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It starts at a playground.
Amelia doesn’t struggle in school, she doesn’t find it very hard to begin with, but she doesn’t feel connected like the other kids seem to be. Everyone forms groups. They have a friend to go to and play with. Amelia had been naturally drawn to the trees, digging her nails into the dirt to find worms. Maybe she didn’t get the memo that making friends early was imperative, because now everyone had a group. She’s singled out.
It’s not bullying, but the three boys in front of her are making jokes at her that she doesn’t really understand.
“She definitely eats bugs.” One says. “I saw her eat one.”
“I don’t do that.” Amelia protests. “I was trying to feed the birds.”
“Worm fingers! She’s got worm fingers!”
One of them is holding a volleyball. He doesn’t throw it at her. He aims at the puddle near her feet, splashing water and mud against her calves. Amelia flinches. The boys are laughing as they go running after the ball. She’s left alone, rubbing mud off her cheek and wondering what the stinging sensation in her chest was. Her hands feel inexplicably dirty. She’d been dusting them off on her shorts, but now she feels yucky and filthy. It felt exposed, with the boys' jeers still ringing in her head. She doesn’t want to leave the trees, not even when the bell rings and the other students are lining up to be let back into the school.
“We’re missing one.” She hears a teacher call. “Where’s Amelia?”
“She went home!” One of the boys says. “I saw her crawl under the fence! She was looking for bugs!”
“Yeah!”
Amelia wants to say, no, I’m still here. The teachers lead the class inside and she knows, dreadfully, that the school will call her uncles now. She hides in the trees. She crouches close to the dirt and draws shapes. A triangle. A bird. There’s no one out here to reassure her she doesn’t eat worms.
“Hey.” A voice quietly interrupts her thoughts.
Amelia looks up. The fence is nearby. It’s a chain link fence surrounding the school property from the rest of the town. There’s a stranger leaning against the fence. She has a blue hoodie, the hood pulled up over her head. Wispy white hair falls outside the jacket. She has sharp eyes, big wells of blue that look sad. Angry.
Amelia pulls her hands to her chest. She’s too shy to talk.
“You okay?” The girl asks. “I saw what they did.”
“Who?” Amelia asks. “They didn’t do anything.”
The girl frowns, “... Okay, sure. What’re you doin’ out here though?”
Amelia doesn’t know. She knocks her knuckles together, feeling mud under her nails and shame on her neck. If she goes inside, she’ll get scolded for sure. If she stays out here, her uncles will be upset. She’s stuck miserably hoping she could restart the whole day over again.
The blue girl shifts on her feet, “Jeez, you’re quiet.”
Amelia stares at her through her bangs.
The girl smiles a little, “When do you get sassy? I feel like I’m talking to a ghost right now.”
“Are you talking to me?” Amelia asks.
“No, don’t worry about it.” Blue girl flaps her hand dismissively, “I was just making sure you’re okay.”
Amelia feels less trepidation with that said. She’s supposed to be wary of strangers, she is, but it’s nice to be worried over. She doesn’t approach the fence from her spot, but she doesn’t want to stop talking with the strange girl either.
“I’m okay.” Amelia brushes her fingers off on her knees. They were covered in muck anyway. “I was looking for bugs.”
“Yeah, I heard.” The girl’s lips lift up into a fond smile. Amelia doesn’t read it. She’s caught up in the idea that this girl heard the boys call her worm fingers. She’s hunching her shoulders. The girl asks, “Find any good ones?”
“No.” Amelia mutters.
“Are you still looking?”
“I’m in trouble.” Amelia mumbles. “I feel bad.”
The girl’s shoulders sag, “Oh man, don’t do that, Ame, you’ll be fine. You did disappear on them. They’re just worried.”
Amelia purses her lips, “You guessed my name.”
“I- What?” The girl stutters. She’s laughing sheepishly, “Shoot. I’m not good at this. How am I supposed to talk to a tiny version of you? You’re microscopic.”
Amelia doesn’t understand half of what was said, “Soft-ic?”
“Microscopic.” The girl repeats. Her voice is getting tingly gentle, her posture slouching against the fence. “... You’re really small.”
Amelia says, “You said that.”
“I did, yeah. You’re tiny. How old are you?”
Amelia holds up her hands to count the fingers off. Six. She shows off her hands and the girl sags like a weight was added on to her.
“Dude.” The girl says severely. “Oh my god.”
