12 Miles Below

Book 3. Chapter 16: In which To'Wrathh has a wholesome day off (T)

"Focus your mind. Relax your breathing. Should you find your mind drifting, notice it, forgive yourself, and move on." Tenisent said, translucent arms crossed on the other side of the quiet room.

"I do not need to breath. My mind remains focused on any topic I assign." She said, to which Tenisent scoffed.

"You asked." He said, "Take the advice, or don't."

Tamery told her they would be ‘going out’ in the morning. That left To’Wrathh alone in the living room parlor. It had, after all, been very late into the night for them when they'd found her. They’d been up since the end of the attack searching for her, unprompted. Exhausted, they all soon crashed in their makeshift beds, sound asleep.

And a Feather had no need for sleep.

So she'd asked Tenisent how he passed time since there were a good amount of hours before Tamery and the rest of the Chosen woke up. It was only polite to at least attempt to follow through on the advice, after all.

It was true she didn't need to breath, but her shell did automatically simulate the action. And besides, it offered a method of passive cooling, if rather small. Thought wise, her CMOS systems were unable to deviate from any instructions, so she saw little benefit to that part of the exercise. Her mind couldn't wonder around.

She tried again, taking the traditional pose for meditation. Tenisent nodded, and sank down into a sitting position, mirroring her own. He wasn't truly there of course, only a mental image mapped out into the world. But he certainly acted and reacted as if he were. She wondered how he saw the world from his point of view, given his decoherent form. Fractals rarely made sense, and there was far more that was unknown about them than known. She was treading on grounds few people had ever studied or even known about. Perhaps he saw what she saw and interporla-

"You're allowing your mind to drift." Tenisent said dryly.

To"Wrathh snapped back to the present. "I do no-" She paused, and realized she had. "...How did you notice?"

"You fidget." He said.

Her? A Feather of Relinquished? Fidgeting? "Preposterous. I do not fidget."

"You just did, again." He stared her down, as if daring her to call him a liar. "Glare at me all you want, girl. That won't change that you have and do fidget."

She scanned through the logs of her past movements, certain the dead human was pulling a fast one on her, and... and found out the human was correct. Clearly, her background subroutines were taking a bit too much liberty. Where had those habits and mannerisms developed from in the first place? Or rather when had they appeared? Over time or all at once? From what stimuli? These systems would monitor her neuromorphic parts and cross reference the strings of thoughts into matching physical action. The system was working as intended when she looked into it, only it was being fed undiciplined thoughts and acting on those.

"Your mind is drifting again." Tenisent said, "Stay focused. And stop squirming."

Feeling greatly embarrassed, she took more direct control of her shell, putting a stop to the fidgeting once and for all. As a result, keeping all parts of herself in balance became far harder now that she was in command rather than leaving it to her background processes. She almost lost balance and fell face first. There were hundreds of smaller autocorrections her CMOS systems handled passively for her, and all of it has already been trained on hundreds of hours monitoring her inattentive thoughts.

There was a lot of clean up to do. She had to be dignified, as a Feather should be. Relinquished expected perfection from her Feathers.

An hour passed like this, with Tenisent slowly grinding away all the small quirks of meditation, anywhere from posture to keeping more control over her mental sphere. As a machine, no body position would change the efficiency of her functions and she entered the whole project with a mild feeling of annoyance - but she'd asked and felt accountable to follow it through as a matter of stubborn pride, and so she did.

Somehow, at some point, there began to be an odd sense of serenity to it that she wasn’t able to pinpoint within her systems. She’d begun to notice that there was far more happening deeper in her mind, with the ghost's incessant prodding whenever she'd started to ponder on something else. Logical threads were easy to follow and understand. A simple query would return all information relevant to a decision. But deeper under, were threads of emotions. They appeared from her neuromorphic parts and were mutated somehow as they passed through the soul fractal.

