Because 190085 had very little opportunity to see the sun or sky, she marked the passage of time by when she was allowed to sleep, when she was woken by the Hook, and the sequential pattern of labors she was assigned to. She kept count with a small piece of solidified black tar that she continually added to by squirreling away chunks of the excess stuff when she worked in the foundry. The wall by her bed was, at this point, a sprawling mural of small black strokes dragged upon the bleak surface of her cramped chamber, impossibly tedious to count out in their entire summary. When one is forced to lie awake on their cot and endure the unending whispers of things they cannot see nor touch, though, they have no choice but to occupy their mind with that same impossible tedium. Those sleepless nights always ended with the Hook’s incessant clamoring and roaring. That wasn’t his name, just the epithet she’d ascribed to him because the Hook was a servant of the masters, and a servant of the masters would never share their true name with the meat. 190085 called him the Hook because that was what rested upon his right forearm instead of a hand and wrist: a length of black iron ending in a vicious hook, forged in the typically cruel Kathar fashion, all angles and untrimmed edges. One time she had asked him, out of boredom, what happened to his hand. He answered her with three successive facefuls of trench-water that filled her lungs and left her dizzy. Despite his violent response, it was still an answer to her. Whatever had taken his hand had left him with scars that went deep beneath his skin. The Hook woke her up that morning as he always did, scraping his gnarled prosthetic along the hall’s walls and slamming the chain of his flail against each of the meat’s doors. "Up, up, up you insects. Flies and beetles and maggots all!” he hollered, the first lyric of his morning tune. “Things that bite and things that smell and things that die and things that crawl!” As cruel as the Hook could be, the true cruelty of his routine lay in the fact that his horrible morning song was the only song she knew at all. In times most dire she occasionally caught herself murmuring the words while working, and that disgusted her more than anything. Today was a kitchen day for her, as she knew by her meticulous record-keeping of her labors’ patterns. She donned her filthy tunic that always scratched at her skin, used her basin of murky water to wash away any accumulated grime on her face that could possibly obscure her identifying brands and stepped out of her cell just in time to join the line of other meat that were shuffling toward the day’s assignments. Right in front of her, as per usual, was 190073. He was a tall boy just a day her senior, and he had always lived in the same hall as her. He had always perplexed her because he had the golden eyes of a Silven, something that the masters treasured greatly, but he was still meat like her. She had never bothered to ask why. Kitchen days consisted of so much scrubbing and hot water that her hands always ended up soft, pruned and a distinctly angry red in color. At least she had the chance to give herself something of a wash-up while she was working, and the cleanest of the kitchenware gave her a rare moment to look at her reflection. She hadn’t changed much since the last time she’d been able to check: her black locks had grown just a bit longer, meaning they’d certainly be grasped and sheared off again soon, and her face seemed just a bit thinner, but she was still the same pallid and ghostly green-eyed girl she knew herself to be. She was getting older, that much was for certain, and every bit older she grew she also grew ever closer to the day the masters would find a different Kaahl to sell her to, as they do with all other meat. Her spectral eyes danced over the warped reflection she spied in the shining worn steel of the stew pot she was cleaning,noting the two identifying brands etched onto her face in the masters’ signature sapphire ink; on her left cheekbone just below her eye, like all other meat, was her number. There were so many of them that the masters had simply given up on the logistical undertaking of giving them all unique hand-picked names some time ago, and so they were simply given numbers in order of their birth. Hers was 190085, and it was who she was. What set her apart from most other meat she met was the other Kathar mark that rested in the same ink on her forehead. ‘EMPTY’. It was one of the first words she learned to read because she saw it on herself so often, and heard Hook spit it at her in a pejorative manner so frequently. It was one of her first waking memories in the masters’ servitude, the examinations they performed on her. She could remember the hours of being studied, interviewed and ultimately put through a detecting ritual to determine the nature of the Magespark that the masters’ scholars were certain she had. They were apparently wrong, though, and so she was branded ‘EMPTY’. Her recollections were interrupted by the arrival of 8078, who was one of the oldest meat still in the masters’ service. She only ever maintained the kitchens now, because she had grown far too old to partake in any of the more demanding labors given to them, and she was by far the most experienced in maintaining the kitchens. So, they were her domain, and 190085 always deferred to her when it was time to scrub in the sinks. "You look thinner.” 