The whole world was home and it shone all above. A wing, ring shaped and crenulated, undulated, and that gave the signal to the one immediately behind it to do the same. By imitation the movement coursed through the skirt-wings of the Masterwork. She soared through the skies to bring night into day and, in the opposite end of the world, her reflection would bring day into the night. Thus under the gaze of the moon she was known as Dayfall, and when embraced by the sun her name became Nightbreak. For all intents and purposes, she would be counted among the Apathic ones: her “goal” was not intelligible, she didn’t respect no boundaries nor laws save for her own — that included never flying over Felsia, for in the night the shimmering city already had their fragment of day, and during the day their secrets cast over it the shadow of night — and she would eternally pursue her duty.
Stars, fulgurating, dotted Nightbreak’s body, and either the blue of the sky or the gray of a rainy evening painted Dayfall’s. And while she tried to embody both of the concepts, it was a futile pursuit, for most of what defined the feelings associated to day —the singing of the birds, the blooming of flowers of many colors — and night — the shrieks of bats, the pale dots denoting the stalking eyes of a predator — had to do with the acts of living beings, and she represented none of them.
Onwards she wandered, chasing the dawn, chasing the dusk, and constantly running from both of them too. Wherever the sun poured over the land, there could be Nightbreak, and wherever the moon flowed with the tides, there could be Dayfall.
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She watched Ald with eyes almost Felsian, kept her words behind lips no different from his. He needed sleep, like many of her fellow misshapen. She had been born without the capacity to do so. Dole said sleep felt blissful to the tired, but she knew not restfulness. To move was always a chore, to exist a permanent suffering to which she had become numb long ago. Or so others considered it, because, for her, it was the natural state of life. Muscles were supposed to ache, the vision to be in a constant shift between sharp and blurry, energy to be a scant resource.
Once Dole had soothed her pain, gave her clarity of mind, and she found it tortuous. She pleaded to forget, her claws, three thin ones on each finger, digging onto the feathery dress of their patroness.
This is how Telesa Fuldraborn watched over Ald: unfocused, half-delirious, and keeping her claws away from his face, unlike she had done with her mother’s shortly after being born.
She took a while to notice that Ald had opened his eyes and was staring at her while slowly reaching for his dagger. But then, he stopped, remembering the events of the previous day — if he had slept for less than a day, that is.
“Good awakening. You may call me Telesa. Fuldraborn here, Sinborn in Felsia. I cannot sleep and I have three claws on each finger. That’s the extent of my particularity. For everything else, I am like any of my aunts or uncles,” she dutifully recited what Dole had told her to.
“Fuldraborn?” Ald asked, looking around the shanty, trying to find anything that wasn’t sticks, mud or leaves shaped into a wall. “Fuldra was the captain of the ship that brought me here. And…” His eyes came to rest on her claws over a bunch of many-colored rags that served like an improvised bed, and the image of Fuldra’s scars came to him. “Yes, that Fuldra.”
If he tried, she bore a resemblance to her mother, but then, all Felsians resembled each other to a degree. She was a dirty, unscarred version of Fuldra from whose hands a collection of knives hung, arranged in trios.
“I work by digging holes and slicing up prey in tiny bits for some recipes. Dole learned me to speak Felsian, like she did to everyone else. I’d offer you to mate today, but today Nightbreak will fly over the clearing, and we need to see it. All of us.”
Ald went over her words in his head. He was still a bit slow form the recent sleep, despite his instinctual reaction to seeing her. “You’d offer me… what?”
“To mate. You are a purebred Felsian, I am a first generation misshapen. Together, we could make misshapen that differ less from a Felsian than a second generation misshapen. Our little society subsisting requires periodical injections of new blood.”
“Ugh,” Ald didn’t bother to hide his disgust. Fuldra’s daughter or not, the sole proposition was sinful. Twice as much if a misshapen made it, in lieu of a sister. “back at home I would have handed you to the authorities for that.
“Back in your home, you would have butchered me after seeing my hands. The twisted laws of Felsia do not apply here.”
Still, Ald grabbed his left wrist with the right hand, ashamed. “In a sibling’s home one should behave by their rules. I must apply the same principle here. Pardon my rudeness,” he recited in a nearly deadpan tone, and then exited the shanty.
Outside, past the drapes of interwoven leaves, and once his eyes adjusted to the assaulting sunlight, he witnessed twenty-six of the denizens of that tiny encampment gathered around a gray boulder. Atop of it sat The White Lady, feathery wings protruding from her flesh in every direction, twitching with her every movement. All around, the most varied misshapen gazed at the sky: the ones who could gaze, at least. Those eyeless, or those unable to look anywhere but down or to the sides, had followed their cousins, parents, and siblings, basking in their company for such an irregular event as the coming of the twinned entity.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Ald advanced towards the circle and sat between an eyeless misshapen with scarred skin and three arms, and a limbless, hairless one whose teeth seemed to have been replaced by a sort of barbs, not unlike those of cetaceans.
“You woke up just in time to admire her, Ald,” the mound of deformed birds said, not looking at him, “Nightbreak comes. Bear witness.”
A single finger of Dole shot straight up, pointing beyond the canopies, and a moment later, a tendril of night cut across the blue sky, revealing sparkling stars among darkness deepest. More tendrils joined, seeking whiskers of the Masterwork coming before the main body.
