Trigger Warning: cutting/carving
"Pinky, you're a lesbian. What are you doing, running off to marry a guy of all things?" I implored.
Pinky sighed. "Pet, didn't you hear me? My father arranged this marriage. I don't have a choice in it."
"What kind of dad would marry off his lesbian daughter to a man?" I stopped.
I chuckled harshly. "Oh, wow. This is exactly what my parents were trying to do before Hachi found me, so I know exactly what kind of father you have: my kind of of father."
"Cynthia? Where are you?" Cain's voice came echoing down the hall.
Pinky wiped her eyes clean of tears. "I have to go, Pet."
"Pinky, no, you have to resist this..." I begged.
Cain stepped into view. "Cynthia? Cynthia Kennedy? Oh, there you are, Cynthia. Why haven't you put your ring on?"
Cain caught me holding Pinky's hand and standing close enough to kiss her. I hastily dropped Pinky's hand and stepped backwards. Cain stood where I had been standing, procured a engagement ring, and slipped it onto Pinky's left ring finger.
"Let's go, Cynthia. We have wedding arrangements to take care of." Cain took Pinky away.
I could imagine the hold Cain had on her as a thick chain of despair, one end attached to Pinky's soul, and the other being yanked on as Cain gripped it tight. This was not an engagement. This was ownership; this was patriarchal slavery. It could not end pleasantly.
I walked away. I walked and walked until my feet carried me no more. I fell on the ground in the middle of the hallway for maids' quarters and refused to stand up. Pinky was doomed to a life I barely escaped. How could I live, knowing that my best friend suffered a fate I found impossible to run away from?
Butterfly opened her door and found me lying face-down on the floor. "Squire? Are you okay?"
"Didn't you hear the news? Pinky is getting married to Prince Cain." My voice was distorted by the ground, but Butterfly heard me clearly enough to understand.
Butterfly grew agitated. "What? Getting married? But that means...And to Cain? Ugh, this requires scrutiny. I need your help."
"What can I possibly do?" I groaned.
Butterfly waved her red wand around. "I need a pinch more of magic than I've got at the moment. So whether or not you realize it, you are exactly the person I need right now."
I picked myself off of the ground and followed Butterfly into her room. Butterfly put a blindfold on me, spun me around, and then led me into some secret chamber. Butterfly took off the blindfold and I looked at our surroundings.
I had seen this place before, when I used magic to spy on Butterfly and Ryder. It had been blurry, but now that I was actually here, I could see it with new perspective. There were twelve rooms all connected by this main commons area. In between each room was a hallway leading away from here. Some of the hallways were short, others long. At the ends of the short hallways were either doors or magical portals. I couldn't tell what was at the ends of the long hallways, but I don't think I need to know.
Butterfly opened one of the twelve rooms' doors and I went in with her. It was large enough to be the master bedroom in a house. There was a large fancy bed against the wall, which had been made neatly. Tapestries and paintings of sexual acts decorated the room. I could tell most of the paintings were made by Butterfly herself. A distance from the bed sat this odd chair. It was bolted to the ground and had metal restraints on each armrest. I gave Butterfly a questioning look and she shrugged with the hint of a smirk on her face.
"Sit down and try not to poke through anything. I need to get a good mirror, some candles, and some herbs." Butterfly gesticulated at me from behind her back.
I was feeling too curious to heed her advice. I went first for the drawers at the side of the bed. Inside the top drawer, there was a collection of pills I had seen before, but I didn't know exactly what they were or what they did. Underneath that drawer, the drawer there was filled with phallic devices, which wasn't much of a surprise. The bottom drawer though, which was the largest one, had the most interesting things. I opened that and found an assortment of handcuffs, various leashes and chains, as well as a brown canine collar with the word "Bitch" sewn into it with pink thread.
Butterfly came back and caught me with the collar in my hand. "I told you not to look around."
"Oh, come on. You brought me somewhere cool." Flattery will get me off the hook. "Do you have a dog?"
"Something like that." Butterfly was trying not to laugh.
I inquired, "Is her name 'Bitch?'"
"No, but she can sure be one." Butterfly burst out in boisterous laughing.
I smiled. "Okay, spill whatever it is you're hiding."
"No. We have to get to work." Butterfly slid a large mirror onto the bed.
