Nettle

Nettle came up with Lume in the same broken districts: fellow greyhacker, quicker fingers, worse luck. The friendship is old enough to have no origin story either of them can tell straight.

Nettle heard the Dead Broadcast once. It arrived as noise and threat, with nothing inviting in it, and fear was the first and lasting reaction. Nettle has been trying to unhear it ever since.

Handle Nettle timidly and you get stung; everyone half-reaches, everyone burns, and the burns confirm what Nettle already believes about being touched. Met fully and firmly, though (grasped like the folk saying says), Nettle holds. Almost nobody tries. The name knows the rest: nettle is a fiber plant. This thread hurts to work with, and it can still become cloth.

Loved, and capable of the betrayal that would feel, from inside, like finally getting to rest.