[SE] high and flighty

MELITA

Amun’s lands didn’t sound so dissimilar from her own – high-rising seas and tides, the glory of the salty air, the rush of the desert beneath her feet, hot sand rising between her toes, conflagrations, gods with little mercy except when sacrificing themselves; monsters but not the same as the ones drenched in the Rift. “That sounds a lot like my old world,” her smile softened, still bright and incandescent, but her eyes fading off into histories and images set lifetimes apart. “I came from Helovia. We had gods, monsters, seas, deserts, glades, and mountains too.” Her gaze unfurled to his, a tip of her head at the smirk, at the chuckle. Harsh and demanding tribute; because what world hadn’t? Because they all their demands, all had their rites, all had their commanding echoes resounding across chambers and shadows. She said naught of the bitterness laying along her tongue, rooting around in her mind, tired of being cast off.

Fangorn blinked rapidly at the man’s close approach, but did naught to warn him away except to growl lightly, uncertain, unsure, until Melita’s warm smile deigned the feats fine, and his mouth twisted into some ghoulish fringes of a winsome smile. “Squashy, more than likely,” she teased in return, hands gliding over the rim of the gourd’s surface with gentle, appreciative scratches, gestures meant to appease – because without him, there would’ve been moments of naught more than desolation, isolation, scattered and caught and snared in those primordial woes of nothingness.

The following compliment caught her off-guard, because she’d been more than ready to wallow in her melancholy, in her failures, in her rues and regrets again; head raised from her ground pulverizing and puncturing. Perhaps she did have some other skills: endurance, fortitude, might, and survival, capable of persisting, of living, of breathing, of existing, even when other worlds yearned to assure, to ensure, she didn’t. “Thank you,” her smile bloomed and blossomed, a radiant thing in the hallows of twilight. And then, to meld into further curiosity, she extended the notions and entanglements. “What do you do around here?” Besides plant in the cover of darkness? “How many more do you have?” Her chin jutting out to indicate her inquiry meant towards the seeds, and however many more holes were required.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts