Vanessa

SPOKEN ON A NIGHT WALK

I was done, once. Curled up in an alley with the acid rain finding every gap in my coat, and I remember thinking that was as far as I needed to go. Then this ridiculous, singing boy told me to look for flowers in the rust. I thought he was simple. I know now he just saw something I couldn't yet.

Billiard keeps everyone's spirits up by staying where the light already is. I love him for it. But somebody has to go where the light isn't, and find out what's actually happening in the dark, and I decided a long time ago that somebody would be me.

I've walked past the Governor's window more nights than I can count. I've watched Merize's eyes move over a crowd like he's counting sins instead of people, and I've learned exactly what he can't see, though I'll keep that to myself a while longer. I've heard Stolgia's molten iron hiss in the dark like it's breathing. None of it frightens me the way it should. Fear is a door that only opens one way if you let it, and I decided years ago I was only walking through the other side of it.

The city wants us to think the old stories are foolish — that giants and dragons were just something to tell children so they'd behave. I don't think that anymore. I think they took the stories away because a people who believe in something bigger than the Democracies are a people who can't be fully owned. I intend to find out exactly what they're so afraid we'll remember.

He keeps the alleyways singing. I keep the city honest, whether it wants me to or not.