Avatar of Antarctic Termite

Status

Recent Statuses

6 yrs ago
Current ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
1 like
6 yrs ago
If you're not trying to romance the Pokemon, what's the fucking point?
7 likes
6 yrs ago
Can't help but read 'woah' as a regular 'wuh', but 'whoa' as a deep, masculine 'HOO-AH!'
1 like
6 yrs ago
That's patently untrue. I planted some potassium the other day, and no matter how much I watered it, all I got was explosions.
2 likes
6 yrs ago
on holiday for five days. if you need me, toss a rock into the fuckin' desert and I'll whisper in your dreams
3 likes

Bio

According to the IRC, I'm a low-grade troll. They're probably not wrong.

Most Recent Posts


Alpha.


Chopstick Eyes lazed in her underwear on an enormous frond of kelp, black glasses resting ever so gently on the tips of her chopsticks, about five inches away from her face. She snapped her fingers and a waterproof glove arrived, bearing yet another coconut shell with little bamboo straw. She took a long sip ('Ahh...') stretched out on the frond, and said, "So."

The various gloves awaited. One of them took out a notepad.

"You may ask yourself, 'how did this exactly happen?' You may be wondering why your life sucks, and mine is god damn peachy. And you should keep wondering that. 'Cos I'm not gonna tell ya. And that makes me feel grand."

The gloves shuffled awkwardly. Chopstick took another long, lavish sip, then threw the husk into the ocean. The sun glittered hotly on the surface of the waters.

"Psyche. Here we go."




Chopstick bounded over the Saluran Mendidih with divine alacrity, the great lava lamps dipping ever so slightly down on their stalks as she landed upon them, one by one. She'd taken care to pick one of the narrower points of the strait this time, and the journey was exceptionally fast by her standards. One could see each continent from the opposite shore, perhaps, if one had eyes that functioned as biconvex lenses and not omniscient antennae.

Unfortunately, the narrower parts of the strait were not directly adjacent to the Feasting Forest, and she had some walking to do. Pāṟa was still as densely vegetated as it had been when she'd left- perhaps more so, as the trees and ferns better-adapted to its rainy heat had begun to force their cousins into the mountains. But it wasn't lively. But for some neighbourly worms, there was not a living soul, not even a Gemstone Gardener. All the parrots, it seemed, had finished their work.

You don't know who you miss 'til they're gone, thought Chopstick, hugging herself in the eerie silence. The place needed new life.

Fortunately, she had just the thing.

Plucking a desert-horse from her pocket (it was a deep pocket), Chopstick Eyes clonked it on the head with a rock and set to work changing it somewhat. It wasn't particularly difficult labour. For all its special properties, the desert-horse was a rather simple construct, with plenty of room for change still written into the contract it had signed to exist. As the sole issuer of that contract, Chopstick had every right to request some subtle changes.

First she made it smaller, much smaller, in order to fit between the tight trees and shrubs of a tropical forest. Then she altered its coat, leaving it darker, shorter, sleek and somewhat spotty, with a tendency to green up with some of the local algae. Some tweaks to its muscles made it substantially more agile. When she let it go, the tropical camel darted happily into the ferns, looking like it had always belonged.

Chopstick dusted off her hands and continued on her merry way until she came across the mountainous regions of Pāṟa. Despite the latitude, this region was rather dry, and less alpine than it was scattered with great plateaus. Chopstick reached into her pocket for another desert-horse, and realised that she'd forgotten to bring spares.

God damn it.

She reverse-engineered a desert-horse from a forest-horse and called it a day.






There was competition among the gardener's trees as to which species would best tolerate the soil and climate of the Kick, but these plants were playing a fool's game. The woods of the Feasting Forest were thriving. Chopstick reached the edge of the forest much earlier than she had expected to do so, in a place she had never planted. The fog had spread along with the shrines, all on their own.

But the trees had had some help. Not all the gardeners had left.

Chopstick mistook it for an Emerald Kea at first. It was a good guess. But there was something more to it, some deformity, some mixture. Perhaps a hybrid. It leaned in, oh so slowly, and leered at her, and she looked at it.

"And who are you, little bird?"

In a wavering voice, one little practised in the sound-eating mist, the gardener replied:

Olivine, and a Kakapo
I dig and plant, and prune and hoe
In this place where no winds blow
But I will stay, if others go.


Chopstick ran her hand over the Olivine Kakapo's feathers and saw that it was wingless, or nearly so. Perhaps flight had done it little good over the years, or perhaps it had been born that way, and so forced to remain here.

"Do you have sisters? And who taught you not to eat from the shrines?"

A lantern ancient, from its tomb
Did speak, and save us from our doom.
Now we are many, green of plume-
Walking quiet through the gloom.


Chopstick blinked for a moment. None of the stone and clay lanterns she had left here would ever be so helpful. It took her a second to recall the single, ancient paper-lantern that she had left here years ago. She wondered where it was.

"Well, I like your style," she said. "Come with me."

The kakapo hesitated, then said,

I dream of something, now and then
Don't ask me why, or how or when-
But if you bear me from this fen
Then I would like to fly again.


"Done," said Chopstick Eyes.




"So we had a bit of a fly-around and eventually went back home. First I wrote my clone and asked her for her kite, though, but she said nah, get your own, I need it to get off this island, and also sorry for spending all your money. Pretty rude, right? It's not like it's hard to get off an island, I've crossed a boiling sea like twice so far.

"And then I was like, hey, fuck you, have you at least sorted out that problem with the superb slippery soul serpent yet? And she said no, but kinda, it'll be okay for a while, and I said, okay, whatever, I'll check in on it, also at least send me the Michael's Wand of Loudspaken, you're not exactly using it for shit. So she did. And I made a big announcement inviting anyone to come have a tea party with me in the Feasting Forest... Actually, I might've forgotten that bit. Ahem.

"Yo, anyone want to have a big tea party with me in my forest full of food? It's really fun! Great company, great times, all on me. One-time special offer, don't miss out!"


"...Anyway, so then I came back here to feed the serpent, and eh, I guess it's doing okay for something that looks like the grime on a radiator fan. But I figure it was cutting it a little thin, so I made this!"


Chopstick Eyes gestured out.

All around her was kelp and sargassum, golden in the sunlight. Sitting in the gyre that centered on the Alpha Serpent, no current disturbed them, and a dense mat had formed, stretching out in every direction for miles. There was animal life, too, all made to fit in. Mostly they were adapted from pelagic fish, or their larvae, seeking shelter. No megalodons or whales, but plenty of leopard sharks and porpoises; no colossal squid, but quite a lot of little tiny adorable squid. Most abundant were formerly planktonic crustaceans, which had not shrunk but grown. Amphipods and tiny crabs skittered and darted everywhere, even on the surface of the water, clustering together on the airy blisters of seaweed.

