Once You Have Been Lost (the cure for suicide)

The last time Melly had seen Nisa, her friend had been bleeding from a dozen wounds, the proof of Kyan's torture. Now those wounds that were visible from here looked healed, though the dress made it almost seem otherwise. Judging by the look on Nisa's face, the damage to her mind was no better.

"Yes?" Melly managed to whisper through her shock.

Aleron's presence of mind was somewhat greater. "Nisa, you're up! What brings you here?"

"I want to talk to Melly," the blonde girl insisted, her voice slowly regaining a measure of control as she worked muscles unused for months.

"I'm here," Melly replied, reeling.

Taking this as an invitation, Nisa stepped closer and placed one hand on Melly's stomach--an odd gesture, especially since the two were within a few inches of each other's height. "What did Galen do to you?" she gasped.

"What did Galen do?" repeated Melly. "What are you talking about?"

"Kyan hurt me," Nisa began hoarsely.

"We know that!" Corby interrupted, earning himself a dirty look from the blonde.

"Kyan hurt me," she began again, "but Galen showed more of an interest in you. What did he do to you?"

It was several baffled seconds later before Melly could make enough sense of it to answer, "Nothing? He never hurt me, nor even tried. All he ever did was... act like himself..."

"NO!" shouted Nisa, loud enough that all of them jumped and in an adjacent room someone cursed. It sounded like they had caught one friend or another shaving. "No man is good! They're all like Kyan inside, hungry to hurt people, happy when someone's heart breaks, they love blood, they love pain, they're all alike and you should know it! I could tell Galen was interested in you, so tell me--what. Did. He. DO?!"

"I told you! He did nothing!" the older girl protested. "Galen never hurt me, never!"

"He hurt me badly enough, and he didn't even think so much of me!" Nisa bellowed.

"How?" Corby challenged, his eyes scanning her. "All the injuries I can see are from what Kyan did... what Galen stopped as soon as he could."

Nisa shuddered and twisted the fabric of her dress behind her back. "He wouldn't let me be healed," she whispered. "He told me it wasn't safe yet for me to be back the way I was. I had to suffer what Kyan did longer."

"Even magic can't heal everything so easily," Melly cautioned, "and you know you're weak. What it would take for you to be completely back to where you were might require something your body can't handle just yet..."

"I don't care!" snarled Nisa.

"You should!" Aleron interjected, though he was almost drowned out by Corby's voice.

"What's so important that you can't wait to be ready?"

Wiping her eyes, the scarred blonde shook her head. "I can't tell you." She glared at Corby and Aleron, then turned to Melly. "You should think of what I said. Every man is evil in the end."

Before any of them could react, she was gone.

It seemed reasonable to assume that after Nisa's outburst, no one would still be asleep in the house. After bidding a quick farewell to Corby and Aleron, who both appeared to be in shock, Melly returned to her own room. As she had expected, she found Willow awake and seated on the bed where they'd talked the night before. "Good morning," the younger girl greeted her.

"Good morning," Melly replied automatically. Though she tried to hide it, she had been shocked by Nisa's behavior as well. Her friend had once been so sweet, laughing with Aleron, trading tall tales with Nikolai, flirting with Sean, Kyan, and Corby as her fancy suited... how could Nisa hate them all now? Kyan, yes... but all of them?

"What WAS that scream? It woke me up!" Willow's voice broke into Melly's thoughts, much as it had the previous night. Barely a second had passed.

"Nisa's been up here," the elder of the girls explained. Ignoring the younger's gasp of astonishment, she plowed on: "She's talking, even screaming, but she's... different. What Kyan did... it broke her."

Willow's soft-edged brown eyes seemed to grow huge in her young face. "Nisa's talking again? What did she talk about?" she inquired eagerly.

With a sigh, Melly admitted, "She talked about men being evil... whatever changed in her mind has convinced her that Kyan was typical. Now she thinks Galen did something to hurt me." With a groan, the young woman collapsed on her bed next to Willow.

A moment later, she sat bolt upright again. It could have just been her imagination, but she had been certain she'd heard a voice whispering in her ear: "I need to talk to you." The voice was a man's. Galen's.

No, Melly thought. Galen is dead. I watched him die. She had heard him speak to her in much the same way, right here, so many times. This had to be a memory, or her mind so desperate to hear from him again that she was hallucinating. Glancing over at Willow, she could see that the younger girl had heard nothing, but she looked concerned.

