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[GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-07-2019
The secret Santa gifts and their assignments established, Melita had been excited to extend her abilities to someone she didn’t really know; only seen along the way, in backdrops and backgrounds. The only apprehension she could cultivate at all in the spirit of giving, was the fact she didn’t know how to knit, and the man’s wishes had explicitly stated a knit sweater. Melita would wield staffs and bows and the occasional daggers, rocks, and broken branches, but had never actually learned the very nature and art of pulling together fabric. If the needles weren’t for stabbing, she wouldn’t have ever seen them.
So the youth had asked several merchants around for the necessary equipment, some knowing her too well and wincing before handing over the instruments, and some other poor souls had volunteered to show her a few techniques; she hadn’t taken too it very well, and they’d sent her along her way before she hurt herself in their presence. Perhaps all it would take was more practice, more precision, just like her weapons’ training.
The honeybee girl settled herself along one of the stone walls along the settlement, eyes narrowed, tongue sticking out, attention fully grasped on the navy-hued wool and yarn somehow wrapped around her tools. Her legs swung, as if she required every sensation of movement to even grasp the situation, and Fangorn resided nearby, dozing in the morning sun. The rest of her chosen fabric had already managed to unravel itself down to the ground, settling in beside the gourd’s frame, but that was less of a worry for now.
{Just Melita failing at some knitting. <3 Open to anyone!}
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-07-2019
An imminent sense of unraveling: Nathaniel goes through familiar motions, but he feels as if he is watching himself through a window. As if his body is some separate phenomenon, dedicated to a pantomime of normalcy. Maybe he has been too far away from other people for too long. Fear of violence, or fear of change, drove him out of the most populated areas some time ago. But now another Long Night is past, and his chickens are gone, and he is hungry. Hungry in a way he hasn't known — maybe ever. His clothes hang off him looser than before, and his face is an amalgamation of sharp planes all intersecting at strange angles. Dark eyes sunken, more shadowed than usual. He looks exhausted because he is. Seeing the world but not really part of it.
Maybe this is the natural result of some flaw in Nathaniel's personality — unavoidable, predetermined. But it makes some things strangely easier. He can stride into the settlement without really caring about who sees him, can haggle without the strange pricklings of guilt he used to get. He doesn't have much left to trade, though, anymore. He ought to go out and check the trap lines and set new ones, but he hasn't gotten around to that, yet.
At this moment, all he really cares about is the apple in his right hand, and the small satchel thrown carelessly over his opposite shoulder. Has an apple ever tasted so sweet? Like color returning to the world? He doesn't think so. He's a strange combination of lost and hopeful as he makes his way out of the muddy streets, his fingers sticky with sweet juice. For now, just for now, Nathaniel isn't worried.
So maybe this is why he reacts the way he does to the girl perched on the wall. Maybe loneliness is the most powerful aversive left in him, and he recognizes the flame-bright curtain of her hair, the gourd resting near her feet. Maybe he's just relieved to see someone he knows, someone he isn't afraid of, still alive.
"Melita." A pleasant warmth hangs from each syllable, a honey-sweet delight born maybe from remembering her name, or just her face, or just the random collusion of circumstance which brought him to this moment, where he isn't worrying. Where he doesn't feel anything too keenly, at all.
Nathaniel tilts his head, eyes running over the ball of yarn in her hands, the half-formed and struggling knots. He realizes he doesn't know her profession. Doesn't remember, at least. "What are you doing?" It is an appropriate question, because he doesn't recognize what she's doing, at all, beyond: it is some form of knitting. Or crocheting. Or whatever you call it. She might be taking something apart, or creating something new. Nathaniel finds himself intrigued by the possibilities.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-08-2019
The frustration of the tangled strands began to pile within her mind; nothing quite like any of her other munitions, and though she wasn’t an individual to give up, to give in, to fumble beneath the weight of some unknown, ignorant failure, it didn’t mean exasperations didn’t occupy her thoughts. She pulled the needles apart and stared at the massive mess she’d already orchestrated; Fangorn completely nonplussed by the entire event, while she sighed, blew some hair out of her face. At this point, poor Peter might only be receiving a Gordian knot (she could pretend it was intentional; a puzzle for him to solve). Determination fumbled along her jaw, and she loosened the slightest of growls as she bent down, legs no longer swinging against stone, grabbing hold of the remaining thread and starting over again.
