Empires Always Fall Chapter Sixty: Zhe'Ärani: Are We Safe Now?
content notices: police, violence, killing, blood, brief body horror, kidnapping, theft, PTSD, partial nudity, past abuse, past branding, past whipping, brief infantilizatition, past ableism, familial and platonic relationships, pet names, nicknames, past character death, mentioned past pregnancy and abortion, doctor visit, implied past sexual abuse, cult, dissociation (not POV character), threats
With the state the city was in, it was even riskier for Zhe'Ärani to keep doing her murals, but she had to. She was being sent more and more names and pictures every day. Someone needed to make sure these people weren't erased and forgotten.
She was deep in focus. She needed to get the colours right on the hair. She wanted it to look as real and individual as possible. It was easier without distractions, so she'd turned her hearing aids off.
It meant she didn't know she'd been caught until the shadow loomed over her.
She didn't even have time to scream before she was face-down on the ground with her arms wrenched behind her.
After a brief freeze, she twisted around and bit as hard as she could into the first fleshy thing she could find. She had been trained as an Initiate of Corysecli for nearly two years. She wasn't helpless and she refused to let her body act like she was.
Her hands were cuffed, but she could bite and she could kick and bite and kick she would.
There was a second person, and then a third- a Divine Soldier, not one from the Prime Temple so probably one of the locals- coming for her, but then there were suddenly a lot more people, and-
Strands of golden magic, LÄ«sandyr's magic, twisted through the air. No one else could see the way it moved through space like she could, but Zhe'Ärani was only half human.
The gold threads pierced through the body of the police officer she was fighting, and then-
Zhe'Ärani turned her head to the side and threw up as the officer's body did things a body never should, folding up into a neat little square of meat and fabric and hair and blood.
She shoved herself backwards along the concrete until she was- not a comfortable distance away, but a bit less immediately close.
What the fuck.
She didn't see LÄ«sandyr kill people very often, and certainly not like that.
She caught a glimpse of some of the other Initiates- Nesyue having tackled the second officer to the ground, KaelĂa and Abhaonai and Kjotar and Retmiq facing off against the Divine Soldier because four Initiates might just stand a chance against one full godsworn- before LÄ«sandyr's tall form blocked her view.
He squatted down in front of her.
"Okay?" he signed.
With the confused mush of emotions inside her, Zhe'Ärani wasn't sure if she was, but she nodded anyway. She knew what he meant. She was bruised all over and her shoulders were definitely strained, but she wasn't seriously injured.
He reached around behind her, hands closing around her wrists, and a moment later she felt the cuffs release.
"Thank you," she signed, not looking at the formerly-a-person meat cube.
LÄ«sandyr held out his hands to help her up, and she took them.
Nesyue had her hand on KaelĂa's shoulder as its repeated stabbing came to a stop. Retmiq was nursing an injured arm and helping Abhaonai cover a deep-looking slash in his leg, and Kjotar's nose had been smashed. All four of KaelĂa, Abhaonai, Kjotar, and Retmiq had bright red arterial spray spattered across their robes, and in KaelĂa's case its face.
Guodei stood at the end of the alley, facing away from them. She had the kid- Qonai, the little girl who was meant to one day replace her as Lieutenant Initiate, whom Zhe'Ärani was ashamed to realize she'd hardly thought about at all since leaving- in her arms, and Qonai's face was ruddy from screaming and her fists were pounding against Guodei's back, but she was far too small to have much effect. Despite herself, Zhe'Ärani felt a pang at the wounds that must be reopening under the blows to cause the spots of blood high on the back of Guodei's robes.
All three of Zhe'Ärani's attackers were dead.
Fortunately, it wasn't that far back to the commune. They weren't exactly inconspicuous, and the car the police and the Divine Soldier had presumably arrived in wasn't big enough for eight.
"You okay?" Zhe'Ärani signed as they waited for a patrol near a closed boat-rental place to turn the corner away from where they needed to cross.
"Fine," KaelĂa replied. "LÄ«s checked me over."
She knew that. He'd checked everyone over. "The Divine Soldier- You knew each-"
The way Moghrlai Gurodstadit's Divine Soldiers and KaelĂa had greeted each other all that time ago had been like family.
"I'm fine." KaelĂa stepped out into the boatyard and waved the rest of them along, ending the conversation.
