Kaya woke two hours before the sun rose. She donned her new loose gray robes and snuck outside. Lights still dotted the walls and the city beyond; there was the cranking and whirring of metal, but it was as dark and quiet as it ever got around here.

She staked out a spot between the walls and the campgrounds, distant enough from both that she wouldn’t draw attention. This time of day the air was cool, a light blanket nuzzling her skin. She breathed deep. She felt still; calm; ready at last.

In the past month she’d done her share of crying. Once when she was very young, the Tribe had been struck by a brutal dust-storm. It’d torn down half the Tribe’s tents and beat a half-dozen Tribesmen to death. Little Kaya had cringed in her tent, whimpering until the wee hours of dawn. That was kind of how she’d felt at the Festival too—except the Festival massacre made the dust-storm seem like a summer breeze. That horrid feeling hadn’t left her since. She spent her nights curled up, letting the feeling of her smallness smother her; in a way it felt good to soak in the gloom.

But in the end, none of that wallowing helped any. The storm had passed. It was time to rebuild.

Slowly, with ginger care, she dredged up those familiar pain-stained memories; blood, broken bodies, her Tribe shattered before her; of that Rat’s dirty fingers against her neck. One by one they flashed through her, carving their own brands of hurt in her. But she’d played through them a thousand times. By now she’d blunted her fear. In its place was a rising, bubbling, white-knuckled rage. She let it crackle through her. Her hands firmed to trembling fists.

It was time to face the truth. She was pathetic. She’d failed her Tribe, and now she had only one person left.

Her most hated recurring nightmare stabbed at her, unbidden—Io’s body shattered against the ground, his playful eyes bloodied, staring at nothing…

No! She blinked back the tears. I won’t fail him too.

[Ray]. A scorch of blazing qi, drilling a smoldering tunnel through the sands.

She curled her lip at it. So pathetic! If that [Ray] had hit the Vordor that’d snatched up Hento, would he still be alive? If that [Ray] had struck that mongrel Rat, would he have dared touch her?

Again.

[Ray]. Sand kicked up in a molten cloud. Not enough!

[Ray].

[Ray].

[Ray].

Again and again…

She felt like a little girl again. Back when she and Io first played with the other kids; back when the boys would shove Io down dunes and try to claim her for their own. They’d been handsy then too. Back then she’d had to down her share of dumb brutes. She’d needed to bite a few before they learned that the girl with the pretty hair had some teeth to her.

She had to find her teeth again.

***

At sunrise, a soft voice greeted her.

“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?” It was Io. She hadn’t noticed him approach. He was sat back against a dune, exuding a lazy calm. It was still a shock to see him at times; she almost couldn’t believe this was the same brother who used to cry at thunderstorms.

Where’s he found all that confidence? Then, with a hint of bitterness, can’t he lend me some?

Io rose with catlike ease. His smile was brighter than the rising sun. “How long’ve you been out here?”

“Two hours,” she panted.

“A good time for a break.” He offered her his arm. “Come on in! I’ve made us breakfast.”

Breakfast, as it turned out, was a plate of cut-up purple fruit and a slab of strange wheat-colored… things. They smelled like nothing she’d ever known.

“These Azcan folk have the strangest customs,” her brother was saying. “For instance—“

He held up a tiny two-pronged trident and speared a fruit with it. Then he brought it to his mouth slowly, nibbling at the edges.

“They call this a ‘fork,’” he said with a grin. “Isn’t it fun?”

Everything about this Oasis irked her. The people, who either had too much decency or too little. This fork was all that was wrong with this place, she decided. Needless, weird little instrument to fix a problem that didn’t need fixing! Hadn’t these weirdos noticed people had hands? Was all that chug-chugging, crank-cranking, all that smoke in those big high confusing towers—was that all useless nonsense too? Was this a city of damned forks? She snatched up two fruit-slices with her bare palms and swallowed them whole.

“We’ll work on your table-manners another time,” sighed Io. He studied her with sparkling eyes. “So. What’s got you worked up?”

