Sometimes it seems my childhood is a long string of things I shouldn’t have said or done or thought. Growing up is hard, and painful, and I know now we learn the most from our mistakes-- but it seemed unfair, somehow, that I would make so many.
But there were so many girls in me, each battling for dominance. There was the unicorn, from whose body would one day grow dahlias and lavender, there was the warrior who could cut down a man with a single fluid motion, there was the open-armed lover with the bleeding heart. And then there was the sea, there was always the sea, with its primordial darkness, calling me home. Not the way it called my sister, but- a summoning song all the same.
I whirled around as I felt the woosh of air and dust rush past me, but even before I turned to look I knew he was gone. “Leo?!” It was the first time I had called him anything short of his full name. I ran out into the middle of the cobbled street, chasing his shadow. In the sunlight above me, surrounded by blue sky, he looked like nothing I had ever seen. The tines of his antlers, which once tap-tapped against my horn and echoed into my bones, seemed carved just right to pierce the clouds, and the golden underside of his wings greedily drank up the sunlight.
I did not yell at him to come back. I was too proud or too angry-- likely both. I just stood there, teeth gritted, watching his dark browns and burnished golds fade into the forest hues of the Armas. I had never been left like that, and it stung more than I cared to admit. The worst part was the way I second-guessed my every action that had led up to that point. I suppose I had been too pushy... But the unicorn in me said no, I had not pushed enough.
“Stupid boy,” I huffed.
Stupid, if he thought he could hide from me in my own mountain.
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