"You Always Liked Apples Best" for Kcstories
Title: You Always Liked Apples Best
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for what Luna does after Deathly Hallows is finished. No warnings.
Summary (fic only): She almost feels like she is in England once again. It's not that she dislikes India, no -- it's just that home is home no matter where you may go, and it would be springtime in England if she was there to see it, no matter how hard that is to remember during the dry summer months of here and now.
Original Prompt:
Briefly describe what you want: Happy or hopeful ending; realistic (i.e. not overly sappy) romance; hurt/comfort maybe. Angst is fine, but only if it's resolved at the end. Nothing depressing, please.
Ships I like: Neville/Luna, Greg/Luna, Tom/Luna, Ginny/Luna, Pansy/Luna, Ron/Luna.
Alternately, a plotty GEN fic would be most welcome too. For instance: Luna goes on an expedition to find some mythical creature no one’s ever seen; Luna unearths a mystery and no one believes her initially…
Tone of the fic: Hopeful and/or happy.
An element/line of dialogue/object you would like in your fic: spring.
Preferred rating of the fic you want: Don’t care. Story can be anything from G to NC-17.
Canon or AU? Whatever the author prefers.
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): No Harry/Luna, Draco/Luna, and please no cross-gen ships involving Luna either; Also, animal cruelty makes me cry, and I’m not a fan of the more extreme kinks (scat, watersports, vomit play, blood play, etc….).
She has found, in the time that she has spent Away, that she dearly misses trains. Spanning the sky by magic carpet or traversing the land by foot or even doing something truly wonderful, like riding on the back of an elephant, is all well and good, and yet--
Trains are lovely in their own right, even if they are very plain. If she closes her eyes, now, and ignores the pressure of heat against her cheeks or hair against her neck or grass against her legs, she can almost feel the fabric of the seat on the backs of her knees as her skirt hitches up and catches on the seam of the cushion. She can almost hear the steady click-click-rattle that marks their progress, can almost smell the trolley of food skidding down the aisle, and can almost see the blur of fresh and green English countryside, ripe with spring.
And she almost feels like she is in England once again. It's not that she dislikes India, no -- it's just that home is home no matter where you may go, and it would be springtime in England if she was there to see it, no matter how hard that is to remember during the dry summer months of here and now.
Such heat cannot be ignored for long, and her eyes are sliding open of their own accord, fluttering in the bright lights filtering down amongst the trees, and her hand is at her forehead to slick away sweat, to slick away hair, and so it is between her fingers that she sees it--
a flash, and her hands are still. Drifting, floating, wavering down through the air with sweat drops beading at the tips of her fingers, catching under her nails and falling, falling, falling free, and the only sounds within that terribly loud silence (as silent as ever a jungle is) is the quiet patter of a droplet of water against her skin. Her hands are slow, her body slower, but her mind is moving fast, and she's as quiet as she has been capable of being for her whole life. Only her thoughts have any volume to them, but then again, there's not a person in this world (no Wizard, no Muggle--) who can actually hear such things.
Because what is that?
Her head slips sideways, curious, and it is a sign of just how hot it is, how sweaty she is, that her hair does not follow suit, in spite of its length. Slick against her scalp, heavy with perspiration, it clung to her neck, and so her eyes were wide (and her vision clear) to see what she could see.
Which was nothing, of course. What could the flittering flash of colour, subtle in its vividness against the other, brilliant colours, have been? Swiftly moving, swiftly vanishing--
(perhaps she had imagined it?)
--swiftly following suit, as quiet and careful as she could be, parting the long grass with her hand in gentle motions as she pushed through, even farther away from the route she had already left behind her, twisting and narrow and barely a path at all. Above her there are birds (and she knows them, knows their names, seeing them flicker in the corners of her eyes; emeralis avanis, the green falibird, unknown to Muggles; krameri manillensis, the rose-ringed parakeet, of which they did know; and others, others--) and around her there are other trees and plants (and these are not known so well, sadly), exotic and bright. Beautiful.
Oh, she may miss trains and England, but oh, how she loves here.
And she's noticing this now, paying attention to everything around her in ways that she's not usually prone to doing, even though it's sort of her job, now, to notice things; what sort of naturalist would she be if she was unable to observe? Oh, it's not like she cannot observe, no; it's more like-- like--
It's more like that look in her eyes, the one that's not here, the one that's full of dreams, and when her eyes are full of dreams there really is no way for her to see beyond them and to see what actually exists.