Soon enough, night fell over the clearing, the sun gradually getting consumed by the front of darkness. A lightless night, a colloidal suspension of pale stars, swept slowly above them, consuming the blue. Ald expected the misshapen to cheer around him, but they remained in a meditative silence. And the ceiling of night, hundreds of Felsian-heights above, vibrated, Ald thought. As the first wing soared over them the night began to cry stars that fell in spirals, leaving after images, submerging them all in a murk so encompassing and tranquil that, to Ald, it felt like death. Soon enough the absence of light, save for the twinkling stars, was so absolute that only when a dot of brightness floated by a mere finger away from their faces he could glimpse the townsfolk, with their features cast in moving shadows that drew long across their faces as the stars drifted away.
The second skirt-wing soon became visible, bending the firmament at an angle, making some stars undulate while others, at about the same distance, reimained moving in straight lines. Musings were heard around Ald, the amazed misshapen commenting on the phenomenon they were living. He tried to remain calm, as this illusion seemed to be just optical, and acted more like a veil, not a trick. Caretaken had used illusions to make him live these horrible feverish dreams in a loop, and yet this midday night seemed to be harmless. The misshapen that hadn’t killed him in his sleep — and this was his main reason to grant them a crumb of trust — seemed to consider this a ritual, or a spectacle worth seeing.
He started laughing. Out of nerves… out of joy… he didn’t know anymore. The stars danced, the day had been robbed from him and this beautified version of a moonless night. Did he have hands? he felt them, but couldn’t see anything beside the floating lights anymore.
And after a few moments, as it had come, night withdrew., escaping from every leaf and twig as it got pulled and dragged by the numerous tails of Nightbreak. The sun felt scorching and cold on Ald’s skin, and he tried to hide from it as it swiped over the town, reclaimed what it had been deprived of for a few minutes.
Shuddering under the tropical sun, the misshapen began cheering and saluting Nightbreak. “Goodbye! We are eternally thankful for your gifts!” one of them said, Ald didn’t care enough to learn who.
Nails came from ALd’s left and placed a hand on his shoulder. “These are our marvels, Felsian. This and a thousand more like it,” he said, a single word draped in a tone of scornful mockery.
Ald brushed it off with a gesture and a smile. “Cute. We have sewage. The only sewage system in the world.”
“The uniqueness of Felsia is erected on pillars of cruelty.” The fingers on the back of the head of Nails had raised, like the ruffled feathers of an angry bird. "I have swum in the waters of the Worldvein on the day they become clear and you can see through them as you do through mistless air. There are more of your brother and sisters in the bottom of the river than white bricks in your city. All because they gave birth to people like me.”
“Some misshapen do not age like Felsians do. Nails is about four Alds old,” Dole informed, taking delight on the sonority of the last sentence.
“I am still a mere tadpole compared to you, Lady in White,” he gave her a little reverence, planting his knee on the litter.
“And you will forever be. I find it to be no reason for feeling down. And stop aggravating Ald. You cannot expect for a Felsian to despise Felsia, as he cannot expect you to admire it. The city he loves and the city you hate are not the same in any sense, save for the physical.”
“There’s only one Felsia,” Sneered Ald.
“And neither of us can see it clearly,” said Nails. “Come, Ald. I should show our esteemed guest our way of life today.”
Ald shook his head. “I need to go. I need to reach Father and release him. Afterwards, in the case I survive the ordeal, I can pass through in my route back home, and help your people in exchange for aid in creating a suitable raft to cross the Worldvein,” he offered in the most polite tone he could muster, but quickly joined Nails on his walk around the group of huts.
“Dole commands, we follow. I suggest, Ald, you do not act against her best interest.”
“I act in behalf of the best interests of my people, not of the masterwork that guides me. I am a puppet, and she’s the hand that makes me dance. That’s plain to see. That’s why she chose me: because others would tire of dancing with no reward on sight. It’s not because I am brave, or strong, or the best rune carver. It’s not because I am some endless well of willpower. I am Ald, Kali’s caretaker, farmer, a perfectly fine puppet, and sometimes a blacksmith.”
With his hards curled into a claw, Nails turned and aimed for Ald’s face, showing his teeth. He stopped an instant away from making contact with the Felsian’s skin.
“The White Lady wouldn’t want me to slap you for your insolence.”
“I am armed,” Ald reminded him in a dry tone.
“And alone. I am among equals.”
“And I am past horror. But there’s no need for us to be hostile to each other, Nails. We can keep disrespecting each other’s culture back and forth all day until I continue my way. However, I’d like to ask your people for a favor.”
The misshapen composed himself and crossed his arms. “Speak.”
“I’d like to remain here while I create a magical vehicle. I learned about the spell the boat that brought me here used to crawl on water, and I think I can adapt it to craft a landborne vehicle capable of running and climbing fallen trunks or even trees to sort obstacles.”
A dove came and alighted on Nail’s bare shoulder. “You will help him.”
“Yes, Lady in White.” The misshapen begrudgingly accepted. “State your needs, and we will provide for them.”
For the first time in a long while, a genuine smile sat on Ald’s face.
“Do you know about forgewood? A few heavy branches of it will suffice. Everything else, I may improvise.”
Nails hummed with a sour expression. “I’ll see what can be done.”