Chemicals and Circumstance.

i like it too :)

They want buckskin and face paint, drumming, songs in languages they can’t understand recorded for them but with English subtitles, of course. They want educated, well spoken, but not too smart. Christian, well behaved, never question. They want to learn the history of the people, but not the ones that are here now, waving signs in their faces, asking them for clean drinking water, asking them why their women are going missing, asking them why their land is being ruined.

They want fantastical stories of Indians that used to roam this land. They want my culture behind glass in a museum.

flowereW

You are chased out of your village the moment your powers bloom at fifteen years old, and the skies turn black with your fear. A rock hits you between your shoulder blades just as you make it to the main road and you stumble, falling to your knees in a mud puddle at the very moment the skies open up.

“She’s cursing us!” the midwife who delivered you screams over the thunder. “She’s damning us with her!”

Your mother is crying, but she doesn’t raise a hand to help you. She did everything she could, keeping your Role a secret all these years. She won’t risk anymore with another little girl to take care of.

No one tells you that you have a choice. No kind stranger drags you out of the rain and into the warmth of their home where a wise sage tells you it is not how we are born, but what choices we make.

Instead, you take the little pack your mother hid for you in the depths of the forest and sling it over your shoulder. There’s money, provisions, and more wraps to cover the evil mark on your left bicep.

“Your destiny will find you,” your mother told you only hours ago. “I forgive you for it.”

She meant the words as a comfort, but you only heard condemnation in it. Without having killed so much as a fly, she is already blessing you with forgiveness.