What makes you feel vulnerable and what makes you feel invulnerable, and why?
I felt vulnerable when a hunter in my forest addressed me as the last unicorn left in the world. I felt vulnerable when that hunter's words caused me to set out upon man's road: when I slept under the spell of a midnight witch, when I knew the cold touch of iron bars, when I smelled the rotten chuckle of a caged harpy.
I felt vulnerable when I befriended a bumbling magician and a woman with dust in her hair, when I understood the price one pays for traveling in the company of mortals, for listening to the shortness of their breath as they dream.
I felt vulnerable when I looked into the blind eyes of the Red Bull -- ah, the Bull! He who is vulnerability itself.
I felt vulnerable when I lost this body to the white girl they called Amalthea. Her reflection in the eyes of a king--and the reflection of a prince in her own--left me exposed, helpless, strangling in the air of her sudden humanity like a fish that discovers it cannot breathe on dry land after all.
I feel vulnerable now, as I recall the places I once saw, the voices I once heard, the faces I once loved.
Considering that I felt so very vulnerable in what for me was so very short a time, it may surprise you to learn that I had never felt vulnerable in the eternity that came before. I had felt frightened, of course, and threatened by darker things than you may imagine, but never truly vulnerable. Whatever hunted me, whatever offered me the shadows of evil, sadness and death, it could never make me less than what I was; it could never turn me into something I was not. Yet during my long ignorance of vulnerability, I did not feel invulnerable.
The truth is that I have never understood what it is to feel yourself incapable of being diminished -- then, because I never thought such diminishment could happen to me, and now, because I know without doubt that such diminishment happens to us all, whether we be mortal or immortal, serpent or god or anything in between. Perhaps, while I was still human, I could have allowed myself the happy illusion of being invulnerable, as so many humans seem able to do. But as a human woman who loved, I knew that I always had something to lose; and as a unicorn returned to her true self, I know that I always have the memory of what is lost.
Cross-posted to theatrical_muse.
I felt vulnerable when I befriended a bumbling magician and a woman with dust in her hair, when I understood the price one pays for traveling in the company of mortals, for listening to the shortness of their breath as they dream.
I felt vulnerable when I looked into the blind eyes of the Red Bull -- ah, the Bull! He who is vulnerability itself.
I felt vulnerable when I lost this body to the white girl they called Amalthea. Her reflection in the eyes of a king--and the reflection of a prince in her own--left me exposed, helpless, strangling in the air of her sudden humanity like a fish that discovers it cannot breathe on dry land after all.
I feel vulnerable now, as I recall the places I once saw, the voices I once heard, the faces I once loved.
Considering that I felt so very vulnerable in what for me was so very short a time, it may surprise you to learn that I had never felt vulnerable in the eternity that came before. I had felt frightened, of course, and threatened by darker things than you may imagine, but never truly vulnerable. Whatever hunted me, whatever offered me the shadows of evil, sadness and death, it could never make me less than what I was; it could never turn me into something I was not. Yet during my long ignorance of vulnerability, I did not feel invulnerable.
The truth is that I have never understood what it is to feel yourself incapable of being diminished -- then, because I never thought such diminishment could happen to me, and now, because I know without doubt that such diminishment happens to us all, whether we be mortal or immortal, serpent or god or anything in between. Perhaps, while I was still human, I could have allowed myself the happy illusion of being invulnerable, as so many humans seem able to do. But as a human woman who loved, I knew that I always had something to lose; and as a unicorn returned to her true self, I know that I always have the memory of what is lost.
Cross-posted to theatrical_muse.