Dyssia opens her mouth.

Dyssia closes her mouth.

It hadn't quite hit her yet--here, in this place of life, surrounded by electrifying thrills and threats, here in the enfolding tentacles of this mirage in front of her--but she's going to be [i]alone.[/i] Just her and the Pix and, you know, whatever they decide they want to do to her, or have her do for them, or.

Just her, surrounded by people who.

Well, it's not fair to say that they don't care about her. She hopes, anyway. They care very much about her, and about what she does, and what she can do for them. It's in their best interest to keep her happy.

But it feels.

Well, you know, in the stories, the hero always has a sidekick, right? Or a friend, or a lover, or a nemesis that is actually a lover but neither of them have figured it out yet? And sometimes the story needs them to be apart--the sidekick has to be kidnapped so the heroine can kidnap her back, and confess that she's always meant the world to her, and hey since we have all this rope from climbing the wall, maybe we could.

Ehm. 

Anyway, the [i]point[/i] is, the point [i]is[/i] that being alone always leads to being [i]together.[/i] You ache while they're apart, you worry about them, but you know the payoff is coming. The sidekick will rescue the heroine, the lovers will confess, the nemesis will be redeemed.

And. Well, she has Brightberry, and that's good. There's days when that's [i]all[/i] she wants, when things aren't making sense and all she wants is to crawl in bed so tomorrow comes faster.

D'you think they'd let her take her couch if she asks nicely? That seems important, right this moment. Take her family, her friends, her city, her planet, but don't take her couch, too.

But sometimes the storyteller pulls back the curtain, right? Gives you glimpses of, whoops, the friend is [i]actually[/i] a plant of the evil Baroness Meerline, and you can almost see the calculating happening in the corner of their eyes? Seeing how the manipulation happens, and wondering why people don't see it, and lowkey screaming internally because are you [i]blind,[/i] can't you [i]see[/i] that if you go with her, your friends will be left alone, and--

And she's about to be surrounded by. Well, by people who are going into this knowing the score. Knowing that she's the pawn that they have to crack, which is a terrible metaphor. She's going to be surrounded by Pix who want her to trust them, want her to work for them, want to be her friends.

And she doesn't know that she doesn't want them to be her friends? Which sucks massively, because it doesn't make any damned sense? She wants to be able to trust them? But also if she picks any one of them at random, the biomancer is--

What a shitshow. How do you biomancer in a way that doesn't lead to the biomancer immediately biomancing to keep you happy?

So, can't trust them to make a friend. Can't choose one on her own to make a friend, because then the biomancer gets involved to make the friendship happen perfectly.

And she can't even keep the dismay off her face, can't keep it from crumpling, can't keep the hood from half-flaring. Even a blind biomancer--a blind biomancer who is also deaf and [i]dead[/i]--could see this.

"How long would it take to happen naturally? Not to have a friend assigned, or cloned, or created, or edited, but. You know, to let me muddle into it without interference? If I ask for that, is that an option?"