Little Alice lives on the fifth baraca street, having run away from old Safi’s restaurant, but Tashia keeps trying to get her to live together. Tashia’s father is a Tamera, so Alice could probably have a comfortable life if she just moved in with Tashia, but comfort isn’t conducive to getting stronger—the nights in the City of Feasts are dangerous, and they keep her on her toes. She likes being barely able to get a good night’s rest.
Maybe she doesn’t need to do that, though.
Tashia hangs out with her all the time. It has been two weeks and three days since she met the young Tamera, and apart from sleeping in an empty vegetable crate in a restaurant’s back alley at night, she spends every waking moment chasing down giant bugs with Tashia. Giant ants on the first day, giant beetles on the second day, runaway moths on the third day… they didn’t bother taming any of their prey, but Alice wouldn’t even have tried in the first place. She’s simply glad Tashia didn’t force her to waste time training and taking care of tamed bugs—a bug-slayer slays bugs. She won’t ride or command a giant bug for as long as she lives.
That said, she still has no idea if Tashia is learning anything from hanging out with her. Her weapons are solid and sturdy, nothing like the young Tamera’s flimsy chain-whip; if anything, she is the one learning far more about the chain-whip by hanging out with Tashia. The weapon isn’t like her wire threads, which are much thinner and lighter, easier to control. She hasn’t tried creating a chain-whip with her silk yet, but she imagines the chain-whip would be much more difficult to control because of its weight. There’s a chance she’d hit herself more than her enemy if she swung it around without any care, so until she copies Tashia’s fighting style completely, she won’t try copying the weapon.
“... Here! Tamera-style bug juice!”
It’s the middle of the day. The two of them are sitting atop the slanted roof of a dried fruit store in the fifth baraca street. They just killed a giant spider, so little Alice is looking around the city for their next prey as Tashia hums, squeezing blood from one of the giant spider legs they ripped from the carcass into two small cups. Alice hasn’t really been paying attention to what’s being added to the cups, but her cup smells strangely sweet and savoury as Tashia hands it over—her lips twist as she accepts it with both hands.
It’s strange.
Tashia has everything any child would want. Her father’s a famed Tamera in the City of Feasts, and her family runs a well-known caravaneer’s bazaar east of the city walls. She goes to a private academy for rich children late at night, past the evening and before the daylight hours. She meets up with little Alice every morning on the streets with beautiful long hair tied in a high tail, wearing more pretty coloured layers than Alice even knows exist, and yet, despite the obvious flaunting of wealth… everybody on the fifth baraca street likes her.
Why?
Tashia may be skilled with her chain-whip, but not as skilled as little Alice with her four-weapon-arsenal. She can cook bug flesh and make decent lunches, but not better than little Alice who has spent two months working in old Safi’s restaurant. She’s shorter than little Alice, which makes her less reliable to stand behind when she’s facing off against a giant bug, and her bloodlust doesn’t terrify the giant bugs either. In every measure of being a ‘bug-slayer’ who protects the people, little Alice should be more popular than her.
But perhaps… it is that smile?
Tashia smiles a lot. She makes eye contact with vagrants who beg her for alms. She doesn’t flinch from the slum children who run up to her, asking to play Risha ball with her. Old men and ladies struggle to cross streets where caravan traffic is dense, and she helps them across by scattering silvers everywhere, making the drivers stop to pick up the coins. She gains nothing from helping them in matters outside of slaying giant bugs, so why does she look so happy every single day, whenever little Alice steals a glance at her?
And why do the people look so happy being with her, too?
Why do they call her pretty?
Where’s the gossiping?
Where’s the back-handed insults?
Where’s the hand-waving, where’s the mean looks, where’s the indignation of knowing a rich girl is just wandering around the streets of the poor, smiling like she knows what it means to starve?
… The cup of Tamera-style bug juice tastes good as she brings it to her lips, too.
“How do you do it?” she mutters, almost as an afterthought, and she realises her blunder the moment she makes it; Tashia lights up next to her and grabs two of her four hands, squeezing them tightly.
“How do I do what?” Tashia asks, eyes twinkling with amusement. “What is it? Is there something you want to learn from me? You know, I'm always stealing from you, so feel free to steal what you want from me as well! What do you want?”
“...”
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Everything.
Little Alice wants everything from Tashia.
