The tiny honeybee babe found she quite liked staring and watching him – he had a peculiar motion that made her want to laugh, want to chuckle, want to continue chirruping and chirping. Perhaps it was the way his presence took up the whole earth, pervaded, surrounded, so much that she’d forgotten what she was doing there in the first place, and her entire being centered and focused on him. Her eyes etched their way across the heaping mounds of hair and mane, and her mind bristled with a million questions for him (including how he’d managed to acquire so much fur and tassels, if it was all for show and maybe he was more muscle and brute brawn underneath those layers), but her voice, her actions, her impulsive nature, took on a life of its own. As he spoke, she found herself leaning in, absorbing each and every intonation, the ruffle of hommelby and how that seemed to represent her (and she liked it; the way it pushed past the clouds, the air). She caught the impish gleam in his glance, but it was entirely too late, because in a sudden, swift turn of events, the water splashed over her in radiant, blissful droplets, cascading down the length of her nose, her chin, her mane, and her wings.

Then she laughed – a blissful, silly, melodic sound, tossing her head back, reeling in the barrage of vibrant hues, and subsequently ruining the entire serenade with a vigilant screech loud enough to wake the dead. “Geeeeeen!” She bellowed, a heinous shriek that likely echoed through a better part of the reflecting pools, tarnishing the beauty and wonder with audacity, silliness, and spirited, ridiculous pluck. “You’ll pay for that!” The child pronounced, nothing sinister, nothing nefarious, but still vengeful, still vivacious, vibrant, a scorching zeal of ferocity lingering amidst her veins, painted across her furrowed brows and exultant motions. The youth plotted her revenge immediately, she’d had experience in the realm of splashing (especially in the oasis, where she’d reigned as a sea witch for more than two minutes), raising her tiny body skywards, flapping her wings, and then driving them down, down, down into the nearest pocket of water. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as his, but it still got the point across – that she was not be outdone, that she was not to be conquered, that she’d fight back with equal aplomb until the world rendered her incapable. She felt the drops ricochet back upon her, settle along her hair, her whiskers, her eyelids, but none of it mattered – only the diversion, the amusement, the silliness, the strength forged between her muscles, her skin, her soul, and the strange, ethereal connection within the cherubic girl and the virile beast.

Melita

diamond in the flesh