8078 chided as she brought over a new stack of pots and pans to have their litany of crusted bits of blackened roast scraped off. 190085 rinsed her coarse sponge off under the font of scalding water, and then started grinding it with the heel of her palm into a pot’s bottom. "I called Hook ugly again, so I lost a meal for the past twelve days.” she responded, dryly. That earned her a swat, as the old woman’s bony fingers thwacked themselves soundly upon 190085’s cheek. "Don’t be stupid. You need to eat. Getting yourself killed just so you can tell Hook something he already knows?” 190085 found herself laughing, which was a rare sound to hear in anyone down in the Crevice, let alone herself. 8078 clearly found it infectious, because her elderly sternness cracked for a brief moment as she bared her crooked and pitch-stained teeth in order to laugh with a rough wheeze as well. “... I brought you something, again.” The old woman looked out over the many shelves and aisles of working meat in the kitchens, and then set a gnarled hand onto the hinge of 190085’s jaw. She used a thumb to pry her mouth open and slipped a tightly-folded bundle of parchment into the pocket of her cheek. “Don’t swallow that.” she murmured, and then returned to her work at the sink. This wasn’t entirely unusual at all: since 190085 had known the elderly woman and discovered her propensity for reading, she had always made it a point to smuggle away whatever reading material she could hide in her robes and then give it to the young girl whenever she got the chance. She had brought many things over the time she knew her. Decrees, pieces of religious text, small sections of operas or plays and pages from books alike. Seeing as they were all subjected to the chance of random searchings, storing the readings in the mouth always ended up being the safest method, and so 190085 had become quite accustomed to the process over time. She had known 8078 since she herself was an even younger girl and had just been given her brand. She had watched the woman’s health decline over the years, as even an elven life like hers inevitably will do. It saddened 190085 somewhat to watch the only true source of kindness she’d known slowly slip away before her eyes, but she had long since figured that was simply how things go. The two of them did not speak a single word to one another for the rest of the day, for they knew better than to draw any further unnecessary suspicion toward their conspiring, as innocuous as it truly was. The Hook eventually came shouting into the room again, gathering up the cadre of meat that was working there to lead them in in a steady line toward the mess hall adjoining the kitchens. It was most certainly 190085’s least favorite hall in the Crevice: a stinky, grimy place, constantly reeking of charred flesh and coppery blood. Rows upon rows of other meat lined up and walked in mechanical fashion, receiving their day’s portion of bland stew in the old wooden bowls that often leaked precious, searing broth out onto the feet of those holding them. Quite frequently the larger, more bullish meat out of them all could be found bullying the smaller out of their portions, and the masters’ guards who overlooked the chamber in their suits of thick and cruelly wrought blacksteel armor never lifted a finger to prevent any of it. “Hello, botfly.” rasped a rough, ragged voice down onto 190085’s scalp, carried upon a gust of hot and stinking breath that reeked of rot and death. She knew its owner without needing to turn and face him, but she did nonetheless, and her eyes had to travel far upward to meet those of Spinesnapper’s. Over seven feet of calamitously large ashen-skinned muscle and boasting a rack of obsidian horns that had been sawed off at the base, he glowered down at 190085 with his hellish golden eyes and a sneer pulled through his scarred mouth. He was someone the rest of the meat knew all too well, along with his story: an Arken-born Kathar with a great history as a savage and ruthless warrior, he had challenged the masters’ leader for her seat of power and lost the ensuing combat. They placed him in fetters and put him to work as their gladiator as punishment for his defeat, and now instead of terrorizing the Dread