M E L I T A
Fondness and affection flowed through the girl with the slightest answer of yes; the facets of blooms and memories scattered through the darkest reaches of her mind, and she could hear her sister laughing, giggling, a thousand miles and seconds away. She didn’t simmer or sink into the brink of what could have been (the stirring, the longing, sat there, waiting for her to break one day), and instead, her smile blossomed, unfurled and uncurled in such a radiant bliss likely no one would have ever thought she’d cut down demons and monsters months before. “I’d love to!”
Moments later, another appeared, familiar, the press of LongNight an inner flinch, a grimace, a stain along the intertwining lace of her essence; but she didn’t wear it on her features. The rancorous chords still hung in their ramparts and rafters though, reminded her of Kiada and death lingering from outside the Rathskeller’s walls, confusion, apprehension, and her utterly incapable of doing anything about it. Uselessness wasn’t a garb she tolerated wearing. “Yes, I remember you,” she said, a little softer, a nod to proceed in the same luminescence. Her name had been uttered, but not recalled; not with Kiada’s sorrow and anguish clinging to the corners. “I’m Melita. Pleased to see you again, Seiji.”
Then her attention slipped back to flower crowns and the murmured festival, and she allowed the acrid notions of LongNight’s persistence to thread away from her, a hundred other inquiries forming in her mind. “A festival?” The excitement was tangible, dancing on her tongue, forming in the depths of her gilded gaze. “How exciting! I’d be glad to help. My sister and I used to make these all the time.” She hummed under her breath, maneuvering her and Fangorn quickly onto the porch, as if she’d always belonged there and simply needed an invitation to rejoin the faction. The gourd occupied himself by staring at some flowers and hissing; Melita patted a spot beside her for
Her eyes slid over several petals and hues she’d never seen before. Some were familiar, the beautiful bounty of fields and the wilderness, but she didn’t know the stories or myths behind them. Clementine and her had been mere children dancing in meadows; never quite pondering what each fragrance or floret represented, and she certainly didn’t want to combine and weave things that shouldn’t go together. “What are their meanings?”
