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First of Winter, A.D. 2, 00:00, The Saint's voice quiets.
1:33, Crooked footsteps. She pauses halfway, exhales like a great coal engine, and lets herself spin before dropping on all fours.
1:34, It takes her locomotive body the full minute to heave up the staircase.
1:36, Another two just to open the door.
11:59, The Saint looks over his chosen three. She looks at her reward, a glass vial fit for one.
It’s shaped like a teardrop, and she thinks that’s pretty funny.
12:00, It’s instant- completely painless as promised. Her eyes are still open when she dies.
Four limbs go limp as she crumples
1:37, halfway into Carnation’s bed.
12:01, backward, her head splitting open on the obsidian
and Carnation moves quickly.
Rolls under the executioners,
pushes past the ring of her Teachers,
shoving aside the weakest of them- an elderly man who’d snuck golden honey into class as a reward- shattering his hip.
She catches The Saint mid-incantation,
and breathes,
suddenly in front of every face she’d ever known
holding the shiv tight against his throat and
Carnation hesitates, just for a moment.
12:02, The Saint speaks, Carnation's left arm comes off clean, followed shortly by her head, long hair tangling in the dirt.
1:40, But manages to help her sister up, all the way on the bed now.
12:03, Her Teachers gather her remains and place them back into the eye. The Saint turns to his son.
12:04, His son bows in deference, and does not rise.
1:43, Carnation rolls her sister on her side. Breathing just a bit softer.
12:14, Something sputters back to life.
1:44, Her older sister sputters.
and blinks away the salt.
1:46, Her older sister laughs. Says sorry,
1:47, she’s so heavy.
1:48, Carnation turns to leave the room, and her sister
stares at her.
14:50, The Saint waits for her to rise. But
15:51, she still can’t feel them, so
16:52, she’ll make them wait with her
17:53, till she can, or,
18:54, more likely,
19:55, till their bodies start to turn or,
20:56, till they all rot with them.
21:57, It’s her right.
22: 58 It’s over when the Kindled has risen.
23:59, Carnation’s eyes point just slightly toward the ceiling, not at her, glazed with milky white decay.
Second of Winter, P.D. 2, 00:00, Fodder comes in to clean, hauling a bucket of water almost as big as she is.
00:18, Fodder slips on some of Carnation’s now coagulating blood, spilling the bucket of dirty water on one of The Teacher’s robes.
00:19, The Teacher raises a white-gloved hand, and
She gets up.
The hand lowers.
Her Teachers breathe a sigh of relief and rush away to grab whatever now cold venison dish awaits from the celebration feast.