Maya

At only a few months old, Maya figured it out: she didn't belong with her parents, let alone the rest of the clan she had come to know as her friends and family. It was Pluto they wanted—he had the entire clan enamored from the day he hatched. He was blessed with everything she was not, including his eloquent way of speaking. Maya couldn't communicate well; her words were always jumbled and she often stuttered. Maya never blamed her brother, because the young Fathom was only living his best life, and she only wanted the best for Pluto. In her mind, life simply didn't favor her, so she had to work around it.

Glitch was her role model when she was young, along with her adoptive father, Enceladus; both of them were extremely diligent in their work. But Enceladus never had time for Maya; the Wildclaw was too busy running the clan to pay any attention to her. As time passed, she felt a growing resentment towards her parents. Being as stubborn as she was, she refused to open up to the clan counselor, and ended up isolating herself.

There were a few days that Harbrom approached Maya, and eventually the two started spending time together regularly. Although he didn't speak much, he was good company. It was easier to communicate when she felt less pressure to do it well.

"Why not leave?"

The words left her stunned; she never expected Harbrom to speak to her aloud, let alone suggest she leave. She was speechless for a moment, before answering with another question. "Why?"

"Find your happiness. It may not be here."

After that brief interaction, Maya thought about it and ultimately decided to leave. It felt like the right answer, and she figured she would have some fun while she traveled. Maya hoped to meet a lot of dragons along the way, and collect lots of adornments as keepsakes to bring to her eventual permanent clan. On her way out, her all parents came to see her off. Glitch and Enceladus gave her a cloak to keep with her and told her, "Please stay safe during your travels, and don't hesitate to return. Pluto will appreciate seeing you again."

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Her first destination was a small clan in the Windswept Plateau. They were a strange bunch but she quickly made friends. A Spiral flew over to her and welcomed her, grabbing her claws and practically dragging her into the village, all while asking her about her life. Riah brought Maya over to a small den on the edge of the clan and said that this would be her home while she stayed with them, however long it may be.

Almost immediately after Riah left a small Bogsneak wandered. He sat and talked to her for a while and they became fast friends. Before he left that day, he warned her to keep all of her paper safe because they had a thief in the area. Assuming it was just his childish imagination, she ignored it.

Maya had a hard time sleeping because she kept hearing a strange sound. It was almost like the rustling of paper and the scratching on a quill on parchment. She tossed and turned throughout the night but was finally able to get back to sleep after writing a 16 stanza poem on a small slip of paper she found near her.

The next morning when she awoke she began to go through her belongs. She wasn't suspicious, she just wanted to put them away in her new home, even if she didn't stay here forever.

It was then when she noticed that all of her paper belongings were gone!!! Every last one!!!

She searched frantically around but couldn't find them and there weren't even any clues. That was when she remember the strange sounds from last night. She looked around and spotted something equally strange. There was a small roll of black paper on her floor!!! And another just outside her window, and one more farther away—

She followed the trail into the surrounding bamboo forest and eventually found the culprit. It was a Scroll Stealer! She wanted her stuff back but it simply wouldn't give it to her. So she decided to make a trade. She carefully gave it the scrape of paper with her poem and then grabbed her papers back. It made no threatening motions, so she left. It then came back every night for another. Maya never saw it but she heard it and it came wherever she was.

After a while, she discovered that though she loved it here, it wasn't to be her home. She was ready to move on. But she definitely planned on coming back to visit her friends here!

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Maya traveled to the Sunbeam Lanternhouse, and the attentive hospitality of its residents stirred emotions in her that she did not know how to identify or manage. She had never experienced being the center of attention, and all she could feel was how overwhelming it was.

It was too much. She began to rebuff everyone's attempts to be friendly towards her.

And that made her feel... bad. Isolating herself was what she'd done at home, but these friendly strangers were only trying to be kind, and she'd left home in the hopes of adventure. Beyond that, she couldn't articulate her emotions to herself, much less to any of her hosts, with her stutter.

She fell into a depression.

It took some time before she would even consider talking to Gemma, but the Snapper was patient with her; she never tried to rush Maya when she was speaking, and if her words got jumbled coming out of her mouth so that she couldn't be understood, Gemma asked gentle clarifying questions. If Maya got so upset that she couldn't get the words out at all, Gemma led her in deep breathing exercises and then conducted the rest of the session on paper. It continually amazed Maya to not have her words snatched out of her mouth and twisted into something she hadn't meant at all. It made it easier to make the effort to communicate.

Slowly, over the course of months, Gemma introduced her to the negative emotions - anger, jealousy, shame - that she had not been able to identify or manage for her whole life. Their sessions together did not always go well, and many times, Maya became frustrated with herself. (And just because she could now identify frustration didn't always make it easier to manage.) But Gemma always reminded her why she had agreed to therapy when she had refused it at home: to travel, have adventures, and find happiness.

And several of their sessions focused on what Maya's definition of "happiness" was.

It was slow going. And Gemma pointed out, gently, that it would take a lifetime to become truly proficient at managing her emotions and letting go of negative thoughts.

But she had taken the first step towards a life worth living.

When she decided that she'd progressed enough to not need Gemma's guidance full-time, she continued her journey. The Snapper gave her a notebook so that she would always have a way to record her thoughts.

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