M E L I T A
Rejuvenation was in the air, and Melita breathed it in, bloomed and blossomed with the sensation of the sun, no matter how pale, wan, and ashen. Everything was glorious before her eyes: fresh promises, pending convictions, and simply rich, intoxicating potential.
But her eyes settled on the line of houses, the shambles, the ruins, the rubble, and devastation left behind by the LongNight. It didn’t let anyone forget its power and condemnation; because even as they all appeared from the Rathskeller or other sanctuaries, opening their eyes to the beatific, warming rays, the sumptuous layers of tranquility, there were still layers of impact scattered around them. Shattered glass might force someone to recall the death of another. Broken walkways could allow another to remember an individual disappeared, lost amongst the Stygian ether, never to be found. It was something to tackle, perhaps in order for them to move on.
How did they do this year after year?
Then she realized she’d done the same, season after season, day after day, hour after hour, living in a realm, in a mode, of survival, endurance, and persistence, with nothing else on one’s mind. It was kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, driving fists and rocks into gaping, all-consuming mouths; swallowing down the lacquer of defeat and abyss down into one’s throat, to scream later, when nightmares haunted, when the world drifted further and further apart. Dreams had become distant memories; aspirations and ambitions changed, altered, to making it to the next week, and hoping those alongside did the same.
She inhaled again, and focused her gilded gaze on the entrance, then on the larger, more-opening square, where merchants gathered, where peddlers hawked their wares, where everyone came together, more or less, swiftly maneuvering around, gathering requirements and necessities. Should something be there, beckoning, and welcoming? Her head tilted, locks flying in the wind until they covered her face again, eyeing a few plant containers that had long since lost their flowers. Perhaps she and Fangorn could fix them up, make a more inviting square again? “What do you think?” Her inquiry floated to the gourd nestled at her feet; she could see the scowl forming across his makeshift mouth and brow, but Melita was barely bothered by his discomfort, shrugging her shoulders, bending down, and digging her fingers into the closest one, feeling the dirt, the soil, left within, trying to decipher and distinguish what she’d have to do next.