But that still doesn't mean that she can't observe; only that she chooses not to, no matter how fascinating the world may be. Everything is always twice as beautiful through the foggy mists of dreams and delusion and imagination.
But now is not the time for that, no. Her eyes are wandering, absorbing the jungle around her and drinking it in, drinking it up. Searching.
What could she have seen? What could it have been--
~~~
Late that night she walks around and around her tent, littering the ground with spells: one for each step that she takes, because it can be dangerous in a place such as this if you are alone at night.
Or not quite alone, rather, because their is life all around her. But she is tired, and no matter how much she would love to acquaint herself with everything local, it is time for her to rest.
A spell at each step: one to ward off Muggles, one to avoid being seen, one to dampen sound, one for this, one for that. One by one by one. Now so invisible to the nightlife of this mysterious world, settling within her tent and drawing her sleeping bag up to her neck, she does not yet attempt to sleep.
No. She rolls over onto her stomach, pillows her head upon her hands, and waits. And waits. And waits. And waits. In her mind, behind dreamy, half-closed eyes she draws pictures to pass the time, light and delicate, tracing out flowers and animals and softly pastel colours, like the memory of springtime at home in her thoughts.
She is not quite sure why she is so sure that waiting is going to do something or help something or cause something to happen or, or, or something, but she is sure, and she has always trusted such sureness, such feelings, such intuition, and so that is that and so she waits. And she waits. And she waits.
And, quite suddenly, she sees.
It scruffs into the range of her vision, barely visible in the thin starlight, and meanders until it sort of 'hits' the barrier that her spells have created. And stops, curious, head to one side, and reaches out with one small paw to tentatively paw the ground near the invisible, undetectable mark that it cannot pass. That it cannot see -- no, that it should not see.
And that, apparently, it is seeing. And so, even more apparently, there must be some magic to this creature. The light may be weak and her eyes may be tired, but that does not mean that her newly-grown skills of observation have abandoned her. She is not a naturalist for nothing. Pushing herself up a little higher, still careful to be quiet in spite of the spells that are covering up every noise she makes, (for who knows what this creature is capable of? Who knows what it might hear?) she leans out of the triangular opening between the parted zipper of her tent and sees.
And observes.
It is very small, chubby and rounded, and in spite of the heat it is covered in thin fur which shines, even in light as poor as this, with brilliant colours, for rainbow patches and swirls decorate it all over. And it has spiral horns, thin and quite long compared to the length of its stubby little ears or the length of its body, sweeping and curving up until they almost meet at a point.
Luna is quite, quite sure that she has never seen a creature like this before. It's pawing at the wall of her spells again, not exactly bouncing off of it so much as smoothly slip-sliding around the curve of it, and she can tell that it is finding all of this mildly frustrating.
Poor thing. She wonders if it is hungry or not, and whether or not it would eat any of the food she has with her. It strikes her as a herbivore, not a carnivore, and it's not like she has much in the way of vegetables to offer it.
But it doesn't hurt to look.
Her bag is by her head, tucked neatly to the right, and her bundle of food is right on top, what with her having just eaten and all. Rummaging for something that is not at all spiced, she comes up mostly empty-handed, and instead reaches down deeper, searching, searching, searching for--
Searching for a little bit of England at the bottom of her bag, a little bit of food from home. And she finds it, of course, right at the bottom because she hasn't even opened the package yet, and the spell to hold in freshness spread across it comes undone easily at the touch of her wand. It peels apart much like the fruit that it hides within, or like a flower unfolding, or...
Never mind that. She peels it apart and plucks out an apple, nice and fresh and juicy, and turns her face back to the creature that is shuffling around outside in a fit of agitation. The fact that it has not yet left is slightly surprising, but she supposes that it is a curious, curious creature, and that being foiled by something so insignificant as air is angering it and causing it to stick around.
The apple rolls in the palm of her hand, stem catching at her fingers, and it's now or never, isn't it?
Yes.
"Hello," she whispers. And the creature jumps, startled, eyes swelling up and opening wide, and isn't it a miracle that it doesn't run away? Isn't it a double miracle that it can hear her voice?
Magical creature indeed. She waves her wand to dispel the spells that are wrapped around her, feeling the presence of the Indian night slithering down to fill the empty space even as the creature squeaks in surprise, losing its balance and falling flat on its face.
