She stays in the familiar four walls of her room, and sketches. 

It's frustrating, which means she's doing it right. She's unfamiliar with tools of this make. The stump of her right hand's pinky rubs against the paper and aches with every motion. 

Gradually her designs emerge.

She can just see the subtle gleam of satisfaction. Like water catching a passing light at midnight. 

If those designs are published now, it could genuinely harm her. That must be what Zon-Kuthon wants, to spread the practices of scarification and tattooing just for the sake of more pain existing in the world. It normalizes what he does in Nidal. It makes it more acceptable. 

She could lose this one.

Ember works on her designs all day, filling her desk with the creations of her mind. Sharp, intricate designs of many overlapping cuts. Scarification and tattooing done together. She goes and purchases a set of inks and fumbles her way through several more pieces with colors. 

These designs aren't good enough. They're not quite what she imagined. 

Only pain is eternal. 

She tries again, by candlelight, sacrificing her sleep to the task.

Slowly she fades into Sunaira's senses again. 

Ember doesn't realize it, but she's been captured by the flow. She hasn't eaten since breakfast. She's pouring herself into the work, into creating something, even though it pains her. And that's Sunaira's domain.

She watches, and does nothing. 

Eventually, Ember lies down on the hard floor and sleeps.

In the morning, she gives Kumi Cultural Adaptation, Abstemiousness, and Cure Moderate Wounds.

Kumi has been gathering information on Nidal over the last two days. Unfortunately, many of the documents are written in Shadowtongue, so she has only had a little under two hours with the originals. Still, a picture has nonetheless emerged from translations and survivors' accounts. 

There is hardly any such thing as a luxury in Nidal for common folk. Ember's instruments of pain are one of the few recreational outlets she would have been allowed, since that serves Zon-Kuthon's ends. The poor woman doesn't know how to have fun without harming someone. Pain is eternal, pleasure fleeting. Any attachment to anything significant is cut away. 

One hundred percent chance Ember's back is a tapestry of whip scars. Fifty fifty chance she's been infibulated. There are doctrinal disputes among the Kuthite clergy on whether it's better to maim people so they can't have a sex life or keep that very sensitive bundle of nerve endings intact to inflict more pain on. Zon-Kuthon appreciates a variety of ways to make people suffer, so that both sides can hate the other and feel like they got a better deal. Envy is one of his domains. Either way, sexuality is not the way forward. 

It's a difficult case. She's prepared, today, with a handful of real blackberries and several documents in Shadowtongue to serve as material components for the inevitable spells. Abstemiousness is obvious - it'll reduce the pain Ember has from her teeth and give Kumi an excuse to feed her something sweet - and Cultural Adaptation should help to bridge the vast and yawning gap between her experience and Ember's. 

The Cure Moderate Wounds comes as a slight surprise, but she takes it as a message - Ember's wounded. Probably self-inflicted. Kumi will have to interrogate her about it. 

She's not really looking forward to this meeting, but it's deeply important. 

The knock comes at her door. 

Cultural Adaptation. 

She answers it. "Good morning."

Ember stands on the other side of the door, favoring the opposite leg from yesterday. "What does it matter if the morning is good or not?"

"Ignore it, then. If it doesn't serve a purpose to you."

She steps back from the door and ushers Ember in. 

"I wanted you whole," she says, in tones of reproach.

Ember tsks. "It is only temporary damage. It will heal."

She wants to offer to heal it with Cure Moderate Wounds, but she has an instinct that touching Ember will discomfit her. 

Instead she channels positive energy. It's the Nidalese way: do not ask, just do.

Her steadying pain disappears. 

This woman is infuriating. She tries her best not to show her irritation.

"So," she says. "My designs."

"Yes, your designs. Show me."

Ember leans her cane against the chair next to her, and pulls off her rough pouch. Reaching into it, she produces a sheaf of papers.

"Here," she says.

Kumi takes the sheaf of papers and leafs through them.

Most of the designs are simple and stark, abstract. Straight lines, easy to cut. They form patterns a little like the tracks of animals, or like waves. 

There is only one piece of representational art in the whole set; a feather, lovingly rendered in black ink. It's noted on the paper that the vanes are scarified, and the flats are tattooed, giving a raised appearance. 

Most of Ember's exposure to beauty would have been through simple, natural things. Nothing manufactured at all. And representational art is obvious. A simple pattern of cuts is more plausibly accidental. Just an incident of habit. Less likely to draw punishment. 

... These designs have deep potential. In Nidal a design like this could become representative of resistance. Of finding beauty even in the pain. Many Nidalese people are forced to ritually scarify. Giving that act meaning beyond mere suffering is a potent possibility. Double-edged, but any spark of hope... 

She looks up at Ember. 

"These are..." Not beautiful, she'll reject that. "Meaningful. They represent a kind of strength, do they not?"

Ember smiles, showing her filed-down teeth. "Yes. They are. They mean - 'I will not break.'"

Kumi pages through the sheaf of papers. 

The crows' feet design is striking, even to her. And the meaning... 

She needs to reach out.

Don't say she "would like to", don't bring preferences into it. This is going to hurt, but she's tough. It's only pain.

"I should bear one of these designs," she says. "This one, with the crossing lines. The meaning is appropriate."

Ember's eyebrows leap. "I did not expect you to volunteer."

"Some pains are genuinely worth suffering."

She's lost a little ground in the argument, but the rapport she gains over this will be worth it. And Ember's designs are genuinely beautiful, both in meaning and execution. She wants this. 

"I have my knife with me. Shall I do it now?"

"I don't see why not."

She goes over to one of her chairs and sits, then rolls up her right sleeve to expose her forearm. "Here," she says. "From the wrist to the elbow. I want to be able to see it."

She nods, and pulls out her knife. Going over to the side of Kumi's chair, she kneels and makes ready for the work. 

The dull point of her knife traces along Kumi's skin.

She inhales sharply at the cold touch of the metal, but does not draw her arm away. 

This is going to hurt.