tell me why my gods look like you
“Pretty little thing, aren’t you?” She hummed, running her hand between its ears and down the length of its skinny neck. It stiffened, afraid of her touch—she smeared the warm red trickle away from its eyes, across its hair and skin. She gently brushed its ruined flesh and winced when the little thing cried out in raw pain. It gave a weak gargle after that, a pitiful attempt at a mew for help, and she frowned watching the life fading fast from its brown eyes.
She had watched from the trees, saw the mother give birth, saw the wolves come from the shadows and tear the poor mother to pieces—as she often did. It was a timeless ritual. Mothers gave birth in the spring, away from the others, and the predators decided who lived and who died. They came and took them like Gods come to claim their sacrifices. She couldn’t bear it this time, not when she felt something for the sad little thing she now cradled in her arms. Her wrath was swift. She descended from the trees, transforming from bird to unspeakable beasts, and warded off the predators.
And now she was… this, whatever this was.
The R’esian fairy had no name for it.
She patched the child up, closing the bites and claw marks as though they were torn seams on a doll; her magic spread across the little babe, healing it, marking it.
Making it hers as much as the fairies elsewhere would make it theirs.
(Everything was a competition these days, after all.)
Its white hair became as bright and shiny as the blood that had dripped from its wounds, its soft brown eyes a fierce red. It couldn’t stay here now—the others wouldn’t accept it, couldn’t. They did not trust what they did not understand and in this world, magic simply… did not exist. Not as far as the other creatures knew.
So she sent it—her, the fairy grinned, such a pretty little girl—elsewhere, where she could live.
(Beqanna had never been a fan of magic that wasn’t its own.
It felt a spark of jealousy the second the child was pushed through the veil and that spark started a fire.
The flames engulfed the foreign infant. She burned, and writhed, and screamed while it made her into something of its own design. It took the hair the other fairy gave her and replaced them with scales—then it gave her wings, and fangs, and fire. Whatever this alien fairy had given her, Beqanna would give her more—if only she would let it.
She would worship no Gods but the ones that now claimed her.
No Gods but the ones that spat her from the fire.
Beqanna would accept no less.)
She knows nothing but the sky above and ground below; the sea that glows cold, a stark contrast against the warm orange bouncing off her shining scales. She almost feels like she doesn’t belong here, not in the Moon’s domain when she so clearly should be living somewhere under the hot glare of the Sun—but that wasn’t her decision. Someone else put her here. Someone she doesn’t (and cares not to) remember. Despite its icy demeanor, the water is warm and she wades in up to her shoulders and closes her bright red eyes. Little fish swim around her legs, nibbling at her red cloven hooves, and she shifts her weight every so often to shoo them when it starts to tickle.
Her belly growls hungrily below the water but she ignores it, instead choosing to focus on the movement of the waves and how they almost seemed to want to take her away. She entertains the idea of letting them for just a second. It’d be better, she thinks, rather than hunting for food—milk is in short supply and her little fangs make it easy to snatch up fish, as much as it disgusts her. It’d be better, because maybe then she wouldn’t go to sleep alone at night and wonder where her mother is.
The thought is short-lived and she shakes her head, her muzzle splashing against the surface—her wings draw up above her back, dripping water as she turns and marches towards dry land. Skinny, hungry, but still pretty—always pretty. Pretty has kept her alive so far.
