“ … … When I was younger – this will sound silly – but I knew how I felt when Isa would come home and sweep me off the floor and put his goggles on me, and I thought everyone must have that feeling. As I understood it, “love” was the a name for language your heart spoke, in jumps and flutters and missed beats. Movements. The strongest item in its vocabulary was, I thought, that swell you felt when you loved someone so much your heart seemed to have to expand to accommodate it. That’s one of the few times you can read another person’s thoughts, I think – because you can see that one on their face and in their eyes as it happens.

  I never knew anyone who had such an infinite affection for people as Isa, so I, being too young to know better, asked if he would ever get married again. He gave me a big smile and said his heart was too scarred for that. It might have frightened me, if I hadn’t seen in his expression that something about the question had endeared him, and that he didn’t mean anything sinister by it. 

  It took his death, and Anji, and Anji’s death, and Sacha’s accident, and a thousand tiny betrayals and failures before I finally started to understand what it was he meant.

  The skin on my arm, the burn – it doesn’t feel so well anymore. It’s kind of… stiff? I can feel where it ends, in places. Like the back of my shoulder. The transition from burned to healthy skin is much more sudden there, and when I move, I can feel an odd kind of pull. I think that’s what Isa meant. That your heart can take so much damage and survive, but it will be scarred, and that its jumps and its flutters will become weary and difficult and stiff somehow, as if the effort it takes to affect them outweighs the reward for doing it. It won’t feel so well; it won’t be able to swell to accommodate any more than it already has, and instead of inspiring new emotions in you, the people around you will have to make do with you lending them second hand ones in new outfits.
  Eventually, there are no more skipped beats; just a kind of odd pull from your chest, as if your heart is trying to say, I still belong to you; I’m still here. When that happens, there are no more revelations or breathless confessions. Next time you fall in love with someone, you’ll approach them with a sigh and an embarrassed, amused apology – I’m terribly sorry, I seem to have gone and done it again. I know, I know, it’s against my better judgement, what can I say? It’s alright though, I think. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make the feelings you have for them any less real than the feelings you had for the ones before; it just might mean they’re a little tired, a little battered, a little… lived-in.

  Honestly, I miss being five.”

– fragment of notebook paper found in the trash at Bikanel docks. 
  

  

“Do you sometimes hear your own heartbeat and get suddenly sick… because what if it stops or something?”

– She smirks, eyes down. If she concentrates, she can… 

  There. Stopped. Of course, it’s easy for her. Her heart beat its last eighteen years ago. Since then, she subconsciously maintained a simulation of its rhythm. It wasn’t something she meant to do; now that her attention had been called to it, she wondered if all Unsent had that particular quirk. Did it prevent them from going insane, perhaps? Did it comfort them, encourage them to believe they were still alive?

  Her eyes meet Xu’s, and she’s smiling.

“Yeah, sure. Doesn’t everyone?”

[timeline – confession]

  – Outside, a sparrow landed softly by
the open window, a tiny silhouette against the velvet blue night. It hopped
once to peck at invisible crumbs, breaking a silver beam of moonlight that
shone through the window and pooled on a bed where two sleeping figures lay.
One; sound asleep, tangled in blankets that nearly obscure him, peaceful and
dreamless. Two; lying with one arm across the sheets, her hair fanned out
across her pillow, a few loose strands creating a black veil over her face. Her
breath hitches and she flinches in her sleep.

 The sparrow picks at something on the
windowsill, and she wakes with a start, bolt upright and convinced she heard a gunshot; the bird takes off in a panic as she
blinks sleep from her eyes, breath slowing, drawing an instinctive protecting
arm back from her sleeping partner.

 Chuami was instantly disorientated. Dream, it was just a dream, but where was she? This wasn’t her bed, nor was it
the couch she usually slept on.

 The understanding came all at once, but
she did not acknowledge it at once;
she made it wait, letting it steal bit by bit into conscious thought so that
she could make the most of the knowledge it brought with it. This wasn’t her
bed, that much was true. She looked around the room, eyes adjusting to the
dark, bracing herself before she listened to the rest of the thought.

 It was his.

 She almost laughed. It was… ridiculous, the way it had happened, but
so like them. Nothing extraordinary had passed that evening; she had come home,
late, they had sat together and talked, but something must have been different.
Maybe he had seen it in her eyes, maybe she had done a poor job of hiding it
today – call it love, call it lust. Where one ended and the other began was
irrelevant where he was concerned; both had burned since she met him, and
perhaps, just perhaps, it was this
that drew him to kiss her so suddenly, moth to a wildfire…

 She ran both hands through her hair and
took a deep breath, cool air from the open window waking her up a little more as
she turned her head to look at him. One hand on the pillow beneath his head,
his hair dishevelled, faintly outlined in the moonlight, Chuami almost believed
that if she reached out to touch him, her hand would pass right through. Part
of her insisted on it. Was it so hard to believe? Contradictions made up so
much of his existence. Saint and heretic, driven and aimless, did he not say
himself that he was nothing special,
oblivious to the irony of the way those words demonstrated the selflessness he
was praised for? Being both there and
not did not seem much of a stretch
for him.

 No.
You’re not innocent in all this.

 He shifted slightly, as if he had heard
her thoughts, gave a short, soft sigh – one could almost mistake it for a
laugh. But he slept on, and she watched the rise and fall of his breathing even
out once more.

 Chuami shook her head and drew her
knees up to her chin. She did not accept full responsibility; she could not.
 He was impulsive, and the way he had
kissed her had seemed impulsive, but
only until she responded – in relief, in disbelief, in shock and fear and
happiness. Once he knew for sure that she invited it, there was nothing clumsy
or uncertain about the way he had pulled her closer – it was the action of
someone who knew what they wanted long before they reached for it. And he had
been his usual, gentle, quietly humorous self, at first, until their kisses had
turned heated, and then his hands had been as sure as his lips and every breath
she lost was another wordless I love you
that left her mouth in a sigh or a whimper.

 “Why
me?”

 A whisper into the silence that causes
him to shift once more; she looked down at him once again and a feeling of
displacement slammed into her, causing her to let out a choked mixture of a sob
and a laugh as her eyes threatened to overflow. He is unreal, ethereal and
divine, and she cannot imagine that he is anything but hell personified.

 “You’re my punishment, aren’t you?” she
murmurs into the darkness, careful not to wake him.

 “You say you left the Farplane to come
back here, and I suppose I’m meant to think that means you can’t die. You’ll
let me fall deeper in love with you than I ever thought possible, then you’ll
snatch yourself away again. Well… if you are a demon of some kind, I must
compliment you on your ingenuity.”

 She smiled through tears that fell
freely on her cheeks.

 “I can’t think of anything more cruel.”

 He moved, drew a deep breath, his eyes
opened and she panicked, but he couldn’t see her reddened eyes or tear-streaked
face in the dark. His eyes focused and he saw her sitting there, a shadow, gave
her a sleepy smile and sat up.