Qonai almost tipped the stolen- borrowed, Zhe'Ärani told herself, she'd bring it back sometime- boat, then cried herself to sleep in Guodei's arms. Zhe'Ärani found herself tearing up in sympathy.
"She figured out we weren't going back about three days in," Abhaonai signed. "It's her home, and she's not even five, she doesn't know any different. But we couldn't just leave her there."
Zhe'Ärani nodded. It would have been far worse to leave her behind. No one should ever go through what they had, especially not a little kid, and she would never have gotten out after this.
"Poor thing," Abhaonai added.
Zhe'Ärani nodded again.
"It adds kidnapping to the desertion, treason, breach of contract, theft, leaving without permission from a legal guardian, breach of Temple law, and now murder," signed Retmiq. "You're a saint for taking us in with all that following us, Zhe'Ärani."
"We don't have saints in my religion."
"It's a figure of speech," signed Retmiq.
"Oh."
"He just means you're risking a lot," signed Abhaonai.
"She was already in danger anyway," signed KaelĂa.
Zhe'Ärani nodded.
None of them mentioned that GÄtnyx had already tried to send Guodei to kill her some time ago.
The cabin for the Initiates had been built and ready for a while now, waiting for when they'd arrive.
"This is for you," Khadnarrai explained. "You can move these screens and set up the space however you want. You can use the kitchen here, but we also have a communal meal area that you're welcome to share."
Rokhesh set the bag down on the floor. "We collected up clothes from the quartermaster and some donations. Hopefully there will be something to fit everyone. If you can all take your measurements, someone can take them to our sewist and have a few things made or some of these altered. If you want to all look through these and get changed, Zhe'Ärani can give you a tour later and introduce you to some people."
"I painted the house a quiet colour for you," Zhe'Ärani told LÄ«sandyr. Like her, he didn't do well with change, and she wanted to make this transition as easy on him as possible.
LÄ«sandyr nodded vaguely in acknowledgement, hugging himself.
Rokhesh opened the bag and held out a small pair of overalls to Qonai. They had grass stains on the knees from whoever had owned them before. "Why don't you try these on?" he said.
Zhe'Ärani got her bass voice from him (well, and the testosterone, but it was his genes that was acting on) and could hear him almost clearly with her hearing aids on.
Qonai kicked his outstretched hand.
Rokhesh dropped the overalls and pulled his hand back. It was too sharp for Zhe'Ärani to hear, but his lips formed the shape of an exclamation of pain.
Something in the room shifted. Zhe'Ärani didn't see anyone really move much individually, but all of a sudden, the Initiates- herself included- were standing as if to protect Qonai. The way the tension was directed, she realized with a pang that she was no longer one of them.
Qonai burst into tears. Even with her hearing aids, Zhe'Ärani couldn't really make out her high child's voice, but she was saying something, the same thing over and over. She only caught a couple words- "sorry," "bad."
Guodei tucked Qonai defensively behind her legs.
LÄ«sandyr was standing frozen, eyes fixed unmovingly on Rokhesh. He flinched away when Zhe'Ärani tried to hold his hand to comfort him.
It seemed to take Rokhesh much longer to figure out what was happening than it had Zhe'Ärani. After an endless moment, he half-squatted to be closer in height to Qonai. "Hey, there. Qonai, is it? Did I scare you?"
Qonai didn't respond, just hid her face in Guodei's robes, but Kjotar next to them nodded and crossed his arms.
"I shouted because you hurt me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hurt you, okay?" Rokhesh's gaze travelled over all of them, even Zhe'Ärani. "We don't do that here." He signed the same thing, so Abhaonai would know too.
"You don't need to change your clothes if you don't want to," Khadnarrai signed. "What you wear is your choice. The clothes will stay here, and you can look through them, and whenever you're ready, or if you just need something to wear while those robes are being washed, they will still be here for you."
From what Zhe'Ärani could make out, she repeated the same thing out loud, to make sure she was understood.
The tension slowly died down. Kjotar sat down on the floor and started poking through the bag, with Abhaonai soon joining and sorting the clothes into size groups. KaelĂa gently pulled LÄ«sandyr over to itself and murmured to him quietly. Nesyue took a T-shirt with a big flower printed on the front and tossed it at Guodei with a smirk.
To Zhe'Ärani's surprise, and maybe Nesyue's too given the way her eyebrows shot up, Guodei took the shirt.
With her back to the wall, she pulled off her bloodstained robes and dropped them unceremoniously on the floor. "Burn it."
