it comes with a price

MELITA

An abrupt gasp left her the moment Nate confided he hadn’t known all the details of what would happen. His choice in Ascension had been almost furtive, secretive then, tucked away, forgoing other circumstances and trivialties, forgetting the probability and likelihood of suffering. It made her mad, a sudden, incensed stoking in her blood, grinding and unwinding, pulsing right down to her fingers, which clenched and unclenched in her swift fists. Were she anywhere else she mighr have growled or howled too, irritated, annoyed, and vexed for him. “That’s ridiculous.” Where was the justice? Her brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, staring out over the sea as she concocted mutinous considerations, but had no outlet to place them within. “So you were deceived.” And her gilded eyes went toward him, all manner of vengeance and ferocity unfurling in their wild measures. Oh, he’d distracted her from anything and everything else to be certain, but now the cost was her rage.

Except he must’ve attempted, or known better, because the topic shifted to Fangorn, and she couldn’t remain in that threshold of abhorrence and contempt when discussing her companion. The youth inhaled and exhaled a few more times, a rise and fall of breath, lungs, and chest, stare riveting back to maneuvering tides and currents, the tips of rosy-hued fins as they dove back beneath the water. “He was one of the few surviving ones the first year we were here.” The smallest smile managed to fragment along her mouth, hands reaching out scratch the top of the gourds’ head. “I offered him some food, and he stayed with me.” Because Fangorn, like her, had known how to endure, persist, and prevail.

The offer pulsed through the air too, and she wondered for a second what it would be like, to not worry about those rendered traumas, of grasps slipping over throats, of the pressure, the agony, the twist and turn of fateful accord. “Sure,” was a little quieter, but she rose off the sand with the pumpkin in her grasp, ready to follow.

You're all gonna watch me
Disappear into the sun