Written: 8/10/23
Word Count: 1,353

"Hey." My cheeks were burning now, for some reason. "You have noodle arms, too!"

The child tapped its eternally-blushing forehead, where those maroon lines arrayed around the jewel in the center. "Yeah, but that's not all I have. Unlike you, I'm actually useful."

"What do you know about me?" I asked, my temper rising. The flush in my face was full enough now to burn in my cheeks, tingling against my chin.

Growing serious, the child stopped its tapping, stopped making any extraneous movements. "I know everything, Charlotte. You're quite a mess, all because you don't know how to shut up and make nice."

My mouth opened. Closed. Tears threatened to spill. Funny. I'd heard all that and more from the folk who were supposed to be closest to me, who were supposed to guide me. Yet hearing it from this messenger child felt so, so much worse.

"It's not my fault," I said in a weak voice. My hands gripped the grass, mud squelching beneath my fingernails until it hurt. "Why does everyone pretend, anyway? It makes no sense. They flatter, they smile, but they don't mean any of it. It's so fake. So painfully fake. Why am I the one at fault if I can't pretend to be fake? Shouldn't I be in the right? Shouldn't I be the one looking down on them for pretending to be something that they're not? Shouldn't I?"

"You're a narrow-minded, naive High Elf," the Hesperide casually dismissed me with a wave and a scoff. "You know nothing of the world. You've never had to. You feel something doesn't fit, so you scream and rage and cry, making everyone miserable around you. Tell me, lady, what does that solve?"

I wormed my way up the cliff, some miserable creature smeared in dirt and sweat and dew. I shivered, but I wasn't sure it was from the cold as I glared right back at the child's glower.

"You can't even respond," it said, one golden brow raising in a perfect, disdainful arc. It wasn't fair for a yewing child to have that level of control over its face. "Because it doesn't solve anything. It only makes you feel better. Special. Different. To look down on the whole world, as if you have nothing to do with it. You've got a long way to go, I'm afraid."

Two lines of tears leaked down the corners of my eyes, dripping from my chin to the grass in mere moments. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"What? Honesty?" The child spun around again, showing me its slim back covered in a sleeveless top that fluttered against its skinny body. "I thought you liked that."

The words landed like a thunderclap. It took everything I had to face forward, face that child's receding back, without looking away in shame.

"Then, why? Why show an interest? Why save me?" My voice was rough with tears, muffled by the wind. "Is this some kind of torture?"

"What's the one thing that can't be taken away from you?" the child called, the words reaching me easily despite its turned back. It was almost as if the noises danced along the wind, shaking a disdainful beat as they slapped against my face. "The one thing that can't be taken away from Charlotte Swanmere without making Charlotte Swanmere not herself?"

My brow furrowed. That dehydrated ache was back in my temples. The adrenaline from surviving my fall had worn off, and now I was back in the dire straits I was in before the pixies evicted me from my sleeping place.

"I—I don't know."

The child held one finger up in the air. "There isn't one. You're substanceless, made of nothing. There's nothing special about you. Nothing unique. Nothing that belongs solely to you."

"So?" I challenged, my voice bursting red hot. "Get to the dusting point, already."

The child gave a disgusted snort. "I don't know what the Goddess sees in you. She can't possibly use you for anything. Anything you could do, I could do better. Faster. But that's not how the Goddess weighs people—how she can use them, I mean. Don't take her name so lightly. Don't think of her lightly, either."

The child's roundabout sentences were making my head hurt even worse than it already was. I felt dejected. Utterly dejected. My shoulders couldn't stand up against the onslaught of fear, horror, relief, awe, anger, and shame. Definite shame. Embarrassment, confusion.

Disbelief.

"Why did she save me?" I asked, my words coming out quiet, drained. All I felt—all the feelings I tried to quell—it all came out in one muddled tone. "I wouldn't have minded dying there."

"Of course you wouldn't," the child tsked, "because you're useless. Tell me, Charlotte, have you ever tried changing your life? Yourself?"

Silence answered the Hesperide, who was nearly out of sight by now, its words echoing back to me cleanly, some bolstering, nymphen magic at work.

"Why should anybody help someone who doesn't want to listen? You're stuck in yourself, you fool. There's a whole world out here. As soon as you get that, you'll realize the truth. You don't matter at all. Not one bit. Accept that, and you'll understand why the Goddess saved you. Now, follow the sun. Reach Haspa before nightfall, or you'll meet something more unsavory than pixies."

With that, the Goddess's messenger stopped harassing me with cruel, cruel words.

I didn't receive the child's name. Or think to ask about its gender. Well, not like that last one mattered much. A brat was still a brat, no matter what they identified as.

"Brat it is," I mumbled to myself, my shaking limbs already exhausted from the morning's endeavors. "What in blazes? Follow the sun? How?"

I inched my way back to the tree, my stomach growling in the peaceful morning quiet. All around me, the marsh was still, calm. Uncaring that I'd just nearly died.

I was completely alone out here. Not even Runy for company.

My breaths shuddered a bit through my body as I slung my bag over my shoulder. I was surprised the pixies had left it alone, but maybe they hadn't brought any magic power. Elven magic focused on things outside of their body, Nymphen magic focused on things inside their body, and Pixien magic...was the best of both? A powdered substance was formed from their bodies, which could be instilled with various properties. The true champions of the magical bag of tricks.

It would've been nothing for them to use a smattering of pixie dust to make my bag smaller, carting it off back to their compound.

They didn't seem interested in Herbology and Theology homework, though. Shame.

"Follow the sun, follow the sun," I chanted. It was bizarre. I was amazed at myself. Or...bizarred?

After that thorough tongue-lashing, here I was, carrying out that mean child's advice. I kept my eyes on the sun until my entire vision turned blue with fuzzies. Needing a second's break, I looked to the marshy ground, blinking away spots of color. It was only then that I saw them.

Little red suns, like the diamond-shaped sun in the middle of the messenger's forehead, glowed on the ground. I could see three, arrayed in front of me, heading in a straight line.

My steps stilled, amazement widening my eyes. I tapped my forehead where the child had poked me. "Naga. Follow the sun, huh?"

I stepped carefully on the closest red sun, which disappeared beneath my boots with a smoky hiss. Looking ahead, another one formed beyond the next two. A trail. It was a yewing trail.

At last, I had a way to my destination. Battered, bruised, dirty, hungry, tired, dehydrated, and a million other things, I followed the little red suns on the ground, hoping they led me to the Haspa Mines. But even if they didn't, I was tired of this adventure.

Wherever these suns were leading me, I was going to follow. Even if it was all a lie, a trick, and I was heading straight over another cliff.

I was beyond caring.