Her divine ears could still hear the song of the Serpent far below. Sooner or later, when its time came, everything in this forest would, too.

"Pretty nice, hey, Liv?"

The olivine kakapo creaked its warbly song from on top of the parasol floating beside her.

The gloves looked at each other and motioned quizzically.

"...What?"

One of the gloves pointed directly upwards.

"We don't fucking talk about that," Chopstick snapped, and turned over to tan her back.




Earlier.

"Enjoying the view?"

The pyres were bright as lit candles in the distance, and their smoke formed elegant nebulae in the dark. The kakapo, now Liv, gazed about them in worshipful terror.

Too long, my lady, have I been blind
The world is not so grim, I find.
But something prickles in my mind
Now that we've left the air behind.


"Don't be silly, I'm a god," said Chopstick, nodding awake. This darkness was soothing. It was hard not to sleep. "I have air for both of us. And this kite doesn't even need wind! It's sun-powered, don't you see?"

And that is what bothers me, answered Liv with perfect timing.

"Don't be like that. It's an empty plane, there's nothing and no one that could bother us here. And I'm sure we can trust..." Chopstick remembered that the deal by which she had acquired the strange kite had not included any kind of receipt. "...Whoever made this thing. Hang on." She pulled herself up by the curious cord that attached them to the kite. It wriggled slightly in her hands.

The kite was alive, no doubt. It flew in the shadow of Galbar, riding the dawn and dusk at the edge of the planet's shadow to gain energy and elevation, before falling gently and slowly into the night-side zone where the beam from Heliopolis was blocked. Then it would repeat the cycle.

In the dark periods, where they were now, the kite had some ability to move itself, ejecting the light it had previously absorbed. It was a colourful process, but it only illuminated parts of the creature. Most of it was invisible in such blackness. Chopstick fumbled around the base of the tail, looking for a label, and found none.

It had to be hidden somewhere, though. The kite was vast, at least a hundred meters in radius, and fractally assembled in three... ish dimensions. If it had organs, they were minimal. But it did have some kind of circulatory and sensory system, spread out like the tributaries of a river with its mouth in the center. Somewhere in those myriad folds and fins, there would have to be something.

Chopstick Eyes prodded a luminous node and Liv shrieked. She was torn out of her doze, and noticed the invisible net folding around her only after it had begun to spring.

Narzhak's cleaver emerged from somewhere and cut in a wide circle, cut at the nothing, and perhaps the nothing recoiled- she couldn't tell. All the lights had gone dark, and the inside of her head was meshed in exhaustion. She heaved her chopstick eyes into focus and saw the fractal unfolding, bringing arms upon arms of dark flesh into the night.

"Liv!"

The bird clutched her arm tightly, and she leapt from the center of the kite, tearing past its arms, down towards Galbar- and into more arms.

Fear pulsed through Chopstick Eyes faster than her mind could follow. It was her body that responded. Great spikes shot from her, wooden stakes that ripped from her arms and her back and spun end over end into whatever had caught her. The ends of knives jutted from her face, and the ring on her finger burned with grim power.

Torn and stung, the Dusk Kite receded into the void. Its propulsive lights flashed, and a single pulse illuminated its veins, starting from the center. Then it was gone, invisible once more.

Liv trembled like a leaf and Chopstick trembled with her as they fell back down towards Galbar. Chopstick Eyes raised her hands to feel the cuts where razors had grown from her skull. Something ugly had burst, some wall she had been weakening had finally broken, and could not be repaired. There were more dangerous things inside her, it seemed, than dreams.

She slept.



Alpha.


Chopstick Eyes looked about her and the Charnel Steppe, chewing her dartweed, and said, "Hmm."

A passing boar spotted her, sniffed assertively, and continued on its muscly way, thrusting its snout through the steely twigs and shrubbage of what the place called vegetation. Chopstick cracked another dartweed husk, munched for a second, then spat a burst of nutty flechettes that snapped through the sound barrier and reduced the boar to so much prime pork chops. Most animals learned to avoid her, after a while.

Chopstick Eyes watched the sun go down for the millionth time and said, "Hmm."

It was time to get out of this place. The sun rose and went down several times in the time it took her to formulate this idea. The no-sleep regime wasn't really doing her much good.

She took a step in some arbitrary direction.

The sun went down again.

Fuck.

What she needed to do, she realised, was develop something that would do the walking for her. She needed a vehicle... No, a steed. Something large, muscular, like the boars, but swift, elegant; something gracious and powerful, to strike fear and awe into the hearts of hot babes. What she needed, in short, was a horse.

Chopstick took out her notebook and set off briskly doodling the schematics for her new animal. It would have long legs, and be substantially taller than a man. It would have a slightly arched neck, and a long, large head thereon, and something (but not much) of a tail; it would be well suited to travelling long distances across such a steppe, and be coloured accordingly, pale browns and greys and perhaps even black. She hmph'd in pride, ripped the doodle from her notebook, and folded it into a tidy origami shape, into which she nestled a crisp dollar bill, fresh from the Bazaar. Within a minute, it took on flesh.



With a clap of her hands, the horse reduplicated itself a dozen times, forming a sizeable self-perpetuating herd. Chopstick heaved herself on top of the finest specimen and rode off back to the boiling strait. She was of a mind to return to the Feasting Forest, and have lunch.




The Saluran Mendidih, it turned out, was a rather hostile place. When Chopstick tried to swim across it astride her holy steed, her camel melted; she went back inland on foot to find another, only to have that one melt on her too. She ran through three camels, two boars and a jackalope total before she shook herself awake and realised that this wasn't such a good idea. Eventually she just swam the strait, which turned out remarkably warm and soothing, once she'd given herself a few years of tiptoeing to acclimatise.

It was an exceptionally barren place, though, all told. Deep in the water, magma pillowed, rolled, crusted and steamed, forming great misshapen stones that ambled down back into the trenches and were subducted to melt and rise again. Watching lava at play was mesmerising, but Chopstick Eyes was acutely aware that she and Ashalla were probably the only ones ever to enjoy this view. No one standing at the shore would ever enjoy anything like this, and even down here, much of the colour and glow of the affair was lost to the light-eating deepwater.

Nothing a quick trip to the Bazaar couldn't solve.

After a while, Chopstick was done wheeling and dealing. And keeling, and reeling, and... mealing and peeling. (As it turned out, the whole endeavour was financed by an unexpected uptrend in the Bazaar fruits-and-grains market.) The fruits, so to speak, of her labour rested quietly atop the surface of the waters, rocking gently side to side.

