Melita
they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive
of the women they burned alive
For all her honesty and forthrightness, Melita didn’t once expect Iskra’s kindled reaction – of outrage, of distress, of nettled, vexed, irked aggravation to rampage through the forest. Maybe she should have – she’d known how much he’d lost. She just didn’t think, when it came back to her, that it mattered too much. She was alive. She was well. She’d grown stronger. She’d take her revenge.
But the infernal wake, rather than having her slide further vulnerability into the area, had her knotting it tightly in her chest. The rest was an aggrieved bristling, tauter, straighter, composing and narrowing her eyes to fine, dangerous, golden slits. Sila moved immediately, hovering off to a nearby log. Fangorn’s own gaze widened, a tight grimace on the gourd’s face. The Honeybee’s brows furrowed, head tilting, trying to gauge the situation, striving to keep the tempestuous edges at bay, even as they gnarled and bit at the edges of her pulse. “Are you angry at me for dying? Like I had any fucking say in it?” She’d had over a year to process the encounter – seasons upon seasons for her vengeful little wake to simmer and seethe, to plan, to brood, to be ashamed of her performance and all the more grateful to those who could return souls back to Caido. She hadn’t been the one with the mageglass, firing overpowered sentiments at newly-forged demigods. She’d just entered a tournament, figured she could make a round in, then go watch –
There could be a thousand other things said in that moment - but for once, she didn't choose the cruel, mercurial, volatile, capricious notions stinging over her tongue.
And then he seemed to be bleeding, and she sighed, mulishly clenching her jaw as she began to search her bag for some kind of bandage.
But the infernal wake, rather than having her slide further vulnerability into the area, had her knotting it tightly in her chest. The rest was an aggrieved bristling, tauter, straighter, composing and narrowing her eyes to fine, dangerous, golden slits. Sila moved immediately, hovering off to a nearby log. Fangorn’s own gaze widened, a tight grimace on the gourd’s face. The Honeybee’s brows furrowed, head tilting, trying to gauge the situation, striving to keep the tempestuous edges at bay, even as they gnarled and bit at the edges of her pulse. “Are you angry at me for dying? Like I had any fucking say in it?” She’d had over a year to process the encounter – seasons upon seasons for her vengeful little wake to simmer and seethe, to plan, to brood, to be ashamed of her performance and all the more grateful to those who could return souls back to Caido. She hadn’t been the one with the mageglass, firing overpowered sentiments at newly-forged demigods. She’d just entered a tournament, figured she could make a round in, then go watch –
There could be a thousand other things said in that moment - but for once, she didn't choose the cruel, mercurial, volatile, capricious notions stinging over her tongue.
And then he seemed to be bleeding, and she sighed, mulishly clenching her jaw as she began to search her bag for some kind of bandage.
because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life
to bring a whole wildfire to life