Her head only raised from her surly contortions at the sound of her name called along the throng, instantly raising her cranium, much like a wolf, scanning the horizon until she pinpointed it upon someone she hadn’t seen in a great, long while. Instantly her features retained their brilliant, singsong accord, forgoing her wrath and contempt for pieces of yarn, forging pleasantries and warmth in exchange. [say]“Nathaniel,”[/say] she commented, a wry smile, a tilt of her skull, fond memories of chorus bees and their hives, tunes and melodies in perfect pitch, curling back over her. The girl didn’t ask where he’d been, what he’d been doing; winter was like a hibernation period, a chance to regrow and renew, to come out into the springtime ether, after LongNight, after curling and coiling into pieces of the dark – like chrysalises, like caves, like catacombs. [say]“How are you?”[/say] An extension of her faith and ebullience, the disastrous wake in her hands omitted.
Until he clearly saw the struggle.
A fair question, really, when her gaze slid back down to the disorder and disarray in her lap, spilling over the sides of her legs, clambering along the stone wall as if it were trying to escape. Another sigh escaped her lungs, a shrug cast across her shoulders. [say]“I have to knit a sweater.”[/say] Her gaze ascended back to his, the slightest bit of laughter coiled in her eyes.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-08-2019
How is he? Nathaniel hopes to skate right past this question. Maybe hoping for this is hoping for more grace than he usually exhibits, but he cannot find an answer he likes. In truth: he doesn't know. Bad, is how he is. How he has always been. Just barely making it by. He has no one to give him orders, now, and no one he wants to take orders from, anyway. Just his elderly dog. "It's good to see you,". He says instead. He tosses the remains of the apple core over his shoulder and wipes his hand on his pants.
Fortunately, her current endeavor provides a distraction. A welcome one. Nate leans over to peer at the tangle of fiber, his eyebrows quirking ever so slightly toward each other. A glint of something like laughter almost makes it out of the depths of his dark eyes. "You have to?" he asks, and the laughter is there in his voice, too. Muted but nonetheless present. He raises his eyes to meet hers, wondering briefly if this is some kind of punishment.
He looks back down to the mess in her hands, his expression serious again. "Have you done that before?" The obvious answer is no, but Nathaniel is in no position to judge. He hasn't, either. "My mother used to knit," he says, thinking aloud. He remembers the rhythmic click-click of the needles, the occasional pause as she went back to count her stitches. Her pieces had always looked more… object shaped than whatever Melita is doing.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-08-2019
He avoided the question, and she only arched a brow at the implications of the unknown, saying nothing else about it. If he craved to hide the ruminations and intonations, far be it from her to continue prying, especially when she could’ve always done the same (clench her jaw, bite down on her tongue, rage and rage and rage). [say]“Nice to see you too,”[/say] she gave in response, warm and beneficent, content to be in the stretch of sun, out of LongNight’s torrent, out of the blight’s touch. Eventually summer would fold over and she’d be able to catch synapses and lacquer that reminded her of the Dragon’s Throat, the resounding, ricocheting, wondrous rays kissing over skin.
But then there were more inquiries about her current task, the laughter there, present, ready to buoy and burst; she giggled, a burst of humor and enthusiasm despite the obvious circumstances. [say]“I signed up for the gift exchange. The person I picked requested a sweater.”[/say] Which was unfortunate for them that it’d been her hand choosing their name and wish; if they were truly lucky it might be formed into the semblance of a single sock before the end. She shook her head at his query though, another round of laughter. [say]“No – how can you tell?”[/say] A wink, inspired and incited by her own failures, instead of sputtering around in the dirt and leftover rime – perhaps it was ridiculous, but pouting in these spirals and events didn’t seem necessary. [say]“Oh? Did you pick up any of her skills?”[/say] She held up her knotted accordion of yarn, needles, and anything else that had been gathered along the way (some portions of leaves, maybe, some grime, hard to tell). Her mother might’ve taught her to knit, had she been around, had she been alive – but those were deviations for another day.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-09-2019
The conversation moves on — kindly, blessedly. If she wonders about him, if she worries about him — but why would she? They are not friends. Friendly acquaintances, maybe, but those are so much easier than friends. They have no obligations to him. No sense of ownership.
