MELITA
Perhaps the most disappointing part of all was that deep down Melita knew her actions were just a direct result of rage, of sadness, of bitter, rancorous plots and schemes. Nothing would come of them – maybe some satisfaction in causing Kiada pain too, but the girl had already experienced those things first hand. Melita was too far gone now though, deep in the trenches of her grief, her fear, her abhorrence, an intolerance for the way things had been destroyed and altered, the way her family had been ripped apart, the way Kiada’s hands had been amidst with Kisamoa’s and Kao’s and the blackened, Stygian outcries all laden in between, rotten and decrepit. She could still remember the smoke and fumes. The rush of the portal. The lack of light. The shadows crawling. The unknown spiraling and spiraling and spiraling around them – nowhere to go but into bedlam and menace.And now here she was, a direct result of a life torn into bedlam.
She was a tempest, she was a throng, she was a storm rising from sands and salt, irritated in Kiada’s sidesteps, wanting to beat and beat and beat.
Then the staff fell, and a glorious little smirk traversed its way across her mouth. If she were any more confident and proud, she would’ve whooped for joy, would’ve carved out the underground with her insidious delight. But she didn’t have time.
Her eyes caught the balled fists, the change from weaponry to a more human element, and shifted to the right, thinking they were being wound to knock into her, to drive into her flesh and bruise, notch another blemish into skin and bone. It was very clever of Kiada to then utilize her legs, sweeping across Melita’s, and the girl should’ve known, should’ve realized, because she’d been played this way with Roana, but didn’t recognize the signs until it was too late –
Hitting the ground with a hiss, a gasp, an ache in her hip.
But lord, she wasn’t done yet – feral and untamed, savage and brutal, the staff still in her hand, she snarled and sought to unleash upwards again, from the floor, striving to swing the weapon against or into Kiada’s knees, wanting to hear the simmer of anguish and pain in the hollowed chambers.
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
