Chapter Twenty: Cotton

The town they were stopped outside of now was quite small. It was more of a village really. Cotton couldn't imagine spending more than three shows here maximum. They had camped here just at dusk last night and today had been spent getting the big top up and running through all the acts. Belinda had been much less hesitant this time around. Tomorrow they would have a parade in the morning and the first show in the evening. Cotton wasn't expecting crowds, but she was hoping for a contract or two, small towns tended to be absolutely lousy with people who wanted to run away.

Getting the tent and various high apparatuses up was routine and rolled along like a wheel on a cart. Kestian was an able hand to help. They had now gone off to exercise with Apelon as if the raising of the tent and such was not exercise enough. Cotton had enjoyed watching them work. And she was enjoying spying on the exercising when a pair of crows caught her eye. They flew perfectly wingtip to wingtip over her head and circled above in perfect synchronicity. Cotton followed them away from the others outside the camp but not yet into the forest they were set up beside. The two birds flipped and turned around each other beautifully in the air until with a final twist they each impaled the other on their beak and fell with a terrible sickening thud to the ground. Cotton startled but didn't scream. She had seen something like this before and she should have recognized it. Come to think of it, the birds had been hanging around all day. She looked ahead of her into the forest. Her sister was paying her a visit.

Cotton made her way through the densely growing trees. This kind of forest was exactly the type that she tended to avoid. The last thing she needed in her life was a turf war with a feyrie. As well in woods like these and with a cave system nearby a feyrie met here would be as likely to be one of Tourmaline’s as one of Citrine’s. There were three feyrie queens, sisters, daughters of Silvanus. Citrine was the youngest and ruled generally over forests and wide places, Tourmaline the middle sister ruled over the rocky places, deep caves and high peeks, Lazuli, the eldest, ruled over the waters. Cotton wasn't sure if everything said about the feyrie sisters was true. If the middle sister and her feyries were so much less kind and more fierce than the youngest. Or if even the middle sister’s craft paled in comparison to the eldest sister's distain. Those that lived by or worked on the sea with enough good sense to hold a few superstitions wouldn't even say her name aloud. Cotton certainly understood the importance of keeping someone's name on the right side of one’s teeth. Names were powerful. Calling something’s name could bring it to you.

Cotton could feel her connection to her sister like a teether. There was a heat she could feel in her torque guiding her forward. It was as if she could sense her sister's own iron in the forest ahead of her. She was close.

"Well," a lazy voice drawled. "It is about time you showed up. I must have been waiting for hours." Satine slipped forward into the small clearing from a shadow between the trees.

"You should have made yourself better known to me if you wanted me to come quicker." Cotton said. The retort was out of her mouth before she could I think better of it.

Satine gasped "keeping someone waiting and then blaming her? Well that’s just bad manners little sister." She sauntered forward and placed a hand on her shoulder "you should apologize."

"You're right Satine, I’m sorry." Cotton said with her head down.

Satine slid her hand over to tilt Cotton's chin up and look in her eyes. She pouted her lips and appraised Cotton with her gaze. "Beg" she said, as if playing with a dog.

"What?" Cotton asked.

"Beg for my forgiveness." Satine said brightly.

"Satine, knock it off" Cotton jerked her chin away from her grasp.

Satine grabbed her jaw hard. "Did I ask you Cotton? Or did I tell you?" Her voice was still saccharin sweet. "Now beg, little sister." Her violence finally shaded her last words as she spoke. Cotton hated it but knew better than to defy Satine now.

"Please forgive me Satine, for my rudeness." Cotton said, her contempt practically choaking her.

"Oh Cotton." Satine drawled "one begs on one’s knees."

"Satine."

"On your knees, little sister. Beg" Satine was openly gleeful at the way she could command her.

Cotton felt hot shame prickling up her cheeks. She sank down to her knees.

"You see was that so hard?" Satine asked, satisfaction glowing like an ember from her voice.

"No." Cotton breathed.

"Well do get on with it."

"Please Satine," she said "I beg you Satine, forgive me for my rudeness."

Satine sighed happily. "No." She said and back handed Cotton across the face. Cotton fell off her balance and to her side. Satine kicked her in the gut. Cotton gasped for breath and tried to crawl away from her sister.

"Oh where are you going?" Satine crooned. "Your lesson is just starting." She grabbed her by the hair and threw her forward.

Cotton felt her chin skin on the ground and spat out dirt. She scrambled quickly to her feet and turned to face her sister. She put up her arms to block whatever came next. Satine delivered a kick to her gut. She sucked air and stumbled back. Cotton managed to block the punch that came for her head with her arm. She lashed out herself and her fist found Satine's shoulder.

