Chapter Text
Tally's shoulders don't relax until the door clicks shut behind her.
Ten-thirty at night. Early, by recent standards.
The meeting with Petra ran until nine, then Hallmote caught her in the hallway, then three recruits with questions she couldn't brush off. By the time she'd made it back, her jaw ached from smiling.
But now, here in the safety of her room, she can finally relax. At least a little bit.
She leans back against the solid weight of her closed door. Her Sight is still active, flooding her awareness with the Fort in its entirety. Hundreds of people sleeping or studying or talking in hushed voices. Months of practice and she still can't always control the new intensity, struggles to turn it off or tune it out, especially when she’s tired. It’s worse than the Biddies and their never-ending road trip.
The thought makes her smile. And then makes her sad.
She should eat something. Should review tomorrow's lesson plans. Should respond to the messages on the brick of a phone she'd been given.
Instead she sits on the edge of her bed and stares at nothing.
She pulls off her boots and drops them at the side of the bed, then changes into sleep clothes and turns off the light.
But when she lies down, she just finds herself staring at the ceiling. Her mind won't shut up, even though she's been awake since five this morning. It's been like this for weeks. The exhaustion makes everything feel slightly unreal, like she's watching herself from a distance.
Twenty minutes later, her Sight catches something wrong.
It's not a person. Not exactly. There's a presence near the window, but it doesn't register like living things do. More like negative space. A person-shaped hole in the world. But… familiar, somehow.
Tally does her best not to freeze. To breathe normally. Just in case it realizes that she's noticed.
She should be afraid. Should be readying Work, reaching for defense. Instead her pulse jumps, and the thought that surfaces isn't dangerbut please.
Please let this be real. Please let this not be her Sight finally breaking, or exhaustion conjuring what she needs most.
She turns her head to the window.
The figure standing there is backlit by moonlight. Dark hair. Pale dress. Bare feet.
"Alder?"
The name comes escapes her before she can think better of it. A quiet whisper of a plea. The figure doesn't move. Doesn't react. Just stands there, perfectly still, and Tally aches at the sight.
Alder is supposed to be dead. Gone. Tally watched her turn to dust, felt the awful finality of it.
Except.
Tally sits up slowly, sheets pooling in her lap. Her Sight is screaming that this is wrong, impossible, but her eyes say the figure is real. Solid. Here.
Or she’s so tired that she's dreaming with her eyes open.
Her vision adjusts. Hair hanging loose and lank past her shoulders. A simple dress that looks like it's seen better days. Bare, dirty feet on the wooden floor.
And her eyes. Glowing faintly purple in the shadows.
"Is it you?" Tally whispers.
The figure tilts its head. No… tilt isn’t right. The movement is too fluid, too boneless. Like someone who's forgotten how a human body is supposed to move.
"I don't understand," Tally says. Her voice shakes. "You're supposed to be gone. I watched you…"
The figure takes a step toward the bed. Then another. Her bare feet are silent on the floor, and Tally swallows at the realization that if she hadn’t sensed the presence, she might not have even known she was here.
When the figure reaches the bed, she stops.
Up close, it's unmistakably Alder's face. But the intelligence is gone. That sharp, burning focus that had defined her for three centuries. Replaced by... nothing. Or almost nothing.
Just that strange, intent stare fixed on Tally.
"Can you hear me?"
No flicker of recognition. No response at all.
Tally swallows hard in disappointment. She doesn't know what she expected. Some sign of the woman she knew? But there's no Work like she's ever encountered at play here. Just those glowing eyes watching her.
"I don't know what you are," Tally whispers anyway. She can't seem to stop herself from trying to fill the unnatural silence. "Are you even… you?"
She should probably be more afraid. Should be demanding answers, or at least trying to figure out what this thing wants from her. But she's so tired. And looking at this hollow version of Alder—if it even is Alder—all she feels is a deep, aching sadness.
"You can sit," Tally says finally. She shifts over slightly on the bed, making room. It's not because she understands what's happening, or even that she's decided this is safe. It's just because... she doesn't know what else to do. And she might as well be polite in the meantime. "If you want."
The figure doesn't move for a long moment. Then, slowly, carefully, she lowers herself to perch on the very edge of the mattress. Her spine is rigid. Her hands fold primly in her lap like she's waiting for orders that will never come.
Tally watches her. There’s nothing else. No movement. No words. Just the faint rise and fall of her chest, and those glowing eyes fixed on Tally's face.
"I don't know why you came here," Tally babbles on. "Maybe you don’t even know. Would you tell me if you did?” She waits, but it’s like talking to a wall. Eventually, she lets out a soft sigh. “Well, if the offer matters to you: you can stay. For now."
Nothing.
Tally leans back against the headboard. Lets her eyes drift half-closed.
It's almost peaceful, despite the strangeness of it all.
Compared to the constant static of her Sight, Alder feels like a blank space. Not empty, exactly, but quiet in a way nothing else ever is.
"Okay," she says. "I guess this is fine."
Minutes pass. Maybe longer. Maybe no time at all. Her exhaustion finally drags her down and she doesn't fight it. The figure beside her hasn't moved. Hasn't made a sound.
Maybe she's already asleep. Maybe this is a dream.
Her breathing evens out. Her eyes slip closed.
She doesn't see when the figure flinches at some internal signal. Doesn't notice when those glowing eyes flick toward the window, where the sky is beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn.
Tally startles awake to the blare of her alarm. Disoriented. Heart racing. Blankets tangled around her legs.
She's alone.
The room is empty. The bed beside her is smooth and undisturbed, like no one was ever there. Of course she dreamed it, she tells herself. She’s exhausted and stressed, and her Sight is showing her too much. Plus, there’s the loneliness she won't acknowledge.
But then she sees it.
A smudge of dirt on the floor by the window. Dark and crumbling, the smell of earth in the air.
Tally stares at it until her vision blurs.
Real. It was real. Unless she's still dreaming. Unless she sleepwalked and tracked in dirt herself. Unless her mind is playing tricks and there's nothing there at all.
She gets out of bed on shaking legs, and kneels by the window. The dirt is cool and damp when she touches it.
It smells faintly of decay.
She finds a small dish and carefully sweeps the dirt into it, then sets it on her nightstand like an offering. Or evidence. Proof, maybe, that she's not losing her mind.
Or proof that she is.
The sun is coming up. She needs to get ready. Needs to be present and prepared for another day of recruits who look at her like she has all the answers. Another day of being called goddess when she barely feels human.
She touches the dish once, then makes herself turn away.