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[longwillows]

reach out?

the smell of fresh water in dry desert air. the feeling of cautious curiosity. a place as dangerous as it is resplendent.

c

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[longwillows]

[Kalmiya has fared well enough with the food and drink, at least in the sense that she has not yet been overwhelmed by memories that don't belong to her. She is good at reminding herself of where she is and who she is, even in circumstances as strange as these, even when her senses are assailed left and right by the psychic effects of the coerced consumption.

This, however, resonates with her in a way most unpleasant. It may be writ in a different style, but it is an undeniably familiar song. Its awful notes vibrate in the marrow of her bones and make the roots of her teeth ache, that horrible discordant hymn of zealotry—of faith turned to delusion and violence, pointless bloodletting as worship for forces unseen and uncaring.

It is painful enough in its basic rhythm. The melody overlaid, the sense of being this child, is in agonizing harmony with so many of her own memories. In no space is it identical—there is a malice to this cruelty that sets it apart from Kalmiya's own song—but every cry of fear, every horrible lick of flame, every hot lash of rage is felt as if it is her own, and it is not only by the nature of the tether or the curse of the food.

Sweat is dripping down the sides of her face by the time the memory passes, her own eyes wide in the whelm of the trance. Her chest feels hot in a way too familiar and yet far away, a holy spark snuffed by Sleep's reach in the waking world—one she hasn't had to fear catching for months now, but to which she reacts by second nature. It's different from the raw chemical reality of fire; there is something profound about this heat, pure energy that does not conflagrate but burns nonetheless where it blooms behind her ribs and at her end of the thrumming tether.

She meets Sharon's gaze as if pulled by gravity, stark white light flickering faintly in the folds of her irises. The boundary where her own pain ends and Sharon's begins has been lost to her perception, though it doesn't matter in this moment where they are both at risk of burning.

Instinctively she reaches for the hand which has discarded the fork. Curls her fingers over the gap between thumb and index finger until their palms are pressed together. Too cognizant of the clamminess that meets the unnatural heat beneath her own skin, Kalmiya holds on tight as she keeps her eyes locked on Sharon's. She says nothing, but it drifts along the tether in echo of the action that accompanies it:

Breathe. In, hold, and out. In, hold, and out, in a steadiness borne of years of managing this exact pain. This unbearable, primal anger.]

[merged]

[ Her heart pounds like an ancient drum, so loud the din of the banquet fades beneath it. Heat crawls up her neck, blooming across her cheeks and ears, and once again she silently thanks the mask for hiding most of her expression.

She doesn't return the hold right away, but she doesn't pull back either. Sharon sits rooted in her seat, unable to look anywhere else. It's only that quiet reminder thrumming along their tether that helps her drag in a breath. It takes a single beat for her to match Kalmiya's rhythm. In, hold, and out. Hot tears slip down her face, skirting the edges of her mask before pattering onto the table. In, hold, and out. Her hand finally moves, fingers curling around Kalmiya's with a near frantic kind of need, clinging to the steadiness offered.

She recognizes the echo of Kalmiya's emotions rising through their connection, like the tether between them unfurled into something vast and exposed. In, hold, and out. And yet, no matter what Kalmiya endured beneath the heel of zealotry, the last thing Sharon ever wanted was to bury her beneath even more nightmares. Some things were never meant to be held in the mind at all, and burning like that is one of them. ]

I'm sorry. [ She forces the words out, voice thin and trembling, lips pressed so tightly together that the color drains from them. In, hold, and out. She's fighting to shove everything back into its box—the fear, the shame, the low simmering rage, and the dark, curling smoke that still clings to the memory as if it had happened merely hours ago instead of decades. ]

[longwillows]

[It's like ash in her mouth and acid at the back of her throat. A vile and too-familiar blend on her palate, the dry choke of fear and the sinking, sour twisting of shame. Even as she directs her own breathing and in turn directs Sharon's, the smell of smoke and charred flesh lingers in her nose. Though more visceral and violent from Sharon's end, that too is familiar.