I put away the handcuffs and observed Butterfly closely. She lay the mirror as flat as possible, sat four candles in each of the cardinal directions, and sprinkled crumbled mandrake leaves from each candle to the center of the mirror. Butterfly picked up her wand. The amethyst tip was glowing. She lit each candle on fire by touching her wand to each wick.
I decided to speak up. "What is that we're doing, exactly?"
"We're scrying for what happened between Pinky, Cain, and Hachi." Butterfly answered.
I questioned, "Can't a simple RightSeveal spell show us? And Hachi can use a simple mirror by itself to..."
"No. We're scrying into the past, which is much more complicated to perform than viewing the present. You can't imagine how awful it is to scry future events." Butterfly explained.
Butterfly procured a belladonna berry. "We each have to have half at the same time."
Butterfly gently tucked the nightshade fruit between her top and bottom teeth. She leaned over the mirror. I inclined and kissed Butterfly. While kissing, we each bit into the attractive-looking dark berry. It had a somewhat sweet taste. I watched Butterfly's pupils dilate even further in the room's darkness and noticed in the mirror that mine had too.
I joined hands with Butterfly. The mirror's image began to change.
"You will have to concentrate on the same part of the past that I am. We want to see Pinky being told she is getting married."
I took a deep breath in and let it out. I could feel that the berry changed my heart rate and was making me sweat. Half of one berry might have been too much for me; I knew that two to five berries could kill a full grown man.
The mirror showed monochrome images of Pinky walking hand-in-hand with Hachi as Prince Cain took them to the royal throne room. Pinky seemed joyous, Hachi was suspicious, and Cain was trying to hide that something was making him happy.
"Strange. You can seem to hold the image by yourself. I'm going to ease full control to you slowly, since it's safer...remember, we want to see Pinky being told she is getting married."
Guards opened the ten foot tall twin doors. The King sat in his throne, a stranger sat on a provided stool next to him. Pinky recognized the man and froze in her tracks.
"Dad?" Pinky was concerned.
There's so much about Pinky's history that I still don't know about...and Butterfly's history. I still have to learn Butterfly's history.
The image in the mirror shifted violently. We were now looking at a younger version of Butterfly. She had dyed her hair white and added blood red highlights, the only thing that didn't appear in this vision as black-and-white. She was in some sort of school and painting on a canvas that was large enough to take up a whole wall by itself.
Butterfly shouted, "No! You must change it back!"
Butterfly slapped her wand against my hand, giving her temporary control over the image. The mirror's image rippled and shifted back to Pinky.
"Dad, you can't marry me to a guy!" Pinky protested.
Pinky's father snapped, "Well, why not? You were engaged to him years ago before you slept with his sister!"
"Father, you can't approve this marriage. Pinky is a lesbian and LGBT people are protected by law from having to marry someone that their sexual orientation is not attracted to." Hachi tried to reason with the king.
The King had a stony tone to his voice. "The official record states Cynthia Kennedy as straight."
"That's because my father is a rotten liar who wants to get his hands on a royal dowry!" Pinky screamed.
The King was outraged. He stood up from his throne and I could see small thunderclouds grow inside of the room. Now I know Hachi inherited magic from at least one powerful magician.
The King thundered, "I will have none of this! Cynthia Kennedy, you will be married to His Highness Prince Cain Alpha, lesbian or not. I am tired of hearing that the royal records of orientation have been corrupted. There will be no dowry paid to the bride's father."
I wonder how my parents would handle this sort of news if it had ever happened. I know they would go ballistic, but how so and to what intensity?
The mirror's image clouded up and changed. Butterfly groaned and flicked her wand at me. The tip of her wand caught my ring's stone.
The mirror blew up in our faces. The candles burnt out and the mandrake leaves combusted into black ash. Glass scattered everywhere and scratched my arms.
"Frick! What just happened?!" I still felt the effects of the nightshade making my heart beat fast, but the adrenaline rush didn't help any.
Butterfly groaned. "I thought it would be better to have one person control the image if she could, but you are too easily distracted. What happened was that we both had some control, but wanted to see different things, so the mirror couldn't handle that."
"Can we try again with a different mirror?" I asked.
