MELITA
Maybe that’s all she was now: sharp and merciless, unrelenting, angry, the brutal, mercurial temper unleashed when cataclysms never ceased. Her eyes went to the bow, and in another lifetime, another void, another world, she might have asked about it, one of her favorite weapons. But today she was fire and irritation, bristling, grating, grinding on the edges of her fumes, narrowing her eyes at the nature of Sunjata’s distortions and everything nestled in between. Nothing simple. Nothing easy. Needed time. Sunjata didn’t know what the hell he needed at any given moment. Maybe it was a way to push Maea aside, as he’d done with so many others since Lusea’s death. Her shoulders lifted in an unhelpful shrug, incapable of answering for either fool.
The words came across crisp and clear though, and the youth snorted. “Not particularly.” Whether or not the meaning slashed along in Melita not liking her simply out of some other intonations or because she was with Sunjata (though that didn’t seem to be the case anymore) remained unsaid, vague. Maea wasn’t Lusea; the flame a favorite, an unleashed haven the youth had adored. Then she was gone. Her head tilted a fraction, considered the weight to her words. “Is there a reason I should like you?” All she knew of the woman were her pale comings and goings; ghostly sightings down hallways, transfixed on the Flood. The honeybee child wondered if she’d be like an ill omen, a grave, a catacomb for him now too – all phantom boundaries, refusing to release chains.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
Give the bruises out like gifts
