[se] I will be tempests

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Melita started, as always, without preamble or a hint of a thought. “How are you feeling?” Impulse, impulse, impulse: she bounded and leapt and the question was there, never quite caught beside the branches, brambles, nettles, and thorns. Nymph and fey and spirit of ethereal boundaries, amidst and alive in the forest – undeterred by its rankling vines and its dancing, haunting waves. Her head turned towards her uncle, presuming he’d managed some sort of recovery before they launched out towards the humid void – exploration in her bare feet and dominion on her breath, scalding the fringes without hesitation. Completely unaware, ignorant, of all the other manifestations brought into his life thereafter.

There’d been Hotaru, suddenly back in the house, with some manner of explanation. As if everything had picked up from where it’d been left off; peculiar to her too, in a way she couldn’t quite explain.

There was more she wanted to say. About Nate. About everything. But they were all tied to her tongue and hidden behind her teeth. Instead, she listened to the slap of her quiver against her back, to the lilt of birds and the dashing of insects’ wings, taking in the air, the world, the succession of tree after tree, canopy after canopy, bough after bough. “Have you been out this far before?” Distractions, words that might’ve been useless as she avoided all the other ones.

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

How is he feeling?

Horrible.

He’s lucky he’s still married after all of it. But he doesn’t want to dump that shitfest on Melita, so he keeps it behind his teeth as they traverse into the wilds. He’s quiet when he dips his head, shrugs a shoulder, swallows hard and casts an exhausted glance toward Melita. “Getting better.” He murmurs to his niece, tilting his head to focus on the way they’re headed.

As for whether or not he’d been there before, he chews on the inside of his ruined cheek, relishing in the quiet soreness it brings. “I came out here once when I was still drugged. Got lost and my father showed up.” He takes a sharp inhale, exhales it slowly as they continue their walk. “He broke my wing out here somewhere.” He shakes his head and looks back at Melita. “But, don’t have to worry about that anymore, at least.”

Just…. everything else.

“Have you been out here before?”

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

He was hiding something again. Just one look over her shoulder, a dropping back in pace to match his, insinuated something; the moving of his head, the shrug, the wave of exhaustion. It could’ve been everything from before these moments, but getting better signified more than these reactions. Or perhaps she was misjudging. Perhaps she simply didn’t know. Her brows furrowed in obvious, overt suspicion, but then she raised her chin, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes – a mutinous little tilt of her head. A hint, maybe, that had he not still been mending and assuaging, the youth would’ve been an unrelenting little force.

She hadn’t meant to start up another interval of harsh, unwinding memories; she could recall those moments after blood and bone, where his wing had been broken, crooked, and between all the other nuances, notions, and events, the honeybee hadn’t asked. Sure enough, it had been a result of his father, the man already crushed and fallen beneath the waves. “Sorry,” she murmured instead, the leaping and bounding becoming less pronounced.

At the inquiry though, she tilted her head back, eyes glancing towards the surroundings. “Yeah, just not this part. Found a bird we thought was poisonous though.” A devilish grin began in the crook of her mouth, and then she wandered off again, further and further, dodging along vines, Fangorn following close behind.

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

“It’s not your fault.” He says quickly, following her along the trek she’s picked, over the brambles and branches that droop low enough to the ground. Haai is somewhere around there, darting between trees and trees, far away but close enough to keep an eye on them.

But gods is he burning up with the regret of before when he imagines he should be joyous.

His head angles toward her as she speaks of a poisonous bird, managing a soft hum of consideration — about as much of a laugh as he can manage in this state — watching her as he steps over toward a beam of sunlight that cascades down through the jungle trees. “You thought it was poisonous?” He wonders if that means they’d realized it wasn’t. But he doesn’t say it, because his shoulders weigh too heavy.

So he settles instead easily beside her, until it eats away at him enough that his lips part. “I have to talk to you, heuningby.” He murmurs quietly into the jungle, casting his gaze straight ahead of him, listening to the carefree calls of the strange birds here.

