M E L I T A
The impudence and rebellious thoughts billowed away from her; eternally mercurial and tempestuous, one moment a storm, the next a blossom – attention riveted on the tale
Ronin even had an encounter, and she captured that into her mindset too, Fangorn bounding dutifully behind her, not a sound made despite his penchant for hissing, growling, and grumbling. Perhaps he understood the nature of the danger, the treachery, the probability of impending, ominous maneuvers too. A creature with a box sounded intriguing; offering rewards, proffering gifts. Would one have to do something to earn these things, or was it merely if it captured an essence, saw a presence? Was it crooked and cruel, or was it weary and kind? She’d had her fair share of both – the former with all the twists, turns, calamities, and injustices, the gods of her homeland ripped apart, torn, and disassembled with chicanery and blight. All Melita could do was shake her head, ignorant to everything except those experiences from before, and she suddenly wished she had a story to share, a legend to unravel.
But in a way, she did, and though she hadn’t yet repeated it to anyone, and the demon was highly unlikely to come swarming out of the mist (though she wouldn’t be surprised, Kaos had his own way of consuming everyone), the youth wanted to be a part of the glory, of the triumph, of the passing of sagacity and sparks. The honeybee girl wanted them to know she’d seen things, that she wasn’t totally lost in the bounty of ignorance, that she’d survived just like they had, scarred and brutalized. “In my homeland, there was a monster who could raise the dead. When someone begged and pleaded for their loved ones to return, he obliged.” She hid the passing shudder roaming through her, the aching memory of those cherished beings rising from the water, never quite the same. They’d been wrath and contempt, anguish and suffering, embroiled to commit atrocious acts on the beings they’d once been devoted to. “But they weren’t the creatures we’d loved – they were angry, upset, that they could no longer rest. They attacked.” The youth ended her story there, didn’t explain the long, jagged, scar down her back (lightning; puckered, a burnt crisp of skin that told an infinite tale of determination, shielding, terror, and torture), and looked out across the fog again, breathing into the abyss. “Could something like that live here too?” She dared not be afraid of the answer; of catacombs opening and wraiths roaming, of false gods who wove their tenacity and deceit straight into blood and violence.