 “You can’t sleep, Chu?” he asked, his
voice rough.

 “I’m okay. Just came back from the
bathroom.”

He nodded, reached over her, took up the blanket, and his arms pulled
her back to him, wrapping her in the blankets as he did it.  

 Chuami lay as close to him as she
could, her face hidden against his chest. She felt him run his fingers through
a strand of her hair, slowing until he fell still, asleep once more.

 As she drifted to sleep with him, a
thought passed through her mind: I wasted
so much time, it said, If only I had
been braver.
 Then, on the heels of this: No. It wasn’t wasted.

 I
needed it. I needed time to process this. It wouldn’t have been fair on him,
otherwise. I still don’t think I deserve this… I still don’t know if you’ll be
here in a week, a month, a year, but… I’m happy.

 I guess… we’ll let our future selves
worry about the rest.  

“Dear Crush…”

[presses intercom] carolyn please make a note in my diary to try extra hard to mess this hedgehog up for the rest of this week. starting now.

“Dear  [҉҉̸n̷̶̨̨͘a͠͏̕͠҉m̀͝͏̸e͡ ̴̷̢e̷͏r̵̢͢a̷̵̧ś͢e̸̶̷̵d̡̛́̕͢]̨͡͞͏,

                                 Kai says I have a lot of repressed emotions so he’s making me do this thing where I write letters to people and I say all the things I can’t bring myself to say for real. The recipient names are in order from least to most painful and every time I finish one, we do a shot (”of everything”) and burn it. It’s gonna make my company less “like having an inconvenient, whining axe wound”. We’re near the bottom of the list, so it’s probably gonna get weird.

 Let me start by saying I’m the owner of a company that has a hold on most of Spira; this week, I had a meeting where another company head had to ask my permission to trade in Luca. Just me representing Sovereign’s interests, and him with six of his people. I gave it to him, in exchange for Macalania. There’s no business in Macalania. I just did it to show off, to be honest; so he knew for sure that I didn’t need Luca’s business, to remind him who’s the boss here. Do you get what I’m saying? I’m invincible.

 I got that way after Anji died. I should tell you about her sometime. She was precious, you would have liked her, I think. When I lost her, I dealt with the grief by becoming too harsh and too cruel to entertain it. I expended a lot of effort turning myself into something… awful, actually, and what I didn’t use up in that, I poured into work. I kept up the practice of overworking myself when I’m out of sorts to this day. Sovereign does approximately 17.6% better during months where I would have otherwise been distracted by something. Business has been very good since you and I met.

 You scare me to death, do you know that? You manage to take the persona I spent years perfecting and just… rip it away, without even trying. After last time, I said I’d never get that deeply involved with someone again. Not in any melodramatic way; I just felt that, I’d had my chance and I’d managed to ruin it in the most complete and unforgivable way possible. It seems perfectly reasonable to assume that I don’t deserve to try again, so I thought fate, or whatever, would just neatly write my life around the issue, but it wasn’t that kind. Instead, it allowed you to drop in on me, and now I can’t imagine life without you.

 I’m most of a pragmatist when it comes to my own feelings. I know what my deal is, I know what you’ve done to me. But I can’t help wondering if this is fate’s idea of payback. Let her get close to this one, then take them away. To repay me for causing the death of a girl who, like you, was not meant to be touched by my destructive influence. Even if that weren’t the case, and I wasn’t in danger of losing you any second, the fact still stands that you are beyond me. I’m… nothing, really. Certainly nothing as special as you, and certainly nothing deserving of your attention, anyone would agree with that.

 I told myself there would only ever be Anji because I believed it. The closer I get to feeling for you what I felt for her, the more I wonder if it makes me a liar. I’m betraying her by even thinking like this, aren’t I? I’ll ask her. Her name is next, and last, on the list. It will probably start something like, Dear Anji, I am so sorry, Can you forgive me for this?
 For my sanity, I’d better keep my distance. I’d better stop myself from seeing you so often and then, hopefully, it will pass. Most things do. It hasn’t so far, but… it might.

 Oh, who am I kidding? We both know I can’t do that. I’ll come back like nothing happened. I might look like crap, but I’ll tell you I’m hungover and you’ll sigh and let it go. You don’t need to know I’m exhausted because I spent most of the night crying on Kai’s shoulder because vodka makes me teary and I–

 I’ll leave it there, shall I?

 See you tomorrow.

 xo Chu”

Dear dad

[done in personifiedsin​‘s verse to change it up a bit]

Dear Dad– 

                            I hate you.

  Almost every problem I have comes from you. You let mother run away like you let your wife run away before her. You’re a coward and I hate that your blood runs in my veins. When I found out who you were, it was as if every moment of weakness I ever had was explained. It was like I could trace all the things I hate about myself right back to you. I hate that you ruined my brother’s life. If you hadn’t been so weak, if you hadn’t been too scared to take care of him instead of sending him away to spend his childhood hiding in the shadows, just think of all the things that would never have happened. Think of the people who were hurt and killed along the way, who might have lived and been happy. Yuna, Maester Kinoc – almost the entire Ronso tribe.
  Seymour was damaged, and he might have turned out that way no matter what, but if he had not been taught to hate so early… I wish I could help him. I wish I could go back and punch you right in the mouth the day you let Anima take him away. My father would have punched you. His name was Isa. He didn’t mind punching people when they needed it. I think that’s where I picked it up.

  But, I guess it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done, right? I can’t change anything that happened then, but I can control what happens next. A dear friend told me I shouldn’t care about you; he was right. So I won’t. I don’t need you; I never needed you. I have a network of friends – and family – that reaches all over Spira. How can you compare to that?

  I’m going to burn this after I’m done. Sudran taught me that this is symbolic in some branches of the Yevon faith, that burning something symbolizes its absolute end. If I could burn every page of every history book in Spira that had your name on it, I would. But I can’t – so symbolism will have to do. I don’t believe in forgiveness where it wasn’t earned, but I won’t let you influence me anymore – not even a bit – so I won’t hate you when it’s done.

  The worst thing about not knowing who your parents are is worrying that maybe you don’t know who you are. 
  But that’s ridiculous. I know who I am.

  I’m Chu. There’s only three things you need to know about me. One; I love my job. Two; I love purple cocktails.

  The third thing is that I’m sad. Deeply, indescribably, irreparably sad… for you. Because you lost out. 

Say hi to Mom for me.

xo Chu

[timeline – tiny bee]

aka haters gonna hate. 