“What?” Amelia asks, alarmed.
“No, no it’s okay.” The girl waves her hand. She looks dazed in a happy way. “This is crazy. No one is going to believe I found you.”
Amelia shifts on her heels. She’s wondering if she should be doing something. Running away or asking questions. She’s focused more on the dirt under her nails.
“Here.” The girl says suddenly. “Actually, yeah, here. You can have this.” She’s pulling something out of her pocket. Amelia stares, unsure. The stranger holds out her closed fist. “C’mon, you’ll love it.”
“Are you a bad guy?” Amelia asks.
“Nah.” The girl grins and she looks like she has a bad guy smile. It’s a lot of sharp teeth. “I’m your goodest guy. Wouldn’t hurt you at all.” She opens her hand to show off her prize. It’s a few pink and blue hair clips. Amelia perks up. She doesn’t know how to use those yet, usually her uncles put her hair up for her. She likes the bright colors. It draws her closer, away from her huddle on the ground and stepping close to look.
Up close, the girl towers over her, yet still struggles to fully reach over the fence. She can see something hanging from the back of her pants that Amelia can’t fully comprehend. The hair pins are more interesting. She takes a pink one cautiously.
“You can have them all.” The girl says.
“Oh.” Amelia says. “Can I? Are you sure?”
“Go on.”
It’s a handful that she stuffs into her pockets. She keeps fiddling with the pink one, enamored with the color, imagining it pulled apart and bent like a fallen sci-fi ship into a big bundle of moss. The stranger is still looking at her.
“My name is Amelia.” Amelia says. “Hi.”
“My name is Gura.” The girl replies, grinning sunnily at her. “Hi. Do you wanna go back to class?”
Amelia knows she should. She fidgets, snagging her nails against the clip in her hands. She doesn’t move.
Gura has a nice smile, despite the teeth, and the thing behind her starts to sway back and forth like a puppy dog tail, “Wanna go home?”
“I’m in trouble.” Amelia reminds. She wants to go home, but she’s afraid to disappoint her uncles.
“I just-” Gura says, like she’s arguing, but she keeps stopping herself. “I don’t wanna just leave you here.”
Amelia doesn’t know what that means. She relies on what she knows best and holds up some grass.
“Do you want to dig for bugs with me?” Amelia asks.
Gura has strange wet eyes and her smile is twice as big, “Maybe next time, sunshine. Do you wanna play after school?”
“I’ll be grounded, I think.”
“When you’re ungrounded.”
“Will you be there?”
“Yeah.” Gura says softly. “Don’t worry.” She starts to laugh incredulously, like the idea of not showing up was so out of the question that it was absurd. “I’ll be here.”
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Gura was there four days later when Amelia could play again. There’s a lot of screaming and laughter around her as other children run from the school, heading home. Amelia looks at the fence and perks up. At her spot is that girl again, waiting.
She goes there. Gura has spotted her long before she spotted Gura. The thing behind her kind of looks like a tail when it swings back and forth.
“Hey.” Gura looks down at her with a crooked grin. “How was school?”
“We learned about rocks.” Amelia says. “I don’t really get it.”
“Sounds boring.”
Amelia nods empathetically. She doesn’t wanna go around the whole fence nor does she wanna rejoin the mass of kids swarming out the front gates. Instead, she holds up her arms imploringly. Up, she thinks.
Gura’s expression wobbles, “Aw, okay, c’mere champ.”
She’s lifted up over the fence with a small grunt of effort. Amelia immediately settles, prying out some of the hair clips in her pockets. Gura shifts her balance, caught off guard. She’s been letting Amelia go like she intended to put her down. She’s not holding Amelia as securely as her uncles do. It’s like she doesn’t know how to.
Amelia shows off the hairclips, “Here, I still have them. I bent them.”
“Huh?” Gura looks at her hands. The hair clips have been bent into a loose chain. Amelia thought about making a necklace with it but she doesn’t know if it makes for good jewelry. She forgot what colors Gura had been wearing when she first met her so it’s all mismatched. Now she realizes she should have made them all blue. She frowns.
“It’s not very good.” Amelia admits.
“It’s neat.” Gura says, though she doesn’t sound like she gets it. “You’re supposed to put them in your hair.”
She demonstrates by plucking one and sliding it into Amelia’s bangs. It kind of pinches and Amelia winces. Gura tucks her hair back, humming as she fixes it behind Amelia’s ear.
