I am on fire.

No, strike that. I'm not on fire, but it sure as hell feels like it. I can hear screaming, and I can't tell if it's someone else's or my own. I want to get away, but I can't move. I can't breathe. Smoke fills my mouth, my nose, my eyes, my lungs. I'm suffocating.

Suddenly someone is shaking me. The screaming morphs into words. Someone is yelling my name.

My eyes snap open and I'm in Eris's room again, laying in her bed, drenched in sweat. My sister is gripping my arms firmly, staring down at me with wide, worried eyes. "Sedna? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I...I'm fine," I stammer, trying to catch my breath. I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, resting my elbows on my knees and my palms on my forehead.

"You were having a nightmare," she says, sitting down beside me. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm okay, I promise," I sigh. Hopefully I wasn't talking in my sleep or something, I don't want her to know anything before I tell her directly. I rub my eyes with my fingers and look up at her. "I thought you were meeting with someone? What are you doing here?" I ask.

"That was almost three hours ago. I came to let you know that it's time for dinner, if you want something to eat. I can just bring you something back if you aren't feeling up to walking down to get it, though."

"That's okay," I reply, forcing a smile. "I can come myself. I don't really feel like going back to sleep at the moment."

She nods and stands up. "We should probably get going then. If we get there too late, then there won't be much of anything left." She smiles wryly.

I stand up as well and go to grab my shoes, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the opposite side of the room. "Goddess, I'm a mess," I mutter. My hair is tousled into what looks like one massive tangle, and my clothes are covered in sweat. Just to make things worse, the bandage has been torn from my arm, and, of course, looks like it's bleeding. "Uh...do you think I could have a couple minutes to change and fix..." I gesture to my entire person, "...this?"

"Yeah, of course. I'll wait outside," she replies. I turn away to grab a new outfit, and I hear the door click behind her as she leaves.

I change clothes, rebandage my arm, and dig through my bag for a hairbrush, coming up with nothing. I spot one on Eris's dresser and I grab it.

"Hey Eris?" I yell slightly louder than usual.

"What? And lower your voice a little."

"Sorry. Do you mind if I use your hairbrush? I don't think I have one."

"Yeah, that's fine. I'll find you one of your own after dinner."

With her consent, I try to run the brush through my hair, cursing when it gets stuck and pulls out a few white strands. Is it really better to rip out all of my hair trying to brush it than to have it tangled? I try brushing it more gently, but it still takes me several minutes to get it looking respectable. I pull on my shoes quickly and meet Eris in the hallway.

"You ready?" she asks, and I nod in affirmation. I follow her as she walks down the hallway. It gets darker as we continue to what I assume is an underground section of the building. There are no windows, but small electric lights line the corners where the walls meet the ceiling. They cast a faint light that is reflected off of the shining stone.

Soon I start to hear voices. A lot of them, in fact. We must be getting close. Sure enough, when we round a corner at the end of the hall, the passage opens into a large cafeteria-like space. Dozens of people, mostly male, are either waiting in a short line for food or sitting at one of the many tables in the room. Eris grabs two trays from a stack and gets in the line, passing one of the trays to me.

"There's so many people here," I mumble, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. "The shrine at home only has one person."

"The God of the sun prefers to have more people running the shrine. There are also a few others like me here, who stay for various reasons." She turns to face me. "Who told you this was a shrine?"

"No one, I just figured it was because of the shape and location. It looks a lot like the one at home."

"Hm. Yeah, I guess it does." We arrive at the point in the line where food is being distributed, and an older woman behind the counter hands us both a fork and spoon, and sets a bowl of some sort of stew on our plates. A young girl next to her hands me a glass of water with a smile. I smile back and nod to the older woman in thanks.

Balancing my tray on one hand, I follow Eris through the crowd to a spot at an empty table. I take the seat across from her and say a quick prayer of thanks before I start to eat. For a while we eat in silence, the din of the talking masses and the sound of chewing punctuated by clattering forks and the scrape of chairs on the floor. The stew has some sort of meat in it, along with a myriad of vegetables and some sort of sauce. It's the first substantial thing I've eaten in days.

I'm scraping sauce out of the bottom of my bowl with my spoon when I hear the sound of a tray being dropped on the space beside me. The rest of the table is still empty, so I look up in surprise.

A tall, younger man towers above me, looking at me curiously before taking a seat. "You're new here," he says matter-of-factly. "What's your name?"

I glance over at Eris, who is watching him carefully, but she doesn't say anything. "Uh...I'm Sedna."

"Sedna, huh? Nice name. I'm Leo. Lucas said there was a new girl so I thought I'd come check her out."

Eris stops eating and sets her fork down. "Back off, Leo."

"Aw, come on. If she doesn't want me around then she should tell me herself, Eris."

"No, she's right," I say aloud. "I'm not really interested in...your kind of person."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he retorts. "You don't even know me."

"That's right, I don't, but I shouldn't have to say I'm not interested more than once." I push my chair back and stand up. "Can we leave, Eris?"

"Yeah. Let's go." She flashes Leo a warning look before standing up as well and picking up her tray. We stack our bowls and trays with the rest of the dirty dishes and leave the room. My sister looks at me with a concerned expression as we make our way back to her room. "You okay?" she asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. He was just making me kinda uncomfortable."

"Sorry about that...we don't really get a lot of new people, especially not girls, so when someone does show up....let's just say a few of them will try to make a play for them."

That's just great. I might have to deal with this again. "Do you think I might be able to just eat in your room from now on?"

She shakes her head. "They don't let us eat in our rooms, not unless we're sick. If we get there early, though, it won't be as crowded, and less people will try to bother you."

"Let's do that, then, at least, if you're okay with it."

"Whatever you need. Just know that I'm always here to protect you. Especially from them." She rolls her eyes at the word them.

But will she still be here for me when she finds out what I've done?

——————————————————

Sorry about the super irregular posting schedule, but I guess an early chapter is better than a late one! I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Now that you've seen both of them for a while, who's your favorite sister so far?

(*Edited*)