A little girl sobbed into her knees, curled up tight with her arms wrapped around her shins and her face buried. A little stream rippled and burbled at her feet, small minnows flitting about under the surface. She didn't care. Minnow-catching was one of her favorite things to do, but not today. Her mother yelled at her and her grandmother didn't stop it, breaking her promise to always be on her side and doing nothing but letting it happen. Liar. Liar. All of them liars and unfair and monsters and evil and—
"Sabrael, don't cry. Don't cry. If you're sad, I'm sad, too. Come here."
A young boy, only a little older, appeared at her side like a ghost, an ethereal vision of white and pale gold as he wrapped his arms around her. She hurled herself into him immediately, even falling into his lap and throwing her arms around his waist as she buried her face against his stomach. The billowing folds of his flowing white robes concealed the side of her head, a gentle covering that he pushed aside with a faint sigh.
"Sabrael? What happened? Did you get in trouble again?"
"Let's run away. Let's run away somewhere really far. And no one can find us. They're all bad. I hate them. I hate them!"
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay. What happened this time? Did your mother find you in your attic again?"
"She said I can't do magic. She said I can't try! And Grandma was on her side. She promised, but she was on her side! They're all lying. I want to be a witch, too. I want to go to school! But they always say no. I hate them. I don't have friends. I don't have anyone."
"I can't hear you clearly with your face all covered like that. Come here, Sabrael."
She shuffled her face about in his robes and sniffed back her tears. "... Maybe you shouldn't call me that anymore..."
"What, do you mean Sabrael? But it's your name."
"It's my secret name..."
"That's true, it should be a secret. But if I don't call you Sabrael, what should I call you?"
"My other name, silly. Sable! Like you used to call me... You promised, okay? You said you won't tell anyone. You promised."
"I did promise. It's just for you and me. I'll never let anyone know." The boy caressed her hair, a serene smile curving his mouth as he waited for her fidgeting to subside. "You really haven't told anyone else?"
"No! I told you before." The girl sat up, furiously rubbing her eyes with both fists before glaring at him. "Only you. And I won't tell anyone now. Not anymore."
"I thought you were going to tell your mother and grandmother soon? You didn't yet?"
"I was going to! But I hate Mommy now. I won't tell her. I won't!" She broke into another fit of angry sobs, face glowing crimson with unbridled, helpless, heartbroken fury. The long sleeves of her pastel blue shirt were already drenched, but she wiped her face with them anyway with fierce scrubs. "I'm going to run away. You can come. We can go somewhere like Shambala, or, or, Asgard! Like in Grandma's drawing books. Or we can look for Avalon, remember? Remember the story? With King Arthur and Merlin, remember? It's real, we can find it if we look."
He patted her head and smiled. "Yes, I remember. But it'll be a long trip, and you'll be hungry and tired if you don't eat and rest first. So let's talk about it tomorrow. It'll be good to plan when we're feeling better, right?"
She considered his proposal and came to a favorable conclusion. "Okay."
He smiled again and hugged her into his side, wrapping his arm firmly around her shoulders. Although he too was small, he was still bigger than she was, and she nestled into him as if he were the most secure fortress in all the world. And like that, two young children enjoyed the chatter of the stream as it splashed and swirled before them until the sun crept down and the sky lost its vibrant daylight hue.
By now, the girl was knee deep in the shallowest part of the narrow stream and lunging for minnows, cupping her hands above the water's surface before pouncing whenever a particularly sizable one came swimming past.
"Sabrael..."
"Huh? Huh?" The little girl was barely paying attention despite answering the boy's contemplative call. Her face was tilted up towards him, but all that reflected in her eyes was the tempting catch of the biggest minnow she had seen yet as she stared into the water. "Gotcha! Look, look!"
"I see it, that's a big one. Sabrael, can we talk for a little bit?"
"Yeah! ... Talk? But we talk all the time."
"It's something serious now. I don't want you to be mad at me, but I have to tell you about it. Will you sit with me for a little while? You have to go soon, so we don't have a lot of time."
"Aw..." She released her catch with a sigh before wading out of the water and plopping down next to him with a sullen frown. "What is it? Are you mad at me, too?"
"Never."
"Then what!"
"It's about... me, and you. Sabrael, you know I'm always your friend, right?"
She peered at him with a suspicious tilt of her head, eyes narrowed. The guarded stoniness of her gaze didn't suit her tender age. It was the look of someone who had been wounded too many times with a thousand shallow cuts, trained to mistrust. "Yeah...? You promised."
"That's right. From the day you found me and helped me," he continued. "You saved my life and didn't tell anyone about me, even before I could ask you to keep it a secret at all. I owe you everything."
A shy blush dusted her cheeks. "I just did what I wanted to..." she mumbled.
"But that was what saved my life. I would have died if you didn't, I think."
"Don't say that. Don't like it. Why..."
"I know. I'm sorry. But lately, I've been dreaming, and I think... those dreams are my memories coming back."
She perked, the dark apprehension clouding her face falling away in an instant. "You remember stuff now? You're all better?"
