[Training] no one told you to breathe

MELITA

Training, in Sunjata’s current condition, sounded foolish at best. The youth understood it was a way to have one more round of scrambling, practice, and precision before she left for things beyond the shoreline (and the greedy contortions to her welcomed it). But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a horrific notion, especially on the size, the scale, of his burns, and any other injuries lurking, not yet fully healed or soothed. The notion to chide, to save it for another day, bristled in the back of her mind, but knowing her uncle, any savagery she instilled wouldn’t do much good – in one ear, and out the other.

So she journeyed alongside him to the boxing ring, forgoing the sigh brewing in her chest. Last time she’d been here Maea had still been alive, and it felt like lifetimes between pale wraiths hanging off the Flood’s arm, and to now; where Sunjata would soon be marrying two people, and wrapping her head around the situation felt like more than she could bother with for the moment. Instead, she marched with an even keel, placing her bag down by the entrance, retrieving her daggers from the inside of her calf, where they commonly rested for any unholy reason (defense, assaults, siege upon siege). But they weren’t her preferred weapon, as the honeybee youth frequently went for the longer ranges of her bow, or the lengthy reach of her staff.

But that was why she was here, after all.

“Of course,” she rolled her eyes and snarked back, as if the girl would travel anywhere without some sort of armament on her (she usually had at least three). Fangorn plopped himself down beside the ring, either to watch as an eager audience member, or to take a nap. Melita maneuvered in front of Sunjata, twin daggers, he’d be able to recognize them, poised in her grasp. “What first?” As she loosened up her arms as well, stretching them over each shoulder, ensuring they were limber and ready for ensuing escalations.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts