Eos had not been named in a very long time.

  To name something was to know something. To name something was to make it known.

  Five breakfasts ago, Eos's name had changed — but nothing else had.

  When she’d opened her eyes, they’d remained brown. The freckles had stayed of course; the pocketed nicks on her arms, the gradient of tan upon her arms, even the disproportioned leanness of her body. Eos had tried not to pout at the fact she hadn’t sprouted five more inches, resigned to strain for the top shelf forevermore.

  Part of her had wanted to do something drastic. She had dark, flying hair she could take out of its ponytail and chop short. She could take out the small braids looped across her temple, or pull the painted beads from her strands. She’d fantasized dyeing her scaly, shimmering cloak, turning it from her dawn-like hues to midnight blue. Eos had tapped her nails on her silver bracers, trying to hear if their echoing would ring sweeter in gold or bronze or Khenium.

  But in the end, only her name had changed. It turns out her Namesake took the form of a bead. Small, painted pink — with the same intricate carvings that all her beads had. Eos felt the ridges between her fingers and made out the motif of her home’s ocean waves, frozen forever in relief. If the name itself hadn’t leapt from the wood, wrapped its happy arms around her mind, Eos might have believed she’d just dropped one of her hair beads from home.

  Rhododactylos, the Namesake told everyone that gazed upon it. Matter-of-fact — sternly — it said: her name is Rhododactylos. Rosy-fingered. Rosy-fingered Eos.

  The new bead swung on her silver cloak chain, tapping against the spot right above her heart. About time. Anesidora’s craftsmanship was unmatched in all things, but the chain had felt naked. Gems were weighty and feathers too annoying — but then came the perfection of the Namesake bead. It had taken Eos a few days to get used to it, for things to return as though nothing had changed.

  Today was a morning where nothing had changed.

  The sun had begun to round the wide rim of Caelum Firma, breaking the horizon of the deck in sharp, painful rays. The Lucifer had been traveling for nearly a week straight. They had finally begun to crest the edge of the massive asteroid belt that was Caelum Firma, see the stars hidden behind its dozens of dark silhouettes. Sunlight broke out along the rim of the asteroids. A thousand horizons in sight. Their first dawn in ages.

  It would’ve been a shame to leave it unsavoured. So onto the sunbleached, messy deck it was, her and Anesidora. It would be beautiful. Who didn’t love a dawn? What better way was there to signify progress and lift a tired spirit?

  But now Eos found herself sweeping up her cape to block the light from Anesidora’s eyes, following the old woman in the wheelchair who turned round and round just to avoid looking at her.

  Eos broke the long silence with her voice. “O Captain, please, I beg you, I would like to know what you want for breakfast, Captain.”

  “Breakfast?” Anesidora signed. Her wheelchair squeaked to a stop. Anesidora cast her a doubtful grimace upon Eos. “Is that what you call it?”

  The ridges of Anesidora’s face pulled shadows across her dark skin, making her look three times more disapproving than Eos knew she actually was. It had taken Eos a while to adjust to that — her gloominess, her dark eyes, her hunched back and gnarled, deft fingers. She always kept a blood-red shawl drawn around her shoulders. At least, it looked red. If she’d ever let Eos wash it herself, Eos could know for sure.

  Her nails picked and carved away at the dark wood of her wheelchair. In Eos’s time with her, she’d chipped her way through three unfortunate victims. None of them were ever to her satisfaction. It was hard not to pity the wheelchairs. Two years ago, Eos would kneel before Anesidora and her halo of white hair, tensed for judgement. Now Eos knew each sentence would invariably come out sour-faced and sharp. It was just who Anesidora was.

  “I will have you know that here upon the Lucifer, we serve nothing but the breakfast of champions to our captains. Most important meal of the day and all that.”

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  “Seeing as I am the captain,” Anesidora signed, jabbing her hand with emphasis at herself, “I feel comfortable with saying spoiled eggs from three planets ago is not breakfast, little one.”

  “Such grumpiness!” Eos exclaimed, staggering back and pressing her gloved hands to her heart. It hadn’t been Eos’s fault the merchant’s daughter had a charming smile and a good deal. “Surely it’s the hunger. My Anesi would never treat me this way.”

  Her Anesi only rolled her eyes. Why was it her eyes only seemed to move to make fun? No use in pondering the question. At least they still moved for fun, and so fun Eos would be.

  Eos leaned down conspiratorially. “Will you tell me what it is you want to eat, or will I have to speak to the higher power?” she teased. Anesidora raised an eyebrow, but Eos didn’t miss the way she splayed her hands out over the box on her lap. Her fingers ran along the carved grooves and whorls in her silent laughter.

  Eos took it as permission to kneel, drumming a little tune on the lid. “What do you say, Elpis?” she whispered to the box. “Do me a little favor. Use your magic to tell me what dear Captain wants for breakfast. And yourself, of course. Are you hungry?”

  Elpis, of course, could not respond, as she was dead. Nevertheless, it was rude not to ask.

  “Focus,” Anesidora signed. Eos met her gaze. Anesidora’s eyes had drifted lately — a cloudy, distant look to them — but right now, the stormy grey was razor-sharp and alive. “If you’re going to force me to eat, you have to earn it.”