“Ooohhh – when are they gonna start!?”
“Rikku. Quiet.”
“Huh?! You see somethin’?!”
Yuna laughed at Rikku’s frown as the smaller girl squinted hard enough to make her whole face crumple. Their voices could hardly be heard over the music that played while the tournament finalists prepared for their last battle. 
The competition ran every year, with entrants split into weapon type or fighting style and fighting for recognition among their peers. Outside, craftsmen and women would have their stalls set up, selling and showcasing regional weaponry from all over Spira. Normally, the Al Bhed were not permitted to take part, but since Yuna’s final defeat of Sin, the Al Bhed and the Temples had been… trying. And so, the Machina League portion of the Yevon-sponsored tournament had been added and Rikku just had to see the finals.
“I don’t see anything!”
“Me either.” Paine replied coolly, “I just want you to stop talking.”
Yuna laughed harder as Rikku gasped and began to protest, but they were all cut off by a voice that boomed out over the stadium’s audience.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the final round of this year’s first ever Machina League Tournament! In just a few short minutes, we’ll have our winner at last! I can’t tell you how excited I am, ladies and gentlemen – it’s been a rollercoaster first time for the Al Bhed, isn’t that right, Jimma?”
“That’s right, Bobba! Fan-favourite weaponsmiths Plautus and Gilgamesh were knocked out early on, leaving Hyperion the final contender from the predicted winners! Today’s final round will be Hyperion versus Sovereign. I understand Sovereign is a brand new company, is that right, Bobba?”
“Sure is, Jimma – they’re a three-man team working out of Sanubia Sands, and I gotta say, I’ve been thoroughly impressed by their performance so far.”

Yuna spotted a movement on the arena floor that was set halfway up what would normally be the sphere-pool.
(I wonder what else this stage is used for…)
From the right-hand side, a man walked toward centre-stage. The crowd roared, recognising him far better than Yuna did; but she cheered along for the fun of it. The man waved and grinned, his face shown on monitors around the stadium. 
“Oh my goodness! He’s… huge!” Yuna gasped. 
Rikku laughed. “Right?! There are rumours that he’s part machina himself!”
Yuna’s dual coloured eyes searched the stage, looking for the other competitor – there! From the left side, a far smaller figure wearing a… oh… wait… the figure was wearing one of Bevelle’s White Mage robes, though the hem was raised to knee-length for some reason. Was someone injured?!
Yuna’s instincts kicked in and she stood up, ready to help. Rikku pulled her arm and landed her back in her seat.
“Rikku! What if they need–”
“Yunie, look!”
Yuna did. The little mage took her hood down with a staged, reverent, overly graceful movement and as her face was revealed, jet black hair spilling from the hood, the cheering from the crowd redoubled. The faux-mage stared around with equally staged wonder and happiness, and she seemed to tear up in appreciation of the cheering, though somehow, her lavender eyes were totally dry. A picture-perfect acolyte if there ever was one.
(Oh my.)   
A faint murmur of discontent rippled through the crowd beneath the cheers, implying that the girl would pay for her performance later. Whilst it was true that the Al Bhed and Yevon were trying to foster a better relationship, little acts of blasphemy like this were… unhelpful, to say the least. The girl didn’t seem to mind at all; she was holding her arms out, thanking her audience – because it surely was hers at this point – while the Hyperion contender snarled and paced. Doubtless, the Sovereign Arms representative would later claim her costume was a tribute to her hosts, not a parody of them; a heartfelt thank you for Yevon’s allowing her people to participate. Without being able to prove otherwise, Bevelle would have to swallow it or risk ruining their best attempt to befriend the Al Bhed yet. One thing was for sure; she had gotten them noticed.

Sovereign finally broke her persona and abruptly turned to face her opponent. She pointed at herself, extended her arm so the audience got a good look at her hand as it balled into a fist as though she were crumpling paper, then pointed at Hyperion’s champion.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing, Jimma – Sovereign have given us a good show all the way and it looks like they’re not putting on the brakes just yet!”
”Looks like you might be right, Bobba – and Hyperion is just livid!”

Sovereign’s hands went under her robe and brought out twin handguns – sending another shocked whisper through the audience, this one sounding more thrilled than dubious. Seeing a machina weapon next to the uniform of Bevelle’s most devout – well, it wasn’t something one saw every day.
Hyperion’s representative beckoned an apprentice forward and took a shotgun with a shortened barrel from him that made Sovereign’s eyes widen and her sureness falter slightly – but she seemed to find even this funny, and made a gesture with one hand that said “come and get it”. 

If the commentators spoke any more, Yuna wasn’t listening. She had seen and fought against Al Bhed weaponry before, but she’d never had a chance to see it in action without worrying about where it was aiming. She had always found it privately fascinating, so when Rikku had suggested coming here, she had been the first to agree.

The contender’s shields went up – modified Protect spells that would crack, flashing blue on impact, and eventually shatter as they took damage. 
The monitors turned blue and counted down as the two figures on the stage readied themselves. First to break their opponent’s shield won.

          Three.
                                                 Two.
                                                                                   One–

Without a second’s pause, the girl had fired both guns at her opponent, but he had pre-empted her with a sideways roll. He stopped on one knee, brought his shotgun up two-handed and fired, the sound like nothing Yuna had heard before. A sharp, almost glass-like crack accompanied it and the monitors flashed with a 1 against Hyperion’s logo. The two commentators broke into chatter as Sovereign, floored by the unexpected impact, dragged herself to her feet. Hyperion was laughing at her. This, Yuna suspected, was the wrong thing to do. 

Sovereign seemed to focus herself; she lost her smile and Hyperion responded in kind. Yuna watched them dance around each other, Sovereign’s speed saving her from Hyperion’s firepower. The numbers on the monitors racked up and, eventually, the two of them began to visibly tire. Hyperion was working overtime to keep up with Sovereign’s speed, and Sovereign was pushing herself harder to keep ahead of him. 
What surprised Yuna the most was that Sovereign didn’t seem to need to see to be able to aim. She fired off shots before she had fully faced Hyperion, and they connected with another glassy crack and an increase on her scoreboard. Both of them treated their weapons like extensions of themselves; something she had seen before in her guardians, particularly in Kimahri and Sir Auron. They had trained from a young age to do this, but Sovereign wasn’t very old herself, and according to the commentators, she was untrained and mostly self-taught. Yuna stopped paying attention to the stage as a thought occurred to her: Could I do that? Could I have one of those…?

She was brought back to herself by a blast from Hyperion’s shotgun and a dismayed gasp from the crowd. Sovereign was down, her shield reduced to a web of barely connected shards. She couldn’t take another hit; it would rip through her remaining shield and kill her. She had lost. Rikku cheered for Hyperion, but Yuna found herself oddly disappointed. 
“Oh… poopie.”
Rikku laughed and stuck her tongue out at Yuna. “Picked the wrong side, huh, Yunie!? Hyperion always win stuff like this! They’re the best!”
“I… I guess you’re right.” Yuna smiled back, her short-lived hopes for the possibility of her own machina weapon disintegrating with Sovereign’s shield.

