Angels in Freefall

A mechanical girl who wanted nothing more than to perform, and her introduction to a world shattered by the careless use of magic.

Her world was perfect, moments before it reached its end.

She stretched high on her toes with confidence, bringing silver arms overhead in a flourish, like the rapid blossoming of a flower. The curtains on either side danced with elusive sparkles, and the one who watched her did so with perfect regard, the sort of smile that fed her soul. A goblet of wine forgotten in one hand as he beheld her performance, and beyond, the lights of the waning night shone like constellations through picture windows.

As if she had been lifted to dance among the stars, and at the bidding of the tune, her leading foot carried her into a dizzying spin.

Her vision fell across those full-length windows for only instants at a time in its process, but that was enough for her to see. Dawn's first hints crawling gold on what little she could glimpse of the horizon. A flicker far higher, silver and cold, perhaps the beginning of an oddly timed storm.

Yet it grew, more and more, with each time she spun back toward the view. Spreading like spilled water, eating the clouds with its crackling edges. He was no longer watching her, turned in his chair to observe the new spectacle, and that leading foot trailed against the floor to bring her to a gradual halt.

The sky was devouring itself in an ocean of screaming static, and through it, she was almost certain that she could see. Hints of strange images, new things, twisted in crimson and flashing too quickly to be made out. That scream was only building, and the windows gave way before it, showering to the floor in countless beautiful shards.

He was stumbling back from their assault, hands thrown high to protect his face. When he turned to her, it was with rivulets of red migrating down face and chest, torn through by the sheer force of shrapnel. The wind was unleashed on their private room, tearing at the curtains and scattering that glass further. Lashing at hair and dress as she reached out to him, taking her first step from the small stage that she'd so enjoyed.

With that step, the world buckled beneath them both. Somewhere in the dozen storeys that separated them from the ground, the stone was shifting sideways, tilting the room's contents inexorably toward those shattered windows. The shards were pouring free like water, and the suddenness of it all took her feet from beneath her, scrambling for a hold on anything that might be solid enough to arrest her fall.

But he was sliding as well, rolling far more freely. His passage left a trail of bloody crimson across the floor, and as best she could, she directed her movements toward his. Reaching out for one of the hands with which he grasped so futilely, brushing his fingers with the cold weight of her own.

A moment's fleeting contact, made even as they reached the room's edge together. Gravity tore him from her grasp, and they were falling separately through the shrieking air.

Among fragments of shining glass, each turning separately to catch the sky's new light. Once again, she was floating among makeshift stars, but all of the grace that she knew so well had abandoned her. There was no surface on which she could find purchase, and she flailed in desperation as the roof of a far lower structure rose to meet her.

“Hey- hey, look at this. Is that...”

Was someone calling? She hadn't meant to let herself run idle. Would she be scolded for her inattentiveness?

“It can't f- it is. Shades alive, it is! Get it out of there, come on, lend me a hand!”

Something had closed warm over her wrist, flesh and blood pulsing against the polished metal of her body. Why couldn't she see?

Optics were functioning, faithfully transmitting their signal. Yet all they would reveal was darkness, and most of her limbs were stubbornly motionless.

The realization was cause enough for panic, but even that accomplished so little. Three limbs were still utterly stationary, and the fourth had been wrenched from that warm grip, prompting a stream of unfamiliar words with the harshness of curses.

“It's awake,” that gruff voice was announcing overhead. “Grab the rope.”

Meaning unknown, intent unknown, until something else was lowered to encircle her wrist. The rough, unforgiving braid of the aforementioned rope, closing tight as it was pulled from above.

But its insistent tug was not enough to free her. The weight that pinned most of her body would not acknowledge that paltry effort, and if she wasn't able to tell them so, they would only succeed in damaging her arm.

The thought should have been impetus enough for all that allowed her to project her voice, the wires and speakers that transmitted her notions into the world at large. Yet something was seizing deep within her chest, the repetitive click of mechanisms pushing against a failing part. The words would not find their way through, reduced to a tremulous murmur octaves below that which she had intended.

Pain. Trembling in those parts as they ground to a halt again, abruptly reviving itself as a stronger tug on the rope caused her to cry out. A high, warbling, pointless note, communicating so little as she-

Then mercy, and relief. Something was shoving at the stubborn obstructions that held her limbs, and she could move her other arm by centimetres. A freedom that she used to assist the unseen samaritan, bracing her palm against that considerable weight and forcing it upward as best she could manage.