“There we go.” Gura says wryly. “Sheesh, just need to get you a monocle clip and you’re a walking replica.”
“Repl ee -?” Amelia tries to repeat.
“Replica.” Gura says.
“Repli cuh.” Amelia says.
Gura laughs, “Wait, say my name.”
“Gura.”
“Aw, no, say it like you usually say it.”
Amelia frowns, “How do I say it?”
“ Gouda.” Gura says, sounding it out in a weird way.
“Gouda.” Amelia says. “Do you like cheese?”
“No, that’s just how you say it.”
Amelia doesn’t get it, but Gura seems happy, so she says her name with an inflection. Gura has an extra dah sound on it now that Gura smiles at. When Gura asks, Amelia points her down the street towards home. She doesn’t know the street names very well, so she ends up pointing a lot. It feels like she’s in control, which usually isn’t the case when an adult is carrying her. She’s excited.
“Can we go that way?” Amelia points down a separate street.
“Is that home?” Gura asks.
“No, I wanna go exploring.”
“I don’t wanna get lost.”
“Please?” Amelia asks. “It’ll be fun.”
Gura glances down at her with raised eyebrows, “You’ll get in trouble.”
Amelia is fine with this. The excitement changes when Gura readjusts her, apparently too uncomfortable with holding Amelia, instead opting to piggyback her around. This felt more like exploring. Amelia points and Gura follows. It’s exhilarating and she can’t stop grinning. She’s tall enough that she can swipe her hand up at low hanging trees. Gura isn’t as tall as her uncles, but being up high is always a novelty.
When Gura sets her down near her house, she says, “I’m getting in trouble too, you know.”
“Say hi to my uncles.” Amelia implores. “You’re a good guy. They’ll understand.”
Gura grins with her not good guy smile, “Aw, shucks, that’s cute but that’s not who I’m gonna be in trouble with.”
“Mom and dad?”
Gura laughs, “Kiara would get a kick out of that.” She’s crouching down to fix Amelia’s hair clip, tucking it behind her ear, “Not really mom and dad, but they’re my best friends and they told me I might be messing things up.”
Amelia frowns, “You’re making a mess?”
“Not really.” Gura drawls, like she’s unsure what to say. “I mean, you didn’t leave us with any instructions or anything, so what do I know?”
Oh, now she gets it. She says, “Be my friend.”
Gura blinks at her. Slowly, she’s grinning, and then outright laughing.
“I mean,” Gura says, “It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Cause you knew me first.”
“Feels like you know me first.” Amelia counters.
Gura tweaks her nose, “You’re like, four, you’re not supposed to be smart this quickly.”
“Six!” Amelia says.
“And I’m a ten.” Gura says. She hesitates as she stands, like she’s realizing it's time to go. Amelia didn’t even notice that she’d grabbed Gura’s pant leg until Gura was staring at it.
“Can we play again?” Amelia asks.
“Grounded.” Gura reminds her softly. She sounds like ocean tides, kind of cool but sad. “We might not see each other that much, sunshine.”
Amelia doesn’t like those words, “Why not?”
Gura doesn’t say anything, her lips drawn together tightly. Instead, she opts to give Amelia a hug. Amelia feels better with that. Saying goodbye didn’t feel so sad when Gura gives nice, warm hugs.
“We’ll see each other again.” Gura promises, leaning back to grin at her. “Try not to grow up too fast, alright?”
“I wanna be as tall as you.” Amelia says.
Something about that must have been funny, because Gura nearly trips and falls from how hard she loses it. It takes an encouraging nudge from Gura to get her to go home. She tries to explain to her uncles, really, that sharp teeth might be a good guy thing, but they don’t believe her and she’s grounded for two weeks. At the end of it, she’s hoping to see Gura leaning over the fence at school, waving at her.
Gura never shows.
Amelia spends the rest of her school year collecting rocks by that spot. She doesn’t make many friends, but she doesn’t feel the need to when she’s got one already. Somewhere.
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She learns uncomfortably quickly that she’s too smart for her own good. Her auntie had reassured her that it’s just family blood in her brain. Her uncles were the smart detectives after all. She tells them they need to take their blood back and they think she’s funny, patting her head.
