I don't know if you can hear me

The only Heaven I'll be sent to
Is when I'm alone with you

Trepidation sits heavy in the pit of her stomach. It weighs there like an anchor threatening to weigh her down her feet as she makes her way up the winding stairs of the lighthouse. Her fingers clutch tightly at the wicker handle of her basket. Lavender satin covers the top of her gifts along with the other things she brought with her. Candles as well as blushberry tarts freshly baked and still warm. This seems stupid. So stupid and she’s scared. Sunjata told her that Safrin wouldn’t turn her away. That she would care, but Maeve can’t make herself believe it. No matter how many times she says it. How many times she runs through that conversation they had it just doesn’t sink in.

Yet she climbs the stairs. Climbs and climbs and climbs until the ground is so far below her it seems like a distant memory. Suddenly she’s there in the place so many have come before her to pray. Maeve isn’t even sure what she’s here for. Why she wants to even try. Maybe she’s just curious. Curious to see if Safrin would listen the way Sunjata promised she would. Except she doesn’t want to waste the goddess’s time. Doesn’t want to anger her if she does listen.

Maeve spreads out the soft lavender satin on the floor, sinking to her knees as she places the candles she lovingly made herself with lavender she grew in the garden at the Halenani. The tarts follow and she unscrews a jar of honey, drizzling it over the top before putting it back into her basket and drawing out matches instead. She strikes the matches, lighting her unburned candles. Their soft light fills the room, flickering gently against the walls of the lighthouse even as the sunlight dapples through the one window in the room, providing a single shaft of light within the space. With great care, she draws out an ornate silver mirror, handle and back inlaid with Abalone that reflects rainbows across its surface. She sets it between the candles in the tarts, watching the flames dance in the reflection of the mirror.

”I- I’ve not done this since I was a child. Although, I don’t know that I did it right then either.” She starts, voice soft, no more than a whisper as she clutches her hands in her lap, twisting into the fabric of her skirt. ”I never went to a shrine and- and before you couldn’t hear me when I prayed. No one ever told me that. Didn’t have anyone to. Not until.. Until I met Sunjata. For so long I thought that none of you cared and I still don’t know if you do. I hope that doesn’t make you angry… I just thought I should be honest with you.” Maeve takes a shaky breath, lifting her eyes from the reflection of the mirror to the empty space before her, hoping she might see her there, but it is still empty.

Her eyes close and she ignores the tightness in her throat, ”For years I longed to be wanted and loved. I still want it, but the world is changing and I don’t know if I can have that anymore. I- I’ve met people and I think that maybe I can, but they’re all leaving. Going out to sea or to become soldiers or-” She cuts herself off, not allowing the words to leave her mouth even as they sit at the tip of her tongue. ”I don’t know what I’m asking for, Safrin. I’m sorry.” Maeve whispers, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes as her head drops and her fingers clench in the skirt of her dress.

I was born sick, but I love it
Command me to be well

Maeve

Code stolen from by Sky! <3