MELITA
She’d missed all the battles in Helovia, all the rage, all the vehemence, all the back and forth between rival kingdoms and their seething, smoldering rancor. Perhaps that’d been for the best – the end had been vexing, depressing, and anguishing on its own, with everyone coming together simply to fall apart. But she listened, intent, on the subject matter that spurred agitation and incensed aggravation: child rearing, importance with justice, judges, juries, and executioners – her father’s house none of those things, overseeing weaponry and munitions instead. Some of it sounded ridiculous, hardly worth searing, smoldering provocations, but it evidently wore its way into their hearts and souls; differences of opinion settled with force. She slipped away from the quip about her father (she wasn’t really surprised anyway, it seemed to fit the man’s pattern), quieting down, somewhat subdued, the rustle of the current calming, a peaceful platitude despite her soaked garb. “Did your fights ever amount to anything?” What were the results? Did they matter, in the long-run? Or were they just squabbles and petty nothings? Then there were more insults to be flung, and her grin returned, bright and sublime for the opportunity of savagery with words instead of violence. “Moordenaar,” she uttered first, murderer, murderer, murderer, Kiada’s traces leaving foundations for eons to come – families torn asunder because she’d followed the wrong infidel, the false god, the one who’d led everyone to slaughter. “Muuaji,” she crooned, ending it on an rueful note, brows furrowing down, eyes glancing upon rocks and currents hitting stones. “Uchoyo muuaji,” hoping she hit the right inflections, the poignant mannerisms, the phrases supplying her with more fire, more brimstone, more incitement, instigations, a kindling, a brush of smoke and ash. “Gaan weg” earned a snort, a round of laughter bubbling from her chest.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
Give the bruises out like gifts
