The Peregrine

My name is Athena, which is by far the most interesting thing about me. I never had any powers or special talents, I was always middle of the road in everything I did--straight-B student right here. Sixth or seventh picked at sports at school.

People, when they find out I was there, ask me how. They ask me, what was it like to be there; to see it all play out, to see them rise, and, eventually, to see them fall. 

Yes, I knew them. Was friends with most of them--Lucy, Aperture, Reflekta, Sky Rider, Error, and my best friend Jenna.

As you would know her, the Peregrine.

The story of how we met isn’t especially interesting either, except to my mother, who would occasionally get in the mood and tell it to anyone who’d listen. I’ll tell it here the way she used to--it won’t sound right otherwise.

“When my Athena was six years old--oh yes, just six but what a six-year-old she was, very sensible for her age”--my mother missed no opportunity to brag how ‘sensible’ I was when I was young.

“When my Athena was six years old she was playing next to the canal at the park--you know, those cement drainage ditches they put near roads and parks and things--and she stepped on a piece of cement that must have been crumbling, because she slipped and tumbled quite hard down to the bottom. Now, this was one of those deep ones, and there was no way my Athena, or any child her size, really, could have climbed out on her own. I’m lucky we weren’t in the rainy season or she might have been swept away completely!” Here my mother always paused for a little chuckle.

“Athena was very sensible for her age and I could trust her to be out of sight for a while rather than keeping an eye on her every minute, so it may have been a good quarter of an hour before I realised she was gone. Of course, I immediately started looking and it wasn’t long before I found her, sitting in the water at the bottom of the ravine, scraped up like she’d come off worse in a scuffle but happy as can be because--and I couldn’t believe my eyes--there was another little girl down there with her! She was dressed in the prettiest lacy dress and completely covered in muddy water! Both of them were! Once I fished them out and made sure my Athena wasn’t too badly hurt, and once I’d given her a good scolding for not calling for me the moment she got in trouble, I found out that the other girl had seen Athena fall and had climbed down to play with her until they could get out! And that second little girl was only our Jenna. Oh, they were inseparable after that, especially after we realised Jenna was close enough to walk to our house and--”

I’ll cut my mother off there. She was a rambler, my mother. The story, though, is true. I went walking along the edge of the drainage ditch and a loose chunk of concrete gave out under me, and I scraped myself good sliding to the bottom. I think I probably started crying but it’s been forty years and that isn’t the part I remember.

At first I wasn’t sure Jenna was real. One minute I was sniffling by myself and the next someone flicked water right in my face, and there she was. Startled me right out of any crying.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I fell,” I think I said, then, “Are you a princess?” because, like my mother said, she was wearing a very frilly dress that could easily have belonged to a princess in my child’s mind.

“No, I’m just Jenna,” she said. She sat down right in the mud in her fancy dress and it felt like I’d known her all my life. She was just...  Jenna.

We were inseparable. For years. Decades. Sure, we had our spats and childish arguments but we never went to bed angry.

My house was always home base, because mom was happy to host and Jenna’s family was big and chaotic; she had permission to be over all the time and just preferred it. For years, when I went to visit my mom I’d be surrounded by artifacts of our childhood--the posters that found their way onto my bedroom walls reflected Jenna’s interests at least as much as mine.

Sorry, this isn’t what you’re here for. You’re reading because you want to know what the Peregrine was like. What they were all like.

She loved to fly, more than anything.

She lied as much as you’d expect but was the most honest person I ever knew.

Her favourite costume was the third one, the one with the feather detailing.

Her favourite animal was actually an ostrich, not a peregrine falcon.

I’ve seen a lot of debate about this one so let me settle it here: she was 5’6” and wore boots that made her seem taller.

She liked cotton candy ice cream even though I told her it was gross every time she got it.

Her favourite food was macaroons.

Yeah, I knew her better than probably anybody and I miss her like hell but let me make one thing very clear: she did not abandon us. Anyone who thinks she would is insulting her memory.

Jenna--she was the Peregrine, more than she was ever anything else, and she would never abandon that.

I’m not really sure what happened myself. Maybe she became too much the Peregrine, in the end. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m writing this down at last, because I’m hoping by putting the story down on the page I can figure it out somehow.

If you haven’t read it already, you should check out my new opening, much improved with the extra two years of writing experience I’ve had since I wrote this.