Zhe'Ärani couldn't not notice the uncomfortable way Rokhesh and Khadnarrai reacted to the Temple brand over Guodei's heart and the smaller scars flecked across her chest and belly. They couldn't even see the whip scars or any unhealed wounds apart from some bruises. There was a reason she was still wearing a full half-sleeved shirt and long pants, even though it was getting hot enough that many people were just wearing the Gharan wrap dress that left the back and arms and much of the chest exposed and let everything breath with its looseness.
She almost laughed at the incongruity of Guodei in a flower shirt.
Looking up from his careful search of the clothing piles, Retmiq did laugh.
Guodei made a rude gesture. "Shut up. Clothes are clothes and I'm not wearing those robes anymore. They're so dirty by now anyway." She was facing Zhe'Ärani pretty much head-on, so what she couldn't hear wasn't that hard to fill in with lip-reading.
Retmiq snapped his head back to the clothes. "Yes, Lieutenant."
Nesyue gave Guodei a look. "She didn't mean it like that, Retmiq."
Retmiq pursed his lips. "I don't know," he signed.
"No, she's right," said Guodei. "We're not doing that anymore."
Nesyue put her hand on top of Retmiq's tiny curls. "You have to be more clear with him."
Retmiq snapped something that Zhe'Ärani didn't catch.
"Okay. Sorry. I was just sticking up for you."
Retmiq met Zhe'Ärani's eyes briefly. "Babying me," he signed.
Zhe'Ärani rolled her eyes. "Nuisances."
She and Retmiq heavily suspected he, too, was like her and LÄ«sandyr. AiĆĄoko, or 'Social-Emotional Dysregulation,' or whatever they were to call it, all three of them different in very similar ways. She didn't know if LÄ«sandyr agreed- all he would say on the matter was that it was rude to speculate, and that he would never want to imply someone was like him, which (still) made Zhe'Ärani so angry at everyone he'd grown up around that she had been distracted from finding out what he thought of Retmiq by her anger and LÄ«sandyr's shame.
When Zhe'Ärani was no longer talking to them, Rokhesh pulled her gently aside.
"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, Rani," he began. "I don't want to upset you by making you talk about it. But I noticed- A brand? On Guodei's chest."
Zhe'Ärani's hand drifted up to her own chest.
"Did they do that to you, too, sweet pea?"
Zhe'Ärani was about to dismiss it, say it wasn't that bad, there had been so much going on that day and she had been so overwhelmed by it all that she barely even remembered being branded.
But.
It was a big deal. Even if she hardly remembered the pain- GÄtnyx had branded her, like they used to do to slaves, like some people did to farm animals, to mark the Temple's ownership over Zhe'Ärani's body.
She nodded, angry tears welling in her eyes.
They had fucking branded her.
The tour of the commune started at the quartermaster's. Zhe'Ärani had recruited her reluctant old friends ÄvolĂș and Ghurvi'airra to help with both carrying anything they might pick up and with being local teenagers (who hadn't been missing for almost two years and didn't have gaps in their memories) to show the Initiates- former Initiates- what kinds of things they might want to do as (mostly, except for Guodei on one side and Qonai on the other) teenaged residents of the commune.
Abhaonai tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to face him.
"Kjotar wants me to tell you that he's never met this many people who look like us before," he signed.
Zhe'Ärani nodded. Kjotar talked to others if he had to, if he was ordered to report or if he really needed something, but mostly he just talked to his brother.
Ghurvi'airra's eyes followed Abhaonai's hands. "Are you Gharan?" she asked.
"Our mother was," Abhaonai signed. "We were both born in Zioshue, though, and Kjotar was still pretty young when she died, so while we knew a couple other people with the same ancestry, he doesn't remember them. It wasn't very many, anyway."
"Big age gap?"
Ahbaonai shrugged. "Five years."
"Is it common for a pair of siblings to be in the same Temple?"
"Not by birth."
"I told you, they make it so the Temple is your family now instead," signed Zhe'Ärani. She recalled how LÄ«sandyr's sister hadn't seen him in years. "If you have any other family from before, they don't count anymore. They usually don't get to visit."
"Some kids will compete to get in as a legal escape if things are bad at home," signed Abhaonai. "Some of the other contestants I knew were trying to do that. We didn't quite⊠know about⊠you know. Wouldn't have brought my seven-year-old brother into the Temple if I'd really known what it would be like."
