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## the ghosts won't matter

|| Charly Burke/Teleya

She is the first Union ensign to ever visit Krill, such a high honor for someone so undeserving, but perhaps it is good for her soullessness to see what it looks like to truly be chosen. To witness Teleya’s victory—the victory of a real, duty-sworn Krill, not someone who crumbles to alliances with people who slaughter souls and leave only their children alive as orphans—to witness Teleya rise and soar and bring justice to the fallen and - and -

There’s a burn in her, though. When Teleya instructs the guard to bring her, she studies Teleya with a cold and inorganic lack of fear. Teleya does not understand humankind; humans, she has noticed, typically fear death, chasing the eternity and an escape from the inevitable, but this ensign looks at Teleya, so high above her and ready to ensnare her snakelike jaws around her prey, head-first—she looks at Teleya, and spits. Bravery. No.

Teleya twists the knife between her fingers as she reclines in her seat. The guard has her held tight by the hair, her beautiful blonde head tilted backwards, perfect for harvest. “Remind me, please. What is your name?”

She sees the girl’s mind swirling and flickering and glitching. Teleya knows this well. She is thinking I am going to die, anyways. Can I spit in her face again? Will that get this over with already?

Silence.

“Should I make one up for you?” Teleya continues, prodding her.

“...Ensign Charly Burke of the U.S.S. Orville, navigation.”

“You seem very loyal to your ship, Charly Burke.” She motions for the guard to give her the reigns, and takes Charly’s hair in her hands now. She imagines Charly’s head perfected pretty, all made up and painted, in impure grotesque display over the ceremonial cloths. She imagines twirling Charly’s hair in her fingers as her other hand stabs the blade through her skull, the blood spilling ruby red over her scaled white flesh, furthering her own purity.

And she imagines taking Charly’s flesh in her mouth when she’s done with the ritual — sharing the undesired parts but keeping the eyes and tongue for herself. Skins the ensign in her mind, uses the hide of her to decorate her new office above them all. She imagines the flavor in her—Charly tastes good, she thinks, when Teleya consumes her, because there is a fire inside of Ensign Charly Burke, U.S.S. Orville, Navigation, that can only be extinguished in death. There’s a bite to her, as the humans would say, a kick.

“They’re all I have left,” Charly replies. Teleya releases her with a snap-push.

Teleya points her knife underneath Charly’s chin, forces the girl to look back up at her, to stare Teleya in the face like she’s looking at the face of Avis (not to compare herself to something so high above all) (Avis forgive her), to mold and shape the lack of fear in her into something more recognizable, but Teleya just can’t break her. For a moment it looks like Teleya truly could sink her teeth down into Charly’s neck, desire and fury and power potioned together in toxic vials, spatters of blood against the wall as they both succumb - Teleya to her hunger, Charly to what she ultimately desires, her own death. For a moment it looks - and feels - far too intimate.

Then: “Take her,” Teleya says to her guard.