LET ME LIVE THAT FANTASY


♕

Thus far, in her short life, Melita’s days had been filled with discoveries. She’d played along the red-hot sands, dug her hooves into its sanction and laughed at all the creatures buried beneath. She’d run through the waving grasses, chased by the tickling ends, and figured out just what had been attacking her. She’d followed after bugs and insects as they crawled into their homes, and only been a little disappointed when she’d found she was far too large to join them. Her favorite, however, had been splashing amidst the oasis, launching herself into its waves with newfound friends, and pretending to be a sea monster (brash and strong, outrageous and bold, slithering across the outcrops, diving into paradise, unleashing hell and power with the dominion of her potent words, her feral actions). The youth had hoped to do the same today, rush into the sea, brandish her wings out like swords, like shields, like plated armor and collide with some unsuspecting sailor, but as she approached, all mercurial whimsy, all tempestuous glory (a fire, a flame, in the making, cast into molds and sketches, but being sculpted all the same).

But as she stared out over the vast plain, there were already others sinking into its gallant edges – and they too, like the rest of the world before her, were foreign. She didn’t spy Pippigrin, Iskra, or Clementine wandering in its depths. She didn’t recognize them as anything but strangers – and she’d be the same to them. There was a slight hesitation in her steps, in pondering if she should merely flee to somewhere else, not bother or slight these creatures, but then fortune favored the bold, and her heart longed for something, so off she went, a wild honeybee racing down the sandy slopes and dune fortifications, screeching at the top of her lungs in her best bellow. “Hello!” She rang, forgetting and forgoing any other polite inclinations her mother had tried to bestow upon her, born to an unrelenting audacity and boldness she’d yet to fully harness. Her eyes went to the other girl first as Melita crashed and barreled her way into the oasis, shards of water droplets cascading all around her, not even bothering to ponder if this would irk anyone else, without wings like her sister, a smile bursting across her mouth. “I’m Melita!” She bestowed, barely pausing for breath before her eyes outlined the other’s frame, reminding her of spider webs (and she wanted to tell her she looked like the arachnids, pondered if she could spin like them, if she could catch her prey and munch on them later), then glancing towards Syrena, utterly enthralled the moment she set her eyes on her.

The colors on the other femme were awe-inspiring to the little snippet of a child, and her mouth fell open, jaw unhinged, at the slight of so many beautiful blends (like the sunset, like the Throat itself, alive in the swell of dragons and molten heat), wings opening and closing as her excitement became more apparent. “Whoa! You’re cool! How do you do that?” Attention bouncing and bouncing from one thing to the other, her gaze also fell on the companion (and there was that instantaneous pull again, wanting something, anything – information, knowledge, wisdom about everything in creation, what basked under the sun, what glowed beneath the moon). “Who is this?” Her maw pointed out to the rougarou, entirely captivated, allured, and beguiled by every moving and maneuvering thing.