Dancing

The stories never stay the same.  First she grows wings as she leaps from the cliff; the next time, she lands on the back of an eagle that bares her way to the forests where her true love lies helpless.  1

Some days, she saves him.  Some days, she does not.  Other days, he saves her, or they both die in the helplessness of their situation.  Once, they were star-crossed lovers who fought the elements to be together.  Other times, they are simple people put in a complicated world, facing situations no simple person should face.  Usually, their love is the back-story to the fantastical things they face: dragons, unicorns, wizards and witches, fairies and elves, evil people and good people…2

Sometimes, she’s a farm girl, with mousy brown hair and sparkling brown eyes, able to work with her hands for hours on end and with the determination to get what she wants.  Some days, he’s a prince, with hair as black and glossy as a raven’s wing, face as pale as snow, eyes as blue as the sky.  Or else she’s a tribal maiden, with exotic clothes and markings, living off the land and with her horse, eighteen hands high and as red as blood.  Then he’s a simple wanderer, of clothes and looks of no importance, but a weight to his eyes that can make the most careless person fear.  3

She’s a falcon, he’s a wolf, she’s a mouse, he’s a bear…always changing, always evolving, immortal actors changing clothes to suit their needs and dancing a dance that will never end but revolve on the cycle of life, turning and turning and turning…4

The lack of connections never bothered her.  She loved the winter season the most, because that was when she was allowed to sit at her grandmother’s knee and hear what’s going on now with her two beloved characters.  Are they fairies today, in the spring of their life?  Or maybe they’re royalty in lands that are in a feud and fell in love nonetheless!  Whatever it is, it will be good.  5

They danced in her dreams, among flowers and ribbons and colors, colors everywhere.  All her other dreams scare her afterwards, dull and black.  She thought of them as angels, glowing like rainbows and reaching out with a kind hand towards her face, blessing her with a look.6

Sometimes her grandmother didn’t utter a word, and the young girl fell asleep at her knee, lulled by the fire.  Or she talked about nonsensical things, like the weather, or what her father did today.  What did those matter?  The stories mattered.  7

Years went by, and they thrilled her less and less, until one day she didn’t go to her grandmother’s knee.  There was no point; they were just stories.  Real life became more important, and the stories lost the luster they once glowed with so strongly.  8

Until her grandmother died.  As she sat at the funeral, she cried.  She couldn’t remember what her grandmother looked like, really looked like.  The body in the casket was a husk, and she didn’t want to see it to remember her as dead.  9

All she could remember were the stories.  Of seeing the girl in them, now with dark brown hair twisted into elaborate braids and stone-gray eyes that showed, above all, determination, turning and staring at those who would stop her, then running to the edge of a cliff and leaping off… 10