Butterfly gave me a dirty look. "No, we can't. If you break a mirror during scrying, it takes seven years before that part of your magic powers regenerate in order to try again. That's where the saying of 'seven years of bad luck' comes from!"
"I thought it was seven years of bad luck because it used to take seven years to have a mirror carted from a craftsman in the desert to the coast..." I started.
Butterfly rolled her eyes. "No. But, nice try."
I lay back on the bed, staring at the dark ceiling. My body just wouldn't calm down. I had a headache, I felt like my back was breaking out in a rash, and it was very, very hot.
"Butterfly, does it feel warm to you too in this room?" I tried to fan myself off with my hand.
Butterfly snorted. "That's the belladonna in your system."
"Your face...I can't tell what it looks like when I'm close up, but when I'm far away, I can. Whee...whee!" I rocked myself back and forth, making Butterfly's head come either closer or farther per swing.
Butterfly laughed. "You are high, you little lightweight. Maybe I'll have to try some other drugs out on you, if you're willing."
"That berry tasted sweet. It wasn't as sweet as watermelon, or sugar cubes, but it was good. It was sweeter than an egg. Eggs aren't normally sweet. They can be salty though. Are there such things as sweet eggs?" I knocked the rest of the candles off the bed and brushed off some of the mandrakes that had turned to ash.
Butterfly picked some ash out of my hair. "There's candy eggs, but they don't have any actual egg in them, they're just shaped like eggs."
"Then, I don't want any. I want some more semi-sweet berries." I decided.
Butterfly gave me a look. "No, you don't..."
"Yes, I do. And I know just how I'll get them." I crushed my lips against Butterfly's and tried to suck any nightshade residue from her mouth.
Speaking of mouths, my mouth was getting dry. Very dry, in fact.
I separated from Butterfly a little bit. "Why aren't you kissing me back? Kiss me, you fool."
"No, we really shouldn't..." Butterfly tried to inch away, but I gripped her by her neck even more tightly.
I cupped Butterfly's head in my hand. "I want you. Don't deny me. It would just be denying yourself. You don't want that. We won't have sex. We'll just play a game."
"What game?" Butterfly pecked my lips gently.
I smirked, because I had her. "A game of control and pride. The lust involved is just a fringe benefit."
"I do know you like to control others, Butterfly." I picked up one of the less heavy chains in the open drawer as an example.
"I assumed you didn't know what those were for."
"It wasn't hard to figure out. Everything in that cabinet has something to do with sex. The pills are probably birth control or STD prevention and I know what vibrators and dildos are. I've had girlfriends before who explained them."
"You're a sneaky one. We all assume you are an innocent little virgin."
"I know. It's more useful to pretend to be innocent than to actually be."
"What other secrets do you have?"
"What secrets do you have?"
"A secret for a secret?"
"A story for a story, Butterfly?"
"What kind of a story?"
"A life's history."
"I know what you're after. You want every story for a grand prize."
"I know how to reward you if you help me."
"Why should I want you to be a Favored? Hm? How is that a good thing?"
"I'm away from the Flowers. Would you prefer a third Flower?"
"There will never be a third Flower. If anything, you've just assured me even more of that."
"Confident words, Butterfly."
"You have no idea what a snake Lorne really is, underneath the flattery. You also underestimate Todd completely. When Pinky talked to the Flowers, she deferred to Todd as the head of the operation. With you, it was Lorne. Neither is the greater. They are one and must be dealt with as one."
I ignored that statement and picked up one of the shiny metal handcuffs. "So you actually use these in bed?"
"Sometimes. It depends on who I'm with." Butterfly admitted.
I reached toward her, the cuffs opened and shining in the low light. I wanted to try this on Butterfly, see how they worked. Quicker than a whip, Butterfly cuffed my hands tightly around the bed's backboard.
I complained, "Hey! I didn't say you could do that!"
"But you said we could play a game, didn't you? You wanted a game of control. Don't back out now just because you're losing..." Butterfly taunted me with a hungry kiss to my neck.
I twisted my wrists inside the links. "I'm not losing."
"You most certainly are. Call me Master Yates and I'll let you out." Butterfly dangled a key in front of me.
"No."
"You shouldn't have said that."
"But, I did. So what are you going to do about it?"
Butterfly's eyes flared. "You are flaunting danger."
