She was sitting on the porch again. She loved the soothing lull of the rocking chair. Looking out onto the fields with their tall swaying grasses before the cows were rotated to this pasture, and the quiet still dignity of the woods.

They had come back from the ceremony in cheery spirits, faces blessed with cuneiforms in Oongx’s ash. After washing briskly in homemade milk soap, most had gone to bed, Allegre patting Ceit’s shoulder fondly before retiring for the night.

Ceit couldn’t sleep yet. She was still turning Oongx’s words over in her mind, considering.

The lightning bugs blinked in the field, signaling to one another, their lights in time with the slow rocking of her chair.

She had never really considered her accomplishments, too busy trying to move forward to see how far she had come. And she had come so very very far from the young, exuberant, chatty girl she had been before the betrayal. It felt a bit like she was two separate people, the girl before and the girl after, they were almost unrecognizable. Did she like the person she was now? Or maybe she wanted more, needed more. More room to grow, to gain perspective. Room to heal.

What would it really be like, to travel by herself? Who would she be without her family? It might be nice to find out. To be her own person, so that when others looked at her, they wouldn’t see her for the trauma that she had been through, but herself, the one Oongx had chosen. Thinking about it made her feel… stronger, worthy.

She wondered what would happen to her body, once Oongx accepted her. From her understanding, acolytes didn’t completely lose their bodies, once they joined Oongx, but they did undergo a physical transformation, of some kind. Despite her struggles with her body, and her self-image, she felt resistant to the idea of changing it. She had worked hard to accept herself and she was loath to do anything that would make all that work inconsequential.

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The idea of having a choice about her sacrifices was incredibly appealing, though. It felt like her life had been a sacrifice, like she had been forced onto an altar and chipped away at, her body, her mind, everything that made her who she had been had been transformed, honed and tempered into something new. Now she had the opportunity to transform again, to make her own sacrifice for her family. She could protect them, guide their future.

But her prosthetic. Hm. She was still a bit worried about how she would cope if something happened to it. The tinkerers. She should ask them, they would have a solution. It would involve going into the city, something she had been loath to do, unwilling to be the object of attention that she would inevitably be. But if she was truly going to be Oongx’s acolyte, it was something she would have to learn to cope with. And she wanted to. She wanted to rise beyond the fears that had held her captive for so long.

She woke early the next morning, despite going to bed much later than the others. She was too excited to be tired, her heart racing in anticipation and no small amount of nerves. She finished her chores in record time, the excitement pumping adrenalin through her arms as she shoveled manure out and sawdust into the cows bedding. She’d head down with the little ones, catching a ride as well when they went to school after breakfast.

After her accident she had elected to be homeschooled, though it hadn’t been a hard choice. Several older cousins had made the same choice, after a couple years of schooling. It was just easier to care for the farm if they didn’t have to commute to school, and they could arrange their schedules around their chores. Ceit had missed so much school, and her fear of strangers had been at an all time high, so it had been easy to leave behind her smattering of school friends and the classroom in favor of her family.

Several of her school friends had written to her in the beginning, but their letters had petered out after a couple months of no replies. She hadn’t read them when she first received them, too scared of what they might say, and now it felt too late, like they belonged to a different version of her and it would be a violation to read that girl’s mail. She didn’t want to be drawn back into that girl’s head, it was too full of pain and fear and distrust.

She might see some of them today, though. The idea didn’t send her panicking anymore.

‘Do you mind if I ride down to town with you today? I want to go see the tinkerers at the salvage yard.’ She asked her father, Leuna, plopping down next to him at the breakfast table.