Elara was the kind they didn't know what to do with.
She didn't belong to quiet rooms or careful words. She didn't lower her voice when tension filled the air, didn't look away when something felt wrong. Where others hesitated, Elara moved—light, unbothered, as if the world had never given her a reason to be afraid.
Maybe it had.
She just refused to let it win.
Morning spilled through the windows in soft gold, painting everything it touched in warmth. Elara stood in the middle of it, sleeves rolled up, hair half-tied and already coming loose, like even it refused to be controlled.
There was music playing somewhere—too loud, slightly off-beat—but she didn't seem to mind. She hummed along anyway, completely off-key and entirely unapologetic.
"Okay," she muttered to herself, staring down at the mess in front of her. "This looked easier in my head."
It rarely was.
Still, that never stopped her.
She adjusted, improvised, tried again—because that's what she did. She didn't give up. Not on small things, not on people, not even on days that felt heavier than they should.
Especially not those.
People often mistook her for careless.
They saw the smile, the laughter, the way she spoke like the world wasn't something to be afraid of—and assumed she didn't understand darkness.
They were wrong.
Elara knew exactly how cruel the world could be.
She just chose, every single day, to be something softer in spite of it.
And maybe that was her biggest flaw.
Or maybe—
it was the one thing no one had ever managed to break. She had a past that know one ever knew and she didn't bother to tell them to she hides it behind her playful nature with her smile her laugh that know one can ever find out about her past lives.