Whiteout

If you can't see the colours, it's hard to explain what happened to me after my father died. But I'll try. I won't be able to, but I really will try.

Imagine cerulean skies and soft-pastel sunsets. Imagine gritty bloodred talons bearing down on you.  Imagine the vague feeling of pressure on your shoulders, the blinding lights both mystifying and painful. And then imagine a hundred thousand rocks, slamming into your window all at the same time.

And it all

goes

black

and

white.

And maybe it was your fault. Maybe you could have done something better, maybe you could have fixed it, because you were his favourite child and you know it...

And every day, you wake up. You force yourself to get out of bed. Even though it feels like being hollowed out to nothing.

Every day.

They tell you it'll get better, but... it never does. The grief just changes form, twisting around in your chest, reminding you every single day. That your father is dead. And it's your fault. You know it is.

And if you don't understand that much, you may as well stop reading here. Because you probably won't get the rest of this story, and I don't want someone reading this who's just going to laugh and roll their eyes. Just like dragons always do.

Everyone gone now?

Good. Let me continue.

***

The day it happened, the day everything changed.

I was numb for a while. Like I was floating above my body, watching this all from very far away. They were shouting. Darkstalker, asking me if I was okay, calm and reasonable and so cold inside but what did it matter to them, anyway. And Mother, crying and clinging onto me.

The shock of what happened, floating around in my brain. Your father is dead. Your cruel, angry, sad, father is dead. Your father, who treated you like an object, is dead.

I remember it like it was yesterday. 

***

After Arctic died, I couldn't talk. Not because I'm stupid--I'm not stupid. Despite what so many dragons in my life have said, Arctic included. I'm just different. Those aren't the same thing. I wish the world could just wrap its head around that.

I didn't talk because I didn't deserve to. Because I couldn't breathe. Because every time I opened my mouth all the things I should have said felt like a tsunami about to bear down on me.

I tried seeing a doctor about it, once. (Mother made me go.)

I looked down at the floor, wishing Darkstalker were here. He'd know how to put my broken parts together--know exactly what to say.

Mother anxiously explained who my father was, not is, was, not is. What happened to him. How our family is a thousand pieces of broken glass on the ground, still glistening with blood. How she just wanted it to make sense again, except it never made sense...

"It seems like she's had difficulty in terms of processing things to the same degree as the average dragon does," the doctor started, frowning down at their scroll full of notes, probably all on how crazy I was.

"No. You don't understand." Mother wrung out her talons, so hard it looked painful. "My daughter isn't..."

"It would strike me that your daughter has been damaged by the trauma of her childhood, in a potentially irreparable way. There are institutions for dragons like this, you know--if you want, I can take you into a separate room and we can discuss options..."

"No. I was just wondering if there could be any help--"

"As I just mentioned, there are institutions for dragons like this that might be of use to you--"

"No. That won't be necessary. Uh... thank you. For your time." Mother glanced over at me, and I looked away as fast as I could. I couldn't stand to meet her eyes--the scent of metal, sandpaper and pressing against my throat. It was red, red, red. It was always red these days.

I finally moved out on my own a couple of months after. I couldn't handle being near so many memories. For a while, I went to visit Mother every day. It was the least I could do.

But, well... Mother and I have never really understood each other before, to be honest, and now was no different.  She tried to hide it, but Darkstalker had always been her favourite.

After a while, I gave up. I couldn't save my mother from her grief, any more than I could save myself.

***

Some days, I would just cry. Not even because of an obvious trigger. I'd be looking out the window, or trying to cook, or paint, or planting flowers in the garden, and it would just... slam into me. All at once.

Your father is dead.

He's never coming back. Never going to be a better dragon.

He died, believing you were a failure. That's never going to change.

He's never going to change. Those memories you have of him? They're forever.

Some days, I would scream. I would throw things at the wall, I would rip apart my paintings, and the colours would flash together so bright it was blinding, and I don't know what to feel honestly. I still don't know what to feel.

How do you live with yourself knowing your father died, believing you were a mistake, a broken pile of garbage--he always loved to tell me that.

