I imagine her like this: all knees & elbows, hair a matted fury, barely willing to wear the tunic that barely fits her, barely eating before she barefoot tears into the dappled morn.
The things she puts in her mouth, oh--the tummyaches she has, oh!--before she learns the leaves & mushes & worms that will make her strong, & those that will make her shit.
I imagine them like this: there is no one to care, they know no different. All they have known is darkness, but their eyes are bright: counting, then consuming, then categorizing.
I imagine him like this: fresh-hatched, smaller than his brother was at hatch-time, but shining of copper like a new coin in the light of the temple; he roars with mock fury; shell still clings to his fierce snout.
He stays small for his age; his brother’s shadow is large, his father’s larger still. But he learns, as small things do, the value of the shadow: he is not hiding; he lies in wait; he sees but is not seen, he sorts right from wrong in this way.
My earliest memory: wrapped in layers of thin blankets on the deck of a creaking wood boat while my mother & father & two older brothers catch fish under the predawn stars; they whisper so I don’t wake, & I am asleep again.
They sit with their sister at a table, both sworn to silence during a many-legged ceremony; she makes them both giggle, & a punitive shriek cuts them to silence again. The two sneak a grin at one another: they cannot be punished for this.
The first time he steps out of the shadow, he is told he has done it wrong! He is to blame! His way is not our way! But didn’t they see? Donaar was born in the light, & to it he will always belong.
The first (& only) time she stumbles, unknowing, into a soft pile of wolf cubs--& she looks one in the eye & it looks in hers, & they hear each other’s thoughts, & wolf-mother bathes Walnut as one of her own, & she is baptized wild.
Service to a god you do not know & a family who does not love you, or death: it is no choice. It creates only bottomless hunger. K’thriss starved, do you see? But then, K’thriss feasted.
They say I’m robust, healthy, strong, but still the youngest; I am a mouth & big eyes & not much use with a fishing pole. So I stay out of the way, & I watch. O lo, the things I see.
Before I am old enough for letters, I know many things, but this in particular: there is no good or bad, & there is no godly reward or punishment. You do as you will--you reap what you sow--& after, you are soil, & you are sand.
Yum Yum Hut Employee Review File 042069: Walter Danky (the dirty one)
Yum Yum Hut Employee Review File 044444: Krisp Drab (the blue one)
Yum Yum Hut Employee Review File 0000002: Rosie Beestinger
A model employee from day one, Rosie has risen through the ranks of the Yum Yum Hut starting as associate fries consultant, all the way to executive associate fries consultant!
Employee has good register skills, poor hygiene, and a habit of pushing vegetarian options on customers despite the fact that we don’t offer vegetarian options at the Yum Yum Hut. It’s all meat all day, baby.
Yum Yum Hut Employee Review file 0000001: Donaar Blitzen
Rosie stands out as the only employee to ever have been given a raise at the Yum Yum Hut, for having inspired the “Stinger Burger,” a pulpy mashed up patty of crushed bee bits. It’s disgusting, no one ever orders it.
Employee wasn’t fired, but has quietly been removed from the schedule for over a year after the “ingredient incident” as well as a creepy demeanor.
