[SE] Guess bein' happy is just easier said than done

I will be your lighthouse

Goose, at heart, was a chicken. The dog gave an overly dramatic yelp as one of Fangorn's vines twisted too close to him, expected pain hurting far more than actual pain could. The toy was abandoned in surrender as the husky shot away from the gourd in a flurry of dust and debris, tail tucked as he scurried under a nearby bush. Iskra paused in his rearranging to look over at them, 'brows pinched as he tried to discern the truth, accustomed to the fake wounds Goose pleaded about.

Melita's voice coaxed his attention back. He risked a glance back towards her, simpering at this newfound knowledge of her. Each word she murmured here had ghosted past his defenses and pressed against his core, warming the frost bit by bit that he'd let Halo layer on for years. No, not Halo, not really. He'd gone to the cold to make it easier, but he'd jumped in a lake of despair first too. The snow and the ice was something to stay buried under, a pretense of comfort when he'd had nothing else, given himself nothing else. Now, Melita was giving him small fragments of herself, each moment a chance to know her again, like he'd wanted. He couldn't afford to lose her again due to foolish notions that he could have more of her than that. It was enough, to have this. More than enough, to be able to smile at her.

"That sounds worse than riding a unicorn. What if a sea beast, or a lake monster, snatches you up from below?

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Fangorn, for all his intents and purposes, was victorious without mustering a single wound. Snagging at the toy with his vines, he gave it several squeezes and squeaks, triumphantly waving it about as Melita arched a brow. At her following snort, the vampire gourd seemed to relent on his supreme devastation, and only grumbled once, before tossing the duck back towards the dog again.

The Honeybee laughed at his smile, and the retort. “Please. Then I would shoot it.” Which was a promise – asinine, juvenile, and ridiculous as it might sound. Perhaps it was all the bravado immersed within; seemingly despite moments of actual death and hands extended into Mort’s capacity – but she’d grown even stronger in the wake of demigodhood, with a permit of chaos, and a no-holds barred justification on her existence. Things that pissed her off, threatened or, or those she cared for, would be set ablaze. She was embers and kindling and incendiary motions; the world wasn’t going to hold her back for fear or annihilation. It might have once or twice before, but now? Now there were sparks of inspiration. “I know that doesn’t solve every problem, but that’s my go-to.”

She could remember Iskra as a laugh-inducing provocation too. Happy. Content. Waves upon waves of comfort and grandiose imaginations that reached stars and skies and currents. “And what about your monsters in Halo?” She hummed, head tilting, Sila’s tail idly contorting in the brief breeze. “I helped take down the yeti, but surely you’ve got some other shit.”

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

I will be your lighthouse

A set of teeth flashed from the brush and grabbed the flung duck. The snout retreated, duck in tow, and the shrubbery set to squeaking every so often.

He arched a 'brow at her self assuredness. She'd always been brave and confident, but to dismiss the potential threats so easily? "You act like you've already vanquished such beasts? Or perhaps you're just invincible as a demi-god?" Immortal, was the better word, but his point remained the same. Was she?

He laughed, shaking his head faintly at her as he put the dishes and eggs back inside the tent. He called out the flap at her, still chuckling through the words. "You know, I've been able to solve most my problems with relative peace all these years." Not an attempt to sway her, per say, but he had always bristled against his family's penchant for bloodshed. They would have been thrilled to have her as a daughter instead. The thought slowed him, a deep sadness clanging against his insides where the warmth of their memory should have been instead. As brilliant of fighters as they were, they'd both still died. He glanced over at Mel, wondering how many unnecessary risks she took for the sake of shooting her problems. Then again, his parents hadn't been demi-gods, and the troubles he was facing? Nothing like what she likely faced, definitely no sea monsters.

He popped back out of the tent, rubbings his hands together as some crumbs stuck to them. "Halo has a lot of defenses. The wild life mostly leaves us alone unless we're in the outer edges. He frowned a bit. "Well, they did at least. The void-touched ones are more... aggressive." It was that way everywhere he'd heard.

