Alternates

She stared forward. She knew, in the odd way this place had given her, that left no doubt, that she had just enough energy to finish the journey. Should she stumble, or turn back for the Lethe's reprieve, she'd die here. Die at the bottom of the rabbit hole. It wouldn't be so bad, after all she'd been through.

She paused, just a moment, with any number of ideas fluttering through her head.

She turned, and walked. Stumbled when she met the Lethe's flow. She had forgotten the force behind it, even before she forgot almost everything.

Five steps. An unrecognized echo of her last words.

Five steps. Get up.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

The nameless touched the doctor’s skin, and almost all was as it had been.
*
She rolled to her side, and wrote down scraps of the fading dream. She met the man from it, but he was different here, too immature for her tastes, as if he had never walked through any fire, never even been sunburned.

She looked at everything she could do, and most of it suddenly felt empty.

It was the last day, but she got everything together to apply for the right school. She did well. She did what she could do, and, for the geological eyeblink of a few centuries, she changed the world.

The nameless nodded silently.

I knelt and put a hand on his shoulder. I said what I prayed someone else would say, were I in his place.

"You're not alone."

He stared at me. It was an interesting experience, looking into someone's eyes as he tried to put himself back together.

He collapsed into a sob, and I held him, and I healed him as best I could. He would never be a pillar again, but perhaps that was for the best. Too easy to just stand, unbending. Far better to adjust, be flexible, to fight only the important battles.

I'm water, and I'll find every sneaky crack if you don't built carefully; wear you down even if you do.

I'm water. I'll tend the sapling.

With the quiet scrutiny of a focused child, "Did you heal with her, or hunt?"

My lips twisted into something like a smile. "I hunted her. She healed me. Everything else just happened."

Dance

The feeling starts when friends invite you out to the new place that just opened up, that slight curiosity.

It starts when you come in and you get a touch of contact adrenaline high from the sweat, freedom.

Starts when you smile at that cute one you've never had the excuse to flirt with, with the hair that made you realize how absolutely distracting hair could be; intent.

Starts when you get a smile in return. Interesting.

Starts with a riff on an electric guitar.

Might've been messy, or graceless, or off-beat, and no one would've cared. Here, now, you just move with the music and the tide of humanity. You two are on the same beat. The song sings of something that dilates pupils and darkens eyes, and you finally get to run fingers through that hair when you move off with your partner. A quick kiss before a longer one. Feel before form, moving as one eddy in the tide. The nook, the connection, the moment.

"Beautiful."

Moments

The odd feeling of falling, tumbling up as two quick eighth notes precede a held belt.

Pain rumbling through your stomach as the junk food catches up with you.

Discovering that the reason your favorite snack is out is because the fresh batch finished as you walked in.

Skimming along different sources to procrastinate and finding a quotation that explains, exactly and succinctly, that odd thought that had been running through your head all week.

Sprinting for the sheer joy of feeling bare feet pound dew-damp grass.

Staring at someone who called you out. Watching calmly as the light flickers on behind those arrogant eyes that start to recognize a fighter.

Watching the sunset in midsummer, harvesting done and safe for the moment, babe in arms. Your lover puts a warm hand on your shoulder and shares the moment.

Yelling, "Echo!" in an empty cavern.

Glancing at the clock and realizing with a jolt that it's two hours later than you thought it was.

Finding that piece of candy that you'd come to think was something you'd dreamt, rather than something you'd truly eaten.

Stabbing yourself with the pig-dissecting scalpel without piercing your glove.

The moment after a terrible day where you fall into someone's arms and cry so hard you shake without any control.

Realizing that what you just did was the last item on your to-do list.

Finding an author with a writing style you love, then finding nineteen other books by the same one at the library.

Shyly holding hands on the first date.

Feeling your breath stop as your eyes meet with the person you've never quite gotten the courage to ask out...and realizing the other person stopped breathing, too.

Finding that someone else feels the same way you do.

Figuring out what on Earth made that piece. Why this chord sounds happy, what this archaic language means, why the cadence works as it does.

Standing confidently to a challenge and exceeding even your own expectations.

Extending a hand to that person you've never been close to without thinking about it, then seeing the spark of friendship start in those eyes. A smile echoes in yours.

