It Started With a Spinny

I Am

Luz sits next to her on the wide, seashell white sofa, holding her hand. Camilla sits on the other side holding her other hand, trembling slightly as she finishes speaking with a pointed stare.

Sitting in her wheelchair across from them, Miriam nods. "I know this must be difficult for you Camilla." Her large gold framed glasses highlight her deeply blue eyes, not electric like his, but warm, kind. She has a lovely smile too, earnest and encouraging, her tone not judgemental but reassuring as she states: "It's natural for you to be protective of your daughter, just like you were with Luz." She and Luz share a fond smile.

Your daughter.

She can't help but smile at that.

Miriam turns back to Camilla, her mousy brown hair shifting in its pixie cut. Her tone is still reassuring as she insists: "But you did trust me to look after your Luz, even though it was hard for you. And I hope you'll trust me to look after your Vee too."

Your Vee!

Camilla turns to Vee, squeezing her hand tightly as she looks down at her with such fierce love and protective sadness that Vee's hearts ache! She smiles nervously, and squeezes back.

Camilla nods, "I, I'll try, but you need to understand that things with Vee are a little more, complicated, than with Luz."

Because I'm not really her-

"Would that be because of how she left her previous home in the-" Miriam adjusts her glasses as she checks the notepad in her lap, "-the Boiling Isles? What state was that in again?"

Camilla looks down, "It's, uum-"

"It's where I've been," Luz interjects, "for the last few, uh, months."

Mariam nods, smiling encouragingly at Luz. She leans back in her wheelchair, resting her notes in the lap of her comfy aquamarine dress. "Is that where you first met Vee?"

Luz frowns, "Not, um, not exactly? Aactually..." Luz closes her eyes, "Look, if I'm completely honest with you you're going to think I'm crazy!"

"Luz," Miriam politely insists, "you know we don't use that word in here."

Luz nods, "And I know that fantasies are a necessary coping mechanism."

Miriam nods, "Good, you remember. But why do you bring up fantasies?"

Luz frowns, "Because, because this isn't a fantasy! This isn't something for you to deconstruct and find the root cause of. This is real!"

Miriam nods, "You're worried I won't believe you."

Luz laughs, "I wouldnt believe me, and I am me! I guess," she looks down, "what I'm trying to say is," her hand trembles in Vee's, "it's just, I, you, I, um-"

Luz stops as Vee squeezes her hand. Luz looks over to her, and Vee nods, turns to a confused Camilla to squeeze her hand too. Then she turns to Miriam, and closes her golden eyes.

There's a wet rattlehis.

Vee opens her cyan-gold eyes.

Miriam is still staring at her, expression unchanged.

Vee looks down, sees her pudgy tail of a body, her green scaled hands held protectively in Luz and Camilla's. She looks up again.

Miriam is still staring at her. Slowly, she lets her notes go, reaches up with one hand to take off her glasses. The other hand takes a pearl white cloth out of a pocket of her dress. She cleans one glass lens, slowly and methodically, then cleans the other, before putting the cloth away and putting on her glasses to stare at Vee again.