MABEL
If her eyes were wistful, even the tiniest bit sad, forlorn, or downhearted, she wouldn’t have admitted it. Instead, she created as best she could, contorting breathless hymns beneath fangs and wilderness, songs her mother included on their trips to voyages, journeys, and myths in stories, her brothers’ fondness for knights and castles, hoping this one replicated them well. Perhaps that was all she could give them now, after everything else had decayed in the midst, time and space having dual meanings, nothing but ether now.
She would’ve stepped back to survey the work of misshapen art, had another not approached. Instinctively her guard went up, rigid assemblages of spine and shoulders, regarding her features into nothing more than a soulless void, her stare narrowed, promises of predilection if the stranger wasn’t careful (all she had was her bark now, but later, later, later, she promised herself, she promised Evelyn, they’d be more than just infantile cubs).
But then the newcomer bowed, and she tilted her head, trying to fathom how to measure him. A hesitant hand drew out, as if to shake his. “Mabel Occidendum.” The name held no meaning, not anymore (had it ever; save for a decrepit building and people striving to survive?). She breathed and loosened considerably under his praise, stare going back to the castle. “Thank you.” Already launching into explanations, assuming he was some sort of numb Outlander. “It’s memory snow. So when I let it go,” and then she did, hands releasing, rising to back away, “It will stay in place.”
She would’ve stepped back to survey the work of misshapen art, had another not approached. Instinctively her guard went up, rigid assemblages of spine and shoulders, regarding her features into nothing more than a soulless void, her stare narrowed, promises of predilection if the stranger wasn’t careful (all she had was her bark now, but later, later, later, she promised herself, she promised Evelyn, they’d be more than just infantile cubs).
But then the newcomer bowed, and she tilted her head, trying to fathom how to measure him. A hesitant hand drew out, as if to shake his. “Mabel Occidendum.” The name held no meaning, not anymore (had it ever; save for a decrepit building and people striving to survive?). She breathed and loosened considerably under his praise, stare going back to the castle. “Thank you.” Already launching into explanations, assuming he was some sort of numb Outlander. “It’s memory snow. So when I let it go,” and then she did, hands releasing, rising to back away, “It will stay in place.”
I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out
and stretch my claws out
