Don’t think about it, becomes 11’s new mantra as she approaches the little girl, placing one foot in front of the other as if she’s walking a tightrope. The thorns of the rose bush snag onto her clothing, tearing holes in them, but she doesn’t care. She isn’t thinking about it. About anything.
She’ll disappear once I confront her, she tells herself, closing the distance with each reluctant step. And then everything will stop hurting.
She stops, her thoughts severing as the girl turns to look at her.
“Sure took your time, slowpoke.”
The last rays of the afternoon sunlight fingers through the pale crystal ceiling, illuminating the little girl’s silvery hair, her white dress, and the two stark pinpoints teasing out from behind her crimson lips.
11 gulps. She can almost hear the voice of Sir Jernal saying to her, Show me your teeth, please, and under normal circumstances, she will find it funny, but right now her mind is too busy being bulldozed by the girl’s smile, the pain in its familiarity, to be amused.
Don’t think about it.
“Are you going to come sit, or just keep standing there like a clown?”
The little girl’s smile grows wider, showing more teeth. It seems to make her fangs longer. Her tiny hands are curled around a pretty porcelain cup, her nails painted a wine red. “Sit down already. You’re starting to be creepy.”
11’s feet move on their own. She marches over, dizzy and confused and feeling a tornado of other emotions she doesn’t understand and shouldn’t be able to have. But she isn’t thinking about any of that. And as she finds herself sitting down and facing the girl, a warning message pops up on her interface,
> Caution:
>
> Target cannot be identified.
>
> Species: Unknown.
>
> Age: Unknown.
>
> Damage Output level: Unknown.
>
> Threat to humanity?: Unknown.
The scent of lavender rises up to 11’s nose, and she looks down to find a dainty teacup pushed before her, its contents steaming and soothingly aromatic. When did that get there? Instinctively, she wraps her hands around the teacup, feeling its warmth. Then continuing the natural motion, she brings it to her lips, gently blows on it, and takes a tentative sip.
The sweet, soothing taste flows down her throat like a trail of kisses, and 11 sighs, feeling the knots and cramps in her muscles loosening, her nerves relaxing.
The girl lets out a giggle. “For a second there I thought you might be disappointed it isn’t coffee,” she says, watching 11 with a fondness in her eyes that makes them seem softer, less alien. “I know you’ve probably been dying for a cup.”
11 perks up, all sense of danger immediately falling away at the mention of, “Did you say coffee?”
But instead of answering her, the girl simply smiles, and brings her own cup to her lips, sipping and sighing in much the same way as 11. “Are you looking for a particular book?”
11 nods. “I was, but it doesn’t seem like I’m at the right place. Are you the librarian of this place?”
“I might as well be,” the girl chuckles, the sound nearly melting 11’s core. “I think I’m just about the only one who comes here, at all.” She closes the massive book in front of her, pushes it into the middle of the table. “You might find this enjoyable, though it’s all just legends and bedtime stories. If it’s something like historical records you’re after, you’ll need to get into the Heroes’ League, in the east section of the city.”
11 peers at the book’s cover. “Chinen’s Fairy Tale Collection?”
The girl’s grin is mischievous. “I had to pass the time somehow.”
“I don’t understand,” 11 says, still looking at the book. “You mean, you wrote this?”
The girl’s eyes widen, then narrow. “Is that all you’re getting out of this? Doesn’t the last name Chinen ring any bells?”
11 turns her attention back to her tea, a swirling pool of darkness in which her own face stares out at her. “I don’t have a license,” she says, bringing the topic back around so she doesn’t have to think about that name, and how it definitely means something if she lets it. “I hear the Guild won’t let anyone into their archives without one.”
“That is true,” the girl says, going along. “But you should not bother yourself getting one.” She takes a sip of tea, closing her eyes briefly as if enjoying it on a level tea should not be able to provide. “Guilds are what happens when simple-minded people band together to waste time carrying out worthless tasks.” She opens her eyes again, frowning over 11’s shoulder with a look of disdain. “And the Heroes’ League is the worst of them all. The only thing they’ve managed to accomplish after all this time is a monopoly on factual records of anything to do with the past.” She scoffs. “As if the common folk can see the truth even if you plastered it to their foreheads.”
“Well, yea,” 11 says. “It’ll be on their foreheads.”
