burn the house down

MELITA

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