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Prologue
Being Human
Being human was the pits.
After two years of existing in modern day Yukon territories, in a tiny town of less than ten thousand inhabitants, Seventh Sister was starting to regret her impromptu decision to leap through the Mirror Pond before she permanently sealed the portal between the Celestial Realm and the human world.
Of course, it wasn’t the only portal between worlds.
But it was the only one over which she had direct control. And now, the road home was forever blocked to her.
Unless Papa decided to call her back. Or drag her back, as the case might be. She wasn’t sure she’d mind.
It was a spur of the moment decision to aid the earth-born dragons as they battled the Jade Emperor’s shadow guards. Though she played this game for her own purposes at the start of the quests Papa assigned to Erebu the Black Dragon and his Phoenix Mate Sorin, somehow, she’d grown…somewhatinvestedin the outcome.
She’d like to think she only wanted to win for the sake of winning, because Papaneverlet her win. But it had become more than that.
There was a kernel of desire inside of her. For what, she knew not. But it was enough to make her act.
And now, she was a player in her own game, instead of a mildly curious, emotionally removed chess master. To add insult to injury, she was human.
It sucked smelly balls to behuman.
After two years of absorbing the goings-on in the mortal realm, from mundane, repetitive daily activities to the wealth of knowledge provided by the library and the all-powerful Internet, Seventh Sister sometimes wished she could purge herself of junk information, the way she often purged herself after consuming too much “junk food.”
Chips, you know. She was absolutely addicted to all kinds of processed foods. Ruffles, Lays, Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos…yummm.
In the beginning, she wanted to know everything. Learn as fast as she could. All the modern ways of speaking, dressing, behaving.
While the human world had always fascinated her to some degree, and she watched their lives unfold through the Mirror Pond, being a distant observer who only saw snippets of disjointed scenes was infinitely different thanlivingin the moment as one of the humans herself. She didn’t appreciate,couldn’tunderstand, the simplest things as a Celestial being before—
Like bodily functions that were rather gross.
Eating and sleeping were mostly enjoyable. She delighted in all kinds of tasty foods and the comfort of the perfect mattress, pillows and comforters. But purging what she ate and drank on the toilet, wiping her parts, walking to and fro, depleting her energy and getting blisters if she wore the wrong shoes or walked too long… those things were not terribly enjoyable.
The pains and pleasures differed according to the form she took.
Though she was mortal, she still retained some faint remnants of magic. She could take three different forms: a young woman in her twenties, Eve; a young man about the same age, Michael; and an old woman in her sixties, Ruth.
She chose the names purely on a whim, in the moment when someone asked. They were easy enough to remember, and her forms were plain enough to wear them.
It had been a shock for months in the beginning of her indefinite stay in the mortal realm to look herself in the mirror each day and see the absolute averageness of her forms.
As a Celestial being, she’d always possessed an aura of power and bedazzlement. It had been less about her specific features than the presence she commanded. And back in the day, eons ago, before she was known as “Seventh Sister,” she’d been even more awe-inspiring. She’d been utterly devastating.
This was, to put it mildly, not the case in her present circumstances.
Eve was five-foot-three, possessed mousy brown hair, unremarkable eyes and a flattish chest. Her only attraction, if one could call it that, was her flawless pale skin.
Unfortunately, that skin was prone to getting blotchy where other women blushed prettily. And of course, the monthly bleeding cycle, cramps and headaches made Seventh Sister rather detest this form.
Michael was five-foot-ten, had a prominent Adam’s Apple, and was lanky and soft. He didn’t have the type of build that would ever pack on muscle. But if she wasn’t careful, he’d develop a “beer belly” easily.
He could only grow facial hair in patches, which necessitated shaving regularly in order to look somewhat kempt, and he possessed average-sized male equipment that grew hard at the most inconvenient times.
He was Seventh Sister’s most embarrassing, least preferred form.
Ruth was plump, gray-haired and ruddy-cheeked. If not for her old woman issues—creaky, achy bones and joints, waning energy and weak heart—her form might have been Seventh Sister’s favorite.
