Saturday morning arrived with the particular, cheerful tyranny of a scheduled fun event. Mrs. Evans had laid out a new outfit: a blue dress with glittery stars that she declared "perfect for a Luminous girl!" Astraea put it on, the synthetic glitter scratching slightly against her skin. I have worn silk spun by court artisans and armor forged from fallen stars. Now I wear polyester and plastic glitter. Progress is not always linear.
The North Haven Community Center was a bland, rectangular building that smelled of disinfectant and childhood. A hand-painted sign reading "WELCOME CYAP KIDDOS!" hung lopsided over the entrance. Below it, a more official notice was tacked to a bulletin board:
CHILD & YOUTH AWAKENED PROGRAM
ORIENTATION DAY SCHEDULE
9:00 AM: Welcome & Name Tags
9:30 AM: Sparkle Safety Lecture
10:15 AM: Juice & Cookie Break
10:45 AM: Introduction to 'My Inner Glow'
12:00 PM: Pick-Up
'Sparkle Safety.' Astraea committed the phrase to memory. It would make a good title for her memoirs someday.
Inside, the large activity room was a chaos of color and noise. About twenty other children, ranging from maybe six to twelve, milled about. Some had faint auras—a shimmer of heat, a glint of metallic skin, a whisper of moving air. Most just looked nervous.
Two adults in bright CYAP polo shirts—"Teacher Ben" and "Teacher Milly" according to their badges—herded children toward a circle of rainbow-colored mats.
"Find a mat, friends! Let's start our circle of light!" Teacher Milly sang out. She had the relentless cheer of someone who had found their calling in glitter management.
Astraea found a blue mat and sat, folding her hands in her lap. A boy with floppy hair and glasses sat next to her, fidgeting. "I'm Leo," he whispered. "My power is I can make my finger glow. But only my left pointer finger. And only green."
"That's a very specific power," Astraea said seriously. I once manipulated the light of a nebula to write my name across a solar system. But a green fingertip is also noteworthy.
"Is yours sparkles?" Leo asked, pointing to the starry pattern on her dress.
"Yes," Astraea said. "Just sparkles."
"Cool," Leo said, looking relieved to have found a fellow low-tier.
Teacher Ben clapped his hands. "Welcome, Light-Bringers! Luminescence Leaders! Sparkle Specialists!" Each title made Astraea's ancient soul wince slightly. "Today we begin an amazing journey of self-discovery and responsible power use! Who's ready to meet their Inner Glow?"
A chorus of hesitant "me"s and "I guess"s answered.
The morning proceeded as scheduled. The "Sparkle Safety Lecture" involved a cartoon video featuring a talking lightbulb named "Watt" who admonished children never to use their powers near water, during meals, or to "prank the family pet."
During juice and cookies, Astraea observed. A girl named Mia could make small orbs of water float above her palm. A boy named Sam could heat his cookie until the chocolate chips melted. Each display was met with oohs and aahs from the teachers and cautious envy from the other children.
Astraea ate her cookie normally. It was store-bought, slightly stale. I remember when sugar was a rare luxury, carried on spice routes from distant lands. Now it's mass-produced and given to children as a bribe for good behavior. The democratization of decadence.
"Now," Teacher Milly announced after cleanup, "it's time for our first shared luminescence exercise! We're going to make a communal rainbow!"
She produced a large prism and placed it in the center of the circle. "I want each of you to focus on your sparkle, your glow, your little bit of light. Send it toward the prism! Let's fill it with our combined brightness!"
The children concentrated. Flickers of light—pale yellow, weak blue, faint green—emerged from their hands and drifted toward the prism. It began to glow softly, casting faint rainbow smudges on the ceiling.
Leo's green fingertip shone bravely. Mia's water orbs caught the light. Sam's warm hands gave off a reddish glow.
Astraea looked at her own palm. She could feed the tiniest fraction of energy into the exercise and still outshine everyone combined. That would defeat the purpose.
Instead, she performed another act of exquisite minimalism. She took a single photon that had already bounced off the prism, captured it mid-air, and redirected it back. A perfect, tiny silver sparkle, no brighter than any other child's, joined the communal light.
The prism's glow intensified slightly. A clearer rainbow appeared.
"Wonderful!" Teacher Milly cried. "Look at what we can do together!"
The children beamed, a sense of collective accomplishment in the air. Astraea felt a strange, distant warmth. Not from the exercise, but from the scene itself. The hope, the shared effort, the fragile beauty of it.
I have seen cathedrals built to last a millennium. But this temporary rainbow, made by children who will be old and gone in the blink of my eye, has its own kind of majesty.
The orientation ended with the distribution of "Sparkle Starter Kits"—small bags containing a notebook, a glitter pen, and a badge that said "I'm a CYAP Star!"
Leo showed her his badge proudly. "We're Tier 0 buddies now!"
"Indeed we are," Astraea said.
As Mrs. Evans drove them home, chattering about how wonderful it all was, Astraea looked out the window. The city passed by, a testament to ephemeral ambition. She felt the now-familiar warmth in her back, the gentle ache of awakening bones.
[System notification]
[Quest: 'The long wait - Objective 1' - Complete!]
[Reward: Basic Mana Theory (CYAP Edition) unlocked!]
[Social integration: +10%]
[Actual reward: 1 Chocolate Chip Cookie (consumed)]
[Achievement unlocked: 'Play well with others!']
She opened her Sparkle Starter Kit notebook. With her glitter pen, she didn't draw sparkles or rainbows. Instead, she began making tiny, precise notations in the margin—calculations of mana intake, growth projections, the harmonic frequency of the local gate.
To anyone else, it would look like childish scribbles.
To her, it was the first page of a four-hundred-year overdue growth chart.
That night, as she prepared for bed, she caught her reflection again. The girl in the mirror looked the same. But Astraea knew better. She could feel the slow, tectonic shift within.
She placed her Awakened ID card on her bedside table. Luminous Child, Tier 0.
She smiled, a small, secret thing.
They have given me a label, a program, a path for a child. I am ancient. My path is my own. But for now, their path leads toward the mana I need. So I will walk it. I will eat their cookies, follow their sparkle safety rules, and collect their glitter stickers.
And with every step, I will grow. Not as they expect. Not as their System predicts. But as I was always meant to.
The thaw has begun. The long wait is ending.
And they think I'm just a cute kid with sparkles.
She turned off the light, her eyes gleaming in the dark with remembered starlight.
We shall see.
Tomorrow: more kindergarten. The day after: more growth. The great unstucking continues, one millimeter, one sparkle, one cookie at a time.