Second Session
Mei is sitting under her tree. As I call her name, I realize my voice is higher pitched and shaky, to how it was back then. Something close, but not quite. I stop, catching myself in the dream. I’ve taken my first step off the stone path onto the grass. In my hands is a box full of berries from all over the countryside, kept cool and safe from the Spring’s warmth. I don’t look around, but I see the image of the towers of Council behind me. I see the Grand Hall in all its magnificence. The Library. Horous’ Clocktower. The Warden’s rooftop garden. At my feet, I don’t see shadows. The Sun is high in the sky; it’s noon, and Mei sits alone. It’s real enough to that day I first talked to her; it’s never gotten any easier, no matter how many times I see her here.
She’s wearing an ocean blue dress that reaches down to her knees, her skin a light red from sitting outside nearly all day. Her long silver hair’s partially tied in a ponytail, a thick blue ribbon tied in it, but some reaches down to her neck, covering shark-like gills. As I walk beside her, her hand goes up to her hair, her arm trying to cover any last signs of her animal-like nature. I sit beside her in the grass, my back on the tree. I hold in my lap the box of berries, and when I try to give them to her, I pull them back, thinking it looks like some strange offering. For a moment, we sit silently, listening to the leaves rustle in the breeze, the wind rushing over the fresh Spring grass.
I don’t look at her face, instead looking down at her feet in the grass. “...Mei? Um…he-hello.” My voice cracks, this first moment never getting any better after all these times. I think of what I’d do differently when the moment rushes back to me in daydreams, but never do I change it.
“Oh hi!” Mei says, I could hear her smile through her words. She seems to jump when she speaks, but when I turn to look at her, none of the confidence and cheeriness in her seems there. She’s shaking with a forced smile, her hands crossed in front of her formally, her eyes looking at my shoulder, or something else far off in the distance. She opens her mouth to speak, looking like she’s lost her breath when nothing comes out for several seconds.
“...Kronos? Wait, no.” Her eyes dart to the grass between us.
My arm reaches up to my neck, but I stop myself, worried she’d put her arm up again. “It’s Kronii, but it’s okay, you were really close!” There’s a sudden glow in her face, her smile more real, a bit uneven and off to the side, and for a moment our eyes meet. My heart jumps, so I keep talking.
“It’s okay, I know there’s so much you need to know! Being the youngest Warden…I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone read so many books. You’re catching up to them!” She turns herself towards me, the grass between us now coalescing into a tower of books. Her crossed hands rest over the open one on top, the hazy words all covered in underlines, and I know without seeing that every word beneath her hands are highlighted too.
“Really?” I’m seeing stars in her eyes as she looks at me, and for once she doesn’t look away. “I’m so nervous, with all the older Wardens talking about me, saying she needs to um…pull her weight! But you?” The books between us cave onto my leg, Mei almost falling into me. “You’re the first person to talk to me that isn’t completely scary!”
Her words fade away as she puts her hand on my leg, the warmth freezing me in place, making my face turn into a burning red I can feel taking over me. I reach up to touch my cheek, trying to stop myself from putting my hand on hers. I don’t realize she kept talking, like nothing happened.
“I don’t really like the library. Too many people, they freak me out, so the library lady ships books to my room over there.” She points at a building that doesn’t exist. “We can read together here, Krono!” Her hand reaches a book at the bottom of the pile, but she stops, her gleaming smile dissolving into nothing, shock rushing over her face. Her hand covers her open mouth, tears flowing down onto the top of her hand. She stops looking at me, and scrambles to her feet. As she jumps up, her hair and her ribbon catches the tree bark, pulling at her hair as she leaves.
I call as she rushes off, but no sound comes out. Swaying behind her dress is the tip of a shark’s tail, the back of the dress exposed to show a warm blue fin; then the image of her fades to nothing at the edge of my dreams. She leaves me with her mountain of books, her ribbon swinging on the tree, swaying in the breeze. I pick up all her books, making her ribbon a bookmark for the top one, and run after her, even though I know after all these times I don’t see her again that day.
I burst into the Grand Hall, the usually bustling halls empty, but I still hear the roars of scholars, guards, and the occasional Warden, like they still rush past me in a hurry, invisible. In the Hall, Mei is nowhere to be seen. My footsteps warp from the soft press of sneakers on wood into the clicks of tall heels. The weight of the books shifts from my hands into the bag on my shoulder, the books still there after months of safely guarding them, waiting to meet her again.
