T-Y-R-A-N-N-Y was in the air and that bothered Ruby greatly, putting a damper on the achievement of The High Chasm. It was annoying to see something like that hanging in her front yard. Ugly. Slanderous. And just not nice.
It’d scarred her life, though. No running. No hiding from it. Ruby had been tattooed.
The word came gradually, one letter appearing every few minutes after Mr. Fuck-That-Bitch turned into yet another feather for her to wear. It’s not that she wanted to be a good person. She just wanted to know what caused this judgment. Hadn’t she done worse? Hadn’t her enemy deserved it?
Yet TYRANNY remained. Long after this moment, she’d carry it with her.
Sometimes the letters were lowercase. Other times they were uppercase but in elegant cursive script. Most times they were large and bold, darker than black, and each letter filled her windows. Only when she acknowledged the word, waving it away or saying Yes, yes, I know, leave me be. This lady here is doing her best. When you make a world sometimes the jerks become feathers. At least it turned into something pretty. I’m wearing it right now. But the word wouldn’t let up on her, drifting beyond her view—while remaining as an eyesore for anyone gazing at The High Chasm from a distance.
During the word’s most gracious times, its presence relented, thinning out into a see-through smokiness.
It wouldn’t go away completely. Cearth was being honest. Cearth was the best communicator there was.
Truth was something Ruby couldn’t deny.
She just didn’t know how she’d gotten to this point. Judged as a despot. Rebuffed for obsessive control. It was never the plan. Such authority over the city held no space in her heart or ambitions. Fulfillment was the very thing that she targeted for herself and for those who relied upon her.
This word, though…did it mean that she was failing? When there was so much gained, so many people fed, so much magic within the grasp of the weak?
Ruby believed it. Cearth made her believe it. But she didn’t want to. Especially since she didn’t know how she’d go about changing.
What’s to change? We’re thriving!
Ruby’s agitated spirit touched against The High Chasm’s and the empowered curses from within the cracked bark and deep hollows lifted from the surfaces like a smoke and met Ruby’s aura, touching and learning it. The amorphous entities touched the boundary of her essence, a force that catalyzed the letters.
The “T”, the “Y”, and the dreadful others.
The word followed her like her own personal cloud. It never strayed too far from her body since it was her energy that’d in part created it. Where she was, the tyranny was sure to be near. Those seven black letters orbited the skies of her home, a crown of her own making—her hapless making, but her creation nonetheless.
And that frustrated her. She ground her teeth together and bit the corner of her lip. Then she took a deep breath and reset her mind. Acceptance. Fine. The word is here to stay. For now. There’s much to do anyway, much to work with. Thank the Cearth for providing the straw heart—and this tower of a home. Time to proceed.
The woman stood at her window with her hand on her chin and stared at the word. She smiled. This time there was no waving it away. She waved at it.
“Hi my judgy new friend. Do you want some tea?”
The “T” swelled and darkened.
“Fine, fine, have it your way,” Ruby sighed.
Down below, everyone rejoiced. They were on their second night of High Chasm partying.
Even though Ruby hadn’t joined the throng of celebrating masses herself, the knowledge of the festivities kept her up. It was one of those achievements that gave the girl inside a mild grin on her face. No HUNGER for the night. The settlement’s energy was enough of a feast.
“I did good. I'm amazing. But I know you don't compliment, you little bone-maiden.”
The inner girl rubbed her belly. “Yum,” she mouthed.
Silent little likes to get smart…
Ruby smirked and gazed at her reflection on the windowsill. She twirled and twirled, pirouetting across the scarred wood. She was dressed for a party at least.
“Showstopper!”
Her inner child groaned.
Ruby twirled again, just to piss the little one off.
Then she stopped and resumed her foreman duties. The altar fragments were piling up. By this point they looked like a stone oven.
“Myst, come home. Home is where the heart is! Kidding, it’s where this rubble is! Come look.”
Ruby scanned the night as she gestured toward the altar-turned-pile that the birds continued to add to.
Myst belonged here—with her. They were sisters of the dark. No bond was stronger. Ruby believed this with everything, though a part of her knew that this was the only bond she ever really had. She dismissed that train of thought whenever it started to nag at her, because Myst being her only bond made it even more special. The shadow woman was one of a kind, and Ruby spent her days collecting magic, wishing to become a second of that kind. Blackened equals. Twin treacheries.
It was a lovely thought.