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

She traced her way over stumps and roots, launching and bounding with light steps that should’ve signified a soul with nothing entrenched or overbearing, naught tied or tethered to their presence. But she could feel a shift in the air, and didn’t like it – preferring to occupy her mind with the haphazard wake of her demonstrative, nymph-like motions. The laugh was soft and hushed, maybe as if it meant to not be exuded at all, and the ominous beacon in her chest started again. “Well, I plucked some of its feathers, but I haven’t tried them out on anything yet.” Standing on top of one of the less-rotted logs, the youth rummaged around the satchel along her shoulder, trying desperately to find a distraction, hands intending to grab hold of the emerald plumage –

Too late anyway, because by the time she’d retrieved them, Fangorn was grumbling below and his quiet murmur had managed to split apart the jungle air. Her eyes lifted from the clutched, delicate pieces of the potentially venomous bird, and some portion of her spirit desisted, faded; features downcast, worried, uncertain as her brows furrowed, as her mouth stretched into a drawn line. “What happened now?”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

He should have waited, perhaps, but it eats at him as all things do, Sunjata focused so intensely on the path ahead that he only turns his attention as she rummages through her bag, nodding in understanding that she hadn’t tried it yet. And before she can grab those poison bird feathers from her pack, he’s off ruining the day again. Her voice is quiet and worried and Sunjata’s stomach drops, scales coating his shoulders and neck again. He still doesn’t know how to word it in a way that doesn’t make it seem awful.

“Things at home will be tense for a bit. I’m glad you’re taking the trip on the Ark.” He wholeheartedly hopes it goes well for her. “Nate came back from the Grounds different, but… I’ll let him tell you what happened.” He doesn’t need to stick his fingers in there and muck it up too when they should be proud of him for how huge he has become.

“And I made a deal with Safrin.” He finally takes his gaze away, stepping over a large branch or old vine — it's hard for him to tell. “And when you come back in Longheat, you might have a cousin to meet.” He says this part quieter, letting the humid air pour in around them, choking off his words easily so she can take it all in.

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

The feathers didn’t matter. They were only a distraction from the echoes, from the hollowed bits that threatened to bite and tear, and she wondered if she should be retreating into herself before the plumage became bits of dust and emerald in between her grasp. But she forged onward in her stillness, in the coming wave of storms, in the ominous plunge his voice exuded, putting them back in her bag as if they’d never be unfurled or unveiled –

Things at home would be tense (when weren’t they?). Nate came back from the Grounds different (how? What did that mean?)

But it was the last few sentiments that really stuck and struck. Melita had nothing against the beautiful herald, knew the starry goddess was Sunjata’s favored – but it took her mind a few moments to catch up. A deal. A cousin to meet.

For a few seconds thereafter, she was simply quiet, taking it all in, cranium whirling, gilded gaze flat, then narrowed, upon her uncle. A deal for a child? Some innocent babe, meant to be brought into and upon this earth, and for what? “You’re such a fucking idiot.” She shook her head, and didn’t know who to be heartbroken for. Nate? Hotaru? Sunjata? It was like a rotten fairy tale – where witches bargained for infants cradled away, and all because the adults were too stupid, too ridiculous, too numb. Her hands balled into fists, but she otherwise stood quite still, as if assessing and weighing out her options. “What is this child in exchange for?”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

He lets the words hit her, not realizing immediately that she’s stopped walking. He continues a few paces ahead, his blink a slow shuddering one as she responds and he stills too. The armor remains around his shoulders, head ducking slightly as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, choosing to refrain from agreeing with her if only because he has so much already and would so much in the future.

But what was it for? Why?

“If the Voice is destroyed in this war, Safrin would save Nate.” He manages to say as he turns around to face her, face hollow and grave. If he cared for the child, raised her, loved her, then if the Voice was no more, Safrin would save his husband. He works his jaw slowly, grinding his teeth, looking away from her if only to look anywhere else. “I just didn’t want to lose him.” The possibility and likelihood of death, the slow, painful death it was sure to bring if the Voice did perish. “So I made the deal.”

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

The stump was her throne as she peered down at him, walking onward, head ducked, knowing full well that he’d fucked up yet again. And she didn’t know who to be enraged for – where the lines blurred and crossed, where the beginnings surged and the endings began. He could have his armor, because as much as she desired to rampage and volley, maul, against it, the ripping and tearing wouldn’t do any good.