Truth be told, he couldn't really stay a pacifist. Part of him knew that. The idea of harming or hurting others though, of adding to any lack of joy in this world that was already greedy about stealing it? It rankled through him, and so he'd only ever been able to put his axe to the woods.

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Fangorn seemed satisfied; brandishing his vines one more time before sauntering back towards the gathered, glancing into the nettles every so often to see if further things could be enticed.

As for Melita, she snickered. “I mean, I have, yeah,” thinking of the potency of the war – of felling monsters, of blowing things up and apart with Ronin in the desert, of stretching her ability to survive through thick and then. But then he said invincible, and her expression altered – for she couldn’t readily admit to that. The bravado diminished in a breath, and her eyes flickered elsewhere; onto branches and bramble, boughs and brush. For all the things she’d accomplished, some still meandered with a caustic bout of shame and embarrassment – perhaps because death had come so swiftly, and so unexpected.

Like she’d been nothing at all – just ether and ash, dismissed. “Nah, not quite..” Her fingers went to her shirt, where scars were covered, and then she pulled away, leaning back against the rock and letting Sila’s tail intertwine over her forearm. Maybe she shouldn’t bother telling him. Or he’d already heard and it hadn’t been a big deal – not worth mentioning when she was living and breathing right there anyway. Her gaze went downward onto rocks and rubble, and she offered a long, long sigh for the thoughts, then went on impulse instead. “You remember that tournament a while back? I think your Warden won it,” and she shrugged again, trying to play off the impending circumstances. “I had just changed over to a demigod and it must have weakened me a little, because one hit from Sah was enough to like, y’know, kill me, and so,” she rambled onward, pretending it hadn’t been laid out into the open, “Ronin brought me back, like almost instantly, but that was a hard lesson.”

Maneuvering on from that, gaze unsettled, her nose wrinkled again at the perception of peace. “I mean, that’s good. Maybe I just wind up in certain situations that require violence.” Or created it herself, which was also a rambling possibility. Walking headfirst into unrelenting vehemence was usually how most of her tribulations stared, but also how they ceased.

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

I will be your lighthouse

He wasn't surprised, he supposed, to hear she had vanquished sea beasts. It reminded him again of her strengths and deeds which far surpassed his own. He wondered what he might be now, if he'd let himself stay alongside her, bright and full of life.

He crouched back down to his seat across from her, too wary to sit beside her again, and listened to her explain what she meant by, nah, not quite... invincible. She started with a question though, one he cannot answer. A tournament, that Deimos won? It felt like something he should have known about, but how could he explain to her the extent to his self-appointed sequestering? That he heard idle chit chat in the bars and in the streets sure, but that he was largely alone when he worked in the woods, and that he'd go days at a time coiled up in his bed. Iskra was essentially a woodland hermit for all intents and purposes, and therefore he didn't know shit about anything.

Thankfully, she didn't wait for his response and continued. Iskra nodded along with the conversation, a minor smile still turning his lips, as her presence forever would. Whatever she said though after the words kill me, Iskra did not hear them. He felt like someone just kicked him in the gut and pushed his self behind his body. Nothing made sense. He felt so cold it burned. The silence was so loud it was deafening. He was sitting, but floating. And inside, as if who he was were nothing more than a great dark warehouse full of collected memories and experiences like pottery and baubles, each intact thing tumbled down, the feeling of every good thing he had remaining just breaking.

He'd been steadily tensing. It started with his teeth, his smile fading as his jaw clenched. It coiled down his arms, each line of defined muscle standing out as it strained. His fingers curled around the skin of the log, knuckles turned white with the severity of the grip. Even down to his boots, his toes rippled and pressed in, angled like talons ready to eviscerate—who did she say?—Sah. Only when the pressure broke, bark biting through skin until blood spread warm and slick in his palm, did Iskra sink back into himself.

