Her Eyes

Forty Four

Spain.

España.

My mind felt clear. So, very clear. Looking at the many pictures on Niko's computer screen of Spain and the foliage made me sure of it. I could remember it all so well now.

The day I fell from my mother's branches and floated away with the wind which carried me. How I passed the Alhambra Palace, Basílica de la Sagrada Família, and Dalt Vila. I remembered it all.

Even the blue flowers that would dance during the stormiest of days that appeared in my dream.

"Aquilegia vulgaris," I muttered, staring at the pictures of Spain and its landscape.

I wanted to see them again. My mother, my new siblings, and my home; the home I'd existed in for years until this point. The home that was loneliest during the late Autumn through early Spring, yet became lively and exciting as the hot summer came about and the leaves grew up.

It all began to make sense. Why I couldn't hear them anymore and why their words sounded incoherent. It was as if an epiphany – as the humans call it – shot through my mind, opening my eyes to what truly lay before me.

It was so simple, yet it took me so long to figure out.

Nikolaos was quiet.

Very, very quiet.

I wondered why. He seemed dedicated to helping me find my true home and helped me realize my country of origin just minutes ago. So why? Why was he quiet? Was he tired? He wasn't wrapping presents anymore, though there was only one left, but his arms were wrapped around me tightly with his chin propped on my shoulder.

Still, why?

I didn't understand it. Usually, he would explain to me everything he knew about Spain and would answer all my questions. This time, there was no explanation, but perhaps it was because I had no questions. For once in the short time I've been a human, I wasn't confused, lost, and didn't feel stupid.

I understood something all on my own without any help from Nikolaos. I was independent.

Nikolaos was – perhaps, I hope so – fine. Maybe he just wanted to sit quietly and watch as I used his computer to search for anything and everything about Spain.

That's what I did sometimes.

I'd sit quietly on his lap or beside him as he worked on whatever it was he did in college aside from photography, observing the way his hands quickly typed on his keyboard, the faint hums he'd produce when he found what he needed to on the website he searched, and the small squint that came about when he was viewing those thick paragraphs of tiny words that truly should've been zoomed in just a bit for the viewer's experience.

So, because I believed Nikolaos was fine – I trust he'd tell me if he wasn't – I didn't ask whether he was alright or not and simply scrolled through the collections of images, humming to the Spanish artists playing on his phone.

He changed the playlist for me.

I love him.

A lot.

"Niko," I called out softly, "Can we go here?"

Fragas de Eume.

It looked familiar. Very, very familiar. I wanted to see if it was the forest I once inhabited. The forest where my mother lived with the many thousands of leaves and columbines decorating the forest floor.

There were other places I wanted to see besides those in Spain. I wanted to experience all the sights I passed through as a leaf from the perspective of a human. They seemed so far away and small from my high view, but now, I was given a new view through a new set of eyes, those that looked like the leaves on my mother's branches.