Mostly they were spheres, or spheroids, or domes, though some were more curious shapes. Chopstick spotted cubes, tangled pipes, tubas, and even the occasional self-intersecting non-orientable surface (these she gave a wide berth). Each one had a surface of heat-eating glass that did not incandesce, no matter the temperature, revealing in crisp true colour the flow of magma within. Stained by bio-alchemical ichors Chopstick could not hope to understand, the blood and innards of the lava lamps bubbled and oozed through liquid tissues, their veins glowing brightly in every colour a mortal eye could see and then some.

Each lamp was rooted deep in the strait, a segmented metal stalk holding them aloft, like the bulb of a sleek and narrow stem. From there they drained their magma and spread their roots, pushing up new sprouts. Some had scales on their stems, some rough rusted crusts, and others still smooth metal.

Chopstick Eyes congratulated herself on the bargain she had secured, and fled that place before the Architect's judging eye could see her there much longer.




Beta.





As Ya-Shuur led the god with chopstick eyes through his enclosed lands they both saw many of the animals he had domesticated. They saw foxes and cows. Ducks and horses and even buffalo. Every now and again a reindeer would go by or an ass would release its hee-haw. Chopstick spotted an old toad lording over its mud-heap, and they shared a meaningful look.

As he walked with the god he began to answer some of her questions. “I found out this name. Goat Defying the Darkness. I was at peace with it and it just stuck so I have kept it and I like it. I saw the bear for the first time when I found this name. That one was a terrible creature, and like no normal bear. Since then I have seen many bears, but none were so terrible as that first one. Normal bears are just like any other creature. They eat and they want to survive and they have children. That first bear though, was a terrible frightful sight. But anyway, I have another name as well, and I knew this name from the start. It was just there, because first I was nothing, and then I was Ya-Shuur. And then I became both Ya-Shuur and Goat Defying the Darkness. And then I gained horns and I became the Horned One too. You can call me whatever you like though I don’t mind.”

“I see,” said the god, gazing out over the gardened land. She felt flat, the wealth of the experience lost in the pit of her mood. She would have to come back here again, later. “My name’s Skraghnaphgh, I think. But most people call me Chopstick Eyes. Pleasure to meet you, uh, Goat Defying the Darkness.”

As he walked he walked Ya-Shuur repeated the name Skraghnaphgh to himself until he had memorized it. Then he saw some berries and picked them and he offered them to the god. Chopstick took them without realising, staring at them in the palm of her hand. “Now the dragon. That was a terrible terrible thing. That powerful god Vakk who is even more powerful than Li’Kalla came (and you know Li’Kalla is very powerful but I don’t think she realized). He was angry because something of his had been lost and he blamed Li’Kalla. But I never saw this thing of his. I don’t think Li’Kalla had it. Maybe it was a terrible misunderstanding. But Vakk was not just powerful he was also a bit of a criminal. Maybe his anger was too great because of his lost box. He knocked the door down and shouted and beat Li’Kalla.”

Chopstick realised that she had crushed the berries to nothing in her fist.

“She was afraid but she did not fight back. I tried to help her but I was far too weak. I only just barely put horns on my head I could never stand up to such powerful creatures. But then out of nowhere the dragon came and bits of Li’Kalla went flying everywhere. I think maybe that was when Li’Kalla and Vakk became my parents. Or maybe it was just a little bit before that. It was the blood that did it. I worry sometimes that when the blood came on me and gave me a body it might have… done something to Li’Kalla. The dragon didn’t care it attacked Li’Kalla and gobbled bits of her and it attacked Vakk as well. This beast was maybe as powerful as Vakk or maybe it just surprised him because he quickly ran away. It was a hungry beast, the dragon, and I didn’t want to be eaten. I was very scared, actually, so I ran. And then the dragon was left in there all on its own and I think it is there even until now.”

“...It’s not.”

Ya-Shuur paused and sighed at the terrible memory. He sealed his lips and looked at the god because he was surprised at the revelation that the dragon was not there anymore and then he continued walking. “So it’s not there…” he whispered. Then he quickly shook off whatever he was feeling and continued talking. “The beast Zer-Du is a different story. When it first came it was a wild thing eating goats and wolves and throwing them around just for fun. It was not called Zer-Du then. It wasn’t called anything I don’t think. These horns on my head are from one of the goats it killed. It was a frightful and powerful creature and could easily have eaten me and everything else. But I had to protect my friends, because they relied on me, so I did not listen to my fear, and I shouted at it. And when I shouted at it I found out that it listened to me. After that it was no longer a wild thing because I taught it. And I gave it a name and it became protector. And it became kinder and did not kill just for fun. It did not kill even those it had reason to, but spared them. I taught it this. And then it became he, and he fathered the molves that you see here. And after that he left. I don’t know where he went, but I have hope that he will come back one day, because he has children here, and a mate.”

So much for that beast, thought Chopstick. It didn’t matter. She had her answer.

By this time they had reached Ya-Shuur’s home. It looked like a just another part of the forest, but then Ya-Shuur lifted a hidden door, descended, and called the god to come in. He told her to watch her head because she would have to crouch a little inside, but his caution was ill placed. Chopstick was already much shorter than him, even without horns.

It was dark inside and straight away a cat came up to Ya-Shuur’s leg and stroked itself against it and then it went to the god’s leg and did the same. Chopstick picked it up and squeezed it gently against her, plucking a skewer with a spare hand to skritch behind its ear. Ya-Shuur sat down and he spread out berries and nuts and fruits he had collected.

“But I have talked so much! Please forgive me. You are the first person in the world I have ever talked to, so I have far too much to say. Please tell me who your friend is that you are searching for. If they are on this island I will definitely be able to help you. It is a lonely island, even though it is full of so many things so it will be good when you are united so they will not be all alone. It is a very terrible thing to be all alone, which is why I have made so many good friends even if I can’t talk to them like this.” He smiled, reached out, and stroked the cat, who purred in appreciation.

“...Li’Kalla,” said Chopstick, sitting crosslegged in the first available space. “I was looking for Li’Kalla. I heard her calling for help, a while ago. But she’s dead.” She sighed, and let the cat slink off her lap. Ya-Shuur frowned when he heard her words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you who exactly I was looking for, because I thought you might be responsible. But you’re not. You don’t smell like blood. You smell like rain, and shelter. And goats.” Ya-Shuur did not know that any of these things had a smell at all, besides goats, so he was a bit surprised by the comment. Then she buried her head in some three dozen hands. “Fuck.”

Ya-Shuur was not sure what to do in a situation like this, and he did not know who this Fuck was, so he did what he did whenever the goats or cats or any of the other animals were distressed. He brought his hand to her head and petted her gently. “There there now. It’s not your fault. There are some things we just don’t have control over. So we just go on doing what we can with the things we have control over and the rest will be what it will be. You came and you looked for her when she called for you and you investigated until you found out what happened. I think you have fulfilled your duty and are a good friend. I would be very happy if I had a good friend like you who came looking for me if I called for help.”