It must be the horns, she thinks, they're too large -- too heavy -- and weigh it down --
But such thoughts are irrelevant, for she is as curious and accepting and open with strange things as she ever was, no matter how much older and how much wiser she is from those years of her life spent at Hogwarts. No amount of caution, no matter how carefully it is bred into her, will ever be able to change something so intrinsic to her nature. She catches it almost as it strikes the ground, hands springing forward as quickly as she dares (for, although it had shown it did not startle so easily, who knew, who knew--) and sweeping upwards, setting it lightly back down on all fours. The apple rolled awkwardly to the side, displaced by her concern.
She was halfway out of her tent, she noticed, sleeping bag clinging to her legs around the height of her knees -- oh dear, when had that happened? -- balancing precariously on her hands as she picked up the apple and tried not to be so clumsy as her newfound friend.
"Hello," she said again.
And offered it the apple.
~~~
"Hello," she said to the shop keeper, a friendly wizard who happened to speak excellent English; "I would like to buy some apples."
"Why?" he asked, accent thick, and you could almost hear the words beneath those words: you may eat those at home. Why not eat our food, now?
"Oh, they're not for me." A smile, blissfully sweet; "they're for a friend."
"A friend who eats your English food and does not find it bland?"
"Yes."
~~~
"Hello," she said again, (and this seemed to be her favourite new word -- but was not a greeting the best of all things she could say in a foreign land?) hand outstretched.
The fruits she could get here were not as ripe as she would have liked, nor as nice, but beggars really can't be choosers, can they? Not that she's really begging, no, but she's always liked such silly sayings.
"Hello," she says again, warmer this time, full of life and sunlight and the undimmed brilliance of her smile, and it's as fittingly pretty as her surroundings, that brilliance, that life. She's brought a variety of fruit with her, more than simple apples, and she spreads them on a neat little mat before her; oranges and blackberries and even a lemon, though she almost doubted how well that would go over, what with its sour taste and all.
But beggars can't be choosers.
"Here, I'll peel them for you," plucking up the orange, unwinding it slowly and carefully in an even spiral all the way around, breaking the sweet segments apart with her fingers and laying them back against the fabric, one by one. Next the lemon, which she cut with her pocket knife, and so on and so forth, like some crazy sort of fruit salad without the sickeningly sweet juice and heapings of syrup that usually accompany such things. Just the bare essentials, here.
The miska regarded them with his usually curiosity
beggars can't be choosers
sorted through them all with his tiny paws, tiny claws
choosing, choosing
all sticky with excess juice, punctured fruit, squeezed fruit, crushed fruit
not begging, not begging
before settling on a slice of apple, buried at the very bottom of the pile beneath a large chunk of melon.
because he never had to beg from her
"You really do like apples best, don't you?" she asked, finger sliding gently from between his horns and all the way down his chubby back, hand flaring as she petted him, slow and gentle.
He chirruped his agreement, trilling and long and -- sort of like bird song, really. It reminded her of home, that noise. Maybe that's why no one had noticed the missika mamalis before, she pondered; they didn't sound like most mammals did, with their bird song calls. Although it was a wonder that no one had spotted one before, what with their rainbow fur and all.
But she would always be, always and forever and always, the first to admit that humans were not always so quick to see what was right in front of them, what with their minds so closed to strangeness like they were.
And because she was what she was what she was, there wasn't even a hint of bitterness in that at all.
~~~
She visits him almost daily, returning with her tent to the same location day after day, and each time she returns from afar she brings new fruits for him to eat, because he seems to like those best. But always she brings at least one apple, the finest she can buy, because she knows that he likes those best of all.
She wonders if this is bad for him, feeding him from her hand on foreign foods, since by her figuring and observation his natural diet includes mango and jujube. Perhaps it would be best if she did not disrupt his eating habits?
And yet.
~~~
And yet there is not a single person who will believe her description or even so much as glance at her sketches.
The horns are too big, they say; it wouldn't be able to balance.
Or rainbow fur? How ridiculous.
Or he can see through magic spells, you say? Just like that? How is that possible?
And underneath that, she can hear their hidden message: make your creatures more realistic, Luna. Your strangeness is leaking into your creations.
They don't believe he's real.