"Cotton!" She gasped. "Hitting isn't nice."

She punched Cotton back much harder. Cotton could feel the wave of magical force behind it and she stumbled back into a tree.

"Stay there." Satine said. At her command black bands of magic wrapped around her and the tree, binding her there like iron.

Satine walked casually towards her. She pulled the torque from around her neck and it transformed into a long sharp knife.

Cotton felt fear rise hot through her gut. She squirmed but the bonds held her fast, she couldn't get away.

"Satine please just stop." She begged.

"What? Is it too tight? I can fix that." She said. Satine snapped her fingers and Cotton felt the magic tighten around her painfully crushing and digging into her skin.

Cotton cried out at the pain.

"Now what was it that you wanted little sister?" Satine asked.

"Satine, you don't need any of this just tell me why you're here." Cotton said.

Satine traced the tip of the knife along Cotton's arm, scratching but not yet drawing blood.

"Oh Cotton, what have I been saying this whole time about manners?" She stopped moving the knife and began to put pressure on a single point. "You need to ask nicely." The knife broke Cotton's skin and she exclaimed at the pain.

"What do you say Cotton?" Satine twisted the knife around in the cut.

"Please Satine! Please stop! I'm begging you, please!" Cotton cried.

Satine withdrew the knife and wiped the blood on Cotton's cheek. "There, was that so hard?"

Cotton breathed hard to keep from crying.

The knife transformed back into her torque as Satine drew it around her neck. "Well would you look who’s not a cry baby anymore?" Satine taunted. "Maybe you have made some progress little sister."

"You’ve made your point Satine, now, why are you here?" Cotton did not even try to struggle against the painful bands of magic lashing her to the tree.

"Oh Cotton," Satine said sounding disappointed. She punched Cotton’s face. "The point was about manners, so I need you to do better immediately." She leaned in, leaning her head casually in her hand with her elbow above Cotton's shoulder. "Unless you want me to get mt knife out again."

"Please Satine, please tell me why you're here."

"Well of course Cotton. That's all I wanted to do you can be so distractable." She laughed and with a snap of her fingers dismissed the magic binding Cotton to the tree. Cotton fell to her knees and breathed as deeply as she could.

"I just dropped by to say that mom took notice of your last little show in, Corsaña was it?"

Cotton felt guilt and rage coil around each other in her gut. Satine must have sensed it in her.

"Yes 63 souls consigned. And it’s been so long since you've been able to do anything even close to that."

"My work is steady, and I consistently have new pacts for our mother."

"Yes new pacts by twos or trees every week or so. Though I don't think you should count the ones you let your little donkey stealer take." Satine said.

"The Horse Thief is working out his contract." Cotton said.

"If you say so. Mom just wanted me to tell you that your little contribution was noted. You even had some immediate recruits, I thought you'd like to know."

Cotton felt her blood run cold. "What do you mean by immediate recruits?"

"Oh you didn't know?" Satine asked with false surprise "some of your newest pacts were so terrified and hopeless that they just had done with it and came to join the army."

"No." Cotton felt the word fall past her lips.

"I'm honestly curious to know what you did? Is you show regularly so terrible that people want to stab through their eyes and leap off bridges, or was it just that once?" Satine continued.

"How many?" Cotton asked.

"Suicides?" Satine asked "oh barely half a dozen but still impressive. Although if I'm being honest, I'm much more interested in the sheer quantity of other souls. What did you do to them to make them all sign over, and on such terrible terms? Two years, two hundred souls a piece, and for what? A tiny scrap of illusion, the barest spark of flame? What meager protection a torque can offer them. How are they going to accomplish their contract if you didn't even give them charming."

Cotton glared up at Satine, her shame turned quickly to fury.

"Oh," Satine chuckled. "Of course, it’s not about what you did. You can be fully terrifying to a stupid enough crowd. It’s just about your motivation. It’s about what was done to you."

Cotton was silent. She couldn't speak.

"So tell me about him. Did he charm you or did he use physical force? Did you accept a drink like a little idiot and wake up in an alley way with street dogs sniffing around to see if you were food yet and no memories of how you were dumped there?"

"Stop it." Cotton said her voice was small and hoarse. Her heart began thudding with familiar panic and a terrible thought ran through her mind. Saying stop had so rarely worked for her in the past, why would it work now. It was a useless word; people did not head it when she said it.

