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“They do not need what we need. This is their strength. They can exist in nature, without power, without our facilities. They may eat raw flesh and plumage nature. Make no mistake: their human skins are only veneers that hide their true selves and their truer intents. What you see has the appearance of a man but it is a thing meant to deceive. A construct. Mankind has long reined this world by the grace of God. We, not animals, were constructed in his eternal image. These beasts make a mockery of that sentiment now. They steal our shape so that they, in the middle of the night, or with the breaking of some hellish dawn, may be better equipped to take what is rightfully ours.”

- Man’s Law, Baldric Reinhardt, Minister of Propaganda


Augusta is not an animal.

She does not often eat meat. The texture does not appeal to her and neither does the scent. Meat is a luxury, one she rightfully deserves, but there are little grasslands left; the green areas are far apart and difficult to find, so the compounds serve what the desert can offer – snake, black-tailed rabbit, addax, and, when lucky, camel. No amount of simmering or collection of sauces can change the toughness. She takes small bites that she swallows without chewing and turns her attention to the fruits and vegetables.

Albtraum, as the leading compound, has top priority when the trade goods come in from the mountains in the West. It is there that she can enjoy the richness of avocadoes and the distinct raspberry-sweetness of plump blood oranges. She digs her fingers into their rinds and peels them until her hands are red with the juice. She sprinkles salts on palm-sized tomatoes and bites from them directly, the way others eat apples.

She likes strawberries because they remind her of miniature hearts. She eats them whole and takes them dried into the desert when she must journey. She stores them in pouches or flavors her canteen water with them.

Maximus and Harrow are carnivorous by nature. They prefer their red meats rare. They savor the taste of their meals with accompaniments of tumblers of whiskey and cigars.

Augusta drinks daintily from martinis that are orange and red. It takes her an hour to finish one, but she fishes the cherry garnish from the glass each time, toying with the fruit on the tip of her tongue.

-

This is the desert.

This is the waste of scorched earth. A stretch of despair bracketed between mountains.

This is what the world does: it scalds you into a waif, until you are the imprint of what you once were, until you are not what is supposed. Until even your enemies cannot see you fully.

She is known, at varying time, as the eldest Vries, the widow Reinhardt, the Minister.

There are things about her that others would find surprising because they think of her less as a woman and more as a machine. Since Augusta does not bleed in front of them, they have forgotten the bruises inside of her and the wounds she was forced to cauterize on her own. They take her in as a whole and fail to see the construction that she is – the affectations that piece together her particular puzzle.

Her husband had done this. He was a historian before he was honored with the position of Minister of Propaganda, and she was not unhappy with him, most days. She was too young, and he was too old, but she listened to his stories and read his books. She sat in his meetings in silence, recording notes in her efficient shorthand. She was silent too when she suffered the weight of his nighttime visits. But she waited and she learned.

When the accident happened and Augusta caused her own scar on her stomach, he stopped taking her bed. He had bastards, like her father and his father before him, and they ate on silver platters and discussed everything but their own infidelities. She was a trophy, tarnished only where others could not see, and he had not taken her for anything more.

He mistook her silence for acceptance. Her cunning for camaraderie.

Harrow does the same while she is married, and it isn’t until she inherits her husband’s title and acquires Maximus’ respect that he begins welcoming her begrudgingly with a tight jaw and hardened eyes.

He sees her linen dresses and impractical heels and knows her only as an incompetent usurper. He sees her resurrected beast and thinks her a fool.

Like all of the men of her life, Harrow does not know that she is the most adapted for their burnt world.

Only she has been left unblinded by the sun.

I shouldn't write after drinking three martinis! But alcohol inspires me. I must stop consuming character-inspired drinks.

--



“The secret, Radomir, is that all it takes is one woman clever enough to make a desperate man feel special. The world breaks for such an arrangement.”

“Are we still discussing Harrow and his swan?”

She smiles at him, and it is an expression that is all teeth. When she pushes her glass into his hands, he lets his fingers linger on hers.

-

Maximus is a traditionalist. He does not keep beasts because he does not trust them. He moves in a more conservative fashion, and so his grounds are flocked with dogs – wolfhounds and coonhounds. Canines meant for the hunt.

Augusta surprises the men when she kneels for the recently littered pups. She opens her hands willingly, lets them tongue the length of her fingers, presses her face into the soft coat of their necks. Against the shock of orders being tossed in the air, her laugh catches on the wind.

She keeps a blue nosed pup in her arms, stroking its tender ears, until the call for lunch sounds. When she passes Radomir, she places the dog in his wide arms.

“A meal,” she quips, and the hint of a smirk twists her red mouth.

-

She does not smoke, not like her father or her younger brother. She talks, instead, of the thick pollution of the wasted air and longs for the freshness of the mountains. His steps are surer there as it is, and the brisk wind flatters her cream skin, flushes it pink. But she smells like cigars when she returns from meetings, so he washes her hair with a softness that is unprepossessing of his stature.

-

The crack of Kim’s whip is sharper than lightning.

Augusta does not flinch. She watches placidly, noting the streaks of blood that blossom against his skin.

-

Roman pours her a drink that is red and orange, the sleeves of his silk shirt rolled up to show the shape of his arms. She touches his wrist when she accepts it, and Radomir’s feels the growl thicken inside of his chest.