you must burn brighter than ever
It was nice to be home.
The thrill of the adventures had been softened for a moment, on the beat of her feet finally hitting sand and surf again, embarking along shoal lines and embankments, the softness of the heat pulsing around her. Alive and free, liberated and adorned, a cosmic interval of the sun dancing along her face. For a few seconds, she forgot about the motions of terror at ghost whales, the chanting of a herald’s name, and merely embodied the summer swing, a breath of humid, sultry air beckoning her back.
Then there were the burns on her hands, on her arms, tended to but certainly not mended; a grimace beholden on her lips as she studied them. “Maybe we should find Vai first,” she murmured to Fangorn at her feet. The gourd grumbled and growled in response, likely in agreement. She wouldn’t dare waltz into the house with newly-forged wounds. She could only imagine Sunjata or Nate’s responses.
She walked down familiar routes and streets, head held high and bag on her shoulder, every essence the smuggler and the firebrand, hastening down honeybee lines and buzzing with the hum stoked between her teeth. The clinic outlined on the horizon, and she and her companion eventually slipped inside, head twisting around corners. “Vai?” A call, not timid or unpleasant, but a mellifluous cadence, something her sister, her mother, might have traced.
The thrill of the adventures had been softened for a moment, on the beat of her feet finally hitting sand and surf again, embarking along shoal lines and embankments, the softness of the heat pulsing around her. Alive and free, liberated and adorned, a cosmic interval of the sun dancing along her face. For a few seconds, she forgot about the motions of terror at ghost whales, the chanting of a herald’s name, and merely embodied the summer swing, a breath of humid, sultry air beckoning her back.
Then there were the burns on her hands, on her arms, tended to but certainly not mended; a grimace beholden on her lips as she studied them. “Maybe we should find Vai first,” she murmured to Fangorn at her feet. The gourd grumbled and growled in response, likely in agreement. She wouldn’t dare waltz into the house with newly-forged wounds. She could only imagine Sunjata or Nate’s responses.
She walked down familiar routes and streets, head held high and bag on her shoulder, every essence the smuggler and the firebrand, hastening down honeybee lines and buzzing with the hum stoked between her teeth. The clinic outlined on the horizon, and she and her companion eventually slipped inside, head twisting around corners. “Vai?” A call, not timid or unpleasant, but a mellifluous cadence, something her sister, her mother, might have traced.
Melita
