"I was hoping your answer would be a little easier." - Melody
Seventeen Years Later
Early Morning
Waiting For Dawn
Predawn darkness still covered the mountain the Johnson and Hikaru family made their home when Yumi made her move. She quietly slipped out of the bed she shared with Melody and carefully ducked into her purple fighting robe. If she had any choice in the matter, Yumi almost always wore purple. Melody, she knew on the other hand, always liked to clothe herself in light blue. The thought made Yumi turn back to look at her friend. Melody's golden hair was fanned out around her head on the pillow beneath her like some kind of living halo. Her face was soft and peaceful and her lips were parted slightly; the same lips Yumi had kissed so unexpectedly the previous night. Yumi took a moment to drink in her features before going to the window.
The window of Melody's room was on the second floor of the cabin and quite some distance from the ground. But that was no obstacle for Yumi. Her daily training with her mother had put her in peak physical condition; climbing down the side of the cabin wouldn't be a problem. The actual problem turned out to be the squeaky window. Yumi only got one foot over the windowsill when Melody sat up in bed behind her.
"And where do you think you're going?" She asked archly.
Yumi gave a guilty little jump. Her dark eyes met Melody's blue orbs only briefly before she disappeared with a muted pop and a white flash. Melody scrambled over to the window and looked down to find Yumi had teleported to the yard below. She ran through the dew-laden grass toward the woodshed where her dirt bike leaned propped up against the inside wall.
"Oh, no you don't...!" Melody muttered determinedly to herself. She half-stumbled and half-hopped into a pair of faded jeans with worn knees even as Yumi backed her dirt bike out of the shed. Melody didn't bother with a top; the gown she'd slept in would be serviceable enough. She snatched up the white electric guitar from its stand in the corner and climbed out of the window to stand on the sloping section of roof. She gripped the neck of the guitar and hummed a quick tune. The instrument hummed to life and a blue nimbus enveloped it. Over by the shed, Yumi's dirt bike roared as the motor started. Melody hopped on the back of the guitar and rode it like a hoverboard as Yumi's back tire threw up clots of grass and dirt and catapulted her forward.
Mornings were always chilly on the mountain and the biting wind that whipped Melody's hair around her shoulders was downright cold. Her flapping, flimsy nightgown did little to protect her from it and she shivered as goosepimples jumped out on her skin. She grit her teeth determinedly and leaned forward into the cold wind. The blue glow around her guitar brightened and she zoomed ahead faster.
Over the years of traveling back and forth between their houses, Yumi and Melody had cut out a dusty brown scar on the mountain that looped and turned through the rolling, rough terrain. Yumi had long since committed every contour and curve of the trail to memory and she used that knowledge to make the best possible time. Every thirty seconds or so, she and the dirt bike would disappear with a flash and a pop and reappear twenty yards further down the trail. Even so, she couldn't lose her friend. Melody atop her glowing flying guitar was hot on her tail. While she couldn't teleport, she had the advantage of not being bound to the rising and falling of the land.
The dawn was still some time off and the mountain was covered with that peculiar, sourceless silver light that always marks the inevitable death of the night. Melody's lacy nightgown top was whipped by the wind and the twin tails of Yumi's purple and yellow fighting robe flapped above the back tire of her bike. They raced through the tall grass of an undulating field and left wakes behind them like fast ships in the water.
Melody crouched, leaned forward and gripped the front heck of her guitar. The head of the guitar dipped and she swooped down lower. She hummed, the guitar glowed a brighter blue and she pulled in beside Yumi. "Yumi!" She called over the wind that ripped at them. "Stop!"
Yumi refused to look at her and – more from shame than any conscious attempt to cut down wind resistance – her head and shoulders dropped. "Leave me alone!" She shouted into the body of her bike. Then she disappeared with the white flash and sharp pop that was characteristic of her teleportation and came into existence again further up the trail.
Up ahead and coming up fast was the forest that separated the Johnson household from the Hikaru home. There was hardly a day – especially when they were younger – that Yumi and Melody didn't spend several hours there. They had explored every inch of it a dozen times over and they knew the spiderweb of trails as intimately as their own homes. It was even darker under the trees and the glow of Melody's guitar reflected off the leaves and branches and foliage and undergrowth and gave the chase a surreal, mystical feel. It was as if they had suddenly left the mountain and entered into the world of fantasy and enchantment with no warning.
