An excited gasp escaped her cracked, full lips. Strained coughs followed before the young-looking Tayan gained the strength to open her purple eyes. The Milky Moon blinded her through the cracks between the bent structures. Blinking quickly, Paeosfu looked away and peered beyond her thick white curls to soak in her surroundings. Leaking tayeet pipes formed a sculpture with she and her people decorating it as immobile and weak ornaments. A few of them crushed beneath the metal lay unmoving. Others coughed and squirmed to free themselves whilst squeezing pink ooze from their twisted bodies. Exhausted from the earlier battle, they gave up with frustrated cries. 

 

Growing acutely aware of the groaning and squeaking sounds of help, she exhaled and allowed her already thin frame to grow thinner. Paeosfu cleared her mind and isolated the pain returning along with her senses. She flattened until the pain no longer wrapped around her arms, her torso, or her toes. Her once brown body now a rich purple and planar permitted her to move. Her soul screamed of the pain that cannot escape. She had no mouth, no nerves, no nose--only eyes and a sharp perception of vibrations to aid her.

 

She slithered around the pipes to her destination: the Milky Moon. Her body fell around the forms, sinking before rising. It climbed and then descended as she navigated through the contorted mess. Before the battle, this was almost a completed transportation facility. The ideas were novel. Traveling from district to district was to be that flicker of fun in the otherwise mundane task of construction, mining, or depositing. Prior to the assignment of the bureaucratic tasks, they had so much fun.

 

Many moons ago, the hum of the inbound foreign ships alerted them that the fun would end. The Second Ruler was the first to go. So suddenly she was taken from them that it seemed that her cries echoing throughout the land was her last attempt to remain in their minds. Then many had claimed to witness the Third Ruler force his scepter through the Fourth. The god’s core was ejected. The distinguishing features fizzled in flames. Nasty rumors emerged about the Third. He was to be feared since he incinerated the corpse with his powers. Before the Tayans had an opportunity to recover from the realization that the gods were as mortal as they were, the First Ruler disappeared without a trace.

 

Peeking out of the entanglement, Paeosfu immediately threw her head back to shine the golden gem embedded in her forehead directly toward the Milky Moon. The moon was crescent-shaped with a light-green hue and large dark brown orbs resembling eyes. Tayans turned to the Milky Moon once the image of the gods was shattered. Paeosfu looked to it too and wondered if she’d be next.

 

The princess wavered slightly as her body expanded into three-dimensional space.  In haste, she hoisted herself from the entrapment before her flat limbs rounded and revealed the wounded, twisted mess of her legs. 

Sitting upon a pipe, she heaved in recovery from the transformation and the mere task of escape. She debated whether to transform again. Her arms were relatively fine. Silvery pink blood dripped from a few cuts, yet her battered legs may make travel difficult. 

 

I can drag myself back to headquarters, she mused, studying the destruction. Alternatively with her bike, she could cross districts briskly and send a recovery team from the kingdom back to the site. Her legs leaked. The viaete soiled her battered rebel uniform shorts. She knew she had to move or she would risk fading away into an empty shell like many others.

 

Having phased into her abstract form, she awkwardly navigated around the pipes with her soul screeching the same cries of help as the others.