She has been alone for so long that she almost doesn’t believe the call.
It comes like a whisper, ushered on the late afternoon breeze that flits between her ears and tousles her forelock. She turns her nose - that twisted, ugly thing – into it and follows its draw.
She has nowhere else to be.
It is warm but no longer hot with the sun dipping towards the horizon as she picks her way through the summer-high grasses. She does not mind this time of day, truly. It is easier to breathe the cooler it gets. And she’s always been fond of the twilight. She has always loved to watch the stars begin to twinkle and grow brighter against the darkening of the skies. It gives her hope to know that they shine every night despite the ever-looming black. It makes her believe that she could shine someday, too.
The Mountain rises ahead and her knees begin to quake at the sight of it. She isn’t sure she will be able to follow that sweet voice that has not forgotten her, that has found the wisp of a girl and pulled her from some dusty corner of the world. She doesn’t want to give up, but how can she climb such a rise? How can she help someone when she’s never been able to help herself?
Then, she feels the strangest sensation. A tickle, almost, as wings emerge at her sides. They are delicate things, translucent and lightweight, and they begin to stir immediately. She is reminded of insects buzzing in the summer haze, lazily dipping in and out of the grass stalks. So, too, does she begin to stir as she rises into the air and climbs the Mountain air with barely a huff of breath. It is exhilarating.
She smiles for the first time since… well, for the first time she can remember.
But the smile falters when she finds the voice and the others. There is a storm blackening the sky that should otherwise be starting to fill with stars. The fairy says that is where they are meant to go, and her knees start to shake for the second time. Will she risk her life for this, whatever it is? Will she be battered by the winds and struck down by lightning for someone who had found her?
She has nobody to miss her.
So she goes, because maybe she won’t save Beqanna, or whatever it is they are doing. But maybe she will see it through to the other side and her stars.
There is a price to pay, and she starts to quiver again, though this time it is her whole body that shakes. And it is both a nightmare and her past, in her head and in her heart all at once. She remembers the memory that has become a nightmare that plagues her most nights on a loop:
Mother doesn’t name me. Mother has tried to feed me, but she says I am deformed, a horror. I don’t know what it means at first, I only know hunger, the hollow pangs of my stomach. She says it is my fault I barely get enough to survive. I don’t understand, I only want to live, only want to eat and to be comforted against my mother’s side. Mother still doesn’t name me. She does the best she can, too, but it is clear it is a losing battle. She becomes frustrated with me. I don’t blame her, sometimes it is hard to breath, even. She starts to bite and kick me, and I know this is what I deserve because my mouth doesn’t work as it should. One day, mother names me. I am no longer a monster, even if she says it is an ugly name for an ugly girl. I am Glaw. But mother walks away from me. I start to run to her and she runs too. I can’t keep up, and I see her disappearing into the distance. I fall and shake and go hungry, but I survive. I hold onto my name because she has given it to me.
Tears spring from the corners of her eyes as she releases the memory-nightmare. She would have given anything to forget what she has just lost, and she feels weightless without it. Glaw turns into the storm with a new set to her shoulders.
glaw