Our Lady of Shadows

Everything she ever dreamed of and now it is the reward for doing a job? What insanity is this? She snarls the next question, trying to cut the composure of this shifter: "Why, pray tell, would I need people after two centuries alone."

"You're making a habit of not listening, lady. I said 'your people'. Who do you think I am talking about?"

Realization sinks like stone into Dakini's belly, suddenly weighing like all the world. "My people." she says, wondering, slowly aware of a whole new kind of dread

The shifter continues her message: "They need the water as much as desert needs the water. Save the water; save your people. Indulge your spite; kill your people. Pretty simple, all in all."

The voices scream, Dakini lunges, the shifter disappears, her voice coming as a final echo: "Save the water." Dakini ends up on the floor, gathered into as small a shape as possible, voices screaming about power, politics, danger, water, people, desert in endless repetition. Dakini sobs the next few hours away, stirring into the shadows only when the servants finally dare to broach the sanctity of the Magistrate's private dining room.