Yumi turned sharply, threw up rich black loam and half-decayed leaves and throttled down a trail so narrow the limbs and bushes on either side snapped and brushed against her sides. Melody's face hardened with determination and she rushed in after her. And then Yumi's plan came to Melody a split second before she put it into motion, but it was already too late for Melody to do anything about it. Yumi was riding down the choked path one moment and the next she had vanished with a strobe and a physics-bending crack. Melody heard the last cough of the dirt bike's shut off engine and a light rustling a stone's throw to the left of the path. Melody's white electric guitar stopped on a dime and lost it's glow. She hopped off of it to the ground, ducked into the instrument's strap to put it on her back and waded into the forest's thick undergrowth. She charged through, ignoring the scrapes and scratches and pokes from the limbs and branches.
Moving as fast and haphazardly as she was, Melody nearly tripped over the dirt bike before she saw it. The smell of exhaust was strong and the back wheel still spun. Yumi, however, was nowhere to be seen. Melody quickly looked around, but she was met only by green and brown darkness. There was no sign of Yumi. She could have run off in any direction. Melody turned in a slow circle, looking for some kind of clue as to which way her friend went, but there was none.
Melody sighed and did the only thing she could do. "Yumi!" She shouted. She waited a moment, cupped her hands over her mouth and tried again as loud as she could. "Yumi!" She got no answer other than the disembodied echo of her own voice.
Melody growled and drew back her foot to kick the bike, but stopped herself at the last second when she remembered her feet were bare. Being robbed of the opportunity to express her frustration made her feel even worse. She paced around the tiny clearing made by the bike fast and aimlessly. Twigs stuck painfully into the soft flesh of her soles, but somehow the discomfort fit her mood.
The makeshift clearing was too small to contain Melody's restlessness. Her muscles and mind and heart were cold and she wanted nothing more than to warm them up. She picked her way through the brush and back to the trail. She tightened the guitar strap that ran from her shoulder to her hip and secured the guitar more securely. Then she ran, her naked feet sinking and bounding off the soft, moist dirt of the trail. Her white nightgown billowed out behind her and passed through the trees like a lost ghost. She ran like her father, her arms pumping hard as her sides and her knees rising high. But unlike Jonny's lumbering gait, Melody's strides were light – nearly weightless – and her feet scarcely touched the ground. She moved nowhere near as fast as she had on her guitar, but it wasn't about that. There was something ingratiating about moving under your own power; using the muscles her father had given her and Zillah had perfected with her training.
Melody ran on with no destination in mind. It was like she was trying to outrun the problem with Yumi and the thoughts that came along with it. She knew it was silly but, in that moment, she was working on feeling alone. She hadn't allowed logic to kick in yet. And then, without even consciously thinking about, she allowed herself to slow to a stop. The trail had widened and the undergrowth had thinned to nearly nothing. It was like being in a house with branches of trees protectively forming a roof over her and fallen leaves and pine needles making a natural carpet beneath her feet. There, hanging from the tallest branch of the tallest tree, was an old tire swing. Melody walked up to it slowly and looked it over. The details the darkness hid were filled in by her memory. She ran her hand over the faded tire that somehow managed to be both smooth and rough at the same time. There were three evenly spaced bolts on the surface of the rubber and – from a knot ten feet up on the aged rope – three strands fanned out to hold the tire horizontal. Melody grasped the rope itself and saw that it had half-molded and half-decayed from the weather and the outdoor air. She knew it wouldn't last much longer.
Melody removed the guitar from her back, leaned it against the trunk of a nearby tree and tentatively lowered herself down into the tire seat in a half-recline. The weathered rope groaned and crackled under her weight like the bones of an old man rising from a deep chair, but it held firm. The first thing Melody noticed was just how much she had grown. The tire hole wasn't as wide as she remembered and she didn't sink down nearly as far as she suspected. Her legs didn't dangle high over the sides. Now they were so long that her toes and the balls of her feet dragged the ground. It was a strange feeling, like waking up one morning to put on your favorite shirt only to find you had grossly outgrown it. Melody suddenly felt older than her seventeen years.
How long had it been since she and Yumi had played here? There had been a time when this was their favorite place and they had to be dragged away from it each day. How many hours and days and years had they spent swinging here and sitting there beneath the the shade of the trees, talking and laughing about whatever came to mind? Her friendship with Yumi had been forged and strengthened and reinforced here, but now the relationship felt as precarious as the worn and frazzled rope of the tire swing.
