some lives read like poetry, others like cacophany

MELITA

Her words ignited, sparked, and sizzled; it might’ve been an inferno, a conflagration, and she stared deep into the embers and cinders while Wessex imploded from the inside out – didn’t look away, couldn’t, from the matches and flint she’d tossed into the alcoves. For once, she was not comprised of vitriol or vehemence, there was enough in the room for the both of them anyway, but tied to the listening stages and the coveted roles of games they all played – who was better, who was braver, who had done more, who was deserving, who was worthy, who played more of a role, who should’ve been melded and molded into the framework of deities. Her features were rendered into something quiet, something meticulous, only a narrowing of her eyes indicating something seething behind her gaze, a fire of its own brewing and brooding, pondering the mantras and narratives, if the earth plagued Wessex so she did so in turn, or if the results were merely altered for everyone’s benefit, if the stakes were just too damned high now, if frustration, if ire, were all they had left.

Some notions she could accept, a nod given and granted, understanding when more of the information came to light – absorbing the lines, the sketches, the disembarking of other channels and fissures. Others, the youth plucked and absconded, shook her head, a calm, almost brewing ferocity laden beneath intonations – incapable of justifying some other venues and monologues. “You single-handedly saved everyone on LongNight?” Here she could scoff and snort, because she’d seen what they’d all done, in the guild, fighting for lives and seeking out help, arms outstretched, willing to lend hands whenever they could. That wasn’t just Wessex. That was Caido. That was the Hollowed Grounds. “What about our community? These people did that. All of them. They took others in. They healed one another. They sang to the luxere. They tried to keep everything calm.” Not just the Wraith. There’d been others who taught, who trained, who’d led for god knows what reason, but hadn’t been rewarded in their efforts. Maybe they hadn’t gone far enough. Maybe they hadn’t wanted it. Maybe no one had asked for a damned leader, and Zariah went and named herself one simply because she could. But they were all lumped together just the same, the Outlander hissing, the same old song. No matter how long they’d lived here, no matter how much they contributed, no matter how often they assimilated, it wouldn’t be enough.

More to refute, amongst truths, her sighs evident in the dusty sanctions, her lantern light diminishing, arm folding down, down, down so the sanctions of their embers only hit the floor. “Then freedom into the Greatwood was taken away. Then when we wanted to ask you things at the forum, you left.” Voices, voices, and more voices; contradictions abound. It didn’t matter, in the end, now, but gods she was sick and tired of the accreditation varnishing when it still hit walls and they still were at the mercy of a sovereign’s conundrums. “I spoke to Ludo about that. There were repercussions there too.” If that made the Wraith feel better, if it even punctured and pierced over the gaping wounds. That the herald’s tactics hadn’t been approved by other, higher gods; no more for her to say, when Ludo wouldn’t give in to her prying. Wessex could make of that what she would.

But the once-queen continued to make everything sound as if she’d been the only one for any of those things – and not her constituents, not her fellows, as a whole. Maybe that’s what irked and irritated the honeybee girl the most – that even while there’d always been others, Wessex was the pedestal, the paragon. Perhaps that’s what the Voice wanted, noted, and cherished – someone to be their guiding light in the lightning blitz, in the vehemence sure to follow.

It unraveled, and her grip on the lantern tightened, long, billowing breaths to hold it all together, irritated at the pending tears pressing into the newest demigods’ gaze, irked that all of this was even taking place, crawling and persisting in the back of her mind – predators amuck and rampant, so it was fine for them to suffer, because no one had died from the blight? So it was fine for those who hadn’t deserved the sickness to rampage into their crazed, agonized minds, because no one had perished? So it was fine to succumb, to be something, someone else, to be cruel, to be things she’d never wished to be, twisted and turned and spit back out – the world forgiving her when they never should’ve? “You asked me my opinion. I did not come after you. I wanted to understand. The blight and the Fae are what I’ve experienced, what I’ve heard.”

She didn’t know what else to say after that. What more to be done, to be extended in the hollowed reaches, where points melded and folded, where lines drew together and seemed to split apart. “I guess you do deserve it.” For whatever it was worth, for whatever segments were maligned or stabbing, grand or great or ebullient.

help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts