[season event] of the wind and the water

there's always a glimmer in those

Fangorn’s hisses and grumbles while they leapt and bounded through underbrush might have indicated his partiality for not listening to her sing. Melita lacked the fine fundamentals of a beautiful voice attuned for pitches and beats and strains, that had been her twin’s area of finesse. The honeybee girl had sunk into weaponry, munitions, and action instead, and despite her love of humming, of trilling, of warbling, it didn’t mean the rest of the world, much less Safrin, wanted to hear it. She shrugged and shook her head, not quite damaged or demeaned by the pumpkin’s accord; she knew exactly how awful she sounded. “Fine, fine, how about a story then? We have plenty of those.” Another sibilance echoed down by her ankles, this time meandering somewhere within agreement, and they carried on –

Only for another to chirp.

She swung around, hands instinctively wrapping around the staff belted to her side, Fangorn rushing forward, nestled somewhere in the thorns and nettles. Neither of them had met this particular individual, and despite the friendly, amiable overtures (and the clothing requiring dislodging from branches and boughs), her palm didn’t remove itself from her chosen weapon. “Oh, hello.” Breathing away the residual, quickened heartbeat, her eyes narrowed, speculative, and given that amount of sparse moments, the unrelenting weight of her palm left the staff’s fixture, extending outward to the stranger. “I’m Melita. Who are you?”

who have been through the dark

MELITA