Tinkerers Trinkets

I couldn't move myself, my body felt stiff as if I was paralyzed but I could still feel my body walking, I could see but I couldn't close my eyes. I was in Diantha's camp during the midst of night with tents ablaze illuminating the world in a horrible orange and red. There was something I could feel on my hands, a viscous sticky liquid that I recognized instantly. The horrible taste of blood and guts lingered in my mouth as I continued to wade through the campground. Then I felt my lips contort into what I could only understand as a grim smile. My lips widened to unnatural proportions as my fangs bared themselves out for the world to see as I swallowed what blood and meat remained in my mouth. I was horrified by how divine it tasted.

In the corner of my vision I could see a sliver of movement, whatever entity noticed I had seen it and stopped moving immediately. Then my body began walking towards it with a purpose, a horrible and gruesome purpose. No matter what I tried to do my body refused to listen to me and I could only watch in horror as I found Diantha and Poinsettia holding each other. Their bodies shook with fear from the sight of me and I desperately wished I could tell them it wasn't me, that I wasn't doing this.

But I knew better, this was all my fault, I was the reason I relished the taste of blood in my mouth. Reaching out to them with my claws I could almost feel them before they started to crawl away on their backs. On their faces was terror and fear plastered for me to see, within their eyes I saw the reflection of a grotesque monster taking the form of a malevolent little girl. As I stared down at myself in the eyes of Diantha I hadn't felt the steel of her rapier as it pierced into my throat. I stumbled backwards and fell to the grass below, but not before involuntarily slashing at Diantha. The wound was no doubt fatal as she began gushing blood from the five giant streaks that now opened her torso to the world.

I screamed as loudly as I possibly could but no noise escaped my lips beyond the gurgling of a defeated beast. Her expression held an immense amount of hate within it pointed towards me for my actions. She had seen me committing the worst crimes known to humanity and she would finally get her vengeance upon me. All this carnage and destruction was my failt and mine alone.

“Die monster!” She pushed the blade further into me but my body didn't seem to give up no matter how much I begged for it to.

She stabbed me over and over and over again until there were a dozen holes wide enough that you could see the other side. When she finally relented she collapsed dead on the floor, Poinsettia long gone now hopefully somewhere safe. On that grass I desperately wished that I wasn't a monster.

— 

I woke up to the sound of my own blood curdling scream. For the second time after waking up from a nightmare I was bound and couldn't move myself but I quickly realized it was because someone was holding me. I struggled for a while against her grip as adrenaline yelled at me to do something against this situation but no matter what I did her grip wouldn't break. Until suddenly her arms let go of me and I nearly fell out of the cot.

“Mikayla? Did you wake me up?” Diantha rubbed her eyes open as I scrambled to find an excuse for why I'd woken her up.

Looking at her half asleep face I felt an immense amount of guilt for what I'd done in the nightmare. The taste of blood and 

“I… I had a nightmare." I decided on telling her the truth even though it was embarrassing, I hoped she wouldn't ask me about what happened in it.

Diantha reached for me and my head flinched but her hand had already reached my face. For a moment she hesitated but probably because her hand was already there she made a gentle swiping motion. She wiped away a single tear that I hadn't noticed and gave me a soothing pat on the head. Soon she began talking in that comforting tone that made me want to melt.

“You're safe Mikayla. Whatever happened in that dream wasn't real, I'll be here to protect you.” She gave me one of her reassuring hugs which I really did melt into this time. 

“Do you know what I do whenever I have a nightmare?” I shook my head at the rhetorical question. “Well usually I like stargazing. Do you want to join me tonight?” I desperately didn't want her to leave my side so I vigorously nodded, I was irrationally terrified that the nightmare would come back if she left.

Diantha held my hand as she led us outside the tent where she promptly sat and gestured for me to do the same. As I did she pulled me into her like she had the previous day. Tonight's sky held all three moons just like it had when I was first kidnapped. For a moment I thought all we would be doing was stargazing which I felt strangely content with doing. The ambience of insects and bugs going about their nights gave a nostalgic feeling to the darkness.

“Do you know how to find constellations, Mikayla?” Once again I shook my head not wanting to open my mouth, as if speaking would hurt her.

“Well let's see.” For only a moment Diabtha gazed at the stars, the next she turned back to me with that smile she always used. “Just follow my finger.” 

Diantha then began tracing lines within the sky, literal lines floating lines an arms length away from me. Somehow she was suspending her bright blue threads in the air. The thread was in the perfect position for me to see the stars that she was tracing from. Soon mere lines gained depth and the connections between all of them formed the shape of a misshapen fish. The fish looked like it was traced out from a cartoon or a child's two dimensional interpretation of a fish. It was strange though, even back on Earth every time I saw a picture of a constellation it always looked like a bunch of random lines but this looked almost intentional.

“This is the constellation of the salmon, it's usually the second constellation weavers learn.” Diantha spoke about it as if it was common knowledge.

“Weavers?” She turned to me as I blurted out the word, I'd never heard of weaving used in that context before.

“Ah right, most wayfarers don't have weaving where they're from. You're a Steilae so you should be able to weave any gems you come across.” She handed me a green gem I recognized almost immediately as the one that man had tried to kill me with, then the meaning of weaving hit me.

“You use gems to make shapes that can do magic right?” It should've been obvious to me from the start that weaving was what they called making spells and using magic.

“The only people that call it magic are wayfarers, but it's more like using the energy stored in gems to channel the constellations themselves. At least that's the current theory on weaving.” I wasn't able to glean much from Diantha's words beyond that it wasn't really magic.