It gave her much to think about. Machines could operate without souls, and they originally had for many decades before fractals were discovered. But artificial souls mixed with neuromorphic engineering had been a breaking point to true sapience during the golden age of humanity. Somewhere inside was the key to all these unwanted changes she was suffering from. If only she could figure it out and be more like To'Aacar and the Feathers of his generation onward.

They remained static, unchanging, for centuries. Eternal. Perfect.

“I’m surprised you are not frantic to secure the pillar.” Tenisent said after some time, bringing up a new topic.

“There is no point making a hasty move.” She told the ghost. “Rather, this will be one of the few times I will see human culture without interference.” And if she was honest, she felt more relaxed now than ever before. Perhaps ever in her life. There was no war here and now. She had lost the initial volley, and further attacks would happen on a timeline, on schedule. There was nothing to do but wait. The meditation seemed to calm her down after learning how to do it correctly. Helped her smooth out strings of emotions by tracking them down.

It was peaceful. She could have told Tenisent this. But she didn’t, still skirting away from saying such blasphemous things like enjoying a calm moment. Feathers were weapons of war. Their natural state was in the middle of a battle. That was their purpose. She shouldn't be feeling this way, being content with the lack of action. It went counter to her baseline goal.

Instead, she plucked out an acceptable cover. “Observing how the humans here act and react will give me a metric to compare to once I have control of the city. If they return to the same behavioral patterns, then I will know my command over the city is complete. I do this for research purposes.”

“That sounds an awful lot like an excuse, girl.” Tenisent said.

She tutted, turning her head sharply away. The human had an uncanny ability to catch her in her lies. Truly annoying.

“But I agree with the course.” He finished.

To’Wrathh quirked an eyebrow at that, turning her head to him.

He shrugged at the implied question, parts of his blue translucent shoulders going through the pillar. “I lived a life following only goals. I devoted myself to my vow as a Knight Retainer. I lived to be only what others expected of me. It was not a life well spent, in hindsight. Color only came into it when… when I met my wife.” He looked down, almost flinching. “She showed me things that changed how I saw and lived life. For the better. I had something to protect. Someone to protect, of my own choice. All because I took a single step outside the narrow confines of my path. Perhaps the same will happen for you. My greatest memories are those I found outside what was expected of me.”

To’Wrathh viewed the time table. Still four more hours to go before Tamery would be within waking period. “May I see some of these memories?” She asked idly.

Tenisent didn’t answer. Instead, he slowly turned, eyes narrowed. “Why are you even asking? Shouldn’t you be able to take whatever you want?”

A good point. She could simply rip any memory from Tenisent’s head and view it at her leisure. She almost did, but there seemed to be some dividing… morality line within her. It felt wrong.

That was novel.

Again another one of those strange new emotions within her. She dove further into it, trying to understand where it had come from. There were no such feelings on taking Tenisent’s skills and combat experience. When she attempted to read what his current plots were, and failed, that too did not feel like crossing a line. Although, she hadn’t tried again ever since.

She considered it further and realized the reality was far more simple. “Spiders always had a sense of respect among themselves, it was only natural for this to follow as I shifted form into a Feather. At the core, my roots remain the same.” She said. "When my sisters claimed prey as their own, I respected their wishes. Hence, my kind are capable of feeling respect."

“And that evolved into some kind of respect for the enemy?” Tenisent asked.

“Something akin to that. I do not see any reason my enemies shouldn’t be afforded basic respect. The combat aspects of your memories are part of my war effort and a tactical necessity, thus I have no qualms on taking those for myself. Your personal life is of no tactical necessity. That would be peering into a memory for no reason but to satisfy my own curiosity. It is not right.”

Tenisent said nothing, only thinking. “The surface clans live and breath honor. For both one’s House, and for the enemies one faces. The only enemies not deserving of respect, are animals. You pillaged from those memories originally. They might have imparted more than you bargained for.”

“You think your combat memories have affected my sense of morality?” The Feather scoffed at that. “I don’t see how that would be possible.”