"I can't be controlled."
"Everyone bends to something."
"Not me."
"CreakBhains." I muttered.
The handcuffs snapped and I tossed them on the ground.
Butterfly rolled her eyes. "I knew it. You can't handle games of control unless you're winning."
"I..." I started to argue.
Butterfly flew right over my words. "You couldn't stay in those handcuffs for more than a minute. Admit it. You have control problems."
"I...yeah. I do." I might as well be honest.
Butterfly ruffled my hair like I was a little kid. "It's okay. Not everyone can handle THIS."
"I don't really go for bi's anyways." I shot.
I didn't expect the look of hurt that flashed across Butterfly's face. "Ouch."
"What?" I didn't understand.
Butterfly's eyes showed her distrust. "Do you have something against bisexuals?"
"What? No." I was still puzzled.
Butterfly shook her head, not believing me. "Okay. What in mind's eye do you see when you imagine a bisexual person?"
"I don't know. I guess...a girl...a girl holding hands with a guy and a girl. Aren't you guys more promiscuous or something? So she wouldn't be a virgin and she would be dressed super slutty, like her bosom practically hanging out of her dress and such." I actually pictured Butterfly when I was thinking of my stereotypical bisexual, but I didn't want to tell her that.
Butterfly was very annoyed. "How many bisexuals do you know?"
"Uh...you?" I didn't know anyone else in my life who was bisexual for sure, there were only a few maybes.
Butterfly sighed. "I see I have a lot of work cut out for me."
"Well, you are promiscuous, right?" I implored Butterfly.
Butterfly nodded, "Well, yes..."
"If your problem with me is that I think bisexuals are promiscuous, can you really blame me if you're the only out and proud bi I know, who just happens to be a slut?" I reasoned.
Butterfly just about growled at me. "Okay, that was not the only problem I had with your stereotype of a bisexual, but let's start there. Be nice to me even though I sleep with lots of people. I have feelings. Calling me a slut, a whore, saying that I'm promiscuous over and over hurts me. I know it's true. I know, I know, I already know. Don't be a slut shamer, because those people are normally hypocritical bastards. Do you want to be a hypocritical bastard?"
"No." I realized a little bit how hurtful I must have sounded.
Butterfly relaxed a little of the tension in her shoulders. "Good. Now, repeat after me: bisexuals are not any more promiscuous than any other orientation."
"Okay, 'bisexuals are not any more promiscuous than any other orientation,' but then why do you choose to play into the stereotype?" I questioned.
Butterfly got pithy. "'Bisexuals are promiscuous!' 'Bisexuals don't exist!' How on Earth would everyone agree we are promiscuous if we don't exist in the first place? Does no one else see that for every myth or stereotype about bisexuality out there, there is another one to contradict the previous one?! BECAUSE we polysexuals are not real AND our orientation is only a phase AND we'll just leave for a member of another sex any day AND our way of loving is only a sign of confusion AND when we haven't changed in five or ten or twenty or fifty years we are still just confused AND when we're in a different-sex relationship then we are holding onto 'straight privilege' AND when we're in a same-sex relationship then we've finally 'come all the way out' AND when we're in a different-sex relationship we're really just straight AND when we're in a same-sex relationship then we're really gay or lesbian AND when we dare suggesting that we have our own identity we are traitors of the community AND if we identify as bisexual we think there are only two genders AND when we identify as pansexual then we're simply hipsters AND when we don't self-define then we're invisible AND because every historical figure or celebrity who has ever had a same-sex relationship was really gay or lesbian no matter how they may have felt about other genders AND we're told we can't make up our minds AND that we're just attention seekers AND when we're monogamous then we're not really bisexual AND when we're polyamorous then we're reinforcing stereotypes AND because we want to fuck anything that moves AND because it's okay to sexually harass us and we're not allowed to choose or refuse or reject it AND because it's okay to ask us invasive questions about our sex lives AND because every fuck up about our relationships is attributed to our bisexuality AND because we see personal ads that say 'no bisexuals' AND for lots and lots of other reasons, I am going to have to make a bisexual awareness movement for Hachi's maids. Scratch that, it's going to be polysexual, that way it's inclusive of all non-monosexual orientations."
