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The sky was a brilliant orange, dashes of pink and purple painted overhead and a deep golden center sinking beneath the waves of silhouetted trees that surrounded the small pond. The scene reflected off the perfectly still surface of the pond.
It was so beautiful.
Sally wanted to live in it.
She wanted to destroy it.
Sally dipped a toe into the water, the ripples changing the appearance of the sky. A satisfactory smile fueled the urge to be a piece of living art. She turned her back to the water and allowed herself to fall back, completely trusting the pond to catch her.
The sweet flags and mosaic pond plants tickled her cheeks, arms, and legs, and Sally let out a forced giggle. She pushed herself away from the edge of the pond and moved her arms over her head, letting herself float to the center.
She reached forth into the sky like she could grab the colors right off the page. She’d never wanted to fly before-- she was always happiest in the water, but she knew someone very well, someone as well as herself, who had always looked to the skies and beyond, always seemed to want to jump off the nearest cliff to see if he could fly-- now every time she saw a bird pass overhead, she thought of him.
She wasn’t sure if the memories were old enough to be fond yet.
He was on Sally’s mind when a large silhouette of a bird passed by-- it must have been a hawk or a falcon of some sorts, it was simply massive. She’d never seen a wingspan of that size before-- except, except once. And it wasn’t even a bird.
She would not wager to call him a man, though.
The bird descended from above, down into the trees and just a few lengths away from the pond Sally relaxed in. In her mind, she tossed a simple idea back and forth: break her relaxation and go see the bird, or succumb to the numbing sensation of the cool November waters her scales were soaking up.
Sally had always been a curious mind.
It was what made her the top of her class in school.
It was what made her take a chance on a musician and his younger brother and left home.
It was why she couldn’t remember a few months of her life.
Carefully, she placed more weight on the bottom half of her body so Sally turned upright. She waded out of the pond, shivering as the frigid autumn air tried to freeze the water onto her, trying to make an icicle out of a nymph.
Sally cracked the bones in her toes, hooking the grass underneath her foot along before releasing it as she walked, taking big steps, almost like a dance. She whistled a tune she learned from the stranger she used to know very well. He always carried an acoustic guitar named Simone around, always coming up with new melodies and soft tunes to lull his little brother to sleep or serenade Sally.
Sally had been right; the bird was not a bird, and not a man. Not the man.
The creature wore green robes over a black turtleneck, a crystalized heart necklace dangling from his neck as he sat hunched over on the ground, his wings drooping from exhaustion. He looked exactly as he did when Sally first met him almost nine years ago.
Sally had a curious mind, but she had been tempered by the years. Perhaps when she was fifteen, she would’ve jumped out and started cursing the man for ruining a most beloved creature, for abandoning two boys who adored him and making them terrible men.
Now she just stood behind a tree, nails scraping against the bark as she watched what he would do next.
He heaved himself up, staring at the darkening sky before his head pivoted in Sally’s direction. She audibly gasped when they made eye contact. She stared at him longer than he stared at her.
“Excuse me,” the creature said, dusting himself off and standing on his two legs. “Are you from around here? I’m a traveler--”
“You don’t remember me?” said Sally before she could even process what she was saying.
The creature cocked his head to the side. “Have we met before? I’m sorry, I’ve never been around here before.”
“I’m not from around here either,” she replied, coming away from the tree and presenting herself fully. Dripping wet, blue scales intermingled with glassy skin and fiery red hair. “We met eight years ago. I was much younger then--”
“Perhaps we could catch up wherever you live? I’ve been traveling for days and finally exhausted all my energy,” the creature admitted with a sheepish smile, adjusting his green striped bucket hat around his head that didn’t hide the mess of tangles in his chin-length blonde hair.
Sally wanted to say no. She’d rather die than help this beast.
But the indignation of not even being remembered ate her up a little. She had liked to think she had been someone important to someone who was supposed to be important to him. That was worth remembering wasn’t it? Or did it just fully prove how little he had meant to the creature?
“Of course,” she said through gritted teeth. “Follow me.”
Sally led him back the long way out of pure spite. She hoped his legs would be as tired as his wings were. During the walk, he filled the silence with talks of his travels.
Younger Sally would’ve scoffed and walked ahead, but this Sally was polite now. She couldn’t remember why.
“I’m coming from the north. I had been traveling there with a friend, but my friend left to help his brother with something. We were just messing around up there. Before that, we’d been taking down injustices left and right-- you may have heard of us--”
“I’ve heard of you, Angel of Death.”
The creature paused, and Sally stopped too. “Is that how you know me?”
“It’s not.”
They continued walking. “You’re a nymph, aren’t you? Perhaps you’re from one of the ocean port cities--”
“I lived near the oceans only during the on season when I was younger. I spent my summers in a small town at the base of a mountain before I moved there permanently. So small, it didn’t even have a schoolhouse for the children.”
