A/N: Hello everyone! I finally updated! So I just wanted to preface this by saying that the second half of this chapter is partially written by AriaAshtri113 so thanks to her for helping me with this chapter. Go follow her and read her stories, they are amazhang. Don't forget to comment and vote! Now lets get to the actual chapter.

A week later, Memoir slowly opened the creaky doors to her family's old mansion that had been in Highest Peak for generations. And for once, she was smiling. She knew Adelyn was trying to get her to socialize a bit, and probably expected it not to work. But Memoir truly was beginning to like Elena and her friends.
Maybe not everyone is like Mother.
And she was especially happy about reconnecting with Stellan. She remembered the boy from kindergarten. He was always so nice to her, and they had played together every day at recess. Memoir's small grin faded away as she looked up to see her mother approaching.
"What are you so happy about?" she sneered as she loomed over the timid teenager. Memoir shrunk under her mother's harsh glare, not making direct eye contact. She slowly slipped off her thin hand-me-down coat and set it carefully on the bench, as if moving any part of her body too quickly would make her mother explode.
"Um, it's nice out?" Memoir responded. She pulled her curly blonde hair in front of her face, wishing it were longer. But that was, again, her mother's doing.
"Weather? Weather? Who do you think I am, stupid? You expect me to believe you, of all people, is excited about the weather?" her mother shouted, her voice raising with every word. Her shiny black hair was tied back into a tight bun, swirling around her head. Her eyes, once ridden with smile lines, were now squinted and hardened from too many years of taking her bottled up emotions out on Memoir. "Go to your room, vermin, I don't want to see your face right now!"
Memoir stepped backwards and quickly ran past Kari in hopes that she wouldn't see the constant tears running down her perfect face.
"Don't be such a wimp!" Her mother called after her.
Memoir thundered up the stairs two at a time. Maybe going faster could help her escape her mother's wrath.
She flung open the door to her undecorated room, which contained only a cot for Memoir to sleep on and an old dresser for her to store her ratty clothes, though it was rightfully tiny. Memoir sat on the bed and wept. She looked around, and finally settled on staring out the small, dusty window that was beside her cot. The window wasn't much, she knew, but looking outside felt like maybe she could have that kind of freedom some day. Maybe she could . . . and yes, this sounded stupid, but maybe she could fly like the colorful birds that spiraled outside everyday. She sat on the filthy pillow and pulled the thin blanket up to her face in despair.
Why didn't her mother take care of her and comfort her like a mother should? Why was she the one in charge? Why did her father, though loving, never do anything about her terrible living conditions?
Why was she such a burden, such a dark memory in their minds, like a wisp of flurry, cold snow in summer? Why, she begged, why was she such a failure?
Clouds rolled across the sky, and Memoir caught sight of the first snowflakes starting to fall. All Memoir wanted was to run outside and bury herself deep, hide until her mother was someplace else, someplace she could never reach her. She wanted to frolic outside, and have fun with her friends, like a normal teenager, but her mother would never allow it.
Memoir thought back to the conversation she had heard when eavesdropping, wondering what her mother had meant when she had implied that Memoir was going to die. Why was she the one who would die? Would Adelyn die? When was she supposed to die? She wondered how her mother knew she would die. Would it be Memoir's fault? Was that why her mother hated her to no end?
Memoir laid down on her cot and began to cry. She knew it was selfish of her to be sad when so many children all over the world were suffering more greatly than her. There were children who were starving, children who were physically abused by their parents.
There were children that didn't have parents, that had to live on the streets, not knowing when their next meal would be, or the next time they would find shelter. There were children who didn't have proper clothing, who died of hypothermia because they couldn't afford to prepare for the harsh winters that were bound to come, every year, for eternity.
But however fortunate she had it compared to those children, she still wept. The fact that people out there were suffering more than her didn't make it hurt any less. To be honest with herself, Memoir thought it hurt more, because she knew that no one would pay attention to her. Not when those people existed.
The door swung open, startling Memoir out of the brooding thoughts she went over every day like clockwork.
Adelyn flounced in, her cheeks flushed and pink, matching her bright red hair. She made her way with a soft, understanding smile to her bedside and stood next to her.
If she expected Memoir to move and make some space for her, she was sorely disappointed.
"Memoir?"
Memoir didn't answer. She only turned away from her sister, not wanting to hear her cheerfulness. After all, her sister was not the one hated by Kari. She knew nothing of the pain Memoir was put through. Every. Single. Day.
What kind of name was Memoir, anyway? It was a type of book, not something you name your child. Memoir supposed it was to further disconnect her from the world. Probably to keep her under a rock so when she finally came out from below, she'd come as a novice, as a nobody who knew nothing.
Adelyn stood in deafening silence for a moment.