"So, pansexual...I know Todd identifies as it, but I don't really understand it. People sometimes say it's a 'special snowflake' way of saying bisexual, which is kinda what is confusing me." I added.
Butterfly sunk in despair. "Oh great, that rant went completely over your head."
"I think I understand bisexuality better than I used to, but pansexuality is a little vague to me. Gender-blind, right? But what does it mean?" I asked.
Butterfly rubbed her temples. "I almost wish I could bring Todd in here to tell you, but that would ruin the secrecy of this hideout. I'm going to try to explain pansexuality to you, but because I'm not pansexual myself, I'm not going to be all-knowing about the subject. My goal is to be respectful and informative even without being a member of the pansexual community."
"Okay. Before you get to the part where you lecture me for my stereotypical bisexual for being female, can I just say that I know men can be bisexual too, or even people not in the gender binary? I just imagined a bi as female, because society talks about bisexual women more than they talk about bisexual men or other genders. And society doesn't talk about bisexual people really at all, so that's saying something." I piped up.
Butterfly looked impressed. "Well, at least there's some things I don't have to talk to you about. You recognize genders not in the gender binary? I didn't really expect that of you. Most people, even LGB people, erase gender nonconforming people."
"Is Hachi attracted to people who are trans* or intersex or gender nonconforming?" I inquired.
It was more of a question if people of those groups were present as Hachi's maids, rather than 'is she attracted to them?' The reality is, the answer to one question was the same answer to the other one.
Butterfly confirmed it. "Yes. You've already met one."
Oh.
"Oak?" I received another nod.
Butterfly picked a piece of burnt mandrake leaf out of her hair. "Oak is transgender, but I'll save that story for her to tell you another day. Today is reserved for a stern talking-to about biphobia."
"In the words of a famous outside world bisexual activist, 'I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted - romantically and/or sexually - to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.' Then, I define pansexual as 'being attracted to people regardless of sex, gender, or gender expression.' Sometimes pansexuals like to call themselves 'gender-blind' to emphasize that they don't care about the gender identity of the person they are in love with. This also involves the sayings 'hearts not parts, 'I don't care about gender or genitals,' and 'I'm attracted to souls,' the sayings being of mixed effectiveness. No, pansexuals are not attracted to things like toasters, dead bodies, or what have you, even though the 'pan' prefix means 'all.' Also, don't make jokes about pansexuals and pans, that is offensive to most, if not all pansexual people." This information was a lot to handle all at once.
I carefully brought up my thought. "Would it be fair to say that the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality is that bisexual people experience attraction to gender identity and pansexual people experience attraction regardless of gender identity? So basically, a bisexual person and a pansexual person might both be attracted to a person of any gender or kind of gender expression but the bisexual person would focalize this attraction through the persons gender expression, or lack thereof, whereas a pansexual person wouldn't consider their gender?"
"Maybe. I don't know, I don't really have a problem with that definition, so I might use it. When I make a polysexual awareness group, you're coming to at least the first meeting with me, that way you can learn more about sexual orientations that aren't monosexual, which you're probably not used to. For now, we need to get back to your caricature of bisexuals." Butterfly started to list things off on her fingers.
"More promiscuous? False. Every sexual orientation has the exact same ratio of 'more promiscuous' individuals to 'more monogamous' individuals. No virgin bisexuals? False. Every person starts out as a virgin, therefore every bisexual person starts out as a virgin, therefore there are virgin bisexuals. Dressed super slutty? False. Gender identity presentation has nothing to do with orientation. Automatically polyamorous? False. There are polyamorous bisexuals, and they aren't a shame to the community, they have every right to claim the identity as bisexual as a bisexual who only has monogamous relationships, but not every bisexual is polyamorous, conversely, not every bisexual has monogamous relationships, but that's the same for any orientation. Any questions?"
I felt rather saturated with information and the belladonna was on the cusp of giving me a fresh headache. "I think I'm good for now. Aren't we supposed to be figuring out a way to save Pinky from her arranged marriage?"
"We can't." Butterfly grimaced and stood up.
My eyes hardened in stubbornness. "What do you mean by 'can't?'"
"The KING ordained this marriage. Do you really think you can defy his order that she be married to Prince Cain, when Hachi cannot, and she desires to stop this atrocity as much as you?" Butterfly countered.
