The undead spearman moved up the stairs, slow trotting steps building up to frightening speed and agility. He was no simple undead militia. His spear was nothing special, though skill made it bend and bite like a living creature.
Rye was ready, mentally prepared to do the deed. He was a danger to everyone, not just her. This wasn’t murder, this was a community service.
She took one step – right onto a sharp rock – and yelped, advantage of initiative and surprise slipping from her grasp like sand.
The undead turned. The undead speared. Rye moved, but not enough and in the wrong direction.
You have died
You have lost: Soul x176
You have lost: Bone shard [Common] x9, [Uncommon] x6
At least she picked up the bone shards beforehand.
----------------------------------------
I am starting to believe that your capacity for violence is negative.
“Ack!” Rye spun out of the way of a wild swipe at her legs only to stumble into a thrust to her chest. The spear tip plunged into her stomach, and she reeled back in shock. The metal platelets and mail saved her life. She was still in the fight. If only it didn’t all hurt so much. “H-help!”
Sure.
Her arm flexed unnaturally, and she took another stab to her mail. This time, the spear didn’t retract, as Elia grabbed it right behind the barbs.
Now! Initiative!
Without a word, Elia relinquished control and Rye held onto the spear, using it to pull herself forward – right into the waiting backup dagger of the spearman, who plunged it through her neck and out the back.
That feeling. Metal on bone. It would haunt her dreams, and some waking moments too. A second dagger pierced her heart, as even in degraded undeath none of his three arms ever remained idle.
You have died
----------------------------------------
Dodge! Nice! Again!
Her breath was coming short, but this was it. This was the one.
The spearman hit her in the chin with the butt of his spear, knocking her head all the way back, leading her in a stumble towards the edge of the terrace. She staggered against a stone pillar and gripped for dear life, the endless fall onto mountaintops like snow-peaked pebbles just visible in the corner of her eye. An imperceptible weight drew her down, a blur forming at the edges of her eyes.
DON’T FALL! Whatever you do, don’t. Get stabbed before that because we will NOT be able to recover our bone shards.
Rye didn’t, but only because she scrambled away and towards a number of successive spear strikes, which she only evaded in part. Two hit an arm and leg. One pricked her in the abdomen again, but not enough to knock the breath out of her.
Her vision only grew more blurry, her hands only more unsteady. A touch to her neck came back dark red. The smallest nick in the wrong place could fell mountains and Rye felt barely larger than a pebble. She stumbled and accepted that it was her fate to die again.
It was almost preferable to watch the spear get her in the neck again instead of the reverse. Almost.
You have died
----------------------------------------
Get up.
Rye remained where she was, nuzzled deep into the embrace of the attendant. She had no intention of getting up.
Time until lost items and souls dissipate: 10 min
“Five more minutes.”
Get up, now. The sooner you learn to fend for yourself, the sooner we can get going. Or y’know, switch with me. I’ll avenge your deaths faster than you can say pen–pineapple–apple–pie.
“Doing things my way means taking breaks.” She turned to peek out into the clear, calm water. “Snugglebreaks. Mandatory.”
An echoing groan bounced off walls inside her head.
I get it, you like the level-up lady because she’s hot and looks like a ten. People would quarter her just to get at the secrets of her immaculate skincare. Maybe ask her where she gets the good stuff from. Later. Now get up and don’t die again.
“No. Make cuddles, not war.” She nestled her face deeper, tension draining out of her with a sigh as the attendant brushed her hair.
The attendant didn’t just look nice but smelled like roses and a fine hint of earthy cinnamon. Good that no one could see her blush.
And here I thought you were in a hurry to get home. I didn’t consent to getting hugged, y’know.
“You’re just jealous.”
An exasperated sigh rang hollow. Finally, a sign of victory.
Yeah. Right. Fine. Have your break. But after that, I want to see you do your best.
As if Rye had shown anything less.
----------------------------------------
You have died
“Stop taking control of my body!”
Not my fault you keep on dying. There’s a limit to everything, especially my patience.
“You blocked that spear with my flat hand!”
I was trying to parry it!
“Where the heck did you learn to parry a spear with your – my soft, delicate hands?”
Soft, she says. Delicate, she claims. It’s better than blocking it with your face, miss pickled plum!
Rye shot up, seething with indignant anger. It was the kind of anger that hurt herself, that made her voice hitch and eyes tear up. Staring at her hand where ostensibly no mark showed itself helped little as the ache of agony still pulsed like a fresh wound.