Stone, irregular in size and shape. Masonry cracked and worn, packed in close about her body. Realizing her predicament only increased her frantic determination to escape from it, worming her way loose with every new centimetre of mobility. Light was beckoning from overhead, a silver glow between leaning stones, and the one who held the rope was no longer tugging so thoughtlessly. Instead guiding her progress, ensuring that she didn't slip back into her previous confinement.

The light and woven braids were her guidance, her hope. Goading her on as she assisted the efforts of her rescuers, pushing herself high to thrust her free hand through that blessed gap in the stone.

The warmth was back, intertwining with her fingers and lifting her toward the light. The masonry was crumbling to dust on either side, and so suddenly, she found herself hanging in open air. One arm held by rope, the other by human fingers, lowering her slowly to sit against the ruins that had contained her.

Ruins. She had been-

Falling in her final memory. Her optics had reliably delivered every moment of the descent, and for once, she had wished for proper eyes that she could shut. Arms had been raised uselessly to protect her head, and then...

Then nothing. Then the dark, and two strangers coaxing her free.

Looming, dirty men, their shirts marked with plentiful stains and their bare arms bound by bandages. Bearded and weather-worn, regarding her with something close to dubious hope.

Behind them, the world stretched grey and shattered as far as her body would allow her to discern. Rolling hills of rubble and dust, like a desert sifted by the slightest breath of wind. That silver luminescence danced free wherever shards of glass protruded from the disarray, and tilting her head back toward the sky ruined her fragile comprehension of that which surrounded her.

The sun still boldly shone, but its rays were cast in fragments, obscured by the mysterious layer that dominated the heavens. Elusive and distorted, far too familiar. Like the intertwining of static and dark that had dominated the sky prior to her fall, a herald of the pitching, the breaking, the...

But it was broken already, all of it. She couldn't be in the same place, in the city of silver towers and streets that shone as veins of light. It could never have fallen that way, it had been so much more solid and real than her. She had braced open fingers against its walls, and it had been immovable, as though sprouting up from the very stone beneath the earth's surface.

It all simply couldn't be gone.

Her first attempt to rise was restrained by another cold, clicking spasm, bringing one hand to her chest against a pain that she couldn't hope to mend. Inches short of its destination, it slowed to a halt, and she finally found the time to behold her own body's damage.

Tarnished fingers, bending at far more angles than should have been possible. The arm to which they were attached was pitted and torn, wounds old or deep enough that probing the limb caused her no additional pain. The pale fabric that had concealed it like a bird's spreading wing was unrecognizable, reduced to a few scant shreds at the elbow and wrist.

She had fallen. She had been buried, wounded, and had lain in the dark long enough for the agony to numb itself. For the ruined world to sift and crumble, but that still wasn't possible, because-

“Think it's broken?”

They were still regarding her as one, and hope was giving way to disapproval. The thicker and paler of the two stooped to examine her more closely, and for the first time in her life she shrank back from the attention of another being.

Why? So hard to say. Something behind his eyes that reminded her far too much of the restless sky, its shifting, ominous layers. His hand was extended to her, hanging motionless in the air, and all prior experience told her that she was meant to take it.

Still, something trembled in her core as she laid her hand atop his, watching in silence as he turned her dented, perforated limb upside and down in the light. Those wild brows had drawn tight and troubled, his grip immovable as he rose without releasing her fingers. Forcing her to find her feet as well, chittering in pained protest as her body continued to disallow words.

With her balance found, however, it seemed that she'd be able to keep it. Miraculously, everything that allowed her to imitate a human stance was intact and cooperative, shifting by the smallest fractions of centimetres as her weight settled against their guidance.

“Not so much that it can't work,” the man who gripped her hand announced in a voice like glass and gravel. “Looks as though our luck's finally turning around.”

The world through which they led her was a shadow, a poor memory of all that it had once been. Fields of rubble unrecognizable as the structures that had stood there before, and the nagging ache in her chest felt as though it had more than mechanical causes.

It had all been perfect. A dress finer than any she'd worn before, an audience of one that still managed to provide as much attention as her heart could contain. The music, spilling over itself like water dripping from bent, glistening leaves.

He would have been broken by such a fall. Ruined more thoroughly than those buildings, bones protruding from skin like struts through the torn fabric of a tent. He was gone, and everything else had been taken with him.

