Thoughtless wandering takes Valentine to lands that had yet to be charted, close to the plateau as it may be. He’d simply looked over it, perhaps, as he stood at its peaks. For this place is merely a blemish on the otherwise beautiful coast. A forest burnt by fires long before he set his eyes upon it. Tucked away like an unfinished project. Unkempt and overrun with shrubbery large and small.
Valentine stood in the midst of it all and studied just about everything he saw. He tried to imagine what glorious kingdom this could have been, if it ever was.
She roamed, she scavenged, and Diantha occasionally pestered the locals. The latter was what she intended to do when she spotted a boy—perhaps around her own age—looking wistfully at the countryside. Diantha came up alongside him and attempted to mimic his gaze, wondering what he might be thinking. And why was he thinking it?
This used to be my home,
she said, already dreaming up a dramatic story about her family's unfortunate past. I'm Anita,
she said, making a point to never use her given name these days. If she could be somebody new every day, what was the point in being the same wolf over and over again?
From the ashes of the wood rose a ghost. An answer to his idle questions, perhaps, for she claimed this land was a piece of her past.
Anita,
Valentine hummed thoughtfully and raised his chin. Then he turned to her. What was it like?
Anita flicked an ear and n his direction, but she kept her eyes on the land before her, really getting into the character she now portrayed. It was a lovely place,
she said. My mother and father met on that very knoll over there. My siblings and I used to play down by the creek when the days were hot during our first year. The trees gave us shade when the sun came out and shelter when it rained.
Diantha paused and checked to see that he was still paying attention. But the summer after my first,
Never mind that she wasn’t even that old. the sky didn’t rain for weeks and weeks. And then there was lightening, and…
Anita stopped there, unable to continue. Her whole family had been there, she decided. And she couldn’t stand to tell the whole tale.
Anita’s gaze was faraway as she recalled her tranquil past. Such a childhood sounded like the beginning of a storybook fable. It was so perfect, too good to be true.
And perhaps some elements what were a bit fabricated. Valentine was nearing his own second summer. By the looks of her, he doubted the girl could be any than he was . Alas, he said nothing of it. She’d woven a good tale, and he wished to hear to the end. But she was too choked up to finish. A budding storyteller and an actor, had this been a only a tale to begin with.
He too had his fair share of acting.
I’ve never seen lightening myself, but I’ve heard horrible tales.
He gave her a look of sympathy. I … I am sorry. Did your family — ?