who is the knife

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

Make no mistake, she was still mad.

It only dimmed slightly, the embers and cinders not yet dragged over another round of coals and incendiary means. Stoked and honed, gathered on the edges of her ramparts, there, stewing, brewing beneath the surface, but pushed down for now. There were too many other unwinding, bizarre, strange circumstances pending, and she could maneuver around the onslaughts, the rage, for better means and measures. She could place it aside, a burning niche, a frustrated, vexed wake, a vicious howl in the back of her throat.

See? Maturing.

Her steps were light, quick, bounding, and as soon as she hit a familiar path, it was a dead run (ignoring the well of laughter, the sprigs of song suddenly ghosting into her ears from all sides) – sprinting limbs, extended and long, meant to be like a hastened sprite, a dashing nymph, a pulsing, fervent figure. Fangorn in her arms, and the rest of her a glorified, tempestuous being, her locks flames, her movements an opus to energy and fervency, until she reached the house, barging in with a loud echo of the door. “Sunjata!” Gaining her breath after her holler, she placed Fangorn down (jostled after the hasty bombardment), and began to search the confines, passing through apertures and entrances, a seething little maelstrom of her own.

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me

// it's a lonely road, with one grip on several psalms and one grip on the gun
and it holds the rope, it spins me in circles and dizzies my head then says sleep when you're dead //

The house was beautiful. With arches and a quiet serene atmosphere that was so at odds with the bustle of the Slagveld. No shouts or growls to be heard through the walls in his office, just the sound of Hels and the ocean far off, the sound of the wind racing through the rockery the house was nestled within. And it’s this that has caught up with him, half asleep in a chair in a nook of sorts, next to a window where he hasn’t left his perch yet today.

His eyes close, nodding off again, before the door slams open and his heart lurches into his chest, scaled armor thickening around his neck and arms, halfway down his chest, all muscles tensing and ready for something when he hears Melita’s call. “Upstairs!” He shouts through the home, settling back into the chair again, smoothing a bit of his hair down as his heart calms down. Haai makes her way through the home, seeking out Melita to guide her to the governor, all while Sunjata waits, idly, peering from the window down the hall for when she might appear.

The second she does, there’s a chair opposite of him, that he nods to. “Hey Mel.” He greets her softly, tiredly, idly fiddling with the moon and stars ring on his finger.

were you ever here? or just lost on the surface that at the first touch, evades in the dust?

SUNJATA

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

There had never been any pomp and circumstance with the youth. Guided along by Haai, she was a smoldering, simmering storm, gliding along upon stairs two at a time, and then bursting through the door of this particular room – which she didn’t remember helping. Her eyes wandered over it for a second, and then shrugged it off, pinpointing the gilded, seditious gaze straight at her uncle.

She ignored the amiability too, uncertain what to do with the gentler tones, and not in the mood for anything soft, dulcet, or calming. The honeybee didn’t take a seat either, choosing instead to pace along the floor, Fangorn long since giving up on the chase and bumbling around by the entrance to the office. She didn’t wring her hands though, not like some shaking, crumbling maiden or damsel, instead, her fist tightened, clenching and unclenching, while the grasp in her other hand honed around her staff, lifting it back up and down with her as she thundered around. “There was a weird guy down by the docks asking questions about the Ark.” Pausing, realizing this probably didn’t describe anything well, she continued. "Said he was researching what was going on with storms and stuff. I asked, but he didn’t have any connections yet between everything else.”

Rambling, mind circulating over the occurrences, weapon gliding over the floor as she walked back and forth. “Said his name was…Finn Rosen…Rosencramps? No.” A shake of her head, wild locks flying and flaring, ceasing for a moment to recall the name. “Rosencrantz.”

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me

// it's a lonely road, with one grip on several psalms and one grip on the gun
and it holds the rope, it spins me in circles and dizzies my head then says sleep when you're dead //

She doesn’t sit, instead arriving in a flurry and remaining standing, her gaze meeting his with a pinpointed sharpness that has him already internally sighing at it all. But he tries to calm down that thread of easy frustration he leans into so often lately, and remains seated, listening to her before his gaze finds the window again and he’s peering out at waves far away, watching them lap against one another in fraying splashes of blues and whites.

Melita paces and explains, and it isn’t something unusual until she mentions the name of who has been asking. His head whips back to her, steel gaze narrowing as he filters the name through his mind and comes up with a face and a job that worries him.

But he supposes if it were for the storms then that’s not… terrible. It’s not ‘how do we round up all the Ascended and murder them’ level yet. “Do you know anything about the Order?” It comes quietly, uncertainly, Sunjata drawing his legs up a bit more to close off a fraction more while he debates whether or not to get a drink while he settles with this information.

were you ever here? or just lost on the surface that at the first touch, evades in the dust?

SUNJATA

Yes, sit, close off. Make sure you're the only one who can get to you. Smart boy.

It's only for a second this time, out of sight of Melita, somehow drawing no attention from either companion in the house. A figure passes across the threshold to the office, a glimpse of familiar shaped shadow, before it's gone again.

Just paying a visit, son. That's all.