…I saw it in a Bruce Lee movie. Enter the Dragon was always my favorite. It’s not as impossible as it looks. Just a bit of a trick of desperation.
Rye listened to her heartless teacher ramble about things she didn’t understand. It was a story, at least she thought so, about a warrior who fought without any weapons at all. Maybe he was a famed ‘ninja’ from Elia’s homeland. Maybe they valued individual strength over everything, like the giants of Morgenthal.
“What exactly is so fascinating about these stories, where one man beats everyone up?”
‘Cause watching my boy Lee go ham on a gaggle of witless schmucks is awesome! Kapow! Wam! Bazoing!
Truly, barbaric in every meaning of the word.
She shook her head, a nugget of information immediately lost in the swirl of chaotic memory. And then, she was at the top of the stairs again.
I parried a bolt once.
“From a crossbow? With your hands?”
Hell yeah I did! I’m awesome. Never managed it again though. Was hard without a shield. Iced the dreg, he never got me again afterwards. The spiders did, but that was after I lost my boots. I could kill for some boots.
Contrary to most conversation, Rye found herself getting even angrier. If Elia really was from a warrior culture, then why was she expecting her to instantly adapt to the life of a killer? She wasn’t used to any kind of violence and the pain, the pain was the worst. The feeling of hard, cold metal against bone was now a familiar feeling, and the familiarity only made the wait more terrifying.
She didn’t even have a boon. She was short and woefully inexperienced. Elia still expected her to just win against someone with not just six feet more reach than her but what felt like years of dedicated practice under his belt. It wasn’t fair and all the rage fed into that boiling cauldron of undoing, the anger that was antithesis to the realm of controlled civilized thought.
The undead’s head peeked up from the steep stone stairway, face encased in the same round stone mask taunting her to think of him as less than human. It wasn’t so simple. He had to die so others could live. His suffering was just a formality then, a prerequisite to getting past this first fateful step. As was hers. Pushed forward by the will to make the world a better place and held back by every instinct and ideal she had grown up with, she found it hard to move at all.
But when she did, it was not in the direction she expected.
His spear came quick, a dull moan muffled by his helmet-mask the only reaction as she cleared the tip in a leap, slicing edge bouncing off her sabatons. He greeted her with two open arms, daggers a welcome gift that pierced her platelets, mail, and chest as she slammed down on him with all her meagre weight.
Pain added to the cacophony inside her mind and in the whirl of blind emotion her hatchet hit the undead’s head with a sickening crack.
Stone splintered. They both tumbled down the stone steps, slamming into the ground near an abandoned, wilted garden. Their short roll trampled desiccated beauty as they came to a stop in a rose bed, the spherical mask shattered.
Rye turned to face him and found his eyes a piercing yellow. She knew it. There was a man behind the mask. An undead man, hollow eyes and skin draped over bones, but still a man, a person. He was still twitching. Moving.
The hatchet fell. It rose heavily, it fell unaimed. Viscera and snot and tears carved her screaming face into mayhem. As the world grew quiet and her arms refused to move, only tears remained. Her stomach was cut open, a rent in the mail on her side. A dagger was sticking out of her right bicep, still loosely gripped by the undead whose face now resembled a mashed ruin.
Her smoke’s tally put the last nail in denial’s coffin. She killed a man.
You have gained: Soul x800
Soul count: 976
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x2
You have gained: Bone shard [Uncommon] x1
Ever the crude, uncaring brute, Elia’s tone was nearing jovial excitement.
Hohoho, holy shit, Rye. I knew you had it in you. You were like a fuckin raptor, just pounced and then boom – dead. Bit overkill with the axe afterwards, but there’s kill in overkill too. Now let’s get back and heal up again, you hear me? Rye? Rye?
“M’sorry.” Rye muttered, tears streaking her face.
The act of killing made way for an altogether different pain than being on the receiving end and it was no less horrible. The first one in the maze didn’t feel real, as if she had still been in an ugly dream. No matter the justification, or how much she tried to delude herself into calling anyone evil, they were still human, even in undeath. As was she. The healing waters wouldn’t mend this wound, she feared.
The adrenaline faded and blood loss left her feeling drained and cold. She huddled up into a ball under the nearest statue, a statue of Worga, Goddess of Conquest, Scourge of the Dark Forest, Alpha Bella.