"Stop because I've hit it or stop because I'm getting close? Was it just a he at all or were there more than one of them?" Satine smiled maliciously and stepped closer to Cotton backing her again against a tree. "Tell me little sister was it magical force, apothecary force, or physical?"

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Cotton shook, she could not form words to this question she did not even want to answer.

"Tsk tsk tsk, answer me Cotton" Satine said and slid her finger into the cut on Cotton's arm. Cotton screamed.

"So you do still have a voice. Let's hear you use it baby sister, how were you attacked?"

There was no use in resisting. She couldn't tell her to stop. "He charmed me." Cotton said.

"Is that all? I didn't realize you still folded as easily as a scarecrow." Satine said.

"And he gave me something."

"You accepted a drink? Deepest pit I thought you knew better than that baby sister."

"I didn't drink anything it was a little patch or something he slipped it on me."

Satine smiled predatorily, "and do you remember what he did to you little Cotton?"

"No." It was truth enough but all Cotton could think about was every other blank space in her memory where she had not been as lucky or safe as that night.

"Do you even remember what he looked like?"

"No," Cotton had liked that she hadn't remembered but now it just scared her.

"How about a smell? They say those stick out more."

"Saffron, and spice peppers." Cotton had not realized that she had remembered but now at her words the memory of his scent invaded the air around her. She felt like she might choke.

"You let yourself be raped by a cook?" Satine asked incredulous. "Wow Cotton new low, even for you."

Cold fear and boiling rage churned within her. Cotton could not speak she could not move. She was such an idiot. She should have stopped it in the first place, she should not have let it happen. She should have fought back more against her sister and maybe she wouldn't have to be reliving this right now. She should have kept her anger in gods damned check, and she may not even have attracted her mother's and Satine's attention.

"What? Painful memory baby Cotton? Well I would apologize but I just had to know. It wasn't one I sent after you, so I was curious."

Cotton felt herself shaking still unable to takes a deep breath.

"You do know some of them have been mine right?"

Of course Cotton knew. But if she said anything now she was as likely as not to get bound back to the tree and left until someone thought of coming looking for her. Kestian would come looking for her. But she couldn't let them see her like this.

"You see once mom and I put together the link between your mass pact performances shall we call them and your little misadventures well...” she paused baiting a reaction “we figured out how to bring out the best in you, the strongest in you. If there were any other way for you to get your numbers up, don’t you think we'd do it?"

Cotton looked her sister dead in the eye. "No" she said

Satine laughed "well perhaps you're right, I suppose not."

Cotton couldn't take any more of this, she needed to get away now. She pushed past her sister "please give mother my regards, and thanks for your visit."

"Where do you think you're going?" Satine asked.

"Back to my circus."

"Wait a moment." Satine said. She gripped Cotton by the arm and tugged her close taking a deep inhale. Her torque glowed faintly. She chuckled viciously. "I thought so, You have lover little sister."

Cotton tried to pull her arm away but was fruitless.

"A new angelic lover. If sparkling had a smell, you'd be covered it in. What’s the name?"

"What name?"

"Your lover's name, tell me."

"Satine let go."

"Oh Cotton." Satine crooned. "Clearly I've left you alone for too long, you've forgotten how our little game works". Satine slid her hand down Cotton's arm to her wrist and twisted it behind her back. Cotton exclaimed at the pain. "Don’t you remember little sister? How this works is I ask a question and you give me an answer. Got it?"

Cotton bit her lip to keep from screaming.

"Got it?" Satine yelled in her ear as she twisted Cotton's arm further behind her back.

"Yes!" She yelped.

"Yes what Cotton?"

"Yes, I got it."

"Good, now what is your lover's name?"

Cotton whimpered. She had been such an idiot. They were not even a week outside of Corsaña. What had she been thinking? She was supposed to have left them behind her. They would be the one that got away and now?

"I asked you a question little sister." Satine said.

She could feel her bone about to snap. "Kestian!" She yelled.

Satine shoved her to the ground with a satisfied chuckle. "Now was that so hard, little Cotton?" She stood over her gloating. "You know I wonder what mom will think of your new little lover. On the one hand incubi are lesser devils, but on the other hand keeping such a catch back only for yourself? Well that’s just selfish isn't it? It’s not very loyal to the cause, to the family, to our mother, the source of our power."

"Not all my power comes from her." Cotton snapped back. A malicious fire lit Satine's eyes.

Cotton tried to scramble back but Satine was quicker. Satine kicked her and Cotton sprawled on her front. Satine put a knee I to her back to pin her to the ground.

"You think you're so special don’t you Cotton?"

