MELITA
The banshee’s outcry never quite waned; it curled and recoiled down the length of Melita’s spine – all the sorrow, all the grief, all the agony tormented and twisted around, galvanized and shook her to the core. The youth knew the sinking despair, the overwhelming misery, and it returned, festering, withering, and decaying from within. She swallowed it down and tried to burn it away with her rage and vexation, but with each wail it encompassed her soul. For a few moments she thought to look away, incapable of harming a creature who mourned with such a heartbroken, doleful scream.But then Ronin issued his command, glowing in the torchlight, and she inhaled one sharp intake of air, amidst the pools of broken throngs, and wondered if this was for the good of humanity. If they were getting rid of something to protect someone else. If they were attacking simply because they could. Or – if this was the demon’s exit, their dirge, their swansong, their pyre, their way to freedom and liberation, for naught else would allow them peace or comfort.
Her heart felt heavy, not light, not buoyant, not eager or fervent for the fray – taxed, weighed down, and she had to shake her head to allow the cobwebs to drift off into the distance, to incite, to encourage her to move forward. Her eyes darted at her allies, her comrades, some in danger, and she nodded back to Ronin, suddenly all movement and motion, grabbing a lit torch for herself, and maneuvering past the barricade.
No defenses now – it was all them.
The girl advanced, staff in one hand, torch in the other, intending to swing and poke at the beast with her weapon, hoping to distract it so one of her fellow hunters could finish it off. If it came towards her, she’d swing the burning wood its way too – hoping this would be it (she could listen to the cries any longer; they sounded like echoes and reverberations of the past, reflections she didn’t dare glance upon).
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
