“what do you fear, lady?' he asked. 'a cage,' she said.”; sam

[mutiny]

to know me is to hate me
Is to hate what i’ve become

They just are, she says, and he feels foolish for asking. Perhaps it would have been like someone asking how he became so pitch black, how the antlers grew crooked from his head and the ribs pressed earnestly against his skin. How would he have answered that but to turn away in shame over something he could not control?

And this feels shameful, too, his having asked. His having assumed that this magic belonged specifically to her, that she could make flowers bloom in places they wouldn’t otherwise. If flowers belonged to her in the same way that stars seemed to belong to his mother. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, so quickly that the syllables trip over one another as they tumble out of his mouth.

He thinks to turn to go, to leave her be, to remove himself and his shame and his embarrassment. But she goes on looking at him without turning away, no fear registering in her expression as she tells him to ‘watch this’ and she laughs.

She laughs!
And what a sweet sound it is!
So sweet that he cannot help but to smile uncertainly in response, the row of razored teeth catching in the light before he promptly closes his mouth up again.

This is magic unlike anything he has seen and, for a fleeting instant, he wonders if she might be able to change his color, too. But he does not ask. He only nods an enthusiastic response. Neat, yes.

“It’s okay,” he says this quickly, too. How rare it is that anyone can stand to talk to him at all, let alone for any extended period of time. Perhaps, he thinks, this is the greatest magic of all: that she seems immune to the darkness. “My name is Mutiny.”

He thinks he should have something to offer her in return, but there is nothing. “I can’t do anything cool like that,” he admits. “I just…” he rolls a deep black shoulder and says, “I don’t know, make others afraid, mostly.”

— mutiny