((Rather than a written journal, this is sort of a peek into Kore's inner world based on what's happening with her ICly. Origin story here.))

The bus doors whisk closed behind her and the girl stands still as the icy wind lifts. She can feel the hairs in her nose tighten, her eyes water, the warmth from the bus leeching away into the greedy cold.

It's Hathian, but Kore doesn't realize that. In truth, the cold made it seem like some place else, in New England or by the frozen Great Lakes. The old blanket around her neck provides some surcease and she huddles in it, her frayed sweater a rather lesser barrier. She sees the flicker of flames through the flurries, and two greyish shapes nearby. Without consent, her feet start carrying her to towards the fire, her cheap sneakers already wet with the slush, her hair fast joining it with the wet flakes falling.

Meager warmth, and the murmur of conversation between two women at the fire barrel. Kore sees them through a narrow tunnel, like black vertical bands on either side of her vision and she tries to speak with them, but it's like she's condemned to be a character in an old martial art film, her mouth saying one thing, the words another.

Then the distinct cackling of a crow, the flutter of wings, and Kore spears it with her gaze. The bird's sounds seem to reverberate as she stares at it, black against the dirty snow drift, and a curling voice, just out of sight, like someone walking up behind her to whisper in her ear:

"See it pecking? Trapped, like a four geyser it is, oil all about the wings, no food for that one. Fry it up and it won't hardly be good eating, especially with the toxins."

Kore shakes her head, and turns rather desperately to the girl nearest. "Got a cigarette?" she manages to say, clear and coherent, like a gold coin falling from her lips instead of vipers. The girl shakes her head in denial, and so does the other, red hair that one has, and Kore turns back to the flames, hands turning into fists.

The voice is limned in heat now, but not the comforting kind, the kind that has knife-edges, saw-toothed and sharked, and vaguely below that, the ruffling of feathers, the stink of rotting meat.

"Lay it down, lay it down dear girl, poor girl, little girl painted with oil and lichen. If you do, I promise a ruby."

Kore reaches out for the edge of the fire-barrel, her hand curling and with a galvanized motion, seizing tight. White-hot pain flares, filling her mind to the edges, her arm rigid, her grip locked against the heated metal. The voice vanishes beneath the pain and despite the agony of it, she feels a thin wail of triumph even as her flesh burns.

A laugh, glee-filled, and the girl to her right reaches for her clenching fist, wrapping around the wrist and not pulling to free, but pulling to lure her closer. Kore stares at the laughing girl through the pain, and it's a sign, an angel telling her what to do. She lets herself be guided, bending closer, her free hand flashing out to join the first, both gripping the burning brand of the fire barrel. More laughter, muted conversation, but it means nothing through the ecstasy of the pain. She's bent forward now, face to the flames, breathing in the hot air, the smoke, ready to submit to the angel's plan.

At push at her lower back and Kore and the barrel go toppling, the barrel rolling to the side, spilling embers and burning wood into the frozen Hathian street. Kore spills likewise to the sidewalk, wretched palms planting on the ice with a new kind of pain. The loss of the fire, the barrel diminishing, she failed the angel, who nevertheless seems to laugh behind her.

She feels herself curling up, growing smaller, soaked through and freezing. Maybe heaven is a frozen place she thinks muddily then all is black.

***

She wakens periodically, on a soft bed, her hands wrapped with bandages, fingers and thumbs trapped within. The Bird voice comes and she shouts at her, once trying to run, and each time, warmth follows as someone injects something into her veins. She burns with fever, but it's not the kind of flame she needs to keep Her at bay, the raucous woman, the Lady of Knives.