When I lifted my head from the pillow, I came face-to-face with a young, emaciated girl with blonde hair. My stomach growled at me aggressively and I had never felt such visceral pain in my stomach in my life. I was in such severe pain, but I managed to smile at the young girl and hand out a strawberry to her. “Take mine, too.”

“But Caerwyn, I can see your ribs…” The girl protested.

“Don’t worry about me, Hannah. I’ll be fine.” I replied cheerfully. “I’m not hungry at all.”

Hannah reluctantly took the strawberry from me. “Caerwyn… Where do you think mom and dad are now?”

At the mention of their names, I shivered. Mother had taken apart of my identity from me—something I could never get back, and made into something neither female nor male. I always felt confused. What an awful feeling it was, never to know who you are. If I had stayed, mother would have continued to raise me as a girl, and I couldn’t stand being one.

But Hannah was young and missed them often. I never wanted her to come with me, but she loved me more than our parents and came with me to live on the streets in a city of a different kingdom. Hannah was never in any danger from our parents in the way I was; they subscribed to a strange and foreign human religion that worshipped women and repulsed men. They wanted only daughters, and sons were artificially made to be female-like unless they were assigned to be a mate to a female.

Hannah suddenly held out a star in the shape of a sapphire to me. “I swiped it off of that monstrous rich woman who kept calling us rats.”

I sighed. “Hannah, I don’t want you to steal… I’m sorry I lost my job as a farmhand, but I promise I’ll find another so you don’t have to steal.”

Hannah shook her head. “Caerwyn, that man was working you to the bone and not giving you enough to eat. It’s no wonder you collapsed from exhaustion.”

A moment passed between us, and I realized just how horrible I felt about letting my beloved sister come with me to live in uncertainty. She was my everything, and if I lost her, I would lose everything.

I looked at her in silence for a moment and realized I loved her more than myself. I would die to keep her alive. “Hannah, I’m sending you back to our parents. I’ll just… I hear there’s a place for men like me in the priesthood. A place where I can learn swordplay and I’ll be well taken care of, although I can never marry.”

Tears sprang to Hannah’s eyes and she cried, “what? I’ll never go back to those awful people—not after what they did to you. Do you think I could ever live peacefully in a place where every male child is treated as you were?”

“They love you Hannah; I know you love them, too. You’ll be safe with them, you can live a good life with them. Women have a lot more opportunities in their kingdom, too. You can be anything you want to be.” I told her with tears in my own eyes.

She threw her arms around me tightly and told me, “I’ll never leave you! Never!”

“Hannah, you’re going to die out here if you don’t listen to me. I’ll take you home, and then you’ll forget about me. That’s the way it should be.” I told her adamantly.

“How could you say that?” She sniffled. “I’ll never forget you.”

I grabbed her by the arm and started hauling her toward our old home to the west, but she would not be moved. I said furiously, “can you not see you will die out here if you don’t go back! Can you not see that I would be better off without you if you went back? You aren’t allowed in the priesthood, and I can’t be received by them with you in tow. They made that abundantly clear.”

“I’d rather die out here on the streets with you than go home!” She wept.

And she did die.

She died out on the road with me as I attempted to take her back home. It didn’t matter that I gave her almost all my food and water, she still died before me, and she died right in my arms as we huddled for warmth in the winter season on the roadside.

With a hideous sob, I awakened to her lifeless body and I begged of her, “please wake up… Please wake up.”

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I kissed her forehead and she still didn’t wake up. I held her close and wouldn’t move for minutes as I simply couldn’t stop weeping and sadness enveloped me like a blanket.

I held her for minutes with my eyes closed, and when I opened them, I was weeping in Mother’s embrace.

I asked her with a lump in my throat, “why would you show me such awful moments from their lives?”

“So that you may understand them at all times. In that lies the key to taking the birds out of their heads. Save Caerwyn’s, he has no bird in his head, but he needs something else from you.” Mother explained lovingly as she held me close.

“But how do you know all this, Mother?” I asked her. “Can I rescue from the realm of desire?”

“I know all this because I am always watching you from the realm of desire and I will until your dream is complete, my darling. You must worry for yourself, and stop thinking about me.” She gave me a kiss on the forehead and then, while sniffing horribly from the intense memories I had lived through, I began walking toward a light in the distance until everything went white and I phased back through the mirror in my quarters and collapsed to the ground in tears of what I just experienced.

