maybeElse

“What is a moth?” a witchling asks; an innocent question, just a glimmer of the voracious hunger that set her along her path.

She does not understand the look on her teacher's mask, the strange reflection in its mother-of-pearl eyes.

“Find out for yourself,” it finally answers.

She is not yet wise enough to understand what it really means; young and hungry enough to believe in her own immortality with a strength that almost makes it real. And so she does not take her time to prepare: she slips away as soon as she can find a chance to.

Her teacher watches her go, as it watches everything its students do within its walls.

The witchling might have understood the look on its face if she looked back towards it; mercifully, she does not.

Today the city is a cacophony of lights and noises: the screams of brakes and the shrill cries of frustrated wanderers, a storm of clashing smells which leave the witchling's stomach roiling even as she can't help but drool. It's been so long since she last went out!

Still, still—

She has a task, a goal, and one she cannot let herself be sidetracked from, no matter how tempting it is to fill her belly with angelmeat and candied time or to crawl into an alley and vomit until the whole world is painted in those holy colors.

She's on a mission!

… now if only she knew how to find a moth.

But really, how hard can it be? She may not know Corrade as well as she should, not yet, but everything finds its way to the city sooner or later. She just has to find the right place to look.

“How hard could it be,” she mutters to herself days later, legs aching and eyes cramping. The hard steps she's sitting on do nothing to help, and nor does the inviting light shining out from the wide doors behind her, replete with swirling promises of comfort.

But tempting as it is, she knows better than to go into a hive-run library without a clear Purpose's ablative armor filling her mind. And she can't imagine that she'd find a moth in a place like that.

She sighs wearily, and then startles as something sits down beside her—a librarian drone, its body shimmering with all the prose and poetry any of its ilk might aspire to hold upon itself, its face filled with a slide projector's friendly smile and ceaseless gaze.

“This unit did not intend to startle you,” it says in a voice like shuffling cards, “it apologizes.”

The witchling calms herself, fingers flicking across the gemstone beads which garland her wrists; an old ritual, well-worn into her mind's patterns.

“No, it's, uh,” she stammers for an embarrassingly long moment. “It's fine, I just didn't expect …”

“For anyone to take an interest in you?”

“Yeah, I guess …”

“This unit's duty is to attend to its library's patrons, and sitting outside for so long is close enough.”

“Oh, no, I'm sorry!” She moves to stand up. “I didn't mean to cause any trouble, I'll be off—”

The drone stands with her. “No, please! This unit just thought that you might need some help.”

“O-oh.” She doesn't sit back down, not quite yet. “I don't want to join, if that's—”

“No! That's not it at all.” The drone makes a noise like grinding gears; its eye closes for a long moment. “Would you mind starting over?” She nods. “This unit is 025.659. Its purpose is to assist library patrons in finding whatever they're looking for.”

“Oh, um. I'm █████, in training under Our Lady of Pearls. I, uh. I'm looking for moths?”

The drone blinks at her, then stretches; muscles shift beneath the dense text that covers every inch of its skin, latex stretching and flowing yet somehow not distorting a single letter. The witchling tries not to stare.

“That's a big one. May this unit ask why?”

“My teacher said that finding one was the best way to understand what they were. Or, uh. Something like that.”

025.659 hums to itself, circuits clicking away inside its head. “But why do you want to understand them?”

“Because …” She can't quite say; the words are stuck in her throat, caught in her mind. There's something there, some glimmer she knows she has to follow, but she can't see why. “I just need to, I guess?”

“Would you wait here for a moment? This unit needs to consult with its hive.”

“Yes, of course—”

The drone is gone before she can finish speaking, hurrying back into the library's warm light.

It is a very long moment.

The sky turns above her head as she sits there, and the noise of the city's daytime industry fades to dusk's drunken tinge: the streets fill with the smells of cooking food and the clatter of half-unhinged feet, revelers beginning their long march out of the Real.

Her stomach grumbles, and she thinks of standing and leaving, of slipping back into her teacher's mansion to join all the other witchlings in their quietly regimented meal, or to find her way into some unguarded feast and spend her night with strangers …

Far above stars glimmer, and she casts part of her mind out to be with them as she waits and tries to forget her body: for her search has been so long, and her heart could not bear to throw away a chance at finding its conclusion.