Normal kids when they turn eight might get a toy or a video game, but Amelia is put in uncle John’s office and quizzed on biology for the better part of the day. She passes the test and, thankfully, her reward is ice cream and a cupcake with a candle she gets to blow out. Her present is a magnifying glass in the shape of a dinosaur. Her other uncle who doesn’t want to be called anything other than uncle- he tells her all she needs to know about microscopes and perceptual reasoning. It’s a lot to take in one day.
The day after, she’s given her first mission as a detective in training.
Go buy milk.
“John.” Auntie says, in that tone that’s maybe a hair's breadth away from scolding. She’s smiling though so it can’t be that serious.
Her uncle waves her off as he hands her cash, “How much is this, Ame?”
“Five dollars.” Amelia says.
“Good girl. Now remember what we’ve said about strangers.”
She does. The convenience store is only two blocks away. The walk home from school is longer. She’d never been to the convenience store alone, nor had to talk to employees there. She puts her chin up and marches forward, swerving around shopping carts and trotting her way towards the cold foods. She needs both hands to hold the gallon of milk, frowning as she realizes she doesn’t have the upper arm strength to lift it up onto the cashier’s belt. There’s a boy waiting behind her in line, a scraggly teenager with a scary face. She holds up the milk.
“Can you put it up?” She asks.
He raises his eyebrows at her. Instead of helping, he asks, “Are you here alone?”
“No.” She says. “My auntie is in the bathroom.”
“Just wait for her.” He says. “Let me go first.”
Amelia frowns. Cutting in line always made her angry at school. “No.”
He shifts on his feet, “Do you even have money? You’re holding up the line.”
“I have five dollars.” Amelia says. That’s what she counted.
“Show me.”
She sets the milk down testily, annoyed, but triumphant when she fishes out the cash and presents it. See! I’m not holding up the line! In the blink of an eye, her cash is gone and the teenager is slipping out of the line with a laugh.
Amelia shrieks, “Give it back!”
He’s strolling out the front door, moving around people like it’s effortless. Amelia feels like a stumbling fawn in comparison, abandoning the milk on the floor to bolt after the thief. Outside, she looks up and down the street, her heart hammering. What would her uncles say? They’d never trust her to do this again. She had to prove she could. She can’t mess this up.
There he is. He’s rushing across the road.
Amelia tears after him, jumping down the curb, “Give it back, it’s not yours!”
Someone, she thinks, is screaming. She loses sight of the thief as he ducks into an alley, quick, too quick for her to catch up. She too focused on that and not the alarming squeal of tires, loud, loud-
She’s tossed down to the concrete fast, a weight crashing down on her. She’s frozen, her heart fluttering wildly, scared. Did I get hit by a car? The idea was too scary for words. She’s starting to cry.
“Shit, shit, shit.” The weight against her moves, arms that are holding her gently helping her sit up. “Jesus fucking shit, holy shit, what the fu-”
Another voice, a volcano threatening to burst over the crowd, “You better run! I’ll cut your heart out!”
Amelia sniffles. The person holding her has bright pink hair, long over her shoulder. Her jacket is dirty from rolling on the ground. A few feet away, a truck is stopped, dark black skid marks swerving away from them on the concrete. She hadn’t been hit. She’d been saved.
“Hey.” The pink girl’s hands are shaking as she's touching Amelia’s arms. She hadn’t realized she’d scraped them. Her palms are burned from the concrete and her elbows are bruised with blood. She barely feels it, instead trying to wipe at the tears blurring her vision. “Hey, it’s okay, yeah? Shit, it’s okay, don’t worry, we got you.”
“And who the hell do you think you are?” Another woman is looming nearby, fire wisping off her as she stands with her hands on her hips before the driver's door. “Yeah, you better unlock this, I'm coming in there one way or another!”
Amelia hiccups on a sob. She feels too small next to these adults and the truck. She doesn’t have her five dollars and now her hands hurt. The pink woman rubs at her shoulders, ducking her head to try and look her over for more injuries. Her eyes are apple red.
“Oh, man, your knees.” The woman hisses. Amelia looks down. She’s wearing a skirt but it was long enough to cover her knees. It didn’t save them, nor her stockings. The cloth was torn and there was blood dotting on her skin. The pink woman is shrugging off her jacket, “Hey, shh, it’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry.” Amelia sobs. It feels like her fault.
The woman’s expression crumples, “No, no way, you’re fine. Don’t worry-”
A man is arguing loudly, “She just ran out in the middle of the damn road-!”
