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"She lived in a high tower in the sky It was a very comfortable tower, but there was no way down and out into the world And one day the young goddess decided that she had better things to do than look at herself in the mirror "

REVENGE

Tally awoke to unfa breath, a soft chorus of snores and snuffling, the heavy, humid warmth of a small and crowded space

She stirred in the darkness, and a ripple ofto accom warmth suffused her senses It felt al smell of unwashed humans and the fact that Tally really had to pee

She opened her eyes Light filtered through the chimney, which was just a hole in the roof that let s; everyone was sleeping late That was no surprise - the feast had lasted until dawn Everyone toldto see whose tale could keep the sleepy god awake, with Andrew Si the whole tio to bed, Tally discovered that "bed" was in fact a foreign concept here She had wound up sharing this hut with twenty other people Apparently, in this village, staying war in piles, fur blankets strewn across everyone It had been weird, but not weird enough to keep Tally awake another , unconscious bodies lay all around her, led up with one another and with the animal skins But the casual contact hardly see warm, like kittens in a pile

Tally tried to sit up, and found an ar softly with his ht away fro his arm over the old h the se She had known that these people hadn’t invented hoverboards or wallscreens or flush toilets, probably not even metal tools, but it had never occurred to Tally that there was ever anyone anywhere who hadn’t invented privacy

Sheover ar, she gratefully crawled out into the bright sun and fresh air

The freezing cold goose-pi ice into her lungs

Tally realized that her coat was back in the hut, but she only wrapped her ar she would rather shiver than run the gauntlet of all those sleeping bodies again Out here in the cold, she felt her wrist throbbing froht before, and the soreday’s hike

Maybe the hus first

To find the latrine, Tally only had to follow her nose It was nothing but a ditch, and the overwhellad for the first time that she had run away in winter How did people live here in summer?

Tally had faced outdoor toilets before, of course But the Sating nanos borrowed froe and routed it straight back into the soil, which helped produce the best tomatoes Tally had ever eaten

More i a stink The Smokies had almost all been born in cities, however ical civilization, and didn’t like bad sether, alh technology What sort of culture had these people descended froht that the Rusties had incorporated everyone into their econo every other way of life - and although it was never mentioned, Tally knew that the Specials did prettySo where had these people come from? Had they returned to this way of life after the Rusty civilization crashed? Or had they lived out in the wild even before then? And why had the Specials left them alone?

Whatever the answers to these questions, Tally realized that she couldn’t face the latrine ditch - she was too irl for that She wandered farther back into the forest Although she knew this had been frowned on in the Sot special dispensations here

When Tally waved to a pair of watche of town, they nodded back a bit nervously, averting their eyes and clu their clubs behind the why they hadn’t gotten in trouble yet for trying to cave her head in

Only a few e disappeared fro lost Gusts of wind still brought s intensity froh to yell to the watchht sun, the night frost wasin a steadysounds, like her parents’ old house when no one else was home The shadows of leaves broke the outlines of the trees,ust of wind The feeling of being watched that she’d experienced the day before returned, and she found a spot and peed quickly

But she didn’t head straight back It was pointless to let her iination run aith her A few moments of privacy were a luxury here She wondered what lovers did when they wanted to be alone, and if anyone kept secrets for long in the village

Over the lastalht now; her bodyquarters with a couple of dozen strangers was a strange and unexpected substitute

Suddenly, Tally felt her nerves twitch, and she froze So had shifted, not part of the natural play of sunlight and leaves and wind Her eyes scanned the trees

A laugh rolled froh the undergroith a big s on ?" He said it as if he’d never heard the word, and Tally wondered if, with so little privacy, anyone here had even invented the concept of spying "I hen you left us, Young Blood I thought et to see you"

She raised an eyebrow "See h The night before, no matter how she’d tried to explain it, Andrew Sirasped the concept of hoverboarding She had explained that younger gods didn’t use hovercars veryvehicles seemed to befuddle hiht Tally was hiding her special powers just to vex hiht, I can’t fly"

"But in your story, you said you were going to join your friends"

"Yeah But like I told you, my board’s busted And underwater I’"

He seemed confused for a et broken

Then suddenly he bea tooth that made him look like a littlie "Then I’ll help you

We alk there together"