[story] escaping
author: kelsey l. h. (kerilu)
email: chic_ninja_love [at] hotmail.com
artist: levin (levin3d)
email: ianaguas [at] gmail.com
ILLUSTRATED VERSION
When the night is dark, the lights extinguished and the patter of feet no longer echo, one pair of eyes still remain open.
They belong to a girl named Kai. Her name means fire, from a language long forgotten but that still thrums in the halls and air; from an ancestor she cannot recall that has given her flame-eyes and hair, skin the color of burnt cinnamon, and the gift of ember-dance.
She is watching it now; the nightly circles in the courtyard below her precious crack-to-the-outside. The dance she has known since she was born but learned to perfect from the winding patterns laid on the floor of windowless rooms. No distractions, they say. No life outside of what you are told. No freedom, not even to control or interpret the fires in your soul.
No windows.
She had a crack.
It was only a few hair-breadths wide, just enough for one eye to take in the world.
She smiles slowly as the dance begins - one step, two steps, she knows them all. She can almost feel her feet hitting the soft stone of the courtyard in lieu of the dancer’s. The familiarity strikes her, and reminds her of a pretty woman with warm soft arms long ago. Kai vaguely wonders if the woman was her mother or aunt, because she was taken away so young that she can hardly remember.
As the dance continues, she sees the spirit-fire, the tips of it dancing on fingertips and heels, speeding the movements and adding twirling lights of the rainbow to the quickening steps. Before she becomes too entranced, Kai pulls a lock of her own hair to wake herself from the dance and pay close attention. In a year, she will be one of those dancers, she tells herself. She studies their outfits, then, with careful attention. The full ceremonial garb of the ember-maidens, all streaming crimson ribbons and cloth of gold. Garments loose enough to dance in but showy enough to excite the fire-gods, which is the purpose of the ritual.
They are protecting the country from their wrath by dancing in their honor, the teachers say. What would the country be without you?
And then, in the bare circle of dirt in the middle of the courtyard, oil-doused kindling ignites bundles of olive branches. The dancers draw closer and closer to it, but Kai knows they aren’t afraid. The ember-dancers can control the spirits of the fire, and it will not burn them. If they are fire, they cannot be harmed by fire. The first girl steps towards the flames, and Kai frowns. The girl hasn’t done the steps that beseech the fire-god for protection yet; surely she will in the next few step, or the next, or the next...
But her steps towards the fire are not the complicated patterns of the protection dance. She walks to the fire with purpose, until at last she is inside it. The trance protects her for only a few moments; Kai watches in horror as the flames consume her.
The others follow; girls she sometimes recognizes, girls she has had classes with. All vanishing, one by one, into the heat, crumbling into ashes as they take their last breaths.
Her own breath is labored and makes her chest tighten painfully when she inhales. Inside her head, she puts the pieces together. The reason there were no windows, the reason that the girls who participated in the yearly dances were never seen again.
The unbelievably-elaborate stories of their happiness and success after they fulfilled their duties were just that; too elaborate. She kicks herself repeatedly for her own stupidity. Everything left suspicion behind; how did no one see it?
And then, she thinks of herself. She is imprisoned in this place. In a few months short of a year, she will be old enough for the ceremonial dances. At this thought, her heart freezes in her chest.
It’s strange, she thinks, to feel so cold when the very core of her soul is made of flame. And then her heart hardens, a plan forming in the back of her mind even as her body remains stiff from shock.
I have to get out.
Three weeks later, a dirty, tanned girl with matted, short red hair and dull crimson eyes asks for admittance into a small inn. She offers to dance for money, her small body reed-thin and shaking with a coughs. In a few minutes, the kind innkeeper has her bundled up in a bed, the mattress soft and warm, and is asking her for her name.
The girl opens her mouth, then closes it, lost in thought. "I guess I don’t have one anymore," she rasps, looking forlorn. She’s felt empty for a while now. Her heart can no longer connect with its element, she knows. Saving her own life has betrayed everything she used to live for.
