And God, Ceann sees things even when she's not tripping. She sees the dead, everyone who never became, everyone gutted under killing moons.
She sees things all the time, because she's always climbing through black smoke tunnels and she sees more things the more she climbs through them. Ges makes her trip because he needs the star numbers, not for deep meanings, though he says that and probably believes it. For him it's hot, it's all lust, lust is all anyone has for each other. She sees it, she trips hard so don't tell her anything. Don't tell her that Ges doesn't want everything from her when he looks at her, everything, but he settles for her visions. She likes him, yeah, likes him because he brought everyone together, gave them a home and way, and yeah, he's slender. But he wants everything she sees and he won't. Stop. Asking. She screamed at him. Don't you know it's bad for you?! His pale eyes. Knowing things?!
Through the black smoke tunnels, when they need counsel, and when she needs food, and her lungs are dead. Her lungs are dead, so how is she alive? How are any of them alive? They aren't.
She always scrambles to her rooftop, the one only she knows about, after twists and turns and a full open view of the Sliver with walls all around. And the Pale Sliver is hers, has to be hers, she's begging now. You're my only one, and I have to be your only one, I'm yours, I'm yours just be all mine. God, they can't have you, I'm breaking for you. And I want to, I want to break, just be all mine forever, the only thing that means, please.
And the Pale Sliver doesn't say anything. That's why Ceann wants her. She just crests when darkness falls and sinks when the sun tries to burn her away.
She knows she's special because the Sliver showed her how to find this place. She followed the Sliver light that only she saw in the black smoke, and only shards. When the Etherics need her she feels it through the tunnels, the Faded veins, a vibration through the trip the blacksmoke brings her. And she hates it because it's need. They always need her. She feels it now and she blocks it out because they just had her and it's way too soon. And yeah, she likes Ges, with his angled face and bones and the way Sliver light shines pure on his scalp. Because she's seen him in her trips, feathering and skimming, and she knows he wants her out there with him, and she likes him, but right now what he wants and everyone wants is just too bad.
So she's clutching her knees real tight and throwing her head back for the Sliver to pour light in. It's humiliating, but she doesn't care, she wouldn't do this for anyone else but she'll do it for the Sliver, the only beautiful thing in this world that no one can touch. Her mouth is wide open, a soundless scream. Then she hears the faint, choked owl cry and the wolf howl so loud like they're here with her. She squeezes her eyes shut but she knows something's wrong. The four walls rise three body lengths above her head but even with them and her eyes shut whatever's wrong won't go away. She knows everyone needs her now, and Ges must be confused and scared, and his need for her must be white hot.
And she'll have to go through the black smoke tunnels, and see the dead things, and know the monsters again.
But Ges comes to her, which scares her more.
He's standing above her, high over the wall to her left. Sliver light drowns him but she can't see how it hits his scalp, not so high. Instead she sees his jagged cleft, the bottom of his skull.
"You can find me," she says. She doesn't know what's in her eyes but she hopes it's hate, hate that cuts into his brain, his weakness.
"Only from the outside," he says. "Never from inside." He doesn't sound chastened, but he doesn't sound proud either.
"What do you want?" She already knows.
"You heard Tor call out, and the Wolves smother him. And the new girl. Ugly in the Sliver's eyes if we gave them young food."
"Maybe they weren't worthy," she says. She spits with her teeth, hitting low on the wall before her. "Maybe none of you are worth it for her."
"Ceeeann," he says. He stretches it in that way he does. She hates it and hates that she likes it. Double cups of hate. "Help us. Y'know, your family."
"Don't act like you don't beg for it," she says. "Slime."
He doesn't say anything. Just stands there, lets silence cloak both of them. The silence of fog, the silence of doubt, with the Sliver's silence cutting through like she wishes her hate would, digging her out instead.
Then he falls back into space.
In the Sliver's light, she'll do it for her, she'll do anything for her, not for anyone else, not anyone else ever, she sandwiches her head between sweat soaked palms and trances, her body starting to buck and thrash.
