons. She's not even a Melodist yet. Shouldn't this responsibility have gone to a Harmacist or better yet a Symphalist? Anyone other than a child who barely knew the basics of casting magic?

If the world really is counting on me, the world's in trouble.

As if provoked by her thoughts, she hears a loud roar up ahead. Her head snaps toward the sound. There's smoke rising from the quad at Cadence. That's... not good. Before she even realizes she's doing it, she's sprinting through the entrance arch and towards whatever's burning. The screams make her run faster. And then she's drawn to an involuntary halt. Several students lie on the grass. Thankfully they seem uninjured, just startled. But that's not what pulled Pyara up short. No, that task was accomplished by what could only be one of the fairy's Demons.

Not crazy after all. Probably.

The Demon, and yes it earns that capitalization, is a massive beast and not a one of fur and fang. It is something else entirely.

It stands upright and deliberate. Intentional. Its body looks carved rather than born, all sharp planes and brutal geometry, like someone had sculpted a warrior from obsidian and starlight and then decided flesh was optional. Every muscle is defined beneath a bronzed surface that wasn't quite armor and wasn't quite skin. Faceted. Metallic. Too perfect.

Two horns curve from its head in heavy arcs, thick and brutal, sweeping upward like crowns forged for a tyrant. Not decorative. Nothing is decorative. Weaponized stillness.

Its face hides behind an angular helm, expression locked in cold permanence. No lips to curl. No brow to furrow. Just narrow slits of pale, merciless light where eyes should be. Not rage. Assessment.

And then there's its chest.

At the center of its torso burns a star.

Not a symbol. Not a gem. A star. Brilliant and searing, its light cuts through the sharp ridges of its body and spilling across the quad in fractured beams. Veins of faint blue energy trace outward from that blazing core, skittering along its arms like restrained lightning, pulsing in slow, patient rhythm.

Its fists are clenched. Massive. The forearms flare into bladed ridges, edges sharp enough to split stone. Or people. It doesn't roar again. It doesn't thrash about.

It simply stands there.

As if it has arrived exactly where it means to be. As if the devastation around it were not chaos, but procedure. And Pyara knew it had locked in on her.

The baton pulses. No human eyes are looking at her. If not now...

She raises the baton and silently counts time like an orchestral conductor. 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. She releases the baton, which transforms into a ball of light and continues to count the beat.

Here goes nothing. Or everything.

The ball of light turns as she names herself and plunges into her chest, no, into her heart. She carries on.

And she's posing. Why is she posing. And what is she wearing?

Her outfit has radically changed. She now wears a vibrant, tiered skirt of shocking fuchsia, lined with delicate white ruffles that shimmer with an inner light. A crisp white tunic-like top, edged in pink and emblazoned with a stylized heart-and-wing crest, hugs her torso. The most jarring addition is the hood: a deep pink garment with two white, horn-like protrusions that mirror the silhouette of the very Demon she is facing.

White gloves reach past her elbows, and her legs are encased in white stockings crisscrossed with pink ribbons, ending in dainty but sturdy shoes. It is flamboyant, completely impractical for a 14-year-old student, and utterly nonsensical.

"It's weird," she whispers to herself, the pink fabric of her long, flowing cape snapping in the wind. "This is definitely weird. But... it's actually kind of cute?"

The Demon doesn't give her another second for fashion critiques. With a sound like grinding tectonic plates, it lunges, its massive, bladed forearm swinging in a lethal arc.

Instinct takes over: not the instinct of a trained warrior, but the rhythmic reflex of a conductor. Pyara's hand clamps onto a heavy, metallic weight she hadn't realized she was holding. She swings it upward, catching the Demon's faceted arm in a shower of sparks.

The weapon is the Serrata Glissando, a specialized zhua. To Pyara's untrained eyes, it looks like a "mini scythe" with a curved, crescent blade and a heart-shaped counterweight. The impact rattles her teeth, but she doesn't buckle. Instead, she feels a strange, buoyant momentum. She doesn't just block; she instinctively steps into the blow, using the curve of the scythe to redirect the Demon's "weaponized stillness" into the dirt.

The beast recoils, its pale eye-slits pulsing with a cold, neutral magical energy. It raises a fist, and a wave of raw, colorless force erupts toward her.

Pyara panics, her Lúmenai lessons barely having covered basic theory. But as she throws her hand up in a desperate defensive gesture, the air around her doesn't just move, it ignites. A wall of the flames of Tânor aspected magic flares into existence, swallowing the neutral blast, followed immediately by a wind gust of the Gwynt aspect that propels her backward into a graceful, if accidental, flip.

She lands in a crouch, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She can feel it. She can access it all: fire, water, wind, and earth. She isn't a Melodist yet, but the music of the Tier 1 elements is singing through her fingertips.

She stands up, a shaky but determined smile spreading across her face. She doesn't have a plan, but she has the beat, and for the first time in her life, she definitely knows the tune.

I can't wait to tell Kali about this. Wonder if she can become a Lovely Heart too?