Take this one with like, one Dead Sea's worth of salt. Note: discussion of middle eastern politics approx 1920s-30s.

Thereupon he said unto him:

"Thou art a creature of the sages,

Return to thy dust."

Vltava saw a strange flag approaching the city of Trieste. Well, perhaps it would have been strange to the generals and admirals of the pre-Weltkrieg world, but this was the new, post-war normalcy. A red triangle with a white star on top of a horizontal tricolor of black, green, and white: more simply, the flag of the Arab States of the Levant.

It wasn't quite as grand as the prize Germany earned herself during the Weltkrieg, but the House of Hashim had done very well for themselves. The rulers of Hejaz had risen to power over Syria, the Levant, and even Jerusalem… It was a mish-mash of personal unions and local potentates protected from Egypt by nothing more than the Germans on the Suez, while also being caught up in a long, skirmishing conflict with the kingdoms of Arabia's interior. Persia loomed in their north alongside the Turkish state – the world's memories of their atrocities still fresh – leaving the Arab princes to search for friends over the water.

Lubnān was one of the ships who would guarantee the continued flow of materiel to the Arab States, should worse come to worse. She had been purchased with Iraqi oil profits, and her existence as a shipgirl was largely due to the Germans wanting guaranteed access to the great Levantine fuel silo. (Admittedly, Iran and America had their fair share of oil… but they were not so easily made dependent.)

The first thing Vltava noticed about the woman herself was her height. She rivaled her crew for height and even stood above a few, tall and proud as a Lebanon cedar, dressed in a great black coat with hints of a white garment underneath. Her hair was wrapped up in some sort of shawl – also white – and after a moment of debate with one of her crewmen she pried a leather bag from his hands and marched over to meet Vltava.

She didn't seem to be going any faster than a walk, but the length of her stride made her move at the pace of Vltava's jog… Perhaps it was fitting, considering the speeds she was built for. While she was currently press-ganged into a training role for the most part, Lubnān was designed to essentially drop everything and run through the Suez to get to the Persian Gulf, if she needed to. Perhaps she was a bit like those Arab horsemen (and camelry) who had caused the Ottomans such trouble during the war: fast and vicious.

Despite that, Lubnān greeted Vltava with a smile. Enemies had become allies, and the world kept on turning. "Greetings, lady Vltava. We are honored that you- ah, we are…" she trailed off for a moment, "we are honored that Austria-Hungary has given us this opportunity to visit. Please, pardon my German."

"We're glad to receive you here," Vltava smiled back. "And please, don't worry. Your German is fine."

"There's no need to sugarcoat things. I'm here to learn, am I not?"

"You are," Vltava said, "but would you mind lunch first? Trieste has some marvelous restaurants."

"Lunch sounds good, if you guide me to a…" she bit her lip and snapped her fingers, trying to recall the word. "A bureau de change! I must repay you afterward."

"If you insist…" Vltava said, not really meaning it. Oh, she could probably take advantage of it if she wanted to. Spend the allowance she had been given and then pocket Lubnāns' repayment… it was practically free lunch, but Vltava owed her respect, as a guest.

With a bit of help from their escorts, Vltava 'convinced' a restaurant to give them a private room. Really, it was for the best: shipgirls occasionally gathered too much attention and were too valuable to just let them sit around in public spaces. A cozy little room on the second floor of a restaurant gave Lubnān a good view of the city while saving her from interactions with the people.

(Yes, Vltava did sort of resent that they had to live as a separate community, beholden to all sorts of restrictions… but the best they could do was live with it. You couldn't forget that you were a shipgirl, you couldn't just leave it behind. You were marked apart from the rest from the moment of your conception.)

"I've heard the wiener schnitzel here is good," Vltava mentioned. "And don't worry, it's veal."

"Veal?" Lubnān repeated, sounding the word out.

"Calf's meat. Ah, but is it… slaughtered properly?" She knew enough to know that pork wasn't halal, but the process was a bit more complicated than that, as she understood.

"Dhabihah? I doubt it. Is there fish?"

"The fried anchovies are excellent."

"Ah, so you've actually had this one?" Lubnān grinned.

"Yes."

"Perfect."

They sent for the food – a few of the men accompanying them did jump on the chance to get the wiener schnitzel – and talked a bit more as they waited. Both of them sipped at glasses of water. Even ignoring dietary restrictions, drinking before Kansen duties was usually considered bad form.

"And what of your clothes?" Vltava asked.

"These? They're the clothes of…" she paused for a moment, "a darvesh."

"A darvesh?"

