death at my hands will be a mercy

Grimelda had lost many people in her life, but never a daughter.

Humans might have said Malia’s grave was beautiful, her big tombstone at the head of it, smoothed over with fresh mud and colorful flower petals. To Grimelda, it was repulsive. But she knew that a human gravesite, crawling with bugs and rotting with flesh, was where Malia would’ve wished to be. This was where she chose to live, Grimelda reminded herself constantly, long fingers twitching. This was where she was happiest.

She thought she’d be happiest too, finally in a position to end Melo Prevosi’s life. But walking from the grave to the small, rickety bench where the boy sat in the rain, blank-faced and forlorn, was more infuriating than anything. Gone was the warrior side of him, the unique viciousness and drive that made the gods overlook his weaknesses and mortality. Here he was just an idiot boy with a plan destroyed, with a battle won but all else lost, who had sent her daughter off to die. Who delivered the final blow himself.

She let herself glare at him in fury, a part of her relishing in the instinctual deep fear behind his eyes.

He was the one Malia had loved above all. And she would be the one to kill him.

“You know,” he spoke firmly the moment Griselda tore her eyes away from him and sank onto the little bench beside him, “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

The goddess closed her eyes and regained ber cool, angry already despite herself. Anyone? Is that all Malia was to him? Just another body to be discarded in the pointlessness of these human wars? “Melo,” she said sharply, in warning.

“I never wanted to kill her.” The boy’s voice trembled with passion.

“Do you really believe, after all you have done, that I care about what you want?”

“Grimelda—”

“Do not use my name,” Grimelda snarled, her head snapping over to him. Melo flinched away from her. “You have long since lost that right.”

“She was in pain,” he said, his lower lip trembling. His fists were clenched in his lap. “She was dying.”

Grimelda shook her head in disgust. “She should have never been given the right to fight.”

“She wanted to fight,” the boy insisted. He reached out and grabbed her arm, gripping it like it was the last thing he’d ever touch. It probably was. “She was strong. She helped us take back the land!” His fingers tightened on her. “She died a hero.”

“She died in vain,” Grimelda hissed into his face. She let the boy’s hand fall from her as she reigned herself up to her full height. “Just as you will now.”

Savagely, she draws her sword.

“She died a hero,” Melo muttered to himself, rather than to Grimelda. His shoulders shook with the wetness of the cold, the rain pouring down onto him, soaking him through. “She died a hero. She did.”

Grimelda drew back her blade, seething down at Melo, fighting back memories of her Malia. The way she clung to this boy, the way her smile would radiate brighter than the sun when he was at her side. The way his smile would do the same for her.

“Grimelda.”

When she looked down this time, she wasn’t sure what kind of face she made, what side of herself she was displaying towards this human who killed her child, who loved her daughter, who all of a sudden plagued her memories. Who she was finding it harder and harder by the second to want to kill.

He looked at her solemnly, hand reaching up, before his hand clamped around her fingers, almost in comfort.

“Make it quick,” he whispers.

Grimelda stared down at him.

She could give him that form of mercy, at least.

With one last, short breath, her sword, in all its glory, slashed down.

—

I wrote the same story from the mother’s perspective, not sure which snippet I preferred.

Thanks for reading guys! :)