He never learned.

And she couldn’t quite believe the words she was hearing – the understanding, the clarity brighter, but the storm surging, grappling behind her eyes. A tempest, a fury, a hurricane crescendo in the back of her mind and aching to reach the surface, funneling past her lips in a ferocious snarl. “How? How could she save him? How could she do that?” And her balled fists were in the air, shaking, yearning to hurl and combat their way through something other than the sultry void – stupid, stupid, stupid man. It’d be so easy, so god damned tempting, to beat her vehemence against his thick skull, but it likely wouldn’t hurt anything. “Why couldn’t she just do it now?” Because Melita had to wonder if they were all just lies.

Fabrications and pretenses, for the starry goddess to get what she wanted.

And then more came, a tirade, a howl, a yell, breaking over the veneer of fronds and ferns, indifferent to any other wildlife stirring or hearing her empowered, belligerent haze. “And what about Nate? What did he have to say? Did he want this?”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

Her anger shuts him down more, it keeps him with the distance between them — because as he had learned, it did not do well to remain close to those angry with him. It would only invite more anger, more frustration. So he stays away, lets her words sharpen the humid air, and he watches her in her own fury, adding it onto a long list of things to atone for one day. “They don’t know how.” He offers quietly in comparison to her tirade, her anger. They don’t know how to change them, if it would even be possible while the Voice still remained.

It was entirely up to luck and chance that Sunjata aimed to latch onto Nate and never let go in the hopes that something could be done. “And the Voice has his soul.” And everything else more than just Ascension now, but it isn’t his to say, again, and so he doesn’t.

Her hands ball into fists and Sunjata still keeps his distance, armor plating continuing on down his arms. He doesn’t know entirely how to answer her but he does know that he has to be honest with her. “I don’t think he wanted this, no.” And is that where most of his shame comes from? Perhaps. “But we are… Working on it.” Dealing with it, someway, somehow.

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

The anger was quick and volatile, always just underneath the surface of her skin. In flares and cinders, amidst infernos and conflagrations, just waiting for the right moment to spark, sizzle, sear; a stoking of all those vicious fires. The honeybee was positively molten now, and if she’d been attuned there would’ve been fangs – but she howled just the same, her eyes narrowed in his quiet. In the way he shunned and cowered. In the way he simply let it be – as if all these foregone conclusions didn’t matter, when he was wrecking other people’s lives.

The first answer momentarily stupefied her – mostly because it was so foolish and ignorant. “What do you mean they don’t know how? Then why would you agree to it? Why would you trust her?” Her ire was for so many all at once: for Sunjata, who seemed to never learn anything from his mistakes, trials, or tribulations, for Nate, who never seemed to have an option but to linger in these bewildering facets, for Hotaru, who came back and probably believed in this fucking moron.

The Voice had his soul – right, great. How were any other gods or heralds supposed to retrieve them, when they hadn’t thus far?

Her head shook and if it were possible the entire wake around her would’ve been smoking, fuming. Fangorn wisely grumbled off to the side, trying to distract with the rustling of his vines. “Are you? Are you working on it with him, or just going along with whatever you think is best?” A snarl, a sneer. “Because somehow, someway, this is always about you.” Gods, wouldn't she love to use her staff and crack it right over the top of his skull. "All this shit: your father, the house, this baby, could've been stopped if you got your head out of your ass. If you thought for just one fucking second."

The fists came back to her sides, and she breathed for a moment, lips pulled right back into their thin line again. "It's exhausting." Her companion rumbled again, and she didn't look at him, couldn't look away from the semblance of the man before her - her roar not yet muted. "And someone always has to forgive you. Or clean up after your messes. And so nothing changes. You do the same shit over and over and over again."

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

What does he mean they don’t know how? Because they don’t, and with the Voice around, why does it matter to even try? As for trusting Safrin, well, she’s never given him a reason not to personally. Others, sure, but she has saved him and made him what he is. And he trusts that. So he answers a bit differently, swallowed hard, the plates on his neck shifting with the movement. “Because I can’t lose him.” He murmurs, keeping his distance from her inferno as Haai slips toward him and places herself right up against his legs, a low whine slipping from her throat.