Surprise registers briefly on his face as she mentions the gift exchange. Who's organizing things like that? It sounds so quaint, so normal in a world deprived of normalcy. As if the people here have anything to give away. Nathaniel finds he likes this about Melita, though. Whoever she is, wherever she comes from, she seems to carry within herself a sort of abundant light. If her soul were a color, it would be yellow. The soft yellow of honey and buttercups and spring sunlight.
Next, she holds the tangle out to him. Simpering, Nathaniel shakes his head. "No," he answers without a hint of apology. Maybe he would be better off, now, absent a wife and no plans to acquire one, if his mother had taught him anything about keeping a home. "My job was outgrowing clothes and destroying them, not making new ones." He offers a wry smile. "It can't be too hard, though," Nathaniel adds, with the optimism of someone who has never attempted fiber craft. He does not mention his parents' house, within easy walking distance. He isn't going there today. Certainly not with a pretty young woman. Not for any amount of goodwill.
"You know how big this person is? Just… start with one side and go from there." He crouches as he speaks to pick up the trailing ends of yarn and begin untangling them, picking out bits of grass as he does.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-09-2019
Perhaps Melita had always formed a sense of attachment to those she met and liked. Embraced them fully in her heart, a ferocious little tether and line, radiance and ambience extended in those familiar accords, no questions asked, no insinuations given, ready and eager to defend. Unless another contortion was warranted (like Kiada; a name that blistered and seethed through her mind like a vice, like venom), the girl was eternally grateful and responsive to notions of kindness and benevolence, and aimed to enshroud others in that too – because the world was already cruel enough without all the other twists, turns, and revolutions of animosity. Her light bled through fire and fury, through rapture and delight, sometimes snagged, sometimes snarled, sometimes broken and chipped, but persistent, tenacious, and obstinate, every bit a piercing of her soul.
She’d never quite known how to read Nathaniel though; from the minimal interactions, through chorus bees buzzing in her ear, through song and ditties strained, warbled, through her throat. So the girl watched him carefully, unfortunately not saved by his ignorance of knitting either; can’t be too hard bristling through, a laugh on the breeze. Oh, she could make anything difficult, enough impulsive, impetuous designs in her brain to set the world ablaze but not douse it when she was through. [say]“I don’t know him well, no.”[/say] It was supposed to be a secret, but if he wasn’t involved with the proceedings, then perhaps it wouldn’t come to harm. [say]“Do you know someone named Peter?”[/say] An absent-minded inquisition, while they both sought to unravel what she’d already maimed and damaged, her fingers lightly plucking at leaves assembled and stuck to the granules. Before long, it resumed as a pile along the stone wall again, less cluttered with debris, but still a haphazard display, and she worked on the needles, removing threads and starting again.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-16-2019
It is a shame, Nathaniel thinks - not for the first time - that she got him and not somebody else. That he is here and not a knowledgeable person, or a helpful person, or a friendly person. "Peter," he responds, and shakes his head. "No." Nathaniel hardly knows anyone, of course. A handful of naturals, mostly farmers. An even smaller handful of Outlanders, many of whom go nameless in memory - just a cluster of faces growing more vague by the minute. Nathaniel tries to imagine the sort of person who requests a hand-knit sweater from a stranger, and thinks if isn't the sort of person he'd get along with.
"Well…" he says with a shrug. "He's probably smaller than me." He holds out his arms as if to demonstrate they are entirely too long, much like the rest of him, lanky despite his slouch, his own clothes dirty and threadbare. "Could you use something of mine for a pattern?" Nate wonders anyway. "Just… make it smaller?"
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-17-2019
Were Nathaniel to ask or even exclaim those notions, Melita would’ve informed him that she didn’t think it was a shame at all – content to have company, to be in his amity. Her eyes scanned him while he shook his head, no information prospered on this Peter fellow; but the youth didn’t frown, didn’t warrant any sense of disappointment. It wasn’t his fault; mostly hers, really, to be ignorant of people and faces she should’ve known, should’ve met, should’ve acknowledged instead of bounding along with nothing but the sun on her fire or the clouds in her horizon.