The high ceiling is painted with ancient epics, battles between men and myth; the images fade behind me as I cross into a hallway, and as I walk further, it becomes a corridor high up in the towers, near the Warden of Nature’s rooftop garden. To my left, high up windows look out to the field and the city beyond, but the buildings don’t exist today. On the other side of the hall, an opening door abruptly squeaks, entering reality; a girl with short blue hair reaches down to a big paper package.
“Oh hi, Kronii!” She lets go of the string on the package to let out a wave and a smile, looking a little less forced this time.
“M-Mei?” My voice is clear, but the difference over the months cut down to this short few moments within a dream, it startles me. Mei brings her arm up to her hair again, this time covering nothing really but a bit of her neck. This time, there aren’t any gills; there aren’t any animal qualities at all.
“I remember we were talking! What was it about again?...” She keeps smiling, her face gleaming in the evening glow.
“Um, Mei? That was nearly a year ago…”
“Oh!” Her expression doesn’t change, but her face drops to the ground around me, in deep thought. “Right, I forgot.” She brushes back her hair, the longer blue strands from her forehead get pushed behind her ear.
“Hey, your hair, it sorta looks like…” Her eyes are wide open before I finish; she lets out a quiet scream as she reaches for the package at her feet, but instead she grasps her head, trying to hide the blue without any effect. She leaves the package as she charges into what looks like a bedroom, or a messy library. She kicks the door shut, but I don’t hear her walk away. All I hear is the resounding boom in the halls, then the silence between Mei and I.
For a moment, I think of leaving her alone, then trying to talk, whatever’s better.
“...Mei?” I put my hand to the door, thinking it’d make it clearer for her somehow. “It doesn’t matter which form you take. The animal, the hair…it’s Mei I see the most. It doesn’t matter, I want to see you!”
I don’t give her a moment to come out. Instead, I pull her books out of the bag and put them with the package, probably filled with other library books, and continue walking down the hall.
The clicks of heels mix with the sound of a rattling door knob. Looking back, Mei’s door shakes for several seconds, and as I wander back, it opens, exposing two large brown ears on top of her head, drooping to the floor. I walk up to her quietly, and see her hair’s now long, with a warm hazelnut color. Through the mess of hair, without her looking up, I see she’s crying, and around her eyes is a strong rose color. She pulls the old pile of books into her arm and reaches for the package, but long animal-like claws break the string, causing a couple library books to spill into the hallway.
“Oh,” she says defeated, while turning into her room. This time, she doesn’t close the door. I scoop up all her books and stand at the doorway, peering into the room. As I look around, I vaguely remember countless bookshelves lining the wall and the space around her bed, but in my dream, they fade into a warm yellow, the window behind Mei painting the room around her into a frame of sunlight. There’s just me and Mei, and the books she comes to grab. She doesn’t put the books back to the shelves like the others, and instead places them at our feet, causing them to dissolve into the warm nothingness around us.
“You, you remembered my name this time.” I tense up, thinking she’d push me out the door, reminding her of that first day we talked, but instead she smiles, her ears no longer pointed to the ground.
“Well, yeah! I look up to you.” Her eyes get clearer, without any more tears. She looks into my eyes, and I look back at hers. “I used to be able to see you everyday, and I thought you were perfect in every way, and now I sit in my room and…” her smile begins to fade, her face starting to drop to the ground with her ears. “I can’t fix…this.” She brings her claws up to her face, her voice beginning to break. “I try to make myself into what I want to be…into what I have to be.”
I grasp her hand, her eyes welling with tears…then I say to her, “Repeat after me…”
“...What?...” Her voice nearly breaks into a mumble I can’t understand. She sniffs, then says, “Repeat after me.”
I take a breath, and I say, “I am Mei Nanashi.”
“I am Mei Nanashi,” her voice already clearer.
“There’s no one I’d rather be…”
“There’s no one I’d rather be…”
“Than me.”
“Than me.” She looks back into my eyes, now free of tears, and holds my hand too, her claws no longer there. I hold her hand more tightly, both of my hands on top of hers
“Because I am smart…”
“I am smart…”
“I am kind…”
“I am kind…”
“And I am beautiful.”
“And I am beautiful…” she stumbles over her words, laughing, but I keep going.
“I am Mei Nanashi…”
“I am Mei Nanashi…”
She lets go of my hand and puts her arms around me, and pulls herself close. Against my back, I hear something soft rustle against it, pressing against it like a blanket, and see she’s created large brown wings that wrap around me, from my shoulders to the floor.
“And there’s no one I’d rather be…”
“There’s no one I’d rather be…”
“Than Mei…”
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