GAMBLE ON GREED

Dorothea

Dorothea Feodorova waltzed with her power as every living creature did with Death. It was a gamble on circumstances, on choices and on greed. When with time to dwell on it, she realized she survived until now by sheer luck and how she wanted this life more than anything else in the world. But her dreams never failed to remind her of the cruel verdict delivered when she was only in her teens, and she knew there was no escaping it. Such a blessing - shaped like a two sharp pointed sword – scrapped the edges of mockery, for one of the blades always stood inches from stabbing her straight into her heart. Was there anything fouler than being a victim to that that was part of oneself?

Every night, tears of the water spirits illuminated the dark infinity to reveal the nothingness created in her subconscious where she was kept against her wishes. Each wave found their way back to her, like hands gripping her ankles and yanking her from her bed to the deep blue foam which they melted back into. The jackals of the most loyal servant of the deity - the high sea as sailors called it in their laments - wailed like lost souls about a doomed destiny and disrupted realms meant to stay apart. How the dead are not meant to walk among the living and how the latter should never meddle with the natural order.

She returned from her nightmares with a single sentence of these warnings dawdling on her lips, escaping her like a breath she had clung onto for too long.

Those who live and die in evil, evil is all they know.

Snapping her eyes open, she was faced with the blue of her bedroom ceiling and the glittering stars she had stuck up there when a child. It was supposed to bring her peace, stars known for guiding men of the sea back to safety, but every morning, after the same old dream, Dorothea doubted anything could ever ease her troubled mind. The scent of salt in her room brought her to check her hair and her clothes to find them dry.

It was not real. It never was.

Her head sunk further down into her warm pillow. Amidst the morning quiet, her mind diverged from her surroundings, the chaotic murmur of the sea and the forewarning song carving a hole in her chest, where a heavy feeling settled, mistaking it for its nest. And after so many years of dreams - of struggle, it might as well be.

Dorothea was brought back from her thoughts by the squeaking of the door's rusty hinges. She glanced at the floor where she first spotted the book she had fallen asleep reading, followed by one of her godmother's cats, Oto, with its long brown fur and natural scowl which could only mean-

'Oh, no.' She was late for work and her godmother did not tolerate tardiness. At least not from her. Leaping from her bed, Dorothea stumbled over herself and rushed to the first set of clothes she unearthed from the pile near her desk. Every minute now contributed to her doom.

One of the laces of her old brown boots threatened to come undone as she dashed down the street, skirts gathered in her hand and her bag swinging at her side while her hope of catching the tram burned like a wooden stick. The next one would take another hour and, by then, Dorothea would not dare to set foot in her godmother's bakery. It was easier to pretend to have fallen ill than to face that woman's wrath.

The wind disheveled the unattended disarray of curls as she raced through the neighborhood. The tram had already departed when she spotted it, her tenacity pushing her legs to their limit as she yelled at the driver to wait. With only her tenacity on her side, she threw her bag to the steps of the tram, aiming to secure her place where a man and a woman offered their hands to help her. With much effort, they heaved her up, bringing her to the first step, their tight grasp around her arms slackening only when her feet were no longer on the ground.

'Quite the adventure, Miss!' The man blew out as he fanned himself with his hat. Summers in King's Port were ruthless, with the air growing thicker the closer they were to midday and only becoming easier to breathe when the moon was already up high in the sky.