LET ME LIVE THAT FANTASY


♕

Melita spent the better part of their outing chasing everything in sight.

From the moment they set out of the Dragon’s Throat, where there’d been so much sun, so much sand, so much fire, she’d only seen greenery, lavish and decadent, jovial and sweet. There were so many pretty objects before her eyes: luscious blooms, curling towards their native sun, beautiful, wide-open trees, long, lush grasses tickling her nose. She shot across the open terrain like a bullet, wings opened, unfurled in the marvelous haze of meadow dew and tender warmth, allowing the serenity of touch, of wonder, of curiosity, to carry her along on a current of sensation and experiences. Forever restless, the world was for her making, her taking, and the boldness rushing through her gangly legs pulled her amidst the dulcet haze, springing from root to root, from seed to seed, alive and intrepid, bold and daring. She launched into a puddle near the river and laughed as the water splashed over her legs, she raced alongside several honeybees as they dove beside blooms (hummed buzz-buzz beneath her breath, trying to mimic them as best she could), and she laced her nose with the finest scents of the thistles, of the pines, of the oaks. “Ma,” the little girl shouted finally, because nearly everything she did seemed to be loud and exuberant, wild and unwieldy, along the outcrops, raising her head from a layer of wildflowers. “What is this place?” She wanted a name for every arena, for every particle, for every rich lacquer of earth, so she could know, so she could understand, so she could experience everything life had to offer.

Then she looked for her twin, the little girl who smelled of flowers, slinking through the grass like a serpent she’d watched in the desert, pretending to be an asp or a cobra until she sprung up beside the petal-child, laughing and giggling. “Why do you think we’re here?” She shrugged, struggling to discern her mother’s reasoning, because while it was majestic and magnificent, it wasn’t home either; no sand in sight save for the embankment down by the roaring river (another eldritch thing summoning her to try its promise of cooling graces). She wanted sentiments and notions, decisions and calculations, objectives, motivations, rationales, so she could make her own some day, so there was something beyond the primal need to act, the instinctual coil of something nestled in her soul.