"I wouldn't say that, but I have these visions. They're hard to make sense of, but they're changing me the more I have them. I remember... I remember a few things from before I woke up the first time, when you found me that day." He paused. "Someone hurt me, Sabrael. And they might come back."
She frowned. "I'll help you. Stand up to bullies, and they'll stop."
"I don't think I'm strong enough."
"If you believe, you can do it. You have magic, so you can do it."
"Magic can't do everything. And I'm weak, Sabrael. In my dreams, I mean, maybe in my memories — I used to be stronger and bigger, but whoever hurt me must have been even stronger than that. Do you remember the day you found me?"
She pointed a short distance away at the water. "You were in there. You were small. And you didn't look like a person, more like a little puppy..." She scratched her chin with a pondering grimace as she stared at the stream. "But every day I came back, you looked more different. And then one day, you were a boy."
"How long ago was that, do you think?"
"It was the day after my birthday! Not the last one. The one before that. And it's almost my birthday again!"
"So almost two years. That's a long time." The boy fell silent again. "Not long enough, but I... I have to go away soon. Something is looking for me, I know it. I have to go before it finds me. It might hurt you."
She scoffed.
"I'm serious, Sabrael. I have to leave. These dreams aren't imaginary. I remember a little more every day, and it's all coming back — if I stay here, I'll put you in danger, too."
"You're my friend. I'll help you."
"And you're my friend, so I have to help you, too. That's why I can't stay."
She turned wide eyes upon him, belated comprehension finally dawning as he solemnly stared back. "... You're really going to go away? Really?"
"I have to."
She shoved his affectionate arm off of her shoulders with a great heave and stood. Her face steadily took on a fierce red flush, eyes glittering with a child's unbridled fury. "You're a liar, too!"
"Sabrael—"
"You said we were friends forever! You promised! I told you my secret name and I didn't even tell Grandma! You said you'll never throw me away!"
"I'm not! I care about you. I care about you more than anything else in the whole world. I know that won't change even when all my memories come back. You'll still be everything to me."
"Liar! Liar! Liar!"
He stood up, too. When she pounded her small fists against his chest, he gathered her in his arms and placed his head upon hers, murmuring a multitude of soothing words to no avail. She became angrier and angrier, so full of inconsolable and wild rage that she could no longer speak, except for the one word:
"Liar! Liar! Liar!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said over and over, but it was no use. Of course. Everyone always threw her away. Her friends, when they learned she had no magic and their parents ushered them away. Her relatives, when they discovered she was unworthy of the Solaria name and would never carry on the bloodline. Her father, when he took one look at her and never returned, even though she would have done anything to make her estranged father love her if no one else would.
Her mother and grandmother were all she had. Except sometimes — it didn't feel that way, either. Sometimes, this lonesome boy was all that stood against the sea of loneliness, the sole source of warmth to cling to while the ocean sapped and sapped. She was a small tugboat bobbing alone on ten-foot waves, always on the verge of capsizing, and every rejection, every failure threatening to drag her under...
He gave in as he always did, even though he knew better. She was his only light, flickering and small. If he left, what would become of her? So—
"I'll stay a little longer," he said. "I won't leave yet, I won't leave until I know you'll be all right. I didn't mean to upset you. Don't cry, Sabrael. Don't cry."
"Don't go!"
"... Soon, you might want me to."
"No, I won't!"
He squeezed her back when her small arms tightened around his waist. She had gone from whaling away with her tiny fists to holding him like she couldn't bear to let him go, all within the span of seconds. "Sabrael, listen to me. I... don't think I'm the person you think I am. The person I think I am. And the more I remember, the more I know I'm not. When it finally happens, I don't want to see ..."
His face crumpled, eyes brightening. She never saw it with her face buried in his chest and concealed behind her tear-dampened, tangled hair.
"... Never mind," he said softly. "I'll stay for a while longer, Sabrael."
"What were you gonna say? You don't want to see what?"
"I don't want to see the way you look at me change. That's all." He patted her head and rested his chin over it, looking off into the grassy distance. "I like who I am now. But I have a feeling I won't like the person I used to be. I wish I didn't have to remember, ever."
"Stay. Please stay, please stay. I don't care if you remember. Don't leave me."
"For a while," he promised again. "But I don't know any other way to protect you."
"I don't need it. I'll help you. I can help with anything."
"You already are. You're the most important to me in the whole world, Sabrael. You know that, right? That will never change. Even when I remember everything one day... I swear, that will never change. There's a reason you found me. There's a reason we came together of all the places I could have been. You're special to me, I believe that with all my heart. And even if I leave, one day, we'll be together again. I promise. No matter what."
"You're my only friend in the whole world."
His laughter was too soft and gentle to be happy. "I'm not a very good one, though. And maybe soon, you'll change your mind. Sabrael, before you found me, I think I was... I think I used to be a..."
"You don't have to say," she declared. "I don't care. You're my friend. Before doesn't matter."
"But..."
"Before doesn't matter!" she insisted.
"Even if I was a bad person?"
"Don't care. You're my friend. My best friend. You can't be bad. I'm on your side always."
A sad smile curved his lips, delicate like glass.
"All right, I believe you," he said softly. "And I promise I'll always be your side, too, Sabrael."