The Worst Of It: Two

You can hold onto pain, like it's a physical thing, curl yourself around it like the little sister you'd die to protect, if you want to.

Put your faith in it like the ancestors you don't have and the spirits you only pray to in foxholes.

Hold it close, so you can't feel shame or guilt past the fire of your cramping muscles, can't see the endless chain of sleepless nights ahead past the jangling colors spiraling across your field of vision, can't taste the copper coin of despair past the sour bile burning in your throat. Fill yourself with it until the hum of it in your veins drowns out everything else, until it coils through your body like smoke through a crematorium.

Amieta clung to the pain, clenched her fists on it until the servos whined and the joints grated in protest.

No more than I deserve.

There were voices, sometimes. Sometimes they were voices she knew. A woman's, soft and tender as the hands that smoothed her hair, that wiped her face. Ami? Can you hear me? Ami?

More often they were harsh, Amarr-accented, voices that went with blood and screaming and everyone dead, every single one of them but me.

The voice she thought she knew, her sister's voice, told her It isn't real, Ami, what you see, it isn't real. You're safe, with me, I'm here, Ami. Gentle fingers tried to prise open her fists, but flesh-and-blood was no match for Zainou's finest work. Cia gave up and wrapped her own hands around Amieta's, fingers tucked against the crook of rigid metal joints. I'm here, Ami. You're safe.

That might be true.

It might not be.

From moment to moment Amieta wasn't sure which of those was the worst of it.

The pain was true, the jagged edges of it in her gut, the burning cold that washed over her in waves, the hot ache in her bones.

The pain was real.

She wrapped herself in the pain like a blanket, drew it over her head and curled under it, fists clenched in its edges.

You can hold onto pain, like it's the most precious thing you have.

If you want to.

Drown yourself in it, let it wash away the knowledge that you've hurt the ones who love you, the fear you'll hurt them again, let the acid bath of it etch away the lies you told. You can let the pain eat away the shame.

And the reasons for it.

If you want to.

Even through the pain Amieta could feel Cia's hands curled around hers. She cracked an eyelid to see her sister's honey blonde head leaning on her arm, the edge of her face, one closed eye.

You can hold onto pain.

If you want to.

A new pain, different, signals firing from the machinery of her hands. Metal ground on metal, joints abused past tolerance.

The blonde head lifted. Cia blinked, eyes still cloudy with sleep. "Ami?"

Voice rusty with disuse, Amieta cleared her throat and then again, croaked, "I'm here."

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Amieta opened her hands.