He shrugged again. “Something did over time. The only one who can answer that question is yourself.”

The ghost made a show of standing back up from his meditation pose, and walked over, slowly, lumbering. As if dreading work that needed to be done. Still, he reached where she sat, and took his own seat next to her. A beat passed before he sighed and spoke. “... I'll share with you some of my… better memories. Just this once. If you are willing to see.”

He extended a hand. To'Wrathh considered the offer for a moment, and then took it.

“This will be perfect.” Tamery said, fixing up some more of the feathers on To”Wrathh’s new headwear. “Plus it’ll match your new hair. Blond and blue is a great combo.”

To’Wrathh watched the mirror like a hawk. The headdress had dozens of synthetic feathers, all different shades of dark blue and gray complementing one another, with a white bird like skull mask to hide her features. “I am not familiar with puritans, or their customs.” She said. “This outfit, does it have ceremonial usage?”

The night had come and passed. Tenisent was nowhere to be seen now, having retreated back into his cell. He'd ended up sharing more than just one memory of his. In between, To'Wrathh had shared some of her own memories, as a spider. The non-violent ones at least. There seemed to be an unworded agreement between both not to show the other anything that wasn't more clean. While her old life had been far more simple, there had been plenty of smaller memories she still remembered and cherished. It felt more like sharing stories to one another.

“In a manner of speaking." Tamery said, bringing To'Wrathh's mind back to the present. "The whole gist is that it’s modeled after these extinct birds that once lived during the golden age. Parrots I think they were called. Anyhow, puritans are all about how life is superior to machines, so the colors and vibrancy of the parrots is symbolic to them. The raptor skull mask invokes images of the ultimate arial hunter. It’s a counterpart to how the automatons look out there. And it works really well to hide your face while still blending in. We need a new name for you too, Wrath seems a little to edgy, even for puritans.”

"Wrath is already shortening my name. I do not like to change my name." To'Wrathh said, feeling defensive.

"It's just a name."

"Names have meaning." She said, crossing her arm and frowning.

"Fine, how about you pick a name with meaning then."

The Feather wanted to argue, but found herself running short on debate points. It was difficult to explain how important names were to machines. Humans seemed to take them far too lightly.

Unfortunately, she really could not continue to call herself To'Wrathh while being undercover.

“Sophia.” To’Wrathh said after a moment of contemplation. “I believe that will do fine.”

Tamery shrugged. “Old-school of a name, but sure. Works for me, Sophia. Any reason why that name?”

"It is the root of knowledge. I seek knowledge above all. As a name, it represents me enough."

The human didn't seem to quite understand the leap, given her puzzled look. “You stated these birds are extinct.” To’Wrathh said, changing the subject. “Machines are not extinct. Clearly one hunter survived while the other perished. These puritans should pick a different analogy.”

Tammery huffed, patting her shoulder and fixing up the leather straps and pockets of the dress. “It’s less about the technicalities and more about going with the flow. Besides, you look great in all this! The more you stand out with distinct features, the less people will equate you with the runaway Feather. They’ll just remember you as a Catrian girl celebrating with the others. And besides, you’re a Feather, so wearing feathers is sort of poetic. Like an inside joke for us.”

“Again, I am not familiar with puritans. What are Catrian girls?” To’Wrathh asked.

“Dancers. It’s complicated, you’ll get it when you see it.”

“You will need to give me something to work with, if anyone begins to ask me questions.”

Tamery took her hand and brought her up from her seat. In the mirror, To’Wrathh looked like a mix between urban and feral. The half skirt dress turned into a hoodie that did little to hide her stomach. Apparently that was intentional. Pockets of all kinds were sowed on her arms and shoulders, all of it with little use or outright covered up by longer blue feathers that served as honorary shoulderpads. Makeup was applied that darkened the sides of her eyes, and gave her an almost brooding look. With her two blades at her left side, she looked like a feral tech-blade of some kind. A ridiculous outfit. It looked… nice.

