and her name meant sorrow

{FOUR//fire}

deirdre hands the strange girl a rusty metal mug, filled with hot, yet slightly murky, water. "you don't have to drink it," she says, cradling her own mug of similar description. "just hold it. it'll warm you up." she watches as celia slowly gets more comfortable sitting on a mossy log around a rudimentary fire – watches her relax, her bones melt out of their ice.

she's met many girls and boys, men and women, that have washed up on her piece of shore. she asks them how their day's going, and they respond by letting their tongues loll out of their mouths. but this one – celia, a beautiful name deirdre's never heard - moves, her joints free and her limbs akimbo of their own accord. it all seems a bit fantastical, thinks deirdre, and notices celia staring at a spot just above her head.

"is there a spider in my hair?" asks deirdre.

"uh, no," says celia, as if she's hiding something.

"no, really, what is it?" deirdre presses, combing a hand through her ivory locks, not feeling any arachnids.

celia coughs. "you have...horns?"

deirdre laughs. "yeah! i'm a myst." celia just looks at her. "we're the race who live here. there's different types of mysts – my friend viv is a mer-myst, she has a tail and can breathe water. then there's tree-mysts, they live in treehouses and fetch fruit and berries. i'm a horned myst. we just sort of... pick up where everybody else left off."

"what do you mean by that?" asks celia.

"well," says deirdre. "my assignment is to find things that wash up on shore. the mer-mysts lure sailors into storms and sink them, so naturally some things end up here. like that cup you've got!" celia subtly places it down. "every so often real people wash up. of course, they're always dead. usually i bury them somewhere, taking their clothes and possessions if they've got any. but you..."

"...aren't dead?" celia ventures a guess. deirdre nods. "you steal from corpses? does that not seem a little disrespectful?"

deirdre's a bit shocked by this accusation. "disrespectful? my family need their possessions more than a dead person does. the key concept being that they're still alive, generally."

celia sighs. "i didn't mean that – deirdre, right," a nod, "you said you take their clothes? then why aren't you-"

"i told you, i'm skyclad." deirdre defends herself.

"see, now, you've said that a few times and i still don't know what it means."

deirdre notices her mug has gone cold and, assuming celia's is the same, she empties the water into a billy hanging over the fire. "it's what we wear while we're at work."

"why are you naked at work?"

"we're also skyclad for rituals and ceremonies. it's so we're closer to nature – it's more of a traditional thing, really."

"and you're okay? with being naked?"

deirdre folds her arms over her chest, suddenly insecure. "why wouldn't i be? everyone else is."

there's a long beat of silence. "you're not at work any more, are you?" asks celia.

"no."

"and you're not about to attend a ritual or ceremony?"

"...no, why-"

"can you put your clothes on now?"