Seeing everyone you care about safe. Laying down to rest.

Incompletes

Wrote these a while back.

The guy took off and I jumped, hitting the ground with a bang that echoed through my knees. I would run.

It’s funny.

My feet hit the ground one after the other, faster than anything and soundless, because that slap, slap we’re so used to isn’t nearly as loud when you run right, and I was just moving to move.

Vampires, elves, Vulcans, we’re so obsessed with things that go for longer than we can.

I couldn’t tell you how long I went, just keeping my sight on him, one foot after the other, hitting the ground in a rhythm that soon matched my heart and breath, cut time to common but still there, still a rhythm within me that faded as it synchronized. Everything was instinct.

And yet, and especially, when we look for what makes humans better in the animal kingdom, what do we find?

The one in front of me started slowing. He was bright; he’d avoided anywhere I could trap him. But he wasn’t agile. It was all wide open space; I could see him from a mile away. He couldn’t hide, he couldn’t dart under something, and by this point he didn’t even have time and energy to spare if he found a place, not enough to hide his tracks.

He slowed. Collapsed. I sped.

Humans endure.

The mirror was in an undesirable state of being.

Once, lifetimes ago, he had been alive. And possibly female. That would be closer in line with how the woman who had trapped him worked, but he couldn’t remember anything of his past life. His voice was masculine, so, at the present time, he was a he.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall,

“Who’s the fairest of them all?”

He is bound to answer truth, but is adept enough at sticking only to the letter. That, the spell allows for. The mirror opens his mouth to give back her expected, “You are,” as always, and hears himself say, “Um.”

The witch glares at him.

He tries to think of a way out. Snow White is lovelier, but factor her hair in, and she was by no means fair. Her hair was black as snow-soaked stone, even as her skin was as white as her name would suggest.

The mirror panicked. Had she updated the spell? He searched for anything that was different.

Oh.

Who’s the fairest of them all?

The mirror, miserable but bound to answer, lacking any outward expression so reflecting her calm annoyance, echoed out the answer. “Snow White.”

The queen was livid. She sent out a huntsman to kill the young girl. The mirror was neutral, with no one to reflect, and was left alone for so long he began to fade. There was nothing he could do, for he could not reflect a lie, anymore than he could clarify of his own will.

The fair queen hadn’t included herself.

I sucked in a breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Victoria—”

“Wait.”

“We really don’t have time to—”

“My top five priorities just died, I think you can wait two silent seconds while I rearrange my damn goals.”

Vampires can enter uninvited.

The operative word here is can. A young vampire is still learning how to regulate basic functions, and the additional focus required to suddenly need to regulate not actively rotting when you’re still learning to remember to breathe and keep your heart beating are notable. If you’re outside, or invited, then forgetting those is mildly uncomfortable, and you may gray out. No big deal, usually it’s just a few moments of diminished senses, and at the most a few minutes—given the healing factor we have, there are very few things that can hurt us permanently even given all those minutes. And very few realize they need to. Would you proceed to burn the corpse if you’d already slit the throat?*

But the young ones usually haven’t figured out that they can pass through thresholds, the older ones know they shouldn’t, and the oldest ones can fake it well enough. I’ve been told that the truly old ones can trick even other vampires into believing that they’ve been invited in, though the fact that I’ve never even heard firsthand knowledge at two hundred and thirty-eight should tell you how rare or deadly quiet they are. Regardless, I’d say your chances are better of being killed in an earthquake/tornado/insert local disaster here.

Oh, also. I don’t know about you, but I’m the sort to pick up new accents after a few weeks around new people. Sometimes I’ve even been talking to someone for a few moments and started using their accent without noticing. So this will all be fairly modern, because I have yet to give up human interaction entirely.

And if my register flips between how old I am and far too young for any adult…well, I doubt it will, because I usually have trouble passing for “gifted,” much less my age. But if it does, do keep in mind that humans do still talk to me like I’m twelve. I have to move too often for anyone to acclimate to treating me my age.

* Incidentally, the vampire population decreases significantly during plagues, because the answer to that question is suddenly and definitively, “Yes.”

