MELITA
No patch fell from Kiada, no whip of color from Melita’s pocket, yet, they’d already established their role in this game – fight, fight, fight, the hues only an excuse to dissolve back into their abhorrence. And by the time the pain from Kiada’s knife erupted over her shoulder, by the time she watched her flames, her weaponry strike and land, the rest of her team had flickered apart. Wessex had assailed Adam. Jigano had removed Ianto. Amalia had knocked Wessex out of the running.
Then she was alone.
Sometimes it was a frightful, terrifying thing to be alone – the only thing left amidst battlefields and battlegrounds, the rest of the world vacant and gone, or on an opposing side, friends suddenly adversaries due to unforeseen circumstances or rules. It was like the Rift, deep in the shadows, striving desperately to save her sister, to save anyone or anything behind her, limbs trembling, shaking, blood dripping from her wounds; honeybee girl returned to a world that had left her gutted, altered, and contemptuous.
Be the bigger monster, her quivering hands whispered, pulsing with her staff in one hand, the bow in the other, trembling like a leaf. Take them down her heart raced, pervading, an insistent tone that devoured and consumed. She should pay, her mind echoed, eyes flickering briefly to Kiada, her knives, her shield, everyone else gone; naught left for her to do but either simper, whine, surrender, or devastate.
Had she ever given in?
Jigano’s approach was noted by Fangorn, hoping to help his bonded somehow, rambling forward in hopes of tripping the bard’s approach.
And while Melita saw the Sage as a friend, as a mentor, some sort of guiding hand with wisdom, with sagacity, in all her rage, in all her distress, in the blinding holes of the Rift drifting down upon her senses, all she had was her ferocity. She maneuvered forward, trying to duck out of his range.
Then the hand holding her staff whipped quick and swift, don’t touch me snarling against her hackles, raised, a predator backed into a corner, intending to land upon Jigano in whatever capacity she could muster, aching to drop his colored square on the ground. Then she turned, glancing, waiting for the others to follow suit, to snag at her, tear her flesh, carve her bones away –
She wanted to cry. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to destroy. She wanted to curl into a ball and make everything stop.
Amalia’s voice cut through the blighted, enigmatic haze, the belligerence dragging her down, suffocating her, the baker’s figure, her frame, a shield before the Harpy, not allowing Melita to get any closer, for Kiada to cease and desist throwing her knives. She reminded the youth of her mother, but there were no warm lullabies or soft tunes here; and the shaking wouldn’t stop.
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As Jigano approaches, Fangorn intentionally bounds for his legs, trying to trip him up. Melita attempts to hit Jigano with her staff and knock the patch from him.
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