So she waits, and she waits, and—

025.659 clicks and whirs as it walks back towards her, careful not to startle her again; she stands and steps towards it, grateful that she wasn't forgotten.

It blinks apologetically at her. “This unit is sorry that it took so long, but such is the way with moths.”

“Wait, you …?”

“This units hive has close relations with several, yes. It, uh. It can tell you where to go to meet one, if you would like?”

“Yes! Please!”

The drone gives her a location, somewhere just east of the lesser impact crater, not far away at all.

The drone squeaks as she hugs it, too thankful to even consider how the prose dripping from its skin might stain her dress; and then she's away, rushing along the street. She doesn't glance back, and 025.659 spends only a moment waving before it returns to its purpose.

She hurries, stomach and stars forgotten, feet beating a steady rhythm on the smiling sidewalks; she passes by the lake where bloody willows weep on forgotten graves, cutting through candle-lit groves full of the droning of contented ghosts, and skirts the impact crater—

And then she's there.

It's not what she expected.

To be fair, she isn't quite sure what she expected. All she knows is that it wasn't this: a cheery restaurant, obviously a converted house, with tables filling its porch with fragrant candlelight and brightly savory scents.

More light spills out from its door, a cacophony of shifting colors, a kaleidoscope eagerly welcoming her inside—

She blinks, and see the countless prisms hung about it, the mirror shards and gently pulsing led panels; she sees the careful artistry behind the effect. The understanding makes it no less beautiful—if anything it makes it more so.

She also sees that the restaurant is perfectly empty, a brightly shining oasis with not a soul in sight.

She can't even hear any of the nighttime revelers; the entire city holds its tongue.

Of course she goes inside. What else could she do? To turn back, to tarry at the threshold, to prevaricate … she's come too far for any of that. She made her choice: there is nothing to do but see it through.

There's someone—something—waiting for her inside.

They're sitting, bent over a table, their long flowing wings loosely wrapped around them; through the thin shimmering not-skin she can see hints of flesh, of curving hips and a long slender abdomen stretching down nearly to the floor. Their hands are occupied with something before them, some tiny thing as sparkly as the restaurant's door; as she stares they snap it apart and plunge a screwdriver into its guts, dislodging a smoking battery and a pattering rain of burnt gears.

Finally they look up at her.

Their eyes are as big as the world, vast dark plates split into countless shining scales. She can see herself in them, and all the light and warmth that fills the suddenly too-small room, and the streets behind her and all the paths she's followed to get to here, to this moment—

She gasps and pulls her eyes away from them, desperately blinking to stave off the tears that she can't quite understand, to shield herself from that gaze and all the lights around her and all the thoughts she doesn't want to think; she hides behind her arm and stumbles back—

There's a chair behind her, just where there wasn't one before.

She sits down heavily, half-falling; the breath goes out of her in a surprised gasp.

When she peeks at them again, staring between her fingers and over her sleeve, their horrible gaze seems softer. They're still looking at her, still with those vast eyes; they're just not seeing her in quite the same way. They're just not dissecting her.

For a moment she stammers, and then she falls still, and the room is quiet save for the crackle of some far-off fire and the popping bubbles of a boiling pot; her stomach rumbles, but fear keeps proper hunger far from her mind.

Finally they slide the sparkling smoking thing across the table to her; she looks gratefully towards it, glad for an excuse to look away, glad for something small and safe to consider. It's a clockwork insect, all shining carapace and struggling feet and questing antenna; it's horribly broken, half-mangled, its guts torn out and battery hopelessly burst.

The witchling glances up towards the thing across from her.

“Do you, uh. Want me to try to fix it?”

They nod, their eyes closing for just a moment as they do; their wings shift around them in waves like the flipping pages of some long-ruined book.

“Do you have any other tools, or parts, or …?”

They nod again, and there's a chaotic toolbox on the floor beside her, just where it has always been and where it wasn't a moment before; disorganized, gently decaying, a maze of broken parts and half-there tools all shining like shattered prisms.

It takes her less time than she expects to fix it, just a few new gears and a fresh battery and a bit of glue; and when she's done she and they sit and watch it scuttle across the table, testing its wings and finally leaping into the air to join the kaleidescope sparkles crawling all across the room's ceiling—

And that's really enough to answer her question.

And she never does go back to her old teacher.

She wasn't meant for a witch's mask after all.