She hadn’t meant to startle the other girl, but giggled all the same, warm, friendly, amiable, a press of tenderness and vitality between the desert void and the painted sun. The youth caught the warble of the opposing child – something like Otem, and she grinned again, a little more radiant, a little more sure, a little more certain, and glanced over to where Otem had stared, riveted on a cluster of round, orb-like objects. It took her a few seconds to notice the snake slipping in amongst the grass and nest too – the mother owl swooping, trying to tend to her unborn flock, attempting to defend what was hers. “Oh,” she mumbled too, the confidence gone, the certainty unraveled, lips molded together in a strained line as she tilted her head and examined the situation. Any other time she likely would have stumbled right into the arena, slid amidst the sand, shouted at the heavens, at the soil, at the earth until the serpents had fled – but there was a nagging sense of imposition layered there too.

Vastra’s appearance saved her from responding much further, still apprehensive, eyes glancing, darting, back and forth, back and forth, from the older girl (who seemed to know, who seemed to sense that they should assist, and not let the world have its darker hours) to the guarded clutch. “Should we-“ she started, seraphic voice struggling to regain its inner force, its rapturous strength, plunging her heartstrings and endeavors towards Vastra because she’s older, stronger, and wiser - she should know what they’re supposed to do-

But then there’s one more, a newer colt too, self-assured and far more poised than she’d ever been a day in her life. Melita stopped speaking simply to listen to what he had to say, and she’s not sure about that either, the careful balance, the impasse they’d suddenly been thrust within. It’s nature, and she can’t argue that fact. Snakes needed to eat. Birds flew. Mothers protected their children. The tiny honeybee child had learned such lessons already, stared over the grounds of life, but never death, regarded so matter-of-factly, that they all served to live, breathe, and feed something else. The sienna girl wanted to be more than a piece of the dust and a scattering of sand, and she’s at least convinced the mother owl would want her babes to have one more opportunity at life before it was snagged from them. Her vocals hung in the air, gilded, buoyant, trying to be light in the face of the natural way of things. “But…shouldn’t they be given a chance?” Her tiny crown and halo crumbled a bit there, head lowered, feet already slightly in motion, ready to act if they all agreed – or perhaps to do it anyway, regardless of the nonchalant faces and the consequences, emboldened and resolute, already thriving on impossibilities. It wasn’t in her heart to be one more onlooker, allowing the world to circle as it always did; eager, ready, fervent to confront each dilemma head-on with might and ferocity.

Melita

let me live that fantasy