Melisande Meadowshine

A late night at the Darkmoon Faire had ensured it. Not that she wouldn’t do it again, given the chance. There’d been a soft sprinkle of compliments, like a misty rain, and a few furtive touches that made her heart gallop a little too hard if she thought of them. He’d been…a little secretive, perhaps, but thoughtful. Always with something to say but never pushy about it. She liked that.

She smiled to herself briefly at the thought of last night as she flopped atop the bed, reaching into her nightstand drawer for the newspaper rose. Rolling it between her fingers a moment to hear those delightful, head-prickling crinkles, she was interrupted by a different thought entirely. Audemus still wasn’t back.

The young woman hadn’t been worried, not before. But when even Miss Dori was asking after him, well. He really had been gone awhile. She set the “flower” back atop her nightstand and sat up, slipping her boots back on and heading out into the fresh spring air. Her thoughts were rushing, anxious - yes, he was good at getting out of scrapes, but still, he was always getting IN to them. He wasn’t invincible. Had he left her - left all of them - and just disappeared off to life’s next adventure?

For all his devil-may-care schemes, he still cared for many of them. He wouldn’t just up and leave with no goodbye, surely. Her work-roughened fingers reached up to toy with the ostentatiously expensive earrings he’d once gifted her. She assumed they were costume jewelry, but one of the other employees had corrected her. She intended to wear them every day until he returned. A good luck charm, perhaps.

What was the last thing she’d said to him? Was it “asshole” or “dick” or “bastard”? Had she spat out something angry about his heritage? Accused him of being a careless idiot? Maybe when she announced to everyone that he’d received that ghastly injury from rescuing orphans, and all the bar patrons had ignored her, as if that was an impossible act…or maybe just a boring one.

Light, she loved him, idiot though he was. A distance had grown between them over concerns great and small, some valid, some not. But right now she simply wished to embrace him, breathe in the scent of his outrageously-priced hair oil. If he came back - no, WHEN - perhaps they could let it all be water under the bridge.

He HAD to come back. If not for her, then for the doctor who was currently shut up in his rooms, who only left them for occasional sustenance or to head off to his clinic. He didn’t look any less well-groomed than he ever had, but nevertheless there was palpable worry in the air around him - a great storm of anxiety and despair, rolling in on dark clouds. Did anyone else feel it? Just passing by him in the hallway last week was enough to send a shiver up her spine. They’d never particularly liked each other, but her heart ached on his behalf all the same. Perhaps a gift was in order. Something to show him he wasn’t alone in his feelings, even if the motivations were different.

Melisande had made it out to the docks, her thoughts a muddled mess but her feet quite sure of where they were going. She squinted out at a passing ship on the horizon. From here, it looked like nothing so much as a child’s bath toy. Crouching down, she picked up a handful of wave-smoothed pebbles, plucking out the tiny bits of quartz and agate and slipping them in her pocket. The rest got tossed out into the ocean with a frustrated grunt.

“Just…write or something. Please,” she murmured, to no one in particular.