Empire’s enemies he terrorized the other meat down in the Crevice. She knew better than to draw his ire. “... Hello.” she replied, quietly, her gaze unwavering. “You want my food, don’t you?” “Ol’ Snapper’s quite hungry today, and a little thing like you doesn’t need all that to herself, does she?” He opened a thick, grimy palm and his fingers curled in beckoning toward her bowl of stew. She looked down at it, then the hand, and then right up to the hulk’s eyes, and for a long time– much longer than she should have– she considered dumping it onto his feet. The ogre of a Kathar’s lips peeled backward to expose his bloodstained teeth, each individually filed down into flesh-tearing fangs, and the blackened gums they rested in, all as if to say he knew exactly what she was debating and he was daring her to do so. She chose the much wiser option of simply conceding the evening’s meal and set the bowl into his hands. “That’s a good worm.” he rumbled, and then gave her shoulder a harsh push. “Now shove off.” The titan turned away from her and lumbered over to one of the soup-slicked tables, sitting down upon the bench. She watched it sag beneath his weight and creak in audible pain, staring at his back all the while. She wanted nothing more than for the beast to choke to death on his food. Spinesnapper was part way through greedily gulping down the bowl of stew when 190085 thought she noticed something odd. She dismissed it at first as a trick of the room’s dim light, or even perhaps a sign of starvation-induced delirium. She could have sworn she saw the flickering, phantasmal image of a pair of hands so thin and spindly they could’ve been bent out of wire gliding along his shoulders and settling around his thick neck like a collar. Impossible, though. At least it seemed impossible, until Spinesnapper began to choke. It began as a few rough hacks of spittle that came up from his lungs with a series of dirty coughs, chunks of stewed meat and spittle splattering the table before him. Then he gripped the tabletop’s edges with his hands, dirty nails digging in as he bowed forward as his coughing grew more violent. The other meat nearby immediately stood up and backed away to give the ogre some room, more out of self-preservation than any true concern for him as Spinesnapper had a reputation for violent outbursts like this. He heaved and wheezed, shivering and shuddering, and a hand shot up to his neck to begin grasping at his bulging vein-stricken throat. The bench snapped beneath his weight at last and he hit the dirty floor with an unceremonious thud, sending dust and splintered wood flying from the impact. His claws scrabbled on the ground and he turned himself to face the gathering semicircle of anxious onlookers, of which 190085 stood right in the middle of. His face had darkened in color greatly, with his lungs and body being so deprived of breath, and his bulging eyes immediately fixated on 190085. He stuck a finger out and snarled, white froth and spit spraying out of his jaws as he roared in a violent culmination of sound and fury. “SHE’S KILLING ME, THE WORM, KH– KILLING ME–” The strained scream was apparently enough to draw the attention of the masters’ guards, and they began to order the meat aside and push their way through the crowd toward the source of the mess hall’s commotion. Spinesnapper managed to pull himself to his feet, swaying in place like a building about to topple over, and he staggered toward the girl. “I’LL KILL YOU FIRST, YOU WITCH!” She was able to back up just enough to avoid the vicious swipe of his hand aimed for her eyes, and that was enough to send him toppling forward once more. He landed with his face planted firmly in the filth on the ground, his body spasming in the final throes of death as he wheezed and whined in a rather pathetic fashion, only to be rolled over onto his front by the collective effort of three of the masters’ guards. The whole crowd looked down at Spinesnapper’s dark face, eyes rolled back into his head, chest unmoving and body devoid of life. 190085’s own eyes focused intently upon his neck, where she could barely make out the bruised outlines of fingers in the flesh there. Her hall was ushered out shortly after that by the Hook, and they were put back into their cells for the evening. Murmurs were already being passed between the cracks in the stone walls between their inhabitants, hushed discussions and deliberations about what had exactly killed the beast and why he’d accuse a meager thing like 190085 of the murder. She hadn’t the faintest idea herself, really. She was Empty, after all. She sat there in the darkness of her cramped closet of a chamber and closed her eyes and simply tried to will the hunger away that clawed at her insides, until she heard something entirely surprising: a voice she did not recognize. “We certainly made short