Reaching the milestone of almost one year of age, when you've seen galaxies born and die in the blink of a cosmic eye, is a profoundly humbling experience. For most souls, it's a period of adorable discoveries and gurgles that parents record as if they were the revelation of a new gospel. For me, it is a daily reminder that I am a cosmic entity with millennia of knowledge, trapped in a prison of flesh, bone, and motor control that would make a freshly built golem look like a Valoran ballet dancer. The dissonance was maddening.
That afternoon, as the sun painted the cottage in honeyed hues through the window she had built, the routine followed its familiar, tedious course. Morgana had her back to me, focused on warming milk in the brazier. The sound of the liquid heating was low, the smell of goat's milk was comforting, but my patience was in tatters. I wanted more. More than crawling across the floorboards she had sanded herself, competing with the chickens for imaginary crumbs. More than just observing. I wanted to be independent, bipedal, and preferably, capable of reaching the shelf with the interesting-smelling herbs she used in her teas. Verticality, I decided with the certainty of a conqueror, was the first step towards personal sovereignty.
[Negative. Your current biological vessel still lacks the requisite structural integrity and adequate neural myelination. Think of it as a very, very thin glass beaker. The energy your soul contains is like molten, incandescent metal. Any attempt to fill the beaker prematurely would result in catastrophic structural failure.]
[That's a technically inaccurate term. Your body mass would be converted into energy and heat in a very rapid and uncontrolled manner. It would be less of an explosion and more of a very… damp flash. And a brief one.]
I sighed mentally, a sound of pure frustration that no one but I would ever hear. If raw power was out of the question, physical mobility would have to do. I couldn't bear to see the world from knee-height any longer. I've already spent one entire life as a sentient mushroom in a Shuriman swamp; I've met my quota for low-angle perspectives.
With the determination of a general launching a campaign all his advisors considered suicidal, I began my ascent. The target: the bench. I planted my small, chubby hands on its smooth wooden leg, the texture soft beneath my fingers. The world tilted giddily. With a grunt of pure physical effort, I managed to steady myself on my knees. Stage one, complete. From there to the table was dangerous territory, an expedition across a thirty-centimetre gap of treacherous floor that looked like the Great Sai of Ionia.
After an epic journey of a crawl and a drag worthy of a bard's song, my hands reached the leg of the table. Using it as an anchor, I hauled myself up, the muscles in my legs protesting like lazy recruits forced on a march.
[Fine motor control is still in the developmental phase. Each life presents its own initial logistical challenges. Recall that life as an octopus on X'lar, where it took you twelve years to learn to use all of your tentacles simultaneously without tying yourself in a knot. I recommend focusing on strengthening your core and the stabilising muscles in your legs.]
[Level of humiliation is subjective. Noted.]
It was at this moment of intense philosophical negotiation with my own legs that the smell of warm milk stopped intensifying. The gentle bubbling sound ceased. I turned my head. Morgana was no longer facing away. The fire in the brazier had been banked with a swift, silent gesture of her hand. My pathetic attempt at verticality had suddenly become the main event.
In other lives, no one had noticed. My 'first steps' were lonely, anticlimactic events. A stumble in the corner of an overcrowded orphanage, a word babbled to an empty ceiling, a shaky first flight in an abandoned nest. They were bureaucratic milestones on the path to my becoming a useful adult or a convenient disappointment. No one ever stopped what they were doing to watch.
But Morgana didn't just notice. She moved. Silent as a shadow, she drew closer, her long, dark robes brushing the newly-fixed floor. She stopped a few feet away not close enough to interfere, not close enough to be a crutch. Just close enough to be a witness. A presence.
And then she did something that unsettled my inner universe more than my wobbly legs. She crouched down, bringing herself to my level, her chained wings folding behind her like a cloak of night and iron. Her eyes, which so often seemed to hold the sorrow of ages, softened, losing their sharp edge of vigilance to make way for something more focused. Kinder.
"Come on," she said, her voice a low breath, more of an invitation than a command. "You can do it."
A strange, warm, and profoundly uncomfortable feeling bloomed in my chest. It was an emotion I had kept locked away in dusty archives for centuries. It wasn't pity, it wasn't a master's pride in a pet. It was… encouragement. Genuine and without ulterior motive. An invasion of emotional privacy that left me utterly disarmed. And, damn it, that worked like a magical catalyst.
Spurred on by this bizarre new sensation of having someone rooting for me, I looked at her, then at the open space between us. It was a chasm. With my (metaphorical) heart in my mouth, I let go of the table with one hand. The world swayed violently. I took a sharp, babyish breath and let go with the other hand. For one glorious, unstable second, I was standing, alone. Unbalanced, trembling like a leaf in the wind, but standing. And then, I took a step.
It was more of a controlled fall, and the floor met my bottom with a dull thud that sent dust motes dancing. But I didn't cry. I was too busy processing the victory. One step. I had moved through space, bipedal and unaided. A monumental achievement.
Morgana didn't laugh. Just a tiny, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "Again."
And I tried again. I got up, the process a little less clumsy this time. One step. A fall. I got up again. Another step, firmer, more confident. A fall. My mind, accustomed to manipulating cosmic energies and debating with void entities, was now entirely focused on the monumental task of placing one foot in front of the other without falling flat on my face. It was the purest and most frustrating form of meditation I had practised in centuries. And Morgana remained there, crouched, a silent and steady presence, an anchor in my sea of instability.
On one attempt, I managed two steps in a row before I overbalanced. I was about to grab for the wall when I decided to change the objective. It was no longer just about walking. It was about where I was walking to.
Ignoring the wall, ignoring the bench, ignoring any other safe harbour, I looked directly at her. She understood at once. Her expression shifted, a flicker of surprise, perhaps even hesitation. She was not used to being a destination. Slowly, as if afraid to startle me or break the moment, she held out her arms. An open invitation.
My objective was set. The distance felt infinite.
One step. My leg trembled, but it held. Another, more daring. A dangerous lurch to the left. I corrected with an awkward hip movement that would have horrified any dance instructor. The world was a blur, but I could clearly see her hands, calloused and strong, her fingers outstretched. I could see the cold links of the chain on her wrist glinting in the afternoon light.
One last effort. The final step pitched me forward, gravity finally winning the battle. But this time, I didn't fall onto the hard, dusty floor.
I fell into her arms.
I was enveloped in an embrace that was, like everything about her, practical, firm, and surprisingly gentle. I smelt earth, dried herbs, and the faint ozone that always clung to her. The cool links of one of her chains pressed against my back through the cloth, a strange mix of restraint and comfort. The strength in her arms wasn't restrictive; it was protective. It was a wall.
She said nothing. She just held me there for a moment that stretched, her large hand splayed across my back, patting it gently and rhythmically, imparting a warmth the brazier could never match. And I, the entity who has conversed with stars and witnessed the end of ages, just buried my face in her shoulder and breathed it all in.
[Logging. New sensory and emotional data are being processed. Parameters for the definition of 'home' are being updated dynamically. Correlation between 'protection' and 'affection' established with 99.9% confidence.]
Maybe this time, I didn't have to run away to be independent. Maybe, just maybe, I had already arrived somewhere worth staying. And maybe, for the first time, taking the first step wasn't about escaping, but about walking towards someone.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
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