The girl looks startled for a second, before her face breaks into a smile that makes 11’s chest ache.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
“You haven’t lost your terrible sense of humor, I see.”
And with that one throwaway line, 11 can’t do anything but think about it. The girl’s hair and eye color are wrong, but there’s no mistaking that dimple on the left side of her face, or her cute button nose, wrinkling whenever she thinks, or the way she is looking at 11, like she’s seeing something inside all those circuits and motherboards, something 11 doesn’t even know is there.
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Then she starts to hurt.
The ache, which started ever since 11 set foot onto this floor, clenches tighter around her core, suffocating the mechanical parts within, jamming them together. Pain colors the edge of her view, smothering the girl, and tower, the plants around them. She shakes her head, putting the cup down, feeling liquid splash out over her fingers.
“Are you alright?”
The girl’s voice sounds far away, and 11 has to focus. The world is starting to unravel around her, separating apart like puzzle pieces painted on helium balloons. 11 glimpses something in the chasm, inside the nothingness which presides behind the balloons. And it makes her heart implode. Murder. Guilt. Lies.
No, don’t break! she wants to scream, reaching for the balloons before they can drift away. I’m not ready!
What isn’t she ready for? She does not know. But 11 knows that if she gives in, and lets the madness take a hold of her, she will no longer be able to protect herself.
The statistics of the ten God Giers flashes across 11's eyes; their deaths, their shortened lifespans, and the inevitability of her being next.
11 snatches onto one of the balloons before it can be lost to the void, a deep primal fear making her grip it like a lifeline. She holds the balloon close to her, praying for the warmth of its safety.
God Giers have no emotions, the balloon says, and 11 recognizes it as Mother’s voice. She focuses on that, letting Mother make sense of the world, letting Mother cover over the chasm, smooth over the pain and fear.
> God Giers have no memories.
11 feels the pressure in her brain alleviate. The balloons start to drift closer, fitting back into each other to form the canvas in which 11’s painted world can exist, in which she can exist.
> You are a God Gier.
She opens her eyes. The moment lasts only a second, and yet to 11, it is too long.
The girl has not moved. “Don’t worry,” she says, watching 11 with soft eyes, “it takes time.”
11 doesn’t want to listen anymore, or even be here anymore. But her throat feels like it’s been stitched closed. She glances down at her cup. It is empty. She spilled most of it while putting it down. “Can I…?” she croaks towards the pot, next to the book. The girl reaches over for it.
“Allow me.”
The tea does not treat 11 as kindly this time. Going down all wrong, 11 chokes, coughs the scalding liquid back up, and when she tries to put the cup down, her fingers fumble and the cup clatters to the table.
“Oh no!” 11 scrambles to save the girl’s book, but too late. Even as she holds it up, the patch on the cover spreads, staining over the beautifully crafted ‘Colle’ in ‘Collection.’
“No, no, no.” 11 holds the book by its corner and shakes it, hoping to get the liquid off, but she pinches too hard and the binding breaks apart, scattering its contents all over the floor.
The two girls watch in silence as the pages flutter across the tiles. A carpet of words.
11 looks across the table in abject horror. “I’m so sorry.”
The girl’s crimson lips thin into a line. She sets her cup down carefully, letting out a long breath through her nose. “Five years, that book took me to write.”
11, still pinching the empty book spine, grimaces. “I’ll… pay you?” she tries, but the girl does not look placated.
“Time is an invaluable resource.”
“Then… I’ll work to pay it off?” 11 sets the flimsy leather shell to the side. “I didn’t mean to break it, I promise.”
“Don’t make empty promises you cannot keep!” The girl snarls, her calm demeanor slipping as her lips curl over her perfect white teeth. In the light of the setting sun, her fangs gleam like diamonds. But just as quickly, the girl recovers. “Don’t worry about the book,” she says, shaking her head with a heavy sigh. “God knows you’ve broken more valuable things.” She gets up, pushing her half-empty cup away. “I'm going to go. It's getting late, and being angry makes me hungry.”
11 gets up as well. “Have I broken a promise with you before?” she asks, not wanting to know but unable to keep from asking. “Have we met before?”
