MELITA
Melita wasn’t surprised that she missed – the minute air of disappointment only clinging to her chest for a moment; everything else unwinding too quickly for her to angst about one minor failure.Because the vines were maneuvering, poised for danger, and with that great bulk, that great size, they might not have stood a chance – Rexanna and Remi targets, and she can only clench her jaw (useless) as one managed to whack her friend across her face.
It was a harrowing ploy, and she might’ve missed Sam’s entrance altogether (had he been there the entire time), until his cube went sailing in the air, and for one, stark interval she thought they had some sort of prayer –
And then it flickered off into the night.
Fangorn, meanwhile, continued to run an entire dialogue through growls, murmurs, and hisses, getting closer and closer to the monarch, to the sovereign of his kind, maneuvering along the threads of shadows and undergrowth, and she didn’t know what to do, where to yield, how to stand. She thought she heard go reverberating through connections, through bonds, but couldn’t tell who it was directed to. Her, or the pumpkin liege?
She noted the remains of her quiver; plenty – quick, methodical motions, following over Rexanna and Samuel’s ideas, suggestions, and tactics, threading an arrow along her bow, pulling the string taut, tight, and then letting it fly again. This time it wasn’t the eyes she aimed for; perhaps too great a distance, too far away, but one of the vines, hoping an impact would thread its way through flesh, securing one of the many.
And her own blessed gourd, a survivor amongst last year’s clan of mauled, brutalized gourds, was rooting through the brush, striving to grab hold of Sam’s cube.
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Melita fires an arrow at one of the vines. Fangorn continues talking to the pumpkin king, and starts looking for Sam’s cube.
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