  Eos grinned.

  “As you wish, Captain.”

  If Anesidora had dodged the question of breakfast any other way, Eos would have batted it aside. But training was different. Learning to converse was different. It straightened Anesidora’s gnarled back, brought the light into her eyes. She took pride in her mentorship of Eos in care of the box. The heart inside may no longer beat, but nevertheless, it would be rude not to listen.

  Eos tried to memorize the vision in front of her. The dry boards of the Lucifer. The shadows cast across the deck. Anesidora before her, gaze inscrutable — and the box.

  Anesidora had made the box beautiful. She had built the box back when she still worked with wood. Before the loss of her voice and the weakness of her legs, and even before the Lucifer fell into her possession, the box latched at her hip carried all precious things that needed to be protected. Eos had asked and been answered a thousand times about all the stories soaked into that box, the dozens of lifetimes it had lived before Eos was even born. To Eos, the box was a living thing. And inside the box was the still heart of a dead god.

  Eos pressed her ear up to the box and slowly closed her eyes.

  Darkness. Silence.

  “Elpis?” She said warmly. “It’s me, once again. Your empyrean is still throwing a fit. She won’t talk to me anymore, but surely she still talks with you. Won’t you give me a hint?”

  The silence stretched on — Eos could feel the sunlight stretch across the freckles of her face. “She named me, you know,” Eos said. “Rhododactylos. Done me the impossible service of granting an epithet. Rosy-fingered. The power to give, and to take. And she will neither let me give her breakfast, nor let me take her order. Isn’t that a conundrum?”

  The sharp smack of Anesidora’s finger flicked against Eos’s forehead, and Eos laughed. She could hear the sound echo within the box. It was a deep sound, one that coalesced into a thread that ran right through Eos’s heart.

  If she focused hard enough, she could feel it. Elpis laughing with her, jangling the bead on Eos’s chain.

  Eos leapt to her feet. “Well! Elpis has told me you want only a truly perilous breakfast, made delicious as I snatch it from the jaws of death. And it involves eggs!”

  Anesidora lifted her lidded eyes to Eos’. Her gaze was incredibly deliberate as she looked at Eos, looked at the middle finger she was raising to Eos, and then back at Eos.

  Victory enough. Eos gasped, mocking up her best impression of a wounded child. “Well, that’s it! Hunger and sunlight must be making you delirious and so, so rude. Back into your shadows, Captain.”

  Anesidora rolled her eyes again, but did not argue as Eos adjusted her chair to wheel her inside. The sunlight softened its blow on the portholes caked in stardust. Anesidora waited patiently as Eos navigated the bent floorboards and creaking chairs, the two of them swaying in sync to avoid the low-swinging lantern. Eos had already set the table in the snug dining area.

  The Lucifer was by no means a luxury vessel. Perhaps it had been once, when it had been that gallant steed of royalty, ruling a land of countless people. But now it was simply an approximation of home — a hodgepodge of lighting fixtures screwed in unevenly and trinkets from distant worlds bought with haggled prices.

  There were things still missing. Eos couldn’t bottle sea spray. And she certainly couldn’t haggle for the sound of scales rustling in the trees. And sunlight - oh, stars, how she missed home’s sunlight. It filtered rose-pink through the atmosphere. Air so humid Eos could drink it in. What trade she wouldn’t make to hear the rain start to roll in, and her people’s drums start to roll out.

  But she’d have to settle for wood and trinkets, making the Lucifer as messy as the room Eos had left behind all those years ago. Not that it wasn’t taken care of - but the Lucifer was beginning to betray its age. Eos could hear the rattling of the pictures in their frames as the ship hiccuped — Eos caught a chair with one foot, dribbled it back into its place, and braced Anesidora’s chair steady with the other.

  “You know,” Anesidora signed, “Perhaps if you hadn’t insisted on so many chairs, we’d have enough coin for an edible breakfast.”

  “Ah,” Eos said brightly (because someone on this boat must be), “But what is the point of that breakfast of champions if there are no champions to share it with?” Eos tapped Anesidora with her finger, right between her eyes. “You and your rudeness will keep this table empty for generations.”

  “And yet, you’re still here,” Anesidora signed. “Somehow.”

  Eos burst out laughing. Anesidora’s face did not change, save for the wrinkled shadows by her eyes. It was enough for Eos. It was as close as she’d get to Anesidora smiling. It felt and meant the same thing to her.

  The eggs were moderately more edible than the ones from before. Eos drowned them out with salt and song. When she and Anesidora ate, it was in the comfortable silence of two people who had named each other: Rhododactylos and empyrean; quartermaster and captain.

  Family.

  They stayed that way, small and sacred in the candlelight. At least, until the explosions started.

  “Are you going to tend to outside?” Anesidora signed. “You have a name to polish.”

  Outside the dusted porthole, stabs of white-hot light flickered in and out of existence as the shadows of two vessels grew closer and closer. Ah, the sunlight would bother Anesidora no longer. Maybe they should’ve stayed outside for the show. Eos skipped to the edge of the door.

  “But of course,” Eos said. “Breakfast and then a show, Captain. I would never disappoint.” Eos flicked her cape over her shoulder and grinned. “Feast your eyes on this.”