The Forest Spirit

“Sorry,” the younger sister mouthed, sticky fingers hiding the rosy colored specks of ice cream on her lips. She giggled, laughed, enjoyed the silly interaction with Eleanor and the time spent together. It had been their first week away from each other, and it had certainly made an impact on Maelys. Having had two days to catch up, however, the girl had finally been able to let go of all the pressure, of all the ‘missing someone dear’. She was back to her shy, goofy old self, and she couldn’t be happier. “Do you want some?”

She drops it - all of it - but ‘it’ is not what the stranger was implying. They’re just herbs from her garden; a garden that is very likely far from what the other suspects it to be. Flowers, plants, herbs, but definitely nothing illegal. The closest those beautiful additions came to affecting one’s mood was the smile it brought to Maelys’ face. Thus, in fear of coming across as having done something so much unlike her character, the student averted her gaze immediately, waiting in silence, highly uncomfortable in her own body, and genuinely hoping this guy will just walk away. 

"I'm sad. Give me sweets."

It didn’t make sense. Curled up lips turned into a smile, the gentle smile turned into laughter, and laughter was accompanied by pearly, wet diamonds lingering on both cheeks. It was a bitter kind of happy - the kind that let you know the wound beneath the surface was still there, but it was slowly starting to heal. Forever. She never imagined it would happen to her, never thought it could happen to anyone. As much as she liked to believe in fairytales, even the brightest parts of her imagination could not have foreseen this turn of events, though, truth be told, it was far from a fairytale life, to begin with. Still, this was her life now. She’d better start making the best of it. “I think, for me, it already did.”

She meant well. Of course, she did. Eleanor would never mean to hurt her sister in any way, and yet her words conveyed a murderous feeling inside the other that Maelys would never be able to tame. It was not so much that she had ‘grown’ into something more than she used to be - at least it didn’t feel that way. This form, this.. whatever it was, had been forced upon her, and there was no way to reverse it. In mirrors she would see a monster. Nothing more, nothing less. “I wish I could be less…”

Impenetrable, such was her heart, such was her mind. The inner and outer change of the rebirth had had differing effects on the closed-off girl. Today, this time, there was no such thing as fear coursing through her limbs, just plain old indifference. Had the creature in front of her been a human, things might have continued any other way. But, as the tiny girl resembled the supernatural even more than the forest spirit, she deemed her usual ‘stay away’ or ‘leave the forest immediately’ attitude to be uncalled for. Maelys had been busy contemplating the structure of her days. This odd meeting may just be the distraction she needed, though it would take a lot more interaction to loosen her up. “Who are you?” the brunette thus questioned, ignoring what information was previously asked of her, and shifting the conversation in a, to her, more relevant direction. In no way did she mean to be rude. In no way did she notice she had achieved that mindset, anyway.