And he watches Melita, listens to her rampage, flinches slightly as it continues (imperceptibly, flinching with a blink here and there) before he’s shaking his head suddenly. “I’m working with him, Melita.” He snaps. He doesn’t know why it’s always about him, but he does know that he can’t sit there and let her pummel him into the ground. He does that well enough on his own. “My father and the things that he did isn’t my fault. What would you have done? You weren’t losing your mind and being drugged and not knowing what was real and what wasn’t!” What had happened with his father was all sorts of confusing and horrible, but it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t anticipate the mob getting to the house, he couldn’t anticipate just how much better his father had become with his fighting.

And she continues on and he barks out a hollow laugh, the scales growing longer and covering more of him. “No. There’s no forgiving this one. The mess is mine, whether you believe it or not.” And his alone to fix. But he can’t stop the clench to his jaw, the way he takes a sharp inhale. “But don’t you dare fucking think that I don’t know how big of a grave I dug myself.”

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Melita didn’t care about his armor, about the bob of his head, about the hollowness of his laugh. He’d earned her wrath, and several others’ over, for this latest stunt in a series of cataclysms, chaos, and stupidity. She was too far gone in her fury, in her ferocity, in the layers and lacquer of season after season, listening to his enduring sagas, striving to step in where and where she could, where he allowed her. But now, there was no escape from her mutinous, seditious melee, in the fire and flames of her words, in the tirade that seemed unending after all his poor answers, after his ridiculous responses. A hurricane, a gale, a tempestuous force, underneath all those compassionate strands; savage, wild, untamed, and she’d almost dare him to come any closer.

So she could split him apart where he stood.

None of them wanted to lose Nate. But she’d never thought to parade and flaunt herself to a goddess, and promise a child, for a conviction, a vow, that might not even happen. It could’ve been a ruse. It could’ve been an act. From atop her stump parapet, the conflagration didn’t cease, words sliding beyond teeth, no longer hidden, no longer composed and comprised for his wounded benefit. “Why didn’t you do that before? What happened to the bunker plans? What happened to all these other ideas? How did you get to that point?” Desperation? Idiocy? Senseless devotion?

Her own laugh, a bellow, a howl, a vicious little motion into the air, sprung at his inquiry. “I wouldn’t have gotten in the stupid situations in the first place!” She would’ve used some notion of common sense – not drugs, not hallucinating, not gliding off into ethers and destruction when there were other alternatives.

He could have his scales, he could hide behind them in her ferocity, but she wasn’t going to cease; not until the embers gave out. “At least you’ve figured that much out.” A growl settled into her chest, would’ve unfurled as puffs of fume and smoke if her body allowed it. “Then what are you going to do about it? Dig yourself another hole? How in the fuck are you going to fix this one?”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

when the world turns upside down, you should blame it on me

He doesn’t dare venture any closer to her, not as she is. But when she speaks of the bunker and of hiding away, his gaze falters and he shakes his head, lips tightening in a fine line. “Because we don’t get to hide away. Because the war is coming and we can’t sit out.” He grits out, lifting his head to look at the jungle’s foliage and the sun that beats down between the branches. “Because we have to fight, there’s no way we get out of this.” And with Nate as a demigod, now? Well, that cemented that.

She laughs her own hollow bellow of a laugh and he shies away from it, slipping that mask over himself again as he works his jaw. “Good for you Mel.” He snaps. “Why don’t you sit there and tell me just how horrible I am at my life while you’re at it.” She doesn’t know what it was like for him. The comparison that she could do it better? Frankly, it hurts, because he thinks she probably could handle things better than him. But it also hurts because she doesn’t understand why he is the way that he is.

And he can’t explain it to her.

“I’m still figuring it out.” He admits, poorly wording it as he shakes his head, as Haai presses in against him again with a hint more comfort in her stance, trying to soothe his wounds. “I have to fix me first.” Before he can try to fix what happened, so that it didn’t happen again. But war loomed, his child loomed, and it was horrifying — a load of weight on his shoulders that makes him feel like he’s suffocating again, lost in the ocean once more.

sunjata

Coding base by Odd!