#szpaece

Szae hears a set of very important-sounding hoof-clacks and wriggles her body deeper into the tiny alcove she's taken as her hiding spot. It's a good bet that no one will find her here. She's not the smallest child on this very big ship; that honor goes to Fanara, so enviably petite and yet the sort who would not be caught dead skipping out on morning prayers. A tactical advantage granted to someone who would never in a million years use it for anything fun or interesting. Maybe she could see beneath the artificer's deck and rat Szae out to the High Priestess, but then she'd have to drag herself away from that awful smoky room and her muttering devotions first.

Szae has to make due with curling herself into the tiniest ball possible, her spine aching, her young knees yearning to stretch and run. It's hardly better than just doing what she's told and attending prayers, but even at this age, it's the principle of the thing for her. She doesn't like the High Priestess's sad, sometimes scary stories. She doesn't like the melancholy music. She doesn't want to think of the sacrifices her parents made without ever even asking her if she wanted to be sacrificed for.

If they had asked, she would have rather kept them. Shocker, she knows, that's not what a good girl should think. Even if it wasn't forever, she would rather have asked to learn the names of the stars from her mother, whose name is still on some of the star maps. She would have asked her father to teach her to hunt and prepare her kill and feed her community. Even if all of those weren't any option at all, she still would have preferred a second longer with them. Maybe then she'd still remember their faces, at least.

Like everyone else, they'd expected Szae to do what she is told. To live on. To carry their legacy through the stars for them without ever asking her if she was strong enough to carry it all by herself. If she even WANTED to.

The hoof-clacks stop. Szae holds her breath.

"I know you're under there, Szae."

It's not the High Priestess, thank the Light. (Oh, right, she shouldn't say that about any little thing.) This voice is kind and patient. Familiar.

Szae wonders how much deeper she can shove herself into this tiny crevice. She whimpers as a bolt scrapes her cheek. It begins to sting where it scored her skin.

"Okay." Priestess Alaena is very good indeed. She doesn't deserve to be on Chasing Szae duty, even Szae knows that. But she is the youngest of the priestesses, and therefore gets the lousiest jobs. Their world is designed to be as annoying as possible all the way up to the top, but unlike Szae, unlike most of their covenant, Priestess Alaena does not wear the weight of that on her pretty face. She feels freer than the rest of them, in a way that makes Szae terribly jealous. Alaena doesn't even take a look around before she draws up her skirts and takes a seat on the ground, just outside of Szae's hiding place. "We can hide together. Would that be okay?"

It is so shocking to be asked for permission. To be considered.

And Szae can't take it anymore. She whispers, "It hurts." Her bones bend. Her body tries to escape. She isn't sure why it's so afraid. Alaena is nice, she moves slowly, she isn't scary when she inches closer. Her hand on Szae's scratched-up cheek feels like something she's been missing all her life.

Maybe that is what is terrifying. She flinches away.

"High Priestess says that pain is a force."

"Was it a 'force,' or a 'forge?'" Alaena manages to say it like it's not a correction. It's a mystery they'll solve together. Szae, who loves a mystery, a word-puzzle, a problem that is solveable, begins to breathe easier. She doesn't struggle away so much. "Which means it's okay if I help you. A forge is for our strongest steel. You're just a little ore."

"I'm little," Szae echoes her. She can't even see over the environmental consoles in the refectory. She still uses a stepping stool to wash her hands before every meal. Even with all of her disadvantages, she'd take that any day over being a Lady, like the High Priestess is always telling her to be. She doesn't quite understand what she is saying when she desperately insists, "I'm really little."

There is sadness in Alaena's eyes, of course -- it's shared between them all. Every stop in the stars brings with it more loss. Szae is used to her classmates disappearing. She isn't the only one missing from morning mass. She tells herself she doesn't care, but she wears the loss all the same.

Alaena's hand lingers on her little cheek. As if she's measuring the breadth of her hand against it, the faded scars on her knuckles against skin that has only been broken for the first time. Szae's cheek will not scar; Alaena mends it with such care, too much. It is a gluttonous amount of Light that she spills into the hurt.

Szae looks at her sad eyes. Even at her young age, she understands that this pretty face has witnessed untold horrors. She has never given a hug before, but the kindness awakens some dormant instinct in her limbs. She holds Alaena so tightly, her tiny fingers curling in the priestess's hair.

