MELITA
There was hardly a warning except for a soft footfall in the false evening, in the chambers of enigmas and quandaries – her head whipped around, crimson locks flying in the darkness, but the last person she expected to materialize out of the shadows was Kiada. Fangorn managed a hiss, then a growl, while Melita’s features clenched, the fire biting behind her gilded gaze. Her stare lingered on her blade, on all the things they’d last spoken to one another (she the most; all the vitriol and hatred, smothered and exhausted, but the ashes and remnants still there, vibrant again on her tongue). She lowered her staff, obvious in her intent not to harm, but the maiming intrigue was there all the same, words and words, phrases jumbled together, yearning to hurt her the way her actions had mauled Melita’s family, the way they’d been torn apart and never stitched back together. To the end, she knew it wasn’t all entirely the Harpy’s fault, but to some measures she didn’t care either, because Kiada lent herself to be a target of her anger, of her contempt, of all the loathing stored below the goodness, the ebullience, the determination. Her face was something belonging to fury and injustice, a vengeful line from her brow down to her nose, across the drawn line of her mouth, kindled, incensed, waiting for irreverence. Just the mere notion of coming together simply to knock one’s teeth out gave her some semblance of glory and triumph.“Yes,” she answered to both questions, backing off, eyeing her cracked, splintering staff. She should’ve brought something else down, but it’d been comfortable and familiar in her hands, nothing she had to think about; an extension of her arm, pretending it was like a blade, like a cutlass, like a knife. “Weapons or fists?” She declared, her upraised, defiant chin an obvious motion that she had no preference, could adhere to either with ready, fervent aplomb.
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
