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annwfynI asked here for story requests. And I am still turning all these stories over in my mind, but I'm slow to write and tend to get distracted. As such, these are taking a while. One day, I'll write them all. Anyway, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twicedead gave me the words 'dark' 'shapes' and asked me to write about Tegan, my ZG Mage. And today I had an idea. The story is about a kinfolk Awakening, turning into a Mage, and how it changes everything in her mind.
Dark Shapes Tegan
There's a doll on the shelf in my bedroom. It's a pretty doll. I made it myself. It's got dark hair and eyes like buttons. Her hair is a tangle of woolly curls, and she has butterfly wings attached to her back.
I've not brought this doll to life. I don't know what she'd do if I did. I mean, what is there to do when you're a pretty girl with butterfly wings other than be pretty, and she can do that quite well without a brain. So she just sits on the shelf, a dark shape in the half lit room.
Sometimes it feels as if most of my life, I've been that doll. I've been pretty and I've been loved and hated for it. I've been treasured and trapped, but in all that I've never been expected to have any agency of my own. Men have wanted to own me, protect me, use me, fight for me...
It's getting dark now, and the doll is even more of a blur on that shelf. She's fading away in the darkness, and suddenly I realize that I don't mind that anymore. She can fade away. She can vanish. She can go.
I've changed, you see. I'm not the creature I used to be. I'm not a doll. That all changed, when Michael unleashed hell on this world. In amidst the riots and killings, I had to change. I found something new inside myself. I realized that I was more than something pretty and useless. And now...
God, it's dark. I walk across to the windowsil and fiddle with the lamp. I don't like electricity. I don't see the need for it anymore. It fills the room with a soft golden glow.
Beside the little fairy doll sits another doll I made. It is not pretty. It's dark and hunched over. Its nose hooks downward, and in a clawed hand it clutches a broom. It's a stereotypical witch. It looks at me with beady eyes. If I gave her life she'd be smart. She's talk, she'd change the world. Witches can do that, for all they aren't pretty. Witches live to grow old. Witches don't fade away when their looks go, like a butterfly in autumn.
There are two dark shapes on a shelf in my room, lit up by the soft glow of the lamplight. Three months ago I'd have ended this story by telling you which doll I chose, who I chose to be. I get halfway across the room to do this. I reach out, and then I stop.
I'm not a doll. I'm not a pretty doll. I'm not a smart doll. I'm me. I'm a thousand things, a thousand names. I'm everything I ever could be, and everything I could imagine to be.
Why limit myself to being a doll anymore?
I stand in the lamplight instead, and open my eyes wider than I ever could have done before. There's an old woman standing before me, her eyes as black as old wounds. We reach for each other, and when we touch, it is as if we're both touching the stars.
I'm not a doll anymore.
twicedead gave me the words 'dark' 'shapes' and asked me to write about Tegan, my ZG Mage. And today I had an idea. The story is about a kinfolk Awakening, turning into a Mage, and how it changes everything in her mind.Dark Shapes Tegan
There's a doll on the shelf in my bedroom. It's a pretty doll. I made it myself. It's got dark hair and eyes like buttons. Her hair is a tangle of woolly curls, and she has butterfly wings attached to her back.
I've not brought this doll to life. I don't know what she'd do if I did. I mean, what is there to do when you're a pretty girl with butterfly wings other than be pretty, and she can do that quite well without a brain. So she just sits on the shelf, a dark shape in the half lit room.
Sometimes it feels as if most of my life, I've been that doll. I've been pretty and I've been loved and hated for it. I've been treasured and trapped, but in all that I've never been expected to have any agency of my own. Men have wanted to own me, protect me, use me, fight for me...
It's getting dark now, and the doll is even more of a blur on that shelf. She's fading away in the darkness, and suddenly I realize that I don't mind that anymore. She can fade away. She can vanish. She can go.
I've changed, you see. I'm not the creature I used to be. I'm not a doll. That all changed, when Michael unleashed hell on this world. In amidst the riots and killings, I had to change. I found something new inside myself. I realized that I was more than something pretty and useless. And now...
God, it's dark. I walk across to the windowsil and fiddle with the lamp. I don't like electricity. I don't see the need for it anymore. It fills the room with a soft golden glow.
Beside the little fairy doll sits another doll I made. It is not pretty. It's dark and hunched over. Its nose hooks downward, and in a clawed hand it clutches a broom. It's a stereotypical witch. It looks at me with beady eyes. If I gave her life she'd be smart. She's talk, she'd change the world. Witches can do that, for all they aren't pretty. Witches live to grow old. Witches don't fade away when their looks go, like a butterfly in autumn.
There are two dark shapes on a shelf in my room, lit up by the soft glow of the lamplight. Three months ago I'd have ended this story by telling you which doll I chose, who I chose to be. I get halfway across the room to do this. I reach out, and then I stop.
I'm not a doll. I'm not a pretty doll. I'm not a smart doll. I'm me. I'm a thousand things, a thousand names. I'm everything I ever could be, and everything I could imagine to be.
Why limit myself to being a doll anymore?
I stand in the lamplight instead, and open my eyes wider than I ever could have done before. There's an old woman standing before me, her eyes as black as old wounds. We reach for each other, and when we touch, it is as if we're both touching the stars.
I'm not a doll anymore.