She shifted forward in her seat, ready to go – she was hungry – but a whisper from the crowd stopped her as it grew to a murmur of confusion. Yuna looked back at the stage. Sovereign was on her feet again, laughing, exhausted, but still standing. The judge was consulted, and he ruled that, since her shield was still active, Sovereign was breaking no rules by continuing. Not that she could have been stopped anyway. Hyperion was prematurely drinking in the cheers of the audience, his gun abandoned at his feet. He hardly noticed Sovereign take off at a run, right towards him, until it was too late. He dropped and reached for his shotgun – and Sovereign saw an opportunity. She jumped onto his lowered shoulder and launched herself into the air; Yuna watched her turn in mid-air (that’s amazing!), aim and fire. Hyperion was peppered with shots as Sovereign fell to onto her feet and his shield burst, drowning out Rikku’s cry of that’s cheating!

The audience was divided; those who had investments in Hyperion were outraged, and those who had bet on Sovereign were elated. Sovereign herself was grinning at her opponent, who was once more on one knee, winded and furious. As the commentators announced her victory, Sovereign holstered her weapons, neatened her hair, gave a polite smile to the crowd and bowed to her opponent, hands around an invisible sphere.

---

“Yeah yeah, shut up you two!” Chuami laughed, pushing Sacha off her. “This is stage one, we got a hell of a lot of work still to do.”
“When did you decided on the dweeby outfit?!” her brother grinned, “It was genius. They can’t stop talking about us. We’ve had seventy orders already, and at least twenty have been from Temple-rats. Imagine! Having Bevelle citizens carry our products! It’s insane!”
“Keep your damn voice down, idiot! The outfit was Kai’s idea, of course. I told you he was an undiscovered artist.”
Their temporary stall was set up in a tent made up of patchwork green and yellow fabrics. Their catalogue and examples from it were set up on a single wooden table and in scratched glass cases crammed into the tiny space. It sure didn’t look like the home of Spira’s next big name. But, Sacha reminded himself, barely pulling back a genuine sob of relief, It is. Chuami swiped him across the back of his head and the third of their trio laughed – then stopped, as the tent’s entrance was darkened by a slim figure in pink and blue.
“Um – excuse me! I’m sorry to interrupt!”
“No problem!” Chuami smiled, turning to face the high summoner without missing a beat. “I’m Chuami. How can I help you?”
“My name is Yuna. I was wondering… if… if you could make me something like those guns you used?!”
Chuami exchanged glances with Sacha and Byron. Today just got even better.
“Sure I can!” Chuami replied, “Let’s take a look at some of the stuff we have here – Yuna, was it? – and I’m sure we can come to some arrangement…”

[timeline – chromaggia]

Hands went out to grab a towel that swept upwards over his face, and when Malakai looked back up at the mirror above the sink, it was with a heavy sigh and an expression of displeasure written across vaguely feline features. He leaned close, inspecting himself for changes, and cursed softly at the sight of a slight line extending from the outer corner of one eye. He touched it lightly, forced what little energy he had in him into a poor attempt at a cure spell that he already knew would fail. Of course, it did nothing. Cure spells are for medical purposes, not cosmetic ones. It was a constant worry, that one day he might start looking his age. If that happened, she’d vanish; she always said she would.

“You’re twenty eight years old, Malakai. What are you doing?”

The voice was his – a deliberately low, measured purr that was not put-on, but certainly emphasised. However, the sentiment was his father’s.

If I had listened to him, I might be something well paid and holy by now… he reminded himself, leaning his elbows on the white porcelain. Although…

He turned just enough to see it in his peripheral vision. Chromaggia. She was a floor-length black satin thing, beautifully simple apart from the collar of black feathers that extended almost to the wearer’s elbows. Each feather caught the light and reflected a soft iridescent green, all carefully positioned to give the thing a slightly ruffled, windswept look. 
It was based on a story he’d found in Bevelle’s library, nothing but a fairy tale; Chromaggia was a crow who flew full-pelt around the world to outrun the arrow that chased behind her. Until one day, she realised that the arrow was tied to her wing and that if she ever stopped flying, the momentum of her own retreat would send it through her heart. Of course, when Chuami wore it, the world would see a pretty girl in a pretty dress.
He could remake it in pale silver to make it better suited for the wedding she was wearing it for, and doing so remake her. That transformation was what he lived for, and Chuami was capable of such variation; she was a constantly changing canvas, at times as warm and as domestic as a cooking fire, at others as uncontrollable as the sea she drowned in. 
She was his inspiration. If people didn’t see her the way he did, it was his job to make them.

His confidence restored, Malakai turned back to his reflection and began the quick process of making himself look like himself once again. By the time he was finished, his dark blue eyes were enhanced by a deniable black line that blended into the ever present shadows beneath them, his cheekbones faintly highlighted. In a few quick strokes, he had gone from a failed doctor to a sneering socialite. Transformation, children. The presentation you choose can and will change you.

He heard the studio door open and close and heard her footfalls coming towards him. He straightened up, wiping his hands off on the towel and offered her a guarded smile despite her apparent anger.
Before he could offer her a smart remark to go with it, a sharp crack echoed through the empty space as her hand connected with his face.
”I told you to leave it alone.“ she hissed.
"You’re beautiful when you’re angry, do you mind just staying where you are for a second? I–”
“Stop. I’m serious! What did you think you were doing!? I– I don’t even care. I trusted you, and you betrayed that.”
She pushed him out of the way and shut herself in the bathroom, leaving him staring at the door with a hand pressed to his cheek.
She had a point. They had talked about many things, and it was always an unspoken rule that those things stayed secret. But lately, she talked about the summoner in a way that disturbed him. He knew her. He knew her intensity and her drive and her perfectionism and her self-destructive passion. She spoke as if she were on the edge of something that was deeply profound to even the most average of people, and she was not the most average of people. Malakai could not imagine what might happen if she channeled all of herself into one person like that. It was hard to believe they could survive it. And so, yes, he had bent their rule a little and allowed himself to visit the stranger. It had been worth it… in a way.

As the sky outside darkened, Chuami lit a few half-spent candles on the edge of the bath and lay back again, her back to the door. She didn’t turn around as she heard it open, though she did raise a half empty wine glass. A bottle met it with a soft clink and she heard Kai sit behind her once her glass was filled.

“Chuami…”
She stayed silent, eyes closed. Petulant, really. Kai moved, sat on the floor behind her, and after some fussing in a drawer, took out a comb and began to run it through her hair. 
After a few minutes of silence, in which Chuami realised she was going to fall asleep if he kept up, she shifted herself further upright.
“Is there some reason your mouth isn’t running?”
“Yes. I’m nervous.”
Nervous…? Then it hit her.
“Oh fayth… you liked him.”
She turned towards Malakai. His face was almost comically grave as he nodded. 
“I… I’m afraid so.”
“But… why? He’s all the things you don’t like, he doesn’t approve of you at all.”
Malakai sighed and sat back. “… Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I just… feel like sometimes you need a little soupçon of guilt to make carte blanche depravity taste that little bit better, I don’t know, darling, I don’t know.”
Chuami dissolved into laughter, one hand clutching a half-soaked towel to her, the other holding her hair off her face. When it passed, she seemed to have forgiven him his trespass – for now.
“He said you were talking shit, Kai.”
“Oh, I didn’t say anything I don’t regulary say to your face. That’s you’re an untrustworthy little sewersnipe with more hair than sense, and that he’d do better to stay away from you.”
“And?”
“He didn’t seem to mind at all that you’re trash.”