Nesyue never talked about her birth family, which made Zhe'Ärani wonder that had been the case for her. She had won her place like Abhaonai and Qatriong, not come from a noble or military family like LÄ«sandyr and Retmiq.
ÄvolĂș let go of the bag of toiletries resting on their lap. "Wait."
The toiletries almost spilled, and Zhe'Ärani flung her arm out to stop the bag from tipping over.
"You compete to get in?" ÄvolĂș asked.
Sometimes Zhe'Ärani really felt the gap of experience. The others who had been raised in the commune had never really lived in the real empire. There was a lot they just⊠didn't know, because they'd never had a reason to. It wasn't as though they got usable service from most external TV or radio stations out here.
"Yeah, they hold tournaments in recruitment years," signed Abhaonai. "I don't really know what the other Temples do. Most of them weren't recruiting that year and fighting was what I was good at."
"It was different for me," Zhe'Ärani clarified. She didn't want her friends thinking she had turned to heresy on purpose.
"They hold these fights for twelve-year-olds?" ÄvolĂș signed. "Like, to the death, or⊠like a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle, no rules kind of thing, or what? Is it at all safe?"
"It's not usually to the death."
Sometimes Zhe'Ärani also really felt it that her perception of normalcy had been very much altered by her time at the Temple and she couldn't quite put it back into alignment with her old friends'.
"Not usually?"
"It's not supposed to be," signed Abhaonai. "It's dangerous, though. It's not staged. Things happen. It wouldn't work if it wasn't real."
Qatriong had once confessed to Zhe'Ärani that she had killed her opponent in her semifinal match. I couldn't yield and ia-rĆ« wouldn't either. By the time I realized⊠Skulls are fragile. It was over fast. Abhaonai was a year older than Zhe'Ärani and Qatriong and would have seen that match as an Initiate about to have a new cohort member.
KaelĂa interrupted by making a beeline for ÄvolĂș, completely bypassing Zhe'Ärani. It gesticulated as it spoke, and though it was facing away from Zhe'Ärani and she couldn't use lip-reading, she assumed from directions it was gesturing that it was asking something about the burn scars it and ÄvolĂș shared.
ÄvolĂș nodded and showed KaelĂa something in the bag.
She was glad her old friends and her new friends were interacting.
The doctor had the Initiates all sign up for appointments on a big sheet with eight spots.
"You can come alone or bring someone else with you," she explained. "I'd like to do a full physical exam on each of you at some point, but if you're not comfortable with that right now, all we need to do is talk. I want to go over vaccinations, illnesses, any major injuries, medications- Basic medical history. Height, weight, and blood pressure if you're up for that. It shouldn't take too long, but I've blocked off a couple hours each. If there are current injuries, I can also treat those."
LÄ«sandyr kept himself noticeably back.
"I can go with you, LÄ«s," Zhe'Ärani signed. Her checkup upon her return had been necessary, but it had been miserable, and she'd known the doctor already and hadn't had any preexisting problems with doctors.
"I'm coming with you too," signed KaelĂa. "Just sign up for today, then it will be over." It took the pencil and wrote in its name and then his right underneath. "I can do the talking if you don't want to."
LÄ«sandyr nodded shallowly.
"If you touch me without my permission I will break your hand." KaelĂa waved towards LÄ«sandyr. "If you touch him without his permission I will cut it off, and if you hurt him I'll let you bleed out from it." It pointed at Zhe'Ärani. "They're my witness if anyone tries to say I didn't give fair warning. Sign, don't speak, I want Ć i Arroakhai KjĂș in the loop. Everyone clear on that?"
Zhe'Ärani nodded.
"Okay," the doctor signed. Zhe'Ärani thought she was doing a good job not being scared.
"Good." KaelĂa started to pull its shirt off.
Zhe'Ärani knew it liked to get things over with quickly, and none of the Initiates really had a sense of privacy.
"I was just going to go through a questionnaire to start," the doctor signed.
"Oh."
"Actually, let's just do this for both of you at the same time," she signed. "I just need a yes or no from each of you. Some of these vaccines are usually given at a very young age, so you may or may not remember if you've had them, in which case we should do bloodwork soon to find out, because it can be very dangerous if you don't." She looked at LÄ«sandyr. "Do you understand what's happening?"
LÄ«sandyr nodded.
"Okay. I'm going to start now. When were you last vaccinated for PNIV?"
