[seasonal event] out of the clouds

MELITA

Temptation never really left her – it teased, taunted, beat, and buzzed around her brain until she either fell apart at its capricious whims, stoked the coals, fully lured, or found something else to divert her attentions. But now, naught seemed to embody anything other than an unholy, vicious red. Wholly absorbed in her curiosity, in the intentions of diving straight in, she didn’t notice another approaching. The crimson pool dazzled, bewildered, and beguiled her, and the honeybee child required answers to this one, singular mystery, hands grabbing hold of the ends of her dress and figuring she could descend straight into the surface in just her chemise and underthings. The notion didn’t bother her at all; not the possibility of stained, reddened fabric, when multitudes of her clothing had once been mauled and blotted with blood, not the notion of insecurities, just she and Fangorn in the midst.

The little gourd, however, was more on the alert than she – the otherworldly, ethereal stare pinpointing on movement and motion along the distance, an unearthly growl pulsing from his mouth, a warning, an ultimatum. Melita reared back from her stance, breathless and wild in a matter of seconds, wishing she hadn’t left her staff behind, hands searching, scrounging, for a rock, for a stick, for a weapon, until she shifted, glanced at the figure lingering nearby, and recognized it.

“Oh! Hello Seiji!” Came across as a bright, ebullient thing, placing the chosen stone in her hand back down on the embankment, twisting her other hand away from the seams of her dress, exhaling a long, lingering breath. She hadn’t seen the man in what seemed like eons – perhaps an entire season, not since braiding flower crowns together on Phoebe’s porch – but she granted him a smile beholden in rhapsody and familiarity. “How have you been?” Her head tipped and dipped, eyes glancing along his frame, trying to detect something, pondering over what he’d been up to amidst the spring clamor and summer boundaries, not recalling seeing him at the festival.

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