MELITA
Perhaps he simply extended her time in the ambience instead of the desolation, and she tried to catch its tethers, wrap herself up in the solace of the sea, in the calmness of the waves, in things that didn’t alter or change. Tide in, tide out, waves undulating on their ripples, still strong and persistent, not unbidden or beholden to anyone, to anything. No promises or convictions notched across minds. No corporeal, tangible friends or families lost to its efforts. It was its own pressing being, an existence of everything vital and potent, and if she could reach into its shores, if she could bask in its essence, maybe some of it would leech and soak into her being, and the honeybee girl wouldn’t be so fragile. Wouldn’t be so caught. Wouldn’t be so daft, dumb, and incapable.If he meant to distract her, he did so momentarily, her head turning back towards his presence, listening to the ways in which the Ascended didn’t sleep, only wrinkling her nose at some insinuations lacquered in there. “Ew.” Mostly because it pertained to her uncle, and there was no need to dig deeper into those ruminations. But she understood everything else thereafter – why she’d gone out towards the sea-salt air, why she’d chased and rampaged and threatened to lose herself near the sands and dunes, an overwhelming need to simply get away.
She would’ve let that lie, a nod to her head in comprehension, thinking to return her gaze to the swell and rise of the fathoms before them, content to permit everything to sink. Except he’d returned right back to the reason she was amongst the bulrushes and surf, and she unclenched her fists, loosened a haze, a breath, a sigh. Evasion hovered over her bones, made her want to launch, to flee, to rebel, to repel, to merely coast away and pretend none of it happened. She shrugged her shoulders, steeled her breath, and didn’t know how to begin. So her eyes went over the swell of surf and foam. “I gave a memory to Ludo – I thought it would go away.” Her jaw clenched and unclenched again, fingers unfurling from fists, sliding onto the fabric of her dress. “It didn’t. It just keeps coming back.”
You're all gonna watch me
Disappear into the sun
Disappear into the sun