Yes. Nice would be a good word for it. Unique. Different. It scratched an itch deep inside her. She hadn’t seen this kind of outfit from any of the citizens around, it stood out in a way she found pleasing.

It was sleek. Certainly not practical, but that hardly mattered. Catrian girls were dancers, not fighters, according to Tamery.

“Puritans are an oddity among religions. Less a religion and more a movement. In the city, they don’t even have a church. They just gather up in different places for sermons on the floating rocks and to partake in… let’s say mind altering substances. The city’s mostly imperials. So you won’t have to worry too much about blowing your cover. People will just assume your a ‘tian and leave you alone.” Tamery opened the door and stepped out into the bright artificial sunlight. To’Wrathh stalked behind, the clothing rustling with each step.

“The floating rocks are used by puritans?” The Feather asked. Tenisent hadn’t know what they were for either. Apparently they served a religious purpose. That seemed odd to To’Wrathh, they could have been used for far more things.

Tamery laughed, brushing her shoulder feathers amicably. “No, not at all silly. Only a few of those slabs get colonized and build on, the ones low enough for buildings to reach. The rest are too high up right now. The floating slab’s where all the young people go, because older adults have a hard time climbing up all those ladders. And Puritans are all about rebellion and self-autonomy, so most puritans tend to be teenagers or in that age bracket. I had a phase too with them until it wasn’t practical anymore to be openly puritan for my work. But I’m twenty two, so still not an old hag. I’ve got some contacts to pull on.”

They walked through the streets, heading for a specific direction. Vendors of all kinds hawked out goods around them, and Tamery indulged it all. She had the money to spend. Food of all kinds were passed on to To’Wrathh for tasting.

This was perhaps the best part of her day so far.

Every bite was something new and wonderful. Just now, Tamery brought back some kind of steamed vegetable on a stick, interspersed with chicken meat. The skewer was divine. “See imperials are always old and stuffy, all about traditions and long sermons.” Tamery said as the two ate on the walk. “But their faith makes more sense. More grounded. Puritans on the other hand are all loose and anecdotal. Each Kindred has their own branching lore and ideas, so when puritans from one Kindred visit another, it’s more a mutual sharing of different ideas. Even the Catrian dance has different moves unique to cities, so collecting new movements is part of a game girls play at. Imperials always have the exact same doctrine, same scriptures, and everything’s far more consistent. That’s probably why people end up gravitating to them. There’s other established religions out there, like the Hosrake, the warlock’s Bok’daram, the Tenials, and the mite-speakers but all that's going to get real confusing and most of those religions are not present in the city."

"Humans communicate with mites?" To'Wrathh asked, feeling confused.

"Those that follow that religion say they do, or did in the past. Not really a lot of them these days. Mites always have been an enigma to me, say how are they on the machine side?"

"They have a firewall of around their digital space. Smaller programs can filter through but surviving past the mite wall is difficult. Anything larger that attempts to pass through the wall never returns."

"They're an enemy?" Tamery asked, confused.

"A neutral party. I believe they have been spotted assisting both sides of the conflict at different times. Like humans, they are not a mono culture. As for their goals and objectives, the archives machines have access to show no results. What does the human mite religion do? Perhaps they know more than we do."

Tamery thought for a moment. "Most people don't pay attention to speakers because only the mentally unwell ones says they can speak to mites. Usually they're like doomsday preachers, talking about prophesies. The ones that aren't lunatics are more likely grifters. We don't have any here, mostly we're just a city of imperials. Very traditional.” She handed To’Wrathh what looked to be a grilled rat on a stick. “Pipe rat with shakram spices. A staple for the lower income, but personally I find it tastier than crab. It’s, like, my comfort food.”josei

“How do you eat this?” To’Wrathh asked. But Tamery was already away, buying another set of food from a vendor further down the road. With little options, the feather shrugged, and simply ate the whole rat in one bite. It was oddly juicy, filled with rendered fat that paired well with the soft tissue and cooked protein.

