She sits in the corner, unassuming, beautiful in subtle
ways. Her soul glows through her eyes, incandescent,
drawing me like a moth to a flame. I don't worry that I'll burn, only that
she's too bright to notice one like me.
She smiles and looks up at. "Hi."
"What's that thingy?"
"A hitching post."
"What's it for?"
"You hitch
your horse to it."
"Why would you do that?"
"So he doesn't wander off."
"Where would a horse go on alone?"
"To graze."
"Who wouldn't want that?"
"You're far too old to act this way."
The storm smashed against the house with seraphic
fury, attempting to punish their hubris for thinking to tame these wildlands. I
stand in the doorway, letting the winds and rain buffet me. I would not be
driven from my home so easily.
"Where's your ebullience?"
"Hiding. Too many aches and pains today."
"What can I do to alleviate them?"
"Not sure."
"Perhaps some streaming entertainment and a foot massage?"
"That sounds divine. I love you."
"And I you. Always and forever."
"Why do you think they work so hard to dumb people
down?"
"So the brilliant are easier to spot."
"And calcification
of the pineal gland?"
"So the talented can't use psychic gifts."
"What about chemtrails?"
"Load the air with cold iron to stop the
magical."
"But...you're JUST a housewife." She sneered
with contempt. Bitterness ringed her eyes with hard creases.
I answered with kindness. "Have you ever tried to nurture
another being? Far more satisfying than any petty merger." I turn with my
children and leave.
"This is our pond to
keep," I tell my daughter. We sit on the log bench, seat polished by
generations of women watching over the still water. She's only five, but is
quietly patient as I whisper to her. "All are welcome, predator and prey
and magical and mundane."
"I don't know why everyone makes a big deal about adolescence."
"It's what the media tells them to believe."
"So they're trained to think it's a mess that
creates monsters that hate their parents?"
"Yup."
"Ridiculous."
"We're just born out of time, Love."
Magic sparks on his fingers, lamplight glints off my
dagger. No one told me he was a mage when I was asked to kill him. It was supposed
to be an easy job.
The wench comes over, glares down at us.
"Everything copacetic?"
We nod silently. This can wait.
She was the third
daughter of the third daughter of the third daughter. She was too far from the
throne to be in contention, wasn't considered a threat. She left to carve her
own queendom, create her own throne. Then she would be taken seriously.
"You amaze me every day."
"How's that?"
"You fight
through every obstacle in your way and came back from death's door multiple
times. I can't make it a day with a sprained elbow. I love you."
*cries*
"I think I like sapphires more than diamonds,"
he mutters, apropos of
nothing, gazing at the moonlit sky.
I shrug, bury my face in the woman's neck. Kids these
days used far more potent marijuana than we were used to.
"If I could be a bird, I'd be an eagle."
The group of girls keeps gabbing, and I sit beside my
raven. He quorks, and I agree. "They just don't understand. I'd rather be
super intelligent than popular." He tips his head. "And, yes, I'd
rather all the myths too."
"What am I going to do with zucchini this
big?"
"Jill said she slices them into thin disks and
fries them with cheese."
"Oooh. That sounds delicious. I'm going to have to
try it."
"Thought you'd like that."
"If I make them will you try-"
"Not a chance!"
Dragon stares at Elf, unable to take her eyes off him.
He's as good looking as all his kind, perhaps a little better than most, but he
has never looked so ravishing.
Velvet became him.
He touches the corner of her mouth with one soft finger.
"You're drooling."
I have to pee, but I can't walk down the hall. 2AM is
when it's there, when it watches from the stairs,
and I don't want it to see me. But I'm an adult, not a kid. I can't cower in my
doorway all night.
I dart down the hall, and it chuckles, reaching for me.
"Is that a springer?"
"Maybe a cocker."
"No, it's not blonde. More like a brittany."
"Could be a Welsh springer."
"Let's just google it."
"..."
"A cavalier
King Charles? We were way off."
The princess sobs through her defiant stare. "How can
you be so cruel?"
The sorcerer sighs from his wing-backed chair. "For
there to be good in the world, there must be evil. I am the exemplar
of balance, contain both forces within me. Would you like to learn?"
She read the testimonial,
brows tight with a quizzical
frown. "Please send help. I'm in the basement, and they say they're going
to eat me. Here's my address:"
Twenty people had marked it unhelpful. Were they
describing themselves? She contacted the police.
He embraced the things considered odious,
made them his friends. He used it as armor, kept the vapid and foolish at a
distance, untouched by those who were too shallow for his deep thoughts.
Then he met her. "What's your toads name?" she
asked with a smile.
"I behated that."
"What?"
"This show-"
"No. The word you used."
"Isn't behated the opposite of beloved?"
"...I'd tell you to stop making up words, but that
one actually makes some sense. I just wouldn't use it in public."
They asked me what I was eating. "Braunschweiger on
nori." They asked for a sample, and they found it delicious.
But I bet they'd turn their noses up at liverwurst and seaweed.
Didn't everyone read Green Eggs and Ham?
"If life imitates
art..."
"Well, no one can copy these paintings on the
outside. But deep inside..."
"You think it refers to a soul?"
"Of course it does. True beauty is internal, and
some think this is beautiful."
"Some also think the media is beautiful."
Headmistress stormed into the dorm. "What be this brouhaha
about?" We kept our eyes down, no one wanting to admit that we'd been to
the kitchens to eat the faerie cookies.
Mel belched a cloud of sparkling dust, and we were
caught out.
This apocalypse allowed the world to reset to a simpler time.
Triumph from the sweat of one's brow, from the effort of one's hand. I help
rebuild, run a sanctuary, but I can't be blindly altruistic.
"You don't work, you don't eat."
Life is hard, and so am I.
"Haven't you just been naughty lately?"
"I refuse to accept your perspective regarding my
behavior."
"Cripes. Not this 'everything's subjective' crap
again. I'm getting sick of it."
"You merely prove my point, because I clearly am
not."
The dog stops at every manhole cover and storm drain
when we walk at night. I joke with him about protecting me from Pennywise, and
about what a good dog he is. It makes me laugh every time.
When he growls at the drain tonight, I believe him and
back away.
"You think
they really believe that?"
"Belief and thought don't always go hand in
hand."
"Meaning?"
"That if someone actually applied a little logic
and thought, maybe they'd see that pineapple just doesn't work on pizza."
He knows how to entice me. Spiced rum and sanguine
stains on his lips and throat. He pulls his shirt off, and I cannot look away.
The wounds on his torso have healed, faded to mere bruises overnight.
"Please, Mistress, may I have another?" he begs.
I oblige.
