Saya's perspective
I've been walking for… fuck if I know. A day? Two? A week?
Time does weird things when your only companions are dehydration, foot pain, and the sun trying to cook your eyeballs from the outside in.
I slept next to a rock last night.
A rock.
Like some wild beast that's too broke for a den.
It wasn't even a good rock. Sharp on one side, damp on the other, smelled like piss and abandonment. I curled up in the tall grass, one arm over my head, and tried to pretend I wasn't itching everywhere. Ant punishment leftovers. Thanks for that, Sister Clarity. Truly unforgettable.
Dinner? Nonexistent.
Breakfast? Dreams.
Hope? Actively eroding.
The horizon's still flat. Flat like a tavern bouncer's sense of humor.
Not even a tree. No distant shimmer of water. No ruins to loot. Just miles of nature's version of "screw you."
And this… this is why they left me here.
They knew.
Knew exactly what this was — the kind of nowhere you only send people you don't expect to return. A place that doesn't even bother killing you dramatically. Just wears you down until you curl up next to a piss rock and quietly vanish.
Fine.
FINE.
I'll vanish.
But I'll do it on my own terms.
I'll vanish yelling. With blistered feet and a personal vendetta against the entire northern quadrant of this continent.
I lick my lips. Dry as old parchment. I suck on the goatskin for a drop of water. Still leaking. Still warm. Still tasting vaguely like wet sheep.
I squint at the sky.
"Alright, gods. You left me here. Let's see who breaks first."
And I keep walking.
Because what the hell else am I going to do? Lay down and get politely absorbed into the grass?
Fuck that.
Oh, you're wondering what happened to Loma?
That little backstabbing bitch.
The traitor. The human whimper factory. The one who ratted me out the moment Sister Clarity so much as arched an eyebrow. The girl who cried "I didn't know she'd drink the stout!" like we hadn't both been rolling in flour and stolen cheese two minutes earlier.
Yeah. Her.
Well.
She got snatched by a dragon.
Not my dragon. Oh no. Noooope. Not the ancient, gouty bastard who's supposed to care about me. Not the one who napped through my liberation and vanished while I was getting indoctrinated via ant bites. Not that dramatic coward.
No — this was a different dragon.
Random as hell. Turquoise. Bluish. Shiny. Younger. Nimble. Showoff.
We were mid-march, somewhere between the rock pits and whatever gods-forsaken training trench they were dragging us toward next, and out of the fucking sky — WHOMP WHOMP — there he was.
Wings like sails, eyes like bad ideas, claws like regret.
Plucked Loma right off the ground like she was a pastry in a street cart. Screamed a sound I will never be able to describe, did a twirl — a twirl, I shit you not — and vanished into the clouds.
Gone.
Poof.
The whole Sisterhood formation halted like someone hit pause. Mouths open. Spears frozen mid-swing. Someone dropped their drum.
I just stood there.
Flabbergasted.
Eyebrows halfway up my forehead.
Not out of concern.
Just sheer, unfiltered what-the-actual-fuckery.
Seriously. What are the odds?
Of all the people. Of all the moments.
And still, not my dragon.
Figures.
Loma hoped for her royal daddy to send an army.
Every other night she'd whimper it into her hammock. "When my father finds out…" "When my kingdom comes…" "There will be banners… a diplomatic envoy… reparations…"
Yeah. Well. Kingdom didn't come.
But a goddamn dragon did.
Meanwhile I — who may not have a crown, but sure as hell have more street sense, more scars, and significantly better thighs — I hoped for my dragon. The one I've fed. Nursed. Yelled at. Lied for. Stolen cheese wheels with.
The one who was supposed to swoop in when I needed him most, snatch me up like a damsel with bite, and disappear into the clouds, middle talon raised high.
But no.
Loma gets the kidnapping.
I get the wilderness.
Forty days in the fucking desert, like I'm some kind of barefoot prophetess waiting for a revelation. Dust in my teeth. Skin flaking off like pastry crust. Hair doing… things I don't even want to discuss. Every crevice of my body home to a different variety of grit.
What now?
Do I climb a rock and start delivering commandments?
Declare myself chosen?
Carve slogans into the sand with a stick and hope someone builds a religion around them?
"Thou shalt not fuck with Saya."
"Blessed are the petty."
"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the street rat."
Honestly. What is this pantheon even doing?
Every week it's a new celestial soap opera. Gods gambling with destinies, divine beasts showing up uninvited, visions handed out to shepherds with concussions. Half the temples contradict the other half, and all of them want your money.
Maybe I should start my own cult.
Sayaism. Patron saint of spite-fueled survival. Sacrament: bread roll and hard liquor. Rituals include cursing the sunrise, biting your enemies, and occasional petty theft. High holidays reserved for revenge.
And look — I know I'm not some shining example of piety. I lie. I cheat. I've got a foul mouth, a worse temper, and I've probably insulted at least four deities this week alone.
But still.
One of them. One. Up there in that glimmering pile of egos and incestuous legends. One lonely god or minor trickster spirit or drunk kitchen guardian might… might… take pity on me.
I'm not asking for much.
Just a sign.
A shortcut.
Maybe a fucking pair of shoes.