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Every endless night has adawning day
Every darkest sky has a shining ray
And it shines on you baby
Can't you see
You're the only one who can
Shine for me
---Lyrics from Private Emotion by Ricky Martin

Her Harrowing complete, Aeryn awoke to Jowan. She listened to him voice his worries about his own Harrowing, reassuring him that there was no reason he should be made Tranquil but refused to share the details of the harrowing, as was the rules.

Frustrated, her friend let her be and she felt bad having to keep things from her childhood friend.. her only friend. But she was a good girl and obeyed the rules.. at least for the most part. Besides, she had just become a mage, it would be a bad example of her willpower if she just babbled secrets.

Walking to her vanity in the back, she noticed under a note that requested her presence that something was glittering. Lifting the piece of parchment, her fingers closed around a single red rose and as she placed it back down, she heard girly giggles around her.

" Another gift from the secret admirer, eh Snow?" An apprentice teased, the same irritating girl that had been a source of "torment" since coming to the Circle about a year after her. It annoyed the woman that this foolish bully was using her nickname, and in such a sarcastic manner.

Electing to ignore the other female, she tucked the rose in the book she always carried with her and left the room. The book was one filled with fairytales, a gift from this same secret admirer when she turned 13. Inside the front cover was a hastily scribbled message--

" To the Snow White in my heart. Never change who you are."

These words had kept her steadfast in staying herself, rather than try to fit in with the other girls and this made her something of an outcast with the "pretty ones". It was not that she was ugly or anything, she was just plain and the short hair often got her labelled as boyish even though she was not.

The rose had become something of a calling card between herself and this admirer, though he was much more than that now. For the last two years, in fact, they had been romantically involved.

Passing into the currently empty apprentice quarters, she waited, knowing that her love would arrive soon, he was nothing if not prompt. Hearing the door open, she looked up and into the beautiful eyes of her secret love.