"How do you say… the religious poor? One who chooses to be poor for religion's sake…? No. Sufis. The ones who spin?" She moved one of her fingers in the air, like she was stirring something upside down, and it suddenly clicked.

"A whirling dervish?"

"Yes!"

"And can you…?" Vltava asked.

"Of course I can. However… I don't think it would be fitting, to do so here."

"Probably not," Vltava smiled. "But perhaps you could tell me about the meaning of the clothes?"

"The black cloak represents attachment to this world. To earthly things… but to life as well. When you begin to dance, you leave it behind, for the purity of the robes beneath." She pinched the white garment beneath her cloak with her finger and lifted her arm to show it to Vltava. "And the cloak is also a shroud. I forgot the hat, but it is like a tombstone. You whirl and whirl until the self seems to die… and then you are with God, for a while."

"It sounds fascinating."

"It's more interesting to do it, I promise you. No amount of dry theology will deliver God to you, and no amount of study will make a Kansen a warrior, I figure."

"That sounds about right," Vltava smiled. "And there's the food!"

Both of them prayed over their food for a moment before starting to eat. Just as Vltava had promised, it was excellent. Perhaps the meal stretched on a bit too long, and they spent a bit too much time people watching… but there was more to their lives than fighting, wasn't there?

During a break in their practice, Lubnān asked another question: "Who was your… dam?"

"My dam? Ah, the one who gave me my cube? It was Prinz Eugen."

"And you know her well?" Lubnān asked, leaning forward a bit to hear Vltava's answer. (A strand of hair had worked itself loose. It was nearly black, close enough to pass for it, but there was the vaguest hint of something green there.)

"Well enough," Vltava said. "Much of her time is consumed with politics, but she's…" Perhaps her drinking habits weren't the best to mention right now. "... bold."

"And hers?"

"One of the Germans. I cannot say who."

Lubnān smiled. "Perhaps you and I are more closely related than we think?"

"It's possible…" Vltava conceded. "But doesn't viewing it that way only make the business in Britain and France more tragic?"

"Yes, it does. To fight your sisters… your own offspring… The thought of it makes the stomach churn."

But they chose to do so, did they not? Political conflicts tore apart human families as surely as they split up Kansen classes. If anyone knew about that, it was Austrian Kansen. Vltava couldn't exactly go blabbing about it to Lubnān, but they were already starting to form camps as if preparing for someday when…

A Kansen, like a person, was restricted by her surroundings to some extent, but she could chose freely. She could disobey orders. They weren't automatons, acting out orders until they couldn't anymore… they weren't golems.

A golem also received life, if you could call it true life, in a different way. A slip of paper with the name of God or the word truth carved into the flesh… was what made a mythic golem move, not some strange cube that no man truly understood. But perhaps it could be said that no man truly understood what that name referred to?

Vltava was named for the river that flowed through Prague. The story of the golem, as most knew it, was set in Prague. The man who formed her from the cube had the story on his mind, apparently. She couldn't think of any other reason for her being the way she was.

"Have you been to Jerusalem, Lubnān?"

Lubnān smiled widely. "Yes. She is… the queen of cities. Lovelier than a dream."

Speaking of nicknames, Trieste had one of her own: Shaar Zion. Many European Jews had decided to head for greener pastures in America… but some took the gateway to Zion. Vltava wished to follow them, if only for a while. She had to see it, at least once. Before war with the Syndicalists broke out, before the Magyars revolted, before her life fell into pieces like so much clay.

(For those golems who didn't carry the name of God on paper, they carried the word for truth, emét. Strike out one letter, and it became mét. Death. Life and death for a warship could be decided by a letter's breadth, could they not?)

Some of these things she knew from her birth, some she had to learn. Drilled into her head since birth, perhaps. One she thought of frequently was a dietary prohibition, the one that prevented Jews from eating dairy and meat together: "You shall not boil a lamb in its mother's milk, for doing this is like forgetting a sacrifice, and it is a provocation to the God of Jacob."

There were several reasons why that was a rule. Perhaps it was related to practices in the area: some pagan band boiled a goat in its mother's milk, perhaps to create some fertility potion, and the Jews were told to avoid that sort of practice. Or perhaps – and this was what Vltava believed – there was something inherently indecent about using life-sustaining milk to kill that which it was supposed to nurture.

The cube gave life, and it destroyed. Oh, how it destroyed! Wasn't it the most pitiable thing? The breath of their life came from killing, and their lives were spent up in fatal battles. Perhaps they were really like golems. They fought as their makers commanded (the side didn't matter, not really)… and then they were dust.