M E L I T A
“I never got to meet them. They were just in stories.” She shrugged, uncertain of how much of the tales were ever true, forced, or outright lies – barbs and omens from the Dragon’s Throat, meant to be foreboding intervals for the youth of the sand and smoke – beware the Basin never outrightly expressed, but said in between the lines. “What was he like?” She muttered and mumbled between her bites of bread, savoring the lovely flavors across her tongue again, making her thinking of turning back to receive more. “My mother was Najya, a healer.” She’d taken her mother’s name as her last – a way to preserve and honor the mender who could only remain in spirit, in ghostly form behind her eyes. “I didn’t know my father.” The youth mentioned off-handedly, in case the inquiry was sizzling along Rexanna’s tongue; never met, never understood, but she’d always noticed a difference between her sister and herself – fraternal, certainly not identical, and by her sister’s disposition, she’d taken after their gentle, lovely mother. Melita could only presume she’d caught the bloodline of her father and run off with it – rapacious and crimson and savage.
But when Rexanna’s voice became choked, surprised, utterly befuddled by the honeybee girl’s latest statement, Melita’s eyes rounded in response, listening intently to the spiraling actions and accord. “Really?!” Kiada’s mother: alive and whole, before her. She wondered what to say or do next; not allowing the bitterness, the rancor, of Kiada’s actions to sizzle over her mind – it had naught to do in the moment, in the moment of space and time. How lucky and fortuitous it was, truly – her eyes watched Rexanna’s hand go to her forehead, and the girl followed suit, very gently, very soothingly, like she might’ve known how to mend in another life, under her mother’s beatific tutelage. She thought about guiding the woman to a bench, so that she might sit, react, think, and ponder where to go from there. “Would you like to see her again?” Her words were a whisper, quiet and hushed, reverent, exploring the options unfolding.