"Once upon a time," she said softly, her eyes still fixed upon Memoir. She knew those words meant something to her sister. Every time she started to tell a story, Memoir insisted she would start with 'once upon a time.'
Then maybe the stories didn't have to hurt so much. 'Once upon a time' meant it was fantasy. Fantasy meant it couldn't possibly happen. And if it couldn't happen, maybe she was a little bit more normal.
But now wasn't the time for a story. Memoir just wanted to be left alone to her thoughts and misery.
"I don't want to hear a fairy tale." she  said defiantly. Adelyn shook her head, and put a finger over Memoir's pink lips.
"Once upon a time there was a woman," Memoir's sister continued, "and she loved everything. She loved the dragonflies moving from flower to flower like a fleeting thought." Adelyn was an amazing storyteller. If that was a job, she would be a billionaire. Every detail made Memoir wish she could sink into the tale and never lift herself out.
"She loved the little worms that wriggled out in the rain and slowly pulled it's way leisurely through mud. She loved the breeze, the way it rustled every small leaf, making it seem alive no matter how small. She loved snow, too. Its cold beauty, its pure whiteness. And most of all, she loved her family. She loved her kind husband and sweet child. She loved to see them smile because it made her smile too."
And then she got another child, Memoir thought in boiling, resigned fury, decided the kid was a disgrace, and ruined the life of every being she'd ever encountered. The end.
"The woman wanted a second child," Adelyn said, her voice as quiet as it was in the beginning, forcing Memoir's ears to strain to hear. "And when she got her, the child was beautiful. It was, if she were to tell the truth, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen lie in her arms, despite the pain of labor. The child had eyes that changed in the light, the softest of skin, and the beginnings of wispy blonde hair. Exhausted, the woman fell into restless sleep that night, dreams coming and going."
Memoir frowned. That wasn't how Adelyn usually told it. Every time, there was a witch who whisked the child away, or a fairy who cursed her sixteen years from her birth. There was no dreaming . . .
Could this not be a story, but something different altogether?
"Yet, only one dream struck her hard enough to remember. Crawling through cold, freezing winds as she shivered, the woman choked on snow, struggling to breath in the cold air. She looked up, trying to see or hear something, anything.
"And she did. A low voice sounded throughout the snowy hills. 'This child,' said the voice, 'Is not what you believe it to be.' The woman stumbled back in shock. Snow swirled around her and pulled her down into the freezing wasteland, attempting to imprison her in it's cold grasp.
"The woman replied, 'Oh, but she is my life, my joy.'
"'Perhaps now,' The voice told her. 'But soon, she will become something she is not. You may try, your husband may try, even Adelyn may try . . .'"
Memoir looked up in shock. Adelyn was part of this fairy tale? What was she talking about? Was this story true? And when, exactly, did it happen? Whose story was it?
"'But no one will succeed,'" her sister continued in the deep voice of the story. "And you know what the desperate mother said, Memoir? She said, 'I will be the first to defy fate! I can raise her right, I know I can!' You see, the woman was gentle, kind, and optimistic. She had no knowledge of giving up. The voice, however, did not listen to her.
"'No one can defy fate. Your daughter will be the destruction of the mountain people,' the voice rumbled. What could that mean, she wondered, my daughter? Destruction?" Adelyn's gaze never moved from Memoir's.
"But... fate doesn't exist. We act of our own free will." Memoir countered.
Adelyn put her hand on Memoir's shoulder and stared straight into her beautiful, yet broken eyes, the eyes of a girl who had gone through too much, and was at her breaking point, had been at her breaking point for years. A girl who wasn't a girl, just something for her mother to take her anger out on. Her sister only nodded.
What was the point of this story?
"And it certainly didn't help the woman that she loved her daughter to every tiny cell in her body. If she could never defy fate, and yet her daughter, her newborn, innocent daughter, could be . . . 'No,' thought the woman. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt so much if she didn't care about her newborn child who looked so harmless, who meant so much. Maybe it wouldn't matter to the woman, if she would just remember to hate. If she could never give in to the love that was trying to tug her down a different path, she wouldn't break.
"'Remember,' the woman thought. Now these mountain folks always paid attention to their dreams. The woman's husband was not mountain folk, so she feared that he would not understand the importance of this sleep premonition. The next day, she awoke alone in her bed. With Adelyn standing right there, she spoke the newborn baby's name aloud for the first time. And you know what it was?" Adelyn said, a faint smile playing on her pink lips.
The snow started to fall harder, turning into a blizzard before the sisters' very eyes, much like the snow in the dream.
Memoir wondered how Adelyn knew this story. Did her mother tell it to her before she had turned cruel and heartless?
Memoir shook her head, gazing at Adelyn in wonder. Her stories were always awe-inspiring, filled with convenient twists and unlikely turns. This one had her so pulled into the tale, she didn't register her sister's next words immediately.
"The child's name was Memoir."