He rose to his feet in a rush, as if there was actual momentum that slung him back to this reality. "WHAT!?" he roared, outraged, indignant, terrified. "YOU FUCKING DIED, MEL?" It's a storm, an infero, an earth splitting shake. His fear, it's a force of nature inside of him, unyielding in its rampage because gods, gods—he can't fucking lose her too.

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

For all her honesty and forthrightness, Melita didn’t once expect Iskra’s kindled reaction – of outrage, of distress, of nettled, vexed, irked aggravation to rampage through the forest. Maybe she should have – she’d known how much he’d lost. She just didn’t think, when it came back to her, that it mattered too much. She was alive. She was well. She’d grown stronger. She’d take her revenge.

But the infernal wake, rather than having her slide further vulnerability into the area, had her knotting it tightly in her chest. The rest was an aggrieved bristling, tauter, straighter, composing and narrowing her eyes to fine, dangerous, golden slits. Sila moved immediately, hovering off to a nearby log. Fangorn’s own gaze widened, a tight grimace on the gourd’s face. The Honeybee’s brows furrowed, head tilting, trying to gauge the situation, striving to keep the tempestuous edges at bay, even as they gnarled and bit at the edges of her pulse. “Are you angry at me for dying? Like I had any fucking say in it?” She’d had over a year to process the encounter – seasons upon seasons for her vengeful little wake to simmer and seethe, to plan, to brood, to be ashamed of her performance and all the more grateful to those who could return souls back to Caido. She hadn’t been the one with the mageglass, firing overpowered sentiments at newly-forged demigods. She’d just entered a tournament, figured she could make a round in, then go watch –

There could be a thousand other things said in that moment - but for once, she didn't choose the cruel, mercurial, volatile, capricious notions stinging over her tongue.

And then he seemed to be bleeding, and she sighed, mulishly clenching her jaw as she began to search her bag for some kind of bandage.

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

I will be your lighthouse

He was at a loss. Caught between the urge to sweep her into his arms and never release her again, as if his strength was enough to shield her, or to drop to his knees and beg her then and there to never fight again, hell maybe never leave her house again. Either way, he felt a heightened desire to keep her, cage her like a fragile bird so he might enjoy her song longer even if it meant she wouldn't fly.

Selfish.
Yes. He was utterly selfish, especially when it came to her.

He did neither. Perhaps some portion of him was wise enough to realize she would never warble behind bars, would never be trapped behind them in the first place. She was better than him. The best of them, really. Wasn't that exactly what made this so horrific though? If even she could falter and tumble into a grave, what would stop it from happening again? She was alive, but now he knew she was at risk of dying. Her, strong, brave, fierce Melita who had laughed in the face of danger with him time and time again, had faced the world and it's horrors and smiled. She was not supposed to do anything other than rise.

He had no right. He knew that.
Knowing and agreeing are two very different things though. He also knew, KNEW, that crashing and burning his whole life over grief was a stupid thing to do, and that knowledge was a weight that pressed upon him each and every day he kept making that stupid choice in stubborn refusal to acknowledge it any further than that. What was another boulder with her name on it when he was already smothered by it. What was one more stupid decision made by the fool.

He stared at her, wild with the energy of so much he wished he could do, and so very little he could. He grappled with the air, visibly flexing on the spot as thoughts and emotions warred. Grab her—run, run, RUN. Take her and hide, keep her, his firefly in his palm, brightening his world.

He could not, and that killed him nearly as much.

"You didn't have to enter the tournament Mel!" he bit back at her, flustered and powerless and so damned scared. He knew she had an affinity for flipping off the world—what if she'd lifted her chin one too many times? What if she did it again? No, not if—when—Mel would definitely do it again.

FUCK.

He walked. A strip of ground back and forth in front of her to wear down, a path of ineptitude as she searched for some remedy to his idiocy. If he couldn't stop her, if she wouldn't stop, then what? Gods, he needed to be stronger, what had he been doing?! Stupid, stubborn, asshole wallowing in the cold like Mel wasn't fucking around with danger that whole time. Out of sight out of mind, but she'd always been in his heart. Fuck.