“I will,” said Chopstick Eyes without hesitating. “This was awful.” Sigh. “...And, thanks. You’re very kind.” She looked into her lap, was surprised to find neither cat nor tea nor any such thing. She pulled a steaming mug of hot cocoa out of her pocket and took a sip. “Just… give me a minute. I’m still… I’m not...” Sigh again. Her hair held up an empty mug and a tin kettle, both shaking visibly. “...Want some? Free of charge.” Ya-Shuur did not quite understand how her hair was doing that and then he realized that she was offering him a… gift?

“Oh! Ah! Yes! Thank you!” He quickly fumbled for words and reached for the cup and took it from her hair before waiting for her to pour some of the strange liquid in. When she did this he tasted it. But when he tasted it he grimaced and raised his head. The liquid was very strange and far too… weird tasting. He had never tasted anything like it and it was too intense. He didn’t know the word to describe it. If Chopstick noticed his discomfort, she made no show of it, sipping quietly for herself.

Goat Defying the Darkness, Ya-Shuur had described himself. There was something special to that, some meaning. Chopstick looked into her mug. Had she ever defied darkness? Could she?

“...I’m going to find this Vakk guy,” she said. “I’m going to fuck him up. And then I’ll hunt the dragon.” She looked back up. “If the bear is who I think she is, then… I don’t know. She was rough when I met her. She’s probably still rough. I’ll see what I can do.” She rested her head against the wall, staring at the ceiling. “But I don’t know what I’ll do next. Not really.”

Chopstick Eyes stayed among Ya-Shuur’s flocks for some time after that, but the two rarely spoke. It seemed there was nothing more to say.







Chopstick Eyes dragged herself sodden from the whipping waves of a grey ocean with rage in her heart, and a great knife in her hand. With the same pace at which she had marched across the depths of the silent sea, she advanced across the island.

* * *


The densest cloudbank had taken some time to find, hidden behind its lower, lesser kin. The portal was in there: Chopstick Eyes could sense it behind the endless, pelting grey of the rainlands. She remembered its smell.

Trudging through the mud to ascend a boulder directly beneath the stone ring, Chopstick crouched, and threw herself in a single bound, needle-straight, through the portal in the sky.

Her environment changed. She somersaulted, landed feet first upon the edge of the ring. Through the haze, she could see the shattered manor.

Oh no.

* * *


Chopstick Eyes raised the gnawed plastic to her face and took a deep sniff, then pocketed the oversized toy. The saliva was dry, but it smelled like rain. It was the tooth-marks that worried her.

She stormed out of Eurysthenes’ border-march, back to the So’E.

* * *


“Li’Kalla? Li’Kalla?

The Wand of Loudspaken shot her voice all through the realm, but there was only rain.

“Li’Kalla!”



* * *


The molves stirred when they noticed the foreign presence in the rain, one that was getting closer to the goats and to the other domesticated animals in Ya-Shuur’s enclosed lands. A few of them swiftly ran and barked at the goats to herd them deeper into the lands while others went to see what the foreign presence was and to warn it off.

Two of them approached and spotted the strange creature that was walking through the forest. In all their existence they had never seen a creature like this and when they saw that it was heading right towards Ya-Shuur’s lands they loosed loud barks. These were far louder than any wolf’s bark and were meant to scare off creatures.

Not far away Ya-Shuur heard the barks and he stirred. Ivy and moss were growing all on him and there was a bird nest on his head. He moved carefully to not disturb the nest and released himself. Then he went to investigate what his faithful molves were barking about. Behr-Aat was next to him. The voice, when it called, was tired.

“Hello?”

For the first second, the knife wasn’t visible, its polished surface reflecting too perfectly the mulch of the woods below. Chopstick changed her stance slightly, and the giant blade shifted, showing in its reflection the face of the molf that was hounding her. The beasts kept themselves low on the ground, growling and barking and cornering her, but the little godling didn’t move, did not so much as look at them. Her sticks were pointed squarely at Ya-Shuur.

“I… found your dogs,” she began. “They found me.”

Ya-Shuur looked at her and blinked in shock. It had been so long since he heard speech from anything other than those droning magpies. And the other shock was that Chopstick Eyes was quite scary in appearance. When he had shaken away the shock he told the molves to back away. They did this and quickly got behind Ya-Shuur but they shot Chopstick Eyes suspicious looks and growled slightly when she scratched the back of her neck.

“I am sorry if they scared you. They don’t take kindly to strangers.” Unfamiliar with knives, he looked at the strange sharp thing in her hand and held his herding stick warily. “Who… who are you? I have never seen you before. And… and what’s wrong with your eyes?” A look of concern was on his face and he grimaced in pain a bit as he looked more closely. “Don’t they hurt?”

Chopstick considered for a moment, one edge of her mouth tightening slightly. “...Don’t yours? They’re round and slippery. Must be a real pain to shed them.” She breathed in, exhaled.

Ya-Shuur was lost in thought for a few moments as he thought of what the strange creature had said about eyes. He had only ever seen Li’Kalla’s eyes and those of Vakk and then all the creatures that dwelled on the island. None of them had sticks coming out of their eyes unless they were injured in some way.

“Never mind. Forget the dogs, they don’t bother me. I’m looking for someone.” Her gaze had wandered, but she returned it now. “How long have you been here?” Ya-Shuur frowned and tried to work out what she meant by that.

“How long? Well… I have been here very long. I was here when Li’Kalla still lived in her manor but now there is only a terrible dragon there. I was here when it was all ruined and I was here when the goats were wild and alone and the bear and the wolf preyed on them. I was here before I saw that goat defying the darkness and felt that name was mine and then I was here after that too. I was here before the wolves befriended me and after that and also when the great beast called Zer-Du came and ate my friends.”

Chopstick’s knuckles whitened on the knifehilt.

“And I was here before I had horns and then after that as well. And before there were molves and after that. And I was here before water-goats and after water-goats and before they ran wild and after some of them were placed in the lake and became tame. And I was here when the cat was wild and when the ass was wild as well. I was here before the magpies learned to talk and after. That long! I used to count how many times the light came up but then it came and went so many times and I lost count.” Ya-Shuur was very excited to meet someone who could speak and understand him, so he had gotten ahead of himself a bit, but then he blinked and realized that the other person had not answered any of his questions.

“Oh, but you didn’t tell me who you are. I have never seen you before and I have travelled all over the island many many times. How long have you been here? Why have you come? Who are you looking for?”