Melody sighed and kicked off, sending the tire in a lazy, arcing circle. Yumi was always the careful one when she swung. She would hold on tight to the ropes and keep herself fully in the tire and never once attempted to reach the impressive height the swing was capable of. Melody, of course, had been the complete opposite. The swing couldn't go high or fast enough for her tastes and she hated being stuck in the confines of the tower. She wanted to fly. She would sit on the very edge of the tire and smile as the wind washed over her face and through her hair. Sometimes, when she felt especially adventurous, she would lock her feet in the center of the tire and hang backwards over the side to watch the ground rushing up at her and then falling away. Yumi always begged her to be more careful and Melody always ignored her.
Yumi, it turned out, had been right. The inevitable happened when Melody was twelve years old. Her foot slipped at the peak of a daredevil swing and her desperate swipe to grab the rope came up short. She fell over the side of the tower, flipped several times and landed with a terrible impact on the forest floor. When Yumi rolled her over, the joint of her left elbow was bent the wrong way. To this day, it was the most pain Melody had ever experienced. She had been in a tear-blurred world of pain and panic, but Yumi had been there to rescue her. Her friend supported her and half-carried her back to her home, all the while comforting her in a steady stream of calm platitudes that Melody never heard. All she had been aware of was the sound of her voice; it was what she focused on to keep herself from falling apart.
It was technically Aunt Crystal that healed her arm – she arrived using that strange, wavy white portal she always used for her visits, set Melody's arm and fashioned a cast and splint for her – but it was Yumi that took care of her. She was there every day, asking how she was and doing anything and everything she could to help. The pain was largely gone within a week's time and the injury became more of an annoyance than a hindrance, but Yumi was relentless in her kindness until she knew for sure that Melody would recover. And though she certainly had the right to do so, she never once said 'I told you so'.
Melody spun herself slowly in the swing. Yumi had always been the soul of prudence and sensibility. She wasn't one to take risks or try anything the least bit dangerous without first preparing herself to perfection. Knowing that, Melody wondered just how hard it had been for her friend to reveal her feeling to her. Even more than that, how hard had it been to keep them hidden for so long? Melody realized it had taken every bit of courage Yumi had to confess herself and the loss of that courage caused her to break. Yumi had run because she had nothing left; she had bared her soul and left nothing in reserve to hold herself up.
Melody stood up as a new, compassionate resolve came over her. It was her turn to return the favor and take care of Yumi. But yet, she wasn't sure how to do that. Her own feelings were still a confused jumble of weltered thoughts and emotions. How could she soothe Yumi if she couldn't answer the unspoken question she had poised to her in the form of a kiss.
Melody needed advice. Her father came quickly to mind, but she just as quickly dismissed him. She loved him and knew that she could bring anything to him, but she knew he would be out of his depth here. She had never brought any romantic problems to him before and she knew he regarded Yumi as a second daughter. Melody was afraid that – at least, for now – he wouldn't be able to handle the situation. She considered Zillah then, but discounted her almost at once. While she was always cordial and friendly to Melody, Zillah was a private, quiet person who kept to herself and rarely got personal with anyone. Even her shows of affection with Yumi were few and far between. She wouldn't be the kind to discuss matters of the heart with. Melody would have to wait until Aunt Crystal could travel to talk with her about it and the idea of mentioning the problem to her Uncle Tim would have made her laugh out loud under different circumstances. That left the one person that had been the perfect choice all along.
Melody climbed out of the tire swing and picked up her guitar. She sang a soft tune under her breath in a clear voice and the white guitar glowed blue and floated above the ground. She hopped on it and, a moment later, she exploded out of the top of the forest spinning through a flurry of leaves.
Lowhawk Ridge was a towering, jutting vertebrae in the spine of the Appalachian Mountains. It was one of the few places in the country still untouched by the technology of the modern world and it had been over two hundred years since any human had lived there. It's peak was covered in snow year-round and a timeless glacier crowned it. The bottom of it was endlessly melting while it's top was continuously accumulating more cold. The result was a series of uneven waterfalls traveling down the mountain that was too large to be a stream and yet not quite large enough to be called a river. It was this brook that Melody flew up. She came in for a landing on the third level of the waterfall on a cliff just beside it. The roar of the falling water filled her ears and her head and wet mist clung to her and made her shiver. She maneuvered past the waterfall and into a hidden hollow behind it. The rock there was smooth, having been carved out by the wayward sprays of water over centuries and even millennia. And on the wet glistening back wall of the shallow cave was the marking of a large black bird. The average person would have thought it was an ancient hieroglyphic left by some Native American tribe, but Melody knew better. It had been put here for a very specific purpose. Melody took in a deep breath, rubbed her hands together and then brushed her fingertips against the black wall painting.