“Well maybe fucking look!” The fire woman is yelling.
The jacket falls snug around her, more of a blanket than a coat. Gently, she’s being scooped up. Amelia curls, afraid, but the pink woman has strong arms. She carries her out of the road and to the sidewalk.
“Kiara!” The woman calls back sharply, “Give it a rest, please!”
“You’re so lucky!” Kiara finishes off her rant, kicking her heel against a tire as she walks away. The tire itself is steaming ominously. That’s as much as Amelia gets to see before the pink woman is setting her down, her hair curtaining away Amelia’s world.
She has a nice smile, even if Amelia can barely see through her tears.
“Are you here with anyone, Ame?” She asks, cotton candy soft and warm. “Your family? Are they near?”
Amelia doesn’t know if this is a stranger or not. She knows my name. Maybe she’s friends with her uncles? She sniffs and shakes her head.
“That’s okay.” The woman says. “All fine. We’ll get you home. Kiara-?”
The other woman is crouching, everything about her bringing a waft of heat with her. Her hair had been sparking before, Amelia was sure of it. Her voice had been scary when angry, but now, it’s masked with worry and fear. She has pretty eyes. They look like gemstones.
“Oh my god, no.” Kiara whines. She’s palming at Amelia’s hands, “I’m going to cry, like actually-”
“Kiara.” It’s said fondly, with a helpless smile, “She’s okay.”
Kiara is touching around her scrapes. Amelia winces, feeling a fresh wave of tears. Kiara makes a noise, “Calli, I’m going to commit a homicide.”
“No you’re not.” Calli says peacefully. She’s glancing behind them at the store. “We can get some bandaids real quick?”
“Yes!” Kiara says, perking up. She looks misty eyed herself, smiling feebly at Amelia. “Hi, that was all super scary, wasn’t it?”
Watery eyed, Amelia nods. Kiara feels strong, just in the set of her shoulders alone, not to mention the sheer temperature increase being near her. Being coddled by her isn’t wholly a bad thing. She’s lifted off the ground, tucked into Kiara’s arms. Kiara is checking her hands some more, humming sadly in her throat.
“Oh, Ame.” Kiara sighs.
“I’m sorry.” Amelia wobbles. “I’m-”
“Oh no, no it’s okay, just-” Kiara flounders helplessly, tucking blonde hair aside and fretting over the dirt on her face, “You’re so small. ”
“She’ll be fine, Kiara.” Calli says, hovering beside them. It doesn’t sound like they’re talking about the truck anymore. Amelia rubs at her eyes and winces everytime dirt and gravel gets stuck in her eyelashes. She spends most of her time clenching her hands from the pain. The cool air of the convenience store at least feels nice.
They’re good, orange and pink. They compliment each other. They have nice smiles too. She stops crying when Kiara cleans her hands and bandages them. She feels cool now, like those warriors on TV who punch and wield swords.
She says as much and Kiara grins, “You’re a warrior too?”
“Too?” Amelia echoes.
“I’m a phoenix warrior, you know.” She boasts. She has Amelia propped onto the sink counter of the convenience store bathroom. It’s better for her to put bandaids over Amelia’s knees. “It’s my job to protect little humans like you. My name is Kiara.”
“I’m Amelia.” She says. “Are you both warriors?”
Calli huffs from her corner, “I’m just Calli.”
“Oh, sure.” Kiara says.
Amelia holds her arms up to be held. Kiara giggles and lifts her, uppies, and holds her much better then Gura ever did. She’s a natural.
“Your arms are huge. ” Amelia marvels.
“I cannot hear that without laughing.” Kiara says brightly. “You say it way too cute and innocent, when later-”
“We should get her back.” Calli cautions, but she’s grinning too. She nudges Kiara’s hip. “Don’t pout.”
Amelia is pouting too when she’s set on her feet outside. She’s told it’s better if they don’t follow her, she understands since getting grounded, but her wallet is empty and she has nothing to show for it. Kiara gives her a hug, encompassing and smothering and warm.
“One day,” She swears quietly into Amelia’s hair, “We’re going to be best friends.”
“We can do that now.” Amelia says simply.
Kiara leans back to give her a swimming smile, “We can, can’t we?”
She waves goodbye to them, cataloging them in her head as phoenix warrior and squire (?). It makes her excited, imagining cars as dragons and knights capable of defeating them always ready to rescue her. She feels less afraid when she goes home.