KaelĂa stared at its fingers for a long moment, then looked to Zhe'Ärani for help.
"About four cycles ago," Zhe'Ärani signed. "All of us were."
"Most recent flu shots?"
"Same time."
It went on for a few minutes. KaelĂa was able to answer most of the questions, but both of them were unsure when the questions got to early childhood vaccinations, as had been expected.
"Were you taking any medications when you left the Temple?"
KaelĂa named something Zhe'Ärani recognized as a stimulant, then added, "We're all on hormonal birth contol. GÄtnyx didn't want to risk any surprises."
Not after Qatriong, Zhe'Ärani filled in. It had been a little before her time, but Qatriong had told her about it. LÄ«s lied for me so I could tell them and get rid of it. GÄtnyx still punished us for the inconvenience, but it would have been worse if she'd known it was an outsider, and I'm glad I dumped him but I didn't want to get him killed.
Maybe Qatriong's (supposed) treason had been a long time in the making.
"And are you, or have you ever been, sexually active?"
"No," signed KaelĂa.
LÄ«sandyr bit his lip.
Zhe'Ärani thought again of LogÄ, the way they sometimes held LÄ«sandyr's face, the way LÄ«sandyr leaned into it. The way LÄ«sandyr had turned hostile and scared when she'd brought it up.
"And you?" the doctor pressed. "There are certain illnesses you can get-"
"He knows that," snapped KaelĂa, breaking the silence.
LÄ«sandyr whispered something in KaelĂa's ear.
"He doesn't want to answer that question," signed KaelĂa. "We're done talking about it."
The doctor backed down. "I'll just leave that section blank, then."
"Do that."
"Let's move on. Have either of you ever had PNIV?"
Even though it had been a long, full day, or perhaps because of that, Zhe'Ärani struggled to fall asleep. She wondered if her cohort were settling in okay in the cabin on the other side of their shared greenspace.
She hoped it wasn't too upsetting for LÄ«sandyr.
She had barely fallen asleep when she was shaken awake. Her father and Abhaonai stood over her, an unlit flare in on of Abhaonai's hands and a two-way radio in the other.
"Qonai seems to have run away," Rokhesh signed. "Your friends don't know the area. Tamri has gone with Guodei and Nesyue. Abhaonai thought you might go with him and Retmiq. I'm going to get another flare, in case we find her hurt, and go out myself. She'll get lost very easily in these woods. The other three are going to stay in case she makes it back on her own."
"Okay."
Rokhesh left to find another flare, and Zhe'Ärani pulled her boots and raincoat on over her pyjamas. She put the flare in her coat pocket.
Abhaonai passed Retmiq the radio at the door. "You'll have to be in charge of this. Let us know if you hear anything."
Retmiq nodded.
"She must be so scared," Zhe'Ärani signed. "How long has it been?"
"Can't have been more than a couple hours," signed Abhaonai. "I woke up and thought I'd check on her and the bed was empty."
"I assume she's trying to go home- go back to the Temple, I mean- but she can't have gotten far," signed Retmiq. "She'll be looking for the river, most likely, so she can cross back into the city and find the Divine Soldiers there."
"Can she swim?" Zhe'Ärani asked, a horrible image floating up in her mind like a drowned corpse.
Abhaonai and Retmiq exchanged a glance.
"I don't know," signed Abhaonai. "They taught us to swim- But the current-"
"Surely she would know better than to go in the river or get to close to the banks," Retmiq signed.
"She's four," signed Abhaonai. "And she's never been outside the Temple before- how would she know?"
"Fuck."
They searched for over an hour.
Retmiq put out a hand. "I think I hear something."
The three of them stood still.
After a moment, Retmiq nodded, then beckoned them to follow him.
A few dozen metres away, Qonai was curled up in the eroded space between the roots of an old tree, shaking like she was crying.
Abhaonai tapped Retmiq's pocket where the radio was, then carefully approached her.
Zhe'Ärani made to follow, but Retmiq stopped her.
"He's good with kids," Retmiq signed. "And she likes him. I don't want her to feel like we're cornering her. And, no offence- GÄtnyx was very firm on you being a traitor. She doesn't like you anymore."
"Oh." It made sense. "You should radio the others to let them know we found her."
Abhaonai sat on one of the exposed roots. They talked for a while. Eventually, he offered her a hug, and she took it.
Abhaonai gave them a thumbs-up behind Qonai's back.
It was going to be okay.
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