She had not meant to slow her pace, and a firm hand against her back forced her to keep it. Driving her onward as quickly as she could manage, bare feet plowing through dust and glass worn as smooth as the same. She did not have to ask whether it was her choice to accompany them that way, not looking at the thicker man who led and the rope still coiled about his hands. They may have been pleased to find and regard her, but it was not in any way that seemed to feed her crafted heart.

Then she would stop, far sooner than later. The spark of delight they'd felt upon finding her must have been enough for those minutes of activity, but it wouldn't last, and she had no easy means of making it apparent to them. Something clicking and straining in the path of her voice, fingers too twisted and broken to write. Somehow, they had to be told of what she needed.

Perhaps she could show them. If they would slow that dogged pace for only a few seconds, she would find a way to reveal her hunger through gesture and nonverbal sound. She would make them understand, even if it meant-

As though the yearning of her heart had somehow reached him, the one who led was beginning to slow. Not to a halt, however �" enough to raise a hand, to point across the dunes of rubble to something hardly distinguished from the same.

Demarcated by masonry and metal, makeshift walls that looked as though a strong enough wind would sweep them aside in pieces. The opening in their closest side was hardly wide enough for the passage of a single being walking straight, and within, hints of activity made themselves apparent.

Crossing the gap this way or that, lingering long enough to shout or answer words that she could not distinguish from that distance. Moments of life framed in the approaching doorway, an eagerness that sped every part responsible for putting her in motion.

So near. If those within were surprised to see her, their attention captured in any sort of positive manner, then it would be enough to sustain her for days. Weeks, perhaps, if she was clever enough about endearing herself to them thereafter.

She would remain awake long enough to discover what had happened to the world, and how it might be set to rights.

Those who led and escorted did not hesitate to usher her through that opening, and as warmth spread like spiderwebs through her chest, it became clear that she was regarded as closely as she had hoped. Those nearby were pausing, turning to stare, their arms wrapped in plentiful bandages and faces smudged with dirt. Ragged as those who had brought her there, looking to her with something far too much like hope.

Was that the place where they lived?

It hardly seemed possible, so far removed from the silver towers of her memory. Sheets of corrugated metal and the most mobile slabs of masonry had been assembled into rough squares within those guarding walls, hardly fit for more than blocking the weather's whims. Most had no proper doors, nor windows, and the light that shone through their borders made it clear how far they were from waterproof.

Like toys, like what a child would build from blocks. She had never heard of humans attempting to live that way, and couldn't imagine that they found it very comfortable to try.

“That's a golem,” one of them was exclaiming nearby, a woman of few years and painfully slight build. “Isn't it? Where did you find such a thing?”

The man who had led seemed to feed on attention as thoroughly and gleefully as she did, swelling with pride to recount his accomplishment. “North of here,” he boomed in announcement, “Pile of rubble five minutes' walk from the gate, looks like it used to be some sort of residential building. Get Gilf and his workers in there on the morrow �" who knows what else we might dig up?”

Scavengers. She had never been torn in quite that way before, standing with fingers closed as tightly as possible over her arms. Still bending in the wrong directions, inside as well as out �" why did it bother her to hear them speak that way?

Because the pile of rubble they discussed so easily had been home, and they didn't care. With smiles on their faces, they would pillage it for whatever hadn't broken or rotted away.

At the same time, letting her vision trail across their miserable settlement again, it was clear just how badly they needed whatever they might find. Those who approached looked as though they had seen months of desperation, skin drawn as tight as canvas over bone. Concealed by rags, looking to her with expressions that made her insides tremble anew.

They needed what she was meant to offer, didn't they? A happy distraction, the sight of something beautiful. Whatever damage had been done to her body, it wouldn't prevent her from stretching onto her toes, and every part of her seemed to prime itself for the movements that were meant to follow.

But a thick, unforgiving hand had closed over her wrist again, that of the thicker, louder man. Bringing her abruptly off-balance, forcing her to stumble in a way that her shattered insides and sense of rhythm absolutely hated. Those who had gathered were parting around him, and without loosening his grip, he strode through their midst toward one of the closest, largest structures in that makeshift town.

“It's going to do us a lot of good,” he was proclaiming to those who followed, as though leading a parade or announcing a performance onstage. “Damaged or no, these things are brilliant �" put a tool in its hand, and it'll have this place set to rights within days, you mark my words.”

