Carefully, Dyssia lifts the goblet to her lips. 

It is not the first of the night. Strength and courage drip down her throat, warm and heady and fruity, the burn of alcohol under sweet, the kind of drink you could sip at all night and never feel until you woke up the next planet over. 

But it's not the the feeling she's after--it's the wisdom. Or, you know, not specifically wisdom? Not like the kind of wisdom you'd get from a hermit, not unless you know the right hermits, the fun kind? The knowledge, the certainty, the knife's-edge of presence, the purple flitting around the edges of her eyes. 

She sees them, there on the sand. More than should be visible through an aging door torn only halfway off its hinge. Sight granted where there should not be.

She sees the whips, the chains, the flesh-flensers. The bruises. The glee of cruelty for cruelty's sake. 

The phalanxes, already in the air, like dots on a field, but also individual feathers. Raised spears, armor, impenetrable.

Unimportant. The purple tugs at her gaze, cups her chin, lifts it to stare at a town, rising like an island from the ground.

She read a story like that once. Funny how different it looked in her imagination.

"Clear a path!" she orders, one hand rising up to point, one hand thumbing the controls at her belt. "Whoever's over there! Clear the path to this ship for them!"

She's read this story. Hell, she's [i]been[/i] in this story, less than three planets ago. She is here, she is a miracle, but she is a miracle for someone else. That town. This ship. And all that's there to stop her is wave after wave of phalanx.