Her auntie greets her in the kitchen with a smile, “Good work, honey.”
“What?” Amelia asks. “Auntie, actually, the money-”
“Yes, your uncle found the change on the counter.” She says. “Next time, give it to him yourself, alright? You did a great job.”
What? Answers form a mystery. There’s a gallon of milk she never bought in the fridge. Her uncles praise her but she’s certain she never bought a gallon of milk. Some hedging gets them to admit they didn’t actually see her put it in the fridge.
It’s the first inkling of a mystery, gently hooking itself into her bones.
“Uncle John.” She asks. “Do you know any warriors?”
.
.
When she turns ten, she spends it alone.
There’s white sheets over the furniture of her house. Adults she doesn’t know hover around her worriedly, murmuring to her in gentle tones but telling her there was an accident, sweetie, we’re very sorry-
The graveyard is six miles away. It’s an hour walk. She spends her evenings on a bench, ice cream dripping over her fingers. Eventually, she doesn’t have money for ice cream. She sits and nothing happens. Nothing happens for a long time, but the days blur together and her eyelids feel heavy.
And one day, lightning strikes the graveyard.
Amelia startles, her legs slamming against the bench as she scrambles to her feet. She thinks she might have shrieked, but her ears are ringing. The grass has caught fire on the other side of the graveyard. She stares over at it, her heart pounding. She’s worried about the fire spreading but she’s wary of lightning. It’s dark out and she can’t tell if it’s cloudy or not. When no other lightning occurs, she tiptoes her way over to find a crater.
There’s a girl curled up in the center of it. She’s dressed outlandish and strange, a blue cape and tiara made of chains on her head. She’s hurt, her clothes torn and bloody, burns cascading up her arms and over her back.
Amelia is struck frozen for all of four seconds before she’s sliding down into the crater. The earth is hot against her feet here. She tries to put forth what warriors would do. Phoenix warriors aren’t scared of anything.
“Hey.” Amelia calls, crouching beside the girl. She’s barely taller than Amelia, dark navy locks of hair messy with blood. She doesn’t respond, but she’s alive. Her breathing is heavy and her skin is sticky with sweat. Amelia hesitantly touches her shoulder, “Hey? Are you… okay?”
The girl curls up tighter and groans. Amelia makes a decision. People are gonna investigate the fire and she’s certain this girl will get in trouble. Amelia would rather have answers. She helps the girl onto her back and piggybacks her back home.
The cape is actually really goofy, she thinks. Her whole outfit looks like it belongs in a history book. She feels guilty about judging her when she feels feverish hot breaths against her shoulder. She’s never had to take care of anyone before. Responsibility was making her nervous. The hour back is grueling on her legs but even worse on her anxiety.
She knows basic medical treatment. Uncle John had taught her that at least before- She bandages the girl and puts her in Amelia’s room. Her bed fit her best, after all. The others looked too ghostly with white curtains and sheets. She understands the term haunted house better without a presence here that’s not memories.
It takes three days for the girl to wake up. When she does, it’s with a bed head so awful she looks like a porcupine. Her eyes are ringed with a dark circle of exhaustion. She’s wiping the drool off her chin and saying groggily, “Where am I?”
“Watson residence.” Amelia says. She’s holding out a water bottle. “You got struck by lightning.”
“What?” The girl takes the water bottle, her expression pinching shrewdly, “Ugh. I can’t believe I have to rely on a human.”
Amelia makes a face. She’s not good at comebacks yet so she says, “Your clothes are stupid.”
A mote of surprise and indignance crosses the girl's face, “My regalia is not stupid. You’re stupid.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yes you are.” The girl huffs. “And I wasn’t struck by lightning. I time traveled.”
Amelia stares incredulously. The longer she looks, the redder the girl's face appears.
“What are you looking at?” The girl snaps, “I’m an empress! I’m the most powerful concept to ever-” She starts to cough, hunching her shoulders and nearly dropping her water. Amelia helps prop her up.
“You gotta stop yappin’.” Amelia says. “You're gonna get really tired.”
“Shut up.” The girl says weakly.
“Hey, you can say thank you. It’s the nice thing to do.”
“Why would I do that?” She draws it out like it’s beneath her. “An empress doesn’t have to be nice to mortals.”
“Weirdo.” Amelia says. “I spit in that bottle, by the way.”