But when they hear shouting from the north and race off to intercept a horde of desert locusts, Tashia falls in battle. There are forty giant locusts, too much for even a group of Tamera to handle. Little Alice drags the bloody Tashia behind a stack of crates in a dark alley an attempt to patch up her up, but even a blind man could see there was no stopping the blood gushing out of her neck; the young Tamera who would’ve lived a rich and comfortable life dies in the shadow of the slums, her final words gurgled and incomprehensible.
Tashia is still smiling, though.
Why?
“…”
It’s strange.
She barely knew Tashia, and it wasn’t like they’d spoken more than ten times the past two weeks they’ve been together. Little Alice has seen many, many people die before, and Tashia is no different from the rest of them. Why is she so unwilling to go back out and clean up the rest of the desert locusts before they wreak more havoc on the fifth baraca street?
So she kneels by Tashia’s body for a long while, staring, staring, and staring—until she takes up the young Tamera’s final request and steals what she wants.
She wants the Tamera’s weapon.
She wants the Tamera’s fighting style.
She wants Tashia’s face, and she wants to be called pretty too.
Little Alice steps out of the alley, and the horde of desert locusts charge her. She twists and twirls her silk of blood, weaving them into chain-whips, and with four weapons in four hands, she tears through the horde with ease. Tashia had a habit of moving with every swing so the weight of her weapon doesn’t throw her off, so Alice copied that and integrated quick half-steps into her attacking motions. Tashia had a habit of smashing her chain-whip into the walls so they’d make loud clanging noises to scare away the bugs, so Alice copied that and made her whips ricochet off each other in sparks of fire. Tashia had a habit of controlling the length of the chain-whip that she let fly out, but Alice had no such fear of hitting herself—her chain-whips were ten metres long and flew out wild, unrestrained.
The remaining desert locusts turn into pulp within five minutes, and she wouldn’t have been able to do that if she only had five weapons in her arsenal.
Now she has six.
“It’s strange,” she thinks, as she jumps away from the fifth baraca street and the people living there eventually find Tashia’s lifeless body in the alley.
“I didn’t just copy her weapon and her fighting style.”
“I also…”
…
Somehow, she finds herself standing before the front door of the old man’s restaurant in the middle of the night, far from the ever-tumultuous fifth baraca street. There are no patrons inside. There are no vagrants sleeping on the street around her. There is no wind chime for anyone inside the restaurant to know when someone is standing outside the door, but the old man opens the door anyway, looking quietly down at her.
“... I’m here to work!” she chirps, pushing past him and entering the dark restaurant. The basins at the back are still lit by candle flame. There are still dishes for her to wash; she rolls up her dirty sleeves and sends the old man a bright smile, tying her hair up in a high tail. “You should hire more people to work here, you know? What if I’m tired and don’t wanna work? You’ll run out of clean plates if I’m not–”
“Who are you?”
“...”
She freezes, turns around, and looks up at him—jaw clenching, lips quivering.
“I’m… I’m Tashia!” she says, shooting him a cheery thumbs-up as she hops onto the little stool to help her reach the washing basin. “I live on the sixth baraca street, but, really, my dad’s no good! No good at all! He keeps trying to make me stay inside and study even though he’s a famous Tamera, so what’s wrong with me wanting to go out and get some life experience? So, I’m thinking… why don’t I work here? This looks like a decent establishment! You don’t even have to pay me anything! I’ll just work and leave whenever there’s no more work to be–”
“The dead daughter of that famous Tamera?” the old man muses, shaking his head as he heads up the stairs to his room. “I hear she died this afternoon in some wild desert locust attack, trying to play the part of a bug-slayer. If you’re here, though, then I suppose my information was wrong. Tashia still lives in… you.”
“...”
“You start early tomorrow. Until you make up all the work for the two weeks you’ve been missing, you’re not getting any allowance.”
With that, the old man retreats to his room on the second floor and leaves her standing before the dimly lit basin.
She sees the reflection of Tashia’s face in the still water below her, and, for some reason, it’s… it’s strange.
She doesn’t know why she’s crying now.
Is it because she stole Tashia’s face—a mask woven from her bloody silk—or is it because she’s gotten stronger for doing so?
“...”
Little Alice doesn’t know.
She knows nothing about herself.
But as long as the chain-whip remains in her arsenal of weapons, Tashia is never dead.
And if she doesn’t know who she is… she’ll just steal the names and faces of everyone interesting she meets, and she’ll make sure they’re never forgotten.
Why have only one personality when she can have a hundred?
- Scene from ‘The Hangman’s Mimic’ past