It was Isuma who first noticed Melita nearby, the gryphlet aware of the solemnity of the occasion, if not the reason for it. She took a strand off white hair in her beak and tugged gently, reep!ing to get her companion's attention from where his thoughts had wandered down dark and lonely paths she could not follow. He reached up distractedly to stroke her to calmness, but she placed a firm image of Melita's grieving countenance in his mind and he blinked, looking around to see all the others who had arrived. Amalia, Deimos, and Kiada had formed a little family group, and Phoebe was already in the arms of another man. A familiar Fae fluttered overhead while Remi performed miracles, and Sam contemplated a lantern of his own.
It was strange to be alone among so many people, so many of them who he had met over the past year. Friends, acquaintances, farmers and artisans, people from the town and others from the outskirts. There were many he might have approached, offering comfort or seeking connection, but it was Melita who caught his eye. She, who had burned so brightly now flickered dimly, her light struggling against the weight of illness or worse. He found his steps carrying him towards her, drifting to a halt at her side as he smiled faintly down at Fangorn, and Isuma dropped down to nuzzle her gourd friend, peeping a greeting of her own.
The lanterns she stood before were orange and lilac, flowered into bloom and filled with love and the odds and ends of memory, absent lives writ small across the glowing canvases of light.
"Would you like to talk about them?" he asked quietly, not wanting to startle her. Memory and remembrance, grief and comfort; he could offer little enough on this bittersweet night, but he could listen if she wanted to share the stories of those who might be unknown to any other soul on all the world of Caido.
It was strange to be alone among so many people, so many of them who he had met over the past year. Friends, acquaintances, farmers and artisans, people from the town and others from the outskirts. There were many he might have approached, offering comfort or seeking connection, but it was Melita who caught his eye. She, who had burned so brightly now flickered dimly, her light struggling against the weight of illness or worse. He found his steps carrying him towards her, drifting to a halt at her side as he smiled faintly down at Fangorn, and Isuma dropped down to nuzzle her gourd friend, peeping a greeting of her own.
The lanterns she stood before were orange and lilac, flowered into bloom and filled with love and the odds and ends of memory, absent lives writ small across the glowing canvases of light.
"Would you like to talk about them?" he asked quietly, not wanting to startle her. Memory and remembrance, grief and comfort; he could offer little enough on this bittersweet night, but he could listen if she wanted to share the stories of those who might be unknown to any other soul on all the world of Caido.
