Ivory
The girl ate like a war hadn't started.
Cheddar puffs. Orange dust on her fingers, the remote control. She held the bag in her lap and reached in without looking, eyes on the screen where two actors argued in a hospital room.
Ivory sat beside her on the couch, notebook balanced on her knee. Her pen hovered over the page.
Write something.
She wrote something.
Subject displays no visible distress following separation from Champion. Appetite normal. Fixation on drama programming — sustained, voluntary.
She read it back. It sounded official. Official she could do.
Five words. That was all Gaian gave her. Look at the girl. Report. No further instruction, just five words and that smile — the one Ivory had spent two centuries learning to dread.
She did not ask what to look for. You didn't ask The One Who Devours to clarify. You nodded, said "Yes, O' Great Devourer," and figured it out on your own or you didn't figure it out and she ate you.
