From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Well he certainly wasn’t sure how he got here of all things. But at least the trees along the shore were brighter than in the Hollowed Grounds, and he appreciated the vibrancy of a majority of them – though there were some that had begun to fade, shift and change, but whether it was due to the blight or the changing season, he wasn’t sure. But after the long walk he had done, the comment that he was working when he was really mostly trying to explore more and see just how far the blight had spread, he had found himself here. Spit out in a sense.
But he steps out, boots sinking into the sands as he checks out the body of water, feeling a small amount more like he’s back home than the tiny oasis in the Hallowed Grounds. He inhales the air deeply, smiling softly to himself at the idea of the water, before he moves over toward the edge of the bank, taking his shoes off and rolling up his pants to go stand in the water. And when he does, he glances about the waters beneath, the sands at his feet, when he notices a small amount of sparkling stones beneath them.
“Ai, wat het ons hier? Geen groot klippe nie, maar iets.” He hums to himself, slipping back into his home language with a quiet chuckle, squatting down to look at the shifting hues beneath the water, reaching in to grab a handful and sifting through them.
ai, wat het ons hier? Geen groot klippe nie, maar iets. – oh, what do we have here? No huge stones, but something.
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Something was off; but she couldn’t explain it, couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t say anything about trembling hands and clammy skin, uncertain if she was under the weather or if there were other notions scrambling through her senses – or if it was nothing, nothing at all but the hindrance of affectations bristling against her mind. On a distraction, the need for discerning and deterrents, she meandered along the distance, sticking her head into the chilling autumn wind and savoring its essence for the briefest of seconds, before the shuddering began again, and she had to tuck herself back into the foundations of fur along her neck.
What was going on? Things she cherished, the whip and will of the breeze, the infernal exaltation of autumn, the sudden bliss after a lingering storm, felt empty along her flesh, hollowed out instead of hallowed.
She swallowed down the embittered notions, listened to Fangorn, felt him nudging at her ankles, waiting for her to spring into action, into melees, into torrential flames and spitfire ambitions. Instead, she simply felt withdrawn, tired, fatigued; ever since the vampire gourd, ever since the king –
Her eyes traced over the foundations of earth she’d somehow not crossed over before: beatific shoreline and whispering rivers, and she remembered the Naiads, the collection of beads brushing against her foot, the trace of days where all she did was follow and embark into the unknown. Then, her gaze shifted down the embankment, and an unknown, unfamiliar figure was nearby, a man, shoes gone, pants rolled up, likely to enjoy the rush of the brook’s flares and currents.
She flowed by, staff in hand, pushing it into the dirt and loam, and would’ve offered a brandished, exuberant hello to the stranger, had she not been wholly distracted by the set of words flowing from his mouth. Quickly, her head snapped in his direction, because the majority of them were completely unfamiliar, nothing she would’ve caught, snagged, or even remotely understood, save for one. Geen.
Days beneath the summer sun, of grass beneath her feet, of the wilderness stretched before her haunted her visions – a man, strange too, appearing before their mother, uttering nothing but Geen; it’d been what she’d called him, a name for a face that was striking and harsh. “Excuse me,” she uttered, not quite quiet, but not her usual, boisterous incantations, somewhere in between ricocheting savagery and the inaudible. “I only recognized one of those words – do you know someone named Geen?” Because how remarkable would it be? How amazing – more and more connections from a broken, shadowed world?
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
The water rushes over his feet and the base of his legs, and he sighs inwardly as he inspects the sparkling sands beneath him. It isn’t until a voice calls out to him that he realizes someone else is there – the sound of the rushing water drowning out everything but the feeling of home and rampages and the escape that had taken him from country to country. His head turns toward the girl as he removes the sand from his hands and lets the water rinse the left behind pieces.
“Geen?” He hums to her with a chuckle, standing and making his way back toward the shore, toward her – nearly towering in his height. “I’m afraid I don’t. Poor name for a person, though.” He attempts to joke, not knowing how close to home it is. But there might be something sort of familiar about the way Sunjata stands, for Melita, for the way he favors his weight on one foot, the way his face too shares an almost sharpened harshness to it.