And that's not really fair, is it? He may be too docile for the image of the Indian jungle, he may be too colourful for people to understand, but that doesn't make him any less real. Perhaps it is only because she's the one spreading these gorgeously done sketches out before the more 'respected' naturalists -- perhaps it is because of the look in her eyes, clouded like a dreamer's, or that it is her mouth, curved like a dreamer's, that says these things. Perhaps they do not believe her because of who she is, what she is, what she will always be, and because of the... reputation she has gained.
There is no such thing as a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
~~~
"Hello," she says, and it truly is the best word in the whole wide world.
She has brought only an apple today, cradling it in her fingers gently, because it's the most beautiful shade of red she's seen in... months. Too many months. Spring is almost over at home, (for she tracks the days on an English calender, tracks the seasons in her English mind) and since she left during the summer that means that almost a whole year has passed her by.
She can feel home at the edge of her fingertips, as if she's blurring around the edges and feeling wisps of England in the way that the wind blows and tugs at the corners of her being. Her father's face slides easily to her mind when she feels such things, and so it almost feels like it is time for her to go home.
But not yet.
"What will you do without your apples?" she mused, voice very soft as the missika mamalis came scampering out of the tall grasses, tripping over its feet and falling flat on its face in its hurry to get to her. Scrambling upright, it leaps towards her and nuzzles against her legs, her hands, small head darting between her fingers.
Its not even after the apple, not yet, because the first thing it always greets is her. Whoever believes that there is no scrap of love within a wild thing is terribly mistaken, she thinks, petting the wispy softness of his thin fur and marveling at the way that the rainbows on his back are shining today.
It is only then that she offers him the apple. "Miska," she says, calling him by name; "Miska, Miska, Miska."
He nibbles at it. Tentative, knawing, shredding away the skin with tiny, flat teeth, juice already gathering along his jaw, and this truly is the best of all sights in the world; anyone who says otherwise has not yet opened their mind to what it means to be alive. She wonders if he has a family somewhere, or where the rest of his kind is, and it saddens her to think that the missika mamalis might just be dying out.
Miska, she thinks.
Miska.
He bites her finger by accident, a soft little nip, too soft for a creature of the wild, too soft for a wild thing, too soft, and she never has ever reprimanded him for anything. Nor will she. Not like this.
"Hello," she says, almost like some sort of prayer, and she says it so often that she wonders if he thinks that's his name.
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for what Luna does after Deathly Hallows is finished. No warnings.
Summary (fic only): She almost feels like she is in England once again. It's not that she dislikes India, no -- it's just that home is home no matter where you may go, and it would be springtime in England if she was there to see it, no matter how hard that is to remember during the dry summer months of here and now.
Original Prompt:
Briefly describe what you want: Happy or hopeful ending; realistic (i.e. not overly sappy) romance; hurt/comfort maybe. Angst is fine, but only if it's resolved at the end. Nothing depressing, please.
Ships I like: Neville/Luna, Greg/Luna, Tom/Luna, Ginny/Luna, Pansy/Luna, Ron/Luna.
Alternately, a plotty GEN fic would be most welcome too. For instance: Luna goes on an expedition to find some mythical creature no one’s ever seen; Luna unearths a mystery and no one believes her initially…
Tone of the fic: Hopeful and/or happy.
An element/line of dialogue/object you would like in your fic: spring.
Preferred rating of the fic you want: Don’t care. Story can be anything from G to NC-17.
Canon or AU? Whatever the author prefers.
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): No Harry/Luna, Draco/Luna, and please no cross-gen ships involving Luna either; Also, animal cruelty makes me cry, and I’m not a fan of the more extreme kinks (scat, watersports, vomit play, blood play, etc….).
She has found, in the time that she has spent Away, that she dearly misses trains. Spanning the sky by magic carpet or traversing the land by foot or even doing something truly wonderful, like riding on the back of an elephant, is all well and good, and yet--
Trains are lovely in their own right, even if they are very plain. If she closes her eyes, now, and ignores the pressure of heat against her cheeks or hair against her neck or grass against her legs, she can almost feel the fabric of the seat on the backs of her knees as her skirt hitches up and catches on the seam of the cushion. She can almost hear the steady click-click-rattle that marks their progress, can almost smell the trolley of food skidding down the aisle, and can almost see the blur of fresh and green English countryside, ripe with spring.
And she almost feels like she is in England once again. It's not that she dislikes India, no -- it's just that home is home no matter where you may go, and it would be springtime in England if she was there to see it, no matter how hard that is to remember during the dry summer months of here and now.
