Chapter Text
It seemed the moon and the stars themselves shone for me when I broke free. Perhaps they did, for I could see clearly to avoid every pitfall on the foreign soil as I ran. Inhale, two, three. Exhale, two, three, I thought to myself, repeating the words like a Holy Phrase.
My lungs were on fire, and my stomach felt like one of the Bishops’ knives had been plunged inside. I was not a practiced runner. I’d had no reason to be one until now. The whistling of the wind drowned out the sound of my feet striking the ground. Pain radiated up my calves from my heels.
I needed to find cover before my body gave out and She found me. But while I knew the land out here undulated with mountains and hills, it was smooth and rocky. There was no brush to hide in. So in spite of the burning in my chest and the aching of my feet, I ran on.
I don’t know how long it was before I found the cave. It was definitely after the river - my shoes squished as I approached, sopping wet. The light of the moon had revealed the mouth of the cave to me, and I’d turned toward it instantly. My right cheek still smarted from how I’d face-planted from the sudden change in direction at full speed. Looking over my shoulder every which way, I stopped at the entrance of the cave and leaned on the cool stone, peering into the darkness. I breathed heavily as my vision swam with floaters, overwhelmed from exertion. Deciding that trying to see beyond a foot in front of me was going to be fruitless in this state, I stepped forward uncertainly. Still, I had a better chance of hiding from Her in the shadows than making it much farther in the open land.
As I moved, my eye caught an irregularity in the stone to my right. I stopped to look at it and was filled with relief: carved at the entrance of the cave was an inverted gravestone, about a hands-width in size. A symbol of the Banditos. I would be safe here.
“Thank Sa-” I stopped myself. I would no longer thank Her. She was no longer my Bishop, and I was no longer her citizen.
I was a Bandito. -