M E L I T A
There wasn’t a single response to her refrains, to her garbled, entangled history. Perhaps Wessex didn’t care. Maybe it didn’t matter. Everything might’ve simply been contorted into the here and now, and the worlds before – where she’d sat and cried, where she’d molded and carved, scraped and burrowed, clawed and shielded, didn’t do a damn thing. It was the present that should’ve occupied her mind and body, her soul and movements, her motions and barrages, her assaults and sieges. She let the ghosts go from her mind, for now, saved them for later when the earth was quiet and her hands weren’t occupied by swinging staffs and makeshift weapons, when precision didn’t matter, when she wasn’t intent on becoming powerful and fearsome.
There was a healthy, brooding ache in her muscles from the way she held her legs, not entirely unsettling, but certainly uncomfortable; a way for her frame to register it’d been working hard, that the worlds, kingdoms, and sovereignties would be far tougher, and she thought about grinding her teeth, clenching her jaw, and simply sucking it up. The youth wasn’t going to complain. She wasn’t going to whine. She wasn’t going to ask for pity, sympathy, or empathy. She’d push herself straight into the earth if it was required of her. Maybe
Her eyes took in the spinning of the Ascended’s staff, the way it maneuvered in a circle, the way her hands caught the wood and sent it shifting again, slowly, so the honeybee girl would have half a chance to copy the motions. She witnessed it several more times, taking in the clutch of the woman’s fingers, where and ways she held the weapon, before trying to for herself; thrusting it outward, then in front of her, gilded stare reverently coursing along the intricate, but redundant notions. At first, it wasn’t so bad, flipping it along one hand before it spiraled to the other, until her grasp became tired, until her fingers didn’t flex as well, until it slipped from her clenching hold and altered the course. She huffed an incensed breath, but didn’t complain, didn’t proffer a damned curse, oath, or word, lifting the staff back up to the prior position, and beginning again. Her arms reminded her they weren’t made of steel either, had mortal qualities she’d never be able to counter, but strength and conviction flickered in her wrist, and she attempted the redirection move, altering the course, striving to mimic Wessex’s deadly contortions. It worked just the once, but never across her back, fettering on some misguided calculation and falling to the ground.
Fangorn hissed at it, as if it were the staff’s fault, but her tired arms lifted slightly to scratch him on the stem, then grabbed hold of the weapon. She should’ve never have dropped it. The youth attempted to adjust accordingly, shaking out her arms so her muscles ceased quivering, shuddering, undulating, aching, hopping in place to get the blood flowing once more. “Let me try again,” she pleaded, strong and enduring, and aimed to follow the motions in the same stead.