FLASH!
The painting and the cave and the waterfall and the mountain itself faded away. Melody suddenly found herself standing on the scaffold of a castle unlike any on earth. It was a strange mix of what could be called eastern spires and curved, thatched western roofs and an alien style all of its own. The castle was a series of merging towers with airy connection bridges. It was made of a smooth, unbroken stone that was not quite red but more of a harsh, utilitarian pink. Purple flags waved from the battlements against an unnatural yellow sky. The windows of the castle were long and oval, made of a segmented crystal that fractured the light into weightless rainbows. Far below the castle and surrounding it on all sides was the ruins and rubble of a once great city. There were mountains of gray and red rock half hidden in the mist that hung over the ground and unstable walls and buildings that threatened to finally topple over at any minute. It was a stark contrast to the majesty of the castle.
No matter how many times she came her, Melody was always struck by the beauty of the place. Even so, there were more important things on her mind now. She walked down the battlement and ducked into a smooth, doorless opening shaped like an edgeless diamond. She walked down a long, carpeted hallway that, despite having no visible light source, was brightly lit and turned into the entranceway she knew was the castle owner's favorite room. The study was an oblong crescent with no corners to be found. There was a small bookshelf along the wall with only a single book in it. Melody knew, however, that the owner of the castle left her vast library in some unimaginable place where she could call any tome within it to her at anytime using nothing more than her will. At the far end of the room was a roaring fireplace cheerfully softening the warm dimness of the room and a deep, padded chair was next to it.
"Raven?" Melody called, her voice somehow pulled away by the shape of the room. "Aunt Raven? Where are you?"
An ashen-skinned woman in her mid-thirties appeared in the comfortable chair before the fire. A chakra stone glinted on her forehead and her dark amethyst hair was pulled back to create a high, regal widow's peak. She wore a long white dress that left her arms and legs bare and she sat with all the posture and dignity of a queen. She put her hands in her lap and smiled at Melody.
"Come by the fire." Raven invited her. "Warm yourself."
"Thanks." Melody did as she said, standing by her chair and holding her hands out to the fire. Even though she knew it wasn't technically real, it still felt good on her cold skin.
"It's been some time since you've visited me here in Lus Soveran." Raven said. "I was beginning to think you had forgotten how to get here."
"Sorry," Melody scuffed her foot against the carpet. "Dad's been keeping me busy telling us about his Encore days."
"So he's telling you." Raven said. "Good."
"He didn't have much choice." Melody shrugged. "After I told him you let it slip he-" She stopped when she saw her aunt's thin smile. She realized that- "You didn't let anything slip. You told me about dad on purpose, didn't you?"
"It was time you knew." Raven nodded. "And your dad's legendary stubbornness would have kicked in if I had suggested he tell you personally. This was the best way."
Melody thought about it. "But if you really wanted me to know, why didn't you tell me yourself? You've told me all kinds of other hero stories. Why not this one?"
"Because this is your father's story; not mine. He's the only one that can tell it the way it should be told." Raven pursed her lips and gave Melody a probing look. "But this isn't why you came here, is it? What can I help you with?"
Alone in the forest, it had seemed the perfect idea to take her dilemma with Yumi to Raven. But now, standing here face to face with her aunt, embarrassment suddenly took over her. Melody lowered her quickly reddening face and said nothing.
"Ah," Raven said knowing. "It's one of those problems."
Melody lifted her head then as if daring her blush to go any further. She wracked her brain, trying to find the best way to broach the subject. "Have you ever been in love with anyone, Aunt Raven?" She asked.
Raven's face was indecipherable as she silently returned Melody's gaze. Melody began to think that the question had been over the line when her aunt finally answered. "I've had lovers over the years, yes, though the relationships ultimately failed for any number of reasons. Why are you asking me this?"
Melody didn't answer. Instead, she haltingly asked another question. "Were any of those lovers...women?"
Raven stood up and affectionately put her hands on Melody's shoulders. She led her to the chair she had been sitting in and gently lowered her into it. Then she knelt down in front of her. "I was about your age when my father was defeated. I've told you that story, yes?"
"Y-yes."
"Up until that point," Raven went on. "I had to keep my emotions strictly under control to keep him from escaping. But once he was destroyed, I was free to feel anything I wanted. Only, I had suppressed them so long that I was never sure exactly what I was supposed to feel. They were like atrophied muscles; it took a lot of work and experimentation to fully realize them. Over the course of my life I have loved many different people in many different ways. Part of life is finding what is good and cherishing it."
