this is here for the skill claim

Always and forever, the girl is a dreamer. Prone to flights of fancy and whatnot, or at least, she will be when she’s older. For now she is a young girl, lost in thought on a chilly winter day. It’s comforting, the winter. Meadow doesn’t know why she likes it so much. She doesn’t know why it enchants her the way it does, draws her in, makes her feel… at peace. It’s such a wonder, the amount of peace she finds. Though the winter had been relatively (disappointingly) mild, it seems that there’s a sort of promise in the air. Promise. There is promise… promise of what, exactly? Meadow can’t be sure. She can’t be sure, yet there’s a strange sort of pressure that she can feel in the atmosphere around her head. A pressure that seems to fill each breath in her lungs, and seems to push her forward in such a way… strange, but wonderful. Wonderful but strange. She can relate to that, too.

With her head high and her eyes bright, Meadow makes her way toward the garden. It’s not a far walk at all, and the weather was lovely today. Chilly, but the kind of chilly that made her feel alive. It’s a cheerful sort of chilly, Meadow’s pace brisk and eyes bright. All of it was lovely, and so was she. A soft, serene smile playing on her delicate features as she moves south. Out of the keep and into the world around her, even if she’s barely farther than her own front door. Meadow knows that she’s never really alone out here, especially being so close to the Hallows. Never really, never truly alone. The castle would always cast a shadow behind her, over her back. Well… at least that’s what it felt like. Something in Meadow’s chest told her it would always feel that way.

Or it would feel that way for as long as she was still here. Seemed like she would always exist in those shadows, feeling them grow long around her shoulders. There wasn’t a way to get out from under it… was there? Meadow would think a bit more on that, let the thoughts fill her head as she made her way to the God’s Garden. It was a good place for thinking, after all. A very good place. She thinks, and continues to think, about the wider world out there. Maybe she’d see more of it some day. Still, the idea that she would leave the Hallows? No. She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, making her way into the garden with high, careful steps. That was a ridiculous thought. She belonged at home, with her family… right? They were the most important people in the world to her. The rest of the world was too wide, too loud, too unsafe.

She finds herself carefully browsing the last of the plants, hardy things that had survived the soft frost that winter brought. It left the ground chilly and spongy, and she doesn’t really know what to think about that. It gives beneath her paws in ways that she can’t really describe. Mushy. It’s terribly mushy, though she doesn’t complain more than a little. Meadow has a hard time complaining, anyway. Mom had taught her that the weather changed, that the trees changed, that everything went into shutdown mode in the winter… it only made sense that the ground would feel like this. It only made sense that the herbs would be harder to find, too. Anything that was left here, growing wild, would be a real treasure hunt indeed.

That was just it– treasure. Meadow was able to catch a scent and really zero in on it. Lavender, just like the kind they grew in the greenhouse. There would be lavender here, something that she had started to like. Talyssa liked it, she should too. It’s maybe a bit too floral, a bit too soapy for her all the time, but when it’s out in the open like this Meadow enjoys it. Out in the open, surrounded by many more things. Surrounded by everything. The world is so big, and so is the garden. It’s a good garden. A very good garden. Things grew wild here, unlike the castle’s garden. Nothing was intentionally cultivated, not anymore. It’s enough. It makes her feel alive with possibility, with curiosity, with all the delightful things. Gentle footsteps over soft earth, Meadow finds the lavender and keeps going. A treasure hunt. A treasure hunt for all sorts of things, for all the herbs she can wish to find.

It’s then that her gaze lands on them. The elderberries. These were something that they didn’t have planted in the Hallows gardens, something that seemed to grow better out here. Grow wildly. She should grow wild, too, Meadow decides right then and there. Her gaze is soft upon the berries for a long moment, soft and excited. Seeming to dance in the way she peers at them, her head filled with the excitement of it all. With soft, careful paws, she doesn’t just take the berries off the plant. If the plant stayed out here for the winter, it would die off. Sure, the seeds would drop, but that wasn’t the point. Meadow could save the whole thing. The whole young bush of them. It was pretty sorry in its current state, looking rough from the cold. Yes, the berries aren’t the point, she decides here and now.

Carefully, Meadow digs up the young bush. She digs it up by the root and she carefully carries it back in the direction of the castle. Meadow is determined now. She will find a pot, she will find some dirt, and she will water it and care for it properly. It wouldn’t freeze to death, not on her watch. She’d save it. She’d save everyone and everything she could, right here, starting with this bush precisely! Her head was high and her gaze was bright. There was an air of triumph about Meadow as she turned and marched back toward the castle, her prize ever so gently in hand.

"Speech"