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Maybe she had been too young to understand that her parents had well and truly left her. That, no wandering into the woods would make her birth parents defy the news of a spreading illness to come back for her.
Goldi must have been too young, speaking as she hadn’t thought the better of wandering not down the almost-clear-cut-wagon-path---but right into the woods behind her house. She hadn’t had anything with her, nothing but the clothes on her back, a coat that hung off her a little too loosely, and a stuffed animal she had left somewhere shortly outside of the fenceline.
Goldi’s not sure how long she wandered for. She just knows that by the time the wolves had found her, fear of an animal chasing her down had been the only thing making her chubby little legs run.
She wasn’t fast--from what she remembers of it, they had nearly gotten their teeth into her. Stolen one of her shoes, and sent her shooting off into a direction that had looked awfully scary in the freezing winter months. Later in her nightmares, the wolves will get her over and over. They’ll rip her apart, and she’ll wake up crying, and shouting, and when Mama and Papa--and sometimes Baby try to figure out what’s gotten into her, she won’t have the words for it.
She’s only just turned five, and she can’t explain the terror of thinking she’ll go back into the woods and they’ll be waiting for her. Goldi didn’t know how to then, and she still doesn’t know how to explain the thin hairs on her arms standing up when she hears canine’s howling off in the distance, or the terror she had felt before her tiny brain had been ready for it--a fear of dying a recently graduated toddler had no right to feel or any of the other mixed and matched issues she’s got.
She does know though, that if the house she’d run up on hadn’t belonged to the three bears, she’d have died before she reached the clearing. If it hadn’t been for them, she would have never been able to see her pursuers stop their chase. There was no way that if it had been a lesser mammal--or something the wolves wouldn’t have minded munching on, that they wouldn’t have come home to find a little girl shredded in their front garden.
Goldi had gotten lucky. They’d smelled something bigger than both of them, and decided to let them have her instead.
It had been luck that she’d run up on a bear’s house, and even more luck that the door’d been unlocked. She’d needed it. Her stockings were soaking wet, and run through, and she was just about as dirty as she can get to be. If the wolves hadn’t gotten her, she’d have frozen right through--if she didn’t starve first.
She’d gotten lucky because the bears hadn’t.
When they’d met, Baby had been exactly that--just a baby. Three years younger than her--and not quite good with actual words quite yet. He had known a couple of words then--even though he hadn’t been quite good enough at stringing them together to still make them make sense.
Still, he had followed her everywhere like little siblings always did--though, she’s sure when he first started, Mama and Papa had still been hoping that her parents would come looking for her--but he’d been her little tag-a-long for months, when he had tried to tell her for the first time.
When he had wriggled around until she was awake, confusedly trying to string together words that could somehow explain the monstrosity he had been trying to tell her about. Thin words like ‘the boxes’ trying to blanket over the emotional depth of being locked in a cage under some weirdo-tyrant’s command. Of being a prisoner at such a young age--of being forcibly relocated somewhere he’d never even heard of before.
She hadn’t been old enough to understand why he had felt the need to tell her that--to flop his heavy little body down half on top of her, and tell her things that she hadn’t been able to make sense of quite yet. He hadn’t been able to explain it yet--not in the way he did once--and only once.
Goldi had gotten lucky because the Bear’s hadn’t.
It felt like taking advantage. That she got off so easy because they were somewhere else suffering. That Goldi had only gotten to escape the whistle of death because of some weirdo with a bad haircut that had taken the Bears unrightfully from their home.
That they had been so kind to the next intruder into their happy lives.
Not that they had ever made her feel bad. Never made her feel any less than worthy of their care--once they had realized that her own parents were never coming back, she had been their ‘little Goldilocks’. Even though--when Baby got older, and he came to his proper senses, he stopped with all the clinging-little-brother stuff.
She’d be a liar if she said that she didn’t love them--even if she had been parasitic. If their bad luck had been her saving moment. She loved them, and they loved her--maybe a bit too much, if she’s honest. After what happened at the star--after she repaid a decades kindness with what surely felt like an insult, they had still tried to help her get it. They had tried to help her get her just-right, had tried to let her give them a just-right that they didn’t agree with.
And they’d still been nice to her afterwards. After she’d ruined their life--made it harder on the three of them, and then spat in the face of their kindness years later in the name of ‘fixing’ things. She’d still been their ‘Goldi’. Her Mama’s ‘Golden Girl’.
It felt wrong. She wasn’t one to sink into her feelings, but it felt wrong. Like somehow they should have revoked her status as one of their pesky kids the minute she admitted that she knew how hard she’d made their lives.
And she had made it hard. Goldi loved them with their entire heart, but things would have been easier on them if she’d never been chased to their doorstep. She knows if she sought reassurance they’d give it to her, her Mama and Papa would lie to her face if they had to. Hold her tight, and lie to her face about her role in their downfall.
