You are fresh from the city, nervously tugging a lock of your hair as you take in the strange sprawling mess of the zones you find yourself in. Surrounded by colours your tutor would show you in secret before he started insisting to follow the rules and stopped smiling at you
(it will be years before you grasp what actually happened. weeks of listening to escaped droids and zone vets before you understand what They did. you will mourn him again, but not yet)
The group of other children you got out with are all scattered, drifting closer to some of the rebels who got you through it all. You watch the centre of the scene, one of the adults is holding a mask in her hands, trembling as she speaks of who it holds. As she asks a witch for blessings, you gaze at the people through a haze of Battery City drugs.
There's other children here, you note. Not city ones, but desert-raised. Most are dragging others into games and conversations but-
One makes eye contact with you. They seem suprised to have done so, head tilting slightly. They hold your gaze and then. And then they smile at you and its the realest thing you've ever seen.
You are an Intern now, learning the twists and turns and ever-changing vanishing spots of the zones as you dart from radio station to station. You've got a name, too! You call yourself Blue Thorn, and never wear the colour. The city sterility leaves you more each day, you think, replaced with tidbits of gossip from radio djs.
(newsagogo tells you secrets when the city haze returns. they let you stay inside when you start to drift, and youll never really know how to thank them. you try once but they cuff your head lightly and claim older siblings should looks after their baby sisters. if they notice you crying, they dont mention it)
Now that you understand the symbols of the zones, you often find yourself volunteering for letter duties. Not to people, of course, but to the ghosts. Taking written confessions from any who ask to the mailbox, and hoping the Phoenix Witch will pass it to the loved one being missed. You've seen some of the ghosts sometimes, they wish you luck and point out hidden caches that a runner will leave for a newbie from time to time.
Sometimes on these runs, you spot people you used to know. Today, though, you're at a mailbox as gears rust until you're due down at Rebel Angel's station. As you wave to passing ghosts, you spot them. You know it's them, despite the years that have passed since that meeting at a mailbox. They're dressed distinctively, in a black poncho with feathers around the edges. As their head tilts to the side and they smile (its still so real) behind the pointed mask, you realise they're a Witchling now.
In a bag around their shoulder they carry a few masks and you wait as they send them off before speaking.
"So… how long until you start floatin' like Mad Gear three songs deep at a concert?"
They blink at you, and then throw their head back as they start cackling. It's an ugly laugh, but you think you could listen to it forever. As the two of you talk, you feel more alive in this moment than you ever have before.
Rebel Angel teases you about "Thorn's witchling" everytime he's on air, between genuine news on zone relationships and the families made out in the sands. He smiles gently at you when you excitedly gush to him about your slowly more frequent meetings with a (your?) witchling, and if he starts to give you longer breaks to meet up more he won't admit to it. But one night, as he winds down a show, the news comes through of patrol turned brutal.
A rookie club, burned down with near everyone inside dusted. Masks freshly gained already needing to be collected before these kids could truly run in the zones. Everyone heads to a mailbox, whatevers nearest to them. A ragtag collection of radio groups and nearby gangs, droids and mechanics surround the mailbox's area. With most of the masks burned in a blaze, folks stretch out blankets and light small fires to keep warm, intent on keeping vigil throughout the night. You hope not to see the ghosts of those poor kids tonight.
As everyone forms groups around to mourn and to process the loss and realise how much everyone matters to the zones, you feel a weight drop down besides you. There are more feather's than you remember, and the brush against your cheek as you rest your head on your witchlings shoulder. Someone begins to pass out food as people settle in to wait for the dawn, and you ask your witchling if it gets easier.
They tell you not really, but as long as you've got people to hold onto you'll get through this. The mailbox seems to glow by the firelight. You turn your face to your witchlings neck and say "well. we have each other" and sit through until the sun rises, hand in hand as you lean against one another. As the new day begins, so does something between you.
Your witchling is a witchling no more. Draped in greys and whites and black as they perch on a mailbox, cawing out to you their new name. They're your Shrike now, and the witches have decided that Shrike can choose their path as a witch. Hopping down from their perch, they grab your hands and spin you around asking if you'd join them on their routes forever. You ask what you two would be doing, and they say some souls can't rest. Maybe if someone could hear their wish, Shrike could carry it out.
(you wrote a letter, before you said goodbye to the djs and left with that Shrike Witch. a letter to the girl you were before the zones, and the people she left behind. youre someone new now. but youd still like to say farewell to those days)
You smile at your Shrike who makes you feel real and adores you. Your shrike who you love and wouldfwould to the ends of the zones and beyond. You take their hand, and go in search of your first restless soul.