Maple

Maple pauses, eyes averted and wings shifting, as she takes the time to gather her courage with deep breaths before she continues onward. She glances back at the duo, separate from everyone else but still together and pushes back the sting of envy that wells up in her chest like a bubbling cauldron. She watches as Eldritch and Abyssal – both shadow tinted unlike her own terracotta – speak to each other in low volumes, single-minded in their solidarity to each other and wonders if now is the best time.

(They were always separate, isolated together, always just the two of them – was there ever really a best time?)

“Ready, Maple. Okay, ready,” she murmurs, one last breath taken before she exhales as she steps forward, “set,” she treats this as a race, a spur of the moment competition against herself because she wants – she wants to win, to be able to talk to her siblings like they talk to each other; she wants that prize. “And here I go.”

Even as she makes her way towards the two isolated, but not lonely, dragons, Maple can hear her mother’s voice, harsh and demanding, echo in her mind. With it, a memory rises like the tides with the moon.

Allium never acknowledged them as her hatchlings, as Maple’s siblings but she knew; the little hatchling knew that those two were her siblings; dark shadow a sharp contrast to her own terracotta. Maple never had the chance to go forward and take that one step that could’ve changed everything; her mother had always watched, eyes cold and assessing, pulling her away the moment she got too close.

“We don’t associate with the likes of them, Maple. Do well to remember that,” was all her mother said, voice a low hiss of a warning. All Maple could do was nod, swept away by her mother’s strong tail, large wings blocking her last backward glance towards the siblings she could not meet. Not at the moment; not yet.

“Yes, mother” she replied, head bowed and unable to do anything other than follow Allium’s lead. Very much like her father.

“He—uh, hi guys!” she starts, blinking at her siblings as their conversation pauses and ‘ah, oops. Maybe I should’ve waited until they were finished talking.’ She manages a nervous sort of laugh, unsure of where to go from here despite having gone through this before. “S-so, uh, nice weather for uh, walking around, ain’t it?” she tries to strike up a conversation; both her siblings merely looking at her for a moment before they lock gazes despite one being unseeing. (Abyssal always had that eerie sort of ability, and Maple tries to ignore the chills send down her spine at those sightless eyes focused on her. She is unsure of how well she does; but at least Abyssal hasn’t taken it a step further, as she wont to do.) Communicating without words. Like actual siblings that knew and understood each other. Not for the first time, despite their shared blood, Maple feels very much like an outsider intruding on their territory. She ignores the stabbing pain it causes to her chest, endless little pinpricks of sharpened needles, like she ignored how she’d always failed Allium’s assessing judgement. Drawing from the courage she got with each breath, tucking the pain away to deal with later when she was safe, within one of her many hideaways, to regain the strength she just lost at this very moment.

Instead, she manages to ask, hopeful and more than a bit eager, “do, do you wanna go for a walk, or look around or something? Since you know, the weather’s all nice and stuff…?” She trails off, watching as they go back to their silent conversation before it is Abyssal that steps forward, speaking even as Eldritch turns away. It hurts, but as much as she wishes as otherwise, Maple is used to his abrupt, silent dismissals. “We’re a bit busy, so I’m afraid we’ll have to decline your invitation.” she apologizes without sounding the least bit sorry before following after her – their, he is Maple’s brother too – brother. There’s crushing disappointment as she watches her two shadow colored siblings walk away, both comfortable alone together in a way she could not experience.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, okay; may—maybe next time then!” she manages to call, before her voice catches in her throat, disappointment catching up to her far more quickly than it had before. She takes a breath, shuddering and near heaving, trying to collect herself. ‘Next time,’ she promises within the safety of her mind, still nothing more than a whisper, ‘one day.’

After all, she had managed a decent conversation with their father, Gladiolus; progressing more and more each passing interaction. Perhaps it is a side of her that she holds close and hides away, like the little crooks and crannies that she found when she was but a hatchling wandering the territory, but there are times Maple can’t help thinking that Allium’s passing was the first step. To coming together. To acknowledging their blood. To healing.

They weren’t close to healed, all scattered shards and broken edges, but it was a step. And Maple could only hope – drawing from it strength and courage and everything that’ll make them a proper family – that, eventually, it would happen. They’d be a family, cracked and jagged, but together. Eventually.

“One day.”

Lore by ShurINKen


Art by DinoGirl500~