She bit into another chunk of fruit. Now this was a useful, good new thing. The Oasis was a place of forks and not-forks. This fruit was most definitely a not-fork.

“I’m not worked up,” she said around a mouthful of seeds.

“This time of day you’re usually still asleep. That, or curled up all sullen-like. But today you’ve got some color in you! I’m happy to see it.”

“Blegh.” Kaya spat a few seeds out, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fine! So I got a few hours of training in. And?”

“Any reason in particular? You never wake up this early.”

Kaya paused. “I… yea. There’s a reason.”

She swallowed again, but this time she had nothing in her mouth. Just a lump in her throat. “I’m not strong anymore,” she said hoarsely. “I can’t protect you. Hells—yesterday I worse than useless.” It killed her to admit it. “It feels like I can’t do anything right.”

She stared bitterly down at her hands. Lately the world seems to be trying to tell me that I’m only worth something if I spread my legs. “I don’t wanna hold you back,” she whispered. “I want to be strong again. For you. Otherwise… what good am I?”

When she looked up at him again, he was frowning. Her heart sank like a stone in her chest.

“Don’t you dare think that way.” He shook his head. “You’re my sister, not a spirit stone. You’re not useless, whatever the hells that means! You’re good enough just as you are. Never forget that.”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

Those darned tears threatened at her eyes again. So stupid! Why’d she always feel like crying nowadays? It wasn’t anything like her!

She turned away form him, away from the surge of feeling. After the Festival she’d been feeling all kinds of new good-bad feelings. She didn’t know how to deal with any of them. She felt the urge to shy away from it, like a gut reflex.

“Aren’t you full of pretty words today, brat?” She couldn’t keep from choking a little. “You oughtta be a bard.”

There. Now she had some distance. Now she had space to force down this big knot in her chest.

Then he leaned over and hugged her. She froze.

He looked exasperated. “They’re not pretty words, sis. I’m saying how I feel.” He ruffled her hair, then looked her straight in the eyes. “Listen. To me, you are enough. I mean it.”

...Damn it. All her defenses went up in smoke. She was cracked wide open. She leaned into him as she sobbed. It’s not fair… I was holding up so well!

After all that horrible shit. Losing her allies. Her lover. Her whole damned Tribe. And worst of all—that memory she’d been trying not to dredge up all this time—

Being tied up by men she’d thought were her closest friends. Mere hours before, she would’ve died for the man who held a knife to her throat.

That hurt like she couldn’t believe.

For weeks she’d felt like she’d been falling down a dune with no bottom, tumbling, choking, sand stinging her eyes…

But there was a bottom, it turned out. Io stood there, arms outstretched, ready to catch her, smiling that cozy smile.

No matter what this awful wreck of a world throws at me, at least I know one thing for sure. She couldn’t stop her tears. I’ve got a brother who loves me.

For the first time in weeks she felt like she could breathe again.

***

Dorian would never understand these humans. “There, there,” he said, rolling his eyes and patting her head as she sobbed into his chest. Again. What silly, silly creatures.

***

After breakfast Io took her into the city. She stared at everything. The buildings towered up on either side of the street like the walls of a gorge; everywhere she looked she was blasted with colors, some she’d never seen before. As they passed through a veil of steam—the fetid expulsions of another click-clacking machine, this one belching heat out the side of a building—Kaya wondered if it was possible to take in too much splendor, all at once. Maybe it was like stuffing yourself full of meat after a big Hunt; maybe she’d throw it all up. It was all very dizzying. She was worried she might keel over. Soon the images blurred into one another, one incomprehensible thing after the next, slipping through the cracks in her mind and leaving not a smudge of meaning behind.

They stopped at last before a hulking steel chunk of a building with a dome which looked like the shiny, enlarged head of a very bald man.

Io took her up the steps. She felt a little flutter as she stood before it; this place was doing a good job making her feel small as a leaping scorpion.

