Fictober18 Day 10
Prompt: "You think this troubles me?"
Original fiction
CW- mention of injury, obsession and threat
There's this thing you should know about me. I can't really tell you what it is, I don't have the words for it… but it's there, and I know you should know it. That's the conundrum I am facing, right now. How to convey to you what it is you need to know when all I have to go on is a vague sense of… otherness? I know I am not like you… any of you. I just don't know how I know that, or how I am different. Do you see my difficulty?
For a long time, I thought I was, perhaps, a mermaid. I loved the water, you see, but was always too wary to approach it. I felt its pull so strongly that I feared that if I touched my toe to the surf I would never be able to pull myself back and would simply dissolve into the vastness of it like tears and rain. Sometimes, I thought I could feel scales lurking beneath the smooth stretch of the skin on my legs and pelvis. I could almost believe that I could see the shimmer and shift of color through the paleness.
But then, I could resist the call no longer and I ran to the ocean and hurled myself into its briny swell. There was no transformation, no moment of triumphant rebirth as something mythical and magical. I simply sank, my heels and bottom resting on rock and sand, dead seaweed tangling in my limbs as the waves crashed and lulled around me. There was joy in those waves, I could feel it, and it still called to me. But without the romance of the idea that my truest self was a merfolk, born of salt and seafoam, the call seemed crass and strident, where once it was melodic and yearning.
I turned my back on the sea, as I am wont to do when things become mundane. My fascinations are deep and encompassing, but when they are done, they mean less than nothing to me. Water, for all its beauty and power held no more appeal for my soul. In the turning, I noticed the glorious caress of the breeze over my tide-kissed flesh. Air. Was there anything more magical than the very breath of life? Before long, I could lose myself in the breeze, see myself soaring on a gust. I could flex my back, feel the strong muscles there and sense the presence of wings waiting to erupt and carry me through the heavens. I became acutely aware of each breath I took, each whorl of wind kicking up dust or leaves or snowflakes to dance and eddy and drift. Air was so much MORE than the sea could ever be, I felt so foolish for ever having thought differently.
Eventually, my courage and conviction grew so great that I climbed to the highest place I could find and dove into the wind, confident that my transformation would save me. Alas, this was not the case. My wrong-headed trust in my magical affinity to the winds took much from me- more than the sea ever had- and I spent long, agonizing months recovering and deriding myself for being so foolish as to think that magic lurked within me, waiting to be unlocked.
I accepted the happiness of the mundane. Small, predictable, normal pursuits became my focus. I learned trivia and began attending trivia nights. I took up dance as part of my rehabilitation from my near-fatal fall and continued it as a hobby. When the magnetic beauty of fire began to entice me, I tried to ignore it. I tried to deny it, the way I had denied the call of water for so long. I had learned, you see, from my experience with air that the costs could be high. But fire… so powerful… so seductive… I could not stay away. But I was cautious. Small flames. Candles. Matches. Lighters. Dancing my fingers through the flames, feeling that hot lick- like sex and danger and magic all at once. The fires got bigger. The flames hotter. Blue fire was my favorite- hoarding its light away from onlookers, but broadcasting its heat and power so clearly. I began to wonder… could I be a salamander? A dragon? Were there asbestos scales beneath my skin? Would I shed to reveal plates of obsidian and basalt? Fire took my hair. It scorched the flesh from my hands and feet. I transformed, because that is what fire does, but I was unable to avoid being consumed.
Earth never called to me. I never felt drawn to soil and rocks and the steady stability of the foundation of everything. I tried to listen. I tried to hear. But any song it held for me had been silenced by my flitting heart, my lack of focus.
So, there is something within me- I know not what it is, but it drives me to extremes. I hunger for magic. There is a thing within me that seeks its own creation. It is important and hungry. My only purpose is to bring it into being. I know you need to be told. I know you need to be… warned. I am learning, you see. I am learning that birthing this hidden truth will consume me. You think this troubles me? It does not. I will be triumphant. I will be reborn. The magic that dwells within me will be brought forth. This broken, questing thing that I yet am will fall away to reveal something wondrous.
I tell you this, because there is this thing you should know about me. I don't know exactly what it is. I don't have the words to explain- but it is hungry. I can feel it coiling and uncoiling in my soul.
It needed water, and I gave it water.
It needed air and I gave it air.
It needed fire and I gave it fire.
It needed thirst and pain and offerings and I gladly gave it all that I could.
Now, though, now it needs blood- and I don't think mine will be enough.