to be lit up from within
vein by vein
Walking home should’ve been a grand occasion, a light fury to her steps, a chaotic embrace to her stride, racing, racing, racing against the sun, until she threw open the door and saw her family once more. It should’ve been the pangs of homesickness erasing and fleeting, heart beating back to its regular intervals, the sanctity of sanctuary, refuges, and sanctums, to know and understand exactly who she cherished and what it meant. But now her movements were cautious, maneuvering on airy endeavors, furrowed contemplation rendered between her brows, a weary, wary invocation to all the information Vai had shared with her. She pulled on the bandages on her arms, then forgot about them as she neared the door, the apprehension over their potential reaction towards her burns completely gone. Now, she only worried by what she might find beyond the aperture.
How sick they really were.
If she was damned and doomed to lose them too.
Fangorn grumbled at her ankles as she stood before the wooden threshold. Melita wasn’t a coward by any means. She just knew what it meant to be incapable, ineffectual, and inept. The girl wasn’t a healer. That had been her mother, her sister; and they were long since gone. Vai hadn’t been able to help them.
So what was she supposed to do?
Watch? Cherish? Love until they wasted away?
On impulse and a strangling sense of fear, the girl opened the entrance, and peered inside. “I’m home!” On jubilant, effervescent chords, as if the world hadn’t delivered one more nefarious blow.
to be the sun
MELITA
