Melita
they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive
of the women they burned alive
The girl from his past wouldn’t have survived without alteration. Melita couldn’t have existed in all her sweetness and compassion – Caido stifled and smothered those tendencies with every death and every surge and every breaking point. Then it rekindled, incensed, into something a little more twisted, barbaric, and relentless, because otherwise she would’ve been just another ghost out there across landscapes and decades. She wasn’t to be contained and diminished, but clawing and rapacious, a force of chaos and tempests – some days light and airy, and others a mercurial storm. She couldn’t pause. She couldn’t cease. And maybe that had always been the problem. Or the solution. It was difficult to know at all hours, where the weaknesses of becoming something else felt the cracks in her caustic, burning armor, if the frailties of yesteryear wore her down. But then there were laughs or fangs or daggers flung, and the mask was settled, lit, righteous little flames with no end. She’d burnt away most of those close or far – save for her uncle, made of water – or those who could endure the malicious, bedlam-exposed spirit.
She knew ire, rage, wrath, vengeance; names, facets, her mother and sister would’ve never taught her. But they weren’t here, despite every effort she’d ever made.
But Melita didn’t know what Iskra was anymore, besides avoidant. Her brows furrowed again as she watched him, uncertain how to take the answering smile, the shake of his head, the ease in which he simply returned to cooking. He couldn’t even look at her now – and the thought was maddening too, and made her either want to scurry back into brush or flick a stone at his head.
She settled for the in between. Lesser individuals would’ve slunk away with the force of her glare. "Well, you could try.” Another huff of her breath extended from her mouth, a mulish tilt of her head and a clenching of her jaw followed. “Not really fair of you to decide for me.” She hadn’t been the one to run away.
She knew ire, rage, wrath, vengeance; names, facets, her mother and sister would’ve never taught her. But they weren’t here, despite every effort she’d ever made.
But Melita didn’t know what Iskra was anymore, besides avoidant. Her brows furrowed again as she watched him, uncertain how to take the answering smile, the shake of his head, the ease in which he simply returned to cooking. He couldn’t even look at her now – and the thought was maddening too, and made her either want to scurry back into brush or flick a stone at his head.
She settled for the in between. Lesser individuals would’ve slunk away with the force of her glare. "Well, you could try.” Another huff of her breath extended from her mouth, a mulish tilt of her head and a clenching of her jaw followed. “Not really fair of you to decide for me.” She hadn’t been the one to run away.
because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life
to bring a whole wildfire to life
