[se] woven web of dreams

MELITA

The agreement coiled between their shared expanse, and the girl’s grin never dampened or disappeared, listening intently as her hands worked on embroidering more reeds into her basket’s threshold and shape. “I’m an Accepted.” Her eyes lifted back to Amalia – watched, became a witness as owl feathers undulated where skin had been, tufts of plumes rising, a clap fluidly orchestrated with warm laughter by the honeybee girl. “Amazing!” But was that what she wanted, to become? Or was she safer there, on the ground, then beyond the canopies and stars, cloaked in nothing but her own power and strength? While she mused, while she pondered, the girl expressed the synapses and shortfalls of bloodlines. “My sister and mother had magic. My mother could heal. My sister could sing.” I could beat and promise and vow, she almost said, as if that were nothing in the face of so many other bright, beautiful things. I could protect. I could shield. But not enough flickered and clawed down her mind, and then she allowed it to waft away on the breeze, on the ether, on the wind, on the leaves.

Then she listened again, the quiet agreement that Amalia wasn’t alone, nodding in tune to the rhythm of her hums and croons again. The inquiry came back to her though, and it made her think, gave her pause. She had some she knew from another time, another place: Kiada, whom she’d chased away in her bitter, rancorous rage, and Rexanna, found from old stories and births of legends. But her family was fractured, gone, and dead, so she made no mention of them anymore – her heart hurt, beat against her chest and ribs and caged them all into a righteous anguish – so she lowered her head, staring at the craftwork in her hands, suddenly dissatisfying to her eye. “In a way,” she began, shrugging, but thinking better of it, raised her skull again to stare at Amalia and count her blessings, those she’d enraptured and those that had enraptured her since she’d fallen into this world. “I have a few mentors, like Wessex and Roana, who are teaching me how to fight! I have some friends too, like Ronin, Jigano, Vai, Remi, Emmett, and Phoebe…,” she visibly trailed off, trying to surmise all the ones she’d met and adored, a close-knit network of song and dance; already companions of hers whether they liked it or not. “And you, of course!” Her grin was quick and beautiful, resplendent in its rapture, before she bent back down to continue her work.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight