Strength

The claw was probably the most valuable thing she would ever own so it plagued her that it was something she could lose, or worse, have taken from her. Tying the rope to her waist meant she felt just a little secure.

Happy that she could keep hold of her claw, she started whirling it around and seeing if she could throw it and retrieve it, while there was no one watching––and most important––no one to steal it from her.

It took some time to remember that the claw needed no specific surface to gain purchase. It only needed force and could embed itself in solid stone, which was plentiful.

Fawn threw it at a large stone as she walked past, wanting to test its capacity to latch. It bounced with a clink and came back at her with frightening speed.

“Wha! ... ”

She fell to the ground out of the path of the razor-sharp item. Collecting herself and coiling the rope up, a new technique occurred to her.

I need to get it to catch the hook the right way.

She began to spin the claw, holding the rope short. It made a remarkable shearing sound as it passed through the air, with an increasing ringing accumulating as it spun. The sharp edge was made of a far harder and heavier material than the back. This mass differential kept the edge forward-facing as it spun.

Hearing the claw shear through the air as it spun gave Fawn a powerful sense of accomplishment and pride for making it work the way she wanted, and the enthusiasm took her for a moment. Before long, it gathered more speed than she had planned.

“Oh no, slow down, slow down.”

She suddenly thought of the woman whose arm had turned to ribbons at just the simple pressure that she had applied, and the fear led her to let go of the rope and cringe. She watched the claw fly forward and crash into one of the stones, with a heavy clink.

“Oh Gods!”

Fawn threw herself to the ground, waiting for disaster. There was none.

She leaped up, walked over to the rock it had struck, and saw that it had cut itself into the rock, making a similar mark to that which her Veil would leave in the cave wall.

She cheered for a moment, at the sight. Not only had it survived without bouncing but it had caught hard into the rock. She pulled tentatively at the rope, wondering how much weight she could place against it, and found that she could not pull it out. There was no sign of loosening threads or broken fiber, which she was pleased about.

Happy that she could hook the claw successfully, she was now presented with the challenge of removing it.

The claw was embedded deeply in the stone due to the accidental force she had swung it with, and it was without any flex in its attachment.

She heaved and tugged at it with all the strength she could muster, but it stayed fixed, as if it had grown into the rock.

Frantically, pulling at the claw and rope, she began to panic that it was stuck forever.

She fell backwards while trying again to pull on it and the jolt brought a recollection of watching the Veil climb.

She remembered that there was always a part of the cuts in the stone that she couldn’t make sense of: a curved cut at the exit point for each claw hole.

I never saw him get ... stuck ... He always moved so easily.

She tugged once more on the claw, and then thought further about it. Finally, with two hands, she pulled at the base of the entrenched claw in a rotation. It carved a piece of rock from beside the incision. It fell out so easily, Fawn tumbled backward.

“Aha! Twist it!”

The revelation was the most exciting thing she had discovered in ages, and it meant she could use the claw many ways.

In celebration she allowed herself to spin the rope over her head, getting a little more comfortable with the noise it made cutting through the air.

She had managed to weave a rope that would hold her entire weight and attached it to the rarest and sharpest thing she had ever come across. It was a spectacular tool, and a weapon of the greatest possible efficacy, if she worked at it.

Wandering closer to the Village, she was able to relax a bit and retrieve the capacity to think, rather than feel.

Her arm was still very sore, but it functioned fine and the knowledge that it had coped with such a brutal attack, made the pain less severe somehow. She looked down at the growing evidence of bruises on her forearm and felt angry and grateful at the same time. She stroked her fingers gently over her damaged skin.

I’m so pleased she couldn’t break it.

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If she had been crippled by the vicious woman, she would be entirely without help to recover. In that moment, she realized that she wouldn’t just have a broken arm: the woman would likely have carried on beating her.

She lost her walking momentum for a moment considering the possibility, and it took all the air from her lungs. She felt a shadow of misery pass over her. Her mild, pleasant feeling had not lasted as long as she hoped.

This life was bearing down on her. There was no way she ever could have prepared herself for a situation like this.

Sitting on a small cushion of dust, as the sun dropped further away, she took a moment to check on her wounded ankle, and as difficult as it was to address an old injury while still coping with a fresh one, she took great comfort in how much it had healed.

This led her to further thoughts about her life and various hurts. There were no memories that she could muster wherein she was wounded for more than a day or two, no matter the severity.

The idea that she was not made of delicate Sweet Stars was very reassuring. There was a kind of courage to be had from knowing that she could tolerate the kind of aggression that was constantly aimed at her.

There was a part of her that wanted to climb something high, jump off and see what injuries she sustained. Thankfully this thought was fleeting.

She pulled herself up and carried on her way, believing that she was going to manage. Living on her own was lonely, and unpleasant, but she could survive.

Having an understanding that she was capable of recovering from her hurt also helped with her confidence, and the feeling that she was just a ‘little girl’ was starting to ebb.

As she wandered the path, a strong understanding set in. Neither being sad nor feeling like life was unfair, was going to help her survive. Solving her situation was a responsibility set squarely on her shoulders.

Fawn ... Do more ... Feel less.

It was a strict clarity that helped her pick up her pace to a run.