work of him, did we not?” She jolted to awareness, eyes snapping open to survey the darkness she was so accustomed to. At first, she found nothing. “Who’s there? We? I didn’t do anything.” she muttered quickly, still searching the room for any oddities or potential intruders, as improbable as that was. “You give yourself too little credit. You wished for something, and willed for it to happen.” She honed in on the voice: it was smooth, oddly so, and it did not speak in the tongue she knew. How could she understand it? There was something else strange about the voice, too. It did not have the cold echo she knew of voices that carried along the stone corridors of the underground world she lived in. It was crisp and clear, more lucid than anything she’d ever heard. She clamped her eyes shut and whispered beneath her breath. “I’m starving. I’m dying. This is what it’s like to die, isn’t it?” “An amusing prospect. I can assure you that dying is much, much different than this, though.” She opened her eyes, and she found the voice’s owner standing in front of her. They were a tall and slender figure, draped in a dark black robe that flowed like a stream and poured off of their body like a waterfall in billowing layers. Her eyes traveled from the hem of their robe, up to their waist where their hands lay neatly clasped together: digits of exquisite proportion, dark and shining like pristine metal. Her gaze finally settled on their face, and she found them to be hauntingly beautiful. She could not quite describe it or what made it so, it was simply the word that came to mind when she looked upon their features and the dark silver locks that spilled onto their shoulders and locked eyes with their own beacons of ghostly green light. They shone upon her like the merciful glow of a lighthouse, as if she were a ship that’d been adrift in a storm she was certain would drown her, and now she had found sanctuary she’d thought impossible to reach. They smiled, and their smile was just as disturbingly gorgeous. “... Who are you?” she managed to croak out after an entire minute’s silence occupied by her gawking. “The one who will set you free, child.” they murmured, and by word alone she felt completely assured of what they told her. “As much a part of you as your mind and your voice and your very soul. I have always been here and always will be. The work begins here, with us. It will be difficult, and you will need to make choices that you do not want to make, but no price is too great to pay for freedom, is it?” She thought about that for some time. Was there anything she wouldn’t do to escape this place? This Crevice where she was naught but meat that would one day spoil and be thrown to the hounds? “... What must I do?” she asked, hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer. “You must learn.” they hummed, and with another smile they pushed a few matted tendrils of black hair out of her face. “You must become who you were meant to be. A proper Lord in your own right. The call is coming, dear… hm. You do not have a name yet, do you? Just a number, stamped upon your skin along with a terrible lie.” It had never really occurred to her that she hadn’t a name: she had never needed one, before. When she thought about this, she remembered the parchment left in her cheek, and her fingers quickly slipped past her lips and inside to retrieve it. She hastily unfolded the square and smoothed it out, still somewhat damp with her saliva but still legible. It seemed to be a page torn from a book, the first sentence having no beginning in sight and its last sentence running on to the next page that she’d never get to read. Her eyes wandered along the rugged Kathar script, until they settled upon a segment that caught her attention and was quite conveniently lit by the spectral glow that the stranger in her chamber emanated. … and as strong as the knights and soldiers gathered in the hall together might have been, as many battles as they had endured and foes they had slain honorably and stories that might have been spun about their illustrious deeds, none were prepared for the power that lay in the magnanimous beauty that the Mage-queen– She didn’t know how to pronounce the name. Whatever tongue the literature had originally been written in, the translation to rudimentary Pannarokh had excluded this one. All the flicks and marks above the letters made no sense to her, and her tongue struggled as it curled and twisted upon itself in its attempts to make sound out of it. The figure looked down at the page. “Oh, that is quite a pretty name.” She looked up at them again, unblinking. “How do you pronounce it?” she asked, knuckles curled tightly around the worn parchment. The figure beamed down at her, bending forward at the waist and causing the shadows they cloaked themselves in to spill outward. “Xaella.”