But the stones at her feet trembled. They couldn’t find their place amongst each other let alone the natural foundation the birds had ripped them from. Darkness leaked out, pouring along the High Chasm’s surface. Some trails took to the sky. No matter what the curses found themselves outside of the crushed altar. They wanted to stay but had nothing to cling to. Ruby heard their helpless whimpers as they slid away from their former home.
Myst isn’t like that. She can be anywhere and be anything. Even if she can’t live in this stone she can still make her way here. Why isn’t she here? What’s going on with her?
“Are you mad?” Ruby called out. “If you want a home, I have one for you here. There’s lots of black! You like black, yes? Try my clothes. Cling to my shadowy walls.”
Nothing, of course.
A bird cut across her vision but it wasn’t Myst.
The witch frowned, then sighed, drowning in reminiscence.
Ruby in her starvation days—back when there was only one of her, dying and tortured as she was—she spent the lion’s share of her time gazing at the birds.
There was just nothing else to do.
She watched the Stormcellar blow them away, destroying their nests, casting away half the feathers on their bodies. Bald patches were a common occurrence in the island’s avians. Ruby was fascinated by how poorly they were faring, far worse than her in some cases. She had not a nutrient to claim for her muscles but at least she had the human weight of bones.
The wind still carried her in the air sometimes but her skeletal anchoring did something to keep her feet on the ground, her tippy-toes at least.
The girl walked the Cearth, pitying the birds, and encouraged by the fact that there was something wretched little her could pity.
Of course the birds were beautiful too. When they were broken. When they were whole. When there was nothing of them that remained but stray feathers drifting among the leaves and petals.
It was an attachment she carried with her upon her departure from the island. For the weeks it took to voyage from The Stormcellar and find dry land, she scanned the sea for its birds. There was little to find. Not even the seagulls that she’d read about in books.
There was a pelican once, which dragged its gullet below the surface of the water and captured several fish.
So disgusting.
Though she was mostly jealous of the fish in its mouth. These were blessings she wanted to replicate for the others once again, to feast with her people. And maybe, if she played her cards and magic right, gain a bit of weight.
The altar: her next blessing.
A shadowclaw soared over it with its glistening feathers. A sheen cut across its beak that struck her as a type of smirk. Ruby knew that it was different. No matter how high the bird rose, a trail of shadow ran from its tail feathers down to the altar.
Her first new friend. It was an animal, yes, but the sentient winds made her care less about humanity than others. She had an eye for spirits, and her gaze found a companion in the shadowclaw’s flight.
Pretty bird…She was fond of the form that she met her in. Myst.
The bird perched upon the altar, studying Ruby.
Ruby felt Myst’s uncanny intelligence and awareness over her being like another layer of skin. That’s how Ruby had always experienced the world: layers. One for her skin and physical nerves. Another for the presence of spirits. There was a sense of intents, of words that formed into magic. There were her own emotions that she didn’t feel inside herself but on the outside of her body. It was strange, to touch feelings, and to not have them inside.
She was always empty from the start. The hunger was innate, it was soul-bound. And everything in the world was something for her to claim. Foods, feelings, people, wealth. There were ghosts and magic and emotions. What Ruby lacked inside herself could be grabbed from the air. Sounded like a blessing but the starvation made her feel like that wasn’t quite the case.
The things of the world…they were such gorgeous accessories.
“You’re all my pretty birds, that you are.”
After they’d planted the first seeds, the sprouts came in the next day. Nobody had seen anything like it. Windless days. Sun. And food. It was too good to be true but it was true—because it was magic. And because the altar had given her the gifts. She sensed that the magic had run underneath the ground in a current, leaking from the roots and washing over her feet. The accomplishment in and of itself sustenance before she’d even put food in her mouth.
When one of her unofficial village uncles handed her a matured length of straw, she held it in her hand. A childish impulse went through her body to swing the wheat like a fly swat. She loved watching the wheat bend through the air. As she nibbled on the end of the straw-chew, her soul came alive. It was something of a seed itself. Small-small-small. It curled inside her, hiding away beneath her organs. Even the bloodstream passed over whatever she possessed of a spirit.
There was darkness in her, every crevice and corner consisting of a shadiness, casual and static. Ruby delved inside and searched for that small part of her that joyously flared from the flavor. She liked to think that she was really good at reaching anything that she held inside—she’d accepted some of the sugar-wraiths as her teeth and missing organs, after all.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The girl contained startling depths of lack. No one had a chance to know the nature of her emptiness because that emptiness covered itself in many layers. She cloaked herself in the solitude. Meanwhile, shades of those hollow feelings were repurposed as her inner lining. Then there was the abyss. She went on forever and ever. She couldn’t find it despite her constant attempts to reach for her core, to massage it.