I growled and the effects of the belladonna seemingly washed away under my anger., "I'll find a way to save Pinky."
"You're brave. But, you have no idea what it's like, trying to fight this kind of battle. Disobeying a king, particularly while you live in his castle, is like battling the ocean while in the tide zone, or warring with the earth as you stand on it, or even attacking the sun, when its gravitational pull on the planet, and heat, and light, are the only way you came to exist. You had better be something special if you think you can challenge a king." Butterfly held no judgment in her eyes: she really wanted to know what I thought of myself.
I closed my eyes tiredly. "I don't know, Butterfly. I do things no one else thinks possible, but I need to tread lightly. Disrespecting the king's decision for an arranged marriage is grounds for a charge of treason."
"We need to take our minds off of this heavy subject. What do you say? I'll tell you my story, as you requested earlier, if you follow me." Butterfly offered me her hand.
I took it and followed her. She exited her bedroom into the main commons and brought me down one of the long hallways. Wisps of magic reflected off of the castle's crystal walls. At first, they showed me images of mermaids laughing and singing with Pinky. But at other times, they would show me Honesty hunting with bow-and-arrow, sometimes she had blond hair, and other times brown. I wondered why the walls would show me these images, since I did not ask for them, and I certainly never thought of these scenes, nor imagined them in this great of detail.
Butterfly rebuked me without turning her head. "Don't look at the walls."
"Why?" The question popped out effortlessly.
Butterfly replied, "The magic shows what are some of the happiest moments you have to look forward to in your life. It might spoil something of the future, or it might remind you of something you will never get to again experience in your lifetime, simply because the circumstances are no longer around for it to happen again. It can be torture to watch yourself so happy on the walls and never be able to make that dream come true again."
The walls flashed me a very graphic image of Pinky and Ryder bedding.
"I'm not really seeing myself on the walls. I see Pinky and Honesty in different frames, but just not me." I remarked.
Butterfly stopped walking and faced me. "What do you see right this instant on the walls?"
"Pinky and Ryder are rutting like there's no tomorrow. Ryder is on top and Pinky is squirming in Ryder's hand. They look carefree." I winced as I got an eyeful of between Pinky's legs.
Butterfly studied my face. "How does what the magic is showing you make you feel?"
"I don't really feel anything, especially because this scene is not about me. I don't feel anything on Ryder's end, but I know what Pinky is feeling. Pinky is overjoyed, she is horny, and she's just...happy to be there, happy to be giving her body away to Ryder. It's weird that I don't feel anything, but Pinky's feeling of happiness is so similar to what I feel when I'm happy, that tapping into her joy makes me feel like we're one and the same." I did my best to explain.
Butterfly scoffed. "Okay, I did my best to humor you. People only see situations of themselves being happy on these walls, not of others. There's no way you're telling me the truth."
The image changed to Pinky in bed with Butterfly.
"This one is different. You're with Pinky, and you're both in the room we were just in, but you're both having sex. You're yanking on this collar and leash Pinky is wearing. The collar is dark brown and has pink lettering in it, just like that collar I found in your bedside dresser. Pinky is happy that you're rough physically and verbally, but something you said crossed a line. She whispered something...I think it was 'Cinderella?'" I observed with blasé.
Butterfly's eyes grew wide. "Nobody knows that!"
"Honesty's happy moments are never to do with sleeping with someone. Most of the time, she's alone, out hunting. Sometimes she's riding horses. Her moments really don't have other people in them. Is she a loner? The only one I see with lots of other people present would be when she won a jousting tournament, before Pinky was here, and she beat Roi, who had been reigning Champion for a while. It's the only one I see where her pride is because other people really are cheering her on, instead of her patting herself on the back basically, when she's downed some prey animal." I interpreted.
Butterfly was flabbergasted. "There's no way...you weren't even there for that...but why would the magic show you something else?"
"I don't know." I walked on ahead past Butterfly and now she followed me.
We entered into a room full of different blank vases and blank canvases. Butterfly regained her senses and led me to a particularly long, tall amphora. Taking a paintbrush and palette, she mixed some colors, then set her brush upon the jar's surface. She painted her story as we spoke of it.