I'm sorry, Sharon says—and Kalmiya hears it, hears her, but she's stricken with the endless echo of voices that follow it: people of every age and temperament all begging for forgiveness, seeking absolution that she could only go through the motions of providing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Some restrained, some regretful, some desperate or even angry as they prayed to be free of their sins.

Quieter than the rest, closer, the helpless plea of her own young voice trailing all the rest—helpless because if she had to do all the forgiving, then who would be left to forgive her? I'm sorry.

As tight as Sharon's grasp is, the force of Kalmiya's grip matches it. Two great pillars overburdened by their own weight meeting in a precarious lean, each supported only by the crooked angle of the other, paradoxically finding the strength to continue standing by their mutual collapse. By that strength the burn in Kalmiya's chest is contained, the slow suffocation of a flame with no fuel. The brittleness at Sharon's side is worrying, though. She is made heavier by her attempts to hold it all in; stronger in some ways, and weaker in others.

Kalmiya's own eyes water as the ripple through the vastness of their tether washes over her, but she holds fast to her anchors. To her steady breathing, and the clinking of the crystals on her gala ensemble, and Sharon's shaking hand within her own—immediate, real, and far more important than the stretching maw of her own fears yawning beneath her like a taunt.]

It's okay, [she impresses with quiet determination, holding Sharon's tearful gaze.] You've done me no wrong.

[merged]

[ A chorus of apologies spills across the tether, layered echoes of memory stacked so thick they nearly smother one another. Each emotion rings out as its own note, weaving together into a terrible harmony of pleading. A yearning to be free of the pain that weighs them down, that bars the door to absolution. And then, beneath it all, distant but sharper than the rest, there is a smaller voice. Helpless. Frightened. Uncertain.

A girl carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders with no one there to help her bear it. In a society that wears its religion like a badge, it is the children, the girls, who suffer the most. Sacrificed in one monstrous way or another, made all the worse by the fact that no one ever thinks to shield them—that this is what they were born to be. The differences between them are vast, but the melody is painfully familiar.

Sharon shakes her head. Her heart feels dissected, split open with surgical care, its chambers laid bare as it keeps trying to beat, unable to abandon its duty even under that strain. ] I know, but— [ The words falter and die in her throat, but the thought completes within the tether. It rolls in like shadow, curls around the tether like smoke, and arrives with a certainty untouched by Sharon's grief. You didn't deserve to suffer that.

It's not absolution Sharon was looking for, even as she acknowledges her part in what happened—her stupid, foolish choice to continue to partake in the banquet. It was a show of empathy—a grief that someone she cared about would now carry this weight with them forever. Kalmiya, like Sharon herself, did not deserve that pain. Sharon would never offer it willingly, and if she could, she would take it back a million times over than to ever let that heat lick Kalmiya's sunkissed skin. ]

[longwillows]

[It's strange to be told that she didn't deserve her suffering, though not entirely unfamiliar. Stranger still is feeling that insistence. There is the raw, bleeding empathy—the profound grief for someone else's loss—but this is somehow different from that visceral pain. It's certainty, as sure as death comes for those who have lived. In the immediate, Sharon refers to the memory Kalmiya was just forcefully subjected to. The meaning, however, reaches far deeper.

Telling herself she didn't deserve the pain is different than being told by someone else. And believing that she didn't deserve it is a wide gulf further from either of those things. It is one thing to have faith in those who love her; it is another to have undeniable evidence of their feelings. Knowing that someone else truly, deeply, staunchly believes this—

Well, she doesn't really know what to do with that.

So she sets it aside. Focuses on what she does know how to handle: trauma, grief, and pain, especially that of others. Her skin still feels tender, the delicate striations of feathers on her back flickering weakly with light that blooms from within, the holy scourge of her bloodline magnetized to the vivid memory of burning.

In, hold, and out. In, hold, and out.

She turns in her seat now, her opposite hand coming to close around the other side of Sharon's, cradling the shaking appendage between hers with care and intent. It's okay. Weight, heat, comprehension, melancholy—but not regret. The shuffle of it all, organized into vocalized sentiment, thin with the emotion that still squeezes her throat.] It's not a burden to better understand the people I love.