B*ck*t C*mj*r, The Enduring

1 week ago

𝐸𝓃𝑔𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒽'𝓈 𝒞𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒𝓃

𝓞𝓷𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓬𝓽 𝓯𝓮𝔀 𝓲𝓷 𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓲𝓬𝓮.

@terribleFate[TF]

I arrived in a dress. It was the first time in a very long time that I had worn one. The last time was my Sieteñera. I still remember Dillodad coming up from his resting hole to celebrate. I was a measly seven sweeps old then. That was the last time I wore a dress. So, really, it was about time I put one on again. It made me feel young. Beautiful, even. Or close enough to beautiful that I could pretend without feeling too foolish. I was there to see her. See, I was something of an underground sort by then. Officially speaking, I had been shuffled out of the game of life by the Empress’s drones. Removed from the paperwork. Removed from the count. Removed from the kind of future a troll is supposed to have. Then, in my second life, I got a second chance. I went by a few names. My title was the Contract Hiveseer. I provided maintenance drones and instructed construction on larger-scale projects in the Ash Warrens of the Rust Districts. But the name that stuck was Anikah Cikuto. Dillodad gave me that one. I know. I am an ancient troll in her final molts. I am old enough to know better than to be precious about names, dresses, and little ceremonies from a life that technically ended a long time ago. But I am still a girl. And I am still vain. Latching onto the younger name made me feel younger. Prettier. Like the dress did. Anyway. I was there to see her. You would have loved her. She was a limeblood, yes, and a hectic sort. Her primary job at the time was being a communications line. A living telegram machine, effectively. Except the machine was sapient. The machine understood. The machine remembered who sent what, who lied, who begged, who sent orders with trembling hands, and who quietly changed three words in a transmission because three words were enough to save a life. Or end one. So she was always on edge. Always listening. Always a thousand steps ahead of me, especially that night. She led our dance. She whispered under her breath. I suppose I should explain the event. It was called the Limelight. A grand showcase of limeblood societal and cultural impact across Alternia. Art, music, engineering, theater, medicine, historical contributions, all polished up and placed beneath expensive glass. Excessively bankrolled, too. Especially by the Empire. It was supposed to ease tensions between the Empire and the Limebloods. A ruse, naturally. But a good ruse. It got some butts in seats. It got cameras pointed at limebloods without rifles attached to them. It got highbloods smiling at exhibits they would have ordered burned a perigee earlier. It got officials to say words like preservation and unity and heritage while standing close enough to the truth that it could have bitten them. And oh, she hated it. Not loudly. Loud hatred gets catalogued. Loud hatred gets vanished. She hated it with her teeth together. She hated it while smiling. She hated it while taking my hand and turning me beneath light so bright I could see every seam in the lie. “You look pretty,” she told me. I told her she looked dangerous. She laughed like I had given her the better compliment. There was music playing. Some old lime arrangement dressed up with imperial strings, made respectable for the people who needed beauty to wear a collar before they could admire it. I remember the floor. White stone, polished badly. I remember the banners. Green, gold, and enough purple to remind everyone who had paid for the evening. I remember the smell of hot lights and incense and old fear hiding underneath perfume. Mostly, I remember her hand on my waist. She leaned close and said, “Do not react.” So I did not. That was how I knew something was wrong. She kept smiling. She kept leading. She kept murmuring numbers under the music. Not words. Numbers. Frequencies. Gate timings. Drone rotations. Evacuation intervals. I was old enough, even then, to understand when a dance was not a dance. The Limelight was not a celebration. It was a map. Every exhibit hall was a checkpoint. Every performance was timed to cover movement. Every speech drew attention away from an exit. Every server, musician, courier, technician, and underpaid little usher with lime eyes was part of something larger than the Empire had paid for. And there I was. In my dress. Feeling young and beautiful and terribly, terribly late to the point. She squeezed my hand once. That meant listen. She squeezed twice. That meant remember. Then she smiled at some imperial attaché over my shoulder and said, soft as silk, “When the lights go out, Anikah, you go left.” I asked her what would happen if I went right. Her smile did not change. “Then I will have to forgive you posthumously.” Funny girl. Awful girl. Wonderful girl. The lights did go out. Not all at once. They dimmed in sections, like eyelids closing around the room. First the western gallery. Then the mezzanine. Then the main hall, where the great imperial sponsor plaque stood shining above a display of limeblood innovations the Empire had spent generations pretending did not exist. For one breath, everyone was beautiful in the dark. Then the screaming started. Not from the limebloods. That is what I remember most. They moved with such calm. Such practice. Such bitter, rehearsed grace. While the guests panicked, they slipped between them like messages through wire. I went left. Of course I went left. I was vain, not stupid. Still, I looked back. She was standing in the middle of the floor, her hand raised to her ear, listening to something only she could hear. Then she looked at me. Even through the dark, I knew she was smiling. That was the last time I saw her alive. Or, well. Alive in the simple way. You learn, after long enough, that life has categories. Official life. Practical life. Remembered life. Life as a name on a document. Life as a voice in a wire. Life as a girl in a dress, being told where to run by another girl who already knows she is not going to. I survived that night. A lot of us did. More than the Empire intended. Fewer than she wanted. That is usually how heroism works, I think. Nobody gets what they want. A few people get what they need. The dead get turned into symbols, and the survivors get very tired. I kept the dress. Not because it was pretty, though it was. I kept it because there was a tiny burn along the hem from where a drone bolt struck the floor beside me. I kept it because one sleeve was torn where someone grabbed me and I pulled away. I kept it because, for a few minutes, I had been young again. And because she saw me that way. Not as a relic. Not as a contract. Not as a useful dead woman with paperwork problems. A girl. Anikah Cikuto. Pretty in a dress. Running left when told. #cw-death #cw-political-violence #cw-imperial-violence #cw-limeblood-persecution #cw-massacre-implied #cw-grief #cw-trauma #cw-survivor-guilt #cw-violence-mention