Such heat cannot be ignored for long, and her eyes are sliding open of their own accord, fluttering in the bright lights filtering down amongst the trees, and her hand is at her forehead to slick away sweat, to slick away hair, and so it is between her fingers that she sees it--
a flash, and her hands are still. Drifting, floating, wavering down through the air with sweat drops beading at the tips of her fingers, catching under her nails and falling, falling, falling free, and the only sounds within that terribly loud silence (as silent as ever a jungle is) is the quiet patter of a droplet of water against her skin. Her hands are slow, her body slower, but her mind is moving fast, and she's as quiet as she has been capable of being for her whole life. Only her thoughts have any volume to them, but then again, there's not a person in this world (no Wizard, no Muggle--) who can actually hear such things.
Because what is that?
Her head slips sideways, curious, and it is a sign of just how hot it is, how sweaty she is, that her hair does not follow suit, in spite of its length. Slick against her scalp, heavy with perspiration, it clung to her neck, and so her eyes were wide (and her vision clear) to see what she could see.
Which was nothing, of course. What could the flittering flash of colour, subtle in its vividness against the other, brilliant colours, have been? Swiftly moving, swiftly vanishing--
(perhaps she had imagined it?)
--swiftly following suit, as quiet and careful as she could be, parting the long grass with her hand in gentle motions as she pushed through, even farther away from the route she had already left behind her, twisting and narrow and barely a path at all. Above her there are birds (and she knows them, knows their names, seeing them flicker in the corners of her eyes; emeralis avanis, the green falibird, unknown to Muggles; krameri manillensis, the rose-ringed parakeet, of which they did know; and others, others--) and around her there are other trees and plants (and these are not known so well, sadly), exotic and bright. Beautiful.
Oh, she may miss trains and England, but oh, how she loves here.
And she's noticing this now, paying attention to everything around her in ways that she's not usually prone to doing, even though it's sort of her job, now, to notice things; what sort of naturalist would she be if she was unable to observe? Oh, it's not like she cannot observe, no; it's more like-- like--
It's more like that look in her eyes, the one that's not here, the one that's full of dreams, and when her eyes are full of dreams there really is no way for her to see beyond them and to see what actually exists.
But that still doesn't mean that she can't observe; only that she chooses not to, no matter how fascinating the world may be. Everything is always twice as beautiful through the foggy mists of dreams and delusion and imagination.
But now is not the time for that, no. Her eyes are wandering, absorbing the jungle around her and drinking it in, drinking it up. Searching.
What could she have seen? What could it have been--
~~~
Late that night she walks around and around her tent, littering the ground with spells: one for each step that she takes, because it can be dangerous in a place such as this if you are alone at night.
Or not quite alone, rather, because their is life all around her. But she is tired, and no matter how much she would love to acquaint herself with everything local, it is time for her to rest.
A spell at each step: one to ward off Muggles, one to avoid being seen, one to dampen sound, one for this, one for that. One by one by one. Now so invisible to the nightlife of this mysterious world, settling within her tent and drawing her sleeping bag up to her neck, she does not yet attempt to sleep.
No. She rolls over onto her stomach, pillows her head upon her hands, and waits. And waits. And waits. And waits. In her mind, behind dreamy, half-closed eyes she draws pictures to pass the time, light and delicate, tracing out flowers and animals and softly pastel colours, like the memory of springtime at home in her thoughts.
She is not quite sure why she is so sure that waiting is going to do something or help something or cause something to happen or, or, or something, but she is sure, and she has always trusted such sureness, such feelings, such intuition, and so that is that and so she waits. And she waits. And she waits.
And, quite suddenly, she sees.
It scruffs into the range of her vision, barely visible in the thin starlight, and meanders until it sort of 'hits' the barrier that her spells have created. And stops, curious, head to one side, and reaches out with one small paw to tentatively paw the ground near the invisible, undetectable mark that it cannot pass. That it cannot see -- no, that it should not see.
And that, apparently, it is seeing. And so, even more apparently, there must be some magic to this creature. The light may be weak and her eyes may be tired, but that does not mean that her newly-grown skills of observation have abandoned her. She is not a naturalist for nothing. Pushing herself up a little higher, still careful to be quiet in spite of the spells that are covering up every noise she makes, (for who knows what this creature is capable of? Who knows what it might hear?) she leans out of the triangular opening between the parted zipper of her tent and sees.