It hurt so much, being her.
Myst, that pretty little bird, showed a possible reprieve from the void. Myst was her second altar but the first being she took interest in. Something was different about this place. The personalities of the shadows revealed themselves through Myst. Not that Ruby had any need for real interaction but she knew there was chemistry between her and this shadow being. They saw each other. With eyes. With physical means. Ruby gazed at Myst and stretched her aura out to her. At this point Ruby didn’t know what she was using to reach the shadows, but she was confident in her easy control of her phantom self. This was just another part of the world that she was in—and that everybody else was in but couldn’t see for themselves.
This means I’m what they call a VIP, a Very Important Princess.
She cringed to herself. She’d die inside if anyone else knew that she liked being a princess. Whatever smile tugged at the corners of her mouth was erased through a great restraint.
“Back for more seeds?” Myst flew above, taking care to cast shadows upon Ruby. Ruby almost flinched from the passing flight. Her skin felt Myst’s shadow lay atop her even though she was just flying in the air. After her mild jump-scare, she relaxed under the shadow touch. It was gentle.
“How are you touching me?”
“I don’t know. This is just how I touch. A better question is: why do you feel me? What a talented human you are.”
“Maybe I’m not human.”
“Maybe so.”
“I’m eight years old. The adults tell me so anyway.”
“When is your birthday?”
“That’s a strange question. Why would that matter to you? All you do is hang out here. I thought you shadows were beyond time, or something like that.”
“It’s just a question people ask little kids. Excuse me for not being…profound.”
“I don’t have a birthday.”
“You don’t have one or you don’t know it?”
“No one ever told me what it was.”
“I see…then happy birthday!”
“Why would you say that? I don’t know what day it is, remember?”
“It’s today then. Play along you funless brat.”
“Well…you could treat me like a fun one.”
“That’s what I was trying to do. Don’t be so sensitive.”
Ruby glowered.
“It’s unbecoming to make that face on your birthday. Happy, happy birthday. Smile. The world is shining on you.” Myst made the shadows sparkle.
Ruby’s eye followed every glint.
“You like that, yes? Twinkle, twinkle.”
“Yes.” Ruby was embarrassed when she said it.
“I love that you’re humble, human child. It’s adorable! Is that the right word? Adorable, yes.”
“Maybe you’re adorable too.”
“That doesn’t embarrass me like you think it does.” Myst’s smirk prickled Ruby’s nerves.
“Fine—just gimme seeds.”
“That requires payment, little one.
“Did those birds pay you this whole oasis? There’s like 20 nests and two watering holes.”
“They paid.”
“What? No way.”
“I believe these birds are due some privacy. Their shadow accounting is their business. Would you not agree?”
“But they’re birds. They live outside. There’s no privacy here.”
“Their decisions, their nests, and their time in the sky away from the eyes of greedy girls with ugly hair and no tact—all count as privacy. When you return, you can also pay me for the free information.” Her laughter came from all sides, even underneath. The shadows thrummed.
“I guess you can have more souls.” The accompaniment of wind spirits breezed around her body, the bird souls she’d emptied from the shadowclaws.
“What a thing for a child to say.”
Ruby stretched her aura into the sky, curling it, mimicking the wind. She practiced these phantom maneuvers, fantasizing about how she’d control the wind if she were born a sugar-wraith. It was something she thought about a lot in the pre-altar days, back when The Stormcellar hurricane was a fact of life—or rather, inevitable and famine-induced death.
The pet souls curled around her aura, swirling like only the wind could do. Ruby led them toward Myst, rushing between her feathers, feeling the full textures of the shadow-borne plumage.
“You’re going to have to pay extra for the petting zoo situation, wouldn’t you agree.”
Myst smiled, and Ruby did too, flashing the gaps in her dentistry.
Missing baby teeth, charming gaps sewn with souls.
(…)
Every year on the same day, both the girl and shadow woman met.
Three years passed, bringing forth major changes.
After one year since Ruby’s arrival, there was a village. In two, there was a township. And in three, the left-behind members of The Stormcellar had begun to migrate over to Straw City.
