Heru was a man in dressed in soft, urban tones, who was queued up in a small cafe. He fumbled with the coins in his pocket out of nervous habit. He was trying to identify them by size or feel, having gone on for far too long without ever knowing this information. There was one person ahead of him in the line, and he decided to pinch a few coins together and see if he had guessed correctly. He looked in his hand and lo, there it was: exact change.
“Hi, small coffee.”
He put the change on the counter and the cashier nodded, plucked the coins into the register, and gave him his cup. A smooth and exact exchange.
As Heru was filling his cup, a raven-haired woman in all black clothing walked into the small coffee shop and raised a golden pistol at him. He didn’t notice anything had happened until the absolute quiet let him hear him snapping the lid on the cup. He turned around as she flicked the safety off.
“I am here for the Sixth Hand,” she said.
Heru registered that she had continued speaking, and made a series of faces before declaring, “ah, ok.” He figured her name was either Suki or Yuki, from his guess.
They left the shop together. Heru, the Sixth Hand, turned around and waved at the patrons of the shop with a relaxed laugh. They all understood: It was fine and everything was fine. Nothing to worry about.
“Yuki, miss-“
“-Suki. My name is Suki.”
They were now several turns away from the context of the coffeeshop. Suki’s shape had relaxed and elongated, and Heru perceived her as wearing a suit of black scales with a matching helmet. Heru looked down at himself and saw he was dressed in lengths of golden fabric, held together by bands of woven roses. She was holding him by the shoulders, and let go.
“This is too far.”
“No, this is not far enough, but I cannot take you further. The Lady of the Hearth requested you retrieve her knife from a borrower.”
“This is too, too far.”
“I do not apologize.”
Heru watched her shrink back to her common self and step away from him. She turned away, and Heru was alone on a dirt road at dawn. Mist was rolling across vast plains as far as he could tell, and the sun was kind and meek. He was wearing sandals of rare leather that did not clack, and made his steps fall as silent as peace.
Heru walked down the path for some time until he could smell the richness of great ovens baking away. He let himself be drawn towards the smell, and found himself before a great portal of slotted wood. He rapped his knuckles over the slots, and made a dull sound like pouring water.
The Lady of the Hearth was tall and thin. She had been cut in one blow from a pale cliff, and so her features were sharp. Her hair was as granite; brilliant and mottled through with contrasting streaks. She pulled Heru in with a hand bigger than his head, and brought him up to bosom, which forced the overwhelming smell of home into Heru’s nose and mouth.
Rames couldn’t sleep. He had work in the morning, and he couldn’t sleep. He felt as if he were dreaming and needed to wake up. He didn’t understand why his hands were made of metal, or why his arms were made of wood, when they still looked like flesh and bone to him. He was at home, and he was also in the lowlands on the way to the New Abyss, and he was in bed, and he was walking.
This was not the first time he had been this way, and that was something he knew to his core. This was not the first time. He remembers finding doors to things, ways to fall away from the world. He sees his life in two, one with the sight in his eyes, and the other with the sight in his mind.
He was holding a knife in his hand. It was very old and finely made; it was a bread-knife. He turned it over in his hands with his fingers, and he also gripped the heavy handle with both hands as its towering blade threatened to fall back onto him. This had been a gift from someone he had met once, but it was not a thing to give, and as he held it Rames knew with unwavering clarity that it was not a thing to be forgotten by the first giver.
He felt poorly laid out, and after some time, put the knife on his bedstand in the total darkness, and attempted to find a more comfortable position. Rames sunk through his bed into a deep sleep and further.