“Whoa, that’s metal.” A voice said behind her. She turned and saw tiny humans. Three of them. Boys. One of the children pointed at her hand. “She even ate the bones and everything!”

To’Wrathh flushed, suddenly connecting the dots that perhaps she shouldn’t be eating the whole animal off the skewer like so. Too late now. Another boy scoffed. “She’s a ‘tian like me.” He said proudly. “Of course she’d be tough. Told ya.”

“‘Tians are all just show.” The other kid said. “A single crusader would beat a hundred ‘tians and still have time to eat a meal. My dad said so.”

The first turned around, angry, and a fight quickly came down between the two.

The third came up to To’Wrathh, tugging on her skirt, ignoring his two friends currently wrestling one another. “How did it taste?” He asked. “With the bones?”

To’Wrathh looked down on the small child and thought for a reply. “Crunchy.” She finally said. Less was better, especially since the first child had claimed to also be a puritan. She didn’t want to be caught as a fraud this early.

“You kids bugging my friend here?” Tamery said, walking back into range. The two on the ground shot back up, all problems forgotten and forgiven. Tamery’s hand shot out and ruffled the hair of one of the kids. He scrunched up and backstepped away, hands brought up as if ready to go into a fight. Tamery laughed like bells would chime. “Wow, so tough! But do you think you could beat her in a fight? Think your dad could take her on?”

The kid glanced over to To’Wrathh, and then to her empty skewer. “Yeah, I could take her on. Easy.” He said with a gulp.

"Statistically unlikely." To'Wrathh said, but her attention was focused elsewhere - specifically on what Tamery was bringing back with her.

The girl grinned, and passed what looked like an orange claw to To’Wrathh. “Here, you little glutton. I was talking about crab earlier, turns out the shop way down there had some in stock. Give it a try. Six clawed rock crab, a fisherman’s staple.”

She brought up another claw and took out a small pocket knife, which she used as a lever to snap the exoskeleton off. From there she sucked out the meat.

The feather observed and brought up her own crab claw. Cooked orange, with what looked to be bits of red flakes, and dripping a butter compound of some kind. Steaming off the shell. She didn’t have a tool to break the meat open, but a quick scan showed the composition was chitin, protein, and calcium carbonate. Mostly brittle and of little challenge. She snapped the claw with a press of her fingers. The meat had been crushed in the process by accident, she’d put too much pressure. But enough of it was left over to be edible. She quickly went on to doing exactly that, comparing the vastly different texture and taste of crab to rat. Cataloging it all, and saving the memory. Yrob and the other runners would greatly appreciate this. Unlike the rat, this meat had a sweet taste to it, soft and melting away. The bits of pulverized shell added a nice crunch to the whole thing too. Unlike the rat bones, the shell fragments were far more random and interspread.

“Still think you can beat her in a fight, tough guy?” Tamery asked while To’Wrathh focused on eating. The child had turned white for some reason, and took a step back as the Feather swallowed, snapped off another bit of claw and sucked out the meat inside like Tamery had done. Less shell this time, but that gave a slightly different profile to compare the data to.

“Maybe when you hit your growth spurt, you’ll get to hang out with us again you little scamps.” She said, patting him again on the head and lightly pushing him on the way. He got the message and the other kids all followed behind, quickly kicking off into a sprint, chasing after the lead in some impromptu game To’Wrathh hadn’t yet understood. The last one ran away, waving goodbye. She returned the wave, awkwardly. The claw fragments of the crab were not making it easy.

“That was a novel encounter.” To’Wrathh commented. “The disguise worked. One of them claimed to be a puritan and he did not suspect my status.”

“Of course it worked. I know my stuff.” Tamery said, puffing her chest out. “Ready to keep going? I’ve got more food to show you on the way, you’ll love this next dish.”