Ok then. How fast can I run?

She slammed her lead foot into the ground and launched herself into a run, faster and faster. She was able to gain far more speed than she imagined. She picked up more pace and felt the strength of her legs: steady and constant.

Turning her attention to her pulse she noted that there was very little increase. She remembered her brothers saying that their pulse would race as they moved fast or worked hard.

There was no ‘racing pulse’ for her as she ran, her heart was steady, she felt no drain, and breathed easily through her nose only, taking in minimal dust.

The feeling was calming for her. There seemed to be more gained than lost as she continued to run. After running steadily for a while she could tell there was more she could do.

Drawing massive breaths she began to increase speed constantly, until she was at a full sprint, a speed she had never reached before, or even thought she could achieve.

At full sprint she began to breathe heavily, but still felt no drag on her body. Her feet were flicking across the ground, she had to tilt her weight significantly as she followed the curves of the path. She left a dust cloud behind her as she bolted along, leaning so far forward that her hands passed her ears as she ran.

She galloped on and on, the Village getting rapidly closer as she gained speed until she simply could not place her feet beneath herself any faster. There was still no sign of exhaustion.

As she exited the valley up toward the Village her foot struck an irregularity in the ground. She fell hard on her shoulder, tumbling sideways and head over heels. She slammed almost every part of her body into the ground or against rocks.

She tumbled and rolled for what seemed like ages, until she slid to a stop on her hands and knees.

Fawn had yet to understand how to slow herself from a speed which she had never achieved before.

Gathering herself up off the ground, Fawn straightened her clothes and shook the dust from her hair. There were marks all over her where she had struck the ground and grit embedded in her skin. She could see the damage to her body, and feel the impact to her bones, but there were no breaks, there were no cuts, there ... were ... no ... weak points in her body that she could find.

The dust and grime had accumulated against her skin and clothing. There were rips in her careful work, but none in her now-grimy skin.

“I ... am stronger than I thought.”

She stood and stretched the tension and stiffness out of her body.

The seed of an idea built in her mind.

I’m not just a breakable girl.

The next part of this new concept, inspired curiosity as to how far this apparent variation of her body actually went.

Am I stronger than other girls?

There was no one to compare herself with. She may be far more resilient, but she was content to leave it at something that would simply help her survive.

One way that she was different from some of the children in the Village was that there was no one to look after her anymore.

There were many children in the Village that were without any family, but most were being watched over by other Clan Members or the Village Minders: a group that had been established some cycles ago to cope with the frequently orphaned children.

The hazards of the planet itself, along with the danger that the Cast represented, meant that a great many families lost members for numerous reasons.

Fawn remembered hearing stories of animals that killed and ate people, or simply killed people for crossing their path, poisonous plants and toxic fumes.

She felt as though the animals in the stories did not reflect what she had seen. She was caught for a moment on whether she had witnessed creatures that were worse ... or better than the ones in stories. She was in no rush to discover any more threats.

Setting aside the concerns of other children and the world around her, she decided to complete her task at hand: finding food. At least she felt more confidence than she ever had before.

The walk was different now, her steps more certain, her stride assured. She felt as though her chest were bigger and the air she needed came more easily. Patting more dust from her clothes, she decided she had grown tired of imbibing so much of it. Recalling how the tree fibers had been relatively clear of dust, she made a mask, from loose fibers she still had, to give herself more clean air. After all, if she could run as fast as she had for longer than other people, she would need to breathe cleaner air than they did.

Dying of Clay Lung was not going to be her fate. The new mask helped immediately and made a huge difference, so much so that she felt like she was inhaling cleanly for the first time.

With mask on, and her whole body full of the pride of existence, she closed the last paces to the Village, as darkness fell.

Scaling the wall was easy for her, more so than she hoped, as having just finished creating a new tool she would have gladly tested it on the climb. As she reached the top she desperately wanted to jump down and see if she could cope with the pain and shock of the landing. She resolved to climb down instead and maintain the welfare of her recently reevaluated legs.

There were a few lights on throughout the Village. People were at home and at their respective tables. She could see through the open window spaces, most were gathered to eat, others were talking, being families.

It was a moment for her that brought the concept of what families could be, to the forefront of her mind, and it was a slippery mixture of emotional mud. Some memories led to wanting her family back, if only her brothers, for the way they had loved her. Others were of the dark despise that she could easily recall seeing in her mother’s eyes, the woman who blamed her for the demise of them all.

It was an empty feeling, watching others enjoy themselves. For all the difficulties that the people living here had to cope with, usually they were, for the most part, left alone in their own houses.

Making her way through the collection of small dwellings, highlighted what she now knew to be a false sense of safety.

She saw an empty home with no lights, or sound, coming from it and started toward it. Suddenly, her legs lost their sense of foundation, and she collapsed, just off the path.

The memory of the boy who died at her hand came flooding back with ruthless severity.

Pulling her clothes tight around her she knelt, still and quiet for a moment. She drew a rudimentary shape in the dust on the ground, trying to remember his face, imagining that it would somehow help her transmit her sorrow for his loss to him, or his family.

There was of course no relief to be had, but having come so far it would be foolish to give up and sit here long enough to get caught.

–Garrick M Lynch–