"Melly, are you all right?"

"Fine," Melly grunted. "My clothes just pinched me."

Willow nodded, accepting the excuse, as the voice whispered again, "I know. I am dead. But I need to talk to you."

Made even more nervous by this, Melly looked around the room. She saw nothing that could have been the source. Closing her eyes, she touched the magic she had been trained to call from inside her, hoping to tell if someone was doing this by a spell...

The moment she did, she saw Galen's face in her mind's eye. He was exactly as she had known him in his best moments, with his eyes blazing, his skin all but glowing, and his face transfigured by being the very greatest of what he could be. Melly reached out with her power, and felt herself pulled towards the image.

When she came to herself, she was looking over a vast, empty field of grass. The sky was a pale blue overhead, and the sunlight was warm and washed everything golden. Tiny flowers were camouflaged by the grass yet plentiful, with bees flying sedately amongst them. Galen paced in the grass some distance away, his appearance as beautifully changed as in the vision of him Melly had just seen, but his expression was clouded by frustrated discontent.

"Why are you unhappy?" Melly asked dreamily, in a voice like a small child's. "This is a beautiful place."

Galen spun to look at her, his unhappiness lightening markedly as he caught her eye. "I would have been happier if I could have stayed on earth with you longer," he replied, softly but clearly audible despite the distance. "I have forever to enjoy this in, but I would have enjoyed it more if I had had more life to compare it to."

Melly found her feet taking her forward a few steps, putting them closer to one another. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you," she whispered, close to crying.

It was his turn to close the distance by a few paces. "Melly. Melly." He said it as if her name tasted delicious, like he could spend hours just feasting on the sound. "Melly, you did everything you could. I knew what I was getting into when I walked into that fight. I knew it when I saved you and Nisa, even. The risks were mine. Kyan happened to have enough of an advantage that he could defeat us both... Melly, you have nothing to be sorry for."

Stumbling from emotion, falling to the grass, Melly found that the bees got out of her way here rather than trying to sting her. Galen hurried over and sat down beside her. He coaxed a bee onto his finger, and showed it to her. "The bees here are tame," he murmured. "They don't harm anyone... and why should they? They're in no danger; they just fly around and make honey."

The beauty of this reminded Melly of her original thought. "It's so perfect here... why would you want to be back in the middle of all the pain in life?"

The look in Galen's eyes flickered with sorrow. "For you," he replied softly. "You and all my other friends. There's a hole in all your lives where I was, you know it as well as I do. Even Nisa knows it in her heart, though her mind's been twisted enough that she's not sure how to react except to be angry with me."

Melly thought back to her conversation with Nisa, considering it in this light. "She thought you'd hurt me..." she began, not sure where she was going with the thought.

"And did I?" The simple question caught Melly off guard.

"No!" she replied immediately. "Never."

Galen took her hand. He was warm and strong, in sharp contrast to her memory of carrying his destroyed body home from the place where he had died. "But I died... you can't pretend that didn't hurt you, any more than anyone else could say so..."

"You told me yourself, Kyan's dangerous," Melly objected. "Not because he's a particularly good fighter, but because he's dishonorable. He caught us by surprise, and you and I together weren't enough to stop him... just like Nisa and I weren't..."

"You're right," Galen admitted. "And Nisa knew this--you know she was thinking of something else, something specific, of course?" At Melly's nod, he continued, "Nisa may be insane, but only her reasoning is broken. She still sees plenty and knows what she sees; she just draws the wrong conclusions from it."

"You mean...?"

"I mean that she's sensing something. There's plenty of useful things she can still tell you, if you ignore what she thinks and find out why she thinks it."

"But she wouldn't tell, when Corby asked what you'd done to her," Melly contradicted quietly.

"She's afraid of men, like you were, and she's less willing to get past that," Galen explained just as quietly. "She doesn't fear women, and she trusts you more than most. You could get something out of her."

Melly digested this for a moment, working through the idea that Nisa was acting from the same feelings that she had had after Kyan's betrayal. It made her friend's irrationality somehow understandable. The thought was strange and a bit frightening: if Nisa was acting irrationally, and Melly understood why, where did that leave the latter?

