disclaimer: disclaimed
dedication: to Emily, again, as per usual
notes: fluorescent adolescent — arctic monkeys.
title: how cold the world can be
summary: Hrindi, and what it means to be alone.
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The mines are dark and quiet when Hrindi slips out of them for what she hopes will be the last time. She brushes the bright flame of her hair out of her face, resettles her pack.
Carefully doesn't think about the woman with the eerie eyes, leaning against the Darkvari minehatch, easy as you please. The conversation sits in her chest heavy as lead, and it had been so close, she'd almost had it—
(But you loved him, didn't you?)
And for all the gold in all the world and all the names that exist, she can't deny it; the bright little spark that had taken root in her chest and grown every time she'd caught Steg smiling at her still hasn't put itself out. It's stupid, and Hrindi knows better.
Gods, she knows better.
There's a whole world out there, just beyond her fingertips. Maybe there's even somewhere green; somewhere the dry red of the desert is nothing but an awful memory, and where her name means nothing at all.
Steg had talked about it.
He'd liked to dream.
But there's bitterness like ash on her tongue, instead. There's no goodness left in the world, no matter what Steg had thought. Even if there was, it wouldn't belong in Hrindi's coin purse. You can't sell goodness.
They wouldn't have lasted a day, even if they had managed to make it out of Whitestone.
Hrindi's family would have seen to that. Zungars are killers, one and all.
And much as she hates it, Hrindi is a Zungar, too.
Steg will be waiting. Well, he'll be waiting forever. She bites down on the sweetness that the thought of his stupid horsetail brings her, bitter and briny, hot as a copper beneath her tongue. No need to dwell when the night is easy on her skin. Apotyre after sundown, the blistering of the world cooling as a smoking dawn.
Hrindi sets her shoulders. She's going to find a new name.
And she's going to do it alone.