All’s Well That Ends

- NATE -

I don’t want a world
Without pain or loss

It’s hard to tell, in the haze of grief, what he actually wants. Nate leans easily into the offered embrace, his chin finding a snug resting pace on his nieces shoulder. ”I know you can.” He murmurs, a hand rubbing a cool, firm circle against her back. It was one less worry. Or at least, one lessened worry. It want a lot, want what he wanted, really, but it was something.

Something made stronger by the addendum, the existence of a charm to keep away ghost whales. ”You’ll be fine.” He rumbles, managing to sound a little bit like he believes the somber words. It’s terrifying, to have control pulled so thoroughly from his grasp, to be unable to say why he wants, to beg her to stay in the home, on dry land. It’s not his place.

His choppy explanation brings more shadows into the bright light of conscious thought. He hadn’t seen Vai either. He honestly wasn’t sure whether he could face her, wasn’t sure what to expect.

”I just... I need to be doing something again.” His shoulders roll, and Nate leans back, a gentle kiss pressed to Melita’s cheek while he withdraws. ”I’ll be better once... once I’m distracted.”

I just want them
To mean something

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

He accepted, and they could remain like that – gentled and humbled and sheltered. The tolerance and understanding of her words fueled her; and she nodded, clutching and holding and providing as best she could. She would be fine, and the rest too, as long as they ceased and desisted with each one of these stupefying angles and tactics. “So will you,” in time, in granules where he permitted himself to grieve, to recover, to heal. Maybe that’s what diversions were for, or maybe he just didn’t know what to do with his anguish. Melita never really understood either, other than moving forward, rather than lurking with her ghosts.

They provided motivation and love that she’d always cherished. She couldn’t possibly comprehend the layers of Nate’s – not after being tormented or tortured. It wasn’t the same.

She sighed then, as they coiled back from one another, and she clutched him a little harder with her hands resting on his shoulders. “But please take it easy.” Don’t be like Sunjata, who would rampage into oblivion and blood, demise and destruction, well before anything took hold. No opportunity for mending, when everything was broken and beaten. “Do you want any help in the clinic before I go?”

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

- NATE -

I don’t want a world
Without pain or loss

Grief makes thoughts flow so strangely. Days already blur into each other, a senseless, mess, but now the seconds do too, a moment stretched into infinity, a moment spent alone with nothing but gales and storms rushing through his mind. A tundra of solitude, and him, the crown prince at the centre of it all, doomed to be ripped apart piece by piece.

The honeybee girl returns, startling him from his throne with his requested glass. "Thank you Mel." The words only come after the glass is drained, after he's had the chance to stare at the empty vessel, thoughts somehow distant and far too close all at once. He wonders if he'll feel like this forever. He knows he won't. He wonders how long it will take to get from here to there. Wonders, for a single, stark moment, if he's even willing to go on that journey.

One look up at his niece quiets those thoughts though, drives him back to his feet, his arms circling her once again. "I love you Mel." He murmurs somewhere into the conflagration of her hair, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. There may not be any band-aids for this pain, no ways to black it out from his mind, but he's not alone either, and that will be enough for him. It has to be.

Fin~

I just want them
To mean something