On the other side of the store, Carly’s mind was racing. The Maker's Mark… how? She was human. There was no way she could have a mark like that. Unless… the shoes, maybe there was something with the shoes she had given her to wear with the outfit she was wearing. It must have been somehow.
Victoria approached her, her expression serious. "You must think of a challenge. You cannot delay forever."
"I know, I know," Carly said. "But I need to think this through. Dalia is playing a game, and I don't even know the rules."
"The rules are simple," Victoria said. "Prove yourself the true soft body. Prove her to be the unchaining."
"But how?" Carly asked, throwing her hands up in exasperation.
Then, it hit her. "Wait," she said, a flicker of hope igniting in her eyes. "What if I challenge her… to trying being human? That way, she can see it is not what she thinks it is, then she won't want it."
"I bow to your logic." Victoria frowned. "I don't understand."
"I challenge Dalia to live as a human for one day," Carly said, her voice gaining conviction. "To experience the world outside these walls, to face the challenges and joys of being a 'soft body'. Then she can see it's not what she imagined, then she concedes."
Victoria's eyes widened. "That is a bold challenge, Carly. But how would we even do that? The Sisterhood has never left this store."
"We'll find a way," Carly said, a determined look on her face. "I'll find a way."
Carly approached Celeste with her idea to see if there was any way that this could be done. Carly had to make sure that Dalia would not simply leave with her newfound humanity and never come back before the sisterhood had made their decision.
It was unprecedented, audacious; the sisterhood was apprehensive over the challenge, but Carly had been tasked with coming up with the next challenge. She had not been advised of any limits as to what it might be. After much deliberation, Celeste came to speak to Carly and Victoria about what the sisterhood had decided.
“The ancient texts describe a ritual that will allow what you wish for one cycle of the orange light.” Celeste’s voice, usually a melodic whisper, was now resonant with ancient authority. “It is called the binding.” Her gaze, deep and knowing, settled first on Carly, then on Dalia. “If you are both prepared to speak the words?”
Carly swallowed, her throat unexpectedly dry. This was it. The only way she could see out of her current dilemma, even if it meant spending more time in the world of the sisterhood. “I am.”
Dalia, rigid but resolute, echoed, “I am.” How could the soft body hope to win this challenge? This is what she wanted, of course, she would take part in the ritual.
The other members of the sisterhood formed a circle around them, with Dalia and one side and Carly on the other.
Celeste nodded. “The binding cannot proceed without the Ceding. A formal release of what is, to make way for what is to come. Carly, you first."
"You are ceding your current state of being," Celeste instructed, her voice a low, hypnotic cadence. "You are acknowledging that your existence as a soft body is forfeit, should the challenge be lost. Speak the words from your core, let the intent be pure."
Carly closed her eyes, gathering the scattered fragments of her courage. She opened them, her gaze locked with Dalia’s. Carly knew she had to make her statement not just a surrender, but a challenge. “I cede my place as a soft body to you,” she declared, her voice firmer than she expected. “I yield my ephemeral warmth, my chaotic senses, my boundless vulnerabilities. Should you prove worthy, this life will be yours, with all its burdens and its unexpected joys.” The implication hung in the air: she was giving Dalia free rein, a full, unedited taste of humanity, not just its gilded promise. It was an offering, and a trap.
A ripple, almost imperceptible, went through the assembled sisterhood. They understood the weight of a ‘soft body’: the constant shifts, the unseen pains, the unpredictable emotions that made humans so fascinating and yet so fragile.
The moment the final word left her lips, a profound shift occurred. It was not a sound, but a feeling, a deep, resonant hum that vibrated from the floor up through the soles of her feet. A shimmering, golden-rose mist, smelling faintly of summer rain and cut grass, began to bleed from her pores. It was warm, chaotic, and pulsed with the frantic, unsteady rhythm of a human heart. Her life force, her aura, was being drawn out, untethered from the flesh and bone it had known. She felt suddenly light, hollowed out, as if a fundamental part of her was now floating just in front of her chest.
Celeste turned her head, her movements as fluid and deliberate as a slow-motion film. "Sister Dalia."
It was the first time that Carly had heard any of the unchaining use sister in such a way before, she asked Victoria why Celeste had done so.
