They dressed me like I was something worth presenting.Three pack women arrived at my quarters before dawn with their arms full — a ceremonial dress the colour of moonlight, silver thread worked through the fabric in patterns I didn’t have the knowledge to name, shoes that fit like they’d been made for me specifically.They moved around me with professional efficiency, pinning and adjusting, and occasionally stepping back to assess, with the focused expressions of people who took their work seriously, regardless of their personal opinions about the subject.I stood still and let them work, occasionally looking out the window. Preparing my nerves for what was to come.Full moon tonight. The ceremony elder had explained the significance — the goddess’s eye open fully, witness to the binding. More permanent. More complete.More, I thought. Everything about tonight was going to be more.One of the women — young, with careful hands — reached up to arrange my hair. She met my eyes in the
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