But Nathaniel did give her something to work with, and the rapacious, greedy conflagration within her snagged and took whatever she could grasp. [say]“Smaller than you,”[/say] she mused thereafter, gaze scrutinizing again – as if it truly mattered, both of them knowing full well this sweater was going to come out looking like a disaster. If this poor Peter person was the least bit fortunate (and he already wasn’t, since he received her as a gift granter), it might come out formed like a singular sock or hat. [say]“I could try!”[/say] The girl chirped, gliding a piece of yarn up against one of his arms, looking like she was taking measurements, tongue sticking out in concentration and idiocy. It was what she always did: try, attempt, strive, a thunderous amount of determination molded and melded from within, even if there wasn't a hope or prayer in the same sanction. Humming under her breath, gliding on pretenses, ignorance, and blatant stupidity (might as well own it now), she prospered inquiries and divinations. [say]“What have you been up to?”[/say]
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-17-2019
Something about Melita makes her easy to be around. She asks so little of him - stand here, speak occasionally, tackle the problem at hand. All her ebullience fills in the gaps, bubbling up through the silence, sealing it with laughter and honey-colored light. Like complements - flame to shadow.
Nathaniel stands patiently as she measures, taking this opportunity to study her expression, the quick flit of each movement. Whether or not the end result turns out doesn't matter much to him. Selfishly, he really only cares about the moment, about being near someone he holds no obligations toward. Her question catches him off guard, and because of this, maybe, he doesn't answer at first. When he does, it's with a shard of honesty. "I lost my chickens." His tone does not betray the depth of emotion behind this fact. Not the guilt, or the strange hollow sadness which has been eating away at him. He didn't even like the chickens, but they're gone, and it's his fault. Probably frozen to death weeks ago.
Nate sighs. "Maybe I should have learned to knit," he says with a rueful smile. "Could have made them all sweaters."
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-19-2019
At her core, the girl had always been nestled and contorted in some form of ebullience, in enthusiasm, in wreckage, in demolition. It was a part of the rapacity, the unrelenting, ferocious entanglements, the way she bounded and leapt at every opportunity, the way she hastened and hustled, the way she strived to do good, to do well, even when the world closed itself in on her. Because there’d been days where she’d been worthless and awful, and there’d been days where strangers picked her up and gave her new life, allowed for her to become parts of families and units of friends she wouldn’t have otherwise known or had. Because she was fire and vitriol, and someone had to be a beating, bleeding lifeforce, grinding their teeth into the nettles and thorns, waiting for others to come along to the other side. Had she of known, she would’ve kept lending Nathaniel more and more and more light, a constant, unending flame, burning, burning, burning, until there were no shadows pressing or spurning, until long, knife edges were only in her grasp.
Melita measured, content with the hum under her breath, might’ve been one of her mother’s, one of her sister’s, or the other layered inhabitants in between, ensuring their legacies lived on in the shape and orchestration of a simple tune. Her eyes didn’t go immediately to his, catching and snagging along bits and pieces of yarn, eyeballing ratios and the ball of curtailed fabric, slipping down to snag at the ones already mishandled. She raised her head to stare when he noted his lack of chickens, and a contortion of her face muddled its way into a semblance of sorrow, for him, for pieces that were gone, even if there only seemed to be nonchalance behind it. If he mentioned it at all, it must mark and chisel somewhere, in his bones, in his soul, lost feathers and beings, things that were kept in his grasp, gone and fleeting – clicking her teeth together when the agonizing feeling shoved its way into her chest. She knew those nuances. [say]“I’m sorry,”[/say] she gathered her wits and prospered, because she was, and it sucked to lose creatures and individuals one held dear.