She reached a hand back over her shoulder and Kai’s fingers laced into hers. Whatever he had to say had silenced him, and that was something to worry about. After a minute or two of quiet, she asked him if he was ever going to make his report.
“Yes.” he said, blinking, startled back to himself. “I suppose I ought to. He isn’t what I expected. I was my usual charming self and he took it better than anyone I’ve met for a while. There were… a few flickers of potential argument underlying some of his words. Not surprising given the circumstances, but surprising given the fact I thought I was dealing with a docile temple lamb. He collects odd things, doesn’t he? Some of it is… so ugly. There’s definitely something to him other than the agreeable summoner, and that’s some comfort to me. You aren’t losing your mind… after all, you’ve always been interested in people who aren’t all they appear.
"Have you noticed he keeps a room for his guardian, even though he spends very little time there, according to what I hear from you? Hasn’t let go of the pilgrimage…”
“That’s not fair, it’s no different to you keeping my things here.”
It’s different in a pretty basic way, actually, Kai thought. It was not a thought he intended to share. 
“Perhaps, perhaps… hmm. But, there is one question I meant to ask you: have you thought about the possibility that he might… be involved with someone?”
Chuami sat up and turned towards him with a thoughtful expression, still holding her towel. 
“I think I would know by now. He might not mention it without prompting, but something would have tipped me off in all the time I’ve known him.”
Are you sure, so muja?
“Hmm… I suppose you’re right.” Though, all I wanted was to plant the idea, of course. “That man, Chuami… that man is the patron saint of lost souls. Don’t… become part of his collection, alright?”
She blinked, frowned. “Have you been drinking?”
“No, and I think that might be half my problem. Come, xiaah, get out of there and help me choose another three or four bottles, I finished your dress today and I thoroughly deserve it. And, I want you to help me look for ideas for Penny’s wedding dress…”
As intended, that set her buzzing with excitement and he politely turned away while she got dressed, eyes fixed on the tiled floor, slowly moving his focus back onto his work, where it was safe and the nightmare of human relationships once more stopped bothering him.

day three

Name one scar your character has, and tell us where it came from. If they don’t have any, is there a reason?

[timeline – starfall]

Pris sat at a small table in the ship’s pilot house, lit by a single candle that flickered, threatening to throw her into darkness. 

She pushed a strand of yellow-blonde hair off her face and rubbed her eyes, feeling tears that had gone cold smear her hand. The sphere recorder on the table glowed a soft blue. She was done with it now; her message to Auron had been recorded, but she still faintly whispered into the empty room, apologies that had long since lost their strength. All her reasoning, her regret, her pleas, were held in the sphere in front of her. Even now, only minutes after she was finished, her own arguments and persuasions seemed ridiculous, but… she just couldn’t think of another option. It was so hard to think these days. It was as though a grey veil came over her thoughts at times, making them foggy even to her. The worst part was that she was not frightened by it. Indifferent was how she felt. 

Today was a Bad Day. On Bad Days, Pris would often find herself staring at a far wall with no desire to move or speak. When Starfall’s path took them to Bevelle, where she had a limited merchant’s license, Pris would make her excuses, leave her little daughter with the crew, hide her eyes and make her way to the temple. One of the white mages there, a mild-mannered young man with less well-mannered hair, was able to provide her with a potion that helped her keep a clear mind. Her father would have been furious, but she trusted him. He was rumoured to be married to one of her people, after all. She made a mental note to go back to him as soon as she was able. The last lot had run out already.

Below her position, the deck was empty, save for one tiny figure in the dark, visible in the glow of a lamp by her feet. The little girl sat on the deck with her legs crossed and her shoes yevon knew where, playing with a few coloured glass spheres. She repeatedly shoved her hair back as it fell over her face in black strands that were already three times longer than Pris’ own. Even sitting relatively still, the energy about her was almost tangible. Sometimes Pris thought she seemed too alive somehow, and she wondered if that came from the girl’s father. She knew so little of him, of what might have passed to their child. Not for the first time, she cursed her own stupidity and turned away.

Pris didn’t look up again until some time later, when a sound like a wave dragged her attention back to the window. Outside, in the dark, a shape was emerging from the water. She watched in frozen disbelief as the thing, greenish-brown, covered in almost hypnotic, spiralling patterns, rose from the ocean as though awakened from a slumber. It appeared to consider its next move for a few moments. Pris had a sickening sense that it was looking at her. 

“Susso?” called a distant little voice in that single moment of silence, “Fryd geht uv vecr ec dryd?”

Pris blinked, the spell broken; she ran for the door, knocking her chair across the room as she went, hearing a terrible roaring of water and metal, the ship itself howling as if in agony as it was torn apart.
The creature (no no it can’t be it can’t be Sin it can’t be) was drawing energy from somewhere in faintly visible swirls, mixing with the sea water that surged around it. It reared back, almost appearing to grow, and Pris threw herself forward as Chuami screamed and Sin loosed a wall of flame.

Chuami was thrown halfway across the disintegrating deck, back to toward the pilot house, by the force of her mother’s pull. It had come a moment too late; one arm had not been protected from the blast and she caught the scent of her own skin burning among the smoke. Panicking, tears streaming down her face, she ran back to where Pris lay in a state Chuami would see in nightmares for the rest of her life.
Pris, for all her weakness and indifference, held on just long enough to give Chuami her last instructions, the command that kept her alive: Go to Bevelle. Find your father. 

The spherecorder caught it all. 

[timeline – event horizon]

Sacha flipped through the pile of letters Chu had given him until he came to one that was noticeably thicker than the others.

“And this one is…?”

“For the summoner,” she replied grimly as she triple-checked her ammo stock and adjusted her coat collar for the fifth time. She didn’t use the summoner’s name. If she started using names, her resolve would waver.

Sacha nodded. The envelope contained instructions for her sending, should she fall. He understood the necessity of it, but his stomach still twisted at the thought. She could really die this time.

“Die” was perhaps too strong a word; or too weak. She could lose herself – the grip she maintained on humanity could finally slip, letting her fall to the fiend-form that met all Unsent at their breaking points. Sacha could only imagine it. He didn’t doubt that whatever she became, it would be as beautiful, creative and graceful in its murder as she had been before it; only now, there would be no control, no discernment, and an immense increase both in strength and in hatred. That was something he never wanted to see. 

