(TATB) Ch 42: bright light Above, Mission Start!

(Inside the tank of sand)

The first golden shafts of morning light filtered through the glass walls of the tank like warm fingers prying open the day. The air inside, dry and ever so slightly warm, carried the faint scent of the sand beneath, a dusty aroma that never quite went away.

In the far corner of the tank, partially shaded by the little structure she and her brother had claimed, sat a Lilli girl named Kaela. Her long black hair was tied into a rough braid down her back, though loose strands fell into her tired eyes. Her skin was pale, even under the ever-glowing ceiling lamp Adrielle kept on overnight. Sleep never came easy for her, and today was no different.

She sat cross-legged in the sand, her little brother curled up nearby under a piece of broken plastic shaped like a tent flap. He slept soundly, gently snoring. Kaela watched him with a distant, empty expression. She was always relieved when he could sleep... but for her, sleep only meant memories.

The crunch of stone.

The thunder of distant moaning.

The wet, obscene squelching of skin against skin.

And then... the flood.

It always came back to the flood.

She could still smell it. That foul mix of perfume and sweat and something else—something biological—pouring from above as the Brob couple finished their passionate encounter atop her city. Her home. Her everything.

Kaela blinked slowly, her hands curled into fists.

"Stop," she whispered to herself. "It's not real anymore. It's not now."

But it never left her. Not really. Not when she was forced to live under the heel of the same kind of monster that destroyed her world. And now she was one of dozens—hundreds, maybe—stuffed into a glass tank like a trinket collection.

The rules in the tank were... vague. There were no laws, no leadership, just the unspoken. People grouped off into cliques—tribes, really. Some tried to rebuild, making makeshift homes out of bits of fabric, plastic, and old jewelry. Others just wandered or kept to themselves. But there was one rule that united them all:

Don't piss off the giantess.

Lady Adrielle Viremont.

Their owner.

Their captor.

Their "benevolent collector."

Kaela spat in the sand at the thought. She'd rather die than ever refer to that woman as a goddess.

But some didn't share her feelings.

Across the tank, in the morning haze, she could already see them—the Worshippers. A group of roughly twenty men and women, all kneeling in synchronized rows, bowing their heads toward the side of the tank where Adrielle's massive dresser stood. They chanted softly, almost musically.

"Grant us your gaze... we are your jewels... let us shine beneath your light..."

Kaela rolled her eyes.

"Idiots," she muttered, resting her chin on her knees. "You think praying to a monster makes you anything more than a toy?"

She didn't get it. Maybe it was a coping mechanism. Maybe it was hope. But watching grown Lilli's pray just to be noticed by the same being who could kill them in a blink made her stomach twist.

Just as she was about to close her eyes and try for a nap, something shifted.

A light.

A strange, unnatural brightness glowed from outside the tank—off to the right, just in front of the glass.

Kaela squinted, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the glare.

"What... is that?"

The brightness pulsed, sending dancing reflections into the sand. It wasn't a lamp. It wasn't sunlight. It was focused, alive, even. The sand beneath her vibrated slightly as the ground trembled—Adrielle was waking up.

Kaela looked up, through the transparent curve of their glass prison. She could just make out the Brob's enormous, still-groggy face beginning to stir, her mountain of a body rising from her bed. A casual motion to the goddess-blind, a cataclysmic quake to the people in the tank.

The light grew stronger.

Kaela crawled closer, her curiosity now outweighing her wariness.

Within the glow... something moved.

A shape.

No, a person.

Tiny. Familiar. One of their own.

There was a Lilli inside that light.

Kaela's eyes widened, breath catching in her throat.

"What is that?" she whispered again, more to herself than anyone else.

Around her, others began to notice too. Heads turned. The chanting of the Worshippers stopped. For once, the entire tank fell into a strange, tense silence as the impossible light continued to shine.

And the figure inside began to stir.

Kaela didn't know what she was looking at.

***

(Outside the Tank)

Above the dresser—bathed in the shimmer of impossible light—he floated.

A man, though the word hardly seemed enough to describe him. His hair, short and stark white, flickered faintly in the radiance that surrounded him like a halo. His eyes were pale silver, cold as a polished blade, and utterly unreadable. His face bore no anger, no joy—just the indifferent calm of someone long past being surprised by anything.

He hovered there, unbothered by gravity, by scale, by the sheer unreal nature of where he stood.

Before him loomed the sprawling figure of Lady Adrielle Viremont, still tangled in her sea of satin bedsheets. The Brob's body stretched across her mattress like a landscape carved from cream and gold. One arm cradled her head lazily, the other propped beside her thigh. Her long brown hair pooled around her like rivers of chocolate silk, and her face—delicate, arrogant—peered up at him from beneath drowsy lids.

She looked confused. Perhaps still waking. Perhaps trying to decide if what she was seeing was real.

He didn't care either way.

The man remained suspended in midair, hands folded behind his back, silver cloak drifting weightlessly around him. His gleaming silver armor—etched with ancient runes that pulsed faintly—caught the light of the rising sun, reflecting it in a way that made him glow like a celestial blade drawn from its sheath.

His pale eyes flicked over her massive frame. The smoothness of her skin, the softness of her posture, the vain sparkle of the diamond necklace still resting on her collarbone.

"Not a warrior," he noted aloud, his voice calm and unamused. "You've never even seen real fire."

Adrielle blinked. She shifted, as if trying to rise—but something in the air seemed to still her. Perhaps it was the glow, or the presence, or the weightless pressure that came with him. Something other. Something she couldn't name.

His gaze broke from her like a dismissed idea.

He turned.

Slowly.

Eyes drifting down to the tank of sand near the edge of the dresser.

The prison.

Hundreds of Lilli's moved like confused ants inside it—scrambling, pointing, praying, cursing. A few collapsed in awe. Others, like the dark-haired girl who had been staring since the light began, merely looked... ready.

He stared down at them. For a long moment.

His voice came again, soft, but clear as ringing steel.

"Time for work."

And then... he began to descend.