Freedom

(This story is also featured in my collection Joyous/Decay.) “Oh, little angel … this is such a place to find you in, here down among the world’s roots. Why would you let yourself fall so far, my dear? There is nothing here for one like you.” She whirls, looking for the voice’s source—but her halo is so dim. She can’t see a thing. “I’m not your dear!” she yells, glaring at where she thinks the voice came from—a matted tangle of roots and thorns and filthy wood. “And I’m not fallen. I’m on a mission.” ...

There’s just something about the way it growls—that hungry, needy sound. It almost makes you want to unchain it, to let it feed the need roiling in its belly with your tender flesh. But the witch wouldn’t want you to. She put in so much effort to capture this beast, this strange shifting thing; to bind its wings and cuff its many limbs. So you don’t. No matter how it growls when you blend close—when you clip another flower from its antlers, or bring the shears to its fingers to harvest another bit of the precious sap inside—no matter what that noise stirs inside you. ...