Working in a dead-end, post office job in the heart of a primarily-Human city, Arya Salcrest cannot let her secret out else she loses her rights and her safety. Norren Sterling, a member of the Council whom she met after a failed museum trip, is det...
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The sky was overcast. The rain last night didn't let up until sometime past Five Adiem, leaving small puddles of water inside the roads' pockmarks even when it's already Seven Adiem. Arya sniffed, the petrichor still thick in the air. She tucked her coat tighter around herself and walked faster. It might rain again sometime soon and she didn't have an umbrella with her.
Today was one of the many others she had lived though. The usual bustle was present, albeit a little agitated for some reason. She craned her neck to the thick, gray clouds blocking most of the scathing sunlight. It's better that way. Sweat was the last thing Arya wanted to worry about this early in the day.
When she reached her stop via the wirebus, she fixed her hat, making sure her horn stumps weren't showing. She should have done a proper fixing instead of merely throwing her locks in a hurry before she left the flat. The walk to the Postal Quarters started from the shed the wirebus dropped her off before stretching past an alley of restaurants and taverns. She passed the usual steakhouse she and Eury always ate in during lunch breaks. As usual, it was still closed so early in the morning.
People streamed past her, faster than what she was used to. She had to swerve to the side to avoid colliding with people coming from behind and jogging north like it was a matter of life and death. Arya knitted her eyebrows. What's going on there? Was there a weekday price-drop she didn't know about? Eury would have told her yesterday, though.
The bend to take her to the Postal Quarters came up. Arya was about to tackle it when her periphery brushed against a crowd gathered in a semi-circle around something. She screeched into a stop. A shiver ran down her spine as an ominous feeling settled deep in her gut. What's...going on there?
Slowly, she stepped away from the bend and trudged to the gathered crowd. No one gave her a wide berth. Whispers and low chatter filled her ears. Something about someone deserving what they got. Something about someone asking for it.
Something about someone knowing too much for her own good.
Arya's stomach twisted further. Those muttered words shouldn't mean anything to her but they did. They did. It couldn't be...
She began elbowing people, murmuring under her breath for them to steer clear, to let her pass. Her legs shook, her knees threatening to give out from under her. It couldn't be. It couldn't.
Her memories, her dreams, played in a loop at the back of her mind. When she closed her eyes, they were all she saw. She knew. Gods, she knew this would happen. Why hasn't she done anything?
Because it couldn't be.
She stumbled out of the innermost line of people and came to the actual subject of the commotion. Her whole body froze.
Blood.
It was everywhere.
Like her dream. Like the warning given off by whoever was cruel enough to let her see this scene twice, across two different lifetimes, separated by hundreds, if not, thousands of years. It couldn't be. But it was.
