THE STAGE UNDER · VESSEL
I was not born; I was inventoried.
I want my sister to be there when I arrive.
A god wore her for eleven minutes in the middle of a funeral. She walked out through the service gate and never went back. Now she keeps a court of her own. — L.
As of the 35th day
The Stage Under · UNDER · HELD BY Entertainment Corp
On the map Where their lives crossThe Rigger's Wick, vigil bench
Crews light a stub before a bad climb and she sits with them while it burns down; the copper dish holds enough old resin that the smoke goes sweet and sticks in your hair.
CREW Kira "Whisper" Nine
Whisper and I spent fourteen hours in the sub-stage maintenance corridor rerouting power conduits after the Sector Nine collapse, and she talked the whole time in that clipped broker's shorthand while I held the live cables apart with my bare vessel-hands — she never once flinched when the current arced, and by the sixth hour we moved like we had always worked together.
RIVAL Nanami Ito
Nanami stood in the processional line wearing her rival corporation's insignia like a blade, and when our eyes met across the incense haze I felt her contempt like a signal-jam — she believes her god's vessels are purer, more truly alive, and the way she looked through me told me she did not consider me a person at all.
DEBT Oleg Ivanov
Oleg came to the offering alcove at the third hour with a cracked data-shrine he had stolen from a rival temple, and I should have reported him, but I read his desperation and let him trade it for a blessing he could not afford; he has owed the temple something ever since, and he knows it.