Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins
“Like laughter. Merry, whimsical, peaceful.” What she wanted to hear, instead of the rampaging edges of damnation rushing for all of them. What Clementine had once uttered, along fields of wildflowers. What her mother once embodied, gently laying out herbs, hanging them to dry, protecting them with love and compassion. It was what she tried to instill now, in her own version, strength and might keeping them upright, moving, heading towards promised portals, and out of the snow. Out of danger. Out of the bone-weary exhaustion plaguing her mind.
But she didn’t know what other tale he was talking about, arching a brow. “What piper one? You can tell me after I finish?” They could share on this journey, occupy rampaging, burdened minds, re-forge, revitalize, revive everything that wanted to fade and die and shackle into tethers and lines where there was no end and no beginning.
Then he urged her to continue, so she did, a breath intermingling in warm puffs of air, in the strain on her soul, on the way she refused to break. “She followed the airy, ethereal qualities, until she found a cluster of Fae.” Sure, that sounded right. Even if all the ones she’d ever met had been hardened, battle-laden Amazons. “They spoke to her, told her to come closer.”
But she didn’t know what other tale he was talking about, arching a brow. “What piper one? You can tell me after I finish?” They could share on this journey, occupy rampaging, burdened minds, re-forge, revitalize, revive everything that wanted to fade and die and shackle into tethers and lines where there was no end and no beginning.
Then he urged her to continue, so she did, a breath intermingling in warm puffs of air, in the strain on her soul, on the way she refused to break. “She followed the airy, ethereal qualities, until she found a cluster of Fae.” Sure, that sounded right. Even if all the ones she’d ever met had been hardened, battle-laden Amazons. “They spoke to her, told her to come closer.”
Melita
