red admiral.

až

—5. select start.

in the beginning.

_

to say you have delayed reaction time would be an understatement. this has resulted in four major incidents in your mildly pathetic seventeen years around people, generally.

one: when you were five, for six months, you could not hold a spoon. or a spear. this was generally trained our of you via grabbing variously shaped objects for thirty minutes at a time. you were holding something above your head and let go—your sister found you asleep on the floor, forehead spattered purple and yellow.

two: when you were seven, you were hit over the head by.. something, and found jerking around on the floor, or so you've heard. your mother held you until you stopped shaking.

three: when you were eleven, you were found in your room, jagged glass all around you—you, face down in the floor, blood pooling around your head like a cursed crown.

four: when you were fourteen—and you remember how this starts—you were talking with màožyk about something and—you must've spaced out—got hit in the shoulder by.. you can't really remember. it was rather sharp, though, and belonged to some assassin; you were awake for this, and màožyk was panicked but you were staring blank eyed. then you tripped; which concludes your tetralogy of clumsiness.

you're most definitely forgetting more—but getting hit in the head that many times makes for bad memory. not that you had awe inspiring, photographic memory, to begin with. still; you probably wouldn't be forgetting your girlfriend's (?) name while you're sitting across from her.

it's not that you don't know it. it's just. on the tip of your tongue. ronìka? veraìna? you're pretty sure it's veraì, or something in that realm. she's saying something along the lines of how she hates her new classmate―which you completely understand. you know you've felt that before. you nod along, somewhat mindlessly, to her cut-throat analysis of this classmate of hers—reimaaik? how do you romanize that? rèymāik. how do you say that? say what? what were you saying?

"i think," you say, "i'm going to go to sleep, now. i'm kinda tired."

these chairs out in this garden were absurdly comfortable, but you haven't slept on warm grass in a long time. you miss the feeling of sunlight blanketing over your face and summer crawling around you—it isn't quite cold enough that you have trouble relaxing. you're dressed in warm layers and a fur petticoat that some boy with a—a curse word for a name? your cousin? your—who was he? you're sure you're related—but anyway, he said it made you look dreadful and as such, you wear it with a dawning sort of pride.

what a wonderful day to be alive!

"you should join me, yeah?" you mumble, half asleep on your back, head buried into your clothes closed. "it'll be.. fun. yeah? .. yeah, raì?"

"that's unsightly, žarì—" oh, cool, that's your name. you think you know something, and when someone brings it up, you get all shocked that you completely forget it. you think about it, just to keep the memory clean and even. žarì, as in žarìkōž. zh-ah-ree, ree as is real, as in reality. what were you talking about? žarì, as in hand of from the phrase kèd neōńidàō žarìkōž dežinakég, a passage in oški — with belief the hand of kōž will lead, kōž being a higher being, one above, in your head is the correlation of god but really is means peace, the god of peace, from kráošī: kōž bìtì kráošī. to follow the courts is to remain peaceful; there is an imbalance of power somewhere in this system.

you're tired.

"good thing nobody will see us." you open one eye and smile at her, her, her―you still don't know her name, "who knows what'll happen tomorrow, enjoy the now. you're tired all the time, right rèma?"