Butterfly's voice was calm and clear. "In the beginning, I was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. My soul hovered over the face of the waters, of my mother's womb.
And then, the world shifted, allowed me into it. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, my birth, and light was separated from darkness. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day of the rest of my life.
I was born to two engineering professors in a scholar's nook named for the school there, Agamemnon. Agamemnon is a big rival of MacArthur, but we're obviously better. Ever since I was little, I drew and painted. When I got older, I added graffiti and tattoos to my list of skills, but I always remained the best at painting. Agamemnon was no art school, though, so everyone was disappointed in me. I was expected to be an engineer, or a researcher, or a scientist of any sort, but there I was, an artist in a school of science, determined to beat out MacArthur for the name of top scholar's nook. Everyone felt like I had let the whole school down by refusing to be interested in the sciences.
Other traits about me that infuriated the people around me would be that I was scene and bisexual. My hair was dyed a new color every week and my clothes were too colorful to be emo, but a very similar style otherwise. People assumed that the 'gayness' of the art genre had rubbed off on me and that I was secretly straight. My parents assumed me being bisexual meant I was a slut and slept with anyone I brought home. Being slut-shamed now feels no different to me than it did back then, because I get called a whore whether or not I'm sleeping with people.
I know you've talked to Hachi about me, and if she said I wore my heart on my sleeve back then, it's absolutely true. I was outspoken, belligerent to anyone who tried to put me down, and anyone within ten feet of me knew how I was feeling at that time of day. I lived boldly, didn't apologize to anyone, and was stubborn enough to not want to see it anyone else's way. That was not a good thing, the extent I took it to."
"Why?" I interrupted.
Butterfly stopped painting and stood up. She stripped her clothes off until she was naked and waited for me to look her over.
Butterfly inquired, "My skin looks normal, right?"
I nodded. It looked silky and as fresh as the day she was born, from how she had painted herself as an infant on the amphora.
Butterfly picked up her wand and drew off an invisible magic covering, starting from her left wrist and working down to her right ankle. Immediately, scarred flesh revealed itself. They were not just random lines into her skin. They were words, some slurs, all with hurtful and angry meanings just the same.
"I was a carver for a while back. I've still got depression issues." Butterfly admitted.
I reached out and very gently touched her thigh. There were many phrases there that I knew, like "dyke," "faggot," and "go kill yourself," but I chose to grasp the one I did not know.
Butterfly noticed what word I touched. "You want to know what 'bihet' means?"
"Yes. I've never heard of it." I admitted.
Butterfly sat down and I stroked over the word comfortingly as she talked. "Bihet is a word invented by biphobic LGT+ people to compare bisexuals to heterosexual women. It generally implies bisexuals are more heterosexual than heterosexuals, if that makes any sense, which it shouldn't. Never listen to a lesbian radscum, okay?"
"Well, okay? Okay, I guess. Butterfly...which one was your first and which one your most recent?" I figured out that the only places that had few carvings were her neck and upper back.
Butterfly showed me the large-lettered word written across the inside of her left forearm. "My first was this one: 'worthless.' I can't remember which one was my most recent and how recently it was done; there are too many and the memories blur together."
"Why do you cover up your carvings with magic?" I gently wished each deep cut that I touched to get better, but knowing the nature of scars, they would not.
Butterfly chuckled unhappily. "Why do you think? To avoid the social stigma from others and the shame I get from looking at them, of course! What clothes would cover the rings around my wrist? What other protection could hide the words 'halfling homosexual' across my cheek?"
"Butterfly, why do you think that your scars are something to be ashamed of?" I knew I'd made a good point by the look in Butterfly's eyes.
She struggled to respond. "Because...because...self-inflicted cuts deserve nothing but contempt!"
"That's not a reason, Butterfly, and you know it. Your scarred skin is just as beautiful as your unscarred skin. Don't fill yourself with self-loathing." I reached out to touch Butterfly again and she withdrew.
Butterfly stared at her own reflection in a beautifully engraved marble block mirror. "I'm ugly. I'm ugly, I'm ugly, I'm ugly. It doesn't matter how many times I change my hair color or the way I dress, I'm the fugliest bitch in the world."
"I disagree. I think you're beautiful, and so does Hachi, Pinky, Faun...Ryder, Oak, Elegance, Sugar, just about every single one of Hachi's maids! You know, I bet even Todd and LORNE think you're beautiful, and that they're very envious of it." I offered.
