The steps continued in a slow, tired staccato, circling the center column of the small sanctuary against the void outside. Sumire sometimes wondered what it would be like if one of the several cracks spreading across the hull of her ship deepened enough that the little bit of air in the hull would touch the void beyond. She didn't really need air anymore, though she found it, like the hunger in her belly and the weakness of her limbs, disorienting. Unsettling, uncomfortably empty. It amazed some small part of her that her limbs kept moving, responding more to her mind than any physical law or reality. 

Her steps passed by the knife.

The screens on the center column of her vessel lit up. The alarm began blaring, but Sumi had decided long ago that she did not need to hear it, or anything else. Another step away from being "alive", though one she could do something about. If she wanted to hear the alarm again. Food and exhaustion were not something that could be staved off; she could not Fix a lack of hunger like she could a wall. There was no material to draw from for sustenance besides herself, and she had reason to avoid beginning to eat at and heal herself. Better the gnawing hunger. 

Her steps passed by the knife.

Sumire's mind once again went to the walls, and the cracks stopped. Green-yellow light, bright and soothing, spread over the walls, Fixing where the damage had been done. Watching the cracks, so close to spilling her and everything she knew out into the shadows, to a fate unknown or perhaps one she simply did not want to consider for long. 

Being spilled out into the thin layer of the thin plane of shadow would not kill her, likely. It would simply strand her, more so than being stranded in a small pod hurtling through an empty void. The shadows were not a known quantity; studies of the substance were limited, and the properties that found its way to scholars and sages often differed substantially. At best, she would perhaps not die, but merely wander with no sense of trajectory, no material to work with, no way out.

Again and again, her steps passed by the knife. Bronze and a black handle, the blade was simple, if wickedly curved. Nonetheless it gleamed in the light of the screens as if it were alive, menacing.

Green light poured over the walls again, and again, a slow and endless process. The walls cracking was not an avoidable issue. So long as she remained, the ship would continue to Break and she would continue to Fix it, over and over. Without sleep or rest, the slow march around the interior of the ship continued. A demigod, fresh into two of their Words, had no real need for these things.

She merely had to wait until the ship arrived, somewhere. Somewhere that wasn't "here". Wasn't home. 

Again and again, she passed by the knife. 

The real issue with getting stranded without this ship was a lack of velocity. If she stopped, there was no telling when the corruption would catch up to her, only that it would. Attempting to outrun it was foolhardy, and Sumire no longer had the materials to build with, having brought the exact amount of materials to construct this ship and nothing more, just as had been foreseen. The exact amount and, a little more. 

The knife was not exactly magical. That alone made it interesting; almost all things that came of her Breaks were magical in nature, fresh in her mind and just waiting to be put together. Rarely if ever was a mundane invention or solution the results of her meditations. Knowledge, especially knowledge of how to make things, flowed through her effortlessly as she rested, a gain to make up for the Curse currently ensuring her vessel would never make the full journey without her exhausted, dull march. Anything she touched, wore, used... it had a tendency to degrade. Break. The shabby coat on her shoulders, the loose band of cloth over her breast, the coverings on her feet. The vessel below her. 

Stolen novel; please report.

The knife, as far as she could tell, was just a hunk of metal. Sharp, wickedly sharp. Curved with the blade on one side, it was not made to stab or to slice food. It was a knife designed for only a single thing. The blade was as sharp as a scalpel, not a blade to be swung but to be guided. 

Green light distracted her, the march of endlessly repairing the hull startling her out of her thoughts, but not for long. The space was bare of anything but her empty stores of food, bags of travel rations long-emptied. Cleaning herself was trivial; her fingers twitched and a wave of arcane spread over her clothes and body, cleansing away impurities from her fur and making her feel marginally less worn down. Sumire brushed her hair into a semblance of order with her hands.

It had grown again. 

Her hand grasped around the hilt of the knife, feeling its weight as she walked. Something different, something to focus on. The blade began to crumble, the hilt warp. The blade parted her hair easily, as if it was designed for it.

---

Months later, when her hair needed trimming again, she had yet to put it down. 

The realization shook her out of the mindless walking. Fear gripped her consciousness immediately, fingers scrabbling over her body as eyes went wide. She had not ascended, merely stopped thinking. She was still here. 

She was still here.

The vessel had not arrived anywhere. 

She no longer knew how long she had been here, and that brought back the fear. When her fingers tightened around the handle, her thoughts returned to the blade. There had not been any conclusion to her thoughts on it. It was not part of the ship, but her Curse had given it to her. 

She considered, dimly, if the only method left to escape Erosi was to end her life. Her corpse hurtling through space, too fast to catch, the knowledge in her head lost to the endless void ahead. It would, technically, fit the goal she had when she entered the trance. She gripped that thought and squeezed. Curses were not known to seek their end. 

But floating through shadow until the divinity inside her calcified, spread like an infection swallowing up the last of her mortality. She wondered what the last Word would be, if she continued to stagger around this ship for an eternity. Would she calcify in solitude? Would her last conscious thoughts be of waiting? Her hand tightened around the knife. 

She was starting to feel trapped, and historically speaking, Sumire did not take to that well. The blade lifted, and she studied it. Not a blade for stabbing or slicing. Not made for combat and cooking. 

The alarm blared. The cracks began to spread, the ship Breaking around her. There was no focus on repair, no attempt to Fix it. 

Home was very, very far away, and Sumire was tired. 

The blade's design was not ritualistic. It was not a sacrificial dagger, or designed in some way to hold powders or poisons. It was not a scalpel, delicate and small. She doubted it was used for war, being both an ineffective choice of weapon and not quite a vanity piece. 

The shell around her began to shatter. The alarms stopped. 

The knife was made to cut, she thought. Nothing more and nothing less. Not to chop or truncate, not to bleed. She Fixed the blade, seeing it in its fullness again. The air started to leave the ship. The demigod did not notice.

The blade already began to Break, but she could see it. Every item had a purpose, her Curse would not have given it to her otherwise. She trusted this more than she trusted almost anything in her life. The grip tightened around the wearing metal.

The blade was made to cut. Again, and again. She focused, and found with despair that it was so much easier than the first time. The blade was made to cut. The feeling was shockingly easy to understand. The blade was made to Cut. 

So was she. The blade fell away, her hand reached out and touched shadow, and it parted. Sumire fell through into Nothing, a Goddess in full.