Wiatt and Valerie each started out under mom's abusive employ. She ensnared and "retooled" a mid-level marketing agency from greedy owners who didn't have the faintest clue who they were actually dealing with. Valerie could mimic mom's stiff attempts at humanity while Wiatt coasted on denial that people like mom were actually that bad.

On the bitter, late night she threw him out of her office for a frail, conjured slight, we talked for the longest time. He shared a thousand, restless, reflective thoughts about what he wanted in life and I meandered through a field of Zen, like I'd actually learned something in all my wasted years.

His eager chuckles and beaming optimism with the way we managed to finish each other's thoughts made me wonder things I never dared to consider in mom's crushing orbit. For all we shared that night and in all our time together, I never knew Wiatt as well as I wished and the warming, tenacious ember of his presence flew from my life just when I needed it the most.

Valerie, for all the paperwork and tedium she relieved me from, knew best how to spike back the most innocent query about something missing with, "I never touched it. I have no idea where it is. I've never seen it."

It was the most reflexive survival instinct mom sparked. No call to Valerie lasted more than two minutes with a single word wasted while Wiatt let hours slip away in reflection.

I didn't want to make any judgements about Elpis one way or another yet. The stumbling nerves and frantic emotions suggested sincerity. She couched so many things in apology and rambling earnestness. But I had no idea what was typical behavior for her kind. What was typical behavior for a Shashelm had barely begun to settle into my brain, if my family had been typical.

Elpis occasionally hovered above the grass and flower layer to check our position. She also seemed to do a variety of nervous calculations in her head. At one point, she walked around the span of a looming daisy, rocking it back and forth with a sweet rain of pollen before gingerly easing down to the dirt.

Though cliche as it might sound, her aroma reminded me of honey. But not just any honey, her presence invoked whipped, slightly-creamy honey as one might find in a display at a free rest stop on vacation. Her coloration made me think of an angled, short haircut of a nervous intern at mom's investment firm, prim and proper with clean lines shaped by the best salon somewhere Downtown.

The gold-and-black lines suggested a fastidiously-groomed, glossy uniform with a polite skirt which hid her knocking, nervous knees. I could imagine this was her first day and, for all her talking, she hadn't allowed herself an actual instant of breathing. If tears could appear on her face, she would strike them away as swiftly as scratching an errant itch.

For all my fears, it occurred to me that I might present more danger to her than she to me. The Death, that insidious foe which brought my family to clean themselves constantly and for which I still had no true context, carved out a nook of existential dread that I might play host to or spread it to others.

As we ambled along in a direction suggested by Elpis, I wondered how I might give tribute to the King for not dying and finding a fellow being who had no interest in consuming me alive or using my body like cattle on a farm. What obligation did I have to the myth of a King? I awoke in pain and confusion, felt the faint brushes of love, generosity, and sympathy before suffering untold amounts of pain spaced between scheming and bitter siblings. Happiness found me for a few days, or at least the delusion of comfort. What did the King deserve? What did my lost family deserve for their loyalty, perseverance, and courage? My heart wanted to spit bile on the ground as a tribute to a King who permitted all this, but I likely had neither heart nor bile.

The King deserved nothing, especially since if I had given up part of my sweet leaf prize then I wouldn't have had a shield to escape with my life from the inevitable invasion of the Vesperil. As I stewed and steamed, Elpis lingered high above me in lofty, buzzing loops.

Slowly, she slumped to the ground nearby. Silent and still, she admitted, "I can't find anything familiar, not an aroma, nor a trail, nor a stem for all the plantanes and fluts." In wobbles of exhaustion, she dipped her glassy wings and had no more words to share, whether frantic or steady.

In the breeze-cloaked, stark warmth of the spreading, blazing day, I sought a cluster of marigolds to shadow us. Listlessly, Elpis joined me. With urging invitation, I noted, "You wanted to hear my story."

In my mind, I could see that tear-streaked, nervous intern pull her professional skirt free of creases as she regarded me from far off, even though we stood nearby. Pulling her matte-black blouse taut against her modest bosom, she urged me, "Please, if you're willing to share."

Letting myself fulfill the role of a muddy, smelly street urchin orphaned by the brutal fist of an invading army, I tucked my simple, imaginary gown beneath my sore legs and began, "In the modest yet bustling town of Mudwell lived a family of ten, eager to welcome their youngest into the world. Little more than an icky hole in the ground full of families like the...careful Claywalkers, the scheming Sludgeburrow boys, and the weird Woodlies, Mudwell was home..."

Bending forward, Elpis soon listened attentively. I could never compare to Father's presence or Sana's storytelling, but I did my best. She clutched herself when I hinted at the loss that Mother never fully laid bare, the egg sleep and restful dusk my siblings never found their way from. For my own blank, barren birth without hints or innate knowledge, Elpis gasped, as though a spectral shadow had suddenly stepped behind me.

