This is for @monthlywritingchallenges day one of first firefly. I am a couple days late and I think I missed the mark on whimsical (don’t let the title fool you), but it was fun to write.
Natasha marveled at the wonder on Yelena's face, the innocent awe. It was that of a child Natasha had lost long ago.
Still, she smiled. It came easy in this place, where she had a sister, a family, a life where she could be normal. The difference between her and Yelena was Natasha knew it was a ruse—another guise crafted by the Red Room.
Yelena’s joy was natural and uncomplicated.
Natasha wondered, as she looked up at the fireflies lighting the trees, if she could ever get that back. She hoped Yelena would never lose it.
Yelena stopped to watch the firefly land in a nearby tree, the first she’d seen since beginning her mission last year. Seeing the tree light up like Christmas in July, it reminded her of a simpler time.
She smiled—she could never resist the beautiful light of the fireflies—but it wasn’t the same. The innocent joy was gone, replaced by easy violence.
She wished that Natasha was there—that they were back where she had wrongly believed they were free and unburdened. Now she was truly untethered but bore the burden of giving that freedom to others like them.
Natasha stepped outside the compound one early summer evening to see the first firefly of the season. She turned away before she could see if more lit up the distant tree-line.
Still, she could picture it in her mind. It was crystal clear, if not a different tree in another state. She remembered the look on Yelena's face. She could hear her voice as she tried to say “bioluminescence.”
Natasha had wished that day that Yelena would never lose the innocent wonder and joy she carried so easily. Maybe she jinxed it. This loss, now, was her punishment for wishing.
Yelena sat on the ground, her back to the cold stone. Her heart pounded in her ears as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but when she opened her eyes the sun had dipped behind the surrounding trees, giving a low light that was perfect to illuminate the fireflies that danced among the trees around her.
Fireflies used bioluminescence to attract each other and dissuade predators. She had found all the others and freed them, but they’d never escape the mark of the widow, a calling card for danger.
Yelena tried to seek out the feeling of happiness that no longer came naturally. She hoped it would—in this place she called home way back when and in the presence of her sister. She felt only grief. She had accomplished her mission of freeing all the widows, but here at Natasha’s gravestone she didn’t know how to feel the joy and freedom in that accomplishment.
Her childhood wonder had been taken.
She let the tears fall as she let out a long whistle. The stones and the trees didn’t echo it back, but that was probably for the best.
Come tell me what you think on the archive
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
