Melita
they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive
of the women they burned alive
The vampire gourd’s echoes were a welcome reprieve and distraction, and her features softened visibly, half a smile etched along her lips while she marauded through the collection of things, looking for more training arrows. “That’s Fangorn. I got him a couple years ago.” Which felt like lifetimes too, and the pumpkin hissed something else, to which she permitted a light laugh. “His kind terrorizes the Grounds every Leafchange. He was one of the last ones to survive that season, so I offered him some food, and that was that.” They were bonded, together, tied and knotted and gnarled, tethered and hooked. Another shrug, as if this weren’t something out of the ordinary, normalcy on this earth.
Perhaps a better alternative than whatever glimpsed and scraped at Aurelia too – with the way her words ceased, halted, desisted, and Melita understood the way things choked and bottled down, down, down, so they couldn’t escape. They festered instead. So she took the answer and didn’t ask anything more, wasn’t her place, and the youth, despite all of her audacity, boldness, and impudence, knew when to stop. Knew how the pain and torment composed, rooted, and grasped.
So her eyes watched as the other woman attempted to adopt her stance, quirking a brow upwards at the way her shoulders bunched and coiled, at the way the grip would instill nothing but an arrow straight into the ground. “Let’s see,” she conjured a breath, flattening out the snort threatening to buoy there. “Straighten your shoulders, and if you hold your bow like that, nothing is going to go well.” The honeybee maneuvered to stand beside her, drawing her bow once more, conforming, configuring into the familiar positioning. “Ground yourself. Your strength is going to come from your arms, but it has to start somewhere. Put the weight in your feet.” She shifted so that her own limbs went accordingly, one foot in front of the other, as if she might be ready to face the world. “Hand tight over your weapon. It goes nowhere. It’s a part of you, an extension of you.” Like a blade.
Perhaps a better alternative than whatever glimpsed and scraped at Aurelia too – with the way her words ceased, halted, desisted, and Melita understood the way things choked and bottled down, down, down, so they couldn’t escape. They festered instead. So she took the answer and didn’t ask anything more, wasn’t her place, and the youth, despite all of her audacity, boldness, and impudence, knew when to stop. Knew how the pain and torment composed, rooted, and grasped.
So her eyes watched as the other woman attempted to adopt her stance, quirking a brow upwards at the way her shoulders bunched and coiled, at the way the grip would instill nothing but an arrow straight into the ground. “Let’s see,” she conjured a breath, flattening out the snort threatening to buoy there. “Straighten your shoulders, and if you hold your bow like that, nothing is going to go well.” The honeybee maneuvered to stand beside her, drawing her bow once more, conforming, configuring into the familiar positioning. “Ground yourself. Your strength is going to come from your arms, but it has to start somewhere. Put the weight in your feet.” She shifted so that her own limbs went accordingly, one foot in front of the other, as if she might be ready to face the world. “Hand tight over your weapon. It goes nowhere. It’s a part of you, an extension of you.” Like a blade.
because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life
to bring a whole wildfire to life
