Hide Your Fires

Chapter Two: One Tree

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✧Ninyel✧

In the little capital of our little country, we hang stars from gallows. We watch them dangle, blotting their glow with paints our grandparents mixed. We dance, waving our hands, flicking our wrists, shooing away the sky. We show the stars they are not welcome here. Stay where you are, say our snapping tongues of fire. We don't want the pain you bring. Our home belongs to us.

As if.

I know the way the world works. Prayers won't stop the stars. Human hopes won't tether them to the moon that minds us every night. Stars fall. We have the expertise to map out where they'll land. We don't have the equipment to stop them- So even if a star breaks its sphere and plummets down to join us- it's all for naught. If the Shining One wants us, the Shining One will take us.

I have better ways to spend a Saturday night than wishing on stars. Or I would- if Gran wasn't so zealous, and if Nan wasn't worried about my social life. But they are what they are, so here I am, stains on my fingertips and my heart.

"Hey! Bird girl!"

My sparkler sizzles and so does my blood. I'd burn straight through Daniyal Abano and his guest with the force of my glare if only my glasses weren't splattered with ritual ink.

"Bird girl!"

Grit from the sparkler grinds into my palm. For a moment, I consider throwing it at him: scalding Daniyal and scolding him at the same time. But that's beneath me, isn't it? So is answering to 'Bird Girl'.

"Hey, Bird girl! I'm talking to you!"

But that doesn't stop me from doing it.

My sparkler plants an ashy kiss on the boy. I smirk, crossing my arms as Dainyal nearly leaps into his friend's.

"What was that for!? I just wanted to talk."

"Did you? Because I didn't once hear you call my name."

"You know very well what I meant by-" Words trail off, fading like the hanged stars on this sacred festival night. The other boy pushes forward, blocking Daniyal from my fists, my knees, my feet.

I groan. Louder when the stranger bows.

"Ninyel Gorrah, Revered Guardian of the Korsai?"

I can't blame Daniyal for rolling his eyes. It's ridiculous: both tone and title. Neither means much anymore. Not since the Abanos decided they were something special.

"Korsa," I grit, glaring at my boots. "There's only one."

"And like I said, it's not much to look at."

"She's a lot to look at, thank you very much!"

"Right. I'm sorry. The world's ugliest bird together with Oa's ugliest woman is a sight to behold."

Spitting isn't dignified. Toeing the dirt and charging isn't dignified. Scowling is as good as I'll get. Wing-like sleeves frame my discontent. It's time to leave. I know it. Daniyal knows it. But the stranger isn't from around here.  He looks at Daniyal as if he's invited the rage of a wrathful god, not just insulted little ol' me. The worst I can do is hit him. But then we'd be at a stalemate- do I answer to his great grandfather, the Patriarch? Or does all of Oa answer to almighty Shideh and her protectors?

"My cousin wants to see her."

"The ugliest woman in Oa? I'm afraid I don't know where your mama is, Daniyal. Now, if you'll excuse me-" My wings aren't clipped but they're caught all the same. Caught in the grip of the foreign stranger who recoils at my surprise and lets me go at once.