The girl does not answer, doesn’t even look in 11’s direction as she unfolds her umbrella, even though they are inside. She turns away, holding the face of the umbrella to 11, towards the sun shrinking behind them, leaving 11 to stare at a pair of striped knee socks and black leather school shoes.
Like Alice in Wonderland, thinks 11. Except I’m Alice, and she’s the Rabbit.
“Must be nice not remembering,” the girl says bitterly, stunning 11 with her unexpectedly harsh words. “Must be nice, hiding inside that fake body of yours, watching the world through those fake, blue eyes.”
As 11 watches in shocked astonishment, tendrils of black smoke begin creeping from within the umbrella, coiling around the girl’s small body like shadowy pythons. When the girl turns to 11 again, the look in her eyes is what 11 can only describe as ancient, and something so twisted by grief and rage it has become meaningless.
“I’m not like you, Onee-chan,” the girl says, "so I mean it when I make a promise." Her voice is calm, though her words coil around 11’s neck all the same. “I will make you remember, and ache, for the one you left behind, even if I have to pull you out of that shell myself, even if I have to destroy you, and everyone around you until the only ones remaining in this world, are us.”
The smoke closes over her smile, and with a whisper, the girl is gone.
----------------------------------------
When 11 steps out of the library tower, the sky is adorned with stars, and the streets are awash in a soothing blue glow from the metallic lanterns dotting along the path. Someone is snoring. She looks down. A girl is sitting by the tower’s wall, her head resting at an awkward angle to accommodate her unwieldy horns. A tiny circle of drool is collecting on her upturned coat collar, and for some reason, 11 finds it adorable. She leans down and pokes Yue’li’s cheek.
“I didn’t do it!” Yue’li blurts out as she jolts awake, looking around in panic. But when she sees 11, reason returns to her in a blush. “Good evening,” she says, grinning sheepishly. “You sure took your time in there. I thought I’d wait out here for you, but the wind was just so nice and I must have dozed off.”
“What didn't you do?” 11 says, offering her hand.
“Huh?”
“You were yelling that when I woke you.”
It takes Yue’li a second to understand what 11 is asking, and when she does, she laughs. “A lot of things,” she says, taking 11's hand and getting up. She's dressed in the same way as she was in the alleyway; a sleeveless shirt, boyish shorts, and a cloak that covers her entire body. “If there is a crime, I have an alibi for it. But never mind that." She leans down to swipe the few tulip petals clinging to her bare legs. “I’m here to repay you for saving me.”
“Why?” asks 11, truly baffled.
Yue’li blinks at her. “What do you mean, why? If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I don’t even wish to think about it. I owe you my life!”
11 shakes her head, not liking where this is going. “You don’t owe me anything,” she tells Yue’li, trying to make herself seem stern. “Like I told you, I just did what any hero would’ve done, or rather, what any morally sound person would’ve done. And I thought I told you to rest.”
Yue’li shrugs. “I can be pretty convincing.” She looks away, not elaborating, then she says to 11, “It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re a hero or a thief or something else entirely. I owe you my life, that's the truth. And yaojins always pay their dues.”
Convincing, or stubborn? 11 wonders. Regardless, she's getting tired, and the last thing she needs right now is to put another life at risk by getting close to them. She says to Yue’li with as much determination as she can summon, “Look, I appreciate your gratitude. But I’m not going to take repayment for-”
A rumbling gurgle from her stomach cuts through the rest of her words. 11 looks down, shocked and embarrassed, and then with more shock and embarrassment when it happens again.
What the hell? Is it the tea?
"Sounds to me like your body has already decided for you," Yue’li laughs. She hops towards 11 and takes her hands. “Let me treat you to a meal, at the very least. Even heroes need to eat.” She looks up at 11 with big eyes, pupils dilated in the dim light, and 11 feels herself caving.
"Alright, but I'm only doing this so you'll get back to bed."
Yue'li's smile grows into a full-blown grin. "Deal."
One meal wouldn’t hurt, 11 justifies to herself as she lets Yue'li lead her away from the tower. I'll just eat, then leave.
Before they reach the end of the footbridge, 11 casts one last look behind her.
The tower is dark, shrouded by the night, hiding away its secrets behind those layers of stones and vines.
A simple meal shouldn't have any long-term effects. 11 turns away, letting the little girl, the monolith, and the past, sink away into the chasm, where they will not harm anyone.
Right?