[ Kiriona's body remembers what her mind will not let her. And right now, it remembers what it was like to be held. It's an old memory, buried with two hundred brothers and sisters, but Ortus has made it fresh again.
The blows cease. The struggling does not, not all the way. Instead, it diminishes, and what was once a thrash of anger is now the shaking of someone crying, even though Kiriona cannot produce the tears to accompany it. ]
He has to. He has to.
[ Kiriona says it like a litany, over and over, in the way that a child of the Ninth knows how to pray. ]
If he doesn't -- [ a thought too terrible to consider, but Ortus is forcing her to, and so her tongue trips over her words ] -- if he doesn't, then I'll never feel good again. I'll always be like this.
[ The worst part about Kiriona's God-given body is that it doesn't grow anymore. The worst part about being dead is being trapped.
Eighty-seven escape attempts, and she's still back here. ]
cw: implied child death
The blows cease. The struggling does not, not all the way. Instead, it diminishes, and what was once a thrash of anger is now the shaking of someone crying, even though Kiriona cannot produce the tears to accompany it. ]
He has to. He has to.
[ Kiriona says it like a litany, over and over, in the way that a child of the Ninth knows how to pray. ]
If he doesn't -- [ a thought too terrible to consider, but Ortus is forcing her to, and so her tongue trips over her words ] -- if he doesn't, then I'll never feel good again. I'll always be like this.
[ The worst part about Kiriona's God-given body is that it doesn't grow anymore. The worst part about being dead is being trapped.
Eighty-seven escape attempts, and she's still back here. ]