“Geen means ‘no’ where I’m from.” He attempts to explain, wiping his hands of the water as he stands in the damp sands. It’s only now that he gets a good look at her and his brow raises in suspicion. Something too familiar and uncomfortable about it, but he watches her briefly with a curious look. “Who are you?” He asks, an edge to his voice as he grows suspicious.
Who else was here that knew his language? Enough to think that someone’s name was such a trivial word?
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
The roar of the water didn’t serve to distract her, not when faced with a hum and chuckle, the unknown and familiar glancing, glaring back at her. He was much larger than herself, but mostly everyone was; an undaunted little thing brushed up against the sands, staff in her hand, whittling it in front of her body while she listened - poor name for a person though was a little disheartening. She hadn’t dubbed the man, the beast she recollected and recalled; but her sharp gaze took him all in now, now, now, harkening back to something she couldn’t quite place. The youth tilted her head back and forth, curious and inquisitive, insightful and prying, desperate to uncover just what was tugging at the back of her mind – a true diversion from trembling fingers.
It meant no? So it hadn’t even truly been a calling, a title, anything at all, just a statement uttered when she’d been nestled in curiosity. Perhaps that stung a little harsher than it should have, deep in her chest, in the bloom of her soul; another thing she’d traipsed along in as truth, a fixated memory of a time long gone, and it hadn’t held the same regard – he hadn’t corrected her, he hadn’t given her anything accurate, let her meander through the murk as something else entirely. “Oh,” she frowned, a wrinkle to her brow and nose, gilded gaze flickering down to the pebbles, stones, and sand at her feet, pushing her toes into their warmer embraces. The girl was marginally disappointed that her efforts hadn’t gone well, that in the end, there were other things built upon lies and misnomers. “Hm. He never said his real name then,” she muttered to herself, somewhat downcast and less amused. “He called me hommelby, but I didn’t know what that meant either.” Not versed in the language, or anything anymore, a sigh pulsed and billowed through her chest, and then her stare meandered closer to Fangorn, who pushed against rocks further down the shore. “He reminded me of a vulture.” She shrugged thereafter, not certain why this stranger would care about her rambling, nonsensical cues, the familiarity quite gone and vanquished already.
But when she looked back up, he was asking for who she was, likely trying to place where she fit in amongst foreign conversations and speeches. That was fair – she’d already proffered a ridiculous feat – and while she talked, while she offered again, the girl inclined herself closer to the water, a sudden yearning to pace above the current. “I’m Melita.” She didn’t catch the suspicion, one foot already braced along the swell of the surface. She tilted her head, glancing back over her shoulder at him, an echo, a reflection. “Who are you?”
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
The girl seems to deflate, and for a moment Sunjata tries to figure out just why that might be. It doesn’t occur to him that it might have been an unspoken tether, a reach for something she so desperately wanted. But he listens to her as she speaks, eyes calculating and watchful as she mutters. His head tilts at the mention of another word – one that sounds like it could have been a name once upon a time, or at least an endearing term.
“Hommelby means bumblebee.” He offers while his eyes narrow, as the information hits and sinks, even further when she comments that he had reminded her a vulture. He had known someone like that once, the sharp harshness of a predator – a thing that Sunjata almost carried as well, though his sharpness was a small amount softer. It helped, being a house of Laws rather than the rest of the houses of Korofi.
It still didn’t explain why she seemed so familiar, though, and when she tells him her name it definitely doesn’t sound like something from home. And he’s almost relieved. Almost. His head turns toward her as she moves toward the water, thankful that perhaps this girl knows how to swim, and he follows a slight amount to his ankles yet again in the water as his gaze narrows on the girl briefly.
“I’m Sunjata.” He offers easily with a small shrug before his head tilts slightly. He focuses on the red tinge to her hair, the way her face is slim yet still carries a similar sharpness to her cheekbones that screams something familiar yet worlds away. He can’t quite place it. “It’s strange, to me, that you know a few words of my language and you seem familiar in a way I can’t figure out. Any ideas why that could be?” He mumbles thoughtfully toward her, steel eyes narrowing.
Could it be? No, Jata was certain he had suffocated the flame that was Graasvoel.