A pause, eyes narrowed. "Why did he do it?" Sah.
Why the fuck did Sah kill Melita?

Fear sharpened into anger, a blade he intended to turn outwards.

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Melita would never be anyone’s damsel in distress, nor caged, clipped bird. There weren’t any hutches or aviaries large enough to contain her fire, her rage, her chaos. She would’ve found a way to bite and claw her way out, with resentment building until she pummeled anything and everything to the ground. And then she would’ve set it all aflame. So it was wise of Iskra to not give voice or chase those notions; she’d always done as she pleased, for better or worse. Some moments were better than others – she could admit to her foolishness in Halo. She could cut her losses with the tournament. She could lick her wounds in private, where coals and embers were stoked rather than ablaze. She could tear herself apart from the inside out from every other stupefying nuance, but it wouldn’t much matter – not when boldness had been so laced into her survival, not when impulse took control and every motivation was so enriched by risk, by reward, by violence and vehemence and vengeance. Ferocity clambered its way up her pulse just as much as her blood.

So when he lanced back, she rolled her eyes, that mulish tilt to her jaw angling enough to encompass her irritation – why this had become the headline when all she’d wanted to do was be fucking honest. “Really? That’s what we’re going to argue about? I’d done a shit ton more dangerous things than that,” she huffed. She hadn’t stabbed him so mercilessly when he fucked off into the wilderness for years – well, that bad. “It was just dumb.” Then she hurled the roll of bandages at him, hoping they might ping off his head or one of his many muscles.

Then she leaned back against the tree, arms already crossing at her chest, like stitches of armor where her furrowed brow and irritating endeavors clearly weren’t doing enough. “How the fuck would I know? Wasn’t the first thing I asked him.” Glancing over at the limbs and boughs nearby, she wrinkled her nose, bothered, nettled, thorned herself now. “Koa thought he had one of those mageglass things to enhance his magic – that’s probably what did it.” Then, maybe to make herself feel better, she inwardly picked at the old wound, a reminder. “I’ll get my revenge on him at some point.” When she was stronger. Better.

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

I will be your lighthouse

Melita chose possibly the most unhelpful thing to return fire with. Yeah, I died that time, but what about all the other times I could have died, but didn't! Because of what, dumb fucking luck?

Iskra was incensed. "That's not better!" he thundered, heat searing the back of his eyes as if he was standing too close to a forge. The rest strangled in his throat and died inside him and he drew in a shaky breath instead. A blessed distraction was served as the roll of bandages hurtled towards him. He snatched it from midair with a hand, his fingers crushing the soft fabric against his palm like it was a stress ball. He glanced sidelong at her, grateful even if he couldn't ascertain it around the vicious terror.

Shit.

He could see the threads of her calm stretching thin, shadows drawn in new creases, carved there in the curt angle of her head and the weary pinching of her nose. She was being an anchor again, but she was not made of iron, he always knew she was the fire that shaped it.

He did not want to fight with her. Not just because he usually lost, but because how was this what he was wasting time on with her? It'd been how long since they'd talked, and here he was shouting at her. He sighed loudly and wisely kept his mouth shut for a while from then on, focusing on bandaging his cut hand instead, though his movements jerked with the rigidity of displeasure. At her death, at his choices, at Sah. Just, fuck it all.

He bit the cloth between his teeth and tore it to the side as he finished his wrap. He tucked the tail into the last layers and bunched the roll back in his hand, squeezing it once or twice again as he stared her down. He ran an anxious hand through his hair and approached the seat beside her once more. He leaned down to sit, if she'd have his stupid ass, after tossing the roll back towards her. "I want in," he said with a stiffness, his throat still thick with emotion, but he'd managed to swallow a lot of it. "I want to help you." His eyes flashed as he set them back to her, a colder edge to them than typical—Halo had taught him enough about ice.

