[PQ] From the Ashes, part 1

I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops
I'll love you till you call the cops on me

Despite the hard labor, the crushing heat, the girl found fast friends: Caiside, a beam and a smile granted on the heels of hers. Her arms ached a little, but she didn’t mind, didn’t truly process what a toll it might have been taking on her. She was born to the desert, to the sun, to the wide-open sky, to the vast domain of endless sand and dunes – but there’d been an oasis there too – something this threshold didn’t have at the moment. Before she could cast off to commit to another load of rubble, Caiside managed to slip beside her, quick and swift, and she tilted her head as he tapped her arm, called for her attention as something murky and bizarre slipped over her mind. “A wheelbarrow, or maybe a cart.” She shrugged, wishing Emmett and his donkey abilities were here, capable of hauling – though she wouldn’t be able to set anything ablaze in this midst. “Thought it might be easier than going back and forth constantly.” Then he offered to fix her hair, and an immense, intense relief washed over her, with a blazing, fervent smile to follow. “That would be wonderful!” Perhaps the man had far more patience than she, especially with the depth of her locks and their spiraling endeavors. Thereafter, the youth didn’t mind the scrapes on her hands, shallow, not something she was going to bother trifling with, but she could feel some part of the world spinning, spinning, spinning, as some wonderful townsperson had left their wheelbarrow nearby. She took it as a blessing, and Fangorn bounded after her, leaning some of her weight into it as she maneuvered it back within the Atheneum, and began piling more of the rubble into it. The girl figured only a couple of cartloads would do the trick, faster, swifter, keener, as she wiped her brow, as her throat informed her she was parched. She shifted back to Caiside, pondering if he felt the same. “Do we have any water here?” But perhaps it didn’t really matter in the end – her question would likely fall on deaf ears as someone yelled in the background. The girl raised her head, and her gourd hissed, and there were a bunch of people in the crowd pointing upwards, shrieking. She expected to see monsters, ghosts, some form of wraiths or other threatening, ominous beacons – but then there were spiders, infiltrating the grounds out of a hole. Melita wasn’t truly bothered by the state of arachnids, as a child she spent half her time following them, butterflies, and hundreds of other insects, but as she watched, waited, and listened, the swarm became to move towards the townsfolk, fangs piercing, assaulting, sieging. “Oh dear,” she added, as if this was just one more ordinary circumstance in a series of chaotic choices, ventures, and rampages in her short life. She wished she still had her staff, but it’d been tucked away for safe-keeping in her home until she fulfilled Ludo’s request, and she had a feeling Jigano wasn’t about to let her set fire to the place. Then Fangorn came to the rescue. The gourd saw this as a grand opportunity for lunch - leapt and growled, tore into the droves of spiders as if it were time to feast. Much like she’d seen him unleash destruction on the flinthoppers, the fangs made short work of those clustered nearby, eradicating them in quick swallows, some legs flung in all directions as he ripped into larger ones. “Well done!” She shouted, encouraging the little wayward beast. M e l i t a But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe