The late morning sun was too bright for what had just happened.
Asenane sat on the stairs now. Her elbows rested on her knees. She stared at the sky as if she could bleach the memory out of her mind with sunlight alone. The building behind her loomed pristine and immaculate as always.
Vastarael emerged from the doors a few moments later. He walked down the steps and sat beside her without a word, leaving a respectful distance between them. He leaned back slightly, resting his hands against the stone and tilted his face toward the sky.
He did not speak. The silence was not comfortable this time.
"You're not going to ask?"
"No."
She exhaled through her nose, something between a scoff and a tired laugh.
"You know, it's considered empathetic to ask what's wrong."
"We are not empathetic people. We are beings on a higher plane, remember?"
She let out a dry chuckle at that. "Gods above, I really looked pathetic back there."
"I was shocked as well."
"I'm not—"
She stopped. The denial died before it could form fully. After a long moment, she sighed.
"The only reason I reacted like that is because of something I remember. Do you remember what I told you I was in Dimensium?"
"Yes. You worked in a theater."
A faint, almost bitter smile touched her lips.
"That's true. I was an orphan."
The breeze shifted.
"In Dimensium, Krepsunas are born in two ways. One is through gestation. The other is through the pods of the Negativity Verdarite. I was born from a pod."
She did not look at him when she said it.
"I never had parents. None of us did. Those born naturally… they're different. They live in the floating cities suspended above the lower strata. You can see them from below, you know. Only natural-born Krepsunas are allowed up there. Society is divided cleanly between those two births; natural-born and pod-born. And that line is absolute. Pod Krepsunas will never rise. Not through talent, not through loyalty and not even through sacrifice. You are what you are the moment you open your eyes."
She let out a breath that trembled faintly despite her efforts.
"When we're born from the pods, we aren't infants. We emerge at about five years old. We can walk and speak. The Negativity Verdarite imprints knowledge into us. We had basic understanding of Dimensium, language and customs."
Her fingers curled slightly against her palms.
"We're taken immediately to large holding districts filled with other pod-born Krepsunas. Older ones who have already been assigned their roles manage the younger ones. We're measured and evaluated. And then we're sold. Auctions are held across Dimensium by wealthy families, business syndicates and private collectors. They browse through children like merchandise. Most of us are taken for labor like domestic servitude and manual industries. And the prettier ones…"
She stopped for a moment.
"The prettier ones are sent to brothels, either boy or girl. They don't even wait for you to grow. Pod Krepsunas mature quickly. That's one of the reasons we're valuable. You don't have freedom when you're born. You don't even have the illusion of choice. Your entire life is assigned before you've taken your first independent breath."
She rubbed her hands together slowly, as though trying to warm them.
"And what can you do? You're five. You're surrounded by adults who own you. The law recognizes you as property. The World Tree that birthed you doesn't care what becomes of you. Some children resisted of course."
She stared straight ahead now.
"They refused to obey. They tried to run but they were made examples."
Vastarael's gaze shifted slightly toward her.
"Their souls were extracted and embedded into labor creatures bred for endurance and obedience. They're aware that they are no longer in their own bodies. They feel the wrongness of bone and fur and malformed limbs. They feel the instincts overriding their thoughts. They feel their sanity eroding and they endure."
"For how long?"
"For as long as the creature lives. Sometimes decades, sometimes centuries. There are labor beasts that have been walking since before I was born. They know they were punished. They know why. And they cannot even scream properly. That child inside… that thing protecting the mayor… it reminded me of them."
Her voice cracked on the last word. For a moment, she said nothing. Then she forced herself to continue.
"I was lucky. I was beautiful. That's what they said when they pulled me from the auction line. I remember standing on that platform. I remember hearing bids. I remember someone remarking that my face would fetch a high price. I was almost taken by a brothel owner but a theater director outbid him at the last moment."
She exhaled shakily.
"I was sent to perform and act. I was dressed in fine fabrics and taught to smile on command. I played princesses, saints, tragic heroines and other roles. People applauded me but I still went back to a locked room at night. And if I had resisted, I would have ended up like that child."
Her voice finally broke.
"I might have been trapped in a body that wasn't mine and guarding someone who might not even deserve it. I saw myself in it."
After a long time, she gave a soft, humorless laugh.
"You're right. We're not empathetic people. But sometimes, our past memory makes us feel sorry for others for a while."
The silence stretched again after she finished speaking, but it wasn't the same kind of silence as before. Vastarael turned his head toward her fully.
"Please look at me."
Asenane frowned faintly but obliged. When she did, she was met with a face that seemed almost offensively composed in the late morning glow. He was smiling gently at her. It was a devastatingly handsome face.
"It's okay to cry."
She scoffed immediately, turning her head away as if the suggestion itself was absurd.
"One of my friends was chosen for a theater troupe like I was. She resisted. She didn't like smiling on command. She didn't like the way the patrons looked at her. They made an example of her."
The image flickered behind her eyes whether she wanted it to or not. Her friend was screaming while restrained and dragged away while the rest of them were forced to watch.
"They turned her into one of those things. That was millennia ago so I'm fine."
Her vision blurred. A tear slipped free anyway. She lifted her hand quickly to wipe it away, annoyed more than anything.
"It's ridiculous. That was so long ago. I've slaughtered civilizations since then. I've watched civilizations die. I've done far worse than what was done to me."
Another tear fell. She wiped that away too but faster.
"I'm not some fragile pod-born child anymore."
Her breathing was beginning to betray her now, coming in uneven pulls she tried to hide by angling her face away from him.
"Past trauma does not fade for beings like us," he said after a moment.
She didn't respond.
"We do not forget the way mortals do. We do not blur edges with time. We remember in full clarity. You know that more than anyone. Even now, I remember the sixty years I spent in that facility."
His voice did not change in tone, but something beneath it felt vulnerable.
"I remember the white walls, the restraints, the way they spoke about me as if I were an object. I remember the experiments and the pain. I even remember counting the cracks in the ceiling to keep from screaming. It still hurts. I cried too, though only when I was a child in my new life. Thankfully, Phaenora was there for me, though she didn't have a physical body to hug me so..."
There was no shame in the statement.
"I'm strong. I won't cry over something that old."
Her voice wavered at the end. He simply reached out and pulled her toward him. Asenane was surprised but his arms wrapped around her, drawing her close until her forehead pressed against his shoulder and his chin rested lightly against the top of her head.
"No one would be normal after that. And there's no one here to see you, remember?"
At first she tried to contain them. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his clothes, gripping tightly without realizing it.
"I'm fine," she tried again, but it dissolved halfway through into a broken sound.
She buried her face against him, breathing unevenly with tears soaking into his shoulder. Her composure shattered in pieces she could no longer hold together.
"I didn't even fight," she choked out between sobs. "I smiled. I sang. I bowed. I survived by being good. I hated myself for surviving like that..."
Vastarael tightened his hold slightly. One hand rested firmly between her shoulder blades and the other gently patted her back.
"I used to think if I became powerful enough... if I rose high enough, if I stood above them all, then it would mean I wasn't that child anymore. But..."
Her tears soaked through fabric. She finally allowed herself to grieve not just the child they had killed but the friend she had lost and the girl she had once been. He rested his cheek lightly against her head and spoke softly, so quietly that it felt like something meant only for her ears.
"You survived. That is not shameful. If you didn't do that, you wouldn't have a daughter and a handsome husband, right?"
Her sobs gradually shifted from sharp, violent breaks to softer, exhausted crying. She clung to him longer than she would ever admit to anyone else. Eventually her tears subsided though they did not fully stop. They trailed quietly down her cheeks as she breathed unevenly against him.
"I hate that it still hurts."
"It will. Unfortunately for us, we do not get the mercy of forgetting."
She let out a weak, shaky laugh through the remnants of her tears.
"That's unfair."
Her grip loosened gradually, though she didn't pull away immediately. She stayed there with her forehead resting against his shoulder and her eyes closed, letting the warmth and steadiness of him anchor her back into herself.
For once, she didn't care that they were higher beings.For once, she didn't care about pride or composure or the image of strength she'd built over millennia.
She allowed herself to cry until there was nothing left to hold back.