The guards at the entrance crossed their arms as she and Io neared, but they didn’t seem as cross as nearly everyone else was to see them. Maybe it was the robes he’d had her wear, which were baggy and clean and sagged all over her. Maybe it was that perfume Io had brought—it’d made her smell like nothing, which she guessed was one way to rid her of a stench. Still it bothered her. Nothing smelt like nothing. She shifted uncomfortably, grabbing at herself to make sure all of her bits were still there. All this fluffery made her feel like a stranger in her own body.

“Good day, gentlemen! May I enter? I’m a Tier 1 Artificer,” said Io, flashing his token. Back straight, head up, mouth in a polite grin—unlike her, he looked like he belonged. She would’ve bought that he’d lived here a decade!

“We know. We’ve heard of you,” said one of the guards, a torn look on his face. “You may enter, sir. But she—“ The guard pointed a stern finger at her. “Has to stay outside. The Guild doesn’t allow guests.”

She drooped. I figured as much.

Io frowned, but she piped up before he could speak. “That’s fine!” She said hurriedly. “I’m happy out here. I like being in the sun, anyways!”

Io shot her a sorry grimace. “I’ll be back within the hour. Promise. Wait here, alright?”

“M-hm!”

He went in. Gone. And she was alone again.

She shambled into the shadow of the great building, still near enough to the guards. She fidgeted, shuffled her feet, didn’t know where best to rest her eyes. She grew acutely aware that every single passerby was a Vigor-Realm fighter. Every one. She stood there a minute and she saw two Profound realm fighters amble by in that great mess of limbs.

Most every one of them can beat me down. To her left, a little old beggar in tattered robes was working his way down the street—even he could probably lick her. And there ain’t a thing I could do about it.

She shook the thought out of her head with a “humph!”. These days it was like her mind was tipped at an odd angle; if she was left alone, her thoughts always slid down to dark, dank places. She knew it was dumb. Didn’t stop it from making her feel like rotted offal anyways.

At least the shops lining the street served as good distractions. She let her eye wander.

Ooh! A stone-carver’s shop? Two big stone statues flanked a squat, small building. The statues’s eyes twinkled with qi-light, their trunks twisting, hands swiveling between cool poses. Kaya used to adore stone-carving; in the before-times it’d been a nice way to take her mind off things. That stone was her and hers alone to mold. It could be whatever she wished. She spend hours happily carving up little scimitars and baby Endspiders, keeping them in an old cloth sack in a storage trunk.

Carving had gotten away from her this past year, but it’d be nice to take it up again. There was a special joy in having so much say in the fate of a thing, even a thing as small as a stone. Plus, she liked how solid it felt under her fingers.

In the Tribes it was an idle hobby. But in the Oasis, people could make professions of it—and they’d rigged it up so the blocks moved like they were alive! She supposed this place wasn’t all bad. And there, in those glass window-display, were big, sharp, weirdly-formed tools which shone with vessels of qi. Were those supposed to be carving tools? She took a step forward, suddenly eager to poke further.

Then she wilted. She had no Lira on her. Besides, the shopkeep was more likely to spit on her than smile at her. She went back to standing and staring.

An artificer’s shop, a blacksmith’s, an elixir store, boot-makers…it was all a wall of color and noise. How long had it been since Io went in? The sun was getting awful hot on her skin; she could feel sweat dripping down her nose. This horrid drape of a robe didn’t help any. There was a nasty itch going up the small of her back to boot.

“Greetings, miss!”

The voice came from close behind her. Kaya whipped around to see a wizened, white-haired little old man. His body was a clump of loose, splotchy, wrinkled skin; she could hardly see his eyes under the folds on his face. It was the old beggar she’d seen down the street earlier.

She tensed instantly, stumbling back. “What do you want?”

“Woah!” laughed the old man. He held up his hands. “Please, be calm! I mean no harm.”

“I’ve got no Lira,” she said, uneasy.

“And I ask for none,” said the old man easily. He bowed his head, and she noticed a strange symbol stitched on his worn robes—two golden hoops side-by-side. “My name is Father Zacharius. Are you ready on this fine morning to receive the exalted words of our savior, the Great and Benevolent Jez?”