“I’m the god with chopstick eyes,” said the god with chopstick eyes. “I’ve been here… I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe. Before that I was here for a long while. I’m looking for... a friend.” She shifted her weight a little. “Who are you? ‘Goat Defying the Darkness’? Tell me about the dragon, and the beast, Zer-Du. And tell me about the bear.” Ya-Shuur would have showed that he found her name delightful, but he could see now that she seemed a bit troubled and serious, so he kept his own face serious too.

“Okay.” He said, nodding. “I will tell you about all these things, but let’s get out of the rain. Come with me and we can go to my home and talk more.” He looked at her giant knife again, both curious about it and afraid at the same time. “But please don’t use that on me or my friends.”

“I… won’t,” said Chopstick Eyes. She licked rainwater off her lips, tongue running for a moment across the scar in her mouth. Even she could taste the naivety before her. “Let’s go.”

Ya-Shuur led the way through the lands he had enclosed.

Somewhere.

Time. Hearts. Hearts, time. Time passing. Hearts beating. Pump pump pump pump pump. Time.

Currents. Moving. Same direction. A wind. Slow, slow wind. Heavy. Still. Same direction. Twist yourself, align to it. Float still in the endless timeless pushing.

Sometimes, noise. Noise on the wind. Far, far noise. Noise like world cracking. Then dust. Dust on the wind. Dust from above, where the burning comes from. The dust tastes like...

...You have no words. You move your jaw. At heart, you are a simple creature.

The dust tastes like dust.

...

You are hungry. So so hungry. You are hungry in your belly. You are hungry in your soul. Time drags, rubbing against your brain, the smooth edge growing rougher every time it passes. Time burns away your simple mind like a carpet will burn skin. You can feel your brain fraying.

Motionless. Frozen. Stuck. Helpless. Collared. You start to see things moving in the dark. Flashes, patterns, burnings, reversals, palindromes. Time goes backwards forwards backwards forwards sideways up. You forget you have meat because you are made of wood. You become the ocean, feel your skin from the outside, feel the skin inside your throat. Your muscles might as well be stone.

You don't have a word for it, but it's still Hell.




In time the Alpha Serpent's scales began to dim. Unmoulted and unsmoothed by the action of the water, of which there was only the faintest current, the initial glory granted by its otherworldly meal was replaced by its old nature. Brown-grey grime leaked from its skin and caked its outer surface, solidifying in the crevices. The bright colours washed out, new tubercles grew. The light in its belly began to flicker. Soon it was so faint that only the center of each light pouch was visible, even when it shone.

The beast's jaw cracked open slowly, one millimeter at a time, and eventually, wide open, stopped. For a while, there was a silent scream.

Then the beast began to sing.




You are a squid.

Specifically, you are a large, really enormous squid, which is a state of squid that it is particularly wholesome to be. You spend your time catching things that are most certainly not large, really enormous squids, of which there are thankfully plenty. You live your life in constant danger of being encountered by something that is not an enormous squid but may somehow actually be a threat to you, like a rambunctious meteorite or a particularly peckish Kalmar, but when you are a squid you don't tend to really think of these kinds of things.

You don't have a great sense of hearing. You certainly couldn't play the piano, though you have enough limbs to. When you hear the song, it's the clearest noise you've ever heard.

It's a clicking moaning humming wailing rasping groaning gasping...

There's no melody, no rhythm. It's random, discordant, distant, and full of pain. Somewhere in your little squid soul, you taste that pain. The memory of it breeds in you and mates with pains of your own. You are but a simple squid, you do not know other minds. But pain...

You travel to end the pain. You travel with great haste.




You find it in the depths where you do not go. You find it giving light, much like your own, only weaker, older, more delicate. You find it floating over a mound of bones, tied to a trinket. You hear it singing, see its mouth.

There there, you say, embracing the side of its head with your tentacles. Its antennae brush past you, tiny dead lights rubbing your own young ones. There are others with you, not squids, some of them not alive, some of them not even embodied, all eager to find . There, there. The song changes pitch, only for a moment. There, there. I am with you. I am here for you.

You slip yourself into its open mouth. Its jaws contract, and, for a moment, the pain is over.

Today Chopstick created a postbox.

It's just a regular postbox, no supernatural stuff, but she'll check back to see if anything's in it from time to time.
-Route to my pad
-trying to see if you can use it as a shortcut
-apparently you can't
-but

Chopstick Eyes drew the blade, bright as silver, sharp as a razor, and put it in her mouth. Wincing hard but unable to blink, she pulled it to the edge of her lips and drew it out, dragging it through the left corner of her mouth, opening her face that much wider. When it was done, she buckled, clutching her stomach, and made it into a bow.

"Th-there," she said, wiping the blood into a streak. "I've taught it to cut gods." She offered him the knife.


We in business, boys.


Chopstick Eyes stood at the edge of the sea, the Lustrous Garden shimmering over rippled waves. She checked a watch she was not wearing, and, realising this, tapped her feet impatiently. The tapping turned into a bored, humming little jig, over the course of which she nearly missed her rendezvous.

She spotted Veradax casting its shadow over the smog of the Pyres just in time, and startled, scrambling back to the spot she was meant to watch. There, as the celestial spheres aligned- not in any noteworthy arrangement, but not random, never random- she spotted it: a mess of foam along the tide-line, a squiggle of sand in a shape that could have been, but was not quite, writing. In another moment it was gone, wiped clean by the waves.

Gotcha.




"C'mere."

The frog refused, flexing its throat as frogs do in a thoroughly nonplussed kind of fashion. Chopstick sighed with her hands on her hips, and looked around, as if for help. There was none, none but the fogbank of Li'Kalla's gate in the distance. And she was fortunate for that, too. She couldn't afford witnesses.

"C'mon, lemme just..." She stretched (some of) her arms into the muddy hole again, and when they weren't long enough, she tried her hair; the strands returned, carrying a fat green amphibian, resigned but by no means beaten. Chopstick looked over her shoulder again, quickly this time, and put the frog to her ear.

"..."

Nod.

"... ..."

Nod nod. Chopstick put the frog back from whence it came. Later that day, she found a marshy puddle, and, splashing her feet into it, disappeared completely.




A dark space, but not lightless.




A fragment of a walkway with no rails.




A door.




Chopstick Eyes stepped out into the hustle and bustle of the Grand Bazaar, wiping the dust of things indescribable off her skin. Lanterns greeted her warmly; street hawkers greeted her too warmly. But it was all grass around her feet and branches brushing the elephant's back. She was God, here. She was in command.

With a hop and a skip and a jump and about eight full-size meals from the intermediary food courts, Chopstick Eyes had returned to her workshop, the one with the monster doodles scattered all over the floor. She picked one up and smiled, half-shrugged. It was funnier now, but she did need something to keep her pad safe, and even with two Chopsticks, she wouldn't be here all the time. Especially now that she had a promise to Li'Kalla.

