LET ME LIVE THAT FANTASY


♕

The youth hadn’t expected or prepared to run into a famed monster-slayer, but she handled the predicament with aplomb, assaulting the oasis with vibrant, tenacious, chaotic motions of her hooves, pressing into the water over and over again, roaring, howling, giggling as the droplets cascaded over her wings, hurtling, harpooning, back towards Captain Pip. Even as he beckoned more assailments, this great, grand sailor postured in the mist and sands (she wanted to inquire how many Krakens he’d maimed or destroyed, how many had floated, belly up, from his treacherous regime), she didn’t care, and became thoroughly soaked, tarnished, and drenched from both sieges, a delusional victory in the making. For the moment, it was only play, but in the future, who knew which tales she’d write – if authors would transcribe her in tumultuous details, scoring over the tempestuous nature, the bright, emboldened graces, the feral, ferocious interludes, the layer of pride and dauntlessness ensconced in her gold eyes. Or perhaps they’d paint her broad strokes of nothingness, boldness only savoring her in scalding moments, when she’d run out of luck, out of hope, drained to the last drop, relished and savored only as she became minute and finite. She dared to dream, regardless of destiny or kismet, shrieking and pawing and igniting the world on fire for the sake of her amusements and diversions, to listen to the wind laugh in her ears, to cry out and beckon for more and more and more – greedy for knowledge, hungry for friends, thirsty for the chance to shine and learn.

Then the other joined, away from his solitary waltz along the shore, perhaps enticed by the promise of bloodshed, by the death of a fiend (and then she wondered, briefly in her little, wandering mind, if this was how monsters felt before their deaths, surrounded, yearning to be impervious but realizing, knowing, comprehending that they were about to be consigned back into oblivion).

But she didn’t back down so easily – it wasn’t in her nature to wilt, to wither, to decay back into the fronds, palms, and sands – she was too proud, too fierce, too wild, too savage. So she lowered her skull, elongated her nape, spun movements like a snake, like an asp, like a cobra, fanning out her motions in slinking, serpentine gestures, as if she were a watery Medusa, born and rising from the sea, granted invocations by Poseidon again. Melita hissed, played, pretended, struggled not to laugh in between her motions, and then shifted her wings so they flung out into the water in all directions, sending the ricocheting ripples out in a massive fan – potent, lethal, deadly to foreign crusaders and wishful heroes. “You can’t handle my worst!” The girl boasted, triumphant and thunderous, defiant and rebellious, shifting a little further into the waves, daring them to follow, to trace and beckon against her steps, so they could gulp and gape in the massive swells of her oncoming storm.  

But then, struck by her own convictions, she tripped over something along the lakebed, and was suddenly, instantly, submerged, head dragged underwater by the roll of movements. The water enclosed over her nares and she couldn’t breathe, eyes widened, taking in the sights, the sounds, before panic rose within her chest and she came sprinting, reeling, back up to the surface with a cough, a wheeze, and reverence in her actual voice, astonished by her zealous, ardent mistake. “Whoa! That was awesome!”