She crouched inside a hollow beneath an overhang of absolute junk, tucked up into the tiniest ball she could become and struggling with the balance between gasping for terrified breaths and trying so hard to *not* breathe, lest she be heard and found.
She kept glancing around the corner, making quick motions so that maybe she wouldn’t be spotted, but nearly ten minutes had passed and all was still silence behind her. Still, she couldn’t convince her heart to stop trying to claw its way out of her chest and she couldn’t calm her wild thoughts. That *thing*, that beat of light and brightness. It had been so tall and every limb was pointed. In her memory, she remembered the teeth with what had to be exaggeration, the claws on each hand – so much bigger and sharper than her own – and even the points of each long ear, they all seemed vicious, dangerous, a thing that should not have ever been roused.
That’s why the Harangin left it, she thought. Because centuries later it still lives. It just sleeps.
Impossible, and yet she’d seen it. She wondered if that would bring the Sisters joy or give them a reason to silence her forever – to find out that the beings they worshipped were monster things that didn’t die when they were supposed to. Did Teykaneska herself really disappear, or was she just like one of *those* things? Sleeping until disturbed, ready to blaze forth in a glory of light and horrible, horrible howling words.
She didn’t want to know. For the first time, it was something she didn’t want to know.
She peered around the corner again. Still nothing. Everything was still absolutely silent and dark. This time she kept looking, peering past the heaps and piles, tilting until she could just see the resting hulk of the old ship.
It was still in there, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t see it. She hadn’t heard it follow, hadn’t seen it casting shadows. After so many minutes, she didn’t think she would, although it was hard to know why the thing would stay inside.
And squinted. And she wondered. If it *had* stayed. She didn’t see the glow. Maybe it ran? Maybe it was scared.
She slowly started to gather her wits. She still wanted to see what she could see in the remains of that old vessel. It was the greatest Seradin treasure she’d ever stumbled upon in all of her years of wandering the Temple underground.
So she steeled herself, counting in her head, flexing her toes, and picturing herself heading out, back between the piles and heaps, aligning thought and action until finally, she was ready. She reached out, grabbed the flashlight from the ground beside her, and leaped to her feet, intent on trying again.
She studied her path. No light this time, and maybe it was a different angle she needed to come from.
This time she wanted to get all the way in without trouble. This time she wanted to be careful, and quiet as a the stealthiest, sneakiest vermin.
If it was still out there, walking the caverns, then maybe she could make her way in and out before it even knew.
She had to try. For the sake of curiosity, she had to.