Melita
they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive
of the women they burned alive
They’d all had blood on their hands in one way or another. How or why sometimes didn’t really matter. It wound away or revolved in turns through one’s mind, over and over and over – until something else came along – a far more draining particle of life. She ceased to imagine the corpse with its outstretched wings and its messages, painstakingly clawing over other nuances, other reminders, of past worlds where it was normal, happenstance, for the terror and torture of another to be on full display.
Her jaw clenched once more, and she looked down, glancing at her palms, absentmindedly tracing over callouses where daggers, bows, and staffs rested. The clear lines of vengeance and annihilation, of defense and safeguarding. A troublemaker; the Flood ran him out of town. Apparently he’d come back at some point, or maybe been dragged – could’ve been an audacious scandal, an emboldened regime. Could’ve been nothing at all, random and chosen.
Melita’s head rose, Fangorn settling into her lap as she curled downward against the doorframe. An idea. No proof. No evidence. And something else lingered there. Her brows furrowed, making a neat line of potential embers, cinders, and fire between her eyes and mind, scraping over whatever morsel she could find, grasp, and grip. “Are you not going to tell me then?”
Her jaw clenched once more, and she looked down, glancing at her palms, absentmindedly tracing over callouses where daggers, bows, and staffs rested. The clear lines of vengeance and annihilation, of defense and safeguarding. A troublemaker; the Flood ran him out of town. Apparently he’d come back at some point, or maybe been dragged – could’ve been an audacious scandal, an emboldened regime. Could’ve been nothing at all, random and chosen.
Melita’s head rose, Fangorn settling into her lap as she curled downward against the doorframe. An idea. No proof. No evidence. And something else lingered there. Her brows furrowed, making a neat line of potential embers, cinders, and fire between her eyes and mind, scraping over whatever morsel she could find, grasp, and grip. “Are you not going to tell me then?”
because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life
to bring a whole wildfire to life