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Bumblebee; a word to describe or impart upon her from a tender young age, designated by a complete stranger – uncertain of how apt or true the title transcribed over her entity. A stinging nettle, barbed and thorned, but compassionate too, springing, bounding, striving to spread beneficence where it was warranted, needed, before raising her hackles, crimson wolf beneath locks and scorn. Her eyes caught the way his narrowed, the dangerous levels and lacquer she seemed to tread upon, dancing on daggers and knives, and the whirlwind crescendo of her simply not caring, indifferent to the potential savagery, not immune to the splinters and shards of it within her own sanction. But why upon her - when she’d only pondered a few inquiries, when she’d only proffered a minute amount of intonations.
Unless there was something else she couldn’t see, pervading below the surface, knotted and gnarled, and she was ignorant to all the yesteryears, the clusters of history, where vultures were more than just scavengers.
He moved toward the water again, and she lingered further in, pressing her toes into its depths, staying afloat, embarking over the veneer, feet embedded into the current, but not sinking, not falling.
An escape route, if she needed one.
He offered his name instead of omens though, and she traced over the syllables within her mind – but they weren’t clear either, no familiarity lacquered between their vowels and consonants. At his focus, at his scrutiny, she raised her chin, defiance for the sake of defiance. Why was she recognizable to him then, when she had naught to recollection? Should she have known him? Was it something else she’d missed in her misspent youth? In her wild excursions? In her fight to survive? “Very strange,” she murmured in return, not fire, not vitriol; a state of curiosity and reverberations, Fangorn growling from the shore, staff still flexing in her hand, tracing the outline of the water beneath her feet. “I’m from Helovia. I lived in the Dragon’s Throat, with my mother and sister.” With my family and friends, before everything sputtered and fell apart. Maybe he was one of the many who’d been immersed there too, stuck and strangled and tossed when monsters too big to conquer haunted the eaves? Or was it another portal – a hollowed void, with claws and talons, with demons and ogres? “Then we were in the Rift, for a time.” Perhaps they could serve as sparks of recognition, or nothing at all – and the enigmas, the mysteries would remain.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
She seems to hover above the water, and his brows lift in surprise and a small sigh. Why ever would you want to walk on water when you could swim and dance within the waves, within the endless depths of the unknown. But he stifles down the frustration in anticipation of more pressing questions, and listens while she mentions it’s strange. He doesn’t seem to recognize her, nor his name, and his lips form a small fine line as she explains where she’s from.
Helovia doesn’t sound familiar to him, but there’s a hint of something at the back of his mind from Dragon’s Throat. He can’t quite place it though, perhaps a place he had visited in his escape? The Rift certainly doesn’t ring any bells (despite the fact a different version of himself had lived in the depths of unblinking eyes and dangers) and he frowns further with a shake of his head.
He steps a bit further into the water, until the tips of his pants grow wet as he focuses on the red headed girl – placing it finally in a way that makes his stomach churn. It’s the hair, the freckles, those gilt eyes and the shape of her nose that strikes a familiarity in him that makes him grow wary and weary. “And your father? Did you know him?” He asks with a tilt to his head, narrowed eyes remaining as he calculates.
How old even is she? Is it possible for the portals to age? How old was he now? He felt as though he was the same, but he supposed anything was possible.
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
He followed – and she only lingered upon the fathoms, the cool ease of the currents a chilling, vivid dream beneath her; temptation to take off the anklet and dive into the depths was there, but his inquiry caught her short, the tilt of his head, the echo of what felt like lifetimes ago flooding back over her.
And your father? Did you know him?
She’d never thought much about it – their mother hadn’t explained anything. It’d been a silent, unsaid notion, and the youth, despite watching other families interact, had never sought to ask. Perhaps it’d been a taboo topic: a man who’d left, who’d fled, or who’d died, withered and decayed away before they ever had the opportunity to meet him. Maybe her mother felt shame at the notions of a beast who’d disappeared. But not once had she ever looked upon them as a burden – her babes in the fields and meadows, nestled amidst wildflowers, thistles, and thorns, daydreamers and believers, curious and inquisitive, singing her soft songs amidst copses and sand. Would it have made anything better – to have known who he was? Would it have changed anything?