And she knows they’d be lying. She knows they would, because they have.
When they had first left home four years into her life with them, Papa and Mama had framed it as a…a trip. Something definite. Something that’d end. And--when around a month or two in, when they’d gone and wandered from another place, with no signs of turning around, no sign of their home, Goldi had caught on. She’d been the one to suggest that they start smashin’ and grabbing in the first place, when two and two had come together to make four, and she’d realized that half the reason they’d started moving so much--wandering for days was based on the four hungry mouths they had to feed, and the lack of food ready for them to gobble down.
And that, maybe they’d never have to leave the cabin if they hadn’t had four mouths to feed.
She wasn’t stupid. As time wore on, every little inconvenience she caused them built up in the back of her mind as ‘just-right’ echoed.
She had used to fantasize about what she had thought to be her just right. A mum and a dad that looked like her--parents that in hindsight--acted too much like Mama and Papa to make sense, but just so happened to look just like her--to know how to take care of her instinctively the same way her family did Baby--a pair of parents that spoiled her rotten. Goldi had wanted it. She had craved the idea of the people who had left her behind with no rhyme or reason, the idea of people who looked like her, and loved her the way Mama and Papa did.
She had had her just-right the entire time, besides some messy bias that had hidden inside of her brain the whole time, she had always had her Mama and Papa. Goldi had what she wanted--what she had been craving for years, whether or not she had deserved it.
Everything--at least for her, was Just Right. They’d stole Big Jack Horner’s house--hadn’t had to smash, or grab nothing. Hadn’t even had to go get their stuff themselves. Baby got those weird purple clothes that--despite loving, made him look ridiculous. All the pies they could taste--all the food they could eat. A bed for each of them.
And everything was just right.
…..
Goldi wasn’t one to wallow in her feelings. In fact, most times she preferred to pretend that she didn’t have any at all. But at night it’s hard to ignore it. When she lies awake at night, and something in the back of her head insists that there’s a Just Right that just isn’t present.
The Just Right that she had ruined.
Goldi loves the three of them. She does--even though she’d spent so many years craving something so minutely changed, a part of her heart aches when she thinks about them, and the strife she’d put them through. But she knows--in a way, that her ‘wish’ hadn’t just been for her. She had wanted it to be like before--and even though now she had trouble defining what exactly ‘before’ was. She didn’t know a lot--either she didn’t know, or she refused to.
….
Maybe she did know. Maybe deep down she knew deep down that the Bear’s Just Right didn’t include her. That before she had came along they were perfectly happy--happier than they could be with her there. That a lot of the trouble--a lot of the harder parts of their life came around because their Just-Right had changed.
She knew they loved her. Goldi knew they loved her enough to lie to her--to forgive her in ways that she didn’t deserve--for things that she’s sure feel like betrayal. But at night, when all she has to do is look at their new ceiling, all she thinks of is the doubt poking at the back of her mind. Goldi knows they love her--she does, but in the darkness of her room, how happy they had been back in their own cabin--back in the place they had worked so hard to build haunts the back of her mind.
Goldi isn’t one to wallow in feelings she finds unpleasant--but these ones are insistent. Eating away at the inside of her skull, and using Baby’s disownment for fuel in it’s fire. Goldi knows he doesn’t mean it--knows he couldn’t have with the way he’d blubbered all over himself when she’d come for him.
But the feeling of ‘Just Right’ isn’t so easily swayed.
And Goldi isn’t one to wallow, but some part of her wants her Mama and Papa--to go creep into their beds with them, and have the kindness she’d been taking advantage of for almost a decade to sway the feeling into submission again, she wants them to come lie to her--that they weren’t happy before--that the endless stress she’d brought into their lives was somehow worth it to them--that despite what she’d done to them--the insult she’d sent their way, they still loved her.
She knew they did. Goldi didn’t know what would happen if they didn’t--but ‘Just Right’ fuels itself off of things she prays were said in satire, and as she lays there that night, she’s not sure she could stomach them lying to her.
A sickening blend of guilt blends with the eaten feeling resting inside of her to make a dreadful feeling she’s not sure she can stand--much less name. And she’s not one to wallow, but as she stares up into the strange ceiling, she can’t seem to help it tonight. She’s not sure how long she lies there, an emotion she can’t name holding her down from every direction.
She does know, however, that when the call cuts through the woods, whatever feeling that had been holding her down suddenly jolts to a sudden giant as soon as the fear graces her mind. It’s an old fear--but a strong one, a jolt that used to wake her up kicking and screaming slowly morphing into a shiver going down her spine.
