When Ripley answered their bunk door, the little room behind them was empty.

Vere blinked. “Game night?” she asked lamely, holding up a six-pack of beers and a deck of Skip-Bo, which she’d found buried in a drawer in the Commons a few feet behind her.

Ripley smiled grimly. “Sorry, I told everyone not to come.”

Vere’s cheeks blazed with heat. “Oh, gods. I’m sorry! This is my social nightmare.” She turned to scamper away, but Ripley caught the six-pack in her hand and stopped her.

“Don’t you prefer one-on-one hangs?” they asked as they tugged on the six-pack.

“Yeah, any time there’s more than one person in a conversation, I clam up. Because what if I talk over someone, or I start to talk and nobody’s listening?” Vere rambled, letting go of the beers so she could gesture emphatically.

Ripley grinned. They had a face that spoke of many violent missions, with scars on their chin and forehead, and a gold tooth next to their canine. “Come on in.” Their wings dragged low behind them, almost but not quite touching the wooden floorboards. It was considered bad form for a valkyrie to let her wings drag.

Vere followed them into the room. The doorways in the barracks were bigger than average to accommodate the size of the average valkyrie including their wingspan. Most valkyries added some personal touches to their bunks. Posters, throw rugs, colorful blankets, maybe a cute table lamp. The last time Vere had been in Ripley’s room, they’d been no exception, with an abundance of Pride flags and many potted plants under a grow lamp.

Their affects were gone. The walls were white, brighter in some rectangular patches where posters and picture frames had hung.

Vere halted. Prickling unease moved up her spine. “Ripley, what’s going on?”

Ripley cracked open one of the beers and took a long swig, then they nudged Vere out of the way and closed the door behind her before they answered. “I’m moving out in an hour.”

“No,” Vere said automatically. “No, you can’t do that. Valkyries don’t…”

“I’ve gotta.” Ripley sat heavily on their bed, which only had a set of standard-issue white sheets on them.

“Who else knows?” Vere demanded, discarding the pack of cards on their empty desk. Her wings flicked out in agitation. She felt like ants were crawling over her skin on the inside. She’d changed into her sweats and sweatshirt for the night, which was good, since then she could restlessly pull on the sweatshirt strings around her neck.

Ripley shook their head slowly. “Nobody.”

“You’re deserting.”

“I’m leaving my job,” Ripley corrected sharply, their dark gaze snapping up to meet Vere’s eyes. “It’s an assumption that valkyries serve VADR, not an order.”

Vere couldn’t argue, since technically Ripley was correct. All the same, she’d never heard of anyone leaving. As far as she knew, the only place where any valkyrie in the world lived was VADR. “You’ll be an oath-breaker, Ripley,” Vere said desperately. She didn’t mean to whisper; her body decided for her. The walls had ears.

Living among sixty or so other valkyries meant nobody had any secrets for very long. The gossip was extraordinary, savage, and usually quite accurate. If the others were to catch onto Ripley’s plan to leave, it would reach Agrippa in a matter of hours.

“Ripley, don’t do this. You’ll wind up on the streets.”

“How do you know?” Ripley asked with a quizzical raise of their brow. “From all the homeless valkyrie oath-breakers you know, or…?”

Vere sighed hard, pinching the bridge of her nose. “What’s your plan, Ripley?”

They shook their head a bit, gulping their beer. After smacking their lips, they said, “This all started cuz of someone I met on a mission. They have a job I can do down in Tenebrose to help me get out of here.”

“Tenebrose? Oh, fuck no. Are you crazy, Ripley?” Vere hissed. “Tenebrose is bad news.”

Ripley dismissively waved their hand. “Tenebrose is fine, Vere. And nobody asks a lot of questions.”

“Ripley, the only people who will work with an oath-breaker valkyrie are bad news,” Vere insisted.

“Vere,” snapped Ripley, standing up so their height was less disparate, “you maybe wanna ask why I’m leaving instead of trying to scare me into submission?”