“M’sorry. M’sorry. M’sorry.”
Rye was no daughter of the goddess of war. Ruthe fit her like a glove. Ruthe, God of Peace, Architect of Civilization, Alpha Genius. Yeah, she was more of a Ruthe person.
Rye? Hey, you don’t look so hot. A tingle ran through her arm and retreated just as quickly. Ouch. You don’t feel so hot either. Can you stand? C’mon, that was a real good showing. Let’s not waste this run.
…it was quite obvious which side her companion preferred. Rather, would prefer if she cared a lick about their great gods. Some part of her mind wanted to lie here and let death claim her, a payment for sins committed, a futile symbol that violence solved nothing. The problem was that this time it did. Would it be the only answer in the future?
One time was enough.
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Something soft touched her lips. She opened it without much thought and a chewy sweetness entered her mouth. Her possessed hand pushed it all the way in and closed her mouth for her. She didn’t dare bite down, didn’t dare taste it. A filthy person like her didn’t deserve treats and sweets.
Another chewy fruit came, but this time her mouth remained closed. The hand retreated, climbing back into her pocket, rummaging around before stilling. A wet something rubbed against her arm, then applied itself more liberally to her belly.
You have used: Wyckwax
Fuckin– this would be a lot easier with two arms. Help me out here, brain bud.
It stung. But pain was good. A memory, fleeting and cut, drifted through the fog setting on her mind. This would not be the end. Ever since she was little, the reward for a done chore was another, the reward for pain and exhaustion the outlook for more. Like then, she could push her feelings down, let them mingle in the bottom of her stomach while her face remained placidly neutral, focused.
Unlike Elia, she would never enjoy killing. Today merely proved that she was capable of it, and if even she was, then so too was everyone else. Innocent was not a word that held much meaning anymore. With enough incentive and a knife, anyone could become a killer. Not just anyone could show a level of remorse like her, but that too was just a pain that could be swallowed, could be ignored and forgotten, though she failed on the should more than the could.
With a quiet sigh, her eyes drifted shut, willing the world to let her sleep. Let her other half take over, let her enjoy what Rye had to suffer through. Elia was right. She wouldn’t last three days. She didn’t even make it past lunch. At this rate, she was never going to cure her undeath, or make it home, or see her family ever again.
Hey. Hey, don’t go sleeping on me. You’re still bleeding out.
Her stomach grumbled. Thanks stomach. At least one part of herself had a straight bearing on what it wanted. With a quiet sigh and less apprehension than she felt was appropriate, Rye began chewing and slowly let herself drift into dreamland.
Don’t sleep with food in our mouth or we’re gonna choke! Hello-o? Rye? Brain bud?
…
Holy shit, you snore loud.
…
Well, this is ironic. And mildly terrifying. Can I even sleep like this? Shit, should’ve asked Rye. Should’ve asked a lot of things. Ugh.
Elia’s gaze swept from one corner of darkness to the next. It was kind of cozy in here. Peaceful. She leaned back in a metaphorical sense and whistled an awkward tune.
What a vacation.
And then the floor opened up, her apparition of a body screaming down into the land of dreams and memory.
----------------------------------------
With a shock and a shudder, a girl woke up wrapped in warm sheets of feather-stuffed bedding. A tired face under a disheveled mop of straw-colored curls shuffled out from under the covers, the dull red tinged sky torturing her even through a hefty squint. Sunrise. She overslept again.
“Rye~,” a sonorous voice called, followed by another knock. “The mistress wants you up and at it.”
A cry of a rooster directly outside her window announced its tardiness, the early sun striking off its coat of translucent scales in a brilliant display of colors that vaporized her eyes. Figuratively.
Groaning and with all the inertia and impulse of a ten-legged slugapede, she flopped out of bed and struggled to right herself before the polished tin mirror.
“Come in, Sam.” A yawn stretched wide as the embroidered cloth divider parted, the servant with black hair done up in a bun peeking through, mischief hidden beneath sharp dark eyes.
There was no need to have Sam help her dress at all. Today was a normal day filled with chores, studying and work, which for the grand harvest at the end of long-summer meant that a simple tunic laden with colored stitching at the rims over the usual summertime underwear would suffice. The winter-year would sweep them all away if they didn’t all work themselves to the marrow, but a little vice was acceptable if it kept them all standing. She chose her newest tunic today – red stitch Arum flowers and green olive branches on beige fabric – and let Sam get to work.
