Megaira has been told, more than once, that she is difficult to remember.
Not in the way people mean when they speak of faces that blur together, or voices that fail to linger. They remember her after. In fragments. In revisions. Someone will say her name aloud and then pause, as if surprised by the sound of it, as if they had known it longer than they thought.
She has always assumed this meant she was unremarkable.
It seemed the simplest explanation.
In truth, no one ever described her face to her. Compliments were discouraged, and insults required permission. Megaira learned what she looked like the way she learned most things -by inference. By the way gazes slid past her and then returned. By the careful neutrality people adopted when speaking directly to her eyes.
By the fact that no one ever accused her of vanity.
Megaira's hair was dark, brown, drawn close to black, worn long only because it was easier than cutting it short. She tied it back with a plain cord at the nape of her neck, not out of humility, but because loose things were inconvenient. It brushed her shoulders when she moved, a quiet weight she rarely noticed unless someone else did first.
Her face, as far as she could tell, obeyed the same rules as the rest of her: narrow, composed, unadorned. Her features were not soft, but they were not sharp enough to invite comment. A mouth too serious to be called pretty. Eyes set deep enough that people often mistook their stillness for calm.
They were wrong about that.
Megaira had learned early how to hold herself. Shoulders back, spine straight, hands still. The Church prized restraint, and she had given it that so thoroughly that it no longer felt like effort. Stillness, for her, was not submission. It was readiness.
If anyone noticed the tension beneath it, they were polite enough not to say so.
That morning, as Megaira moved through the eastern corridors toward the record hall, she became acutely aware of being observed - not openly, not improperly. Just noted. As if the space around her were taking inventory.
She told herself it was nothing.
The record hall sat lower than the Sanctum, its ceiling pressed down by age and stone rather than authority. This was where the Church kept its truths in boxes - marriage ledgers, birth rolls, transcripts of confession. Names, dates, outcomes.
The order that was made visible.
She had reason to be there. That mattered. Megaira repeated that to herself as she entered, her sandals whispering softly against the floor.
Brother Isevar stood behind the central desk, bent over a stack of tablets. He was older than most, his hair gone white in uneven patches, his posture permanently stooped by decades of deference. He had been here longer than she had been alive.
He looked up when he heard her approach.
His eyes widened.
Only briefly. Only enough that she noticed.
Then he smiled, the polite, practiced curve of someone accustomed to obedience.
"Megaira," he started. "You're up early."
"I could not sleep," She replied.
This was true.
Megaira did not explain why.
He gestured toward the shelves behind him. "What are you looking for?"
She considered the question carefully.
The truth was simple: Megaira wanted to see whether a name had been erased completely, or merely hidden.
That answer would have complicated things.
"Clarification," She said instead.
He nodded, as if that explained everything. "Of course."
Of course.
She moved past him toward the back shelves, aware of the way his gaze followed me -not lingering on her body, not improper, but attentive. Measuring. She had the oddest sensation, then, that she was being seen more clearly than usual, as though the outline she presented to the world had sharpened.
Megaira told herself it was her imagination.
The warmth in her chest was present but subdued, like a current running beneath still water. Not approval. Not encouragement. Just awareness.
She scanned the shelves, running her fingers lightly along the spines. Some of the tablets were marked for review, their edges chalked white. Others bore small sigils denoting restricted access.
She did not reach for those.
That was important.
"Brother Isevar," Megaira said, without turning. "The registry for uncanonized figures - has it been updated recently?"
He hesitated.
She felt it in the air before she heard it in his voice.
"It's… irregular," he answered. "Those records aren't typically maintained. There's no directive-"
"I do not need access," she cut him off gently. "Just confirmation."
Another pause.
She waited.
When he spoke again, his voice had lowered, as though the shelves themselves might overhear. "There was a name," he whispered. "Once. It appears in the older margins. Not indeed. It was flagged for removal generations ago."
She turned then.
He flinched.
Not away - just inward. A reflective tightening.
Megaira studied him, taking in the faint tremor in his hands, the way his eyes avoided hers by egress rather than direction.
"And?" She prompted.
"And it was never fully erased," he admitted. "Only… displaced."
Displaced.
She nodded, as though this was expected. As though she were not cataloging every inflection of his voice, every shift in posture.
"Thank you," Megaira told him. "That is all I needed."
Relief washed over his face.
She stepped away from the shelves, intending to leave. She had not asked for anything unreasonable. She had not broken a rule. Megaira had only asked a question and then accepted its answer.
That was when she noticed the ledger on the desk.
It laid open, its pages half-filled, the ink still wet enough to catch the light. Birth records, by the looks of it. Names written carefully, reverently.
Once name, freshly added, stood out - not because it was unusual, but because it had been written twice. Once, then crossed out, then written again in a different hand.
"Is there an error?" She asked, gesturing towards it.
Isevar followed her gaze and then quickly stiffened.
"It's nothing," He rushed. "Just a correction."
"Corrections are usually annotated," Megaira observed.
Silence.
She did not mean to press. That is what she would have said later, if asked. That curiosity was a habit, not a strategy.
But she looked at him.
Megaira did not soften my expression.
Megaira did not harden it either.
She simply waited.
He swallowed.
"The child was… reassigned," he answered. "The parents requested intervention."
"That is unusual," She replied.
"Yes."
"Was it approved?"
He hesitated again.
The warmth in her chest had steadied, imperceptible but present, like a hand resting lightly between her shoulders.
She told herself it was just a coincidence.
"It will be," he stated firmly. "I can make sure of that."
Megaira blinked.
"I did not ask you to."
"I know," he replied quickly. "But it's simple enough. There's a precedent."
She nodded slowly, as though considering his offer, though she had not made one.
"That is very kind of you," her voice even.
His shoulders relaxed.
She left the record hall moments later, her steps unhurried, her expression unchanged. Only once she had turned the corner did she allow herself to pause.
Something had happened. Not dramatically. Not visibly. But a line had been crossed - not by her, but for her.
She told herself she had not wanted it. That she had not intended it. She only asked questions and accepted answers that she was given.
All of that was true.
And yet.
As Megaira resumed walking, the warmth in her chest did not fade. It did not swell either. It remained steady, patient, as if waiting for her to catch up to something it already understood.
She adjusted the fall of her sleeves, smoothed her hair back into place, and continued, her reflection briefly catching in the polished stone of a column.
For a moment -only a moment- she saw herself as others must: composed, contained, unremarkable.
Megaria believed it.