Her well of ideas had not since become any less dry, but there were other ways around her many weaknesses than trying to muscle through them alone. Donning a trench coat and a black hat, Chopstick Eyes set out for yet another trip to the places few would ever see. This time, it was quick.




The black market was a place of bright lights and dark faces, if faces there were. The floating gloves had lead in their knuckles. The voices were quick and were muted.

The wagon Chopstick ordered were already carrying a heavy load of goods, crude, hefty iron pieces, choppers and maulers and, to her own astonishment, enormous boomerangs. They didn't come back when she threw them, unfortunately. They weren't weighted that way. But good lord were they heavy. And sharp. And remarkably cheap... All of the weapons were. Chopstick made a note to take a good look at this 'Pit of Trials' sometime.

As for the rest, well, she waited until she was back in the workshop. It wasn't much, really: a fancy gold-trimmed black box, a stapled document, and some old blueprints rolled up with rubber bands. She started with the documents.

On Stem-Line Nanyte Replication in Second-Generation Autonomous Cluster-Based Perimeter Monitors
M. Salma Lei

Abstract
Since their introduction as post-urban infiltration and insurgency countermeasures, nanyte cluster perimeter monitors, colloquially Haze Men, have been field-tested for real-time environmental awareness and perception as well as combat efficiency, measured in terms of algorithmic response coverage, response rate, burst stamina, maximum force output, impact, compressive, tensile and fatigue strength. The lifespan of each unit measured across 800 cycles at periodic maximum and near-maximum performance has


Chopstick stared at the document blankly. It was at least forty pages long.

"Iiiiiiieeeeeee can't fucking read this," she announced, and threw it in the incinerator. "Black market know-how it is."

She opened the box, then closed it again. When she opened it a second time, everything was just the way she'd left it: a box lined with velvet, and eight bags full of dust. Eight incredibly expensive plastic sachets of black, black dust. She ripped one open and poured it out on the floor.

The cloud that rose wasn't choking, nor did it cover the skin and sink into the floorboards. It coiled, flexed and expanded, then shrank, the dust pouring from the sachet in a continual, impossible waterfall, sucking itself into itself until it formed a solid mass. The mass began to glow.

Up stood a creature like a steel spring, coiled and sharpened for violence. Heads and shoulders it towered above Chopstick, watching her with eyes bored into its face with a harsh, mechanical light.

A Haze Man, once again. Chopstick grinned, and booped its nose. She got almost to its face before its hand seized her wrist, its body and gaze unmoving over a vicious grip.

Very nice.

"Alright, point taken. Lemme go, mall cop," said Chopstick, and it did. "You think you can find your own way to the Palace?" The creature creaked, buzzing in a language that she did not understand. "Yeah? Well, close enough. Meet me there and I'll tell you who not to kill." The Haze Man made a noise like gravel being scratched.

Bit rough around the edges, for sure, thought Chopstick Eyes. But definitely a cutie.




The Palace was one of the largest hotel-restaurant-brothel combinations in the Grand Bazaar, and Chopstick Eyes owned one hundred percent of it. It was certainly the grandest: trimmed with brass and golden statues, it was styled true to its name, with vast, silken rooms, its own private square for dances and performance, and kitchens enough to feast nightly. Sometimes, when Chopstick was feeling particularly lavish, she would sleep in its basement.

It was also, unfortunately, quite empty. Advertised as a place 'where the gloves are leather and lace', they were really just silk for the most part. There were neither guests to enjoy the Palace's premium service nor any staff capable of supplying it. The gloves were great for spanking and such like, but man cannot live on handjobs alone.

Oh well.

Chopstick met the waiting Haze Men in front of the hotel, and promptly instructed them to arm themselves. The Palace was empty for now, sure, but one day it wouldn't be, and on that day she would tolerate no tomfoolery.

...

Well, that was a lie. She'd tolerate a lot.

Probably encourage it.

Probably be responsible for it.

But still. No tomfoolery.




Chopstick crawled out of the earth as she was wont to do, and changed out of her tunnelling overalls. It didn't help much. The rain was remarkably heavy today, and the mud splashing around her feet was awfully lively. Halfway through wrapping her kimono, Chopstick aborted the process and opted for a bright yellow raincoat with gumboots.

It certainly wasn't flying weather. She couldn't make it back to the Gateway if she tried, assuming Li'Kalla was even there in the first place. But that didn't matter much. She'd made another purchase in the deep markets.

From the deep pockets of the raincoat, Chopstick retrieved a wand of curious construction. Its haft was some fine-grained black material, matte and weighty, and a shiny, silvery metal orb formed its head. A thin steel band encircled the grid-like, rippling wirework of the orb, and visible within was some kind of dark foam. It had been sold to her as Michael's Wand of Loudspaken, and she had every intention of testing it out.

She activated the wand and tapped the orb. A fizzy thudding sound echoed for miles around. She inhaled.

"HEY, LI'KALLA!"


...okay, maybe that was a little too loud.

"Whoops! Sorry! Didn't mean to startle you, hey. Hey, I made a reservation for you at my hotel in the Bazaar, so you can pop in any time! Just let the staff know you're in and I'll be right there to meetcha, alright?"

No answer. She probably didn't have a Michael's Wand of Loudspaken. What a sucker.

"If anyone else can hear this, uh... Hey listeners, what's up! I have chopstick eyes, and I'm totally open for business right now. Need some goods? Want some services? Just call Choppy's Business Delivery Hotline for a totally free consultation! We do deliveries! We do pick-up! We do deliveries clocked at eight hundred miles per hour directly to your chosen recipients cranium! Want some emotional advice? Look no further! Want some sexual advice? I do too! Just call Choppy's Business Delivery Hotline! Call it with your throat! Call it with your tuba! Call it with a big sack of angry cats you're trying to pass off as bagpipes! That sounds hilarious! Terms and conditions may apply, but I'm deliberately ignoring them! Thank you!"

...

"Oh yeah, by the way, if anyone wants to bring my security staff, like, a cup of coffee or something, sometime, that'd be nice, they look kinda parched."

A nearby mud-clump stared at Chopstick Eyes incredulously.

She shrugged.



We in business, boys.


Chopstick Eyes stood at the edge of the sea, the Lustrous Garden shimmering over rippled waves. She checked a watch she was not wearing, and, realising this, tapped her feet impatiently. The tapping turned into a bored, humming little jig, over the course of which she nearly missed her rendezvous.

She spotted Veradax casting its shadow over the smog of the Pyres just in time, and startled, scrambling back to the spot she was meant to watch. There, as the celestial spheres aligned- not in any noteworthy arrangement, but not random, never random- she spotted it: a mess of foam along the tide-line, a squiggle of sand in a shape that could have been, but was not quite, writing. In another moment it was gone, wiped clean by the waves.

