WESSEX
the wraith
Melita isn’t the only one who keeps her promises; down past the platforms where they fought the earth guardians, down past the walls that saw death and poison, electric-fire, a hundred million bugs, transformations and tulmnhainars - all the things that Wessex had never seen. All the things others had labored and almost died to accomplish and for what? They would destroy the symbol of the Voice’s imprisonment, and Wessex would let them. Sure, tear it down. The Old Gods built it, after all. Their rage towards her Lady (while justified) are oddly misdirected, but you’d never hear Wessex tell anyone that. It’s the same old persecution story, time after time. Beat someone (or a group down) and then when they retaliate, use it as justification to do it all over again. Until you have a war on their hands.
Maybe the Spire would tumble down on them, here and now. Maybe they would be saved from witnessing whatever will come next to the Hallowed Grounds. And maybe they’ll look on from wherever, and be glad for it.
At least Melita finally comes to her, or so she thinks, when they reach the bottom. Wessex has only just touched the base when the redhead is at her side, heedless of blood and cold and fueled by a black strength usually reserved for her own kind. And then there is only instinctual movement, as the Ascended ducks under the swipe at her head, curling over Fangorn perhaps a little too tightly for his comfort - he has, unfortunately, been forgotten. It is only through habit that the Wraith doesn’t drop him.
And then there’s the next decision: a split second one that has to be made - does she retaliate and try to physically fight Melita, or does she take another path? All Wessex wants to do is sweep the girl’s legs out from underneath her, but the stones are numerous, the ground is hard, and the potential for damage is too great. Someone else, perhaps - she might have tried that with someone else. But not Melita. The little spark is too precious to her. But where there is listening, there is a shred of reason, and so the Wraith, ignorant of the blighted’s desire to destroy the Roses, scuttles back against the wall in her crouch. She fumbles for a moment in her pocket, but manages to pull out the rose and hold it out to her mentee, as if it were some magical charm.
“This will,” the Queen says with conviction - steady and strong as a skin-chilling breeze whips down around them.
she's pullin' the trigger
cause it's me and the moon, she says
and i have no trouble with that