A shiver that goes down her spine, mixing with the nameless feeling that had been pressing her down, suddenly urging her into a mental silence. A hitch comes to her breathing as ever so slowly she climbs to her feet. Goldi has no idea what’s possessed her to go outside--but beyond the mental numbness the goosebumps on her arms provide, she doesn’t get much of an answer.
Later, when her good sense had returned to her, she’ll remember the wind shaking a few leaves off the trees, the cold mud under her bare feet, and her trembling knees. Tight fear behind her ribs, and an impossible task of breathing as an invisible feeling urges her to stumble forward in the cold. Off in the distance there’s a call like death, and something stupid in her had thought to answer it.
Perhaps morbidly, for a second, as the calls continue, she wonders if they’d avoid her--if ten years of practically being attached to bears would make them consider her one of them in ways she knows no one else would.
“Goldi?” Baby had never been good at sneaking. He’d always been about as graceful, and silent as a landslide. That’s to say, the fact that he’d managed to sneak up on her--that she’d almost jumped out of her skin when he did, wasn’t entirely great. The pair of them stared at each other like idiots for a moment, some kind of unfamiliar apprehension hanging in the less than warm air. “Where…where’re you headed?” She knows that she knew where she was going--even if she didn’t at the same time--if it really felt like some kind of sick compulsion instead of actually walking off somewhere. Still--she’s not telling him that. Goldi didn’t have the words then, and she’s not sure she does now either.
She settles for a helpless shrug that she can’t say she’s proud of.
“I--I can come with you.” She squints at him in the low light, vaguely aware of something flying around a lamp-light.
“You should be in bed, Baby.” Ever the annoyance, Baby makes a face at her.
“You’re the one who went outside, stupid early.” Just because he was right didn’t mean she’d admit it. Baby licks his teeth. It’s not supposed to feel like that, between the two of them. Like she’s shouting over the top of a brick wall, and waiting for snide answers to be whispered through it. And it feels wrong. She’d lived with the snide comments, and taken them under her belt for almost five years now, she likes the dance they’ve got on. The competition to be the most annoying sibling either of them can ever be, but somewhere deep down a part of her she’d like to choke the stupid annoying life out of wishes he’d never stopped being a little tag-a-long. That the long nights of the two of ‘em--thicker than thieves as they stayed up past their bedtime had long since gone on.
And it’s stupid. It’s stupid because Baby was right to go and grow out of it-he was a baby-baby then. He was right-right to call her out on every out of place part of her, because she didn’t belong. And even if somewhere under all that fur that blubbery Baby still lived, she’s not like him. She’s not a bear--and really, she’s hardly his real sister.
She wants to be. Goldi is--in some ways. Not in the real way--not in the Just Right way that the Bear’s had had before she’d come along. The Just Right way that garnered no looks. They might be her Mama and Papa, and Baby-Brother, they might be her family, but she's not one of them, and no one can blame Baby for saying the quiet part out loud. It would be different if she was born to them. If in that fake-cabin in the woods Mama hadn’t tried to tell her that they had found their picture-perfect Just Right the day she showed up.
They would never make her feel bad about it. Never want her to--she’d seen them get onto Baby about the quiet part--and she knew they’d never want her to feel the way she does.
Not that she can help it.
The two of them don’t look at each other for a minute, the howling of both the wolves, and the wind goes on without them as they try very hard not to look at each other. It’s not how it was before; nowhere near the constant energy they kept before the star, and she’s to blame for it.
“I didn’t mean to…I didn’t mean it.” It’s too quiet. The woods this late--it’s as if everything in the world stopped just to listen to Baby stammer. “I was just teasing. I didn’t--” Baby’s mouth snaps shut, grimacing down into the aggressively purple suit he’d chosen to sleep in that night. She’s almost sure she knows what he’s saying--not that she wants him blubbering all over himself.
“You don’t--you don’t have to say it, Baby. I know--it’s--it’s alright.”
“It’s not . It’s not alright.” Baby licks his teeth about the same time she thinks to stop chewing the skin of her lips. “You’re my sister . My big sister --and--and I didn’t have no reason to say otherwise.” Baby shifts, leaves crackling under paws the size of her head as her baby brother leans towards her.
For once in her life, it's like all the distance that's grown between them--that's become clear over the years hangs over her head like that damned sword. Baby leans towards her, and for once in her life, Goldi feels small again. Small, greasy and out of place in the worst way possible. Like a nail dropped down a screw hole.
Baby stares at her, that stupid, wet, searching look on his face. He got it from Mama. Just another thing Goldi can't share with them. Baby looks until he can't, whatever look she had on her face bringing out his nervous habit once more. She finds her teeth at her lips before he's turned his head all the way to glare at his paws.
“I--You're leaving . You're not--I don't want you to go .” Baby makes like he's going to go on, choking on it before he gets it out.
