June 21. Medith slipped into her long-unused Green Sprite attire.

She faced the mirror like a still pond, and melancholy rose.

The person was the same; the innocence had drifted away like mist.

“Melia...” Her eyes fell to a table strewn like petals with cosmetics.

A nostalgic smile opened like dawn.

The image of Melia, playful and snatching powders like a sparrow, stayed vivid.

Medith picked up a lipstick and brushed it on like a seal of fire.

Sais slipped in as quiet as night, and patted her shoulder like a leaf.

They laughed softly and stepped out, toward the flower fields like a living sea.

...

A sea of blossoms spread, lush and green like a breathing forest.

Birdsong threaded with fragrance, and bees and butterflies wove their bright embroidery.

Small animals leapt like sparks, tussling and hugging under the gold sun.

The flowers drank light greedily and breathed perfume like spring rain.

At the edge of the sea of flowers stood countless sprites like dew-drops.

The Queen and Medith led, hands cradling a lush green hyacinth like newborn hope.

Even the Queen had changed into the Green Sprite attire, like spring in armor.

Unused for years, the old cut clung tight at her willow waist.

Her proud long legs were bare to the air, glittering like polished jade.

Her crown had become a green wreath, summer replacing winter on her brow.

The Queen herself held the funeral rite; in a thousand years, such honor comes once.

Nora was coaxed into the Green Sprite attire, like a river guided into sunlight.

Medith still didn’t lay a hand on her; this was the price, like a soft chain.

Nora’s features were clean and bright, her body shaped by training like carved wood.

No spare softness anywhere; small arms held strength like steel under silk.

Her long alabaster legs dazzled, perfectly matched to green like moonlight on leaves.

Admiring gazes flowed in, a tide rolling to shore.

Even Nora’s stern face lifted two blushes like peach petals.

She pressed the hem down with a small hand, as if the skirt were a fast river.

A low song rose like smoke; the sprites harmonized the Song of Life.

In the Elf Clan’s tongue, their airy voices wound like silver streams.

For a moment, everyone drifted into dream, like boats on night water.

The boundless sea of flowers leapt with joy like a flock taking wing.

The sprites began to dance, weaving the rhythm of life like willow branches.

The hyacinth listened in silence, its sway clapping along like gentle hands.

Grief surged first, heavy as rain; Medith half-sat and spoke to Sister Melia.

“Talk with the sisters for now,” she vowed, “and hear me:

I’ll use every means, burn the whole continent dry to gather the Divine Stones.

I’ll bring you back. Medith promises.”

She set the hyacinth into the grass, slow as laying a heart down.

As it touched earth, it took root like a sealed vow.

A breeze moved it; it bobbed up and down, nodding yes like a wise elder.

Tears had taken Iling and the Lita Sisters beyond words, like rivers in flood.

Sais bit her crimson lip, eyes red as embers, nails biting her palm like thorns.

Milia stared blankly, sunk in memory like fog in a hollow.

Phiby laughed through tears, hand stroking Melia’s hyacinth again and again like prayer.

The Queen saw Medith’s grief and iron resolve, and her heart ached like bruised fruit.

Every leaving, every returning, Medith seemed missing a piece, like bark off a tree.

She had come today, largely for Medith, like a roof for rain.

Were it not for her, Melia would be to the Queen a capable sprite to regret.

Maybe she would never grasp what Melia meant to Medith, like depths beneath ice.

Nor would she ever know how deep the pain ran when Medith cried out like thunder.

A tender fear rose in the Queen like a thin blade.

She soothed Medith with a gentle hand, and wondered in silence:

When I die, will you weep for me like this, Medith?