She’d been drawn by the beautiful artwork, the portraits of reflective clouds, and the regal glimpses of stars mirroring themselves back into the refrain, standing in its midst for hours – forever flawed by being one more moth to the flames. It failed her today too, because eventually the clouds gave way to more potent entities, and the crashing, gnarled sounds of thunder rolled across the plain. She stood in its grasp, a little speck, a tiny blip, on the horizon as it roared and clapped, staring into the great, darkening puffs and wondering how they made such cantankerous noise, shuddering as the rain pelted down, working their way down through her feathers, along her tufts of plumage and hide. The honeybee girl was scared, frightened, and exhilarated all at once; allowed the apprehensive feelings to funnel through her chest and out into the air, following after the trail of bright, illustrious lines and dashes streaking through the sky. What are you she wanted to say, wanted to scream, but no one would have heard her, no one would have answered, and so she was stuck between being drowned and engulfed, stranded on the edges of disaster and temptation, straddling the line of intrigue and ruin; tilting her head and witnessing one more flash melt into the scenery. Then, just as sudden as it’d come, it shifted away; chased off by the current of wind, leaving the Flats even more drenched, begging her to dance in its pools and puddles.

The child laughed – too amused to think of what she’d narrowly avoided.

Instead, something else caught her eye – a shimmer, a twinkle, a zap zap sound buzzing along her ears. She was used to the gentle hum of the bees, she was used to throng of sea gulls, to the soft way sand trickled down a dune, but this one was peculiar.

So she drifted along the tiny bed of rock, sniffing, listening, to the accompaniment of tunes and poignancy – as if it were calling out to her, beckoning her closer and closer still, one more defiant temptation to entice, to lure. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it, nestled in between a few loosened stones – an orb of some sort, glistening, sparking, sending off flashes, flickers, and flares as if electrified, and her mouth formed a tiny o, breath halting. She saw one of these before – back when more children had surrounded and watched a child hatch, but hadn’t understood, hadn’t comprehended, the way it all worked, the notions, the wonderment, the gravity of the situation. The youth remained strangely hushed, as if for once noting the scene was revenant, worth the silence, stare riveted solely on the shifting, maneuvering sphere. “Where did you come from?” She questioned it finally, in a stark whisper, gaze glancing back and forth for any other oddities or forms that had lost something precious and valuable. Then she heard a crack; it echoed, it buzzed, it droned in her ear until that was all she could sense, all she could feel.

[Hatching thread for Melita's companion! You're more than welcome to join, but I'll be moving the thread along in a couple days. ;D]

Melita

let me live that fantasy