Julianna shivered against the pale moonlight, shaking her wings lightly to dry them from the already forming dew. Morning’s warning bells were sounding as she searched her mind to discover some way out of the mess she suddenly found herself in. How was she

supposed to explain the strange, fuzzy growth on her wings that began for no apparent reason?

She wondered if anything was ever easy, ever worth the cost. She knew deep within her heart it had been meant, predestined. Julianna knew it as strongly as she had known it had to be her, not another, that embarked upon a new path. Her life as the fairy queen’s first born may have catapulted to a screeching halt, but what lay around the bend offered more excitement, more life, than anything she’d ever known.

Casting one last glance at the sleeping flowers, watching their bobbing heads sway softly to a lullaby whispered by the breath of fairies, she captured each detail in her memory. The pale, translucent hues soothed her as moist, damp earth rose to kiss her goodbye with pungent, odorous melodies. Twinkling stars on the horizon offered her the only gift she valued before escaping behind the first rising rays of the ever-distant sun: the power of dreams. The stoic trees, reserved in their affections, shed leafy tears in honor of her farewell.

She turned, walked less than ten paces, then set off in a dead run. She belonged to that which lay in front of her, abandoning what lay behind, forever distant memories drowning in the what ifs and maybes of yesterday. She understood little of what her eyes and mind beheld as she raced on. Confusion lurked in the depths of what lay behind her as her feet delicately pounded the ground in rhythmic patterns of hope.

For days, she ran. She saw and felt nothing, refusing to allow penetration of her senses. Diversion came through hunger. She stole her nourishment in the night. Fearing discovery, she dined only on the less savory of cuisines. At one point, desperate to avoid starvation because of that which she felt but had no courage to face, she begged forgiveness for savagely consuming seeds and defying fairy law. She mourned the plants, the death of that which would not be born. Yet, Julianna enjoyed that meal as she’d never enjoyed another.

Murmuring memories called to her, reminding her that she’d been born a protector of flowers. Loyal servants to fairies, they offered shelter and protection. Still, she craved that which she should not have wanted, violating all that she believed with her thoughts. Soon, the infants of her former protectors became her preferred source of dining pleasure. She never questioned how she could tear through the hull of the seeds. She hadn’t seen shimmering reflections of herself in sunlit waters. She braved the edges of murky, midnight black pools only under the cloak of moonlit shadows.