Vere’s mouth opened, but no words came out. She blinked hard, her eyes stinging. Did she even want to know?

Two and a half decades of taciturn allegiance to VADR and her family legacy meant stuffing down a lot of resentment and pretending everything was fine. A Stromgaard valkyrie couldn’t afford to critically examine VADR’s conduct as an organization.

But she cared about Ripley. And she didn’t want to lose them.

She nodded faintly, sitting stiffly down in their desk chair. “I’m sorry. I should have led with that.”

“Why would you?” Ripley shook their head. “We’re not trained to be curious. We’re trained to follow orders and knock each other back in line. And that’s partly why. How fucked is it that we’re so powerful only to be Agrippa’s well-bred dogs?”

Vere swallowed. Her emotions lodged in her throat. This felt like a dream, a nightmare she was stuck in where a fellow valkyrie had turned into something unrecognizable, and yet, something truer than the rest of them.

“But why today?” she finally managed.

Ripley said nothing for a long moment, setting aside their beer and slowly returning to perch on the edge of their bed. Their walnut-hued wings shuffled softly to drape around them like a royal cape. Forearms resting against their knees, they brought their gaze to Vere. Their dark eyes were searching.

Ripley knew exactly why it had ended up being today, Vere could see it on their face. For whatever reason, though, they swallowed the truth and said flippantly, “Why not today?”

She frowned. Vere could feel herself going into the mindset she had when she was on call, faced with an immutable force and having to accept that she could not alter the course of things. “What am I supposed to tell people?”

“The truth.” They shrugged. “I am not keeping my departure a secret. I’m just removing the opportunity for anyone to force me to stay.”

“But Agrippa—”

“I don’t care about Agrippa,” said Ripley fiercely. “VADR doesn’t own me. I want my own life. I don’t care what she thinks about it.”

Vere was silent, crossing her arms over her stomach and holding herself tightly as if she were a dysregulated child.

Ripley reached across the scant space between bed and desk chair, putting their hand on Vere’s knee. “You could come with me.”

Vere stared at her friend’s bony knuckles.

“It’s not safe here for people like us,” Ripley added softly.

She jolted to her feet. Ripley remained calm, fingertips steepled, their eyes on Vere as she stepped toward their door.

People like us. She knew instinctively and with certainty what they meant. Valkyries who were supposed to be women, but changed their pronouns or refused to belt their uniforms. The people who couldn’t fit. The women like Vere who tried, and tried, and tried, but simply could not bend to fit the shape she was expected to occupy.

Vere stiffened. “You know I can’t leave.”

“Can’t you?”

Her jaw clenched painfully. Before she could catch her careening temper, she snapped, “Yeah, I’m not from a nobody family like you, Ripley. Stromgaards have a way we do things.” She yanked on the door knob, rattling the light fixture overhead. “Good luck out there, idiot.”

As soon as she left their room, she unfurled her wings and shot toward the skylights lining the arched ceiling. She wasn’t dressed to be going outside, but there was no way in hell she was staying in the barracks a second longer.

The winter blast of air was knifelike, freezing the tears clinging to her lashes. It was overcast, at least, giving a little insulation. Vere was going to get frostbite fast, but it was a quick flight to get to Edie’s house. Her friend lived within walking distance to VADR, and a leisurely speed got Vere there in minutes.

She was speeding, careening through the night sky as she came upon the old house where Edie was renting a room. Her light was still on and spilled out from the glass door and onto her tiny balcony.

Vere banked too late. She crashed into the railing, her flight feathers slapping the shingles above the door and releasing a puff of snow all over her head. Edie’s shriek of surprise was distant to Vere’s ears as she landed in a heap of wings and dislodged snow. Her head was bent and pressed against the door as it swung inward, making Vere collapse into Edie’s room with a groan.

“Holy shit, Vere!”