Not only that--but knowing that your father chose to die. That he was sad, and broken, and angry, and that he had nothing left, and that you didn't stop it from happening when you should have, when you might have been one of the only dragons who could--

Dragons still say they're sorry for my loss, when I'm forced to talk about this. But I didn't lose my father. My father had been gone a long time. My father left before I even hatched. What I lost was the idea of him, the hope of him--the hope that someday, it would get better.

And sometimes, the worst part is that a part of me is not sorry. I'm glad. Because at least now it's over. Now I don't have to hear him tell me I'm worthless, again and again and again until I couldn't help but believe it. Don't have to constantly be scared of how he'll hurt me next.

I don't miss my father. I don't have good memories of him. I only have nightmare after nightmare after nightmare.

Does that make me a bad daughter? It feels like it.

***

I didn't leave the house some days. It was easier that way. Ever since my father died, it was like the usual scorn had multiplied itself by ten times over.

Green. Scorn was green, the acrid scent of smoke, nails on a chalkboard. And I had never lived without its presence like a dark cloud, surrounding me.

Alone was the only place I didn't feel that way anymore. Everywhere I went, even to see my brother--it was all the same, these days. Either they hated me or I hated me, and I couldn't tell which hurt more.

Alone didn't have a colour. And maybe that was better than feeling anything. Than thinking about what had happened, about everything that had happened. Before Arctic's death and after. I was so tired of thinking about it.

***

It's been a long time since he died, a little over a year. Even though most days I don't feel like it, no one can doubt that at least on a physical level, I'm an adult dragon.

I don't feel like it. I feel like I am one year old again, hiding behind Darkstalker's wings as my parents fought, him later sneaking into my room at night because we were both too scared to sleep, curling up against me and whispering that someday he would kill our father, and then we'd all be safe. Two years old, acrylic paint smudging my talons. Three years old, neck heavy under fancy charms Arctic would make a point out of buying me. Four years old and being forced to attend remedial tutoring sessions after school...

Dragons act like this is something that just goes away after a couple months. Like my entire childhood can just be forgotten in a couple months.

It doesn't. The grief just stays there in my chest. Empty, and cold, and nebulous.

***

I don't really know why I'm here now. What made today so special, out of all the others I could have gone to see my brother.

It just felt right. Today.

I know he has a daughter now. We still talk to each other, and write letters whenever we get the time. But it's not the same thing.  It's never the same thing.

Where seeing him used to feel like a reassurance, now it mostly feels like a memory. And I hate myself for it, but I don't want to remember anymore.

The wind rushes over my scales. I can tell someone is in there from the vague echoes of voices through the door.

The green dragon. Fathom. Darkstalker's best friend.

I like him. He's an artist, too--a kindred spirit.

I take a deep breath, and knock on the door. Clearsight is the one who answers. The knitter.

Her jaw hangs open for a second. "Darkstalker?" she calls across the hall.

"What is it?" His voice has always felt like a deep blue to me, except for when he's angry. (When he's angry, it's white--a roaring snowstorm. But today, it's a rushing deep blue like an arctic ocean, swirling with life.) I missed that colour.

"Your..." Clearsight hesitates, looking back at me. "Your sister."

Fathom and Darkstalker both come rushing to the door, followed by a little dragon whose knees wobble like she's still figuring out this whole walking thing, and it's more than a little intimidating for her.

His eyes are wide, wide open. Wings shaking a little. He looks so much older than he did the last time we saw each other.

"Hello. You're looking very blue today." A hint of a smile teases at my mouth.

"Oh, Whiteout--"

Tears stab at my eyes.  The dragonet watches, uncertainty, sniffing at the air and batting at her mother's side like this will make the strange new dragon.

"That's... Shadowhunter," Darkstalker says, nodding at the dragonet with a forced smile. He's always been so good at pulling himself together.

I kneel down to meet her eyes. "Hello. I did not mean to disrupt your belief in controllable outcomes, little one."

She swats at my snout with surprisingly sharp claws. I laugh.

She has his eyes. Blue. Most dragons' eyes you don't really notice, but it's impossible not to see hers.

They bleed around the edges. I do my best to ignore it. How can she have his eyes?

"I'm sorry I missed you," I whisper.

She laughs, like this is the funniest thing in the world.

Her voice is a soft, light green. Like light streaming through tree branches, onto a forest floor. Like fresh leaves in spring. Like hope.

It's been a long time since I felt that way.