Chapter 2: Pitch Dark
Thought: Get up. Get up. GET UP.
The room stank of coconut oil and flowery perfume. Their deerskin pack slumped at the foot of their comfortable bed. A wooden desk in the far corner of the bedroom held Sadie Crane's denim jacket with the patches, their portable cassette player and headphones. The sum total of their parts.
The anarchist sat up in bed, rubbing at the side of their face and licking their sleep-dry mouth. They remembered their dream. They never remembered their dreams. Flashes perhaps. But nothing like this. Alcoast made you remember things you'd rather forget. Like how your best friend died and everybody thinks it was your fault because they don't have anyone else to blame. Or that time you ate some kind of strange berry and threw up all colors.
Thought: You're getting out of this place first thing anyhow. So what's it matter? The bed's a one night distraction.
Sadie Crane bathed in the second floor bathroom and dressed in their room. Pants blue like cornflowers, blue like sky, blue like everything good on All Creation. Ready for the day, better or worse.
They headed down to grab breakfast. It was mostly empty this early in the morning.
O'anna was standing behind the counter, cleaning a drinking glass and staring at Sadie Crane through round spectacles.
"Still here?" queried the anarchist.
O'anna adjusted her spectacles.
Thought: O'anna wants you gone, in case that wasn't clear. Needed at least a week of building resolve before seeing your face again. You didn't even send a letter. You're the worst actually.
"What--no?" said O'anna. "Switched out with Bastion, like, five hours ago? And then we switched back, cuz Sheona's out sick and Jandra's hung fucking over."
Her tone of voice told Sadie Crane that Jandra was frequently hung fucking over. The four of them held this café-hostal together like cross-stitch. Most of Arcadia was held together by cross-stitch since the king died. One dead king and your whole ark threatens to go bang boom. Kings aren't supposed to die. It's part of that divine rule thing, Sadie Crane was pretty damn sure.
"Tough," said Sadie Crane. "You, uh--you good? Keeping on? Or you need--?"
Thought: What she probably needs is for you to not be here. To not be seen talking to you. Like a normal person.
Desperate to stop from screaming, Sadie Crane shut their mouth and played with the flat wood top of the counter.
"Hey, you know--," the anarchist wavered.
O'anna shoved a plate of toasted honey bread across the counter top. Spread with berry compote, Sadie Crane's favorite. The screech rattled their teeth.
Thought: A bribe. Nice.
A big hearty bite of honey bread spread with berry compote arrested their early morning dry mouth.
Out the corner of their eye, a mass of coal-dark shuddered and writhed. Their vision spun with tiny porcelain flashes. They skittered a hand up to grip at their arm, blinking away threads of bone-white. Turned their head in a slow creaking motion that reverberated strangely in their neck and lungs. Stared towards the café tables.
They'd been seeing that coal-dark for ages. For years on years on years. Perhaps haunting. Perhaps old forest spirit. Perhaps losing their head, last and longest maybe.
Thought: Grieving process. Of never having a normal life. You've been dead since you were born.
There was one other person in the café at this time of very early morning. A woman sat hunched at one of the tables, long dreads of dark hair roped down her shoulders and back. Her skin toned dusky blackthorn, a starshine bridge of freckles dotting her cheeks and nose. Attired in a black cotton cape secured about her throat and flowing over her plump knobby knees, which made her look like a somewhat personable human-sized bat. Her legs were in thick dark pants stuffed over the tight lips of her leather workman's boots. A scrap of cornflower blue cloth ankled around her left boot.
Thought: The blue of dreams. Of ambition. Of peace. Of love.
Sadie Crane downed the rest of their honey bread and flung off their stool, shooting one final plea in O'anna's direction. Sorry, I know it should have been me, the look said.
The woman jerked her head up, graphite pencil clattering onto the table. For a split, she resembled a cornered feline. Wild fear in those harvest moon eyes. They were meant to be fallen into, those harvest moons.
"That you, Viola?" the anarchist queried.
Viola picked up her graphite pencil. She'd given birth to their radical Punk-themed band The Origin, but it was Sybil, De'afi, Sadie Crane, and Abakris--in that order--who'd cannibalized the remains. She wanted them all together.
Thought: There is love in her eyes. And they are so so tired.
"I don't like strangers," said Viola.
Her voice was full-bodied and melodic, like a well-worn lullaby. It soothed a longing in Sadie Crane's head, hushed their skull out of another tenuous break. They loved being hated on sight. They should have more of that.
Thought: Don't get used to it. You got all that out your system at university. Back to reality.
"Ain't a stranger, sunshine," they said. "Name's Sadie Crane. You know that."
Viola's shoulders moved up and down. Soft chub around her middle slightly protruded her cloak. She'd gotten round in places, deliciously beautifully round. She was an absolute stunner every day alive.
"Viola M'et-Sepirot-Keita," the journalist said. "Leastways for today."
She said the whole thing with the implied hyphens. Her first name Divine, from the ark of Ru Divine. But her three last names were Arik (M'et, Keita) and Runic (Sepirot). She had a grip around Arik and Runic, not so much Divine. She was no linguist, cunning or otherwise.
Thought: Single origin names are rare in this day and age. Ain't nobody from just one place.
Her fingers moved in nervous patterns. Three of the five fingernails on her left hand were chewed down to skin, a fading smear of milky yellow polish faintly visible on the nail plate of her left thumb. The fingers of her right hand showed signs of a recent manicure. The light edges of her nails smoothed down to a pretty curve.
"I got something to tell ya, space cadet," she announced. "Don't think you're gonna like it, but. I think you need to hear it."
She assumed the position of someone ready to argue her point, her fists on the tabletop and eyes turned straight up to look Sadie Crane right in the face.
On the right side of her chair lay a brown leather rucksack full of writing utensils, a jam sandwich wrapped in thick magazine paper, a small canteen of water, the key to an upstairs bedroom of a staying house, a pair of reading spectacles that made her look very smart.
The journalist squished her lips together. Bags nested under her eyes. She'd kept journals. She'd written for independent newspapers. She'd lived in the cracks.
End of Chapter 2
There is a small set of people living on an island off the coast of South Shoal. They are a tiny isolated tribe calling themselves "The Sannites". They claim to be The Originals, a tribe older than even the native Arcadians. Fitting then, that Arik and Sannese are said to be the oldest languages in the world. But did you know their religion holds the belief their island was founded by the serpent gods Ili'ili and Oli'o? You probably don't know that. I didn't, before I set out with Our Mercy and Huna to make contact with the enigmatics. We know barely jack about their customs and history. Younger Sannites leave their homeland to become nomads. I met quite a few of them while staying at a café-hostal. They conversed in only their native Sannese and adhered strictly to their mysterious religious practices. They are often mistrusted, it seems like. The one I conversed with (who did not speak Arik, but could write in Runic and my colleagues translated from there) said ze had been accused of stealing off the delivery carriages and approached by faci officers many times. When I said we were not the type of people (in this town) who called the faci, ze shrugged and said this was hir experience. We played cards late into the night. Ze offered to tell my fortune, but I refused.
--Excerpt from "All Creation: A History" by Horra Dahla Rothka