MELITA
Melita remembered the outline of the river, the wild plunge and fall of its depths, the intertwining of its fathoms, pressed into the path ways with bare feet and untamed ambition. She wasn’t there for the water today – though the shelled anklet bounding against her skin was like an imploring rush, begging for release along the current’s edge. Were she not occupied with a certain task, she might have done just that, free and abandoned, flying across the fortitude with nefarious grace and unbridled enthusiasm: a bird, a beacon, an insatiable, avaricious thing. But she was no dryad, Naiad, or nymph, no fey, no spirit, no entanglement of anything other than boldness and audacity.The proffered staff in her hand, she and Fangorn combed the embankment. At first, she played on its fringes, dipping her toes along the froth and foam, before remembering her task, why she was here at all – the cracks in her weapon, the shadowy fabric pressing together and taking her gift, offering her one in return. “A Wicker Woman,” she cast under her breath, eyes gazing upon canopies and boughs. The gourd gave her no assistance, as lost as she, eerie stare kindling into the woods and beyond. She couldn’t fathom anything differing or alternating from tree to tree, woefully ignorant, asking no one, heading straight into treachery, danger, without the slightest inclination of how deeply immersed she was (used to it, to the sensation of ominous foreboding pressing on her skin, grown and baptized in its bestial wake). They advanced further and further, deeper and deeper still, one hand touching over bushes, scouring and scanning copses and glades, the other holding her weapon aloft like a beloved friend, and she was hoping to rescue it from the plight of its cracked, splintered surface. Now, if only she could find what she was looking for…
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