The girl gags, almost tossing the water bottle away. Amelia tells her I’m joking just in time to save it. The girl is sputtering angrily, waving her arm around like she’s brandishing an invisible sword, “You cretin! I’m Ouro Kronii, warden of time, and your ruler, you-!”
“I know warriors taller than you.” Amelia challenges, tilting her chin up, “And I’m Amelia Watson, the best detective in the world.”
Kronii scoffs, “The world is a particle compared to the universe. You’re nothing.”
She’s not going to take that. She’s crawling into the bed, ignoring Kronii shrieking at her to pin her hands down. She’s had ample experience dealing with bullies. She blows a spit bubble. Kronii looks up at her in abject terror.
“Shut up, stop, I’ll do anything, don’t you dare!” Kronii screams, thrashing. “Oh my god, I’ll die, I’ll actually die!”
Kronii is fun to tease. Amelia sits on Kronii’s legs as she recovers, even when Kronii tosses her withering looks for it. Her regalia was all torn and bloody so Amelia lent her some of her own clothes. For once, Kronii wasn’t frowning with disgust. She was adjusting the collar of Amelia’s paw print pajamas thoughtfully. Shy.
“Human clothes aren’t so bad.” She admits under her breath. “It’s very soft.”
“Are you not human or something?”
“I told you, I’m the concept of time itself.”
“You’re just a kid.”
Kronii kicks her hip, “So are you! I’ll far outlive you, so show some respect.”
Outliving people isn’t a mood brightener for her. When Kronii is strong enough to get out of bed, she looks at the house with a pinched expression. Her snarkiness and bite falls off her like a crumbling cliff. The sheer quiet of the household seems like it’s taking Kronii’s energy with it.
Amelia offers her a juice, “So you can time travel anywhere?”
“Anywhere.” Kronii brags. She takes the drink dubiously. “What’s this?”
“Orange juice.”
“What is that?”
“Oho,” Amelia drawls, “Suddenly, not so smart?”
Kronii bares her teeth at her. Amelia can’t help but grin. Kronii is just so fun to tease. Despite all her threats to leave as soon as she can, she’s walking beside Amelia most days, arms crossed and glaring at everything around her. Amelia half wonders what she’s doing. She mentions she’s from the past, probably somewhere ancient where they haven’t invented manners. She looks at the buildings around them on the street with quiet contemplation.
“You don’t recognize me at all?” Kronii asks. “I’m not worshiped at all?”
Amelia blinks at her, “Uh, no?”
Kronii simmers on that. Amelia buys her some normal clothes that Kronii protests about the whole time, making the whole shopping experience gruesome and snippy. She’s far less testy when she’s wearing a little snake hoodie. Amelia feels smug about that. She introduces her to video games, ice cream and fireflies. Kronii feigns disinterest, but her expression when she tries ice cream for the first time puts a hole in that.
One day, her bullies corner them.
“Are you finally leaving, worm girl?” One drawls. “Your pops isn’t paying for you to stay here and take up the place now that he’s dead.”
Amelia doesn’t even throw a punch. She doesn’t have to, because Kronii is waving around an invisible sword, except it actually is a sword, a clock hand sharp enough that it resembles a rapier. She has it pointed at the boys threateningly.
“Low life scum like you wouldn’t know how to put a venomous word between their teeth without choking on it,” Kronii says.
Amelia only understood half of that. She doubts the bullies absorbed even a word of that while they were running away. She stares at the back of Kronii’s head. She stares long enough Kronii whirls on her, her face glowing crimson.
“Knock it off!” Kronii hisses. “Are we going to play video games or what?”
Amelia grins. She’s never made a single friend that’s stayed and Kronii stays with her for six months. She hesitates to call them best friends. Kronii is high and mighty and squirms away from affection like that. But she has a big swooping laugh when she lets it out and a mischievous fanged grin. She’s fun.
One day, Kronii looks out the window, far away, and murmurs, “I need to stop running away.”
“From the past?” Amelia guesses, only a little put down about it.
Kronii fidgets, “I don’t want to. I messed up. I hurt my friends.”
“Say you're sorry. They’ll understand.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I dunno.” Amelia is ten and she doesn’t really get a lot of things. It’s too complicated to try and figure out a war between conceptual beings, so she makes a lunchbox. In the morning when she hands it to Kronii, Kronii looks like she might cry.
