every time she burns to ashes
She would, she would, she would, keeping this assurance in the depths of her chest, in the notched bones of everything else that ached alongside it. Even if he didn’t quite believe it, even if he couldn’t see it now, even if he doubted, because she wouldn’t blame him, after her recent antics, the honeybee youth would grasp the earth with both hands and shake it until it came apart, until she found the Ascended roaming from within. Her fingers wrapped and assured, tight squeezes of familial strength, until they arrived at the home – different and not, and her eyes went to salvaged objects.
Clementine’s lantern, still soft and sweet and all the things Melita was not, and Lusea’s alongside her, filled her heart, filled her lungs, and she wrestled the agony away, chiseling it down further. For him, really, so he didn’t have to endure her pain and misery either, so he didn’t have to see it or maneuver around it any longer. This wasn’t about her. “Vai told me.” Her eyes flickered over the remnants of objects, one finger lightly, delicately, tracing over the tip of her sister’s lantern, then moving away, too sacred to defile. “I thought Ascended couldn’t get sick.” Which meant this was far worse – more encompassing, more emboldened, than the blight.
That had turned her into a monster. That had revealed all the nuances, all the shame, all the brutality underneath.
Her jaw clenched tight, and her gilded gaze roamed. “Do you need anything?”
Clementine’s lantern, still soft and sweet and all the things Melita was not, and Lusea’s alongside her, filled her heart, filled her lungs, and she wrestled the agony away, chiseling it down further. For him, really, so he didn’t have to endure her pain and misery either, so he didn’t have to see it or maneuver around it any longer. This wasn’t about her. “Vai told me.” Her eyes flickered over the remnants of objects, one finger lightly, delicately, tracing over the tip of her sister’s lantern, then moving away, too sacred to defile. “I thought Ascended couldn’t get sick.” Which meant this was far worse – more encompassing, more emboldened, than the blight.
That had turned her into a monster. That had revealed all the nuances, all the shame, all the brutality underneath.
Her jaw clenched tight, and her gilded gaze roamed. “Do you need anything?”
she knows how to rise again
Melita