“Once every hour,” she barked in an overly authoritative tone that betrayed her fear completely, “Keep watch on the Nexus. Estimated completion time is four hours; it could be closer to eight if the caverns are hard going.”

Sacha only looked at the floor.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes, Commander.”

She almost smiled at the title. They still used it, even now, even when they’d grown out of needing the illusion of order. Out of respect? Not quite. It seemed more of a quiet reminder that they valued her. Sacha and Byron were not expressive men; it was the closest they got to telling her they loved her. 

Sacha followed her down the backstairs and into the basement. Byron stood with his hands behind his back beside the Nexus; a glyph platform set in the dusty floor with two narrow metal columns either side. Lights blinked on both, and on one was a display for coordinate input. The room was dark save for the pulsing green glow of the platform, stolen from Bevelle itself. Chuami allowed herself a slight chuckle as she looked at it. She’d leave some stories they could tell, if nothing else.
Chuami held up her left wrist and inspected the silver bracelet that circled it. A display that matched the one on the Nexus showed the coordinates for the closest point she could get to her destination. A small alteration had been made; it was now able to communicate with the Nexus station. Chuami would push a tiny button set into the metal that signalled a light on the station to flash, and they had agreed she would do this every hour. If the light didn’t flash, it was understood that she was gone. Five missed flashes, and Sacha was to deliver the letters he had been given; all of them short farewells, besides the one that gave the summoner instructions on how to find and send her.

She stepped up onto the platform. Her brothers seemed to want to speak, but neither did. She understood them without needing words, though; she found you could do that when you knew someone as well as they knew each other. Their eyes and the set of their jaws told her everything she needed to know.

“See you later,” she said, smiling gently, “Look after yourselves while I’m gone.”

They nodded. She reached out and pushed the only button on the inside of the column. Five seconds, and a white light enveloped her, filling her eyes and her mind with static and a high pitched whine that began and ended in the same split second.

When the light and sound died, she found she was cold. Beneath her feet, the platform had been replaced with grass and the breeze that swept across the Calm Lands gently blew her hair off her face. The sky seemed impossible to her somehow, as it always did out here; she always wondered if that was because the immeasurable blue expanse of it seemed reflected in the size of the plain itself. Shadows of the clouds overhead flew across it, temporarily darkening the chocobo racers, the scattered visitors and the bright silks of the agency tents. Chuami closed her eyes and listened. The wind, faint shouts and laughter, the chocobos in Clasko’s new ranch. She smiled, but it quickly vanished as she realised it might be the last time she heard them. For the first time, she thought she might have begun to understand something, something she only thought she had understood before. 

Her thoughts were muddled, and she refused to acknowledge them. It wouldn’t help. Instead, she kept her focus on her environment. She sat down and for a while longer, she only stared out over the grass. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being on the edge of something, a strange sense that whatever came next would define her somehow, whether she wanted it or not. In truth, it was no different from any routine fiend hunt, but this one wouldn’t test her strength as much as it would test her will.
She pushed the button on her bracelet once, turned her back on the plain and headed into the mountains; the sun was obscured and her path darkened as she passed through a narrow split in the cliff side.

On the other side lay a short wooden bridge, its paint chipped, pieces of torn fabric tied to it flapping in the breeze. On the right hand side, the ground sloped gently downwards, leading under the bridge. As she passed under the bridge’s shadow, Chuami felt an odd sense of displacement; as though her last visit to this area was happening at the same time as this one. She felt her younger self walking in the same footfalls, heard the clinking of the buckles on her boots and felt the weight of that ridiculous coat she used to wear. 

“Chu! Look!”

Chuami’s head snapped to the left. There was no one there, of course. There had been; last time. A girl her own age, a couple of inches shorter, slighter, more agile. Her eyes were bright sapphire and stood out against her dark-tanned skin. Her short, copper-coloured hair was still not quite neat after a night sleeping under a canopy of chiming Macalania leaves, a single orange glass bead woven into it that sparkled in the sunlight. Anjali had run ahead, eye caught by the shimmer of metal. A sword, stuck point-first into the ground ahead, just before the ground dropped off into nothing, a totally vertical cliff face. 

“Do you think it’s worth anything?!”
“Ha! Not half as much as what’s inside, I betcha.”
“So what are we waiting for? Come on, lavender, get movin’.”

She started off again, dashing right, towards the entrance to a cave that led downwards, further under the mountain. Pyreflies dance at the opening.

As Chuami’s eyes followed the path Anjali had taken, she thought her heart had never felt heavier. The girl had been so excited, optimistic, unfailingly happy since they left the main salvage group. It had been Chuami’s idea. They were gathering a decent amount of scrap, but it had to be split between the group at the end of each day. Despite Chuami and Anji doing a large portion of the work, they ended up with relatively little; so when a passing trader had told her about this cavern, it seemed logical that they split off and go take the abandoned treasure for themselves.

They had been inseparable for just shy of six months when they finally split and headed for the Calm Lands, vanishing while the rest of the team slept. They left the Thunder Plains and crossed much of Macalania before they stopped in a small clearing in the trees.

“We’re gonna be in so much trouble.” Anjali smiled as she sat with her back against the trunk of a tree, her eyes already closed. Smiling was something she seemed to do a lot more of these days.
“Heh. With who? I’d like to see ‘em try me.” Chuami replied, settling on the ground and laying her guns beside her. She began to untie her hair, looking thoughtful, the smile slowly falling from her lips. “… Don’t worry about them. Let me handle any trouble.”
Anjali didn’t reply. Chuami thought Anjali must have fallen asleep, until her hand was felt untying the ribbon in Chuami’s hair for her. 
“Yeah, real tough.” Anjali sighed, a trace of laughter in her voice. 
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” Anjali replied. She dropped Chuami’s hair from its ribbon and wrapped her arms around the other girl’s waist. “You don’t have to keep telling me. I trust you. Nothing scares me anymore.”

Snapping back to reality, Chuami found herself sitting at the edge of the drop where they had seen the sword. 
She got up and dusted herself off, then turned towards the cave entrance.
As she reached it, she pushed the check-in button on the bracelet.

The inside of the cavern was as she remembered; broken transporter glyphs that led nowhere, damp, jagged rock walls, the air tainted with standing water and dimly lit by scattered pyreflies. 

Picking through the narrow stone corridors in this blackness was harder than she imagined, the pyreflies’ glow not quite enough to navigate by. A new invention of hers – a prototype – would ward off lesser fiends, deflecting their attention without them ever knowing it was happening, giving her one less thing to worry about. With her hand outstretched, she followed the rock wall until the narrow path she took opened out into a chamber. Here, she stopped and leaned against the wall, cold seeping through her coat. 

“Do you hear that?”

She looked up; but she could already guess what she’d find. Nothing, though the voices were as clear as they had been when it happened. Was she already losing control? Were these memories escaping because she was losing her grip on them?