“I don’t know.” The honeybee girl shook her head, reddened locks dangling and tossed, the calculating air in his eyes fixating her on the inquiries, on the questions. Was this Sunjata aware? And how – how could he possibly comprehend the answer, or even bring up the topic, unless he was certain, imploring, invested in a particular outcome? She swallowed down the bile coating her throat. “I had a twin sister. Clementine.” In case this information was pertinent, in case somewhere, someone knew something about two girls, wild and free, one savage, one gentle. Clementine had been like blossoms and ivory, beneficent and compassionate, and Melita had been the opposite, a clamor of the wind, a dusting of fire and smoke. They'd loved one another fiercely, bonded, not broken, not bent, not shorn.
But then, all she could recall was her mother speaking to the vulture-like man along open walls and territories, her face different, and his, gruff and harsh, glancing at the two of them for only a moment.
Then leaving.
Geen but not Geen.
“Mother never said anything about him,” was all she had left, her heart suddenly frenetic, her fingers gripping hold of her staff, the water bounding beneath her limbs and she felt nothing, nothing at all.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
“I don’t know.” She says, and his head tilts with the revelation. But she had seen him before, had thought he looked like a vulture. And that’s when it begins to hit in his mind. He squints at her, delving deeper into the water with little cause or worry other than the chill of it sleeping into the legs of his pants. His brow raises as he looks to her and she utters that she had a twin, another clue of sorts. And he huffs a bit of disbelief.
Her mother never talked about him either, not like she was missing out at all, and he frowns deeply as he looks to the red haired girl with a small amount of pity in his eye. He had at least known his father enough to hate him, and if his suspicions were correct; maybe just maybe, Gaal had survived, left disfigured in a sense, somehow managed to find a poor women to give with twins and dip out.
It’s partially why Jata never wanted Saar to spend time with him. The man was a prick.
He looks to Melita then, voice a softer edge with curiosity. “Hey, you said he looked like a vulture…” He begins with a tilt to his head, reaching up with his hand to point at his nose. “Was it crooked a bit to the left? A bit pointy, like a beak?” He asks with a sharp gleam to his eye. “Bright gold eyes with a tinge of red?” He tries to keep Gaals face in his mind, removing the blood and bruising in the attempts to find a connection.
“Hair red just like yours?”
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
It was avian, the way he tilted his head, and she could imagine him with feathers, with plumes, soaring into the sky – like so many others from so long ago; ancient, primordial, things with talons, teeth, and claws. When he followed, she caressed over the veneer and visage again, a slow, methodical, fluid transition, like a nymph, like the Naiad who had prospered beyond these falls and rivulets. However, she was not born from the water, from cool, chilling depths, but from the ash, from the stones, from the sand, from the heat and the scorching sun, the draconic interludes pressed into her skin, into her blood, into her bones. Perhaps, in that regard, the revelations couldn’t, wouldn’t matter. Would they change her, who she was, who she’d become, if she’d known it, somewhere in heart, all along? Would the earth shatter around her? Would she fall like a pebble, weary and frantic, foolish and desperate? Would she break apart any more than she already had? Would the admissions, the confessions, spill across her and morph her into something else? Would it have altered her path? Would the great hulking beast of a man have saved her mother, pushing her into the portal with them? Would he have been proud? Did she care, did she care, did she care?
She still didn’t like the way his eyes narrowed, the way he skulked, even with the softer edges, as if he understood, comprehended, how he presided, how a simplistic word was leading her down primrose paths and edges she’d forgotten to face. The fringe, the blurred lines, the pedestals, the cracks in foundations, contorted over her, as he described, as he pointed at his nose, as he described a man once towering before her small, lithe figure – looking down, down, down, hommelby grumbled from his throat. Had he been glancing at her then, trying to figure her out, trying to weigh out his options, trying to see if she was even worth the effort? If she was deserving of his bloodline?
Or had he thought about snuffing her out, leading her to ruin and damnation, consigning her to oblivion?
Because she could remember the way he’d glared at the two of them, no; geen on his breath, before leaving, like they were nothing and held no significance in his world. Crooked nose, as if it’d been broken, mauled, or maimed, pointed, like a bill, imposing and intimidating, eyes flecked in gilded refrain, the red along the borders all the more enigmatic, curious, like blood, like crimson, like her damned hair that fell in waves, in curls, in locks, swept away into the wind.
