MELITA
She waited, waited, and waited, the pressing darkness closing over her eyelids, opening them at the echo of a voice but no body, no form, her lips breathless as she caught the container, as the gilded sap rose, distorting, contorting, reshaping into webs and nettles. You have done well puffed against her, and she wanted to argue the point. No, I haven’t, her mind answered, thinking to bend her head back down and stare at the moss, at the stones, at the lanterns pushing light against her skin. “Thank you,” she said instead, afraid and delighted, apprehensive and bemused. It’s a combination of emotions that cool and curl into her soul, and she wasn’t worthy of any of them.But then her staff followed in the same suit, and she muted a gasp from her throat as it billowed into the air on its own accord, as if Ludo was every edge of the darkness, every fringe of the shadows. The weapon appeared to be scrutinized and inspected, a little more worn than last seen, a little more buckled and bent and stripped down, beaten into adversaries and enemies, a workhorse of its own accord. “I did,” she whispered back, not knowing where to place her gaze, so it went to the munitions, to the candle, to the stretch of the abyss.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
Give the bruises out like gifts
