MELITA
It was fading. It was dying.Her heart hurt, pounding through her chest, alive and well, while the rest of this portion of the world seemed to fade to black. Why? She wanted to scream, some feral notes, some savage howls, why does this keep happening?, and maybe Delah was right. Maybe they were the blight in the realm, and their hands were too dirty, their sins too obvious, their greed too unrelenting.
She was useless. She didn’t have magic. She didn’t have any healing powers. She didn’t have any herbs. She didn’t have anything but her wishes and hopes and prayers and what did they amount to anymore? What did they matter, in the grand scheme of things?
But the bloodied water didn’t bother her. The youth slid across the top of the surface, bare feet across ichor red, the Naiad’s bracelet tucked along her ankle, carrying herself closer and closer, trying to hum the same tunes under her breath, trying to match pitch for pitch, sonnet for sonnet, so the realm wasn’t as bleak, wasn’t as wounding, wasn’t as sorrowful. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she drew nearer, because she was, she was. Melita was sorry she was useless. Melita was sorry she was nothing. Melita was sorry for so many things, all at once, intertwined and sorrowful. Ludo, she wondered, she tried, she called, the keeper of death throngs and knells. Could you help it?
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