The creature nodded as if he were taking that information to heart, but it probably didn’t even register within him.
How shallow.
“My name is Philza, though. Not Angel of Death. That’s just a silly title.”
I know that, she thought. Why wouldn’t she know the name of the father of her lover? Her husband?
Sally scoffed and walked further along.
Perhaps she wasn’t as polite as she thought she always had to be.
Sally’s cabin was a dilapidated little number she had found abandoned after waking up in the middle of nowhere completely alone. The roof had been falling apart and the wood was rotting, but she managed to fix it up.
She had always been the more handy of the two of them.
She had built the nursery for her unborn baby herself. The crib, the rocking chair, the little mobile-- she had even handmade the little creatures tied to the four ends. She had to forget all about those things in their old apartment. When Wilbur’s brother, Tommy, left them for a year, her husband had been nothing but anxious the entire time. When they received a letter speaking of a new settlement Wilbur would love, she knew Wil had to go to him. She had been almost eight months pregnant then.
What she didn’t expect was that Wilbur would soon call her down to this brave new world too.
That was where it all faded for her. She remembered packing a light suitcase of dresses and some baby things in case they didn’t return in time to deliver the baby at home. Her neighbor escorted her there, but she said she sensed terrible things coming from the air and had left her in the middle of the dirt path…
And then nothing.
Then it was forest.
Dilapidated house.
No husband, no child.
She didn’t even have her baby bump left, but she still produced breastmilk.
Sally opened the door for Phil. The house was empty save for the furniture that had been left inside by whoever left the house. There was an old purple couch that had been very dusty before Sally had dragged it out of the house and beat it with a fallen tree branch. She’d then dipped the cushions into the pond and let them dry in the open sun.
Same with the mattress and sheets.
It was a twin-sized mattress. She hadn’t slept in one of those since she was fifteen. The first few nights, she kept reaching for the empty space beside her and rolled off and onto the unforgiving hardwood floor, but slowly she got used to her own space, and hugging her own body in the sweaty summer nights. And in the autumn, as it turned into winter, she’d twist the blankets up to her neck and pretend it was a hug from someone she loved.
Sally felt her way into the kitchen to grab some old matches to light the candles. Once she did, she could see Phil’s grim face as he looked around, no doubt regretting asking to stay there now that he knew how much of a wreck it was.
Yet, he surprised her with his false grace. “It’s very homely,” he complimented.
“It’s new,” she replied with a snort. “You can take a seat. Are you hungry?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” said Phil over the sound of the explosive rumblings of his stomach. Sally still had some leftover fish in the icebox she made outside. She slipped through the front door to grab the fish before making her way to the back of the house where a makeshift fire pit lived. It was just a pile of sticks surrounded by a circle of rocks from the brook. Over it, Sally had constructed a device to help cook things over the fire.
Unknowingly, Phil had trailed after her, watching as she lit a new fire with more matchsticks. “How did you get here?” he asked.
Sally shrugged as she stoked the fire. “Why are you here?”
Phil settled into the spot next to Sally, watching the fire begin to roast the fish. “I’m a father, you know. I have three boys. I was with the second one up north, but the other two I haven’t seen in a few years. My youngest has never written to me, but my oldest-- he’s biological-- well, he writes to me every few months. I get nice updates from him. He’s very accomplished, you know.”
Sally stared at Phil, trying to hold her lip from trembling as she nodded in understanding even though she didn’t.
The Wilbur she knew wasn’t accomplished at all. He made meager profits from his songs and poetry. He wrote political essays under a pseudonym, and he was a nervous wreck half the time. Just who did Wilbur become in her absence? Why wasn’t she there for his victories?
She turned her head to face the fish.
“Well, one day, the letters just… Stopped coming,” Phil continued, not noticing the shift in Sally’s attitude, or, if he did notice he did not touch on it. “I worry about him a lot. He’s a self-destructive boy. He’s got his mother’s temper, you see, but not her immortality. I mentioned my boy-- I mean, my friend-- he, uh, he went to go check on my son, his brother-- but I haven’t heard from him either. My crows can’t see them either-- I feel as if they’re a place beyond my reach.”
“He’s lucky to have a father that cares,” Sally whispered as she removed the fish from the flames, handing the skewer to Phil.
“He’s my son. I’ll always be there for him.”
Liar, she wanted to scream. You abandoned him when he needed you most! Why didn’t you take him with you? Why was every song he wrote about a bird that flew too far away?
“Did he… Ever mention a family in his letters? A wife? Kids?” she asked tentatively.
Phil stroked his chin before shaking his head. “No, no, I think I’d remember something like that.”
Sally stood up abruptly, almost falling over when she realized one leg had fallen asleep. Even so, she could not stand to listen to one more second of Philza’s nonsense. He was a liar. The worst kind of creature.
Wilbur never mentioned her? Or that she was pregnant with his child? But he mentioned wherever he was?