He couldn't mean what it sounded as though he meant. Bringing her to an abrupt halt before the structure in question, close enough to see how it sagged at the roof's edge and gaped around the corners of its rare door. Problems, plain to see, but she had never been taught or programmed to-

He had stooped for something abandoned at its base, straightening to hold the claimed object in her direction. A tool of some sort, or so she could only guess by what he'd said before. She had never seen something of that shape before, awkward angles welded together in a way that didn't look as though it could be good for anything.

When he continued to stare, she reached out reluctantly to claim it from his hand. Heavier than she would have guessed, pitted and cold. Rusted in far too many places, just as confusing as it had been before she'd placed her fingers around it. Could she even be sure what end was to be held, and which was to be applied to the structure in front of her?

“Go on,” the loud man urged her with dark, impatient attention. “Fix it.”

Fix it? It was a pile of trash in loose formation. As near as she could tell, only gravity held it in its current shape, and even that seemed ready to abandon its struggle. If she could have spoken in that moment, she would have suggested tearing it down to the ground and building properly in its place.

But how would one build properly with the materials on hand? The tool she'd never seen before, the metal weak enough for holes to be rusted directly through it. They were building from the ruins of what had been in that place before, and it wasn't going to work.

The sound that left her was more tremulous than she had planned, high and imploring. Yet it wouldn't form, wouldn't filter through the systems that were meant to make words. Only by raising her arms to shrug with the tool in hand could she communicate that she simply didn't know.

When she did, the change in his face made her mistake immediately apparent. The blood behind it seemed close to a boil, rising to redden his cheeks and swelling his eyes in their sockets. Something beyond anger, yet more broken, something for which she'd never been given a word.

Something that urged him into sudden motion, a hand planted firm and splayed against her chest. That high note left her chest again, more abrupt in its beginning and end as he shoved her from her centre of balance.

Broken and miscalibrated limbs couldn't react quickly enough to the movement, and the tool left her hands as she met the coarse gravel of the ground. The faces that loomed above were disappointed or simply dismissive, save for that of the looming man, which still darkened with rage overhead.

It was the first time. The first time, in all of her existence, that she'd made a mistake she could not even attempt to fix.

She could not have anticipated how quickly such a feeling could become ugly familiarity. The world was broken, and in what little of it had been repaired, there was no place for someone like her.

Her hands would not close naturally around the grip of a tool, and her optics would not tell her what was needed to make a building stand strong. Her limbs quaked to move as they once had, and she had never truly understood how disappointment might cause someone to cling to something beyond reason.

Hadn't understood until reality itself had resolved to teach her, or so it felt when she pulled herself so tightly into the most weather-tight corner of that silent room. Folding arms and legs together in the smallest, closest way that she could manage, resting her head atop them in an attempt to blot out all that she could see. There she waited, in the closest thing to darkness that she could create, and hoped for something to change before she had cause to move again.

Some spark from out of the shadows that her metallic body contained. Some understanding of what she was meant to do in such a situation, how she could reclaim the expressions with which people had once favoured her.

She would have helped, she would have tried, but her body betrayed her in the attempt to become proficient at something new. Nails would slip from fingers that had been bent roughly back into shape, and the harsh, repetitive motions required for most repairs ground painfully in her joints. If there was a way, she couldn't guess what-

The slam of a door swinging wide was enough to make her jolt, drawing more deeply into the shadows, as though she could learn to spontaneously disappear. But as the door resounded in its closing, banishing the light that it had briefly admitted, he was always quick to look to her. Brows furrowed and nostrils flared at the sight of her, but for once, no words of bitter criticism oozed from his lips. Instead he stalked firmly across the room to the table that occupied its corner, surface splintered, two legs uneven. There he deposited that which he'd carried in the crook of one arm, turning abruptly to stomp back toward the door that had admitted him.

Only when it had slammed again in his wake did she dare to move. Slowly, obediently, her limbs folded out of their current arrangement, and she crossed the slats of the makeshift floor in order to inspect what had been left.

Square in shape, irregular in surface. Wood and metal, perhaps the size of her own head. Some manner of tense, immovable mesh at its front, a long, gaping crack in the lowest edge of its back.

It was with a start that she realized �" only dust and damage had rendered it unfamiliar to her. Such a thing had been seen before, polished and new, sitting on tables amidst the silk and perfume of salons or banquet halls. Wherever there was a need for unobtrusive music.

