 “Um depends on what kinda different.” she tells him. “There’s, like, good different like teeth and fire and stuff. And then there’s boring different. Stuff like having some shiny hair or flowers or whatever.” (they both have shiny hair, but its okay for them because they are special in other ways) “And then there’s bad different. Stuff that means you’re probably cheating, like reading minds and faking feelings and stuff like that in your brain, you know? You’re the good kinda different.” She pauses, narrows her eyes, and then nods decisively as if cementing her proclamation. ”I can tell because I’m really smart, and you can trust me because I’m your big sister.”
As if to prove this, Celina reaches forward and taps him gently on the shoulder with her chin, a brief bit of affection. She has wanted to touch them the moment she’d first laid eyes on them in the spring. Even now, the desire to do so remains ever just below the conscious level. He just looked so soft. He is so small and she wants to hug him against her and feel his soft hair, and perhaps squeeze him just tightly enough that he might pop. He is the very best toy she has ever had though, and Dad would not be happy if she broke him beyond repair. Be gentle, she reminds herself.
What she does not tell him, is that she suspects that perhaps she should not be playing with him at all. Dad had sounded rather stern on the subject, and Celina dared not push him. She’d wanted to play with the boys when they were small like fawns, but she “didn’t know how to mind her teeth” and might have scared them away. So instead she has watched, careful and quiet, biding her time like a proper predator. Now, with Dad out of the forest (she’d watched him go with her very own eyes, creeping north) and Nashua alone, the opportunity was finally at hand. He doesn’t look that fragile, Celina decides. She’d been his age when she started learning to fly, and she’d survived.
(Celina does not think Nashua would enjoy the way that Celina had learned to fly, or the method used to teach her. No one had enjoyed that way really, and the fury of her mother upon discovery has made it so Celina hasn’t even dared mentioned it to her father. She pointedly avoids looking toward the cliffs).
Still, old enough. Dad won’t be that mad. And if he is she can blame: ”Elio?”
That is not what she had intended to say, but the other name falls from her lips as she repeats back the name of her brother.
“You know Elio? How? Where did you meet him?” The questions are rapid and she bites down on several more. Celina’s job was to watch for her family. Has she failed? Had Elio managed to sneak into Taiga while she was busy elsewhere? She is less worried for what Elio might have done or said to the obviously unharmed Nashua, and more about what the consequences of this mistake might be. Distracted, she forgets to fully concentrate on what she is doing.
Celina reacts to the golden striped leg thrust in front of her not much differently than she did the eel, snaking her head down and clamping it tightly in her jaws. At the taste of his blood against her teeth she drops it immediately. Celina does not like the taste of horseflesh, having once likened it to swamp muck but dried out and dipped in more muck. She’d not meant to bite him so hard, and so she peers intently down at the marks her teeth have left on him, holding her breath with nervous anticipation.
celina
i'm that bad type, make-your-mama-sad type
make-your-girlfriend-mad type, might-seduce-your-dad type
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@[Nashua]
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