the lives of butterflies

year 5 - metamorphosis (winter pt.7)

Alair stares over and over at the passage in the book. It felt wrong to read without Kai. That soft, melodic voice of his fit this story, slightly melancholy and wistful. The way he focused, how his ears perked up every time he helped him pronounce a word, his eyes looking at him shyly every time he said something. He sighed, trying to imagine how this would sound with Kai reading.

But it was one day when I woke that a different air had settled over the village that I resided in. Something dark and dreary. Like a raincloud mixed with shadows and the darkness of the past and of unfulfilled desires. A pungent smell had made its way through to my small home, seeping through the windows and the door and curling up in the nooks and corners. When I stepped outside, I felt a strange terror that I had not felt since many years ago, when I first attempted my coexistence with humans.

I walked briskly to the village, feeling the terror strengthen. The animals had left me alone for now, and each human I passed on my way there looked as terrified as I felt. Their pale faces, their eyes wide. I stepped into the village, and at once my terror both dissipated and multiplied at the sight.

"Alli?"

"Merle." He turned to her. Her face was filled with a concern he couldn't remember seeing since the day she confessed that Jacob didn't feel like a real brother. How many years ago was that?

"There's something going on."

"What do you mean?"

"You like Kai."

"Well... yeah. He's my servant." I think.

A heavy silence fills the air.

"Alair, you're in love with Kai."

"...No." It's pathetically resistant. "He... I... we..."

"Go on..."

"We... just started respecting each other more."

"You mean you started respecting him more. He's always been good to you."

"Well, yeah. So, of course I like him a lot more now." His attempts at justifying his behavior fall onto the floor and lie there, dead.

Merle sighs and looks back at her book. She looks back at Alli, who looks strained and defensive. Her eyes narrow as she tries to calmly close her book and place it on the table. He does the same, his book left open. She stands. Her voice is calm, but it's mixed with a sadness that pierces Alli's heart.

"Alair, you are a horrible liar. You are in love with your wolf. Whatever we do now, together, it feels like we're lying. And it's not how we should be with each other." She's holding back tears. All the things she had thought about, coming into reality. His face is full of guilt and apology that he had even tried to cover it up for so long.

She sits next to him. "Do you remember when we met? And then everything we did after we stopped hating each other?" He looks up at her, tears on his cheeks. She takes a deep breath. "When I see you and Kai, I think of that. When you look at him. When you talk with him and laugh with him and walk through the village with him. When he and Jake left, I saw you. You wanted to go with him to the forest. And he looked at you, and he was thinking the exact same thing."

He doesn't know if his tears are because he no longer needs to hide, or from the shame of hiding for so long. He thinks of the days in the schoolhouse, with its comforting silence and old wooden scent. The embrace of their room as they journeyed through words. The rainbow of blossoms as they lay in the meadow with the lives of butterflies passing them by...

And how he forgave his feral soul, nurturing him far beyond his wildest dreams.

Merle's touch is gentle against his tearstained face. Her eyes hold an understanding, an acceptance, and he is wiping away tears from her face, too. They pause and embrace with a gentleness and sincerity not felt by either of them before. When they release each other, they're smiling, the burden of secrets lifting and dissipating in the air.

And he runs.

And she's screaming for him to come back, come back!

But he doesn't.