The thought seemed to strangle her inside, closing tight over all that she felt and drowning it in desperation. It had been so long since she'd heard, since she'd played. Since there had been any music in her life whatsoever.

It had to be broken beyond use. Whatever time it had taken for the world to deteriorate in such a way, that stalwart radio would have spent wearing down to the point of obsolescence. She couldn't dare to hope, even as she pressed the tip of a silver finger to one of the buttons that lined its top.

The spark was sudden enough to be a surprise, the hint of energy passed between her and the machine to which she tended. It seemed to linger in the hand that she pulled so abruptly away, cradling it in the other as she searched it for any sign of damage.

But there was none to be found, and the hiss of static had invaded that dingy room.

It couldn't be. It had to be broken, no use, no longer needed or working. Because-

The first sweet, meandering notes found their way through the dust-clotted speakers, and every part of her seemed to tremble in answer. Hardly audible, yet it was as beautiful as everything that she remembered, perfect as nights that had been spent spinning beneath the stars. When her limbs had been draped in coloured silk, and she had been loved for what came most naturally.

Slowly, she pulled herself closer to that low table, laying her arms atop the struggling radio and pressing her forehead to its front. Where she could feel nearest to its resilient mechanisms, the parts of it that were most like her.

They were together in that struggle, weren't they? Two useless things in a world that had once cared so much for them. It understood, more than the people who struggled in that meagre settlement ever could.

Yet it was not like her. A machine, absent the spark of life that she claimed from her heart.

The heart that seemed to grind more slowly with each passing day, suspended and coddled by wire deep within her chest. The settlement was faring no better than it had before her arrival, and with each week that passed, the large man seemed more eager to blame her for the fact. Reddened face, fists like hammers, fingers like the grip of shaking vises. He would return hungry and stained with dirt, and when his eyes fell fierce on her, she braced herself against the brunt of his desperate anger.

The reason she endured �" if she was truly honest with herself, it was an ugly one. On that course, the settlement would fail soon enough, and none of them would survive without it. She would be the only one who remained when there was no water to be drawn or food to be found.

Then she would take the radio that watched her pain from that uneven table, and she would wander out into the wastes alone. Even if she ground to a halt before finding others who would love her, the next person who found her there would have to be kinder.

The next person wouldn't throw her against the wall that way, spitting desperate curses at her on account of their own struggle. Soon, there would be no thick hands to close around her wrists, hauling her upright only to dash her down again.

There she lay, clicking within as her mechanisms struggled to absorb the shock of the experience. Overhead, he stalked this way and that, spitting broken words at the air as much as at her.

“And she wouldn't be dead,” he hoarsely insisted, “If you would just do what it is a golem's meant to do. What is it? What is it that makes you hate us so much that you could just sit there and watch us die?”

Was that the motive he'd chosen to assign to her in that day's rant? Hate? Not once, in all of those months, had he guessed that she would help if she only knew how. That if he had been patient with her, had let her work within her body's limits, she would have done what she could for the sorry, failing settlement.

But they were far beyond that, weren't they? Even if he had apologized in that minute, had offered her a tool and promised to teach her its use, she would have refused. She'd have cast it aside, the way he did when he wanted to put his hands on her instead, because people like him deserved to die.

Deserved to waste away there, amidst the ruins of a world that had been far more beautiful than they could ever imagine.

“This is the only thing you've ever got to work,” he roared in a tone that sounded nearly giddy in its madness. One hand thrust toward the silent radio in indication. “The one thing, and it's as useless as you are. You're a joke, you-” Words seized in his throat as a new impulse seemed to take him, turning him abruptly toward the radio in full. An intent that could be read in his posture, shoulders squared, hands drawn tight again. When one of those fists was raised high over the defenceless radio, it was confirmed, and impulse took her as well.

Forcing her up from where she had been sprawled across the uneven floor, ignoring the way her body continued to click and groan in protest. With all the momentum she could manage, she threw herself forward, catching hold of his shoulder in a vain attempt to lower that threatening arm.

Even as her hands closed over it, he spun, casting her aside again. Tumbling against the wall that stood alongside the door, closing in on every spasm that her body forced her to endure. As it struggled to set itself to rights, she pushed herself up on hands and knees, turning her head in a vain attempt to sort out the stiffness that had seized her neck.

