Once you were a bat and you needed a cave.

Red fruit stains dotted the tips of your fangs. You yawned & wrapped one long white wing around your head. You ate kumquats and sucked on your thumbs.

You had a lover. He hung beside you.

"Do you feel brave?" your lover asked.

"Yes," you said, "I do feel brave."

"But everything will end," he said.

He scratched his thumbs together, one hooking over the other.

"I will end bravely." You said, and you smiled. He shook his head at you, said I don't want to end at all. He covered his face with one wing, and then the other. I can't relate to you, he said. I resent that you are happy. Then he flew away and your lover was gone.

You looked around at the cave you had once shared with him. It was damp and too large. A family of salamanders moved in beneath you. They licked each other's eyes. They kind of creeped you out.

You wanted this whole event of your life, the love event, to be over.

You nodded a silent goodbye to the salamanders. They beat their tails into the gray stone they sat on. They gathered in a blue pile, one on top of the other. Salamanders are strange, you thought. You almost wanted to stay, just to study them.

You flew for hours, past clouds. Past a lot of yellow haze. You heard owls hoo and it made you feel safe.

You came to a triangular cave made of jagged, salted rocks. Sea urchins bobbed in the ocean less than a mile away. Cool air melted out of the entrance. The air felt nice, like the underside of a stone.

You peered one eye cautiously into the cave before you entered, in case there was a monster. And there was a monster. She had the body of a snake and the head of a lamb.

You remembered you were brave and you entered the cave. You hovered a few feet away from the monster's face.

"Hello," you said, "Is there room for one more in this cave?"

The monster said hsss. Then, she said baa.

"Okay," you said, "And what is your name?"

"Ligeia," she said. "And you know what? I'm sick of men."

"Me too!" you exclaimed, even though you were over the break-up. The relief and enthusiasm in your voice made you think you were maybe not over the break-up. Or maybe you were over it, but were not over men. More likely you were not yet over yourself.

You said, "My boyfriend broke up with me because I am brave."

"Typical," Ligeia said. "Mine left and barely even knew me. They always see something in me that's not there."

You nodded. She curled the tip of her tail into a loose knot. "They see a mother. Or a monster. What do you see?"

"Not a mother," You said "Definitely not a monster...." you said this even though you definitely saw a monster. You watched the insides of her nostrils fade from red to a pale pink.

"I see someone lonely," you said. This was a tactic.

"You understand," she said. "Okay. You can stay."

You set yourself up in a corner, and carried some twigs over, which you held inside your mouth.

You sucked the bark off and spit the bare twigs out, making a pile. This was your memory pile.

You squeezed blueberries over it. It looked almost like the salamanders, when you were far away and squinting.

"In the morning," Ligeia said, "Soldiers will come here."

You asked why. She said for maintenance. "My scales need to be sheared on the first of every month. Otherwise, they'll get too large to pass the entrance of the cave, and I won't be able to leave. So they use their swords to shear me."

You tried not to look at her with pity. You wanted, almost, to nuzzle into her lamb-head. You couldn't imagine how that must feel, to have to depend on other people that extremely.

"Okay," you said. "Thank you for letting me know."

In the morning, Ligeia was sheered. The swords skimmed over her gently. One of the soldiers pressed his palm lightly to her forehead. She half-closed her black eyes. She trusted them extremely.

"Almost done, Ligeia," said one of the soldiers. He had a long red beard and kind eyes. You wondered how they found each other. You watched Ligeia's scales fall off in glimmering blue ribbons.

After the soldiers left, gray salamanders entered the cave. You wondered if they were sick, but they were waddling in the strange way all salamanders do, shifting their entire bodies to the left, and then the right.

Ligeia sighed contently. Her milky third eyelid peeled back and she rolled one black eye over to look at you. She blinked once then twice, slowly. You felt like you should blink back, but you weren’t sure. You felt too shy. You smiled and you nodded. You resisted the urge to wrap a wing around your head.

The salamanders waddled up to the blue ribbons. They began to eat them. As they ate them, their cheeks became blue. You watched the blue travel down the centers of their spines and extend to their limbs, to the tips of their tails. You loved Ligeia in that moment. You felt the back of your heart open.