She stopped and looked into the fire, her eyes a million miles away as the firelight danced across her face. Then she turned and looked up into Melody's face again. "Yumi confessed to you, didn't she?"
Melody couldn't help but let out a little gasp at that. "How did you-" She shook her head. "You knew Yumi felt this way about me? And you didn't tell me?"
"I never knew for certain." Raven shook her head. "I'm an empath, Melody, not a mind reader. I had long suspected Yumi harbored feelings for you, but there was no way I could be sure. Even if there was, it would be amoral of me to tell you without her permission, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, but..." Melody's voice trailed off as the argument sank in. "What do I do, Aunt Raven?"
"I think that depends. How do you feel about Yumi?"
"I love Yumi." Melody answered without thinking. Then her cheeks flushed when she realized the implications of that. "I-I mean, she's my best friend." She amended herself quickly. "I've never thought about...I mean, I've never considered-" She huffed in frustration. "I can deal with all that later. Right now I need to find Yumi. She ran off. She's too ashamed to even be around me."
"And what would you tell her if you found her? What could you say that would take away that shame?"
"I...don't know." Melody's shoulders dropped. "I don't even know where she is."
"My magic words won't work here." Raven squeezed Melody's knee. "I don't have a special line you can tell Yumi that will make everything better. But what I do know is this: You and Yumi have a bond as strong as any I've felt. You're a part of each other. No one knows her better than you. Put yourself in her shoes and I believe everything will come to you."
Melody sighed. "I was hoping your answer would be a little easier."
"The answers to the most important questions are never easy." Raven stood up. "Good luck, Melody. Let me know how it works out. Now, I'm going back to bed."
FLASH!
Lowhawk Ridge and the waterfall and the cave and the cold all returned and Lus Soveran was gone. Melody unconsciously rubbed her arms for warmth, but her mind was already elsewhere. She closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift inward over every memory and feeling she had ever felt for Yumi. A million images and sensations from their life together fell over her like the waterfall she stood beside and when she opened her eyes she knew where Yumi was.
The largest tree on the mountain was a centuries-old oak tree two miles southeast of the Johnson Homestead. It stood on the very edge of a steep bluff that overlooked the countless valleys of the range. The trunk was fifty feet wide at its base and more than a hundred feet tall. It dwarfed everything around it save for the mountain itself. It had lasted so long that the ground beneath it had begun to erode away. Several of its long roots dug into the earth and met only air instead.. Melody and Yumi had discovered long ago that they could climb down these roots to a hollow spot beneath the tree. The view there was spectacular. One could look forever were it not for the glowing mist that perpetually covered the mountain range. It was a special place for Yumi and Melody and the site of hundreds of conversations between them.
And now it was the place where Yumi cried. It was a muted, hiccuping sobbing that was directed inward. She sat on a half buried stone, hugged herself and rocked back and forth. It stabbed Melody's heart to see it. She silently climbed down the hanging root and Yumi, too engrossed in her own grief, failed to noticed her. Melody sat on the rock behind her and reached around her to hug her middle. Yumi started sharply.
"It's okay." Melody rested her chin on her shoulder and said softly in her ear. "It's me."
Yumi shuddered and her body still felt tense in Melody's arms. "I'm sorry." She sniffed. "I didn't mean to-"
"You shouldn't be sorry." Melody hugged her tighter. "You told me your greatest secret when you were scared to death to do it, you know? I'm honored you trust me that much."
Yumi took in a deep breath. She lifted her hands to cover Melody's. "I-Is that all you are? Honored?" She asked weakly. Everything hung in that moment.
"I...don't know." Melody said it as honestly as she could. "I don't know how I feel yet. All I know is that you're my best friend and I'd rather die than lose that, okay? I don't know how long it's going to take to sort out my feelings, but I want you here to help me. I don't want you to run away from me."
Yumi's head bowed as she took some time to absorb that. Then her big, dark eyes were wavering when she pivoted around on the rock to look at Melody. She took in her wet skin and flimsy nightgown and her blue-tinged lips. She reached out and gently pushed a strand of Melody's blonde hair from her face.
"C'mon." She said. "Let's go back before you catch cold."
Melody smiled at her. They disappeared together and reappeared on the bluff above the hollow. Then they held hands and walked back together as dawn finally arrived and the sun rose to shine on them.