"She discovered your weakness quickly." Tenisent said to To'Wrathh's side. The ghost floated around, watching over.

"She does not." To'Wrathh chided in private to Tenisent. "Food is simply enjoyable."

"You could eat a cement wall and say it was appetizing." Tenisent said.

Feeling miffed at the thought, she tossed the memory of eating the crab down into the cell that housed the ghost. The old warrior had been a clanner, food like crab wasn't something he'd ever eaten before. She saw him pause, frown, open his mouth to complain and then stop again, and frown some more.

"See? Enjoyable." To'Wrathh said, feeling a puff of triumph. It's about time she got one up on him.

For the rest of the trip down the docks, anytime the old man was about to complain, she threw at his face another recently made memory of food, and that did excellent at shutting him up. Seemed to her, that she'd found his weakness just as easily. Everyone liked food.

Even if the stubborn ghost wasn't willing to admit it out loud.

The rock overhangs were exactly what Tamery mentioned. To reach the floating slabs, rope ladders were the only path up, unless one could climb. “Every few years some dumb kid makes a mistake and slips off these slabs.” Tamery said. “History says that’s part of the reason tent roofs became a thing in this city, supposedly it saved a few lives. The old city government tried to ban coming up here multiple times, but it’s never stopped teenagers. So eventually they caved and set up nets under the slabs. It’s all ancient history. They’re a little hard to spot from the ground, but you can see them more clearly from here.”

Climbing was a novel experience for To’Wrathh. Usually she would fly anywhere she chose. Tamery climbed just above, keeping a steady pace, her body angled to keep the rope set right.

She could see some of the other, lower slabs, having small gatherings of people, surrounding a bonfire of some kind. They seemed to be speaking to one another, but given the wind and distance, not even To’Wrathh’s hearing was able to make sense of it all. And they were all youth of some kind. Adults were no where to be spotted up here, with the effort required to climb.

The top of the slab was a small grassy plain, with a central masonry. What looked to be ruins of a mite construction, little more than eroded walls now with moss growing anywhere it could take root. At the center was a small gathering of people, all wearing outfits similar to To’Wrathh’s. Each had their own unique flare, though the overall theme remained consistent.

Tamery had told her more about these people on her climb. She felt reasonably prepared to join this social circle.

“Hey all! I’m back!” Tamery said, waving to the group. They turned and stared for only a moment before standing back up and rushing over, crowding around her.

“Who’s the new girl?” One of the women asked, pointing at To’Wrathh.

“I am Sophia.” To’Wrathh lied. “I’m new to the city, and arrived right before the machine blockade hit.”

The news seemed to sour people, as they grew quiet. “Scrappers. Always trouble, eh?” One said. “Glad you made it before the chopping block. Why not come by earlier?”

She was prepared for that. “I wanted to work on my outfit, but Tamery helped speed that up.”

Originally this was supposed to have been Tamery’s. The girl had been working on it in secret a few years ago, before her troubles hit. She handed it off to a friend, who’d gone and returned it once Tamery returned. With To’Wrathh’s arrival, the girl didn’t seem to mind giving her hard worked outfit away. According to her, she could always make a new one.

The new group asked her further questions, light probes to find out more who she was rather than question the validity of her persona. She answered each as practiced. Soon, they invited her back around their fire.

A large bucket filled with stripped crawdad tails was presented. “Grab a skewer, nail one of these up and put it over the fire.” One of the boys said to her, handing her a thin wooden stake. The city seemed in love with any kind of food that could be handled with a stick it seemed. She commented as much. “I don’t know what your city’s like Sophia, but here we mostly deal with seafood. The lake provides a basically unending source of it.” The boy said.

“Machines might have us surrounded, but they can’t ever starve us out.” Another said, to a small cheer from the group.

“You guys know that’s bunk right?” Tamery said, “If the city alone could make all the food in the world we wouldn’t have farms on the other hollows. The city’s going to run out of food eventually, not anytime soon, but eventually.”