And observes.
It is very small, chubby and rounded, and in spite of the heat it is covered in thin fur which shines, even in light as poor as this, with brilliant colours, for rainbow patches and swirls decorate it all over. And it has spiral horns, thin and quite long compared to the length of its stubby little ears or the length of its body, sweeping and curving up until they almost meet at a point.
Luna is quite, quite sure that she has never seen a creature like this before. It's pawing at the wall of her spells again, not exactly bouncing off of it so much as smoothly slip-sliding around the curve of it, and she can tell that it is finding all of this mildly frustrating.
Poor thing. She wonders if it is hungry or not, and whether or not it would eat any of the food she has with her. It strikes her as a herbivore, not a carnivore, and it's not like she has much in the way of vegetables to offer it.
But it doesn't hurt to look.
Her bag is by her head, tucked neatly to the right, and her bundle of food is right on top, what with her having just eaten and all. Rummaging for something that is not at all spiced, she comes up mostly empty-handed, and instead reaches down deeper, searching, searching, searching for--
Searching for a little bit of England at the bottom of her bag, a little bit of food from home. And she finds it, of course, right at the bottom because she hasn't even opened the package yet, and the spell to hold in freshness spread across it comes undone easily at the touch of her wand. It peels apart much like the fruit that it hides within, or like a flower unfolding, or...
Never mind that. She peels it apart and plucks out an apple, nice and fresh and juicy, and turns her face back to the creature that is shuffling around outside in a fit of agitation. The fact that it has not yet left is slightly surprising, but she supposes that it is a curious, curious creature, and that being foiled by something so insignificant as air is angering it and causing it to stick around.
The apple rolls in the palm of her hand, stem catching at her fingers, and it's now or never, isn't it?
Yes.
"Hello," she whispers. And the creature jumps, startled, eyes swelling up and opening wide, and isn't it a miracle that it doesn't run away? Isn't it a double miracle that it can hear her voice?
Magical creature indeed. She waves her wand to dispel the spells that are wrapped around her, feeling the presence of the Indian night slithering down to fill the empty space even as the creature squeaks in surprise, losing its balance and falling flat on its face.
It must be the horns, she thinks, they're too large -- too heavy -- and weigh it down --
But such thoughts are irrelevant, for she is as curious and accepting and open with strange things as she ever was, no matter how much older and how much wiser she is from those years of her life spent at Hogwarts. No amount of caution, no matter how carefully it is bred into her, will ever be able to change something so intrinsic to her nature. She catches it almost as it strikes the ground, hands springing forward as quickly as she dares (for, although it had shown it did not startle so easily, who knew, who knew--) and sweeping upwards, setting it lightly back down on all fours. The apple rolled awkwardly to the side, displaced by her concern.
She was halfway out of her tent, she noticed, sleeping bag clinging to her legs around the height of her knees -- oh dear, when had that happened? -- balancing precariously on her hands as she picked up the apple and tried not to be so clumsy as her newfound friend.
"Hello," she said again.
And offered it the apple.
~~~
"Hello," she said to the shop keeper, a friendly wizard who happened to speak excellent English; "I would like to buy some apples."
"Why?" he asked, accent thick, and you could almost hear the words beneath those words: you may eat those at home. Why not eat our food, now?
"Oh, they're not for me." A smile, blissfully sweet; "they're for a friend."
"A friend who eats your English food and does not find it bland?"
"Yes."
~~~
"Hello," she said again, (and this seemed to be her favourite new word -- but was not a greeting the best of all things she could say in a foreign land?) hand outstretched.
The fruits she could get here were not as ripe as she would have liked, nor as nice, but beggars really can't be choosers, can they? Not that she's really begging, no, but she's always liked such silly sayings.
"Hello," she says again, warmer this time, full of life and sunlight and the undimmed brilliance of her smile, and it's as fittingly pretty as her surroundings, that brilliance, that life. She's brought a variety of fruit with her, more than simple apples, and she spreads them on a neat little mat before her; oranges and blackberries and even a lemon, though she almost doubted how well that would go over, what with its sour taste and all.
But beggars can't be choosers.
"Here, I'll peel them for you," plucking up the orange, unwinding it slowly and carefully in an even spiral all the way around, breaking the sweet segments apart with her fingers and laying them back against the fabric, one by one. Next the lemon, which she cut with her pocket knife, and so on and so forth, like some crazy sort of fruit salad without the sickeningly sweet juice and heapings of syrup that usually accompany such things. Just the bare essentials, here.