Butterfly's voice fell flat. "Oh really?"
"Yes. Carvings and all, your body is amazing." I promised.
Butterfly sighed and then fell into my arms crying. I let her head curl up underneath my chin and said nothing for the longest time. When Butterfly could find no more tears, I picked up her paintbrush, dabbed it in a bit of the peach color, and crudely drew two human-shaped figures. One had bright purple-and-red hair, while the other had shiny blond hair.
Butterfly dabbed at her eyes and laughed. "You should never be a painter."
"Yeah, yeah. Just keep painting your story." I made Butterfly put her clothes back on and handed her the paintbrush.
Butterfly touched her painted brush against the amphora and worked her magic. "I was like that up until the time I saw Hachi for the first time. I adored her. Describing it, since it's been so long ago, is really weird; I just couldn't get Hachi out of my photographic memory. When you saw the me of the past in the mirror, I was already sucked into my Hachi obsession. I stopped thinking so much about others and secluded myself to my work. I used to paint all sorts of things I would see, but then, Hachi became the only subject for me.
My paintings were good. They impressed even some of the most hardened scientists that didn't appreciate the arts back then; I ended up making everyone reconsider their stance on art at Agamemnon. I liked that I was receiving a larger amount of notoriety than I expected, but what really shocked me, really surprised me, was that Hachi and the king came to visit one of the art shows comprised only of my work.
I watched Hachi for a little bit, feeling shy, but once I had the chance, I pulled her away and did a colored pencil sketch, just for her. That was all I needed for Hachi to end up making me one of her maids.
I became a Favored after I slept with Hachi, but I felt lost afterwards...restless even. I flitted around from bed to bed, looking for love. Truthfully, I still haven't found it. Being a Favored meant little other than sleeping with Hachi more often, but I was the one who first believed it could mean something different. I brought the Favored together, consolidated our power if you will, and shaped us into the force we are today.
I may be broken inside, but it is my weaknesses that make me stronger. I am NOT worthless, yet, only because I have worked my ass off trying to change that. I'm not worthless after all..."
Butterfly finished painting and stroked the aforementioned carving on her arm. The amphora was beautiful, but the scenes were quite sad. The beginning: an innocent infant swaddled in the pink, purple, and blue hues of her mother's womb. It did not take long for the smile born on her face to fade into a weary frown. Near the middle: Butterfly with white hair and cherry red highlights getting bullied at school as she desperately clutched a small portrait of Hachi. The panel next to it featured Butterfly crying piteously as the crowd lit the canvas on fire and stomped its ashes in front of her. The last painted scene: the rest of the Favored meeting in one of the secret rooms around here as Butterfly and I kissed over a mirror, preparing to scry.
Butterfly traced a detailed frame around what I had painted, my silly two figures that were barely recognizable as human.
"Hachi wonders why you no longer paint of her as much." I proffered with care.
Butterfly let out a deep sigh. "I was enamored with Hachi until I had sex with her the first time. It served to wake me up to the fact that I was never going to date her, we were never going to fall in love, that it was time to look for someone else. But there is no one else, I can find no one else to love me. I don't know who I'm supposed to be with."
"I don't know who I'm supposed to be with either." I said honestly.
Butterfly blinked at me.
"Maybe...maybe time will tell for both of us. Love is still out there. It will bring us to the person we never really saw, and love, love will show us to see. But in order for the journey to begin, there has to be a first footstep."
Butterfly wrapped herself in a new magical shield. I stood up and dusted my dress off. Who knows how long it would be before either of us found true love, or how hard the path would be, but it would happen. This destiny was assured.
Butterfly clasped my shoulder in a friendly manner. "Are you ready to go face the world again, Champion?"
"Wait. Why are you calling me 'Champion?'" I implored.
Butterfly answered, "Maids who get married are forced to leave. Pinky is no longer one of us; she is Cynthia Kennedy again. You are now the Champion by default."
Additional Author's Note:
This is 26 pages on Google Docs so my ex girlfriend #1 can kiss my ass for telling me I "lose points because I don't update..." and I mean that in the most smartass way possible. I love you too Lil_Dixie :P