“Yes,” was the inevitable answer. She hung her head, one hand balled in a fist at her side, the other clutching the top of her staff, Fangorn hissing amidst the shoal. Melita sighed and breathed, sharper inhales that her lungs threatened not to take -
And she knew, she knew, he’d never wanted them. Refused, denied, and abandoned; forsaken from the moment of her birth by a man she’d never understand.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
She hangs her head and replies with a sentence he wished wasn’t true, but he sighs lightly to himself and moves to sit in the water, letting it reach his chest and dampen his clothes while the sun peeked from behind the clouds. “I think I know of him.” He rumbles to her, alluding to knowing him offhandedly — not being the one to cause the crooked nose, the bruises and blood, the suaveness with words.
But the way she hangs her head makes him suck in a breath at the sight, and his steel eyes linger on her briefly before they drop to the small waves that reach his chest and break against him. “He was the son of a head of house from the city I’m from. The house of Arms. His name is Graasvoel.” He tells her with an attempt to get the word to spread, to distract her, to see how she reacts.
“Graasvoel Kahare.” He rumbles as he remembers the details. “His mother wasn’t noble born, but his father was. He was set to rule but took more interest with the ladies and starting wars than being of any use to his father.” Not like Sunjata was any different, and that was how he got into the situation with his sister having to marry the man. “We called him Gaal, because he was tall like I am but dense. Like a Goliath.”
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
While the man had been a stranger to them, he hadn’t been to others, proving they were lost to the sands of time, to the artifices of life, to the bewitching hours of naught – she found herself mimicking his actions, raising her head again, leaning on her staff, until she settled her lithe frame on the water – dress soused and drenched, bathed in the chilling rapids. She listened to anything and everything, and wondered why. Why did she care about someone, about something, that hadn’t given a damn about them? That hadn’t yearned to do anything but stare, but scowl, but deny, but reject? Was this what it was like to be truly deserted, a little hollow, a little grave, a little empty? Her heart sunk, stung, crossed vitriol into its chambers and bled cloak and daggers; but her defiant little airs and thoughts still took everything he offered.
They’d known one another, houses and cities – of Arms, like munitions, like guards, like bounties of weapons stored away, and she could recall him having the look of a warrior, entirely too broad and intimidating, an overpowering force of nature, sullen and forlorn. She’d still smiled at him, asked him questions, crept in curiosity, like a lost soul, like an idiot, like an insipid fool, and it clawed at the back of her throat, a dying wail, a withering scream. Graasovel, something her tongue could barely wrap around, but her mind grabbed hold and chased down, not with dreams, but with bitterness and rancor, one more rue and regret to harness and harpoon. You weren’t wanted the dubbing signified. You were naught to him the title ensnared. He left the calling sanctified; in her heart of hearts, likely comprehending they weren’t the only ones.
Even a last name; something she’d never had, taking her mother’s with her as the portal spit them out into midnight oils and desecration. Kahare; she’d never pen it with her signature, never put it next to Melita Najya, never snag and embolden Clementine’s with it either. Noble born and set to rule – a lifetime of achievements and peculiarities destined on his back and shoulders and disregarding it; ladies, starting wars, useless…
And she hoped, she hoped, she hoped, she’d wouldn’t become like him.
Gaal, the Goliath.
Supplied with information about a beast she’d never see again, a father with no connection to his daughters, only blood, only secrets, only nothingness, her gilded eyes (and were they like his?) settled on Sunjata’s, a withering sigh hastening from her chest as she sought to process, to redefine herself on the nature of the unknown reshaping, resculpting. “My mother was Najya,” her voice boasted, something like pride, so she’d be remembered too, so one other person would recognize a name meant for the heavens and not this blistering hell. “A healer – she was gentle and kind and sweet. She sacrificed herself for us.” Tears threatened to burn her eyes, but they never fell, too strong, too determined, too willful, glory in the pitfalls. “Clementine loved flowers, singing, and dancing in the meadows,” and Melita had protected her until she couldn’t anymore, until she wasn’t enough, and it seemed to be a pattern, a ritual, to be left scattered, torn, and nothing. “Thank you for letting me know.” Her gaze shifted onto rocks and ledges nearby, tilting her head, leaning it against her staff, like it was shield, like it was a sword, while the water roared beneath her, while they chased memories. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
She listens diligently as he tells his tale to her, of the man with scarlet ringed eyes with a crooked nose from the fights he’d start, of the long red hair that draped near his shoulders. But Gaal has also had a lot of fire within him, a warrior of sorts, and something within Sunjata wondered how he had managed it before Saar and he had fled — taking down the Goliath.
