"Nancee darling, are you okay?" and Katapa's words are so sweet and sincere as she says darling.

"I can't take it anymore."

"Darling I know. But we need to escape him right now. Do you think we're strong enough to take him?"

I think about this for a moment. No, we're not strong enough to fight a towerperson - Fate or non-Fate - head on. Yet. But we're good at surviving. That seems almost tragic to me for a second.

"Nancee?" It's Aderei's soft, unassuming voice that says this to me right now. And his eyes, his eyelashes, his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, everything shines as if they're bathed in morning twilight. His attention is on me but it does not pin me down, does not scare me. It gives me strength and lets me know I'm not alone. And I remember what we're striving for, in our miserable excuses of lives.

"We're on the verge of something beautiful. Don't... don't you feel it coursing through your heart?" Lilith tilts her head up at the sky for a bit. She's flowing with an almost electric sense of hope.

Hope. That's why we try to survive. That's why we push ourselves into the grating strain of our lives. Because we know that one day there will be change.

"We're so close," I say though I don't know whether I say it to my comrades or to myself. We're so close to winning. We're so close to that hope becoming tangible.

Just a little bit more hiding ourselves and then we'll be able to say it to their faces.

"Are you even paying attention, dear? Lass, we have to /go./" Kata's voice is urgent but not pushing.

"Yes. Let's get out of here."

We make a run for it, bare feet barely making a sound on the cold polished tile. Away from this hall of horrors. Dark little birds in flight amidst a screaming carnival of degradation.

We slip out the door and keep running, the sky stretching above us. We slip out the broken-down piece of wall and keep running, the grass stretching under our feet.

"Yes." I hear Lilith say under her breath, in a determined way.

"Yes." Anderei echoes in a triumphant way.

"Yes." I say in a tentatively airy way.

We do not stop running. His hatred, his judgement, it still clutches at our throats and chips at our hearts. But we remember Katapa's bravery. Her silent, unyielding confidence. And it helps us go on.

The Fate is still in his castle, stretching and straightening his gleaming pride, trying to make it surpass the tiny-looking pride of the slaves. And no matter how much he pulls and stretches his ego, it cannot become larger than the little firefly that is the pride and camaraderie slaves have with each other.

We only bought ourselves time. He will eventually realize that we are missing and come after us. But because of our own flickering pride we can, we can continue. We have hope.

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