And there it was �" the spark for which she'd waited so long. The knowledge, clear and simple, of what she had to do.

His attention had lingered on her only long enough for the spitting of a curse, and he'd turned back to the radio, no doubt intent on punishing her for what was seen as her cruel inaction. Her body was cooperative enough to bring her back to her feet, and in the closest corner was the tool he had thrown aside upon entering.

For once, her fingers settled tight around its handle, and its weight felt natural in her hand. She knew its heft as she knew her own body, and as his fist was raised high again, her arm lifted in mimicry of the movement.

Never had she brought it down with such strength. Every part of her body, swinging the weight of that tool forward and down against the back of his neck. He was stumbling in response, and it was all of the encouragement that she needed to repeat the motion.

A thin spray of blood was released from where it struck his skull, and for a vital moment, he was down on one knee. She fell on him with abandon, beyond thought, raising and dropping that dented tool with all the strength and speed of repetition that her limbs would allow.

He met the floor on his back, reaching up with hands that no longer seemed to move under his control. She took advantage of that new access to his reddened face and bulging eyes. His hands fell away, and she had to be certain that they would remain flat against the floor.

That face, twisted so often in rage, was no longer recognizable as what it had once been. Blackened and pulverized where it wasn't pooling red, and something in her shoulder was seizing anew, preventing the movement that had dominated her for what felt like the passing of minutes.

He wasn't moving any longer, and never would.

The thought seemed to douse her in that momentary hush, stunning and electrifying her with its implications. Joy and terror met and mingled as the tool, warped beyond its original shape and use, fell from her open fingers.

“Joseph?”

The word was a far worse jolt, turning her toward the door and the insistent pounding that sounded from beyond it. Too urgent, too persistent �" they must have heard.

“Joseph, are you all right?”

No, he wasn't all right. He was broken, and rightfully so, and they wouldn't understand. Even if she could speak to them in the words that they knew, they would never believe what she had to say. She had to leave, had to be gone before the caller grew worried enough to open the door. But where could she-

The evening's orange light rushed in upon her, admitted by the sudden opening of that rickety door. Her optics raced in an attempt to contain and quantify all that it revealed, and framed by its brilliance, two dark silhouettes stood in silent regard of what she had done.

She must have expected it.

The tense metal tie that bound her wrists together, the hastily erected pole to which they were fixed. The length of pipe that struck her side, opening a hairline crack in her surface.

She had to have realized that they wouldn't forgive her. When she'd taken up that tool for the first blow, she had known that it wasn't the start of a new freedom. Rather an end, the only swift escape for which she could have hoped.

Perhaps it was better than fading away. Focusing her vision on their furious faces, she could believe that she had done something to fight for herself. She had fought against something ugly, and the consequences were something that she could accept.

She wasn't a doll, and she had tried. She'd accomplished something for her own relief and release, and though they could try their best to break her, they would not succeed in taking that knowledge away.

It was what she clung to as the pipe fell again, a promise made to herself. Something beneath her surface was seizing even in an attempt at normal operations, and surely it wouldn't be much longer.

Perhaps someone would still find her, someday. They would repair what was left of her, and she would still have a chance at the future that she had imagined. Until then...

The sound was a jolt beyond any she'd experienced before, dashing her thoughts to pieces and drawing her taut against the imprisonment of the pole. Through blurring optics, she could see the surprise that it caused among those who had fallen on her in such anger. The way they pulled back and away, parting before something that she could not twist to see from that angle.

One of their voices was raised in hoarse, furious protest, broken about the edges. “This isn't ou-”

Interrupted before the complaint could be properly voiced, overpowered by the strength of a fierce, feminine voice. Too brash and abrupt to be musical, yet in that moment, it was the sweetest sound.

“You're all screaming for blood,” the new voice observed, drawing gradually closer to her line of vision, “And beating a girl. Somehow I doubt you've got the moral high ground in this situation. Now back off, or I paint what guts you've got across that wall.”

With that final word of warning, the owner of the new voice finally stepped within view. Recognition drew the golem as straight as she could stand against the pole's restraint, waking the memories that she'd almost abandoned in that dismal little village.

She'd seen such people before, little more than a metre in height and as narrow as human children. The one who stalked through that parting crowd, however, was no child. What she wore had been stained by weather and struggle, and her hands were experienced in the grip of the gun that she held against her shoulder. A tangle of vivid red curls could not conceal the horns that curved back above her ears, ridged and black as the unviolated night.

