Morning Ritual

Morning Ritual

I awake between the cricket and the songbird. Face stretched wide with yawning, a moth alights my brow washed clean with morning dew. It leaves behind the sparkling dust of moonlight, before tumbling away into its daily rest.

The rats in my hair have scattered and the wild becomes unwound by water. A wide-toothed tortoise bumbling slowly upwards and away from my full moon face.

I step into gossamer. Spider silk catching briefly on brambles, slides upwards into dark corners below, while above, satin cups are filled with sweet rosé, almost to overflowing.

I gather the mist from above the lake and wrap it around my body, and tie it with the ribbons of light that are caught within. I save one for last, wrapping it around my throat, feeling the pulse beneath, carrying its warmth from the base of my skull downward and outwards, filling me with light, and warmth.

One step into the light, white, bloom of cotton, a second into the dark space where bodies go, when they are no longer needed, I carry the moon and the sun on my back as dawn breaks over the horizon like shattering glass and the spell is broken.

I know how I must seem to them.

"Did you get dressed in the dark?" They will ask?

And I will smile and say, "Yes."

My name is Story (She/Fae), and I'm not entirely human.