Medea
The city she has lived in for as long as she can remember is a web of tangled streets and spider silk, and rainstorms before dawn. There are places where the streets lead her everywhere except where she wants to go, and places where wide avenues give suddenly to parks, or squares, and there are hills and valleys and places that are neither. She does not know even half the secrets of the city, nor does she claim it, and it has surprised her often. She has followed a twisting stair to a mansion with no other access, and found more than once a wide street has ended in a blank, grey wall.
She has never been afraid in this city. It is hers, after all, and although she is surprised by it often she has never been hurt by it. She does not count the times she has fallen, or tripped, or stumbled, for those were her own fault.
No, she has never been afraid. She is perhaps uneasy at times, for the city has little in the way of colour, and her reflection has startled her, bright hair against glass jarring her thoughts. She does not fit in.
She has tried to remedy that with splashes of colour, paint or coloured chalks, designs scribbled in blue or orange or green. The colours are always one again when she wakes, and the streets new again, and different.
She has never left the city. She has not tried. She has everything she needs here, everything she could ever want, even the means to paint her winter city the colours of autumn, for the brief days before the snow comes again. She has never left, but then, it is possible that even is she tried she would not be able to, for she has often suspected the city goes on forever.
The city has been her home all her life. It is what it was built for, after all; to be hers, and hers only.
Hers alone.
She has never been afraid in this city. It is hers, after all, and although she is surprised by it often she has never been hurt by it. She does not count the times she has fallen, or tripped, or stumbled, for those were her own fault.
No, she has never been afraid. She is perhaps uneasy at times, for the city has little in the way of colour, and her reflection has startled her, bright hair against glass jarring her thoughts. She does not fit in.
She has tried to remedy that with splashes of colour, paint or coloured chalks, designs scribbled in blue or orange or green. The colours are always one again when she wakes, and the streets new again, and different.
She has never left the city. She has not tried. She has everything she needs here, everything she could ever want, even the means to paint her winter city the colours of autumn, for the brief days before the snow comes again. She has never left, but then, it is possible that even is she tried she would not be able to, for she has often suspected the city goes on forever.
The city has been her home all her life. It is what it was built for, after all; to be hers, and hers only.
Hers alone.