Cotton squirmed uselessly trying to get her sister off her back.

"But you're not shit." Satine spat the words. "You couldn't even manage to get into one of the better guilds. Of course, shadow would never even know about you, you are so beneath notice. Then steel, they wouldn't have had a pathetic weakling like you even if you had auditioned. So you were left with all the other useless puffed up excuses for innate casters in story.

"My father was story."

"Your father was just as weak and pathetic as you are. And the only reason you exist is because he was too stupid to barter for something better."

Cotton screamed in frustration desperately trying to get her sister off her back. "Get off!"

Satine hooked her arm tight around Cotton's throat and whispered in her ear, "say please little sister. Remember your manners."

Cotton gasped for breath and continued to struggle. Black dots began to swim in her vision.

"Hmmm will she tap out or black out, always a fun gamble." Satine said.

Cotton slapped the ground desperate for air.

"But I had my money on blackout." Satine said holding her firm.

"Please" Cotton rasped with her last scrap of air.

"Oh well since you asked so nicely." Satine said, she released her and stood up. Cotton quickly crawled away to the edge of the small clearing coughing and gasping for breath.

"Now sister," Satine said brushing the dirt from her pants "as much as I enjoy this little game we have of you being difficult I do have other things I need to do today." Satine picked up a stick from the ground and began to trace a circle around herself. "Not the least of which will be telling mother all about this little interaction. From your barely controlled rage to your pitiful weakness, to your rudeness, to your new lover."

"Leave them out if this." Cotton said her voice hoarse and pocketed.

"And your stupidity." Satine sighed as she drew sigils into the circle. "Really Cotton if you did want me to leave them alone, you wouldn't be asking me to. And you certainly wouldn't have given me their name."

Cotton screamed and hurled herself at her sister. With a lazy flick of her hand Satine sent a wall of flame forward knocking Cotton back into a tree. The infernal flames did not burn her of course but she felt the cruel heat of it all the same.

"It really is a shame." Satine mused. "So much fight in you, but absolutely no potential. You really will be of so much more use to us when you're dead, maybe you should join your half dozen friends." She snapped her fingers; a whirl of flame enveloped her and she vanished.

Cotton's head swam. She crumbled to the ground. She was dizzy and disoriented but one thing she knew. She hated her sister. She hated her mother. And yet, she was so deeply envious of her mother's love for Satine. She missed her father. Maybe Satine for all her cruelty was right. Maybe she really would be better off joining the army now. At least she would see her dad again. But no, he had wanted her to live. That was the whole point of her being and why he was where he was. He wanted her to exist, he wanted her to live.

How could she have been such an idiot? How could she have been stupid enough to let herself feel safe. Of course her mother and sister had just been biding their time. Satine hadn't sent the man in Corsaña but it had been over a year, she would have sent someone eventually. It brings out the best in you. That’s what she had said. Was her rage and furry really all that was useful in her? Was what she could destroy the only thing of value? And now what was worse she had dragged Kestian into this. They didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve her and all the mess she came with. They had saved her back in Corsaña and now how had she repaid them? She had betrayed them to her sister. She was worthless and weak and pathetic.

Cotton tried to stand again. She hurt everywhere and her head was still spinning. She looked up to the sky. The sun had moved. How long had she sat here feeling sorry for herself. She pushed off the tree wobbling slightly and took a few shaky steps forward. What had Satine hit her with? She lifted up a hand to her head and felt a wetness. Shit. She couldn't go back to camp like this. She needed to cover this up. She felt her knees begin to buckle and reached out to a tree to steady herself and gently lower down. She breathed heavily. Was she being dramatic or did she actually feel terrible? Satine had knocked her around before, what was so different about this time? How hard had she hit her head?

She needed help. "Reina" she whispered to the wind. Her torque vibrated against her collar bones as the magic reached out to the youngest member of her circus.

"Cotton?" Came the bright and curious reply.

"There's my little goblin." Cotton smiled to herself "Reina, I need you to get your mom to come find me alright? Can you go get her for me?"

"Are we playing hide and find?" Reina asked.

"No sweetie, just get your mom please, its important." Cotton replied

"Alright, I'll go find her." Reina said.

Cotton leaned her head back against the tree. Shortly the little voice was back again. "Mommy found you and told me to tell you to stay where you are she's coming."

"Good little goblin. I promise we can play hide and find when I get back alright?"

"Yea!!!! I'm gonna go hide now."

"Tell your father first." Cotton said.

Cotton felt more than heard Reina's groan but knew she would do as she was told. She leaned her head back against the tree and waited.