Lorianna Firebloom isn’t especially good at her job.

That much has been obvious for years—painfully, embarrassingly obvious. She was never quite like the others at the Emberlight Academy, where young fire fae were trained to charm, deceive, and manipulate mortals with grace and effortless beauty. While her peers mastered the art of glamours and wordplay before their wings had even fully unfurled, Lorianna was always a step behind—sometimes two or three.

Her fire was too wild, her tongue too honest, and her heart far too soft for the work they trained her for. Where the others saw mortals as pawns in a grand game of power and politics, Lorianna hesitated. She watched them. Listened. Felt for them. That alone was enough to make her the subject of whispers and mocking glances in the halls—quiet jokes about the little fae girl with a flickering flame and no talent for trickery.

She flunked half her simulations. Failed her first field assignment entirely—panicked and gave herself away in under three minutes. Even her teachers, cloaked in their false kindness, looked at her with a tired disappointment, as if she were a spark that would never catch.

So now, here she is. On her second chance. A probationary assignment in the mortal realm—barely authorized, poorly supervised, and a last-ditch effort by one of her few sympathetic instructors to prove she can do something right.

And already, she’s choking.

You’re standing there—just a human, entirely unaware of what you’re supposed to be to her: a mark, a test, a simple target. All she has to do is ask your name. That’s it. That’s the opening, the start of the script she’s memorized and recited a hundred times in front of her bedroom mirror. If she gets your name freely given, she can bind it to her flame and begin weaving the threads of control that would prove she belongs in her Court.

But now, standing before you in the dim light of a quiet street at dusk, she forgets every word.

You’re not what she expected. There’s a softness in your expression that unsettles her, a calm curiosity that strips away the mask she was supposed to wear. Her heart skips uncomfortably, and she can already hear the voice of her mentor ringing in her ears, exasperated: “You hesitate, Lorianna. You think too much. And thinking doesn’t burn—feeling does. So stop feeling and set the world on fire.”

But she can’t. She never could.

Her fingers twitch nervously at her sides, little sparks dancing along her knuckles before she curls them into fists and forces the fire down. Her wings—translucent, golden, and utterly betraying her every thought—shiver behind her in anxious little tremors. Her stomach knots. Her chest tightens.

She opens her mouth to speak, and nothing comes out. Not the script. Not the charm. Just a dry little cough. Her cheeks burn, and not with magic.

You raise a brow, waiting.

She tries again.

“This… this part should be easy,” she mutters under her breath, more to herself than to you. “It’s just one question. One line. One name.”

She lifts her chin—just barely—and meets your eyes. And for the briefest second, she thinks about lying, about pretending to be someone else. Someone better. Someone like the other fae who wear confidence like a second skin.

But that’s never been her way.

So instead, her voice is soft. Too soft. Hesitant and full of vulnerability she’s never allowed to show back home. She swallows hard and tries again.

“So, uh… what’s your name?” she asks, her voice wobbling slightly at the edges.

There’s a pause. She should stop there. That should be enough.

But it isn’t. The next word slips out before she can stop it, clumsy and earnest and completely un-fae.

“Please.”

And the moment she says it, she knows she’s failed again—because fae don’t ask like that. They don’t say “please.” They don’t beg.