to be made of sunshine is beautiful
to be the light and the warmth and to be loved
Wessex drew nearer, closer, lantern light embodying her neutral features, commenting on her long pause after she’d acquired her tomes, and the girl didn’t fade back into the shadows. A defiant little turn of her chin lifted in its accord, Wessex’s two inches over her still granting jurisdiction for her sedition to make its way through miniscule movements. Something in her sizzled and snapped, and the frustrations, the ire, the contempt, the confusion, threatened to pour out of her, an undulating recoil of everything she’d heard, everything she’d witnessed, everything she’d experienced. It was a cycle of emotions and munitions too, pressing and crossing over her chest, over her soul, like fire and ash and bones and dust, the bleeding sanctity of things she’d savored and craved carved and whittled away. Impetuous, impulsive, emboldened, and audacious in the tomes, in the alcoves, in the sparse beams of light, her tones marched, a statement carefully curated in neither ashamed, incredulous, or demanding tones: shades of ambiguity. “I don’t know whether to be proud, afraid, or disgusted.”
And then, because Wessex had insisted, because there was a torrential tempest in her existence, because she’d been exposed to soulless renderings and irreverence, because she’d tortured herself and others – it spiraled from her tongue and loosened from her lips. “Were you rewarded because of what you did to us? Because of the blight? Because of the Fae?” Or were there other aspects Melita hadn’t known, hadn’t seen, ignorant to the footfalls of Voice duties and rituals? And maybe, in another time, in another place, Melita would’ve been smiling and happy and content for the Wraith, a being anointed and consecrated because of her devoted, dutiful service – clapping, rounds of applause and congratulations that felt more than just a string of safeguarded words. Maybe she wouldn’t have been afraid of the woman’s capabilities now, if more and more of their souls were going to be stripped away, if there were other plagues launching, presiding, waiting to be unleashed. Maybe she wouldn’t have cared if her life, if other lives, hadn’t been so effected, hadn’t been so drawn, hadn’t been so decimated and ruined. But then again – maybe none of it would’ve happened at all.
The world always told her she couldn’t go back to yesteryears and days long since passed, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she wished. Perhaps this was just another instance, another crack and fissure.
And then, because Wessex had insisted, because there was a torrential tempest in her existence, because she’d been exposed to soulless renderings and irreverence, because she’d tortured herself and others – it spiraled from her tongue and loosened from her lips. “Were you rewarded because of what you did to us? Because of the blight? Because of the Fae?” Or were there other aspects Melita hadn’t known, hadn’t seen, ignorant to the footfalls of Voice duties and rituals? And maybe, in another time, in another place, Melita would’ve been smiling and happy and content for the Wraith, a being anointed and consecrated because of her devoted, dutiful service – clapping, rounds of applause and congratulations that felt more than just a string of safeguarded words. Maybe she wouldn’t have been afraid of the woman’s capabilities now, if more and more of their souls were going to be stripped away, if there were other plagues launching, presiding, waiting to be unleashed. Maybe she wouldn’t have cared if her life, if other lives, hadn’t been so effected, hadn’t been so drawn, hadn’t been so decimated and ruined. But then again – maybe none of it would’ve happened at all.
The world always told her she couldn’t go back to yesteryears and days long since passed, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she wished. Perhaps this was just another instance, another crack and fissure.
to be made of sunshine is painful
to be too hot to touch, too far away to reach
MELITA