She smiles, and the girl-who-is-no-longer-Kai feels content for the first time since she ran away from her impending death sentence. She has lived for the fire inside her entire life; now it is time for her to live for herself.
the end
email: chic_ninja_love [at] hotmail.com
artist: levin (levin3d)
email: ianaguas [at] gmail.com
ILLUSTRATED VERSION
When the night is dark, the lights extinguished and the patter of feet no longer echo, one pair of eyes still remain open.
They belong to a girl named Kai. Her name means fire, from a language long forgotten but that still thrums in the halls and air; from an ancestor she cannot recall that has given her flame-eyes and hair, skin the color of burnt cinnamon, and the gift of ember-dance.
She is watching it now; the nightly circles in the courtyard below her precious crack-to-the-outside. The dance she has known since she was born but learned to perfect from the winding patterns laid on the floor of windowless rooms. No distractions, they say. No life outside of what you are told. No freedom, not even to control or interpret the fires in your soul.
No windows.
She had a crack.
It was only a few hair-breadths wide, just enough for one eye to take in the world.
She smiles slowly as the dance begins - one step, two steps, she knows them all. She can almost feel her feet hitting the soft stone of the courtyard in lieu of the dancer’s. The familiarity strikes her, and reminds her of a pretty woman with warm soft arms long ago. Kai vaguely wonders if the woman was her mother or aunt, because she was taken away so young that she can hardly remember.
As the dance continues, she sees the spirit-fire, the tips of it dancing on fingertips and heels, speeding the movements and adding twirling lights of the rainbow to the quickening steps. Before she becomes too entranced, Kai pulls a lock of her own hair to wake herself from the dance and pay close attention. In a year, she will be one of those dancers, she tells herself. She studies their outfits, then, with careful attention. The full ceremonial garb of the ember-maidens, all streaming crimson ribbons and cloth of gold. Garments loose enough to dance in but showy enough to excite the fire-gods, which is the purpose of the ritual.
They are protecting the country from their wrath by dancing in their honor, the teachers say. What would the country be without you?
And then, in the bare circle of dirt in the middle of the courtyard, oil-doused kindling ignites bundles of olive branches. The dancers draw closer and closer to it, but Kai knows they aren’t afraid. The ember-dancers can control the spirits of the fire, and it will not burn them. If they are fire, they cannot be harmed by fire. The first girl steps towards the flames, and Kai frowns. The girl hasn’t done the steps that beseech the fire-god for protection yet; surely she will in the next few step, or the next, or the next...
But her steps towards the fire are not the complicated patterns of the protection dance. She walks to the fire with purpose, until at last she is inside it. The trance protects her for only a few moments; Kai watches in horror as the flames consume her.
The others follow; girls she sometimes recognizes, girls she has had classes with. All vanishing, one by one, into the heat, crumbling into ashes as they take their last breaths.
Her own breath is labored and makes her chest tighten painfully when she inhales. Inside her head, she puts the pieces together. The reason there were no windows, the reason that the girls who participated in the yearly dances were never seen again.
The unbelievably-elaborate stories of their happiness and success after they fulfilled their duties were just that; too elaborate. She kicks herself repeatedly for her own stupidity. Everything left suspicion behind; how did no one see it?
And then, she thinks of herself. She is imprisoned in this place. In a few months short of a year, she will be old enough for the ceremonial dances. At this thought, her heart freezes in her chest.
It’s strange, she thinks, to feel so cold when the very core of her soul is made of flame. And then her heart hardens, a plan forming in the back of her mind even as her body remains stiff from shock.
I have to get out.
Three weeks later, a dirty, tanned girl with matted, short red hair and dull crimson eyes asks for admittance into a small inn. She offers to dance for money, her small body reed-thin and shaking with a coughs. In a few minutes, the kind innkeeper has her bundled up in a bed, the mattress soft and warm, and is asking her for her name.
The girl opens her mouth, then closes it, lost in thought. "I guess I don’t have one anymore," she rasps, looking forlorn. She’s felt empty for a while now. Her heart can no longer connect with its element, she knows. Saving her own life has betrayed everything she used to live for.
She smiles, and the girl-who-is-no-longer-Kai feels content for the first time since she ran away from her impending death sentence. She has lived for the fire inside her entire life; now it is time for her to live for herself.
the end