Galen watched her think, probably reading quite a bit of this from her face. Eventually he let go of her hand to hug her. In some astonishment, Melly realized that he even smelled the same. Somehow she had assumed that the many things that had made up his scent would have died with his body, or changed somehow by coming here, but apparently it wasn't so. The smell that said Galen to her as much as his face or voice or name was completely intact. "Melly," he whispered, "here is what you need most to understand: I am not gone. The person I have always been exists still, and someday you will come here to stay. Until then, you need to live as truly as you can--but never be afraid to do the right thing, whether that means taking a risk or staying out of danger." He kissed her quickly, then released her and offered her the bee that had been crawling on his arm. "Melly... did you know that your name means 'bee?'"

Startled by the abrupt change of subject, and moved by the speech that had preceded it, Melly shook her head.

"Well, it is," Galen informed her quietly. "Here... you can keep this one as a pet." A trace of the playful humor that he had used so often tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe you can call it Melly Junior."

Melly laughed, and took the bee. Somehow knowing what came next, she began to cross the field in the general direction of the place she had first seen it from, with the thought that this would somehow lead her home.

"One more thing," called Galen.

Turning around, Melly inquired, "Yes?" She would have stayed for many more changes of subject, just to see him a little longer for the last time until her own death.

"You can't make it alone. Trust your friends when they earn it--you'll need them. You'll need the help."

Melly nodded, and raised her empty hand. "Goodbye, Galen..."

"Goodbye, Melly," he murmured, visibly softening. "I hope you live long and happily."

With that, Melly drifted, and knew no more until suddenly she was lying on her bed next to Willow again. Little seemed to have happened, though Willow looked at the elder girl's left hand and did a double take.

Curled up tamely in her palm was a bee.

"Melly," Willow gasped, "there's a bee on your hand! How did it get there?"

Melly smiled, seeing Galen's face in her mind's eye. "It seems harmless enough," she observed, looking the bee over. "Maybe I'll keep it as a pet."

The look on Willow's face clearly said, "Are you crazy?" but Melly rose quickly to her feet, suddenly purposeful.

"I'm going to the basement, I think," she declared. "I need to see Nikolai... and Nisa."

Willow looked dubious for a second, but then her face cleared and she nodded. "And I'm going to get breakfast. See you, Melly."

Melly descended the staircase to the first floor, nodding hello to those friends she passed. All of them were quiet: some had not finished waking, and everyone was in mourning. Galen had been plenty liked, and if Melly's own heart was calmer now, after her vision--well, she still felt the absence nonetheless. Only a week ago, this time had been playful, everyone in the house save for Nisa sharing food and laughter. Only a week ago, they had been almost back to normal as betrayals and losses had faded into memory. Only a week ago, they had been called on for help: a small band of mercenaries led by Kyan had been attacking a small farm nearby.

Only a week. Galen had died that day.

With a shudder, Melly shook off the thought and opened the door that led down to the basement. There was no light at the bottom, but that was to be expected; both Nikolai and Nisa could see just fine without it.

Slowly, she descended the steps. At the bottom, Nikolai looked up from the cards spread before him to greet her. "Hey, Melly. What're you doing down here?" It was hard to tel between the existing darkness and the fact that his face was hidden by his ever-present hood, but Melly thought he might have been grinning. They were some kind of relatives, and close friends; meetings were always happy occasions regardless of how badly things might otherwise be going. Now that Nikolai spent so much time down here--protecting their wounded hermit, and (Melly suspected) avoiding the gloomy mood above to mourn in his own way--it was an even bigger event.

Melly smiled as well; Nikolai's moods were remarkably contagious. "Haven't come in a while. I wanted to see you, Niko," she explained, using his childhood nickname to remind him of their kinship, then hesitated. "And to see Nisa."

Nikolai shrugged. "She doesn't talk much, still. I think being alone down here so long might have driven her a little crazy." He paused, weighing his next words--something he did infrequently enough that it caught Melly's attention. "Funny thing, though... a few minutes ago, she did leave. Obviously it was hard for her, but she did it. And I heard her screaming, and then she marched back down. Looked exhausted, but happy."

"That's why I need to talk to her," Melly informed him. "She was yelling at me, mostly--Corby and Aleron too, but just because they were there."

Nikolai looked surprised, then froze. "Melly, there's a bee on your shoulder..."

With a chuckle, Melly nodded. "It's my new pet." She thought a moment, then decided she could trust Nikolai with the whole truth. He disbelieved those who struck him as dishonest, but was willing to accept even odd truths from Melly. Throughout their long history together, she had never once lied to him and didn't intend to start now.