[FTM] 9.3: Transformation

You are a child and you make up silly fantasies when things aren't going your way, when things get hard, when the visits turn to arguments turn to screaming matches and you hide in your room and cover your ears and imagine that you are really a princess of a distant land and someday, someday soon the king and queen will come and take you away. You wish they would come sooner. They will tell you how sorry that they are that it took them so long. They will be sweet and kind and never yell or make you cry, ever again. You hide in your imagination because reality is too cruel to face.

You are a girl and you've let go of those fantasies. Your best friend just moved away. She had to. It happens a lot in a military town but it hurts because she understood how you felt. Her parents fight all the time. Her mommy never pays attention to her and her daddy is always away and is always working or busy or tired. She thought you were lucky to have your grandmother, lucky she took you to work with you, lucky she wanted to be with you all of the time. You thought she was lucky to have a daddy. You're going to miss her. You don't know who you'll sit with at lunch or talk to between classes. You don't want to start over again.

You're a teenager and you've all but giving up on making new friends. You have a few and they don't understand, but doesn't everyone think that? That no one can possibly understand them? You won't allow yourself to indulge that, to whine and cry about being so very misunderstood. There's a support group for teens whose parents are dying but you don't go. It doesn't help. You know people die. You don't need a bunch of other angry heartsick kids to remind you of that fact.

You're an adult in the eyes of the world and you're all alone. No one is going to take care of you anymore. They offer to help and you let them for a time because you're afraid you can't do it. But you have to. You're going to have to do it yourself, by yourself, depend on yourself. So you do. It isn't easy, but you manage. You get by.

You are a woman when a weight heavier than you could have ever imagined falls squarely on your shoulders. You nearly let it break you. It would be so easy to give up and crumple beneath it. But you stand up. You're one of many and you will not be the weak link in the chain. You have never let yourself break before. You will rise up to this. You will be its equal. A soldier. A warrior. A slayer.

You are chosen.


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