Gaia Handle: Fairymount
Gem Trying For: Children
Prompt Answered: Prompt 1
The moment is impressed into your mind as a hand into cement. It will neither fade, untouched in its flash-curing by the weathers of time, nor discolour with the shifting of perspective brought by maturation or stagnation. Tell us your tale, bearer, of this memory that lives on and marks you.
Drowsy heat beat down upon
Whimsy's back. Twitching her ears slightly, the young gremlin flopped over onto her back, enjoying the rustle of the sun-baked grass as she moved. The scent of warm earth and grass rose around her, causing her eyes to droop in sheer, contented bliss. While such warm days were a delight for her, she knew in a vague sort fo way that they weren't so good for other things. Flowers, for instance. Whimsy adored flowers. But sometimes, they wilted in the heat... And as if that one, wandering thought were a fuse, Whimsy rolled frantically to her feet. Scrambling and laughing wildly, she raced down the hill and threw herself through the trees of the surrounding woods.
Ignoring the tree branches that whipped about and scratched her exposed face and limbs, the gremlin in time came to a small, hidden cave. Little more than a moss lined hole in the ground, Whimsy nevertheless thought highly of it as a hidey hole for her most treasured possession. Plunging her arm in, her fingers scrabbled carefully, brushing against something soft and cool as silk, before curling gently and withdrawing. Once free of the hole, Whimsy opened her dirt-streaked hand to reveal a small, delicate flower. As she sat staring at her treasure, Whimsy's mind tripped back to when she'd first found this bloom...
Cold. It was so cold. And dark. Whimsy, unlike her kin, hated the dark. She hated the lengthening shadows that stretched and twisted the familiar into frightening strangeness. And more than anything, she hated being lost in the dark. Her older brother's laughter as he left her to fend for herself echoed eerily. A swamp, she thought miserably as fetid water swirled around her ankles, was a horrible place after dark. The lush overgrowth that she delighted in by day hid the moon and stars from her now. And in the water, she knew there were things that came out at night to hunt. And her brother had left her here on purpose. At
night! The tiny gremlin girl sniffled and scribbed a grubby hand across her nose. Her tail switched as a mosquito nipped it, the sudden sharp irritation bringing her back to herself. She would never listen to her brother again when he promised to show her the night blooming flowers. For a moment, she felt very bitter towards any and all flowers for her predicament. Then, common sense reasserted itself. It wasn't the flowers fault that she had a bully for a brother. And since she couldn't really go back (the scramble to get here with her brother alone had been confusing), she decided to go forward.
Taking a deep breath, she bit her lower lip gently in concentration and used her tail tip and feet to find bits of submerged logs to tread on. Small as she was, logs that would crumble and sink under an adult held her up. Frog and cricket song burbled from the plants around her and the occasional
PLINK of water told her that the frogs out hunting. And the louder splashes and started croaks meant that something was out hunting the frogs. Choking back a sob, Whimsy continued forward.
She'd lost track of how long she'd been lost by the time she saw the faint glow. Thinking that it might be a lantern or candle held by someone out looking for her, the gremlin had plunged forward, now ignoring basic swamp safety in her need to get to the light. A sharp ripping pain across her foot brought a whimpering yelp to her lips, but still she continued on, albeit a bit more slowly. The glow remained faint as she neared. And when it revealed itself to her hopeful eyes as nothing more than a strange flower, Whimsy very nearly tore it from it's roots in a childish rage. All that saved the flower was the sudden, wracking sobs that seized her. Sitting beside the flower, Whimsy cried and wondered if she would ever see her parents and brother again. Then she saw the gash across the top of her foot and cried even harder, convinced that her foot would have to be removed. Then to the little girl's enormous shock, the flower's glow grew stronger, aas if the little bloosom wanted to comfort her.
Tears still leaking freely from her eyes, Whimsy scootched closer to the flower to study it. To her delight, it was the same shade of blue as her hair. Resembling a strange cross between and orchid and a rose, the bloom was only about as big as a mouse. A faintly pleasant scent wafted from the petals, managing to mask the stink of the swamp water and mud that spattered the gremlin's clothing and skin. Up close, the could see how each petal was faintly illuminated by a soft, icy blue light. With gentle fingers, Whimsy reached up and carefully brushed the petals, eyes widening in surprise at how soft and cold they felt. Almost like silken ice, she thought.
Whimsy stayed by the flower, talking to it and emptying her woes into its non-existant ears for the remainder of the night. When daylight finally creeped through the swamp, the flower's glow diminished only slightly. Acting on an impulse she couldn't have explained, Whimsy gently and with great care, picked the flower before hiding it within one of her pockets. The flower, she was sure, had kept her safe during the night. The flower had cared about her. Unlike her brother, whose voice she now heard calling out in false concern. Her parents must have been combing the swamp for her, she thought as she listened to the voices getting closer. Putting a protective hand over the pocket that held her flower, Whimsy sat and waited, calling out once the voices were closer. And though she was willing enough to tell her mother and father how she'd come to be lost (Oh, it had been so satisfying to see her father belt her brother), she never told them about the flower. Not about how it helped her, nor how it still glowed faintly and refused to wilt as other picked flowers did. The flower was her secret and her treasure...
Lost in the memory, Whimsy jumped as a bird's cry startled her. Then, she laughed at herself before holding the flower close to her heart and being her head to gently brush the petals with her lips. She'd never found another flower like it, and she strongly suspected that she never would. Then, placing it back into its hiding place, she stood, brushed the dust and dried grass from her hands and walked back to the hill.
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