my feet will never touch the ground [fiasko, any]

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

She’s been busy. But there are not enough excuses (business, her son, getting caught in the sway of instinctual life, thought processes, exhaustion) that can amount to the regret she feels for her kingdom. She has disappointed them and she knows it. Her heart is heavy and her soul is guilty as she walks through the Gates. The mother tree waves slowly in the distance, but even its cheerful sight cannot brighten Camelia’s emotions.

The whispers of her childhood are perhaps the only residents still left behind. She hears an echo of a laugh in the distance, but when her eyes turn in the direction of the noise there is nothing. A ray of sunlight falls between the fronds of a willow tree and creates the illusion of her younger version and Mast’s younger version pestering each other. The Gates is nothing more than dimming hopeful dreams and mirages of memories and it is all her fault.

Heaving a heavy sigh that shudders on the edge of a sob, the queen of endless memories leans against the familiar husk of a healing tree (only a few burn scars from the wildfires remain, the mother tree helping with the majority of the healing process) and closes her eyes to attempt to clear her wandering mind.

Camelia