"Hammer and Nail"- skekGra/urGoh
Their lives are often separate in the daytime, buried in their own projects with too great a fervor for casual conversation. But neither of them are skekTek or urTih, lost to their work for weeks- they always reconvene in the evening, the day’s grime washed away, curled up with their blankets and smoke and the warmth of their pleasantly sore bodies. Often, there is little progress to be discussed- the construction of their ‘messenger’ is particularly frustratingly slow- but today urGoh deposits a small figure into skekGra’s hands, his dark face beaming with pride.
“It’s me,” the Heretic says stupidly, because of course it is, but it’s such a perfect likeness that it still makes him gasp softly. At least, he supposes it is- it has been nearly two hundred trine since he last looked into anything more reflective than a pool of water. This is how urGoh sees him, and somehow that is even more wondrous. There are more tiny carven wrinkles than he might have expected, less hair, but the curl of the tiny hands fascinates him, and the determined set of the little beak.
If this is what urGoh sees, then that is what matters.
“Why no nail?” he asks, suddenly noticing the absence.
“It’s…..you..” urGoh says, as if the answer is obvious. He reaches up, traces the jutting thing gently enough not to hurt them. “What they did…..is not…….you.”
That much is certainly true. The piece of metal is an intruder into everything he does, everything he thinks, everything he is. The bastards chose their parting gift well- his punishment is to never forget his betrayal, as they certainly have not. Every shooting pain, every moment his vision blurs and focuses, they are reminders that they still own him.
But as he looks from the little puppet to its maker, traces each curve of a body that he knows as well as his own because it is his own, he smiles. They will never understand why he did it, why he chose to allow them to maim him rather than falter on his convictions even an inch. They will never know how it feels to be whole, even for a moment- why it was worth it.
“It’s perfect.”