“I'm not . Baby, I'm not going anywhere.” And that's not entirely true. She knew it wasn't, even if it was. It's just another lie between bear and not-bear. Just another meaningless string of words to make someone else feel better. She wasn't herself. Wasn't thinking clearly to leave--hadn't known she was leaving when she got out of bed, but he'd caught her I'm the act nonetheless.
“You are . Maybe--maybe not right now, but you're leaving me.” There's a lump in her throat the size of a marble. Even as she chokes on it, she's sure Baby, and his parents could swallow it down easy.
“I love you.” Instead of swallowing it down, like she's got good sense, she spits it out. Her face--her eyes even, feel hot. “I wouldn't--I'm not going anywhere.” It's not a lie. She loves them almost as much as they love her, and as stupid as she'd sound yelling it on the rooftops, she spits it out. It's not a lie. Even if she should be gone. Even if they should cut her with the rest of their losses.
“You are. You don't--you don't want nothing to do with me, Goldi .” It's been forever since she'd seen either of them cry, but he's still her baby brother. She hears his voice quake before he paws at his face. Tears slashed away with claws the length of her pathetic human hands. “You--you're my big sister , but you don't wanna be--and--and you're going away from me--you're leaving and it's all my fault because I'm awful-- ” Goldi is a troublesome, parasitic burden in her own head. Someone who'd tricked a family of bears into ruining their perfect life for her. She's a lot of things.
Of all of those things, she's a big sister first. Even as hot, annoying tears of her own threaten to invalidate the four year term of no-public-tears she's held, she's a big sister.
“It's okay --Baby. Baby , it's okay. ” Baby shakes his head hard, like he could turn her words out of his head.
“It's not! It--it's not --you--I made you wish for a whole different family --I didn't-- I want you to be my sister --and--and I made you think you're better off with someone else !” His bottom lip trembles like a rabbit he'd caught between those paws of his, and Goldi can't help it that time. She tries shushing him, making his teary rambles die out so she can gather her thoughts enough to do something other than cry with him. Not that Baby's ever been a good listener. “I--you're still leaving --”
“Shh, shh --no, no I'm not--Baby --”
“You--you don't want nothing to do with me -I--I-I made you think I hate you--and--and I don't hate you , but now you hate me .” There's no thought involved. Nothing telling her to clear the distance between her and her brother, all she knows is that some little angry part of her has reared it's head.
It's like wrestling a brick wall. Wrapping her arms up over his neck, and pulling his head down, bare feet pressing into the dirt under her, sinking in as Baby leans slightly into her. It takes more strength than she'd ever admit to hug her baby brother.
Baby’s still called Baby for a reason, and the open mouthed bawling he does over her shoulder suggests it's not because Mama's sentimental.
Goldi's hands wander up the back of Baby's head, finding some kind of purchase behind his ears. She feels sick with feeling. The ones climbing up her throat, mixing with the same ones she'd stuffed down inside of her until she's borderline nauseated.
Frustration has always come easier for her. It's scrunched up her face, and went and spilled the water from her eyes while it was at it. It's that same, pitiful frustration that buries her scraggly hands in Baby's fur, and it's the same thing that pulls his face an inch from hers.
“I'm your sister .” The hiss she'd built up in her throat withers before it's off her tongue. Falls out of her mouth as a whine instead. “I am .” Baby's mouth quivers. Big wet doe eyes staring right at her. “I'm not going anywhere . Yeah?” He has the nerve, whatever of it isn't a crying mess, to look at her like he doesn't quite believe her, mouth opening slightly, shutting right back up at a whine. Her face is wet. Wet, and surely patchy. The firmness in her voice doesn't come easy this time.
“I'm not going anywhere , Baby. I'm not.” Goldi can't look into his eyes, and avoid herself. She can't. Everytime she looks into his face she's right there in them, boney, awkward and blonde. Not that that means she's going to look away if he's not. “I know you didn't mean it. I know . Alright? It--it's not your fault, Baby.” Baby can't be at fault for her not being a bear. Can't have made it so she was born to Mama and Papa. Can't have made it so she never troubled them in the first place. Can't fix any of the hundreds of things she can find wrong with herself.
Baby can never fix the fact that when he looks at her, it'll never be a bear reflected in his eyes.
“I love you.” And suddenly the marble in her throat is back. Baby stares at her, like she wasn't tearing herself in two already.
…
She can't go back and time and be torn apart by wolves. She can't undo the Star. Can never pretend she hadn't said things she didn't know she didn't feel. She can't make herself a proper bear.
But if Baby sees his big sister when he looks at her--if Mama and Papa see their little girl. Well…who is she to take that away from them?
…
She won't ruin their new happy ever after--their new just right over some pitiful little feelings she's got.
“I love you, Baby. I do.” Baby's still the blubbering mess he'd been when they met. Still the baby bear he'd always been. “You're part of my just right.”