Quite some time ago.New moons are rare on Galbar, which has satellites aplenty to brighten the night. Yet even then, those satellites are small, and Auricolor fended bravely against the darkness, alone, its charcoal brother Cogitare apathetic to the shadow. What light the golden sickle could give was only a tint of copper in the tarnish of early morning.
Such sepia obscuration did not hinder Tira. Her teeth stood out, a slashed grin of tinted white in an umber face.
Not always bothering to rise from all fours, Tira picked over the rubble like a bird, a crow at a carcass, slinking along, side to side, led by an exploring hand in the cracks where, she knew, spiders often hid. Her heart beat a little faster as she overturned each fragment of slag, each splintered bit of wood.
Jorku jorku, nijinkem. Come, spiders. At this hour of night, Tira wasn't Tira; She was the biggest spider of all.
Spin a web.This was the biggest refuse pile she'd found yet, and Tira wandered it end to end, crisscrossing it, sampling a taste before she ate. Sampling, sometimes literally. Food char on pots had its own flavour. The dyes in tattered clothes dumped after they wore out sometimes had a peculiar mineral tang. She could still see a little of their original colour. Even in blind darkness.
What's this?Something caught her eye.
Runosh din osh? Tira slipped over cracked masonry like a ghost. Distantly, she could hear a voice, calling. One of the trolls, the night-guards with their keen eyes. Keener than hers? Rolling the same words over her tongue, she mimicked the cry, knowing each word's meaning without thinking it, just playing with the sound. One of the words didn't seem to
have a meaning, though it sounded as nice as the others.
That's your name, remember?Oh yes.
Tira. Funny word. What was that thing she saw earlier, again?
It was a clay cup, as it happened. Unbroken, though Tira could feel two hollows in its surface. Left here by accident, maybe? It was whole, so she pressed it to her unbroken cheek to feel its surface. Quite warm, at least by the barest fraction of a degree, relative to the rest of the trash. Pleasantly warm.
...Is it? I can't feel it.When the infinitesimal heat faded from the cup into her face (did that mean she was cold? She didn't feel cold.) Tira bagged the find in a strap of fabric, as she'd brought neither a rucksack nor her capacious boots, nor her belt with its useful slings, or the pants with the deep pockets. Oh! That meant she was
definitely cold, then, given the season.
Except she wasn't. She was warm. She'd been neutral a second ago, but now she was warm. The trace heat of the cup was multiplying in her like a hug, like a thick blanket in a storm. Tira wrapped her fragile arms around herself and felt the warm moment come, and then, in a moment, go.
I can't feel it. I can't feel this. Tira. What are you doing?Everything was quiet and neutral again.
No, not entirely neutral.
Tira felt cold.
Tira, no. Stop. What is this? It hurts.The cold began to hit, like rain intensifying, seeping through her skin like thin clothes. Tira jerked back as her stomach wrenched. From her cheek to her forehead then to her brain, nausea seethed. She didn't know whether she was upside down.
Stop. Stop it. Tira!Thick, slimy tears were welling from her eyes and her head was rolling left to right, carrying her upper body with it despite the hand with which she still held on to the rubble. Tira slapped her hand to her mouth but her lower lip was quavering and she flung it out again, banging her wrist on the edge of a rock before her gut caved in.
TIRA NO PLEASEHer blood burned under her skin. Her face burned. Something wet filled her ears and they whined and that whine was more than a sound it was a voice screaming. Tira was bleeding from the eyes.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NOWith a weak sob, Tira vomited, something watery thin. Something shrieked in her head like a crushed mouse and then faded into a memory. When she opened her eyes she was on her side beside a widely scattered pool of black that glowed green in the moonstained pitch.
No more screaming. All Tira could manage was a whimpered moan. It was so cold. She was alone. Why was she so alone? Without her knife?
Torchlight was coming. Her ears were blocked and she couldn't hear the footsteps, but she could feel them through her skin. She could see the skin of her arms. See marks that looked like burns, contracted red against the brown. They must have been growing for months. Why hadn't she noticed them? Or the ache in her bones that felt ready to split her arm in two?
Why was she here, all alone, barely clothed in the frigid night, tasting filth and trash?
Someone called her name from close by and Tira's eyes looked up. Forcing her fingers to uncurl, she tried to stretch and meet the hand of the distressed watchtroll, bunched up her will like a muscle and kicked a word through the tasteless gunk in her mouth. There were shouts from her saviour, but though she'd learned the words she couldn't fathom what they meant anymore, other than 'Lakshmi.'
She knew what that meant. That was a name. That meant hope.
Warm hands rolled her into a cloak and her questing, unyielding fingers gripped the only thing they could, barely managing a hold on it as she was lifted up and away, slowly blinking through the blood on her face, beginning to clench her teeth and force herself to shiver. Determined to fight and live.
The ceramic cup. The last image she saw before long-overdue unconsciousness finally beat her was its surface in the light.
A painted skull. 
Vec
Timemaster
