MELITA
She swept another movement of her staff along a branch, listened to the crackle, pondered how long it would take her to fall apart again. She struggled with composure, she strived for something beyond her fumbling fingers and trembling hands, swallowing and wallowing in the roots of all her horrific antics, when a voice shifted over her senses. Surprised for a moment, completely distracted and unaware of anyone’s approach, she scattered a few steps away. Fangorn blinked, opened one eerie eye, then tucked himself back into moss and snow. The youth, however, afraid that somehow, someone would be hurt again at her machinations and ministrations, thought about fleeing into the brambles and nettles, leaving before another was caught in her thorns. Her eyes swam from the canopies, to the understory, to the forest floor, and then back to Loren, blinking rapidly, panicking, cowardly when she'd always been brave, prone to completely out of character intervals because she didn’t know what else to do - was she alright? Hadn’t Loren helped her before? The memories felt like fog and mist, murky and muddled, but there, if she yearned to grab hold of them. Her staff was suddenly tucked back into her grasp, held along her chest, tight and clenching, as if it could offer her solace and comfort in the consuming unknown.“Um. Maybe. I…I don’t know.” The youth shrugged, then shook her head, feeling less and less, like she was small, like she was finite, like she was dust and dirt and soil, never to be noticed or seen or understood again. “I feel a little better.” But that wasn’t much of an offering; no longer bleeding black from her nose, from her eyes, and the horrific nature of her exploits nearly over. The rest might come with time, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.
Then the man lifted his staff, a smile she didn’t deserve reflecting back at her, and the girl’s eyes widened a fraction, trust in the scale of her munitions, of her weaponry, giving and granting some confidence back into the fold. He wanted to learn from her? After she’d tried to set him on fire? After she’d hissed and growled and acted like a damned menace? Melita couldn’t fathom the sudden onslaught of tears threatening to rage over her eyes, so she looked at the ground instead, blinking and dashing them away, before pondering over the measures. She always needed more practice, but was it the right thing to do, when she was barely recovered? When her rage could blister back over her mind, her movements, her motions? Her eyes followed his defensive stance, yet, she remained rooted, solid, entangled along the moss and snow. “Are you sure?”
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