Paris awoke at the noise I made and dashed to my side. “What happened? Are you okay?”

I looked at him sincerely and all I could think of was that self-loathing little boy weeping alone in his quarters and thinking he deserved it. I could now imagine precisely what it was like to be him. I couldn’t imagine hating myself as much as he did himself. I drew him close and tucked my head in his chest. “I love you. I love you. Even if you don’t.”

“What’s wrong, Mimi? What are you talking about?” Paris asked confusedly. He examined my face worriedly and then hauled me to my feet. “There, there. You must have had a nightmare. Come to bed.”

I let him pick me up and carry me to the bed where he tucked me in. He sighed. “You worry me so much sometimes… It seems like you’re always in trouble.”

“Paris, tell me how it felt to be locked in your quarters.” I begged him. “I can help you. Let me convince you to love yourself the way you love me.”

He raised an eyebrow confusedly. He crouched at the bedside and held my hands. “There are no words to describe hours of upon hours of isolation. And I’ll never love myself the way I love you. My feelings—my life—they’re expendable in favor of yours.”

That sentence horrified me more than any he had previously uttered. “You’re not expendable! I’m sick of men all-too-heartily willing to lay their lives down for me! Your life is just as meaningful as mine!”

I held his face in my hands and tried to coax the bird out in his head like I had with Morgan.

I understand you. I know that sickening self-hatred that clings to your insides and makes you so miserable. That inborn self-hatred born of your own making but exacerbated by a cruel family. Let me ease it…

I thought to myself as I gently stroked his cheeks. For a moment, his eyes turned black, and the blackness seemed to be expanding from his eyes—almost escaping them—his expression was lucid and his consciousness seemed elsewhere.

But then he placed a hand on top of mine. “My life is meaningless in comparison to yours. You make this world so much brighter than I do.”

And he crawled into bed next to me and went back to sleep.

I sniffled to myself. I was unable to coax the bird out. Perhaps I still did not understand him perfectly.

I went to sleep, then, and had terrible nightmares.

__

In the morning, as I bathed and Paris scrubbed my back, I asked him what I wanted to ask him the other night, “Paris, how can your family even arrive in two month’s time? Doesn’t it at least take four months to travel here?”

“It does, but they have a moth that can warp them.” He explained. “It’s a very powerful one that they have to keep under close guard, of course. Father said it would be a quick visit.”

“I see…” I replied. I didn’t even know that a moth could have such magic.

“You look so sad again. You know I can’t stand it when your antennae get all droopy.” He said, giving me a shining smile.

I returned it and then I looked sullenly into the bath water. “I won’t be happy until you love yourself as much as I do.”

Paris said nothing. He just frowned deeply. He couldn’t even lie and tell me what I wanted to hear. He would not utter a word of praise about himself, and it made me so sad.

After a moment I asked him, “Paris, do you mind if I learn to be a physician?”

“Why should you want to do that? There are no wars at the moment, and even if there were, I would never put you in harm’s way.” Paris replied earnestly.

“Well… What if someone gets hurt protecting me and I can do nothing to help them? Please let me learn.” I begged him.

He sighed. “I can’t say no to you when you make that face. Very well, I’ll get the physician to teach you.”

__

Paris held court later, and I joined him wearing a fine red dress. I reminded him to stand up straight and smile, and he confidently went to speak with the men of his court.

I asked the ladies if they knew anything about Paul.

“Oh, the tall, old fellow? Word has it that his wife drowned his two children. It’s just speculation, though.” A woman informed me.

Good lord… Why were people so awful? If that were true, I couldn’t imagine the pain he must be in.

I asked a few more women some more questions about him. “Do you know if he has any interests?”

“He’s a knight; don’t they just like fighting?” A woman replied with a giggle.

I sighed. There was certainly more to him than that.

I looked over at Paris who was having a good time, and I was too, until Paris chuckled when the man he was talking with accidentally spilled wine all over Gerta. He must have not even recognized or remembered she was my sister because other moths were so invisible to him.

I looked down. I couldn’t stand to see the man I loved abuse my sister like this.

But I just had to wait. I had to wait until he loved me so much he would grant anything I asked of him. I was at least halfway to that point. Perhaps in another year I could ask him.

I will write again later.