“What?”
“It sounds like… metal…”
“Metal? You think someone else is… Chu… ”

Images formed, and Chuami was unable to stop it from playing out in front of her. In her confusion and fear, she hardly knew whether it was a pyrefly projection or a product of her own panicked mind; she dropped to the floor, head down, hands over her ears, eyes squeezed shut, determined not to scream, but she still saw and heard it all. 

Chuami fought hard, but she could not be on all sides at once, and as she took down the fiend in front of them, she could not have reacted to the epaaj that approached from behind. 

She heard the rapid skittering of bladed legs, heard it scrape the rock as it left the ground and spun around 

a metallic strike against rock, impeded by something soft

a sickening, wet tear as the blade was pulled from its victim

a splatter of blood on the rock

and Vega spoke, spitting thunder in the enclosed space that reverberated in Anjali’s ears and mind, the disjointed sound like cannon fire that ended with the click – click – click of empty chambers. She looked at her hands and faintly wondered why they were so dark, so wet, so sticky and warm. When she looked up to ask Chuami, who now stood stunned in the near-blackness, she understood. She felt the source of the wetness with her hands, the hole torn through her, and she understood.

Chuami was at her side before she fell, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her eyes overflowing, hands shaking as she emptied out her bag.
“Anji come on baby stay with me keep your eyes open don’t you dare—”
We don’t carry expensive things like phoenix down, Anjali wanted to remind her. We never needed it, remember? We were fine just as we were. We looked after each other.
“Chu…”
“Don’t, don’t you dare, don’t you even—”
The reality of her situation hit her, but she could only laugh; or try to, as she choked and tasted copper. 
“I love you.”

As panic tore at Chuami’s mind, Anjali quietly passed away. It took minutes for Chuami to realise what had happened, and when she did, the walls echoed back her cries as though they were mocking her  inability to say what she wanted to say. GIVE HER BACK.

Her own echoing screams faded from her ears and Chuami realised she was sobbing. This was where it had happened… and yet there was nothing here. 

The next path seemed longer than the last. She wasn’t sure how long she had been walking, and she had a feeling she might have doubled back on herself at one point, when she stopped to push the check in button again. Eventually, she saw pyreflies ahead – more of them, far more of them than in the last chamber. As she approached, it almost seemed that she was emerging into something like daylight.

It took Chuami’s eyes a moment or two to adjust to the sudden brightness; because of this, she didn’t realise she wasn’t alone until she noticed that the pyreflies seemed to be gathering around a shadowy area at the back of the space. Her hand went to her gun, slowly. Before she could draw, a movement and a flash of copper made her forget what she was doing.

From the shadows stepped a figure. A girl her own age, a couple of inches shorter, slighter, more agile, her skin green tinged white from the pyreflies’ glow. Her eyes were blank and the rock wall was visible through her. 

Chuami’s heart sank. She never expected to find something like herself down here, after all this time – but she had hoped to find a fiend. Something she wouldn’t have to think about dispatching. But this? This halfway point was far worse than that. Anjali must have tried so hard to hold on to life that her fiend form couldn’t quite take over; but neither could she keep control. How long was she conscious of it for? How long was she down here, half mad, before she gave up? 
It already ate away at Chuami that she had left Anji down here, unsent, destined to become something else; seeing that it still bore Anjali’s face made her sick with fear and guilt. She had just been so scared. After Anjali’s death, denial had been Chuami’s way of dealing with it. She couldn’t come back here. That would mean admitting to what she had done; to what she had lost; to what she had caused.

Its head tilted slightly, a flicker of  – recognition? – flashing through white eyes. The figure stepped toward Chuami and Chuami took a step back. They circled each other for a few steps, watching each other.
It’s not her. It’s not Anji. It’s not. It’s not.
She knew this. It didn’t even look like her. Oh, it had her face, that much was true; but it wasn’t her. Anjali had an air of energy about her, she smiled, she was alive. This creature was not.
As long as she remembered that, she would not fail. If she forgot it, or began to question it…
With this in mind, Chuami’s hand dropped to her gun.

Before the gun could clear leather, the dead thing screeched and leapt in a hideous imitation of the epaaj; Chuami jumped to one side rather than backwards, as Anjali had taught her. She landed neatly and brought her gun up to aim it at the thing’s head; before she could fire, it was moving again, and Chuami could swear she saw flashes of metal on its arms as it moved towards her with twin blades pulled from belt loops ready to open whatever vein they could.
Chuami ducked this time and the almost-fiend’s own weight threw it over onto the rocky ground. Chuami aimed, fired – but she jerked her hand up at the last second, sending the bullet wayward. 
I can’t do it. I can’t do it.
It’s not her!
But it was.
She’s gone, she’s dead, this thing is pretending to be her!
I can’t kill her again, I can’t!
Her eyesight wavered and she blinked. In that split second, the unsent came for her, grabbed her, pulled her close.
Its eyes seemed to question. Its head tilted, its mouth opened as if to speak, a look of pain on its stolen face. Chuami’s heart stopped and her gun clattered to the floor.
“Anji…?”

That sound was familiar. What was that? That… wet sound. And why…?
Chuami looked down in shock and saw the creature’s blade hilt protruding from beneath her ribcage, blood already soaking through the hole it made in her coat. She registered impact more than pain; shock more than fear. For just a second, she thought… 
Chuami’s eyes met the unsent’s and it crossed her mind to ask it why. It pulled the blade from Chuami’s body, letting her drop like a stone to the floor, eyes blurring, breath ragged. It was bad. An upward strike that couldn’t fail to hit vital organs. Chuami choked, coughed and blood coloured the ground beneath her. 
She finally began to register pain, but the pain seemed somehow out of sync with her injury, as though it were caused by something else. The creature backed off, seeming suddenly, inexplicably cautious even as its prey lay dying.
Agony mixed with shock, confusion and a paralysing fear that what she had just seen was Anjali trapped within the fiend. Her body felt too big. A voice from somewhere within the panicked tangle in her mind told her to get a grip, to calm down, before it was too late. Looking down, she thought one of her hands looked greyish. It was greyish. Sharp, somehow. Did they always look like that? Almost like claws. Had she not… noticed…? Was this… her…? 
With every second that passed, she forgot the one before. 
Smoke rose, unseen to her, seemingly from her body. Her eyesight was failing. Why was it doing that? Why did she feel as though she were pulling apart? 
I have to get back to the entrance before… I said I’d wait there… for the sending…
The footfalls again; in her delirium, Chuami thought it was already happening, the Sending. Had that much time passed already? She could hear them approaching, the summoner and escort, (don’t hurt them don’t hurt them don’t hurt them), likely weary and speechless at her stupidity in coming here (DON’T HURT THEM DON’T-).
A faint memory, someone’s voice, echoed back to her and told her that she shouldn’t have caused this; a Sending was unpleasant, it would drain the summoner, but wasn’t it too late now, weren’t they already here? She could hear them coming towards her and any second the summoner would stop and she might hear the staff hit the ground and the pattern of his footsteps would change and–
She got back on her feet, her viewpoint too high, her voice distorting and layering, making speech difficult.