Gotcha.




"C'mere."

The frog refused, flexing its throat as frogs do in a thoroughly nonplussed kind of fashion. Chopstick sighed with her hands on her hips, and looked around, as if for help. There was none, none but the fogbank of Li'Kalla's gate in the distance. And she was fortunate for that, too. She couldn't afford witnesses.

"C'mon, lemme just..." She stretched (some of) her arms into the muddy hole again, and when they weren't long enough, she tried her hair; the strands returned, carrying a fat green amphibian, resigned but by no means beaten. Chopstick looked over her shoulder again, quickly this time, and put the frog to her ear.

"..."

Nod.

"... ..."

Nod nod. Chopstick put the frog back from whence it came. Later that day, she found a marshy puddle, and, splashing her feet into it, disappeared completely.




A dark space, but not lightless.




A fragment of a walkway with no rails.




A door.




Chopstick Eyes stepped out into the hustle and bustle of the Grand Bazaar, wiping the dust of things indescribable off her skin. Lanterns greeted her warmly; street hawkers greeted her too warmly. But it was all grass around her feet and branches brushing the elephant's back. She was God, here. She was in command.

With a hop and a skip and a jump and about eight full-size meals from the intermediary food courts, Chopstick Eyes had returned to her workshop, the one with the monster doodles scattered all over the floor. She picked one up and smiled, half-shrugged. It was funnier now, but she did need something to keep her pad safe, and even with two Chopsticks, she wouldn't be here all the time. Especially now that she had a promise to Li'Kalla.

Her well of ideas had not since become any less dry, but there were other ways around her many weaknesses than trying to muscle through them alone. Donning a trench coat and a black hat, Chopstick Eyes set out for yet another trip to the places few would ever see. This time, it was quick.




The black market was a place of bright lights and dark faces, if faces there were. The floating gloves had lead in their knuckles. The voices were quick and were muted.

The wagon Chopstick ordered were already carrying a heavy load of goods, crude, hefty iron pieces, choppers and maulers and, to her own astonishment, enormous boomerangs. They didn't come back when she threw them, unfortunately, they weren't weighted that way; but good lord were they heavy and sharp. And they were remarkably cheap. All of these things were. Chopstick made a note to take a good look at this 'Pit of Trials' sometime.

As for the rest, well, she waited until she was back in the workshop. It wasn't much, really: a fancy gold-trimmed black box, a stapled document, and some old blueprints rolled up with rubber bands. She started with the documents.

On Stem-Line Nanyte Replication in Second-Generation Autonomous Cluster-Based Perimeter Monitors
M. Salma Lei

Abstract
Since their introduction as post-urban infiltration and insurgency countermeasures, nanyte cluster perimeter monitors, colloquially Haze Men, have been field-tested for real-time environmental awareness and perception as well as combat efficiency, measured in terms of algorithmic response coverage, response rate, burst stamina, maximum force output, impact, compressive, tensile and fatigue strength. The lifespan of each unit measured across 800 cycles at periodic maximum and near-maximum performance has


Chopstick stared at the document blankly. It was at least forty pages long.

"Iiiiiiieeeeeee can't fucking read this," she announced, and threw it in the incinerator. "Black market know-how it is."

She opened the box, then closed it again. When she opened it a second time, everything was just the way she'd left it: a box lined with velvet, and eight bags full of dust. Eight incredibly expensive plastic sachets of black, black dust. She ripped one open and poured it out on the floor.

The cloud that rose wasn't choking, nor did it cover the skin and sink into the floorboards. It coiled, flexed and expanded, then shrank, the dust pouring from the sachet in a continual, impossible waterfall, sucking itself into itself until it formed a solid mass. The mass began to glow.

Up stood a creature like a steel spring, coiled and sharpened for violence. Heads and shoulders it towered above Chopstick, watching her with eyes bored into its face with a harsh, mechanical light.

A Haze Man, once again. Chopstick grinned, and booped its nose. She got almost to its face before its hand seized her wrist, its body and gaze unmoving over a vicious grip.

Very nice.

"Alright, point taken. Lemme go, mall cop," said Chopstick, and it did. "You think you can find your own way to the Palace?" The creature creaked, buzzing in a language that she did not understand. "Yeah? Well, close enough. Meet me there and I'll tell you who not to kill." The Haze Man made a noise like gravel being scratched.

Bit rough around the edges, for sure, thought Chopstick Eyes. But definitely a cutie.




The Palace was one of the largest hotel-restaurant-brothel combinations in the Grand Bazaar, and Chopstick Eyes owned one hundred percent of it. It was certainly the grandest: trimmed with brass and golden statues, it was styled true to its name, with vast, silken rooms, its own private square for dances and performance, and kitchens enough to feast nightly. Sometimes, when Chopstick was feeling particularly lavish, she would sleep in its basement.

It was also, unfortunately, quite empty. Advertised as a place 'where the gloves are leather and lace', they were really just silk for the most part. There were neither guests to enjoy the Palace's premium service nor any staff capable of supplying it. The gloves were great for spanking and such like, but man cannot live on handjobs alone.

Oh well.

Chopstick met the waiting Haze Men in front of the hotel, and promptly instructed them to arm themselves. The Palace was empty for now, sure, but one day it wouldn't be, and on that day she would tolerate no tomfoolery.

...

Well, that was a lie. She'd tolerate a lot.

Probably encourage it.

Probably be responsible for it.

But still. No tomfoolery.




Chopstick crawled out of the earth as she was wont to do, and changed out of her tunnelling overalls. It didn't help much. The rain was remarkably heavy today, and the mud splashing around her feet was awfully lively. Halfway through wrapping her kimono, Chopstick aborted the process and opted for a bright yellow raincoat with gumboots.

It certainly wasn't flying weather. She couldn't make it back to the Gateway if she tried, assuming Li'Kalla was even there in the first place. But that didn't matter much. She'd made another purchase in the deep markets.

From the deep pockets of the raincoat, Chopstick retrieved a wand of curious construction. Its haft was some fine-grained black material, matte and weighty, and a shiny, silvery metal orb formed its head. A thin steel band encircled the grid-like, rippling wirework of the orb, and visible within was some kind of dark foam. It had been sold to her as Michael's Wand of Loudspaken, and she had every intention of testing it out.

She activated the wand and tapped the orb. A fizzy thudding sound echoed for miles around. She inhaled.

"HEY, LI'KALLA!"


...okay, maybe that was a little too loud.

"Whoops! Sorry! Didn't mean to startle you, hey. Hey, I made a reservation for you at my hotel in the Bazaar, so you can pop in any time! Just let the staff know you're in and I'll be right there to meetcha, alright?"