“So they're like batteries?” Diantha gave me a confused look before responding.

“Batteries? You must be referring to those containers that hold electricity in those wayfarer novels, only those more versed in weaving call gems batteries. Well some people say that the energy that's contained within the gems originally came from the moons.” I wasn't really following Diantha that well but I nodded anyway.

“How could the moons give gems energy?” That last part of Diantha's sentence caught my attention, it made no sense that something that far away could make gems work.

“Well you see in some churches across Seluka people once believed that the moons were all a part of Ennath but separated because if they stayed together all four of them would be destroyed.” I scratched my head at that because she was talking as if the celestial bodies were people. I stayed silent and waited for her to continue.

“Long ago the largest of the three moons, Seluka, and her soul sisters Nula and Lusena were traveling the stars searching for a place to call home. Eventually they found Ennath who welcomed them with open arms, it was said that all three sisters loved Ennath so much that they all married him. Some interpretations even say the moons married each other as well as Ennath.” Those were some weird names and an even weirder legend.

“But aren't they sisters?” Maybe it wasn't strange here but it was always taboo that people related to each other didn't get together.

“They're not blood related, there isn't really a word in Selukan that means how close the sisters were to each other. Anyways the story goes that they birthed the first worms who spread across all four heavenly bodies. Some even resided here in Seluka.” That confused me because she thought Seluka was the name of the capital and the name of the moons.

“Isn't Seluka the name of the capital? And what's with these worms? I keep hearing people call me one.” That immediately made Diantha freeze, it was subtle but her smile faded just a smidgen.

“You see there are worms and then there are Wyrms, they're spelt differently although I can't really express it since you probably don't know how to read Selukan.” I shook my head which she seemed to understand. 

“Wyrms are gigantic snake-like beings with impenetrable scales and the ability to wield the elements at their fingertips; they can also shapeshift into people. They're the progenitors of Steilae after having kids with humans and other species. I've even heard about Steilae with animal parts from breeding with Therianids!” Diantha started getting excited about the prospects of other Steilae before she regained her composure as she realized I was staring. 

I took the opportunity to ask another question. “Well then what about Seluka?”

“Ah right, well we're currently in the kingdom of Seluka which is named after the moon Seluka and has its capital named Seluka. There's this nearby city of Rosurnan which is also a part of Seluka the kingdom.” With every mention of Seluka from Diantha my brain began to grow a minor headache. 

“Let's just continue the story alright?” Diantha seemed to notice my confusion and probably wanted to change topics.

Taking my silence as affirmation, Diantha continued the story. “However, as the moons and the world are separate, so too must Ennath and his wives. With the birth of their new children it also heralded their separation. For if they were to stay together any longer it was said that they would all merge into one being made of the sum of all their parts. So the moons were forced to leave Ennath behind. Though they have left they stay close enough to watch their children from high above. The end.” Diantha closed off the tale with a lilt of joy.

“That's it?” I expected there to be much more to the story but it felt like it ended as soon as it began.

“I could tell you the unabridged version however that would take an entire day to fully go through. I learned the entire story throughout my entire childhood.” Though Diantha told the story with such fervour when she mentioned her childhood her tone fell noticeably.

I decided to change the subject to something she seemed to like much more. “Can you show me any of the other constellations?”

“Of course Mikayla.” Her tone shifted back to her regular attitude as she happily traced out the constellations.

I began listing in and out of consciousness as Diantha kept rattling off the various constellations within tonight's sky. The tiredness that had disappeared from the adrenaline caused by my nightmare started to return and I could barely feel myself hanging on. By the time Diantha got to this constellation called the reindeer I couldn't stay awake any longer and feel asleep into Diantha's side.

—

As soon as Diantha finished tracing the reindeer's outline she could feel Mikayla's soft breaths impaling and exhaling ever so gently. It was mayhaps the cutest thing she had witnessed in years. Though she worried about the girl's future prospects as a Steilae. Being such a rare species she was bound to always be a spectacle to many and something valuable to others. She hoped what few lessons she taught her here would carry on into her adulthood.

They were just barely outside of her tent so Diantha knew it wouldn't be difficult to carry her back and lay her to sleep like the first night. She opted to stay out here for now and keep stargazing. The thought to bring Mikayla in and hide her from the cold crossed her mind but she ignored it. Any movement might wake up the slumbering child and she hoped to avoid that for the time being. Waking up the poor girl after she looked so calm felt like a sin.

Staring at the heavens above she wondered if she should have told Mikayla the full story, at least as much of it as she could within a single night. The moons did not leave Ennath just because it would have killed them, they would have gladly stayed if not for what he did. In the version that Diantha was raised up with the moons were sultry whores who found Ennath and saw only a fertile man who would gladly give them children. They were cast out as nothing but harlots who tried to steal from Ennath's divine radiance.

However she knew that retelling was even more radical than the sisters loving each other, but it was the version her father taught her and Damian. She'd listened to other sermons and read different versions of the Didact and wondered why her father would ever tell them that version. Pondering on it she often came to the conclusion that it was the fault of some feminine figure within her family. Her father had never been the most willing man to conform to the fact that women could kill just as well as any man could. He had always been an avid follower of the Didact but had apparently changed which version he followed around the time that Diantha had been born.

Diantha put aside her thoughts and got up the bench with the sleeping Mikayla within her arms. With Mikayla she climbed back into the cot and let the warmth of the blanket cover her.

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