And in each of these three years, Ruby celebrated her assigned birthday with Myst. She made wishes but they were small ones. Things that wouldn’t require a significant cost. Something about her day of birth made her want to forget the extravagance of having others pay the cost for her. She was used to worship by this point and had stepped into the role with full authority and presence. But she was just a kid. She’d never been a kid. On her birthday, that’s exactly what she was.
“Hi, Myst!” Ruby said.
“Oh, my brooding little gem, hello. Even when you’re excitable your face is stuck on brood. You’re such a gloomy beauty.”
“I get to be a beauty so I’ll take it. I’ll take the gloomy part too. You like me like this, right? Friends accept each other for who they are.”
“I suppose that’s the rule. I couldn’t tell you if that’s the rule of the world but we’re both different is what I’ve come to assume.”
“Different or special.”
“It’s your birthday. You can be special. And I’ll just be Myst.”
I’ll just be Myst, she says…To Ruby, that meant a lot. It was the measure of everything.
“Okay! Gimme a cake.”
“What’s a cake? Elaborate, as you know, I’ve never eaten anything in my life.”
“Feel my intention, shadow woman. Don’t tell me you’re too lazy to use your powers on my birthday.”
“Fine, fine, let me have a look…”
Ruby could feel the probe of Myst’s shadows. This was a sensation that she developed over time. When she first used The Stormcellar altar she saw the shadows and their movements. But the power that she felt was mostly the theatrical trappings of aura, things that the altar purposefully emitted to tell the humans that there was indeed a response.
Now she knew that when they were reading her mind. Or when the shadows curled around her body, inspecting her soul. For now she only used the magic artifacts that she’d received from Myst through wishes. The holy texts were all turned into flashcards. They were turned into other forms that she wondered about, too, but her mind stayed captivated by her cards, so that’s what the altar continued to give to her.
She watched Myst’s darkness turn into a smoke that drifted toward Ruby and enveloped her. Such a large production to discover what a cake was, what a cake meant, and what lovely shapes a cake could take.
“You know, I spend a lot of time providing crops for you and your people. I haven’t a clue what any of your food tastes like, though.”
“Does that make you sad?”
“No. Though I’m sure I could learn that trick one day.”
“I wish you could.”
“Is that a real wish?”
“It can be. I’d love to share this cake with you.”
“How do you know it’ll be enough cake?”
“Oh Myst, you wouldn’t hold out on me on my birthday.”
“I suppose not,” Myst laughed.
Ruby set her paper bag of ingredients down. Myst reached inside with her gorgeous hands. Her fingers phased through the flour, cane sugar, and other specialties. As soon as she touched the item she learned what it was. There was a clear container of mango pulp, a special flavoring from the villagers.
The little girl loved watching Myst’s face alight in discovery and pleasure as her spirit experienced the joys of flavor. Ruby trusted that Myst had a way of ‘tasting’, a way to share in this cake as she set about making it.
Myst lifted an ingredient—physically touching it this time. The sun gleamed across the surface of a black egg.
“This is alive, you know.”
“I know.”
“You like birds. Are you sure you want to use this?”
“I have to offer enough to Cearth.”
“Okay! I see you’ve grown smart. I like the way you think.”
Myst crushed the egg in her hand, a blackish-purple yolk spilling down her wrist, disappearing into her body.
Ruby grabbed the next egg. “Thank you, whoever you were going to be…” She mimicked her elders as much as she could, gratitude for life and whatnot, before obliterating the shell. The shadowy yolk didn’t blend it. But the purple tones tattooed her wrist and forearms in slick ripples.
“Good girl,” Myst said, dipping her finger into a bowl of flour, all its whiteness saturating with black.
“This will taste like mangos by the end of it, right?” Ruby said, unsure of the altar’s choice of food coloring.
“Of course, little Ruby. Mango will be a flavor.”
“A flavor.”
“Shh. Birthdays include surprises.”
Ruby smiled and nodded.
Yes, that’s right. Pretty bird, you’ve read my mind correctly.
(…)
Her reminiscing lasted all through the night.
There was no sleep for the supposed tyrant. The planting of the Swish-heart kept the town and by extension Ruby abuzz. Past 3 AM she suspected that perhaps this wasn’t an excitement thing, but a novel trick of her spirit. Another hex setting in.
The woman even plopped down on the edge of her bed, wanting the sleep to take her. But she was wide awake even as she lay. Ruby was distracted by the sensation that she was standing—or ought to be standing. Rest wouldn’t—and couldn’t—happen.
