She didn’t even bother to suppress the rolling of her eyes at the man’s statement. “Lucky you.” There was no ounce of congratulations in her words. The more she spent time around the Palminteri household, the more she despised families who were full of generations of elementals. It would be no time before Dalila advanced even farther than her. If her friend somehow developed more abilities before she could even create flame by herself, there would be no measure to her anger. All she had was a mother whose only ability seemed to be attracting worthless men. Lumen wasn’t even sure that her mother knew what she was capable of. She didn’t hide what little she could do, but she certainly didn’t make it a point to share anything at all about herself with Anita.
It was a curious thing to have someone laugh at her the way this stranger was. Honestly, had the target been someone else, she would have likely joined in on the mockery, but considering that it was her expense he was laughing at, Lumen didn’t find anything at all amusing about the situation. “Yuck it up, Chuckles.” Lumen huffed in aggravation as she reached for the cigarette and the lighter in her pocket. There were no words for how embarrassing it was to be sitting next to a fire elemental – one who claimed he could “be fire” – and have to light up her cigarette from an outside source. She imagined a day when she could snap her fingers and a flame would ignite, but that day was not today. “Every free second I have I practice and nothing. Nothing.” She took a slow drag off her cigarette and blew out the smoke as she shook her head. “What could you do?” Lumen turned so that she could face the stranger. “I’m eighteen. What could you do when you were my age?” There was really no reason for her to ask other than to make herself angrier about how far behind she was. Whatever – let him make fun of her even more, see if she cared.
“If you’re so great and powerful, why don’t you show me?” She sucked down what was left of her cigarette before throwing it off into the grass. It wasn’t typical for her to go through one so quickly, but her current aggravation was causing her to crave more of the nicotine than usual. “Go on. You like boasting about it so much, why don’t you show off already?” She had a feeling that it wouldn’t take much goading on her part to convince the man to give her a show of what he could do. It was true that she wanted to see all that he was capable of, but there were also thoughts stirring in her mind of a way that the stranger could prove to be more useful to her than just a display of what she would one day evolve into.