~GRETA~

"Come," his voice urges me through a soft whisper.

A blinding crown of sparkling light forms a magnificent halo around his face. For years, I suffered alone outside this city of marble. Days ago, Adler, the Emperor, found me and saved me from a lonely death in the pitch-black desert. He is my God. It was the ash falling from the sky, beyond the dome of our city, that stole my world of color. To this day, my sight remains in shades of black and greys.

Some day, I hope to be able to discern the true color of the milky hues of stars clustered in his eyes.

"Hurry, my sweet."

I can only walk so fast with these little legs. Most believe me to be a small child. It is lonely to be considered such when I am an adult.

My feet hurt from climbing up this huge staircase. My God is patient though. Above, he waits for me outside the columned wall of his temple. My sandals clap against the marbled ground as I hurry over to him.

"I am tired, Adler."

He picks me up. It is embarrassing, but I do quite like being held by him. My strength in this form is limited and for so long my God left me alone. I do not want to be alone again. My fingers curl into the crease of his tunic hearing his wife, the Empress, approach.

"Adler, dear, where have you been all day?"

"Taking her on a walk, my dearest."

He does not see the anger hiding behind her eyes because she is beautiful. Tall and regal. No blemishes mark her face. She does not have a double chin like me. Her hair is long and healthy. The desert made mine weak and thin. I am nearly bald.

She glows with an energy I'll never attain.

"All day?"

He pets my head. "Yes, Femke."

Adler turns away with me. I hold his neck tightly watching her face darken on me over his shoulder.

Statues crowd around us until we enter the temple. Inside, shade welcomes us along with his many silent guards. They stand along the walls blending in with the motionless statues. In the center of the large open space, he sits down on his large chair where pointy shards of marble stick up out of.

A slave walks up to us. He accepts the wine on the platter. It spills down his neck as he drinks it greedily.

Of course my God is different from normal Shelliv here. Although I cannot see color, his skin is a darker silver than others here. He is a few heads taller than everyone else and his eyes have strange shapes in them like my own. I watch as they roll into the back of his head. A wafer-thin antenna, holding up a beautiful crescent, begins to glow. It is his spyrt. I gulp hard watching it lean in my direction through the nest of his soft curls.

"How are you feeling? Ready for your nap, my little pearl?"

"No," I whisper.

The sound of talking nears. Rapidly, his spyrt lowers, diming until it's void of the heavenly light, leaving us shrouded in darkness. I duck my head back into the crook of his neck. His skin smells like the salt of the south sea and warm baargi fruit cake. Interesting how his eyes roll back in place as he observes his visitors.

Beautiful women enter. They gather around his feet giggling. Adler's advisors come in next and the room becomes even louder. My God pets my head gently understanding my anxiety around so many new visitors. It is a strange thing but I quite like my scalp being massaged.

"Emperor, Adler!"

I hide my face in the silky cloth of his tunic hearing the dreadful voice of Urdmin. Before answering his advisor, I'm handed off to the hospice keepers—my caretakers. I'm too small to take care of myself.

My home is not in this temple. I'm carried off to a building down below in the city. It is the hospice.

The hospice keepers, my sisters, as Adler told me to call them, have placed me in my noyk. It's inside my chamber. The sick live here and my sisters take care of them.

Oh, how I despise my noyk. It is made of nebular clusters of cloud. A mini-cloud. Although its soft glow is comforting, and it is a heavenly cushion, I am unable to get out of it on my own.

Brommy moves from the edge of my room when my sisters finally stop fussing over me. I stand up in the clouded trap and lift my hands seeing him near.

My God has many sons. It makes me wonder how old he truly is. Brommy is his oldest son. His right eye is normal but his other eye is like mine. His grey skin darkens a little as he watches me cry from the depths of this insufferable bed. I am still so shrunken—the size of a newborn.

Other young adults here stand at such great heights. It is why the Emperor does not let me walk too far away in the market. I could easily become trampled.

Brommy places me on the cold marble ground. His expression is stern as I stretch my limbs. He turns from me to retrieve a book in my bookcase. I know he is trying to entertain me through his storytelling but I grow impatient to leave the refines of this room.

Just like my God's crown does, his shiny armor hurts my eyes. He must wear it always being the war advisor of our empire. He looks very much like his father. Without the armor, I would confuse them.

My words are reduced to babbled noises in this form. "I want to go on another walk, please," I request.

"You must be quiet and go to sleep. Storytime is over," he mumbles while hoisting me up from the marble floor. Brommy is an adult like me. Unlike his father, I am not babied or belittled by him. He is much more strict. My heart plummets when he stuffs me back inside my noyk. I try to not make a peep. However, this tiny body limits my control over my emotions. I cry out for his attention when he walks away from my bed.

In the desert, my life was limited to the walls of a cave. Some days, my fingers still hurt from digging in the sand, I am not sure if it is my imagination. No longer must I dig for bugs below the sand of the desert—even if my stomach still craves them.

Adler told me the darkness of the desert outside our domed city stole my vision. He has given me an optical lense to get rid of my blurry vision, however, my world still remains void of color in this city of light.

I know why. It is because I have done something terrible. Not here, but in the desert. It was moons ago, my God still must not forgive me for doing something so disgusting and foul. I am but a bug still, but I will do my best to earn his forgiveness so I can finally see in color. Maybe he is just waiting for me to admit it.

Perhaps, I will tell him soon, but I suppose I should have confessed much sooner.

Is that why I am being punished?

I do not like the quiet. The first time I was put in here, I tried to scoop the clumps of cloud away at my sides. Unfortunately, the clusters of fluff simply reform too rapidly for me to crawl out. Silent tears fall down my face until my chamber becomes dark.

I close my eyes, finding some amount of comfort knowing my God knows my suffering here. Surely, he is busy ruling over this empire and watching over others besides myself. I cannot be selfish for his attention. Soon, someone will come to visit me and take me out of this awful trap.

Warm hands scoop me out. "It's time to go to sleep," Brommy whispers with a disgruntled expression. I do not blame him for being impatient. He cannot understand my babbled words—only my God can.