Words Start

Confidence is my chin jutting up slightly, muscles moving so slightly you don't see the muscles anymore, you don't see me do what feels like a smirk and a grin unless you know to watch my mouth. You just see the gleam in my eye, the welcome of the challenge.

Regret goes the other way, my head jumping back along my neck, my lips and cheeks turning into an invisible genuinely remorseful frown, my eyes tensing back in their sockets. But all you see is I draw back, my eyes turn hurt at my own ill actions.

Resolute is my teeth coming together and making the world's quietest clack, not even as loud as my bones cracking, my my abdominal muscles clenching without any feeling in my stomach, my body twitching closer to itself, tensing to spring or to strike. You see a line in my jaw; you see my hands clench into fists and my lips and chin turn down, if you are attentive you see my footing change.

Flirt is a smile, a little twist to my body, a genuine laugh and interest. You see my eyes sparkle with interest, you see my clothes shift, you see my hands move in a gesture even I don't notice.

Bittersweet is a twist at the mouth, a smile that reaches the eyes but doesn't touch them as a smile should, just turning them too sad, feeling something being lost as something else is gained. You see regret and knowledge, recognizing growth.

Hope is a true smile, everything goes up, my head, the corners of my lips, my cheeks, my body, my heart. You see my sparkle, from toes to scalp.

Despair is everything hope rises falling. I slump, I stop smiling, my shoulders drop, I look down. You see the air leak out of me.

Daydream is everything at angles, head this way, chest that way, arms bent at odd angles, on leg stretched and one bent, or both, or neither. You see me leave my body.

I feel; you see. You react; I see. I react; we continue.

Christmas is pine and fresh boxes, new plastic smell and metal touch, blue electricity that you find when you don't look, home and family.

Halloween is pumpkin pie and jack-o'-lanterns, mixing with the smells of home as everyone in the family gets wrist-to-elbow deep.

New Year's is laughter at the oddest things, traditions and traditions of starting new ones, staying up too late and making as much noise as you can with clackers and whistlers and bubblewraps we've saved through the years.

Thanksgiving is gravy, turkey, pumpkin pie, orange and brown and little accents of black that always show up for one reason or another. A napkin, a dress, a decoration, some early Halloween or something else.

Holiday was holy day, and sacred still.

I am myself, a singer and a writer and procrastinating and staying up too late and losing myself and finding her again. I remember not knowing I was a singer, and feeling so lost. I remember figuring out I was. I remember the talent show, when the night was mine, the day after, with Mr. H and the whiteboard, and getting out of running. I remember requests of boys and getting me, I remember getting told to go away, encouragements, and getting no reactions at all. I remember love inside my head and out. I remember figuring out the words for myself, after finding out the idea, long after. I remember my first shot at really writing, I remember the escape, I remember figuring out why I chose the name. Caydo was love and home, he was Cadence, coming to a place I knew the music fit. I remember finding those who were so different we couldn't get along, so different we had to, so similar we tried and bounced away and sprang back, so similar we even had the same plane and slope, no more than an inch apart but never touched. I remember the wadded-up pieces of paper and the tennis balls, and laughter at or with. I remember the insults, and finding out which ones were false. I remember figuring out which colors go with which, and still not knowing for sure with shoes, or socks. I remember learning to read because of a teacher's insult, her challenge. I remember when I've really cried, and when I've set myself free. I remember being passive, and I remember feigning it. I remember. So much. Kindergarten, exceptionally good but I didn't know it yet. First grade, exceptionally bad but I didn't know that either after a while, so many knew how good kindergarten was. Fourth and fifth, getting my challenge. Sixth, honor choir, school. Seventh, history with Ms. W, but math with Ms. DeW. Ninth, district. Tenth, district, state, regional. Eleventh. Sixteen going on seventeen. Fifteen going on twenty-five, always mistaken for five years or a decade older. Just being myself, not my age. Who I am, what I am, what I know, what I knew, connections I remember, hope, always, always hope. Even in the middle of tears, hope. Without hope was without tears, was just unbearably passive. Pushed around. Building up my skin to keep the anger inside, keep the knives in and out, then learning to let those shields down when I wanted to.

Life. Piece by piece, step by step. Running, jumping, dancing to somewhere where I can taste the air getting sweet and feel the shivers run through my spine.