His humor only caused her to shake her head, a toss of her wild locks, while she stepped away, gave him his space back, the measurements taken, yarn reapplied to the needles. [say]“Then we would all be out of our troubles,”[/say] the youth laughed, a light chuckle as her brows furrowed, sitting back along the stone wall. [say]“Will you get any more?”[/say]
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-21-2019
For some reason, Nate is both relieved and a little disappointed when the girl retreats, the tangle of yarn between her hands. Between them. He leans back until he can rest the heels of his hands on the stone wall, and half sits, half stands, watching her work. This is maybe the closest he's come in a year to being a real person, having a real conversation. Being outside of his own head. It's… nice. Really very nice, if he is honest with himself.
(he rarely is)
"I don't know," Nate answers her question. "I didn't like them very much." It is easy to say this bit, and harder to say the other half of it — that he had also loved them, in the weird stoic way he came to love things which demanded his time and attention. They were foul, noisy, busy little creatures and now they were gone and his yard was silent save for the specter of the dog, the old dog, who would one day disappear as well. Into the forest, or into the dirt, or into thin air — it would happen.
He ruminates for a moment, thinking on it. The sound of her work soothes him in an old, familiar way. He never enjoyed his childhood house, but the sound is a sound of his childhood, a sound of quiet and of peace, even if Melita's needles move without rhythm and the sweater is sure to be something else, entirely.
When he speaks again, it's a different topic altogether, though in Nate's brain the question belongs here. "What did you ask for?"
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Melita - 12-21-2019
Her eyebrows lifted briefly at the notion of not liking the chickens – half a question within those movements – as if to ask, as if to inquire why he kept them at all, if he didn’t care for them, why he wasted his time or efforts. The girl had always ferociously dedicated herself to things, people, and places that she cherished; lackluster ambitions and emotions weren’t quite in her essence. It sizzled and seared and simmered in her mind, but she didn’t give it voice; afraid to break apart the notions of peace and repose. Perhaps that was growth for her too – when ages before she would’ve launched automatically into the notions, spiraled and courted them from her mouth like flames, unafraid of who she burned or seared in the process.
Instead, the click of her needles formed something; if one glanced at it quickly they might say it resembled the beginning of a collar, or some bungled, tangled up knot of thread impersonating any semblance of order. But Melita persisted, as she so often did, determined in her convictions, whether it be power, prowess, potential, or this damned sweater – certain it wouldn’t prove to be her downfall, unwilling for its manifestation to be anything but successful.
The youth lifted her head from her work at Nathaniel’s inquiry, a minute tilt, a silly little smile sparking at the corners of her mouth. [say]“Oh, I gave them some options,”[/say] a haphazard shrug; as if it didn’t really matter, and the weight and notion of surprise was the more exciting faction. [say]“Food, weapons, or shiny things.”[/say] Perhaps she should’ve been more specific: but the youth rarely thought of anything she craved save for strength, might, and dominion, and that was found only within herself, couldn’t be handed over by another. [say]“What would you have wanted – if you participated?”[/say] A hum escaped under her breath once more, some devilish, mischievous accord now.
RE: [GGE] nothing can stop me - Nat haniel - 12-25-2019
The difficult thing about people, Nathaniel remembers, is how often they prove unknowable. He thought, for example, he understood something about Melita a few moments ago. And now — now the lens through which he views her shifts, another color fading into the kaleidoscope lens, and she is altogether different. "Weapons?" he says, and he says it aloud, the surprise honest in his voice. He thinks of the girl as he sees her now: sprightly, brilliant, the flutter of her hair and the yarn in her hands. He cannot replace this vision with one edged in blood. He cannot conjure a true version of her. His voice tilts against something like an uncertain laugh. "I guess you can never be too prepared."
But then she does the thing people do, and turns the question back on him. And Nate doesn't have an answer, really. Not one made for public consumption. He wants a lot of things, but none of them are things he can ask for. None of them are things he can even admit to wanting. His expression blurs for a moment, his face not sure what to broadcast, and he looks away. "New boots maybe," he says at last, and kicks one of his feet forward as if to demonstrate. But he doesn't really want anything he can put his hands on, and the statement feels unutterably stupid even as he speaks.
Of course, now he feels unutterably stupid, and his face feels warm, and he still isn't really looking at Melita. More like at the ground, or anything else. He moves away from the wall with a decisive push. "Let me know if he likes it?" he says, indicating the sweater. "I should probably get back to my dog."