M E L I T A
There was an instant of praise, of success pooling into her movements, her motions, the impact ricocheting along her limbs. She didn’t smile, she didn’t grin, but inwardly, she was glowing, confident, radiant, given one feral opus of hums and assurances, before the rest of the moments carried on, waves of instruction blistering against her small triumph. There wouldn’t be time for celebrations.
A sudden pain twisted along her ankle, Roana’s spinning sending the volley of anguish into her bones, and she sank straight onto her back with a rush of air, a widening of her eyes.
She’d been on the ground before, staring straight into an enemy’s eyes, the glowing ivories, the raised hackles, the promise of death looming over her. Her howls, her screams, her outcries wouldn’t matter here like they had there; alarm shifting on a predator’s face when it came to witness her alteration, hands in the dirt and sand, throwing, tossing, kicking out –
She wouldn’t be a sitting duck here either.
Gods, if she’d had a dagger she could’ve plunged it straight into an artery and been done with the entire thing – but this wasn’t life or death, knives or blades. The youth ignored all the other possibilities and influences, automatically rolling, swiftly, quickly, across the stones and soil, desperate to cling onto an instant where she could regain her composure, her stature, when her ankle would stop languishing its onslaught. She wouldn’t stop and give in, wouldn’t allow herself to be pinned into the earth, fighting, fighting, fighting, vicious and vehement even if the end seemed near, close, strangling and suffocating.
With her good leg, she attempted to kick straight up at Roana’s limbs, perhaps to connect with her kneecap, with her calf, anything to give her opportunity to stand again – thereafter, curling onto all fours, the clenching, tightening pain in her ankle not holding her weight well. Get up, she told herself, wild and savage, digging into her might and acrimony, standing once more, but rather unwieldly; much like a fawn, a newly sprung deer.