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

The only ghosts Melita could see, could hear, were her own – and they weren’t in this midst now. Not when she was a flurry of fire and bone, every movement an ignition of something, every step, every stride, every motion a fluid trace of exactly what storm she could compel. Her uncle appeared calm, nearly disinterested as he stared out the window, but the might and ferocity didn’t leave her blood, didn’t fray away; stark contrasts in the moment, maybe. Until his skull shifted towards her swiftly, and she must’ve said something that sparked and singed; wondering if her suspicions had been correct.

If something else was going on.

She finally stilled at his quiet inquiry, as if her body could no longer keep up with her tidal wave of thoughts. Arms crossed over her chest, staff permitted to return to its hold along her back, while her brows furrowed, measures and means of notions. The name of the group springing from his mouth, echoing along the office, meant nothing at all to her – she couldn’t dive into its sanction, into its contortions, when its title had never reached her ears. “No. It sounds pretentious.” A sneer half-curled along her lips, a tilt of her head to indicate she was listening, a pause in the tempestuous sea, in the mercurial inferno. “What is it?”

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me

// it's a lonely road, with one grip on several psalms and one grip on the gun
and it holds the rope, it spins me in circles and dizzies my head then says sleep when you're dead //

He looks at Melita as he asks his question, closed off and mind focused on what the implications of Finn asking of storms might be, when he sees it, when he tenses and his hand on his leg digs his nails in, staring at the door frame where the figure had gone through. Melita’s question is almost lost on him as he moves to stand, clearly distracted, stepping past her and the companions to search for the figure that passed in front of the office. “They are.” He agrees, his tone still distracted while his heart thunders in his chest.

“It’s a group of people determined to stop the Voice.” He half mutters, stepping past the threshold now to open the door to the offices and look into it in search of something. And when he finds nothing he sighs in his frustration, muscles feathering in his jaw. He moves back to the previous room, grabbing a glass and some whiskey and downing it surprisingly quick. “Sorry. Thought I saw something.” It comes out wearily, exhausted, Sunjata mentally sending Haai out to continue to scout if anyone else had gotten into the house.

were you ever here? or just lost on the surface that at the first touch, evades in the dust?

SUNJATA

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

“Are you all right?” wasn’t a whisper, but an overt statement as she watched him tighten, tense, and in turn, she did the same. Nothing animalistic to her except the wilderness, the savagery, bent and built into her from days of only survival and nothing else – hand over her staff in a moment, maneuvering to step aside, or into whatever traipses by. Whatever he’s seen. Her eyes narrowed, and there was a bristling conflagration to her heart, ready to be set alight, aflame, to be a maelstrom in the middle of the office, no longer billowing, no longer pacing; a fire, a storm. "See what?" Perhaps she was only vestiges of questions now, endless inquiries, no answers.

It only echoed on his other statement, her head tilting, a little less dangerous. Only due to the distraction, the ebb and flow of too many cataclysms happening at once, and something had to dull within it. “Determined how?” She had no issue with the Voice ceasing to exist – the only dilemma or problem it would hinder upon was Nate; and both of them within this damned house would defend the man with their lives. So what was going on now?

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me

// it's a lonely road, with one grip on several psalms and one grip on the gun
and it holds the rope, it spins me in circles and dizzies my head then says sleep when you're dead //

He wants to tell her that he’s not fine, that he’s not okay or any of the sort. But given their recent argument, he stuffs it down, focuses on something else and closes himself off again when he realizes that the figure was just another shadow, another plaguing vision. “Thought I saw my father.” He admits, knowing how ridiculous it all was and yet still flinching away from it, pouring and downing one drink, before pouring the glass up again with another. Anything to numb or hide away the pain that man’s memory brought.

So he looks back at Melita with shadowed eyes, a tension to his jaw that he works at. It does no good beating around the bush with it, does it? “By taking her down and the Ascended with her.” Which implicates and harms the both of them, entangled by Nate, the one that was easily favored and chosen by both. “Rumor has it too that demi gods have been stationed around by their gods. Preparing for what I can only assume to be that war everyones been hinting at.” The war he’d been trying to avoid at all costs, only increased by the need of gods shuffling pawns. How one day soon, Sunjata might find himself having to choose.

were you ever here? or just lost on the surface that at the first touch, evades in the dust?

SUNJATA

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

Melita had only been painted a few brushstrokes of Sunjata’s father and the monstrous ilk – enough to know, to understand, that he was balancing on a knife’s edge, and didn’t need her daggers, her stilettos, her blades, caught on the fringes too. Hand still tightened around her staff, uncertain what to do, what to say, when presented with the possibilities of ghosts and myths becoming real, her voice softened, lowered, and her gaze too, flickering down to the floor as everything seemed to dim. “Oh. Sorry.” An odd thing to apologize about, when she had no control over it, and hadn’t expressed regrets for all the other damnable moments they’d had recently. “I’ve been seeing and hearing Clem a lot lately. Maybe it’s just the season.” Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe they didn’t know what the hell was going on.

