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Warlock still has the tutu from Nanny Ashtoreth; the one she snapped into existence for him that day he didn’t want to wear trousers. The rainbow tutu, complete with sequins and ruffles.
It’s too small for him now, of course, and has been for years. He got it when he was six and outgrew it before he was eight, and by the time he turned ten he would have been far too self-conscious to put it on anyway.
He’s thirteen now.
Yet somehow, during all that time, he kept the tutu stowed away in his closet. And when they moved to America, he took it with him. He doesn’t think he can have managed to conceal it from his parents throughout the move, not with the garment as puffy and awkward in the packing as it is. But neither of them said anything. Perhaps his parents have grown a little more accepting over the years; a little less prone to judge, a little more willing to love.
Warlock still has sad days sometimes, of course. Nanny isn’t there to fix things anymore, though she does send him cards regularly.
So instead of waiting for her to say the magic words, the question and inside joke and reassurance all rolled into one, Warlock says them to himself. Too sad for pants? he asks silently, and the memories that phrase evokes are usually enough to incite a small smile.
He mentions it briefly one day, in a letter to Nanny Ashtoreth. It’s a parenthetical comment, barely allotted a sentence. He doubts she remembers at all; it was a memorable experience for Warlock, sure, but that’s because he was six.
But on his fourteenth birthday, a teenage-size tutu appears in a gift bag in Warlock’s bedroom. He recognizes the handwriting of his name on the package, though there’s no card or signature.
It’s dumb. Absolutely ridiculous. Warlock rolls his eyes… and his heart feels like dancing.
Hearts, of course, cannot actually dance. But people can. And so, because he can, Warlock puts the tutu on and twirls, feeling and seeing the colorful ruffles fan out around him.
He decides then and there that, when he outgrows this one, he’s getting another.
Only this time, he muses as he does another spin for the sheer fun of it, the reason isn’t that he’s too sad for pants. It’s that he’s too happy for them.