The miska regarded them with his usually curiosity
beggars can't be choosers
sorted through them all with his tiny paws, tiny claws
choosing, choosing
all sticky with excess juice, punctured fruit, squeezed fruit, crushed fruit
not begging, not begging
before settling on a slice of apple, buried at the very bottom of the pile beneath a large chunk of melon.
because he never had to beg from her
"You really do like apples best, don't you?" she asked, finger sliding gently from between his horns and all the way down his chubby back, hand flaring as she petted him, slow and gentle.
He chirruped his agreement, trilling and long and -- sort of like bird song, really. It reminded her of home, that noise. Maybe that's why no one had noticed the missika mamalis before, she pondered; they didn't sound like most mammals did, with their bird song calls. Although it was a wonder that no one had spotted one before, what with their rainbow fur and all.
But she would always be, always and forever and always, the first to admit that humans were not always so quick to see what was right in front of them, what with their minds so closed to strangeness like they were.
And because she was what she was what she was, there wasn't even a hint of bitterness in that at all.
~~~
She visits him almost daily, returning with her tent to the same location day after day, and each time she returns from afar she brings new fruits for him to eat, because he seems to like those best. But always she brings at least one apple, the finest she can buy, because she knows that he likes those best of all.
She wonders if this is bad for him, feeding him from her hand on foreign foods, since by her figuring and observation his natural diet includes mango and jujube. Perhaps it would be best if she did not disrupt his eating habits?
And yet.
~~~
And yet there is not a single person who will believe her description or even so much as glance at her sketches.
The horns are too big, they say; it wouldn't be able to balance.
Or rainbow fur? How ridiculous.
Or he can see through magic spells, you say? Just like that? How is that possible?
And underneath that, she can hear their hidden message: make your creatures more realistic, Luna. Your strangeness is leaking into your creations.
They don't believe he's real.
And that's not really fair, is it? He may be too docile for the image of the Indian jungle, he may be too colourful for people to understand, but that doesn't make him any less real. Perhaps it is only because she's the one spreading these gorgeously done sketches out before the more 'respected' naturalists -- perhaps it is because of the look in her eyes, clouded like a dreamer's, or that it is her mouth, curved like a dreamer's, that says these things. Perhaps they do not believe her because of who she is, what she is, what she will always be, and because of the... reputation she has gained.
There is no such thing as a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
~~~
"Hello," she says, and it truly is the best word in the whole wide world.
She has brought only an apple today, cradling it in her fingers gently, because it's the most beautiful shade of red she's seen in... months. Too many months. Spring is almost over at home, (for she tracks the days on an English calender, tracks the seasons in her English mind) and since she left during the summer that means that almost a whole year has passed her by.
She can feel home at the edge of her fingertips, as if she's blurring around the edges and feeling wisps of England in the way that the wind blows and tugs at the corners of her being. Her father's face slides easily to her mind when she feels such things, and so it almost feels like it is time for her to go home.
But not yet.
"What will you do without your apples?" she mused, voice very soft as the missika mamalis came scampering out of the tall grasses, tripping over its feet and falling flat on its face in its hurry to get to her. Scrambling upright, it leaps towards her and nuzzles against her legs, her hands, small head darting between her fingers.
Its not even after the apple, not yet, because the first thing it always greets is her. Whoever believes that there is no scrap of love within a wild thing is terribly mistaken, she thinks, petting the wispy softness of his thin fur and marveling at the way that the rainbows on his back are shining today.
It is only then that she offers him the apple. "Miska," she says, calling him by name; "Miska, Miska, Miska."
He nibbles at it. Tentative, knawing, shredding away the skin with tiny, flat teeth, juice already gathering along his jaw, and this truly is the best of all sights in the world; anyone who says otherwise has not yet opened their mind to what it means to be alive. She wonders if he has a family somewhere, or where the rest of his kind is, and it saddens her to think that the missika mamalis might just be dying out.
Miska, she thinks.
Miska.
He bites her finger by accident, a soft little nip, too soft for a creature of the wild, too soft for a wild thing, too soft, and she never has ever reprimanded him for anything. Nor will she. Not like this.
"Hello," she says, almost like some sort of prayer, and she says it so often that she wonders if he thinks that's his name.