And she teetered, volleyed, rallied right back to vivid flames within the next statements, the mercurial, capricious entity of her existence sparking, sizzling, searing at the implications. “Fuck.” She shook her head, trying to entangle the cobwebs, the spinning wheels, what had been going on here while she spent her days at sea, while she’d been nestled behind cannons, arrows, and swords, while she’d been grasping for adventure. “I thought the war was coming between the Fae and Ascended? Wasn’t that what everyone was up in arms about before?”

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me

// it's a lonely road, with one grip on several psalms and one grip on the gun
and it holds the rope, it spins me in circles and dizzies my head then says sleep when you're dead //

Her apology is granted a small shrug, nothing to be done about it. It’s not like it was her fault, anyway, but she explains she’s been seeing her sister and Sunjata nods to that – even as distracted as he is, he understands the importance of what she’s saying – when he considers her words. “I hope it is.” He rumbles quietly, lips quirking in a bit of a twisted grimace. He hasn’t heard his father yet – just the sight of the man enough to have Sunjata tensing. He doesn’t need to know what would happen should he hear that thick rumbled tone of his father pour in through his ears.

So he tries to drown it out, with alcohol and distraction, nodding to her as she shakes her head and lets the implications of what he’s said become clear. “It appears as though that might be a miniscule one in comparison.” He offers, finally sinking down onto the edge of the couch, reaching up to rub at his temple as he closes his eyes, trying to push away his paranoia. “Wessex will be speaking with the Fae over what’s occurred between them. This, however, is more dangerous – given the fact that it’s the Voice versus the old gods.” He admits, chewing on the inside of his cheek, shakes his head in his uncertainty.

were you ever here? or just lost on the surface that at the first touch, evades in the dust?

SUNJATA

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

Her sister, his father, were left out of her head moments thereafter, not adhering to those complexities when there seemed to be more at stake than just ghosts. Absentmindedly, she swung her staff around, watching it revolve back and forth in a circular pattern, keeping her hands occupied while her membrane, while her skull, while her mind filled with too many plausible, possible, repercussions and demands. The dramatics surrounding the Fae seemed to have nearly dimmed, despite an Ascended being murdered, despite Greatwood predilections from previous years, with the tides shifting, changing, whirling, into war conflagrations. “So.” She ground her teeth, and hated to ask the question. But it needed to be said, needed to be spoken, so that she knew about any plan, so that she could help.

“What are we going to do about Nate?” How was he going to be protected, when both of them had solidified alliances with Old Gods? How was he going to be involved, when he was stoked with New God ichor? Would something eventually happen where there would have to be a choice made? Or was she thinking too much, not common in her expanse, and it wouldn’t home to that? Her features withheld the grimace, but they weren’t calm; stormy, plunging gold, waiting for something to ignite and set her ablaze. “Is there something I can do?”

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me

// it's a lonely road, with one grip on several psalms and one grip on the gun
and it holds the rope, it spins me in circles and dizzies my head then says sleep when you're dead //

What a loaded question that was. And Sunjata’s lucky that he’s got the alcohol burning in his stomach now to give a buffer to his mood and his fears as his gaze lifts to meet Melita’s. He doesn’t know what she can do, not right now anyway. And so he pours a bit more alcohol into his glass, pours a little into another glass for Melita as well, moving to hand her the cup before he sits in the chair again and reassumes his perch.

“I’m making a bunker here.” He tells her, glancing from her to the window. “Safrin… She said that if war were to come I could hide him for a bit. But if the old gods win… Then he either won’t exist or will be changed completely.” He still doesn’t know what it means, and it terrifies him. “So I will hide him away.” A brief pause as his gaze slips back to Melita, one that had favored Ludo while Sunjata stood there as one of Safrin’s, mulling over the admission he’s about to make.

“And if I have to choose between them, I’ll always choose him.” Make of it what you will, Melita. Will the honeybee youth choose as well? Was she as willing to lose everything again if it meant trying to save her favorite uncle?

were you ever here? or just lost on the surface that at the first touch, evades in the dust?

SUNJATA

Melita

I never had a chance to be soft
I was always bloody knuckles

Nothing good. No loaded preambles. No talks of glory or triumph. It was the dirt in the streets and the ashes in lungs, as flames drew around potential conflagrations, things in the future, unholy ethers brought to life, brought to the surface, brought to where veils were unshrouded and reality came to ensue. She took the cup firmly in her hand, and then downed it in one gulp, letting the fire spread down into her bones, in her breath, in the noticeable clench in her jaw, fighting over the multitudes of mayhem. “Changed completely? What the fuck does that even mean?” Altered? Morphed? No longer Nate? And the rest of them too? “What happens to us if the New Gods win?” What would happen to all of them? Her fingers clenched hard around the glass and she placed it down on the desk with an audible thunk, the staff still strong and enduring in her grasp.

“I know.” She knew he’d choose Nate. Just as she’d eternally chosen kin above crew. Just as she’d consistently picked bloodlines and friendships, comrades in arms, over the entanglements of vengeance (though that was enticing). “And as much as you all piss me off, I’ll always put my family first.” A pause, a reflection, something for now instead of later. “What do you need for the bunker?”

and shards of glass
I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me