บท 147: I Would Never

DESI

The sun cast long shadows across the room when I swung my legs out from under the blanket. The room was small, simple, but not as nondescript as I’d thought earlier. I dressed in my mother’s clothes - a warrior queen’s attire: a tunic and cape the color of cranberries, the gold and silver armor of a Valkyrie.

Across from the window, a portrait of a shi’lil hung above a dresser. The animal was drawn with colored pencils, with so many swirls between air and sky, horse and wing, that it gave the image a dream-like quality. Something about it drew me nearer, so I walked the few steps from the bed across the warm tiles beneath my feet.

I stared at the drawing for a long time before my eyes wandered downward where I noticed the name scrawled into the corner of the canvas. Mahria.