[SE] bonfire cries and fireflies

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Then there were many of them joined – gathering along the sands, nestled in their company of occupations and forthrightness – her attention drawn immediately to the cat, of all things. Fangorn grumbled something incoherent to the feline, likely a greeting, and she had to stop herself from lunging out and going towards the little beast. Thereafter she was riveted in all directions, distracted and deterred from her tasks as there were maneuvering friends into frames – she waved to Milo and Zephyr – before remembering what she was going to offer and say towards Aurelia. “There has been a person picked at the festival before, and their loved ones come to see them.” For the last time, likely, before Mort had snagged at their souls too. The girl had often wondered what it’d be like; but the most precious beings she’d lost had been in another world – their vestiges and ethers not tied here.

So she’d eternally go without.

Then she quieted, the slight smile gone, placing her shells along the rim of the lantern, and then taking them off again, not satisfied with their adornments. A few more were dug around and found amongst the sands, and she tried again, reapplying the potential for beauty.

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun