Midnight Stories

We are the three. The first afraid, the second mysterious, the third courageous. We sit around the campfire in the woods. This six-foot fire keeps the dark night alive. It’s all we have, though invisible to the outside world.

One spoke of wars with men, wars in fields, and wars within. She ran beside dragons but never grabbed hold of their wings to view the world from above. Every day, she hid herself from the sun.

The second talked in riddles. Her words grandiose but fragmented in logic. She carried an identity that couldn’t be stolen because it was never hers to keep. The Princess.

Men and women from every nation moved mountains to sit beside her as Queen, but tiaras and crowns weighed too heavily on her head.

Every stain on her white dress marked childhood memories and sordid thoughts of the day. Unforgiving and unstable in her ways, she stared at the stars, telling tales only she could understand.

The third was quiet. Observant of the others. Barefoot so she could feel the Earth under her feet. She’d been like these women before, but the ticking hands of time had shifted her being. She lives for tomorrow.

She writes stories in the clouds and exchanges letters with her shadow self. She swims to the bottom of the ocean to explore sunken ships and tour the castles of Atlantis.

As she watched the other two, she saw no Black or White. They were all colors at once. Neither rich nor poor. They were everything and nothing all at once under this starlit sky. She could see the universe in their eyes and feel the cosmos in her spine.

One wrote her stories in the dirt. The other wrote on paper, preparing her message for the bottle designed by fate. The third etched her stories in the air.

When the fire died, they stepped together into the mirror covered by ash. Fingers locked as they descended into the portal of past, present, and future.

Together, they resurface as one woman, arriving at a world unknown. They became her. Her pen is her sword. Her hair as black as the tourmaline necklace against her skin. Aligning herself with soldiers colored by the fire within. This battlefield is where the story begins.