“NO.”

A flash lit the cavern, heat from a sudden burst of flame seared the unsent and sent it reeling back as it cautiously approached her for its final attack, its footfalls mixing with Chuami’s thoughts.
No Sending would happen today. The thought had occurred to her, somewhere within the mess of terror, that she should fall. That she should allow herself to die, as punishment for past mistakes. As she thought about it now, with this startling, sparkling, ruthless clarity of mind that did not belong to her, that was borrowed from the creature within, she decided that to fall would be an unforgivable act of self indulgence. To do so would turn her death into some symbol, some romantic moral to complete the story of her life. Ridiculous.
That isn’t life, that’s fantasy. I have been too focused on fantasy; on making myself a supporting character for others. I want to live. I. Want. To live. For me.

She moved forward, her strides too long – she reached the unsent before it could scrabble away from her. Her hand reached out and grabbed the creature by the throat, easily lifting it off its feet and pinning it against the rock with orange claws at the end of blue-grey arms.
Another faint memory clawed at the edges of Chuami’s awareness, whispering faintly to her of an exhilarating fury she’d seen in the eyes of another, but all she could think of was being rid of the thing in her hands. Its skin blistered under her touch and it made choked screeching sounds, inhuman. Chuami (is that my name do I have a name why do I have a name I don’t have a name) wondered how she ever believed the distant past could have come back to life in this pathetic, cringing thing. She dropped it, letting it crumple to the floor as it had done to her moments earlier, and turned from it.
Her instincts seemed to take over; she drew power from nothing and, somehow, she knew how to channel it. The chamber flooded with light from a huge circular symbol that materialised above them both. It glowed brightly, smaller glyphs forming around it, glowing brighter still until the unsent was screeching and blind. The thing with Chuami’s memories loosed a burst of energy and the explosion that resulted vaporised the unsent.

Chuami felt herself hit the floor. She was vaguely aware of the spreading pool of blood around her as her eyes slid closed.

______________________________________________

They found her lying at outside the cave entrance, face down, hair tangled around her, dirty and blood smeared.

Sacha pulled her onto her back and immediately choked back a sob as Byron hauled her off the ground.

While she slept, she dreamed of meaningless gyphs, emblems of unknown significance, of claws and wings and death. When she woke, she would have assumed it to be a nightmare – were it not for the orange glass bead clutched in her hand.

_______________________________________________

“How’re you feelin’, boss?” Sacha asked as he approached Chuami where she stood outside the workshop front door.
“As well as can be expected.” she replied, knocking back a potion bottle.
A friend of hers had visited the day before, bringing a healing stone with her that had sped up Chuami’s healing time at an astonishing rate. She was walking without any issue now, and though she’d bear the scar for life, her wound was no longer any threat to her.
Sacha watched her as she stared straight out over the desert, expression unreadable. Since she woke up, something about how her seemed changed. No, not changed; reversed. It had been over five years since he had last seen her this collected, this stable, though she laughed no less and caused no less mischief. The moment wasn’t quite right for it, but he smiled anyway.
“Well,” he said quietly, “That’s good enough for us.”

As Sacha returned to the workshop, leaving Chuami alone, she sighed.
It had felt frighteningly right. The anger, the justified destruction. But what frightened her more was that it was familiar, that she had seen it before, for a split second, in someone else’s eyes. 

Are you hiding something from me, Auron?

✖

✖ – a repressed memory

Chuami and Sacha sat on the dusty floor of their little house in the bright, slanting sunlight from the kitchen window. Isa sat outside the front door, not more than a few feet away; they could hear him quietly singing in a low, almost scratchy voice, half-murmuring a song without letting his cigarette drop. 

“Chuami, I don’t think you do it like that.”
“Quiet, nerd, I’m working.”
Sacha dubiously watched his new sister handle the grenade like it was a newborn kitten with a screwdriver in her other hand. 
“I think you leave the pin in—”
“Shh!”
He fell silent. It wasn’t that he had any confidence that she wouldn’t blow them both into the next life; he just knew how she got when her concentration was knocked, and the last thing he wanted her to do was toss it in a thoughtless outburst. Sleep grenades weren’t the most powerful, but they were enough to knock a couple of six year olds out of action for a while. They were so focused on the task at hand, they didn’t notice Isa’s song cut off, nor did they hear the stranger who addressed him.

Chuami carefully undid what looked like a large gold screw on the top-front of the thing. It came away fairly easily, to Sacha’s relief. Chuami then slowly upended it and a stream of white powder ran out onto the floor where it mixed with the dust and sand. Chuami covered her mouth, but Sacha was too slow – he breathed in some of the airborne dust as it drifted upwards and his eyes started to slide shut.
“Sacha! Sacha, wake up, stupid! Ugghh. I knew you’d do this, I wish I got a silence grenade instead. Then I’d just— Sacha?”
The boy fell sideways, snoring. Chuami tutted, sighed and hauled herself to her feet like a long suffering parent. 
”Cra ec ouin pmuut, pid cra ec hud ouinc.” Isa snapped to his unseen companion. “Drana’c hu bnuved rana vun oui. Mayja ic.”
”Fryd lmyes tu oui ryja ujan ran, Lybdyeh?”
She registered the voice that wasn’t Isa’s a moment too late, not realising he had company until she was already in the doorway.
"Isaaaa! Sacha ec yh eteud yht ra haatc—”

The tension between the two men was obvious even to her. Isa still sat in his old wooden chair, leaning forward on one elbow, his jaw set and his eyes furious. The other man, this stranger, was significantly older, with black hair and light blue eyes, his face peppered with scars and marks. He looked down at Chuami; a flicker of recognition danced across weathered features and was hidden. 
Chuami knew him. He was so familiar, so very familiar… where did she know him from?
"Charmi, go back inside, badym.”
She nodded but her feet refused to obey. Transfixed on the man’s face, she fought to remember something that might give name to the sudden, inexplicable sadness she felt rising, threatening to overcome her as her eyes blurred.
”Gaab ran, drah.” he said, sneering. “Ev E’t ryja ghufh cra muugat mega dra suhknam cra ec, E fuimt hajan ryja lusa. So feva ehcecdat…”
As Isa got to his feet, growling, Chuami found her voice.
”Knyhtby…?”
The stranger flinched and his sneer became a snarl. “Never in life, brat.”
"That’s alright.” Isa replied, visibly calming.  He bent and picked up Chuami, who shrank against him.
“She doesn’t need you. She’ll never need you. One day, you will be so very sorry for it. For now? Get the fuck off my porch.”