All the birds and her human lieutenants with homes and Curseworks stores nearby were celebrating, and they knew in their heart of hearts that Ruby was too. She wanted to, of course, but there was a lot to take in: a new home in the sky, a crop yield of blackwheat, the no-sleep policy her body was on, and the taunting “T” word she wanted to dispel. So much winning. And so much confusion too.
The neighbors were expecting her, though. She sensed their souls drawing close to her home, stepping well within her spiritual bubble.
I suppose I’m not the only one living in the clouds! I suppose they’ll want to hear something nice.
Ruby came to the windows that surrounded every part of her home, dramatically flinging them open. Her other adjacent windows opened as well, the birds matching her timing for drama. It took everyone a moment to notice their leader. This never happened before. But they knew the stones in the yard were different. Nobody knew that it was the altar, that these were the shards their lives were built upon. They turned the rubble over in their hands, knowing it was precious. Their leader waited and soon earned everyone’s gaze.
They looked at Ruby and she looked at them. Pets and master. Sheep and their fabulously dressed shepherd. Okay, Ruby. For all Showstoppers there comes a Show Time…
The woman made a gesture with her hand, something witchy and cool. All the black surfaces shimmered. Slick beams of light ricocheted across her garden area, the tree bark that replaced that plaza’s cobbled surface. She’d learned much from her lifetime of making wishes at the altar—such as how to copy its visual tricks. Nothing potent here. Just a little activated darkness to get the party started. She laughed to herself. Thank you for the lesson, Myst!
The citizens lavished her with praise. Queen Ruby! You’re the best! You’ve saved us again! We’ve never been this close to Heaven! Is that where we’re going? Is that where you’re taking us next? Allow us to storm the skies with you. We will be your angels, and you shall be our God!
“I’m no God. I am Ruby.”
So humble and divine! Speak goddess!
“I…”
Yes, goddess?
“I’ve given much as you can see.”
Applause. Cheers. Children were tossed into the air. Many broke down into tears.
“I’ve given you life. I’ve given you meaning. And I’ve given you…” Ruby paused for effect as she waited for the darkness to inspire the next word. Anything would’ve moved these people. But she needed the right thing.
And the darkness provided—not with Ruby’s words but through the fervor of the people.
You’ve given us Heaven! This is Heaven, isn’t it? We’ve arrived! We can’t believe it…the land on which we stand…Ruby’s heavenly domain.
Ruby clicked her tongue. The assumptions were too much. But how could she correct them without losing her hold? She wondered then why she even wanted a hold on the people, and when such notions wormed access into her thoughts. They were with her. They willingly belonged to her. She was too great to lower herself to the idea of holding or restraining. Her presence begat love and that’s all there was to it.
“If you think this is Heaven…then you’ve seen nothing yet! Straw is the cure. Straw is life. And the straw…it goes higher!”
Higher!
Ruby lifted her blood-red fingernail to the sky. Onlookers snapped pictures—both the humans and the shadowclaws. The curses took pictures of their own, mental ones, judging by their unnaturally frozen postures and captured attention.
Darkness rose from the High Chasm surfaces and swirled around Ruby in a marbled orb, sliding across her impressive aura.
Her movements were natural but inside she stiffened. Committing sins and sacrilege were no barrier to her. She never considered the possibility that they wanted her to be God. The woman was just doing what she knew would give everyone the most fulfilled life. Though by that logic her surprise at the people began to dispel. Fulfillment was the business of all gods—she’d worked this out after a closer inspection of her thought process.
“What do you think?” Ruby said to herself as she held her skyward pose. She patiently waited for the girl inside to respond.
The child’s eyes were dark saucers. No light entered. And nothing of the world was reflected. You couldn’t be emptier than what she was. The little girl grimaced and Ruby didn’t know if this was pain or annoyance.
“I’m trying to feed you, you know. Give me something to work with, young wraith.” Ruby stretched her energy down into her stomach, reaching into the black abyss where that girl lived.
A light pressure grabbed around her forefingers, an affirming squeeze. “I know,” the girl said.
HUNGER roared and roared.
So much for lasting the whole night…Ruby thought.
Ruby would’ve doubled over from the agony but she didn’t. She never did, not even in private. She’d be damned if she let these watchers see her this way.
The woman waved and waved. In that moment she played every bit the queen and Goddess the followers wanted her to be.
Waves of cramps came upon her. When one pain seemed to end, the next one came, stacking its effects.
Straight postured. Relaxed movements. Her smile was so pretty.
Ruby refused to bow down, even in private. She refused to let herself see such an unsightly thing.