[Training] turn you into ruins

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Ah, her attempts had been a bit too brazen, and the seasoned warrior had seen through her maneuver. No matter; the youth regarded it with the same smirk, with the same grin, embedded and emboldened on the perilous, frenetic energy. Melita was a coiled spring, unfurling and daring to be unleashed, wild and stubborn and fierce, multitudes of pulsing, untamed spirit alive and well in her blood, in her ichor, in her bones. The whole assemblage was a challenge, and she dared and defied –

Aisha countered, though not as the honeybee might’ve expected. She was forced to raise her sword-arm high to catch at the descending arc, for her blade to reverberate in its expanse, gritting and baring her teeth. Then, on a whim, on a hunch, on mercurial designs, she shot it forward, intending to poke at ribcages or sides.

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life