melita
The hunger gnawed only for snippets more before she’s placed herself on the rock and quilt, gloriously munching away and making contented noises around the pockets of bread, meat, and cheese. She tipped her crowned head to him, then clanked the cup back in a toast, swallowing down the remnants before speaking. “Just be careful that doll doesn’t somehow come back with us,” she winked; still thinking of the potential of its curse, purposefully knocking her knee into his.
But then the question arrived, cautionary and a little too patient, like he was hovering over the edge of another crater. Melita half-wondered if she should’ve mentioned it at all, based on his carefully neutral reply. She waited, thought about gnarling it all together, back into the folds of somewhat processed knots and leaving it there. It was how she dealt with most things that bound against her ribs and bones. Then she debated on the course of his emotions thereafter – remembering how mad he’d been when she’d casually mentioned her death, even though she’d been standing right there, in front of him, alive and fine. But she’d gone too far now, impulsive notions rankling on her tongue, pondering how much to keep locked away and buried, or simply to fling out and see what occurred. “Yeah. Kaisel channeled me in the fucking ocean to help him win a race against Flora…or something,” she waved the hand not containing the sandwich, as if lobbing that piece away made it better. “So I used my wild magic and ended up taking a nap. On top of the water though, ‘cause of my anklet.”
It sounded better in her head, forgoing the potential aspects of drowning, catching the aspects before Iskra might have an opportunity to balk. She’d already lectured Kaisel on it, and then punched/kicked him for good measure. “Not my finest moment, and I didn't like it,” she admitted, taking another bite and savoring the flavors. “But it made me think maybe hardly anyone channels me because I might be useless to them, y’know?” The shrug was meant to be casual, rather than something that had scalded her for weeks. She had plenty of things for trickery and deceit and fun and power, demolition – and it hadn’t mattered in those seconds. “I guess I just need to be ready like…all the time.”
salvation doesn't look like light