Her first embrace, and also her last. For a thousand years, it is the only sign of life she remembers in herself. She grows taller, holding on to hope that that part of her hasn't died with Priestess Alaena, silently, coldy, gone one day without explanation. Another name unceremoniously listed off during their morning observance of their peoples' sacrifices.

She gets the impression that is what sacrifice means. To take the best of something and toss it like garbage into the dark. To take it away from the people who need it. It's a perfect excuse to mute her goodness, to protect herself.

If nothing else, she will do anything to avoid taking part in morning prayers.

where has the night gone? it feels as if it's only been a second. an eyeblink.

surely they've only just arrived, these strangers that szae has rounded up like cattle and herded into this posh club. she can still see the look on the host's face when she'd marched in with a train of beautiful women in tow. he'd slipped her enough coin to catch the first ship off this dreadful island, and she'd tucked it into her corset, promising she'd save it for just that. that she'd only share one drink with these people. she'd brought them here, after all. it would only be decent to stand with them in a row, shot glasses in hand, to toast to a young night and tip back her drink and

now her hair hangs limp from its pinnings. her corset has meandered down her sweat-slick chest. the coins are long gone, she definitely drank them all. but that's just fine. they've bought her passage into the arms of an Angel.

a real one. she has wings. she has soft, dark hair. she does not know where to step or how to swing her hips. szae commands with her hands, placing them on her waist, holding them in the air. she tells the Angel to look at her. she finds that it is always golden hour in her Angel's eyes.

it is not difficult to teach a stranger how to hold you, but szae has always found it difficult to want to be held. (she would rather stream, like smoke, she would rather drift through the fingers of a grasping hand.) she likes the way her Angel holds her. she rocks szae in a way that she hopes will never end.

it ends in an instant. the world outside is searing, merciless, unkindly bright. szae is the caterpillar who has left her cocoon too soon. she tips back her drink and

her angel is even prettier outside her dress. divinity unconstrained. a sacrament of flesh, the liberation of something pure. she would feel guilty for her transgressions against this body, for her unwavering impulse to defile everything beautiful, if she were not so drunk. but anyway, she tips back her drink and

bodies rain down beside her as if they've been brought in with a raging tempest. they swell at her feet like rainwater. she gets the impression that she will drown in skin. her eyes widen in the humidity, the baking heat against her. she really prefers to be smoke.

she blinks and they're in a fancy hotel bed, big marionettes with their strings snipped and their joints dangling. they fold over her pillows and curl off the mattress.

szae wonders in a panic what planet she is on.

who is hunting them.

how many still remain?

is this how her parents looked, powered down and balled like little bugs? their dead faces used to haunt her dreams, but this isn't so bad. they almost look like they're still alive, suspended in dreaming repose.

of course they are alive. she clutches a hand to her chest, her heart pounding like a caged animal fighting for freedom. they look terrible, their eyes are sunken, their skin pallid and gray, but one moans when she moves too abruptly off her bed. she barely recognizes some of them, and one not at all. they're all practically strangers.

she waits, and the tide surely comes in again. the darkness whispers to her in the voices of everyone she has disappointed before. it relishes in the sense of impending disapproval from the people that she is disappointing now. her mind is a marquee, spinning, spinning, spinning, ticking off one transgression after another. she crawls to the washing room, dragging herself groaning over the stained tile floor, and leans her head into the bathtub and waits for the world to stop spinning or for this misery to fucking kill her already.

instead, it goes brilliant. her Angel fills her mind, chases away the shadows. her kindness comes to mind, how jealous she is for it now. how good it would be to have a sweet voice in her ear to forgive her tonight. to curl up in arms that know how to hold her and cry this pain away, cry away the impulse to hurt herself again. her Angel would know how to keep her from falling apart.

or she'd take one look at the state of szae and this well-defiled hotel room and take a sensible hike straight out the door. szae rifles through the grimey mélange beside her: someone else's bra, pants that she wore or borrowed someone missing their own for some reason, little vials that bring back sensations that make her mouth itch. beneath it all is just what she knows she's stashed away. she always leaves a little for herself, just in case. she knows this cycle of pain too well.