Instinctively, I made sure no such, unseen danger was around, in case I misjudged her alarm. Gratefully, it was just the two of us. I continued through vignettes of my siblings, from the sudden soaking that stirred thoughts of playful revenge on Citrine to Silt's rapturous embraces to Sana's action lady flying leaps of competitive love. To Father's encouragement and romance in the rain with Mother. To crafty Flax with her nefarious echo of Tula. To shy Riva fighting through her painful instar as I raced my rambunctious sisters, Lapis, who ignored spoken punctuation as much as speed bumps, and Anise, who could fly through soaring rhymes and fresh encouragement. And the demure duo of Ewan and Beryl driving themselves to hysterics with frantic rumors. But I ignored Pembrick and the fear fostered by his presence.

All throughout, Elpis did little to chime in, but her mood shifted with each entry in my family. The body language of a bee, even filtered through my feelings of a lost, human intern, stretched just past the inscrutable. The best I could sense was her echo of my feelings at each turn. She shared a sliver of my indignation at being damp, wistfully considered my parent's love, picked up her mood at my speedy siblings, and let me tell the sweet parts of my story before it came to the bitter end.

She stayed her quietest as I acknowledged the end of Flax....Riva....and the dim prospects for my parents, my protective elder siblings, and my hypochondriac brothers. Flinging the last of my tale off the same cliff into the stream that Tula had left me, I fell silent but for the stark breath of the air passing over my drying body.

Either elegant guard or proper lady in a uniform, Elpis sat there silently. Slowly, crawling towards me, she bent over and wrapped her legs around my body. Though I could tell she struggled with my aroma, she lingered there and said, "Thank you...for sharing your story with me."

After retreating to wash herself again, Elpis returned and gazed at me, responding, "I often feel like I don't know what to say, even in the best situations. When I'm with so many of my sisters, their will is mine. Out here, and it's just been but a few gleamings, I j-just...nngg..." She settled herself before attempting again, "I was born knowing just what to do from my first thought. The egg sleep. No one even had to whisper it to me..."

Crouching down, she explained, "Even though my elder sisters fed me, I had a job. Clean whatever I can, starting with where I was born. Clean clean clean. Then, it was my turn to make sure my elders were fed. Then the youngest. As I got older over the gleamings, I saw...I saw my future. I built and made my home as my sisters needed, as Queen Akos needed. And, those we lost....it was my job, with all the others my age, to take care of them. I barely had time to think about what they saw or what made them happy. There were so many. My sisters. Gone...."

Stretching her wings slightly, Elpis shifted, "Then the next duty, making sure everyone is safe. Watching the amazing, brilliant light above, brighter than any petal. Then, I left for the first time, bringing what was needed. Food and water. And, for maybe the first time, I was truly afraid and not just one piece of something else. One Elpis. This Elpis. Of Akosmela. I still have no idea what it means."

Instead of accidentally setting off what appeared to be her OCD, I mimed the motion of an embrace from a distance and told her, "Thank you for sharing your story with me."

Elpis fussed and fidgeted, noting, "It's not much. But thank you."

Talking seemed to shake off her concern and malaise. She hopped through the air with more animation, scouting around. Eventually, she seemed to catch something special and added in a spontaneous dance.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! That's the way home! I'm not a complete idiot! WOO HOO!"

Looping back and forth through the air, she delighted for several seconds and I couldn't help but smile inside. Then, with a stiff press of air on the wind, my antennas caught something. I stumbled back. It was faint but certain.

Though the taste of it was different than before, it was that same sickening aroma: Death.

It took Elpis a few seconds before she froze in her flight and lowered beside me. Her shock was evident, even without the full tableau of human expressions. She softly muttered, "No....please no...Sweet Queen Akos...It can't be."

Before I could reach over to touch her, she drove into the water again, splashing and buzzing and just about drowning herself to stay away from that aroma. She buried herself in shoreside leaves and still looked like she wanted to vomit.

In my heart that was not a heart, I knew the momentary respite of tumbling down the stream was over. Listening to the sounds beyond the breeze, the angry hum of the Vesperil lingered just past what I could feel but they couldn't be far.

Last time, I ran and hid, but they soon found me. This time, despite the shaking of my limbs and the sickness near my stomach, I turned towards danger with one sharpened resolution. The Vesperil, those monsters. And their leader, 'Mistress Bellona'. They took everything beautiful, lovely, and pure from me.

If they dared to come my way again, with every ounce of energy in my tiny body, I would destroy them, fighting like Silt and Sana...or going out like Riva, with their dead at my feet.