winter 41st
The morning started pleasantly enough; Ciraaci had enjoyed ‘sweet dreams’, as wished the day before after Ennoia had left well after dusk, and she’d slept heavily. Her dreams had been of the plains, of running wild and free with the Drykas as they are, and were, when she walked among them. She dreamt of Leitis and Aeres.
And when she woke, Ciraaci was filled with a feeling of joy, vague and filling, like the warmest bread slathered with honey that she’d ever eaten.
And then, ten chimes in, she remembered that Leitis was dead, Aeres may have been sold off, she was no longer with the Drykas and must no longer be Drykas, and the feeling of joy turned sour and rotten in her mouth. She vomited not soon after, spilling bile and undigested bits of greenery onto the stone floor, just as the daily change overtook her and she adopted her divine seeming. The sound of the heavy door being pulled open registered faintly over Ciraaci’s sudden obsession with this scene; her vomit, pooled on the floor, a mess, and herself, some god-wrought creature kept here because of what she was, beautiful in ways beyond compare. Once, she’d heard that the sight of an ethaefal cleaning a floor was alike to cleaning a latrine with silk. At this moment, Ciraaci felt like the silk had long since been spoiled.
She became aware of the guard that entered when he spoke to her, his voice grating against her oversensitive ears, punctuating the throbbing pulse of a headache that had begun to nestle itself deep in her head, originating from somewhere around where her horn had been sawed and snapped. He had brought her food. She could smell it. Tasteless porridge, black tea, a husk of hollowed out bread crust stuffed with sweet fruit. They were feeding her better, on Ennoia’s word, but she couldn’t be grateful today.
Not when the guard dropped the tray, spilling its contents across the already soiled floor.
Not when the guard shouted at her.
Not when the guard hit her.
She took the abuse with a detached sort of horror, a strange calm that smothered the screaming instincts to run and hide and fight back, that choked down self-preservation’s sharp little fight-impulse and yelled louder to stay still, just take it, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go.
He lashed his hand across her face, she fell down, spilling the pile of straw as her hand swept through it. Bile tasted like blood on her tongue, hot and angry.
He kicked her legs, bringing the toe of his boot into the meat of her thigh. The impact felt like agony, raw and angry.
Anger boiled in her gut, pooled under her skin, filled her mouth and heaved in her lungs and soaked in her stomach. It burned. It choked. She felt like a spark on the cusp of bursting into wildfire.
Ciraaci didn’t fight him back. She curled her body into a ball, tight and secure against the force of an angry man’s blows, and waited out the storm like she’d waited out the storm she’d been born in. She drank in the anger, letting it settle deep in her gut, and let the pain and fear of the beating diminish under the passive fantasy of the Sea of Grass, let herself dream of the wind brushing through the long stalks of grass, felt the loamy earth against her side, pretending she was anywhere else but there, where the pain was.
591
And when she woke, Ciraaci was filled with a feeling of joy, vague and filling, like the warmest bread slathered with honey that she’d ever eaten.
And then, ten chimes in, she remembered that Leitis was dead, Aeres may have been sold off, she was no longer with the Drykas and must no longer be Drykas, and the feeling of joy turned sour and rotten in her mouth. She vomited not soon after, spilling bile and undigested bits of greenery onto the stone floor, just as the daily change overtook her and she adopted her divine seeming. The sound of the heavy door being pulled open registered faintly over Ciraaci’s sudden obsession with this scene; her vomit, pooled on the floor, a mess, and herself, some god-wrought creature kept here because of what she was, beautiful in ways beyond compare. Once, she’d heard that the sight of an ethaefal cleaning a floor was alike to cleaning a latrine with silk. At this moment, Ciraaci felt like the silk had long since been spoiled.
She became aware of the guard that entered when he spoke to her, his voice grating against her oversensitive ears, punctuating the throbbing pulse of a headache that had begun to nestle itself deep in her head, originating from somewhere around where her horn had been sawed and snapped. He had brought her food. She could smell it. Tasteless porridge, black tea, a husk of hollowed out bread crust stuffed with sweet fruit. They were feeding her better, on Ennoia’s word, but she couldn’t be grateful today.
Not when the guard dropped the tray, spilling its contents across the already soiled floor.
Not when the guard shouted at her.
Not when the guard hit her.
She took the abuse with a detached sort of horror, a strange calm that smothered the screaming instincts to run and hide and fight back, that choked down self-preservation’s sharp little fight-impulse and yelled louder to stay still, just take it, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go.
He lashed his hand across her face, she fell down, spilling the pile of straw as her hand swept through it. Bile tasted like blood on her tongue, hot and angry.
He kicked her legs, bringing the toe of his boot into the meat of her thigh. The impact felt like agony, raw and angry.
Anger boiled in her gut, pooled under her skin, filled her mouth and heaved in her lungs and soaked in her stomach. It burned. It choked. She felt like a spark on the cusp of bursting into wildfire.
Ciraaci didn’t fight him back. She curled her body into a ball, tight and secure against the force of an angry man’s blows, and waited out the storm like she’d waited out the storm she’d been born in. She drank in the anger, letting it settle deep in her gut, and let the pain and fear of the beating diminish under the passive fantasy of the Sea of Grass, let herself dream of the wind brushing through the long stalks of grass, felt the loamy earth against her side, pretending she was anywhere else but there, where the pain was.
591
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