I am what you would call 'cursed with awesome'. In a different time and place, I'm sure my existence would be welcome. Unfortunately, I was born here, in this era. My 'condition' apparently affords me great power, but the situation in certain parts of society make me among the most wanted of individuals, and I'm not even a criminal!

The circumstances of my birth were a mired mess, to say the least. My father wasn't present, which was a forgone conclusion when armed with the knowledge that my mother was a golden-eyes. For her, meaningful relationships were scarce, at least that's what I was told. The father was a single encounter, and likely so drunk that he couldn't tell his nose from his rump. I don't hold it against him now. He never knew what hit him, or where he spent that night.

The actual issue was my mother. Up until my birth, she was the most recent in a lineage of people who behaved as if the world was out to get them. Sadly, it wasn't entirely untrue. It seems I'm derived from a long line of reclusive women, hidden in their splendor as their golden eyes made them a target for unscrupulous mercenaries and illicit bounty hunters. 

My birth was a joyous occasion, for the wrong reasons. It's all hearsay from one of the midwives who helped give birth to me. My mother cried. They were tears of joy, as one would expect, but what she said with them was not what you'd expect to hear from a new mother. "I'll finally get to live a normal life!"

Her golden-eyed 'blessing' passed on to me, and as soon as she was able to travel, she became one with the wind. The midwife who told me these things, Valencia, and her husband Francis, took me in. They'd had difficulty with conception, so to them, I was the blessing they felt they couldn't have. They didn't care about the dangers my golden eyes could bring. They raised me as their own.

They told me when I was 12. Mom must've been nervous, because she walked into the room, leaned on the wall and fidgeted nervously. "You're mother is missing..." she mumbled.

Of course, I looked at her in utter bafflement. "Are you well, mother?" After all, she was right in front of me, gazing anxiously.

That was a long and painful conversation. She and her husband cried and apologized more times than I cared to count. They explained the circumstances behind my birth, that I was their adopted child, and the threat that my eyes brought upon them. By the time they finished, we were all crying, and embracing each other, and our bond felt stronger than it had ever been.

I'd never doubted my adopted parents' love for me, not for a single moment. They spent as much time with me as they could outside of work. They used their meager savings to ensure I was fed and cared for. They became better readers so that they could properly teach me how to read, and ensured I had as many books as I could manage. 

I seldom thought about the laughter of children outside since I was either busy reading or spending time with my parents. We played together, read together, learned together, and enjoyed each other's company. They were my world, and I was theirs. I hadn't known about the illicit dealing of certain individuals, or about the target on my head. I truly understood the phrase 'ignorance is bliss'.

Things were different after that conversation. So many little things started making sense. It was as if I'd been putting together a puzzle all my life and someone walked up and dropped a quarter of its pieces that I'd never seen before. The reason I was kept inside, the reason I had to stay away from the windows, why they'd emphasized controlling my emotions, and how to deal with them without an outburst. Also, why I didn't have friends my age,

Being seen was unsafe, having an outburst would draw attention, and I couldn't have friends my age. Without even realizing it, I found all the pieces falling into place. I realized that I was thinking like a young adult, one several years older than my current age, and this realization also fell into place. I was more calm than I should've been.

I still loved my parents. I insisted on calling them mother and father. They still referred to me as their daughter, and life carried on. But things weren't the same. There was a newfound understanding of an ever-present, unpredictable danger. They showed me their escape supplies, my escape supplies where to find them, how to use them, and where to run.

My teaching now included self-defense and magic. They taught me any magic that commoners could get their hands on and finally saved up for a book on magic. We still read together, but now we fought together, trained together, and collapsed in exhaustion together.

They were good days, calm days. Things were hard at times, but we had each other. They say all good things must come to an end. I hoped with all my heart that these days wouldn't.