Three Twisted Knots

     I didn’t want wings like butterfly fairies and all that girly girl stuff. I mean, clearly Tinkerbell is an important figure in the feminist revolution and all, but even though I’ve managed to come to terms with looking good in pink, I have no desire to flitter around getting jealous over idiot boys and pumping my friends full of pixie dust. Also, she dresses like a ho-bag. Srsly.

     So I just sat on my bed and thought about wings, what they look like, what it would feel like to have them. I thought about the delicate bones of the sparrow, the wingspan of Quetzalcoatlus, and then I felt something on my back. This being the fucking 3rd century or something, there are no proper mirrors, so I had to run out of my hut and check my reflection in the horses’ watering trough. Luckily, nobody was around: people only seem to come out after dark around here, anyway. I imagine walking with a kite on my back would have felt similar: I felt dragged by the wind and slow on the ground. But when I finally made it across the bailey to the stable, I managed to get a pretty good idea of what the wings looked like. It’s funny: I don’t have any problem thinking of clothes or hair and knowing what looks good on me. But wings? Who sits around going, “Gee, would I look better in blue wings or green?” Not this beeyatch.

     They were white. And a bit shimmery. I can’t make them flutter or flap; they just sit there. Maybe that comes with practice.

     When I got back to my hut, I figured, “Hey, the ceiling’s not too high here– if I’ve got wings, surely I can fly, right?” That doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch, does it? Yeah. Or at least I could jump and fall with style like Buzz Lightyear, maybe.

A tip for the future: dirty floors swept out in a castle bailey and surrounded by very little more than stone and wood? Are HARD.  Before you learn to swim, they teach you how to float, right? I figured it would be the same thing for flying, since flying is basically swimming through air. If you were a person you’d be looking at me like I just landed from Mars, and I’d be telling you that my logic is in fact sound, so stop looking at me that way….anyway, I thought about flying and floating, and I did it! I was so excited, I was like, fuck! I’m flying!

      And then I hit my head on the ceiling and woke up fuck knows how much later, stark naked and wingless, on the EXTREMELY HARD floor of my hut. This is how I know the floor is hard.

     The only thing I sprained was my dignity, and nobody was watching anyway, except maybe some magical fairy-pixie-sprite whose job it is to spy on the very spyworthy residents of Castle Shithole. I am certain this creature exists.

     Later I went into the tavern, and since only Aoibh and Nathaniel were there (he keeps complimenting me on my clothes wtf), I felt safe and showed them my wings. Aoibh asked me if I could fly and I told her about the floating thing and the head bump, and she said I shouldn’t practice alone, but I don’t think Valene can fly. Can Cait-Sidhe fly? That will be my first question, right after, wtf, whiskers? I saw her point, but JC on a PS, if I don’t figure things out on my own, I’ll be an old and wrinkly fairy while all the young fairies are laughing at me because I never learned the secret of eternal youth.

     I think I should kiss Nathaniel again. He keeps doing that gentlemanly flirting with me, but the only place he ever kisses me is on my forehead. I feel twelve. Mummy, why don’t the boys ever chase me? Why do I always have to chase them? There are no answers to that question that make me feel good about myself.