MELITA
We didn’t often get along; outstretched territories, mismatched, rankled, tethered along the same plain – one of them each from the other, as if it was crooned into their blood to be natural enemies. “Did you go to war against one another?” Curiosity extended – whittled around her cranium. Truthfully, Melita had liked Kiada when she met her, when they described Helovia, when they had begun to tell of their experiences – and then everything had spiraled away thereafter, when the truth snapped and seared, sizzled and snatched, and it had taken every ounce of the honeybee’s control to not flicker and splinter apart. That had come later, when opportunities for bloodshed and marring presented themselves, when apologies were proffered, and she’d been too bitter, too unrelenting, to even truly listen to what Kiada embodied. What did sorries and sorrows do anyway? They didn’t bring her mother back. They didn’t bring her sister back. They didn’t bring ruined lands back. It’d only been a mirroring of regret, a promise to change; and Melita wondered if that would even happen at all. Her grin dimmed a little, explanations on the tip of her tongue. “I didn’t mind her, until I found out she had a hand in our home being destroyed and hundreds dying.” She shrugged thereafter, not certain of what to do or what to say in the pressing gloom, straying away from it as best she could, in explaining that sometimes it wasn’t nature, but nurture, what occurred, what presided, despite anyone’s best efforts.
Sunjata’s smile was enough to set her back to mischievous rights. As if she’d practiced them forever, putting them to perfection and routine, just as she did with her bow, with her staff, with any other munitions and weaponry she could get her hands on, she did a mocking little bow, tipping her head towards the master. The youth grabbed hold of the newest insult, absorbing it on teeth and tongue, extending it out into the ether with great, wild enthusiasm. “Teef!” How amusing it would be to sling the proclamation upon the Harpy, mouth firm on a string of new insults, ready and eager to exploit them at any given opportunity. Maybe one others who bugged her (which were few), and it’d be more diverting and laughter-inducing because they wouldn’t know what she meant. Content with this knowledge, a smug smirk landing back on her lips, she took the last one too.
“Kutomba wewe,” she repeated and echoed, personal slight, slander, and affronts on a fresh round of wounds. Instigated and provoked, a series of cyclical phrases spun around her mind, and she hummed contentedly around the syllables, reflecting them on fiery intonations. ”Fok you, jutomba wewe,” simmered along the river, and then ringing laughter to follow, not thinking of how aghast her family would be.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
Give the bruises out like gifts