“Oh my, you look to have been out late, bean.” Her servant cooed in a sing-song voice. “Was it that centurion’s son, Avitus this time? Or that merchant, the one with olive skin and a pretty face? Or maybe Hannah? You’d have to have gone far for Hannah.”
Rye managed a strangled sound as she let Sam brush and order her hair. “I was studying, thank you very much.”
“Ah, yes, studying. And I think I might know with whom.”
Rye stayed silent, knowing full well that she knew that Sam knew that she knew, though the act she was putting up for all the world was quite convincing.
“We should call it something less conspicuous than studying.” She muttered as she leaned into the careful brush strokes.
Sam soon caught her nodding off and pressed her hands to her neck. They were icy, eliciting a squawk and a friendly bat as Rye stood up to let herself be dressed. “Is the princess ready to stay awake now?”
“Mmmh, maybe. Ugh, I’m already ripe for midweek.” Five days of work lay ahead of one day of rest and without Sam’s affectionate ministrations, she honestly didn’t see how she would make it through. “You’ve already been up for long?”
“Not at all.” She said and smiled, puffing up Rye’s hair before letting them rest in a bun. “Thy hair be brushed, o’ great one.”
“Very well. This shall be sufficient.” She raised her chin, continuing in a mock commanding tone. “You may take your leave, oh loyal knight of the horsehair brush.”
Sam rolled her eyes, bowing with an overly elaborate flourish of her hands. A small antic, before each had to see to their respective duties. Her best friend wasn’t technically a servant, as much as she was technically not part of the family because Mum and Da’ for some reason decided that eighteen was a good number of children to have, not one more.
Even with that much help, everyone from her brothers and sisters to the servants and harvest hands to Mum and Da’ was running on fumes. Only a couple weeks until the first signs of fall, so the oracles claimed.
Breakfast was served at differing tables: One for the little children, shepherded by Sam and a sleepy-headed servant from the ‘Thalian islands and one for the young adults and above – namely thirdborn Califer, secondborn Marcus, her parents and herself. The farm estate was more of a small village, and during harvest season it truly came alive as it housed the full family of twenty, six servants and the seasonal helpers by the dozens in a barracks off to the side.
As the oldest one, she was the first to help set the table and the last to sit down after all else was cared for. Porridge was on the menu, thick with oats and milk, yellow and orange bristleberries sprinkled in between spoonfuls of jam. She made absolutely sure everyone else had their portions before filling her bowl a modest amount. She couldn’t summon much of an appetite after yesterday’s impromptu… feast, but failing to eat now would lead to regret later in the fields. Mother could have been less generous with the honey.
Her mother sat down with her, taking one last dismissive look at the servants wrangling a noisy Liara and cranky Fia fighting over a spoon before taking to the meal herself. Rye didn’t look her in the eye because her face was an owl, rings around her eyes barely hidden by a mask of orderliness.
“Mum, is Da’ not joining us?” Rye asked after swallowing cleanly and not pointing out in front of everyone how Mum’s hair was looking more frazzled today. Wouldn’t want to get accused of behavior unbecoming of her, the firstborn. Not first thing in the morning.
“He left in the morn’, inspecting the harvest of our client farmers. He will return in four days after visiting citizen Paulus. The elder, father of Paulus the younger. You know the one.” She yawned, but her tone was much too jovial for the sapping questions that soon had to follow. “And your studies? How are they, dear? Will you be set to take the exam fall next year? Or is that asking too much?”
Yes. “No, I’ll be done with mister Marksworths assignments right on time.” Cries in the background forced her to stand up and put an end to the bickering before Fia went on another of her famous tantrums or someone lost an eye.
Sam looked truly grateful. Her natural glare just managed to scare them and the maid responsible for the young ones was fast asleep, face first in a bowl of flour.
“Wake her,” Rye mouthed before returning to the breakfast table. Bless Sam, she was already five steps ahead.
Back at the table, the talk ran circles around her studies all over again. In truth, she’d be done a bit early with last week’s assignments, a small reward for pushing herself so fervently these past two months and completely skipping on more than a few days of sleep. Getting a tutor to come this far out from Arvale was expensive, especially considering that during the long-summer, there was seldom a job as well-paying as bringing in the harvest. Everyone pitched in, from the landowners themselves to city folk swarming out in the hopes of getting good donars for their muscle and a headstart on their own stores for the winter-year.
