[Training] no one told you to breathe

MELITA

Maybe that’s where Melita and Sunjata had differed. Where she willingly went towards Ludo, listened to it, heard its wisdom, she also chose her own path. There were exchanges of memories or sagacity, and occasional pleas, summonings, but otherwise, no owed debt. She’d seen and experienced too much to delve any deeper; between planned assassinations, attempts at eradication, and Helovia being driven straight into destruction, she kept everything compartmentalized. Ludo did not guide her everyday life. Her flames, her aspirations, her ambitions did – a stoking, kindling, of fervency and ferocity based on what churned and burned in the world.

And maybe that wasn’t enough, or just so. Time would tell. It was all she had to give, after everything.

So she ceased in the warnings, hoping he heard her messages, uncertain if he cared, or if he’d charge off again, believing he knew better. Instead, they could meander into discussions of weapons, of what would fuel those serrated edges, how dastardly, how dangerous, how toxic they might be. Something out of all the drama and circumstances, meaningful, useful, meant to be utilized and decimating. Melita arched a brow at the insinuation that he hadn’t asked; the youth had always encompassed some wild, savage ideal into hers – why she had the arrows infused from Remi’s first upheavals, and then gone from there, into sparks and snaps, into ice and glaciers. “It’ll be a surprise then,” and she laughed, striving to break through the tension.

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