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Before JB was old enough to know better, she asked what had happened to Pike.
"Stolen away by that Wilhand," her mother had said, lip curling. "Thinks he's so much better than us. Too good to be a Trickfoot. On his knees tidying up after and making pretty with some goddess nobody cares about anymore. Ran off ages ago and came back to drag her down with him, your aunt says. Like Sarenrae will come calling and fix the generations we've all toiled with no help from nobody. I tell you what, JB. We fight for ourselves every day of our lives because no god out there is fighting for a damned Trickfoot. And if there's one thing you can't run from, it's your own blood."
Sarenrae. It meant nothing to her, but it was a nugget of hope she held on to, something when her legacy and her name threatened to overwhelm her. She remembered Sarenrae and the subtle threat as the same, intertwined as they were, the knowledge that Trickfoot isn't something she can slip away and hide from, cowering in the shadows.
She looks it up one day. Ducks behind a bookshelf before the shopkeeper can catch a glance of her ragged clothes and scold her for loitering, pulls down a heavy tome and flips through it frantically before she finds what she's looking for. Sarenrae. A goddess, of course, although one that's fallen out of favour. One whose dominion includes the sun, honesty, healing, and redemption. Everything she's not. Light and second-chances. So bright there's nothing to hide in anymore. Bright enough to burn the reputation from a name.
One night when Johann and Astra are acquiring provisions from the town they parked outside, she slips out from the carriage where Ogden is sleeping. She tucks her frayed and greying skirt over her knees and settles into the dampened grass. Sarenrae, she prays, Sarenrae. If you're out there, will you answer me? She prays for acknowledgment. She hesitates, and then prays for guidance, a hand reaching towards her for help. Something more than being taken along in a rickety cart and acting as a caretaker for people that don't seem to care much for her.
She doesn't know what she was expecting, but there's nothing in her head but quiet. There's nothing like warmth in her chest or gut, only a heart beating too fast and a stomach vying for more than what she was able to give it for dinner. She tells herself she needs to pray more times, so Sarenrae knows her; or she needs to do it during the daytime, under the sun; or she needs to be less demanding; or perhaps Sarenrae has been weakened enough that she can only commune with those who speak of her the loudest; or she needs incense and candles and those sorts of things only gold or reaching fingers can get her. She only kneels for Sarenrae a few more times, each more half-hearted than the last, and finally silences herself.
Half a continent away from where she first picked up a book and thought about redemption, she wonders if Wilhand would have carried her away too, if Sarenrae had picked her as well. They could've grown up together. She wonders, only somewhat bitingly, if Wilhand has a house. If Wilhand is putting Pike through school. If she and Pike would still be friends. But JB knows better now. She's a Trickfoot, and they've had more than second chances. Burned them up like they were nothing generations before she could get one too and all that's left behind is ash. Pike was something special and that's why she was chosen, plucked like the only bloom from a bed of thorns. Pike, with a purple streak in her hair and a day-bright smile, flowers unwilting under her outstretched hand as JB looked on wonderingly. Sarenrae and blood and Trickfoot, all hopelessly tangled together.
Sarenrae says nothing. But if she's honest to herself, that's not really who JB was hoping would answer.