Her Beauty

The creatures of the island stared, their eyes sharp with judgement, as the newcomer trudged through the land, her head hung low. Her fur was a worn out brown. Ugly! They thought, smiling devilishly, trying to contain their snickers of laughter. Horns twisted out of her head, unlike the island creatures' perfectly straight ones. Her tail was short and more of a stub rather than majestic and long like the island creatures.

The newcomer stared down, focused on a red leaf laying in the grass. How she wished to be equal to the other creatures! Why couldn't she be beautiful? Why couldn't she walk with pride in her step? Why couldn't she go about without the animal's staring at her, without their eyes slithering with disgust? She turned back to the leaf. Why couldn't she be the same as that beautiful leaf? Free of worries, prideful? Why couldn't she be beautiful, why couldn't she be perfect?

Night had fallen, the moon a spotlight falling down on her. She laid curled in the soft grass, ideas of a plan swirling to her every time the wind howled. Surely it would work, her plan. How could it not? When the creatures saw her next morning, she would change. Everything would change. The dark was spent, as she weaved grass. She brushed out her fur, untangling clumps. She pried bark off of trees, and her paws were left scraped. But beauty hurt right? No, it didn't have to, but that she didn't know. No, she believed she wasn't beautiful.

The next morning came quickly. The sun blinded her as she sleepily made her way to the river, where the others would be. Her head was held up, yet something didn't feel right. In the pit of her stomach was a feeling she didn't know. It felt like when you lie to someone, and the guilt afterward. The terrible, gnawing feeling of guilt was something she couldn't shake. She didn't know why this feeling hung inside her. It was unexplained! But it wouldn't be unexplained, for no feeling is unexplained, there will always be an answer. You just have to search for it. This the newcomer did not have time to ponder about, too many thoughts of hope and acceptance swirled in her brain.

The river came into her view. Its glimmering waters were just like the creatures. Perfect. How can anyone be perfect? This the newcomer could not answer, for she was unsure. Perhaps it was beauty, meaning that if you looked the finest, you certainly had to be the best. That didn't sound right to her, because how about their insides? How about what they did? Had any of the "perfect" animals ever committed a crime? The others had obviously splintered her self esteem, surely that was a crime! Second thoughts hit her, did she really want these cruel, judgemental, terrible creatures to accept her?

"Hey look everybody! Here comes Miss Ugly!" One of the creatures guffawed. The other animals looked up at the newcomer's arrival. Silence. Tension rose in the air, as the animals stared awkwardly at her. She shifted in her spot uncomfortable at the long amounts of silence.

Laughter. It started out small and quiet, but grew until it was a symphony of terrible sounds of humiliation. The newcomer's face was hot, and she felt her cheeks turn tomato red. A lump swelled in her throat, preventing her to speak. She felt a tear slide down her face, and a choking sound escaped her throat.

"Oh, are you gonna cry?" Another one of the creatures said, a chuckle following afterward. She bowed her head, her eyes facing the river. How could she be so stupid? They would never love her, even if she tried her very hardest to fit into this messed up, awfully crooked society. She stared at her reflection. She saw the tree bark tied to her horns, when she had trying to make them look straight. She peered at the long grass weave she had knotted around her tail painfully, when she had been trying to make it longer, more majestic. She did this. She had turned herself into a monster.

Then there it was. The leaf. She had no knowledge of how it had ended up in the river, but it now floated in front of her. She stared lovingly at it. It was one beautiful leaf. She admired its color, its bright green veins. She adored the little spots that had seemingly been dotted around it. She scooped it up, her reflection rippling away. It felt cool in her paw, she could feel its bumps and edges. Then she looked up, at a detail she had not noticed ever before. The trees. The leaves that hung gracefully from the trees were yellow, almost shiny. The newcomer could not love those leaves though. Those leaves appeared fake, they acted the same as every other leaf. But she could find love for this leaf. This one was different, not afraid to live its life with its head up. Realization filled her as if she was waking from a long sleep. How could she have not thought about this earlier? It was so simple! Why should she have to go about her life with her head down? Why should she be ashamed of who she was? She was this leaf. She was beautiful. She did not tease the other creatures when they teased her! She did not call them names! Her personality was something of love, and care. She could be beautiful, the confident kind, if she would lift her head.

She untied the terrible bark from her horns, she undid the weave of grass on her tail. This was her. She looked in the river once more-and smiled. Turning around, letting all the creatures stare at her, she held her head high. The guilt washed away, joy and relief replacing it. It is a beautiful feeling to find pure love for yourself, it's as if a terrible weight has been lifted from you and you are flying. This was the real, the most pure her. She walked away prideful, the other creatures' eyes filled with envy, for deep inside they wished to be like her. They wished to leave their own insecurities and transform into a confident, loving, okay with themselves, creature, for that is pure beauty. The newcomer was pure beauty, lovely on the outside, magnificent in the inside. She was majestic.

Author's note:

I don't get it. I don't get how some people want to act like others. How can others go about their day, hiding their true self inside them? That's not something to bottle up, it's something to be proud of! How can people be "normal?" Is normal even a real thing? Think about it. No one's really normal because we're all different! We all come from different stories, different places. That doesn't mean we should judge others. If you've ever been teased or laughed at, you know that it's a terrible weight of unhappiness that is thrust upon you. We shouldn't judge each other, for NO ONE wants to feel like that and NO ONE deserves to feel like that. That's what I tried to shoot for in this story, not to judge, and to be yourself. I hope you got that.