“Orange juice, some cookies, and a sandwich.” Amelia recites. She sounds like auntie when she does it like that, right before Amelia would go to school. It makes her feel sad. “Enough cookies to share, too.”
“Cookies won’t solve everything.” Kronii whispers. She’s holding the lunchbox close to her chest, “What if they hate me forever now?”
“You’re nice.” Amelia offers. She doesn’t know enough about the situation to give more than that. It makes Konii hunch in on herself, like the world is crushing her.
Before she leaves, she puts a silver watch in Amelia’s hand. When it touches her skin, it turns gold, growing warm enough it nearly burns her hand.
“What’s this?” Amelia asks.
“Time travel.” Kronii answers simply, shyly. “... so we can meet again.”
Amelia clutches the watch close to her chest. They both stand apart from each other, clinging to their gifts like lifelines. A spell breaks and Amelia hugs her, Kronii's arms tight around her back.
“Humans aren’t so bad.” Kronii admits, her voice shaking.
Amelia jabs her in the ribs.
.
.
A stranger at the market gives her a box of cookies.
Amelia frowns at it suspiciously, but it’s definitely her favorite kind. She looks up at the strange lady, not sure if she should thank her or tell her she doesn’t want to be poisoned. The stranger is already walking away, blending seamlessly into the crowd as if she was molded by it. Not a word, only the glimpse of a fond smile before they’ve all but disappeared.
Her cloak had kind of looked like wings.
.
.
She’s twelve and loneliness hits her so hard that it almost feels too difficult to breathe. She can’t spend one moment in that house, not today, not when her head feels like she’s sick and her heart aches enough that distance doesn’t feel like enough. Grief is raw and tangible. The rain helps. God, does it help. Cold water soaking into her shirt and leaving her drenched is a feeling indescribable and free. She sits at a bus stop. Something about it feels like she’s slotting into place, that a road she’d been looking for had aligned with her.
An umbrella blocks out the sky.
“My, my,” A voice drawls sweetly, “Look what the cat dragged in.”
Amelia glances up through her fringe. A woman is sitting beside her, poised and graceful. She’s wearing a fancy kimono, the sleeves long and droopy. Her hair falls in purple waves down her back. She’s smiling, a gentle curve to her lips, but her eyes a fathomless shadow. Deep sadness that feels like it’s carving Amelia out. Her bangs look weird.
“You’re a little young to be sitting here.” The woman comments solemnly.
“I’m old enough to ride the bus.” Amelia grumbles. “I don’t need help.”
Take me away from here, she thinks to the world, take me far away and don’t ever bring me back.
It feels like the woman knows, “You won’t like the bus that stops here.”
Amelia stays silent, dripping contempt and misery. Her bench partner doesn’t take it personally. She looks concerned, and sad. Knowing.
“I tried to-” Amelia stutters, feeling like she needs to explain. “I tried to go back and fix things but nothing ever ended up right. My uncles don’t listen and auntie doesn’t trust me and I end up ruining my own childhood and I can’t- I can’t do that, I had good memories, I-”
“It’s okay.” The woman says, still waters and evening breeze. “Some things just aren’t meant to be changed.”
“You don’t understand.” Amelia throws out under her breath, curling her arms around her knees.
“I don’t.” The woman agrees, peacefully, gentle, and Amelia can’t be awful when this woman is being so kind. It’s hard to. Her shoulders are drooping with defeat. The woman casts her arm around Amelia’s shoulders. Her sleeves are silky. It feels like a blanket. Safe. “But I can listen.”
Amelia sniffles, “I’m sorry, I’m being mean.”
A quiet laugh, “I don’t think there’s a mean bone in your body, Ame.”
She sits up straight. “You-” But the woman is gone, a whisper of a laugh on the wind, the rain a gentle drizzle on the umbrella left in her hand. She holds it in bewilderment. Her heart hammers wildly. Ame, Ame, Ame.
The hooks of an old mystery are digging into her again.
.
.
She opens and closes her watch thoughtfully.
There’s pictures of people on a wall, photographs from newspaper clippings and websites. One headline she cut out reads Blazing woman in the sky?! There’s a blurry picture of a hand, reaching across the stars, a silhouette so grisly horrifying it’s unreal. Strange plant life in the north. Deadly sea creatures. A woman in the middle of a wide shot crowd, the headline unrelated, but the snake hoodie unforgettable.
“Now then,” Amelia Watson grins, “Who first?”
.
.