M E L I T A
The youth imagined the farm he described while she tended to a few last remnants of trash and garbage, putting the remaining articles in the designated piles. Her mother had always been a healer, so the gardens were packed with healing, soothing herbs and their home had been a threshold of welcoming, inviting nuances; it’d been wondrous, refreshing, a haven, a sanctuary. What would it have been like with a few animals? Melita would’ve been ecstatic, even wilder than before, and Clementine probably would’ve been overjoyed. The could’ve beens and the what ifs were all varnished, coated, and lacquered with regret and rue, but she still thought about those dreams from day to day, when the sketches weren’t outlined in bleak, dismal outlines, when the world didn’t seem so grave and gray. “That sounds lovely,” she hummed, distracted by memories, by details eternally etched in her mind.
Before she had a chance to ask further inquiries, because the girl was forever full of them (curious and curious her mother would’ve laughed, gentle and regal, then assisted in ensuring the honeybee child learned in her midst, but utterly incapable of stopping her from leaping off of ledges and diving straight into ocean waves), Emmett proceeded to answer her other questions. It was too bad one didn’t get to choose their shifting technique, though she could comprehend the circumstances – everyone would likely be a massive cretin, maybe a bear, a wolf, or a colossal cat, capable of implementing and ensuring malicious, vehement damage upon their foes (that’d be her first thought; bestial and a little savage). Her eyes rounded when he finally displayed his power, quick and swift, as if he’d had eons of practice (was it painful?), and even if the long ears, hooves, and ability to bray seemed outlandish along the threshold, she clapped – amused, the bright grin still shining amidst the debris and rubble. “Well done! Very impressive!”
Her eyes swept to the littler and junk once more, and then she went to the door, opening it wide in preparation for carrying and hauling the items through the aperture, piled to their final destination of ash and cinders. “If I start taking things out, and we could find a cart to pull…this could work!”