Perhaps this was her way of getting back to him.
But why did she ever leave in the first place?
Why was Sally here, in this forest, instead of with Wilbur?
And where was her child?
When Sally initially got pregnant, she hadn’t taken it so well. She had smashed the only vase they ever owned into the wall and sobbed over the broken shards, desperately trying to piece it back together. Wilbur had found her like that: hands bloodied and cut and a face so swollen it was near impossible to recognize.
He was ecstatic, of course, when he found out, but the nerves got the best of him, like they always did. It was his nerves that forced her to love the child, because someone had to be competent and someone had to make sure the baby survived and someone had to love it.
And Wilbur did love the child, but fatherhood was a demon of his, and Sally couldn’t blame him because she had met the demon herself, and now here he was in her backyard eating smoked fish and telling her about his family as if she wasn’t a part of it.
Phil cleared his throat. “This was delicious. Thank you. You’ve been more than kind to me.”
“Of course,” said Sally with her back turned away from the fire. “I’ll go fix you up a place to sleep.”
There was an extra pair of sheets in the linen closet that Sally used to cover the couch with. There was a knitted blanket with some holes in it that she left folded on the end of the couch, but she gave up when it came to pillows. The only pillows were the ones on her bed, and yes, Sally felt petty enough to keep them for herself.
Phil came in a few minutes later, thanking her again for the couch. Sally just nodded and headed off to her own bed, changing out of her damp dress in favor of a clean beige smock. She lied down on her back, staring at the ceiling and imagining her baby’s little crib mobile.
Why was she still here? Why was she waiting for Wilbur? Why didn’t she just tell Phil who she really was?
She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, the thoughts torturing her in the deep unconscious.
Sally could smell the smoke from outside.
The fire pit was in use.
She ran to the window, her nose pressed up against the glass, relaxing a little when she saw it was just Phil, turning over some fish. They looked freshly caught, too.
Sally grabbed a shawl and threw it around her shoulders before heading outside. “Good morning,” she said.
Phil waved. “You’re just in time for breakfast. I thought I’d treat you as thanks for your hospitality.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.” Phil passed Sally a skewer, gesturing for her to sit down.
Sally had eaten Phil’s cooking before-- it was the only occasion she had met him. Wilbur had arranged a special dinner with his family-- his two brothers and father-- unfortunately his mother’s tether to the plane of death made it hard for her to show up for occasions like that unless she overtook her husband’s body-- and Sally had come up to their house in her prettiest dress and the tightest braid her mother could weave.
Philza had been very uninterested in her from the moment she walked in the door. He was polite, but past the way one would treat a guest, and more the way one would treat someone they were trying to pass in the street. What’s more, the focus of their dinner topics wasn’t even Wilbur, who had put the meal together, but a discussion of where Phil and his ward Technoblade would go next.
Sally wasn’t proud of the words she had accidentally taught Tommy that day, but she was glad she stood up for Wilbur. If no one else would do it, she would. She’d be his number one fan; she’d hold the moon in her cupped hands if he demanded it.
“I’ll be out of your hair after this, I promise,” Phil said after he finished chewing his first bite. “I have a feeling I’m close to wherever it is I’m supposed to be.”
The words were stuck in Sally’s throat. Where are you going? Take me with you. Take me to Wilbur.
“Good luck with your travels, Philza.”
“You know, I never did figure out from where you know me. You look to be around my son’s age…” Sally’s breath hitched. “You wouldn’t happen to know someone by the name of Technoblade, would you?”
Tears of frustration almost won against Sally’s newfound patience. Wilbur! Wilbur! It’s Wilbur I know! It’s Wilbur I love! It’s Wilbur who has abandoned me!
That was it, wasn’t it?
She’d been ready to go see him. She had a sunhat on, eight months pregnant with a suitcase in her grip, and now here she was with a flat stomach, no memories in the middle of nowhere. She had seen him, hadn’t she? And he had forsaken her.
He didn’t even acknowledge their child. Their child!
“No, it’s not him. It’s…”
Wilbur didn’t want her anymore, did he?
That was why she was here.
And like a fool, she sat here for three months thinking he would show up out of the blue with a child on his hip and he’d take her hand and bring her back to their little apartment that was fully furnished and ready to go for their little child. Uncle Tommy would come visit occasionally. Maybe Phil could’ve found out about her the right way, and Technoblade, Phil, and Wilbur would all reconcile.
One happy family.
The image shattered like the vase she had broken the day she found out she was pregnant.
“I won’t say how we know each other, Philza. I wish you’d find out for yourself.”
“Alright then. I’ll fly back to tell you if I ever remember.”
Sally shook her head. “I won’t be here.”
Phil acted so much like a bird when he cocked his head to the side in confusion. “Where will you be?”
Sally smiled, thinking of their old apartment once more. She could still make it hers. “Utah.”