She tried to keep her breathing steady as she nervously walked past trees and shrubs that hid her home. She shuffles further into the pack of greenery with her home disappearing behind her. Metaphorically it felt like she was leaving behind some distant memory. Her home once felt like a closed cage now left temporarily open for her to get out or cower and go back in. Out of pure luck Ariel’s mother decided to sleep early and left to her master bedroom, leaving Ariel awake late at night. When the opportunity came, she was ready to leave with a bag filled with belongings and hidden behind layers of clothing in her small closet. Sneaking away at early hours was close to impossible, but she finally felt she had an opportunity. At twenty-two she knew it was not probable to have anything held against her. She felt she needed to be an adult now yet that doesn't alleviate the many fears she carries. She was afraid of the dark, if her own confidence would ever deceive her, and the pair of scissors that were used to strip away her identity. The scissors were a reminder of many afflictive memories, a handheld weapon that was used to cut away a part of her. As a child, whenever she saw those metallic barber scissors she felt the urge to hold her hair down and cover herself with her small hands. Years later and those memories fueled something inside her and pushed her to make a run and avoid having her wings clipped, literally. She couldn't keep her hair below shoulder length, and any longer and the scissors were taken out of the junk drawer to cut the delicate strands away; It was a bit cruel but necessary. Ariel still remembers the unsolicited comments toward her short hair making her look too boyish. She couldn't control how her hair formed into a pair of wings whenever she felt a surge of strong emotions, be it excitement, embarrassment or anger. It was almost magical and surreal when her wings took shape and for the longest time she had her hair shortened to reduce their euphoric behavior and avoid inquisitive questions.

Ariel began memorizing some items she was carrying, "… I have the bus ticket… spare money...I can't believe I'm doing this, I'm actually doing this. But...

She suddenly pauses, taking in the last scenery of her familiar surroundings,

 “What if I am wrong?"

Ariel thinks deeply. She remembers the conversations she had with her mother when her hair was being trimmed away. Sad and displeased, she plays back the memories of sitting on a small blue wooden stool with her mother behind her kneeling down with a pillow on her knees with the scissors on her right hand. She would listen to the blades scratch against each other as they closed in around her locks. Her mother would speak sternly, “I know you don’t like this, but it is for your safety… You are not like the other chromatoons, and you can’t pass off as human.”

I know…

“I know you know, but because of what your father is, and everyone knows you at least exist... this is the way it has to be.

I know…

Ariel shakes off the memory, "No… I must do this, for myself. Whatever happens from now on it doesn’t matter."

She quietly takes off her hoodie to reveal her small pair of wings. She was excited she was able to convince her mother to not cut her hair until later in the week. Her short thick locks sticking from the back of her head form tiny wings and she knew the longer her hair was, the bigger they could be. To the eye of any human or chromatoon it would have come off as odd, bizarre, but she didn't care and she never felt ashamed of them.

Her mother’s words echoed again in her head, “It's for your safety" she would say, “people will start to question you, and then what would you do? You're obviously not human, and you're not any close to a chromatoon either. You're strange, an alien to many sentient. What will people think when they realize who you're related to? Your birth wasn't kept secret. People knew Deity X had an offspring, but they never saw you. People know you exist.”

Ariel ignored those words and with a smile she confidently kept walking in the darkness.

“This is my choice.”