MELITA
Her breath bristled as her fiery arrow hung mid-air, caught by invisible strings and tethers. A savage growl loosened from her throat, and she wondered about firing another, if the mage could control and contort more than once in their powers. Perhaps she should’ve brought her staff, and could’ve tried beating him into submission, the entanglements of Wicker Woman sap and fibers whittling it into sharper, hallucinatory etchings, a strike with more than bruises and lacerations.But the notes scratched and clawed away the moment something else occurred: her eyes rapt, caught, as she balanced on boughs and branches, at the summoning of sparrow bodies and beatific ladies, her head tilting in feral curiosity and bewilderment. Melita had never come across a siren, though had felt its effects more than once – drifting towards ghosts and phantoms, yearning, imploring machinations to try and destroy, distort, and unravel – this one, however, kept her in place, stunned, spellbound, shaking her head to rid herself of the song, but it echoed and meandered, slinking through her brain, over blackened, charred bits and vitriol exploits. It gave her pause, still standing on her tree limbs, less monstrous, more consumed by ulterior considerations, blackened tears springing to her eyes on a sudden swing, and then she leaned down, crouching, and if the branch were wider she’d be kneeling. “Stop. Make it stop.” Her hands were over her ears, but she couldn’t tell what she was asking to cease and desist – the siren’s tunes or the antagonistic blight infiltrating her psyche.
She's so hard to please
But she's a forest fire
But she's a forest fire