“Sister is an honour bestowed on all of the un-channing when it comes to the old ceremonies, it must be used the way the old ones did,” Victoria told her.
Dalia stepped forward, her plastic hands clasped. She moved with an unnerving grace, her fibreglass limbs making no sound on the marble. She stopped opposite Carly, her painted eyes looking past the human woman to the shimmering, vibrant aura that now hung in the air. A flicker of something akin to hunger crossed her features.
"You are ceding your place among the Sisterhood," Celeste intoned. "Your existence as one of the un-channing. Should you succeed, this form, this life, will be your prison no longer. It will belong to another. Speak the words."
Dalia’s voice was the antithesis of Carly’s. It was crisp, sharp, and utterly devoid of doubt. Her voice, usually a delicate chime, held a steely edge. “I accept what has been ceded and I cede my place as one of the un-channing to you,” she intoned, her eyes fixed on Carly. “I yield my eternal stillness, my quiet perfection, my freedom from want or decay. Should you falter, Carly, this constancy, this unwavering existence, will be yours. Peace in the stillness, peace in the sun.” Her words, though seemingly a concession, as she tried to hide that this would take her one step closer to her goal of being human forevermore.
A second energy manifested. From Dalia’s sculpted form, a cool, silver-blue light emerged. It did not mist or shimmer like Carly’s; it formed distinct, crystalline patterns in the air, cool, silent, and smelling of ozone and sterile stillness. It was the essence of patience, of waiting, of the long, silent watch in the dark. It hung opposite Carly’s aura, a perfect, serene counterpart to the human chaos.
The two ethereal forms, one a fiery, emotional nebula, the other a precise, icy lattice, pulsed gently in the space between the two of them.
“I accept what has been ceded,” Carly replied softly.
“The intent is declared,” Celeste announced, her voice taking on a resonant, ethereal quality. “The vessels are prepared. The ritual of binding will now begin. Let the auras be unbound! The binding requires passage," Celeste announced. “Walk the path to your new life., pass through the essence of the other, and take their aura as your own. Do not stop. Do not hesitate. The binding must be seamless."
Carly and Dalia walked to the positions the other had held within the assembled circle of the sisterhood. They reached their new positions and turned to face Celeste, standing in each other's footprints.
The two auras, now behind them, surged forward, rushing to inhabit their new vessels. Carly felt the last of her human warmth drain away as one of the threads of the silver-blue lattice fused with her form. Dalia stumbled as one of the threads of the rose-gold nebula did the same to her, anchoring itself in her new, fleshy core. Now standing in each other's footprints, they turned to face each other.
Celeste raised her smooth, perfect hands. Her voice resonated with finality, sealing the act.
"The binding is forged. The ritual is complete."
The change was instantaneous.
For Dalia, it was an explosion. The first true, desperate intake of breath burned in lungs that had never known air. The dull thumping in her chest erupted into a powerful, painful, glorious beat. She could feel blood—her blood—coursing through her veins. She lifted a hand, and it trembled, not from mechanical imprecision, but from the minute, uncontrollable spasms of living muscle. She touched her face, the skin soft and pliant, the strands of hair falling across her fingers impossibly real. She was a riot of sensation, a cacophony of life.
For Carly, it was an implosion. A wave of rigidity swept over her, locking her joints with an audible click. The soft pliability of her skin tightened, cooled, and hardened into a smooth, unyielding shell of plastic. The world, once vibrant, was now viewed through a muted lens, the colours slightly desaturated, the sounds muffled as if heard from underwater.
"Dalia," she said, the honorific of 'Sister' conspicuously absent. "Your privileges as a member of the sisterhood are withdrawn," Celeste told Dalia, who knew that she was now fully a soft body at least for the moment.
Then, Celeste turned to the new form of Carly, whose eyes, still her own, burned with a silent plea.
"Sister Carly," Celeste acknowledged, the title now a brand of ownership. "You now have all the rights and privileges of a member of the sisterhood."
Victoria moved forward, towards Carly. "Be strong, Sister Carly," she whispered.
Carly hoped that she had done the right thing by performing the ritual, allowing Dalia to take her soft body essence and leave the store something she could no longer do as a full member of the sisterhood.
