A work of fiction featuring an unlikely natural pairing afoot in their unbalanced game of give and take…
by: Megan Grundy
Others feared them, ran when they came close, and I’d seen why. They were not kind to those unfortunate enough to encounter them. I’d witnessed the atrocities they had committed, seen how they brandished their sword and sapped the life from their prey, dragging the poor lifeless creature with them as they fled the scene. But I did not fear them, for they had never turned their sword on me, never inflicted the pain I’d seen in their meeting with others. I thought I must be special, special enough for them to offer to me life when poison was their nature.
The first I saw of them was nothing more than a blur, swirling and sweeping through my lonely meadow, painting the air with yellow and black in a waltz with the wind. I’d learned from my ancestors who my partner should be, how to identify them. A creature dawning a coat of black and yellow, unburdened by gravity, unanchored to the soil as I am. Chosen by the wind to share a freedom I cannot fathom.
I stood tall, my purple crown swaying with the breeze in a dance of my own, hoping to incite a meeting. As they drew closer in response to my proud display, I noticed that, though this suitor wore the same stripes, their figure was much more slender, sleeker, their wings longer than the partners of my ancestors. Still, they came to rest on my petals, gentle and soft, offering the essence of life in exchange for the amber elixir flowing through my veins. I understood that they were not who I was supposed to search for, and yet could not resist the feeling that they were who I was meant to find. I felt without a doubt that this was my partner, that the wind itself had led them to me. The exchange was tender, an act of love, a display of trust. They came to me often then, and with every visit my love grew in bounds.
Little by little though the exchange became more unbalanced. My partner offered less while taking more. I didn’t mind, I thought they must just not have had enough to give. That they needed me to give a little more, to carry us until they could return to how I knew them to be. Soon, I told myself, soon they would give to me again the life they had promised.
With every visit my partner took without return I grew more and more tired. My petals wilted, my color faded to a sickly dull brown. My body sagged and draped, nearly drowning in the emerald ocean around me.
The familiar blaze of yellow flashed in the corner of my awareness, the slender figure of my desire, my partner, as they came for me. I saw in them my gleaming hope for salvation. The wind offered a gentle guiding hand, lifting my shriveled, tired petals. As they drew closer I saw it on them, in them, the golden dust of life, abundant as it always had been. I opened myself in a silent plea for the love and affection they had once given so eagerly. I thought now, seeing my withered state, they must understand. If they take from me once more without return I will be lost. Surely they still cared enough for me to offer it.
But they did not come to rest on my petals, they did not accept the warm embrace I offered, that I desperately needed. Instead they dipped below to the base of my drooping body, to my heart, and when I felt the stab of pain I knew they had made their choice.
As they drained from me all that they could, all I had to offer, I thought only that I was to blame. How could I have thought our story would end any differently than the ones I’d seen play out before me. I was not special, they did not care for me. I was just another casualty in their primal hunt for nourishment.
When they pulled away at last, they turned their back without a second glance, and set off to find their next conquest.
The breeze held me now in a gentle caress, a whispered apology, and as I beheld that mural of yellow and black for the final time, I knew that I had given too much. That the hole they’d gouged in my chest, gaping and ravaged, would never truly heal.
Megan Grundy is a student at Iowa State University studying Game Design, with specific interest in animation and story development for games and film. “The Taker” is the first story she was written for publication, but believes it could be her first step towards her pursuit of being a “professional storyteller”, as it were, whatever form that may take in her future.