The Hungry Lion has taken down the Large Vulture. And yet, there was no longer pride that sat in his belly at it. Only perhaps surprise that he had bore another child somehow, wondering if the girl before him even cared. He shivers lightly as Melita tells him of her mother and her sister, and he nods before offering a quiet solace. “I am sorry.” He means it to an extent but he didn’t know her, didn’t know them, didn’t particularly care much about it. People lived and people died, and that’s just how the world worked.
At least he hoped when he died someone would talk about him too, despite how much of an asshole he could be.
But she poises the question he thinks of toward him and his eyes snap back to her, raising his shoulders in a shrug. “Because he was supposed to marry my sister.” He puts it simply before frowning, hoping his sister had still managed to be okay on her own. “And his half brother was one of my best friends.” He snorts with a shake of his head, tilting it back to look at the sky. “Sometimes you sit and wonder why you’ve become the way you are, and chalk it up to your parents. But if you don’t know one of them it makes it hard to find out what parts you got and didn’t.” He offers with a smidge or sensitivity before exhaling loudly.
“Gaal was all fury and fire. Suave and power. If I’m being honest I hated him. I used to be the one to fight him back.” There’s a slight smirk that crosses his face, memories of blue melding with orange like flame, melding with the scarlet hue of blood and bruised knuckles.
the deeper you dig, the darker it gets
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
I am sorry. echoed along the water, and even if he was, it didn’t change anything. Nothing really seemed to matter, in the grand scheme of things, when they’d already fallen into ruins, when they’d already been surrounded by despair. But she accepted it with a nod, knees curling up to her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs, staff segmented there, still in her grasp, crimson locks (like his, and something burned in her) dangling down her shoulders, no rapture, no reverie, naught but the sting of silence. Perhaps she was sorry too – for being worthless and ineffectual, for existing when her father had clearly wished she didn’t –
But then her mother had been there, showing and offering and guiding them with every bit of love she had in her essence – and they’d been cherished, they’d been blessed, they’d been consecrated and anointed with all her compassion, all her wisdom, beloved by her, by the sand, by the dust, by the red, red lines of the Dragon’s Throat.
The history she’d never be able to touch kindled again, some arranged marriage Gaal likely was indifferent and nonchalant towards (would it have held any meaning for him?), a half-brother that was best friends with Sunjata, an unknown family she’d never know or comprehend. She swallowed down the bite, the rasp, of her bitterness, of being left, of being forlorn, until he mentioned parts of parents, what one received from each. “What did you get from yours?” The youth asked, not a bee sting, but curiosity, to fight off the collection, the assortment, of emotions fluttering in her wake. Her mother had been sweet and radiant and wonderful, and there were only some portions Melita reflected, because, in the end, fury and fire sounded like her.
Like her ferocity, like her bestial moments, like her impulsive, impetuous desires to be the bigger monster, the demon, the one who conquered the downtrodden, the one who could defeat anyone and everything – be stronger, be mightier, be a blackguard, an Amazon, a warrior. She was barbaric blood and avaricious endeavors, piercing aspirations and coiled ambitions, not the suave entities, not the powerful banners, but enough, enough, enough of her father’s emblem to be recognized: brutal, willing to do whatever it took. Did she want to be his mirror image – when he hadn’t even wanted her at all? Or had it been the worlds she’d traversed within that made her that way, and not the blood of a man at all?
She watched him smirk, caught the venom, the vehemence, layered into his phrasing, the contempt and abhorrence. Other than abandoning his children and being, likely, an outright ass, there had to be more to the story – and despite being a cast off, she still wanted to hear, still wanted to comprehend. “What else made you hate him?”
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
