Monster

.2.

Memories flowed by me, the lessons of the males had slid off of my back. They became blurred and distorted in two brilliant blue oceans that sat in a face that had seen far too much. Still, they never wavered, never broke. She stood firm amongst it all.

There were times when her eyes were so calm they were like soft reflective pools mirroring the calm sky and at others, the colour deepened to a dangerous and dark storm. Rage and anger swirling the colour like a turbulent ocean, flashes of the wild wolf arching like lightning.

They had been like that when she brought me back, when she gently stripped me of the ruins of my gown. She had radiated rage but her touches were like fog against the greens, soft and rolling, soothing. She had bathed me, gently speaking words I wasn't sure of as she tended to my wounds and washed the males off of my skin.

Her voice was like a soft and warm breeze against my skin. I wanted to lean into her, to be lost forever in her eyes and her touch because it felt like safety and love. I hadn't felt such things since I had been nothing but a pup with hopeful longings of the world around me.

I shook my head to clear those thoughts. Wistful longings of a naive pup, unsure of the world but so hopeful it would treat her right and she would go true. I shook my head again.

She had brought me to her village, showed me all the females she had collected as she held my hand as if it were nothing but a delicate bird that needed a gentle and caring touch. She had introduced me to the oldest females, so old their backs bent with age, their fingers gnarled but their eyes soft with happiness I had never seen before. Then she had introduced me to the youngest, infants swaddled in cloths, females born to a world who did not love them but they slept with peace or giggled with delight at the females who tended to them.

Each one had a story to tell, each one was different, but each one had been so terribly similar.

Males, they said, it was the males.

Demanding and arrogant they had dashed these females to the rocks in them hopes to shatter them. What they couldn't break, they discarded. Mothers, desperate with their firstborn daughters, had left them in the trees, afraid for their daughters, afraid for what the males would do those born to a position they were not meant to be in.

Females of all shapes, sizes, and colours lived there. Some of them had hair that brushed the ground before piling on top of their heads in glorious braided crowns. Others had it chopped in ragged patches around their face, as if they had grabbed chunks that had obstructed their vision and simply cut them off. They had an ease to them I hadn't known to exist.

Some had worn pants, some wore skirts, some wore nothing at all. Their freedom was painted in their choices and I had been left overwhelmed by it all. Freedom was there for me. This was the monster the males had been talking about. It ate the females, destroyed them in their eyes, but from the belly of the beast we realized all she did was take away our chains.

I had grown frightened when I had realized there were males lingering about but she had shushed me softly, telling me that they were good males, kind ones. That if I did not wish for their eyes to land on my skin, for me to let them know and their gazes would be averted in my presence.

Such a strange concept for me. Males averting their gazes from me at my will. She had embraced me then, tucking me underneath her chin, stroking my hair as I had trembled underneath the newness it all had, the uncertainty that I had about it.

It is yours, kin wolf, you just need to be brave enough to take it

Her words were a low murmur that rolled through my mind like the strong warmth of a fire in winter and I had wanted that, wanted to be brave. I wanted the freedom she had shown me but I wasn't sure if I had the strength to hold onto it.

You have a spine of steel, kin wolf, they will not bend you. Become their monster.

Her words became my mantra.

Become their monster.

In the comfort and heat of her arms I could feel myself wanting to become what she saw in me. As if sensing my emergence, she let me go, grasping my chin and lifting it so I could look no where but that perfect blue. "Name yourself." It was a heavy order but I sensed it was the last one I would ever get.

Free.

I was free.

I named myself Kin, wanting to be reminded of the connection I had felt to her, wanted to be somehow tied to the moonlight that she had. The female named Persephone whose eyes glowed blue like fire or that could turn dark and crack like ice.

I wanted to be close enough to touch her, to feel the serenity and peace her arms had.

One single touch had given me hope, and I craved an eternity of more.