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

No; it’d been because she was potent and powerful and did what had to be done. Monsters didn’t rankle her nerves – the urge to protect Torchline had. War torn dilemmas had spun at her edges and she’d been committed to the front, since the very beginning. She’d survived far worse than the freak accident of lightning binding her to Mort’s Realm. And her mother hadn’t sacrificed herself so her daughters could go on living in fear, in agony, curled away in shadows, never stretching their hands out to the sun or seeing how far they could blister and scorch the earth.

But he bit back again and her features angled into incensed boundaries, frankly, wishing she hadn’t even said a word. All honesty and vulnerability had shown was that underlying anger and terror beneath all the other potencies. They could’ve had a nice time, not wallowing in their wounds. Those stubborn intricacies riddled right through her though, as if she couldn’t help it – wanting to explode or explain or unfurl every essence of her being. “I’m not going to sit around and do nothing. I never have. I never will.” So if he was so gods damned irate about that, then so be it. He could fuck off back to Halo and leave her alone again. Even if there’d been a choice in the matter, the demigod status she now wielded would blend her right back to the fray; even if it was merely chaos, and bedlam, the gods always found a way. “At some point I’ll be immortal,” she offered as a stalemate, and then turned her head back to her bag, wondering if she was better off throwing it over her shoulder and wandering back down the trails.

Her jaw was tightly clenched when he came to sit by her again, sharpened eyes snagging at boughs and limbs nearby, rather than his face. Instead, they went to his hand, neatly bandaged, and then to her palms, as the roll was tossed within, and she could rally it back and forth, occupying the restless edges.

He pulled her attention back to him the moment he uttered I want in, as if it was some sort of bank heist, brow arching as she swerved, body turning back towards his. “You’re not going to be implicated in my crimes.” She could see it going a hundred different ways and most of them very wrong. Offering a sigh, then a cheeky grin, she pocketed the bandages, trying to steer the ship around. To what, she wasn’t certain – but unknown destinations and random occurrences, opportunities, amidst the whirlwinds of chaos were usually her thing. Placing her chin on his shoulder, she shrugged. “Maybe you could point his house out to me so I can burn it down.”

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

I will be your lighthouse

Immortal. That was an instant relief to the wild ache of his worst thoughts and greatest fears. It stilled the squeezing of the cotton in his hand before he tossed it to her, and it seemed to break the storm. The ground was still windswept though, and some flooding remained pooled in the more recessed areas that was the terrain of Iskra's heart. Immortal. She'd outlive him then. Long beyond him, and he'd crumble away from her memories as they stretched on and he became nothing more than an iota of dust on the long trail of the mantle of her existence.

Good. She did not need him. She needed to live, and forever seemed exactly the right amount of time for her.

"Yeah, I know. Because then it'd be our crimes." There's a ghost of a grin. An attempt at an apology wrapped in a joke. Let's pull back, and try again the lines against his cheeks quietly begged. Were he braver, he might have done more, but Iskra could not risk exposing more of himself today than he already had. Even this would all sting later when it began to knit over itself and sink into the pool of his memories.

As if of a shared mind, Mel did similar, but as usual, she was willing to risk more to accomplish something better. Her chin slipped against his shoulder like it was meant to be there. As if the dip and fold of his muscle had crafted itself into a nook designed for the contours of her jaw. Something in him caught, most likely a lung on a rib, as he felt like the entire world just ground to a halt except all the bits inside of him that floated up and slammed against his bones. The pause, a terrified gasp of time, relented into a flutter of acceptance, of wholeness. Had he been missing this piece of himself for so long that he'd forgotten she was part of him?

"I can bring oil so it'll burn faster."

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Heedless and ignorant of the other fault lines caused, she took a softer approach – sighing, trying not to feed into another caustic imbalance of fire and vitriol. That had always been easier to feed, to pour incendiary proportions on and witness the revival of infernos – summoning her willpower to simmer instead, to just be was easier said than done. She could feel the restlessness tangling and intermingling along her skin, and she curled her fingers along her palms, rather than ghosting at the fabric of his shirt or tugging him into her, making up for abandoned and lost time. In other moments, she would have hastily stomped off, pissed, angry, and vexed; the stillness gave her a chance to breathe, to take it all in again.

