M E L I T A
Tell me what else you know was a gateway, a damn opening and breaking, and Melita didn’t know where to start or how to begin. She knew how curiosity sought her out, hook, line, and sinker, until she craved its scholarly pursuits and demanding intentions, until she scoured the light and dampened the darkness. She knew how it sounded when a world ended, crashing, disastrous toils clinging to her eardrums long after she’d been forced into a portal, and then empty, empty silence, like the void screaming for help. She knew how it felt to have a mother’s death and sacrifice affect her so profoundly, that every day she wondered if she’d been worth it, to scream and howl and sob when the ghosts came rushing over her neck, strangled, choked, suffocated. She knew how it felt when naught she did every truly mattered, but she wanted it to – so, so badly, that it broke her into filaments and splinters, and she ricocheted off the walls. She knew how injustice soaked into palms and frames, into tiny, precious beings, and how acting as a shield could only get her so far. The hundreds of life lessons stoked her core and Melita nearly shuddered and strained under the weight of it, but clapsed herself together, tore her head away from the ground and dirt, so she could face
But then, a wave of movement and motion caught her off-guard, as if it’d been entirely on purpose, to snatch away the riveted attention, to steal her away from her thoughts, to interrupt the cycle of broken, damaged little things. The first motion of Wessex’s staff pummeled at her thigh immediately, and before she could swing and propel herself out of the way, the second came roaring too, tapping along her knee as she slid to the right. Out of pure, damned irritation and vexation, she seemed to realize, remember, recall she was still holding her own staff, and was meant to retaliate. Wessex’s wide swing and lack of defense throughout the last motion gave her somewhat of a chance; but the older woman was likely far more calculated than she. She held her staff in the center, fists clustered tightly together, then spread them apart quickly, to gain more control and precision over its long-ended weight. Thereafter, she aimed for the top of Wessex’s left thigh, or to stop the pinwheeling melee, relishing in the feel of the wood beneath the intended attack, in the memories harbored in her chest.
