[Monster] Deszeld's Bramble

[bipolar bee]

She is not built for grace, or beauty, or fighting. She is built for patience. She is built for waiting. She is built for lurking in forests -- but when she is in the air and she is flying there is beauty in other things. There is beauty in the cool rush of air across her leathery wings, the sway of her tail behind her, the slight alterations in her muscles that allow for tilt and climb. The wind does not stop her. It flows over her, whips across her scales and whistles against her crest.

Her thoughts are aimless. Her troubles do not follow her into the air. She has said her piece and so it goes. She has lived a long time and she will live a long time to come. Friends will come and go - and despite that thought there is still one spear of pain that sets her chest to aching, one name that makes her feel as though a black hole is consuming her from the inside out.

She has never been good at things like feelings or saying what is right. She is not built for finesse or fancy words or dancing around topics. She is brute force and painful directness and crippling honesty. It is the way she has always been, and it is the way she will continue to be.

There was a charm left in the bed. She has kept it, hidden away, and when she is feeling spectacularly frustrated or lonesome or hurt she takes it out and runs her thumb across it. As she flies, her thoughts return to that leaf-shaped bit of metal, and she lingers on that thought, just for a moment, because it is all that she will allow herself. It is all she will allow herself and then she moves forward because there is nothing else to do.

She is not built for friendship. She is not built for fanciful things. She is a beast of simplicity, and it is because of this that her first flight since attending the Academy is a lone flight. She is kept company by nothing more than her thoughts -- the good, the bad, the troublesome. She thinks about the things she's done wrong, the things she's said that haven't been as flowery or pretty as they ought to have been. She thinks about the way she is, and where others might find fault in her behavior she has never felt regret. These thoughts trail after her despite how high she climbs, weighing her down.

She banishes them.

She focuses on the sights beneath her. She focuses on the trees beneath her and she thinks of her home far away. The forest she loved. Things were far less complicated then, but here and now mid-flight things are simple once more. She leaves her thoughts where they cannot trouble her, far below her on the ground. They are not tethered to her until she hits the sod once more.

Here, in the air, the green allows herself some peace. Just a little before she returns.

Briefly she wonders how high she can go. She pushes herself, higher and higher, where the wind is cold and the chill is biting. Her wings feel stiff, but she does not stop. She can't. It feels too perfect, being up here. Greens do not usually fly, but there has always been something about flight that has been more freeing than not.

She does not want to be old and stuffy and set in her ways like the Ancients she left behind. She does not want to be reluctant to experience change. She does not want to stay where it's safe. She wants to experience new things, and so far she has. So far it has been interesting, entertaining, enlightening. Up until recently, she has not wanted for anything.

Perhaps she has made a mistake in this.

She reminds herself that she is free from thought until she touches down.

There is a certain amount of clarity to be found here in the air. She imagines, for a moment, that each and every ant-like speck on the ground is just that, an ant. Minor and minuscule, easily crushed. The whimsical musing entertains her briefly, and she drops just a bit lower - and lower - and lower still. The ground comes up to meet her, and suddenly she touches down and the troubles come rushing back to greet her. She immediately thinks about soaring skyward again, but she is grounded.

She will tackle her problems head on -- save for one -- and deal with them as they come. She is not afraid of her troubles, she is not terrified of her thoughts. She is strong. Proud. She is a green.

That will always mean something.  

[bipolar bee]

It has been a long time since she has put effort into being social. She does not mind the solitude. There is peace there, and clarity, and comfort. She surrounds herself with things that keep her busy, she surrounds herself with the green plants that grow in her room and when she feels overwhelmed she takes flight and surrounds herself with nothing more than cool, familiar air. It feels right and she is centered. A life of seclusion is better than a life filled with bad choices and regret. It is a life she has known for a long time - and it is a life that she has becomed accustomed to, even at school. There is nothing wrong with it, and she cannot blame anyone but herself - an exercise in her life to come, surrounded by her own old-growth wilderness. Surrounded by songbirds singing sweetly in the morning light. Surrounded by the tkk-tkk-tkk of crawling bugs. Surrounded by the silence of trees, swathes of moss hanging thick from their broad, gnarled branches.

It has been a long time since she has put effort into being social. There are times, yes, that she misses certain things, but this is who and what she is. She is the silence in the forest. She is endless. She is forgotten. She will never change.

It is who she is happy to be.

She does not ask questions. She attends her classes as a good Green should. There is no drama in her life, and she is glad for it. Relationships make things complicated, and she is the polar opposite. She looks back at the things she's done and does not wish to ever be that dragon again. She will keep things simple, the way they have always been. There is a sort of forgiveness in the way she carries herself now, an undefined peace that she wears like a shroud. She has lost everything by being who she was. Abrasive. Proud. Foolish.

Perhaps the turn of another year in her life has made her reset her own expectations. Perhaps the solitude has helped. Perhaps she realizes she will never be the green that her parents expected her to be, and that is fine too. She will always be a green - perhaps she will not be perfect, and that is okay. She is who she is, and she is at peace with that.

There is perfection to be found in other things. Her thick, leathery wings, they are perfect. Her strong, muscled tail, it is perfect. The rich fall of her hair, and the proud rise of her crest - these things, too, are perfect. She knows her own mind, and there is perfection in that, as well.

She has been flying more these days - long, solitary flights that end in places she has never seen. She flies until she is exhausted. It is then that she lands, and it is there that she thinks. Life is not as complicated as others make it - not as complicated as she once thought it to be. It is simple and filled with simple things, and it is those simple things that she enjoys. There is no reason not to, just as there is no reason for her thoughts to be clouded with doubt. The solitude is good for her, and she feels it down to her very essence.

Some days she is lonely. She will never admit it. The charm has been discarded, and there are days she regrets that more than anything. It was a crutch, of sorts, but one she finds herself missing when she hears the creak of a tree or the rush of wind through the bone-dry leaves of the forest. Some days she is lonely, yes, and she embraces that loneliness because it is the smallest reminder that she was not always this way - and she does not ever want to be the way she was. Small adjustments continue to be made, and there is peace in that.

There is perfection in those imperfections, but it does not mean that they do not require work. She is not so proud that she cannot change. Before, yes, pride was an issue. Now she is humbled by the grander things in life - old, gnarled trees; patient stones smoothed out by rushing rivers; ancient logs that feed the earth they become once more.

She is happy now, or so she tells herself, and she will continue to be content with her life. She will ignore the itch at the back of her mind that questions whether or not she really is content. She will not allow herself to wonder what else the world could offer her. She will find peace in solitude, and she will be a Green.

That is all she knows.