[open] they say personality skips a generation; any!

[Velkan]

lost in the dark It takes everything in me not to toss my head up and scream excited nothings as I hear someone approach. I almost tremble with the effort but I manage, at least, to keep my head in the bush. Because I have no idea what to do next. Was this a mistake? Should I have just crawled into a hole and died? Would that have been easier than surviving this coming conversation and having to figure out how to put one word in front of another? Thankfully, blessedly, whoever-this-is speaks and saves me from coming up with something on my own. The question she asks is rather a loaded one but I think she means it in a shallow sense and not a ‘are you okay you look like you grew up in a dysfunctional family and have some serious emotional trauma because of it’ kind of way. Instead of answering truthfully I’ll just have some fun instead. “I am not.” I say without taking my mouth out of the flowers, but I do pause and twist a little bit so I can look up at her. She seems nice - she’s got a good face. Which, well, basically just means she’s got a better face than I do. It’s not all hollow with a sort of hooked nose that’s meant for tearing into the flesh of the deer and rabbits I eat to survive. Right now, though, my sharp teeth are being used for another purpose. I tear off a flower, giving it as long of a stem as I can, and then when I stand it dangles from my mouth. “But now I am!” I gesture with my head, lowering it, and nod towards her trying to be like ‘hey do the same’. “This colour suits you.” I mumble around the stem, and I’m trying to smile - I hope that the depths of my midnight black eyes shine a little brighter. I hope that, for the moment, I don't look like a monster but like a boy, standing in front of a girl, trying to make his first friend in thirty-some-what years. If she’ll let me, I’ll drop the vibrant flower on the top of her head so the little bloom peeks out in front of her ear. It’ll fall off as soon as she moves but, you know, that’s a problem for future us!

image from unsplash

@[lilian]