Movement.
A pulse of light flickering at Kore's periphery.
An Abyssari male floated in the gloom. Keeping his distance, watching from the edge of Kore's awareness. Posture rigid. Young. Staring with wide, luminous eyes.
Not at Nerissa… but at her.
"Please," Kore said again, reaching. Fins flicking against her forearm. "She… she needs help. Please, you have to?—"
He didn't move. Didn't react. Just watched her with wide, terrified eyes until another male appeared behind him. Older. Scarred. Snarling at the youth in a voice laced with something she couldn't name.
He reeled back with a flick of his tail. There and gone. Fleeting. A sound escaped him she'd never heard before.
"No!" Kore cried. "Nerissa, she needs help.Please!”
But the elder merely turned to watch with that same fervor shining in his eyes…
One she recognized, a particular light she'd seen before.
Knew the weight of it. The disturbing stillness.
It was there, in the space between them. The distance and the unblinking stare. The stillness she’d only ever seen on pilgrims at an altar.
Kore blinked.
She knew the shape of devotion.
Remembered the ache in her knees that had spent years folded in dedication, learning to perfect the angles. Chin tipped, eyes downcast, hands folded in worship. The sun priests had taught her worship. Etched the obedience into her flesh under the lash when it was needed.
She knew the look of worship when she saw it.
And she did. It was there in the careful, slow orbits of the Pelagorn circling her at a distance.
In the way the young drifted too close, lingering as they twisted and slipped through the currents. Curious, until an elder issued a subsonic hum and sent them skittering back into the dark. Biolume pulsing in a panicked burst.
And she knew.
They weren't guarding a prisoner.
Not really.
They were tending a holy relic.
She watched them orbit. Noted the careful distance. The total lack of interest in Nerissa, even when Kore begged.
And then, the gifts. Trinkets sprinkled upon her. Tiny things she didn't know what to do with, things that wouldn't help Nerissa.
And she knew that too. Reverence. Tithes dropped in offer to something divine.
She'd died for divine love. Drowned. Given her maidenhead in sacrifice to a war she hadn't started. Knew just how devotion might bloom into something sick. That years of bruised knees and cracked, bleeding fingers would buy nothing but silence.
Because the devoted would die for the divine. Obey blindly. Find wisdom in the brutal, echoing silence of neglect and call it faith.
Kore flexed. Angry at the distance. Because she knew.
This wasn't love.
It was fear.