There was some apology nestled in there, and she took it for what it was worth, murmuring after it with a Cheshire grin giving chase. “You know just what to say,” and she wrinkled her nose in regard, laughing, letting the merriment dissipate over the fumes and vices. Perhaps they shouldn’t have been joking, or not – it was difficult to know with Melita’s mercurial plans – about demolition and destruction, but it was easier than trying to find a salve for old wounds. And she’d picked at her own lacerations long enough – and he’d certainly done the same. She was very tired of looking at all of their scars.

So she stared at him, gilded eyes scrutinizing again as they took in his profile, his eyes, his mouth, his stubble and beard, impulses very eager and, for once, her mind taking pause. Then the Honeybee took another long breath, as if gearing up for something monumental and immense, when it was simply acceptance, honesty, and veracity. “I missed you.”

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life

I will be your lighthouse

It would be the threat of criminal violence that would finally grant them the peace to accept each other  fully again. What had once been harmless, childish schemes—hilarious and adorable in their innocence—had now become very real and dangerous threats, especially in her practiced hands. It was more than that though. Underneath the plot of arson and bodily harm, there was a promise of support, a willingness to stand beside each other and endure the world together. There was little that could compare to finally feeling like you had someone who was there for you, property destruction and all.

"Funny," he murmured, "I could say the same about you." After all, it was her voice that guided him back here. She spoke to him and he finally felt alive, an ember glowing beneath her breath.

He could feel the weight of her gaze, the quiet that stretched with contemplation and a honeybee's sigh. He stiffened, waiting for some anticipated refusal, some flaw she finally noticed despite her reassurances thus far. What he did not expect, was that. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Iskra leaned his head against hers, wrapping his arm around her back, pulling her closer than he’d ever dared. "Oh Mel," he rasped, his voice thick with years of unspoken emotion. "The worst thing I ever did was leave your side."

From the shrubbery Goose crawled free, the whites of his eyes visible as he slunk past Fangorn and crawled towards where Mel and Iskra sat. There, he flopped against their legs and the log, the long exhale of a duck regaining its breath cutting through the woods.

Iskra

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Didn’t arson make hearts grow fonder? Or maybe that was just Melita – content under the threat of demolition and destruction, in the presence of potential vengeance and a favorite friend, returned from the ruin of his own making. Her support had always been unwavering, had he just let her, and perhaps that was where they were now – skating and skimming over what it meant to be beyond children and their games. Purpose and promise laden; rather than pretenses and showboating, consequences and all.

And for all her impulses and veracity, the Honeybee didn’t expect his reaction – the threat of tears, the long-held breath, the world-weary rasp, and the sudden swinging of his head against hers. Touch-starved as she was, and of her own volition, she curled into the motions immediately, nestled somewhere in the roll of muscles and shoulders, trying to abate the own rush of emotions clamoring behind her eyes. They lurched against her ribcage and wanted to keenly defy the control she contained, eager to fracture and break – later, probably, when he wasn’t there, and she’d be able to wade through the fragments, try to decipher, reflect. There was even sedition played across her lips, clinging to a few unspoken words to either joke or tease or taunt away from the torture he was putting himself through again. What came out instead was her forthright candor again, a rogue little smile he probably couldn’t see. “I mean, I’m not going anywhere,” so the motions were in his sway and power again. Melita would coast and ghost and spring about across regions in her own unrestrained ferocity; and he’d be welcome to join.

Goose’s long breath and duck call broke over a lot of things; and certainly the tension riddled in her frame. She laughed again, loud and exultant, avoiding the bold and audacious endeavor clinging to her fingers, thoughts of plucking tears out of his eyes, and more to rogue invitations. “And now we can do far worse things.” 

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life