M E L I T A
There were no apologies exchanged, no hostile maneuvers, and no bristling, fuming, smoldering comments. Melita often regretted many things in her youthful mind, some tinged with innocent bouts of good fun turned ridiculous and inept, and others discolored, disjointed, with the essence of you could’ve done better and you weren’t enough. This was neither of those ventures, and she didn’t have any remorse for raising her hackles and granting a silent altercation. No one had been hurt. No one had been damaged. It’d been a cycle of poor timing and ineffectual hunting, but otherwise, no harm had come to fall to either of them. The only thing currently suffering was Melita’s empty sack tied to her quiver, meant to hold game instead of pockets of air and midnight, twilight oils. Wessex received her arrow, and the honeybee child’s was lost in the grass somewhere, not likely to be found come spring, when the snow melted and thawed, and someone came across its poor design and used it for kindling. But she smiled in the depths of the evening, seemingly innocent, but along the depths of her etched lips were a signature of mischief and devil-may-care platitudes, as if the entire evening hadn’t been spoiled – amused, despite every hazardous notion in the world barking at them for their silly madness.
But even impish, roguish particles had to come to an end, the rest of the void basking on the fringes; she bent down to pick up Fangorn, and nodded, the sensation of agreement, following Wessex back into the settlements – no secrets passed, no burdens lifted, no shields and veils dropped. It’d been action and reaction, and the girl had to wonder what would come next.
