More snippets about Melody.
In Which I Write More Stuff About A Lady Who Is Dead By The Time Any Stories Take Place
In Memoriam
“What can I even say about my best friend? That she was a force for good like no other, that’s a certainty. That she was someone who, even when we were little, still took responsibility for so many things that she didn’t have to. The kinda person who sees someone on the streets begging for change and decides to just… Give them her wallet because it’s her responsibility to fix this. But… She was also someone who was a bit hard about things. Pessimistic and jaded in her own right. Thoroughly loved and cared for her fellow man like few others but… Always like a… A shepherd for their sheep.
Like we were beautiful, wonderful, stupid creatures that had to be led away from the cliffs and the wolves. Kind… And cruel.
What can I even say about Melody, about the woman I loved like no other? How about this...
Melody Rains was a beautiful, wonderful, glorious person.
She was a hero, kind and courteous and caring.
Melody Rains was a manipulative, calculating, cruel individual.
She was the monster she chose to be.
And in her memory, in the name of her sacrifice, I will not stop fighting to keep you all safe. I don’t agree that you’re sheep that need to be led. But I do agree that the wolves in the woods need to be stopped so you won’t be eaten. Melody’d cry if any of you idiots got killed because I was too wrapped up in my own grief. I loved her while she was alive, flaws and all...
And I love her now and always even with what I’ve said today. So go ahead. Summon your demons, your killers of the heart, your soul stealers… Bring your knives to bear against me.
They’ll just break on the scars I’ve already got, you fucking cowards.”
~Edited down funeral speech from the fourth leader of the Starlight Sisterhood, Myla Moon.
A Century Of Grief
“Well… I’m still here, my love. Still trudging along, day by day. It’s funny. When you flew off to the stars I thought… I thought I’d see you again and soon. Even when you didn’t come back I still thought that… That my heart, shattered as it was, wouldn’t let me keep going without you and so… I’d follow you. As I’d always done, I’d follow you into the black and we’d dance and laugh and cry forever as twin trails of stardust.
Then I woke up and… You’d been dead for a month. And all these people, these girls who looked up to you as a leader… They’d voted for me to be in charge. And… I couldn’t. I couldn’t just throw away what you and I had worked so, so hard to build back up after we’d lost Titania. So I… Gave a speech at your funeral. A nice, pretty little thing wearing none of my true emotions on my face. Something about how you were wonderful but flawed. Because you were and are, wherever you are now.
Then I woke up and you’d been dead for over a year. The anniversary. Another speech, another mask. Another bundle of scars where I’d thrown myself into the jaws of some gargantuan thing without a care for my own life. More chastisement from myself and those few friends we’d had in common. Promises to do better because I know that’s what you’d want.
Then I woke up and it’d been a decade. Wanted to retire, really I did but… I looked out over that sea of faces at the… The ten-year anniversary and I just… I saw you. In all of them, I saw you looking back at me with those confident eyes… That beautiful smile so full of love and compassion. I saw you and I couldn’t just abandon you even as I knew that was a silly thought to have. So I kept going, keeping the tears from my eyes with a pause in my speech to give a moment of silence for those we’d yet lost. They all thought I was mourning the people who’d died since you were gone and I was. But mostly, selfishly, I was still mourning you.
And now, today, I wake up and find it’s been more than a century since you were dead. And I’m still here, still going. Still leading the Starlight Sisterhood in spite of it all. Buried so many now. I’m the last one of the old guard now, y’know? Of course you know. Gretchen and Hanabi are both probably yucking it up with you about all the in-jokes you missed out on. Nkechi’s doubtlessly throwing her hands up in the air and complaining about how I, of all people, somehow avoided the reaper’s scythe all this time and still look like I’m fresh as a daisy. Titania’s probably looking, proud of her student for holding on for so very long. And you… You’re still watching me and waiting with that same love, that same compassion you always did as you led me by the hand throughout our life…
They asked me the other day how I’m still going even with all that I’ve lost and I don’t know how to tell them that I’ve never lost any of you, not really. You’re not gone. I still remember you all, love you all with all my heart and all my soul.
I am sorry I’m not there to hold your hand, my dearest Melody. But I can’t just leave these kids yet. They still need their Grandmama Myla to do for them what you did for me all those years ago in the train tunnel when it felt like the world was collapsing all around us. So just… Wait for me, Mel. I’ll see you. Not soon, no. But one day… One day.”
~Myla Moon on her one-hundred and forty-third birthday.
What Did You Do?
“The first rays of light from Melody’s Sacrifice are starting to reach us now. At the same time there’s been a drastic uptick in both monster activity and hero activity. Monsters are getting weaker, heroes are getting stronger. But I think the most surprising thing is that… There’s been more interactions with those Things that haven’t gone completely and utterly wrong.
Melody…
What the fuck did you do?”
~Myla Moon
Broken Mirror
“You’d think that with a name like Melody Rains that her powers were something to do with sound or water. No. Reflections.
Her power was reflections. That probably sounds like it was crazy, the ability to throw whatever she took back at its source yeah? No. Didn’t work that way. It was crazier.
She would literally just rip out reflections of herself from whatever reflective surfaces were around. Doesn’t sound that strong and then you remember.
Your eyes have reflections on the tiny little layer of water or whatever that keeps them moist. Your skin reflects light and therefore reflects her. And by that logic?
EVERYTHING.
REFLECTED.
MELODY.
RAINS.
She’d drown you in a lake of her own corpses before you could hope to lay a finger on the real her.
So be glad that our great enemy is now her still living and apparently immortal lover and not Melody.
I’d take the bloodthirsty monster of the moon’s crescent over the foolish act of fighting someone who would quite calmly vivisect herself just to punch me in the face one more time.”
~The Grand Puppeteer, Head Of The Shadow Theater