M E L I T A
Truth be told, the girl had always known she couldn’t win at everything. Even from a very young age, that much had been certain: instigating games and fights that only ended with her marred or affronted, tables turned so quickly, so swiftly, that she’d hardly had time to blink before the rest of the world had dissolved her advantages. She’d pretended to be a monster in the waves, roaring and howling, splashing and cavorting, before older boys had opted to vanquish her. She’d growled into caves and then sputtered at the howl echoing back at her. She’d hissed at ghosts and hurled insults at spectral gods, and bore their affront, the root of her defiance, straight back at her form. But it didn’t mean she still didn’t strive, still didn’t try. She just didn’t have much success. “I can learn,” she nodded, brazen, gilded gaze flicking back at Roana, struggling not to feel the aches and pains of her latest education.
Thereafter though, the girl hadn’t expected a mercurial, tempestuous change to the other woman’s expression – she watched it and the reactions following, a hand on her blade, and Melita wondered if she was about to strike her for her insolence, for her sedition, for the vitriol marked in both stares. But it wasn’t about her, but Wessex, to which the youth held back the mutinous snort. She only had her own experiences to embark upon when it came to the Ascended: but she’d never felt in danger. Discarded, cast aside, perhaps, when the flames of Natural vitriol had sparked along the Spire’s horizons, but any other time Melita had sputtered back, flared and gathered insurgency, full of spirit and will and damned resolve. Wessex had never threatened her. Wessex had never bludgeoned her. She’d thought her unworthy, certainly, but the honeybee child had every ambition of showing Wessex, Roana, and everyone else on the earth exactly what she was made of (fire and destruction, havoc and might, power and potential and potency sprung upon ferocious ambitions - watch me). If something erred, altered her, doomed her, Melita would only have herself to blame. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Her smile was another seditious one, full of insubordination and claws; tucking the information away because she wasn’t completely insipid and stupid, but relied more on her own knowledge and occurrences. If it backfired, Roana could always have a nice I told you so proclamation.
But now, with her ankle still swelling and aching, the adrenaline wearing off, the sagacity passed – she probably ought to stop wasting Roana’s time and limp her way out. “Thank you for taking the time to teach me,” she bowed her head, flaming locks falling over her face. “I appreciate your wisdom.”
