to be lit up from within
vein by vein
She didn’t want his defeated platitudes, his languished attitude. Perhaps half her inclination was to fight fire with fire, bristle and grate until one of them exploded. But all she received in return were the leagues of regrets and rue, and she couldn’t kindle, spark, or instigate anything from those, except her own embers. They continued their simmering exposition in the back of her mind, stoked with each shadowed gaze and quiet admission, her jaw clenching, enamel grinding, lips ready to poise in some predatory, raised hackle. The youth thought about strangling him, wrapping her hands around his neck and merely tossing him back and forth until he did something other than moor or mire himself down these ramparts. The fortifications were all warped and desperate, sinking and anchoring, tying and tethering, into all these unknown ventures she couldn’t possibly fathom. And for what? And why? “Apologies don’t mean anything unless you’re truly going to do something about it.” Change some mode, some agenda, so he wasn’t pressing maddened wares and harebrained schemes into the cluster and cloister of the earth. Melita didn’t look away, every inch the fiery beacon from the Dragon’s Throat, laden with her father’s ire and her mother’s compassion, a mixture of vitriol, animosity, and benevolence; twisted, gnarled now, in the shape of conflagrations and infernos. She heaved a great breath, and Fangorn must’ve felt it in their bond, finally returning from chasing down gulls, his eyes on the Hels at first, and then on the pair poised upon the sands, the beach, the swell of turf along rock-laden coasts and frustrated wiles. Her chin continued to take on its defiant role, jutted out, the way she stood more akin to some warrioress prowess, as if Sunjata didn’t have almost a foot of height on her. “You’re going to destroy yourself if you don’t get your head out of your ass.”
to be the sun
MELITA