For herself, she could only laud herself in silence that a teacher of philosophy, arts and sciences had deigned his time worth spending on her rather than wrenching tubers from the earth. The way she practically consumed each reading assignment, each scroll and book was the only reason mister Marksworth had even accepted, and Da’ would not have been moved to pay for him without her promising initial results and the good deal he managed to haggle.
There was definitely something more going on there, with the amount of attention Marksworth deigned to give her. Either way, she was getting results, results that set her up to either fail catastrophically down the line or, as luck had a twisted sense of humor, condemned her to rise above them year after year. The prospect of falling behind, of wasting all the good grace given gave enough anxiety and impetus for extended studying even after a day standing bent over in the fields or politely yelling at the workers and her siblings to pick up the pace.
In exchange, she felt just about ready to collapse. Next to the steep pile of trigonometry, algebra, history, religion, the seven dialects and philosophy, the farm work formed a pile that never seemed to shrink, only stay the same or increase. The exam that would determine her degree of competence wasn’t for another year and a bit. She’d have it in record time, yes, but only if sleep deprivation didn’t kill her outright.
Could she make time for an evening at the longsummer festival? Likely not. With a strangled sigh, she returned to her lukewarm porridge.
“Good. That we get to see you go beyond your origins makes me and your father very proud, even when you’ll eventually have to move into the city. Now come, stop martyring yourself at the breakfast table, I made enough for everyone.”
Her eyebrows had to be reined in from arching up just as her owlish mother spooned another dollop into her bowl. Now she was obligated to force that down too. Mmmh, sickly sweet. The best kind of horrible.
The moving-out part was new to her, but it was soon washed away by the thoughts that she should have seen this coming, that of course she couldn’t stay a day’s journey from Arvale. Her mother moved on to other topics, her window to mutter a ‘thank you, Mum’ passed.
“Sophia was blessed with her first soul shard. Isn’t that wonderful!”
“Mhm.”
“Oh, and before I forget: After consulting with your father, we have decided to free you of all your evening duties until the end of the year, perhaps longer. That means no dilly-dallying with strapping young farm hands or anyone else this season. You’re our firstborn, you need to look and act the part. Are we clear?”
Rye nearly sputtered but kept her composure on the outside. She had ostensibly used less cribsrest than usual this month, how did she know? The particular implications aside, if Mum really meant ALL chores, that would even leave her with some time for other pursuits. This was great news! Suspiciously great…
A quick glance towards Sam told her that the younger kids were still not seated nor ready to eat together.
“Chores still need doing.” Rye said, earning her a glare from her brother and half–brother.
Only then did her mother turn to the second and thirdborn. “Marcus and Califer will take over feeding the grugs and cleaning the stall for you. Starting today.”
“…actually, me ‘n Cali wanted to go out to the festival today, with Emmi. Y’know, the Tenders’ girl. They’ve got a fortune teller and a bekki who can spell words into the air with fire and make them fly. Like a bird.”
“Birds aren’t real.” Cali added around a mouthful of bread. “Everyone knows that. Only things that fly are rocs, dragons and those serpent things.”
“Yeah, sure. Except I saw one yesterday with my own eyes, real high up.”
“Heatstroke.” Cali shrugged ineffectually. “An onset of lunacy.”
Marcus’ response was choked in his throat with his bread as he saw Mum’s penetrating glare.
Talking back to Mum. Yikes. The lecture that followed was one that Rye toned out all too readily. She finished her porridge, excused herself from the table and headed on out, ready for a day of drudgery.
…
The sun burnt down on sweating brows and well-worn sandals. It was much too hot to be picking tomatoes, but the tomatoes demanded to be picked. It was harvest season and everyone had to pitch in, even the firstborn.
“I’m ripe! I’m ripe!” One of them squealed.
“Quiet, you.” They were a needy vegetable, or maybe a fruit, possibly a berry if one was generous. Rye only cared that they were quiet once plucked from their lifegiving stems.
It was all in her mind, that she knew. Why the gods gave this lineage of tomatoes telepathy was a mystery, but she’d rather they hadn’t bothered. It ruined a lot of meals for her, eating something that had talked back the day before.
“Pick me! Pick me!”
“Ugh.” Rye rubbed at something in her eye, but sweat and dust only made the touch sting harder. She didn’t notice Cali and Marcus sneaking away, not until they were well outside of the range of her sling.
