We Are Winged Things
An entry from Bramble Rose’s diary.
I remember the first thing I noticed about him: the way he shined. For someone named for a dense group of foliage, usually seen as an indistinguishable mass, Thicket is far from indistinguishable. Even before I loved him, I could pick him out amongst the crowd without issue. The air above the Plains could be clogged with Small Folk and my eyes would find the flutter of his wings as if everything cleared at once. His always fascinated me: they’re iridescent, like that of an earwig, rounded and catching the light like glass that had been stained with pigment.
Mine have always been a feathery set of wings, even now in their newer, sparser, and flashier form. Before the Fire, before my version of Burning, I had been told they looked akin to that of a grouse. I never minded, really: my wings never needed to be for show, and they were relatively quiet when I foraged. No reason to look at me, really.
But Thicket… He is beautiful in a way that made you keep looking, just like his wings. And he always looked right back, smiling, as if I were the one worth staring at out of the two of us. Even now, he stares unblinking, but I know for certain it’s a gaze always looking for me. He has eyes that are dark and warm like hollows in trees are. Safe, willing to let you climb in, curl up, stay for a while. That’s how I knew his Giant form had him: the eyes are identical, even if the rest looks different.
Isn’t that the funniest thing? If I hadn’t seen his eyes, Bigger Thicket would have never caught me in terms of similarity. The Thicket tucked away at home has far darker skin, deeper even than mine, hair most like his namesake at night. Perhaps his build is similar, and his Giant most certainly has the facial bone structure to rival his Small Folk’s… But I shouldn’t think on the similarities and changes too deeply. Thicket is Thicket, even as this Tristan. I just know he is.
And besides, how often do we even, in our Small Folk forms, change the way we appear? Granted, I was never particularly good at it; I worked more with the flora around us than I did on my own form. Thicket himself, when he was Small and active in that body, always did best with little constructs made of the air and dust around him. Lovely things, so accurate I nearly swore up and down they were as real as he was! Sometimes he would put on little plays with the “characters” made up of things almost like refracted light. Dancing in sunbeams and shimmering like star stuff… Always the sun and the stars, he and I. He was always so talented in reminding me of that.
That, and keeping the barriers up. I wondered, in the darkest times after the Fire and Burning, how long he tried to hold a barrier around our home before it fell through.
Oh, my Stars. I will never forgive myself for not being there, for not pulling up roots from the ground to shield us from the flame, for not throwing together poultices and pulling the smoke from your very bloodstream to keep you as you were. I was too far from you. And even as you are now, tall and forgetful, I am too far from you. If I had it my way I would never be more than a step from your side, but you have forgotten yourself. You live now with Giants that love to throw us Small Folk in clear jars and use us like light. I’ve seen pirates beat us broken to collect our dust and use it for a myriad of purposes.
Do you remember when Hook got a hold of Tinker Bell in the early days? How he spanked her and tried pooling her Flying Dust? I wonder if it would horrify you in the same way now. If perhaps seeing me bludgeoned for my Dust that can make skin stitch would jog forth your memories.
Perhaps I should stay a step from you always after all, even like this. Perhaps the pain would be worth it if I could see the recognition flood your familiar eyes once again.
We will get this sorted one day soon, my Stars. I thank the Dust in the air every day that your voice still keeps its hoe in my ears, just as you always have lodging in my heart. You yourself will find your place back in your original body soon enough. I just need to figure out how to do it. But I will, my Stars. That is a promise I will die keeping.