When that newcomer turned to regard her in full, it was with eyes like polished copper, wide in their interest and keen in their feeling. Lips parted to hint at the jagged nature of teeth within, and for the first time in far too long, kind words were spoken in her direction.

“Listen,” the other woman urged her, “It's going to be all right. Can you talk? Can you move?”

The former's answer was known, but the latter �" she hadn't dared to pull at that which bound her to the pole, not with so many near and angry. With the stranger's gun holding them at bay, however, she found the courage and opportunity to strain against her bindings.

Weaker than she would have expected, cracking against the persistent force of her body. A quiet, protracted creak heralded the breaking of metal, and her hands fell freely to her sides.

That small triumph was acknowledged by a nod of approval from the newcomer, and more firm, coaxing words. “If there's anything you can't bear to leave here,” her rescuer instructed her, “Grab it now. We're leaving.”

That was enough to prompt renewed protest from one of those who stood closest, who glared with the greatest fervency. “She killed one of our own,” he argued, provoking mutters of assent from those who were not too intimidated by the threat of the gun's twin barrels. “Bludgeoned him to death in cold blood. This won't-”

The voice of the newcomer, the red-headed puck, cut cold through his attempted explanation. “Look at her,” she instructed him with a sideways nod in indication. “Even from this distance, it's obvious. Not all that damage was done today, or all at once. If she killed one of you guttersnipes, I'm guessing she had cause. Now �" make so much as a move in her direction, and I blow out your knee.”

Leaving. Only when the other woman spoke with such strength in her defence did the golem dare to believe it. To be quit of that place and in safe company �" it was more than she could have hoped for in those long, lonely weeks. And it was encouragement enough to set her in motion, testing the limits of her damaged body with a few slow steps. When it failed to fail her, she quickened her pace, and those who had called for her destruction parted before her.

The newcomer moved to stride at her side, scanning the crowd with those narrowed, fascinating eyes. The golem knew her path, crossing the length of that sorry town to the house where she had been confined. Like leading a parade, far too aware of those who followed close behind. Those who would still see her shattered if an opportunity presented itself.

When the door was reached, the newcomer nodded for her to proceed. “Get whatever it is you need,” she ordered again, gesturing in vague acknowledgement of those who lingered close. “I'll keep an eye on them.”

She answered with a nod of her own, pushing aside the door that had admitted the man's hated figure so many times before. Amidst fury and vengeance, no one had bothered to move him, and her gaze fell cold upon the blood that congealed around his head. Her steps carried her across his stiffening form, and her arms were brought tight around the waiting radio.

With that cradled close to her chest, she turned to repeat her steps in reverse. Across his defeated body, to the door. Out into what little remained of the light, greeted by a dozen frowning faces and the only one who held them at bay.

The puck's attention trailed from the radio to her face, and another nod of affirmation was offered. “All right,” she repeated, firm and encouraging. “Just stay close. We're both walking out of here.” A sentence delivered more loudly, a clear challenge to those who stood nearby.

And more of an outrage than one of them was willing to accept. As he stepped forward, lips parted to protest, the gun bucked against the grip of its mistress. His belly was laid open, blossoming red, and the light in his eyes began to dim before he met the ground.

When the focus of that alarmed hush came to rest on the puck, she answered it with little more than a shrug. “My aim was off,” she dismissed the gun's echoing report and its ugly result. “Anyone else want to try? Might be more accurate next time.”

It didn't look as though any of the settlement's remaining residents were eager to gamble on that possibility. Silence reigned, and as though in a dream, the golem found herself walking toward that narrow gap in its makeshift walls. Her heart seemed to spin desperately at the thought, the possibility, the slim hope that was swiftly becoming a reality. The rest of her was held in quiet suspense as she preceded her rescuer through the opening, and slowly, her optics swept across the line of fiery colour that graced the horizon.

Fields of rubble and ruin, a world laid to waste. Yet for the first time, looking upon it gave her hope.

“Well, that was an ugly business,” her rescuer observed as she stepped through the narrow gap and continued to stride ahead. Turning to face the golem from three paces beyond, that gun finally lowered and her jaw split in a wide, welcoming grin. “I'm Iha,” she introduced herself, casting another of those sideways nods in indication of the shattered world at large. “Seems like we've both got a knack for finding ourselves in trouble �" what say we go see what sort we can dig up together?”