“Never took you for a downer,” The boy said. “I remember you’d always be looking on the bright side of things, what happened since you left?”

“I had to live outside the ring for months and saw the machines face to face. What do you think?” Tamery said. “Of course that changes a person. Got to be more realistic and down to earth. Besides, you guys heard the rumor about the machines accepting surrender now?”

That got a heated debate among the group. To”Wrathh watched, eating roasted crawdad after crawdad while the group debated politics and their place in the world. Tamery had been correct - the people were not unwilling to surrender, they simply didn’t know if the machines would let them live after. They needed personal confirmation.

“They’ve changed.” To'Wrathh said, drawing attention for the first time. “The machines. They will not hurt you if you prove you’re not a threat.”

Tamery glanced at her nervously, but the others were already there asking questions. “You sound like you know this firsthand, did you run into a machine while you were outside?”

To’Wrathh nodded. In a manner of speaking, she had. But for her persona, there was a different story to tell. “We reached the gates safely because we surrendered. The machines let us pass. So I have seen firsthand that they can cooperate with humans, in good faith.”

The group grew quiet until one of the older men stepped in. “Sounds like they might be returning to their base programming? They were originally made to serve humans, not killing us is a good step in the right direction. They’re the manifestation of human evil, but humans overcome evil on a daily basis. Maybe the bit of humanity in them is returning? It's in our nature to overcome evil.”

“Steel rusts but the flesh rebuilds.” The group murmured. To’Wrathh remained puzzled. She knew this religious sect believed that humanity and machines had been one and the same at some point, but a schism caused the two to split. Historically, they might be referencing cybernetics and older human augmentation, or at least as far as To’Wrathh could suspect. Data was not completely whole, even the machine archive is missing great swaths of it. Either locked away by the pale lady for her own reasons, or deleted in the first war. It was easier to destroy than it was to capture and preserve, and the early days had all be about capitalizing on surprise.

It was pleasant to spend time with people like this, hiding among them. The talk continued deeper into the night, and To’Wrathh learned more about the city’s stance on the machines. The military had been tight lipped about machines allowing surrender, up until too many refugees had arrived and let it slip. From there it became a rumor, and soon it would have to be revealed as full truth.

Kidra was an odd topic she hadn’t expected. Apparently the duel between her and the surface girl had gone public, at least recordings taken from the final moments. The rumors were that the leak had been intentional, to increase morale. That had certainly worked, as the group considered the surface knights to be folk heroes. A lot of faith was being put on them to help save the city. They called her a sword saint, the first human in history to ever be able to stand and fight against a Feather. A lot of the imperials believed her to be an emissary of the golden goddess, as much as Kidra herself denied such rumors.

However one knight, no matter how skilled, could not turn the tide of an entire war. That would be absurd. To’Wrathh was certain of this.

Before she could even take a bite from her next crawdad, an alarm blared obnoxiously loud in her mind, set to maximum possible volume, causing her to outright flinch in surprise. She shut it off with a spark of fury and went digging into where it had even come from. As she discovered, it was hardwired a week ago by herself, specifically set to trigger anytime she thought a Winterscar wasn't going to be a problem - to remind her that every single Winterscar To’Wrathh had met in her life, she’d ended up with a problem.

She crunched the crawdad whole, not bothering to deshell it, angrily chewing away, to the surprise of the others around the fire. To'Wrathh really needed to stop doing this exact mistake every single time. It always blew up in her face. Once was a coincidence. Twice was an anomaly. Three times - that's a repeating predictable pattern. She didn't know how the Winterscars would throw off her plan this time around, but newfound instinct was now screaming in her mind that they would - somehow.

The Feather wondered what Keith was doing right now on the surface.

From the handful of memories Tenisent had shared with her, she guessed it was probably something sinister.

Next chapter - Chasing down a rogue airspeeder for loot and profit