Welcome, traveler. You have come long and far to see me, yes?
Do not be frightened. I see the light in your eyes. You are curious. Very, very curious. Hmph. We shall see whether that is one of your virtues or vices soon enough.
Of course, you know of the war? Oh, no, you do not. You are too young. Stoke the fire a little more and I will tell you.
70 years ago, the final war between humans ended. They realized their hubris, and decided that forever more, no human blood should be shed.
War-mongerers faded into obscurity. The global economy stabilized, and the population skyrocketed.
With this prosperous era came a new generation. Niobe Katzarotz, the first Demi-Human. When she was born, she would sometimes shift in and out of existence in her crib; One day she woke up and she was invisible, and did not realize it until her schoolmates tried to pull on her clothes, looking for wires or some invisible tricks.
After her, a surge of Demi-Humans, most of them children of the new era, came into being. A boy who could fly was sighted off the coast of the UAE. A Russian girl who could shape metal that would disintegrate the skin of any normal human with no burns.
Descendants of dragons came forward too, and so did many creatures humanity thought the hallucination of their medieval ancestors; selkies, the Fair Folk, Ifrit.
But all good things cannot last. An accident. A fireball, from a rolling crowd, killing an arguing couple on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Now, Demi-Humans must be torn from their families, sent to Academies for the Bright and Truly Gifted, and choose whether they want to fight their own in arenas, for the entertainment of the norms, or fight the human wars for them.
Unfortunately for them, trying to tear Dems apart is like bottling lightning.
I am beginning my tale now. Close your eyes. Listen to the sand dancing in the arms of her lover, the night wind; watch as your heart begins to beat to the sound of the drums of revolution.

PROLOGUE: AN INNOCENT CRIME

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Jatayu Sampati was awake. She could not sleep. Her cat, Roxo, had escaped through her bedside window; the aforementioned opening marred the projection of smiling stars on her bedroom walls, and the scents of jasmine and sea salt floated, lackadaisical in their movement, into the small room.
Moving out from under her faded comforter, its fairies’ crowns damp with sweat, she hoisted her 5-year-old weight onto the sill.  What she saw outside touched her in a place she didn’t know she had.
The ocean, just outside her window, was calling to her. Like it was a person that walked and talked upon the land.
“Ariel? Is that you?” she inquired. There was no response, save for the increasing intensity of the calling.
Jayjay looked back into the dark room with confusion in her sky-blue eyes, its happy heavenly bodies still moving as usual. The door was closed and locked.
“Ow,” she said. The feeling felt less like a cold steel rod poking her stomach now, and more like a needle, pushing gently into her heart.
Taking a breath, she jumped onto the sand.

It wasn’t a very long fall. She wriggled her toes gently, taking silent delight in the way the sand softened under her feet. But it was not to last.
The feeling had gotten worse as Jatayu had gotten closer to the water, much to her childish discontent. Her hands, of their own accord, lifted. She wondered what she was doing when the foaming water began to rise.

The woman woke to a racket uncharacteristic to this time of night. She checked the holoclock on her bedside table with a groan.
11:59. One minute to midnight.
But what was that noise?
Rising from the warmth of her bed, extremely reluctant, she pulled on a sweatshirt emblazoned with some university or other’s logo, and went to the window.
Her mouth fell open.
Her own daughter, Jatayu, was out there on the beach. And her hands were raised, tiny palms to the moon.
And the ocean was not in its proper place. It was, instead, feeding an already gargantuan, rotating sphere that moonbeams filtered through, illuminating surprised fish and sleeping coral. Jatayu had a look of rapture on her chubby features, laughing audibly. The girl looked away for a moment, directly at the woman.
“Mommy, look! The sea likes me!”
“No. Not her. Please, take me instead, anyone,  but not her.”
“Mommy? What’s wrong? Mom- Momma? Why are you crying?” Jay-jay’s head c***ed to one side, confused.
Tears slid in droves down the woman’s face, and she covered her mouth, in a feeble attempt to mask the sound of her anguish. She was going to lose this one, too, and all because of a fault in her genetic code. All she ever wanted was a baby that didn’t fly, or control water, or summon storms; she just wanted to live her life like a mother and then finally make peace with death.