“The heck!?” She yelled at them, watching as they turned their heads. “Marcus I can understand but Cali? Et tu?”
In his defense, Califer’s face did betray some guilt. “Marc says they caught a witch, a real one. Seen bekki plenty, but not a half human, half beast. They’re gonna parade her around as a trophy, then sell her off as a slave or release her into the wild if no one bothers to take her.”
“And you’re just gonna leave your sister here, alone?” The question was rhetorical, though Rye would have never left them to go see some stupid heretic. “Who's gonna keep watch?”
There always had to be someone to keep watch. The dark forest was far away, yet sometimes things from it escaped, managed to swim across the ferric ocean and then proceeded to wreak havoc in the empire heartland. Just last year, two poor washerwomen were pulled into a stream, leaving nothing but blood, unwholesome fluids and unwashed laundry in their wake.
It made her fear for Sam, enough that she had bought her a rather large knife, even though non-citizens were not allowed to carry one.
Marcus gestured somewhere up the tomato vineyard. “Antonius and Claudius got our crossbows.”
That only got her to gape in exasperation. “The seasonal helper with the crooked eyes and the twelve year old?”
“Yep! Don’t be such a pansy, nothing’s gonna happen and they’ll have the harvest done on time. We’ve enough helpers this season. Won’t miss us for a day.” Marcus yelled as Califer mouthed an apologetic ‘I owe you’.
A single favor was not enough to make up for an entire afternoon, but they were already off, disappearing in between long lines of tomatoes clamoring loudly in a contest of who was the ripest fruit in town. Vegetable. Ugh, it didn’t matter. The blame would fall on her head as the firstborn and the one overseeing this section of the harvest.
Always her. No one worked as hard besides Mum and Da’. Maybe that was to be expected. Maybe she deserved it, for lying to them about what she really got up to nowadays instead of chasing boys. She sent a quick prayer to Rhû, The Kind Man, to give her the strength not to rat on them later. They wouldn’t be coming home in time to do their evening chores either which meant she’d have to clean the grug stalls as well. As always.
She got back to work, ripping every second tomato off its stalks with a muttered curse.
…
The wooden table was not a good place for a nap. Rye blinked blearily, wiping a dripple of drool from her mouth as she looked outside. The window was open, a stuffy night’s breeze wafting through. It was still dark out; her candle had burned mostly down. An open book offered vague recollections of the latest assignment on trigonometry.
The assignment was done, but her fingers ached. Her arms burnt and shook as she relit the candle.
Enough. For today.
With limbs dragging her downward the entire way, she stumbled from study to bedroom.
Too hot, too humid. Didn’t open the windows of course. She fiddled with the latches, breathing in the cool air as it swept the room before laying down on the hay-stuffed mattress.
Bed. Soft. Wonderful. She was feeling dizzy and cramped in seven different places. Its embrace was welcome, like the hug of a gentle mother. Maybe a few hours to sunrise. A few hours would have to do.
But sleep would not take her. Writhing, twisting, she failed to find comfort. Sweat clung to every part of her body, even though she had bathed before.
What was that smell? Iron?
An eye cracked open, fearful of what she would see. She dabbed her nose, it came back wet but she couldn’t care any longer. The ceiling was spiraling, twisting, turning in a freefall, dread drizzling down in a torrent that drowned her muttered groans.
Why was she working so hard? For what? For whom? Herself?
No. Not herself. Always others first, Rye last. Rye was a winter grain after all.
Why was she here? Where was this?
Home. Where tomatoes talked at night and rainbow-chicken-scale gleamed bright. Where family hemmed her in from every side, but she was left all alone. Home.
She sent a prayer to Ruthe. Her mouth didn’t move.
Jaws settled in around her bed, a yawning hole scraping at the footposts, grinding, chewing. Danger. Danger. Home wasn’t safe. Nowhere was safe. Safe as a concept didn’t exist, not without–
A weight settled next to her, the scent familiar, comforting, a blanket on her mind. A hand brushed along her hair, a voice whispering sweet nothings into her ear. The twisting stopped. The ceiling went back to a stable, geometric construction. The struggle was over, for today.
Would tomorrow ever come?
Best not think about eventualities.
For now, it was just herself, just them, just us.
Us. Two at least. More than one. And that was enough to not feel alone much longer.