"'Tis Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all."
~Alfred Lord Tennyson
If Meg could've known Alfred Lord Tennyson, she'd have punched him if he'd tried to spring that one on her.
As it was, she was hoping someone would come around, just so she could have a go at them. Although punching people out wasn't really her style. Some really scathing remarks, then? She could pull that off. Yeah.
In fact, she could pull anything off, she told herself.
It was an image she went for whole hog, even though the very idea of it was ridiculous when she didn't even own herself.
Still, who had to know that?
Nobody. That's who.
Even her Master didn't have to see past her shell; not that he'd care to if he could.
She wandered the city gardens, slinking along, purposefully flaunting herself, her attitude. It was lovely to be able to tell any and everyone, "Look. But don't touch."
Meg walked on, eyeing people like a purple people-eater, inwardly grumbling.
She hated people. The ones walking here all seemed so…mundane. They wandered about pointlessly, stupidly. And she hated them for it.
She saw a young couple, the girl looking pretty-but-brainless, her fellow not much better off.
"Ah, young love," she muttered. The idiots. It wouldn't last a year.
Meg, tired of walking, slid onto a bench. When an elderly passerby looked tempted to utilize that same bench, Meg slid across it, lying on it and glaring, daring anyone else to make a move on her spot. Ha.
She inwardly laughed at herself for the grouchy absurdity of the gesture. She used to enjoy absurdity. Now she only smiled at it on the inside, where no one was looking. Outwardly, she allowed herself to be many things: Unpleasant, grouchy, intimidating…but not absurd.
Absurd was too close to admitting flaws.
And admitting flaws was vunerable.
And vunerable was something this girl was not going to be. Ever again.
Lying on her back, Meg traced the patterns of the branches above her with her eyes.
She enjoyed her position, her status, on invulnerability. She felt nine feet tall when walking through crowds, crowds of the stupid, or the common, or the hurting, and felt herself above them.
"Ow," she heard a child's whine.
She glanced over from her lounging position to see a little girl, having stumbled upon the stone walk, now with torn skirt and skinned knee.
"It hurts," the child complained, tugging on her mother's tunic.
Meg snorted under her breath. She would never be caught as a mother, with insufferable, complaining children always hanging off of her.
"Mommm," the child whined, tugging harder.
"Don't pull," her mother admonished her, kneeling down, the better to see the injured knee.
"It hurts, Momma," the girl said.
"Hmm," her mother answered, examining the scrape. "You have made a mess of yourself, haven't you?"
The child whimpered.
"Make it feel better," the girl said.
"Make it feel better," Meg thought, derisively. Like anyone could magically reverse pain.
"Now how can I do that?" the woman asked, sounding rather tired. "If you hadn't been running so fast, you wouldn't have fallen."
The little girl looked slightly crestfallen at being unable to blame anyone else for her injury.
"Don't worry about it too much," her mother said, taking the child's arm. "Can you imagine never running? What a dull world that would be."
The little girl looked rather appalled at the idea.
"Better just to take those hits as they come, huh? And just get back up and keep running after it stops hurting," the girls mother said.
Meg shifted over to her side, watching the pair with raised eyebrows.
"Now come on," said her mother, taking the child's hand, and continuing their walk, the girl's step already regaining some of it's spring.
Meg craned her neck, watching the pair go.
Their simplicity annoyed her.
But the woman's general air of peace, or well-being, was strangely appealing.
"You'd never catch me a mother," the phrase echoed in Meg's mind. Not Meg, whom nobody could touch. The problem was, though, that she touched nobody.
When that woman died she would have people who were actually sorry to see her go, who would mourn her passing.
Meg grimaced at her nails. Who would notice when she finally passed the threshold from death's door to death? Not even her boss in all likelihood.
"Can you imagine never running?" the simple question replayed in Meg's mind.
She peered down the pathway that the two had gone down.
"Better to just take the hits as they come, and get back up and keep running after it stops hurting."
Then Meg shook her head and stood up.
A little late for that, now, wasn't it?
Anyway, she was too set to change her ways.
She wandered back through the gardens, putting the encounter out of her head.
XxxXxxX
Author's Note: Blame Tennyson, not me. I read that line today and just had to write something. And I rather like Hercules's cynical heroine—the only Disney gal I know of who started out a man-hater who worked for the villain. And, on a more personal note, I'm afraid I approach things from her angle entirely too often. In any case, enjoy. And maybe someday I'll take my own advie;)
Hercules © Disney
Reviews are ever so greatly appreciated and rewarded with cyber-smoothies!
~TheInkgirl