No answer. She probably didn't have a Michael's Wand of Loudspaken. What a sucker.

"If anyone else can hear this, uh... Hey listeners, what's up! I have chopstick eyes, and I'm totally open for business right now. Need some goods? Want some services? Just call Choppy's Business Delivery Hotline for a totally free consultation! We do deliveries! We do pick-up! We do deliveries clocked at eight hundred miles per hour directly to your chosen recipients cranium! Want some emotional advice? Look no further! Want some sexual advice? I do too! Just call Choppy's Business Delivery Hotline! Call it with your throat! Call it with your tuba! Call it with a big sack of angry cats you're trying to pass off as bagpipes! That sounds hilarious! Terms and conditions may apply, but I'm deliberately ignoring them! Thank you!"

...

"Oh yeah, by the way, if anyone wants to bring my security staff, like, a cup of coffee or something, sometime, that'd be nice, they look kinda parched."

A nearby mud-clump stared at Chopstick Eyes incredulously.

She shrugged.






Heavy rain pounded the trench. Large droplets tattered off Chopstick Eye’s wide brimmed helmet, but no matter how hard she tried to hear the rain, she never could. The rapid fire tak tak tak tak of machine gun fire fought against the ringing after-wave of explosions for dominance in her ears. A mixture of mud and sweat fogged any vision she could have.

PTNK!

A stray bullet slammed into the man to her right, his head jerking back as a spray of crimson erupted behind him. Running on planks raised out of the muddy ground another soldier in red stained beige ran to the machine gun nest of the dead man. Before he could make it, a grenade bounced off the back of the trench and by his feet. Quickly the man scooped it up and as he tossed it outwards it exploded.

Chopstick was thrown backwards from the blast, and between stinging blurs she saw the man writhing on the ground, dirt soaking in his exposed elbow, his severed arm nowhere to be seen. Another soldier ran up to the man, pressing a hand deep into the dark ooze that was pouring from the wound, he turned to look at Chopstick.

“Daniel! Man that fucking gun!”

Why do you always, thought the creature in the long coat, think you know my name? But out loud she said, ”Okeydokey, sarge boy.”

It was a brief splash and a slog before she made it to the nest of sandbags and wire, set her hands on the handles of the gatling gun. From here, she had a clear view of no man’s land. The rain fell in a heavy blanket, but it couldn’t make leave her much blinder than she already was, or more far-seeing.

tak tak tak tak tak tak tak tak

It was a remarkably effective, and a remarkably boring, tool. Men were leaping from holes in the dirt, running between the wire and the craters in the hope that they could make it to her side before being spotted. They were always men, never women, and they were never right. Chopstick pressed her buttons and the machine spoke and they fell. Every now and then one of their own machines would speak in a different tone, and she’d hear something miss her head with a zip oh wait no that last one hit.

Chopstick fell back into the mud with a big hole in her face, across her cheek and jaw, an ugly blasted tunnel that showed off her broken teeth and jaw and leaked a red slime that might have been blood. Oh, she thought. Oh that’s going to start hurting soon.

It did.

“Fucking hell,” A voice called out. A soldier slided next to Chopstick, a crust of blood and dirt on the side of his face, staining a white band across his helmet. The man stared at Chopstick, shoving gauze onto her gaping wound, and pouring water around the edge, forming brown rivulets down her cheek. She shrieked at him, an injured, cornered fiend with teeth sprouting in a dense forest from the opening in her face.

As the man fought to work on her, she noticed a figure rise above the lip of the trench. The enemy soldier was wearing a dark uniform with N.R.R. emblazoned on his sleeve, and in his hands he aimed a trench sweeper at the medic.

Chopstick met his gaze and stopped, then watched, as, in one small movement, he blew a hole through the soldier on top of her, and a larger, messier one, in her belly.

She shrieked, though she couldn’t hear it any more, and leapt at him, throwing the dying medic off of her one-handed without noticing him. The dark soldier had no time to stagger or pump his shotgun; she was on top of him, screaming, smashing his face with her fists, strangling him with her hands, shaking him back and forth like a ragdoll.

On the ground, they were too close together for anyone to take a clear shot. As soon as she stood up over the corpse, more bullets entered her, leaving holes in her coat and her flesh, and she dropped, leaking, dribbling red.

But there was something very interesting attached to the end of the killer’s gun: a long, thin knife with a single edge.

Chopstick pulled her helmet away from her head and let her hair cover her, let her arms scuttle away, dragging her wounded body like a ghastly cockroach in the direction from which her attackers had come, leaving a trail of mud. More bullets came, but she was a fast target now, fast and low. Her hair cracked like a whip as she reached the first man, opening him with the knife. The hair collected another bayonet, and Chopstick leapt onto the second man. Then the third.

There was a brief whistle that sounded over the cracking of bullets. Suddenly Chopstick’s entire world lit up in a ball of flame. A great explosion landed behind her, sending her barreling forward alongside disembodied limbs and clumps of mud. The pain was something new as it ate up the flesh on her back.

As she dazed on the ground, she noticed a new shape in her peripheral, a mighty metal monster rolling around on treads, spouting massive explosions from a barrel, Rozdeleny painted across the cannon. With a silent whirr the turret repositioned itself again, and slowly the cannon came to bear down on Chopstick, but before it could fire a familiar hand grabbed what was left of the collar on her coat and began to drag her from the scene. It was the Sarge.

The man was bleeding heavily from his forehead and the beige in his uniform was blotted out by stains. He turned on his feet, pulling Chopsticks behind a bend in the trench. Slowly and gradually the sounds of the battle began to disappear behind them. A tension she didn’t know she was holding fell over her, and slowly the world went black.

Her eyes snapped open, she was in bed. There was no evidence of ever being wounded on her body, and for some reason she had a feeling years had passed since that day. She even recognized the room as her own, from the war memorabilia down to the curtains.

There was a urgent knock on her door.

Chopstick mmrmphed, cautiously pressed a finger to the side of her head where her cheek had been missing, then pulled herself upright and said, “Fuck off..?”

She reached into the bedside table and pulled out a packet of paper-rolls with black leaves in them, selected one and lit it with a match. “Alright, you can come in now,” she clarified, shaking out the match and dragging on the cigarette.

“Sarge?” A man walked in, the left sleeve of his suit was stapled to his shoulder, his arm missing from the elbow down, “Theresa let me in, but-”

But Theresa can fuck off too, thought Chopstick Eyes. Lemme sleep.

“It's Daniel, he hasn't been answering any calls, haven't seen him around. I want to go check on him, but he- he will listen to you,” the man shoved his hand in his pocket, “I have the Studebaker out back.”

Chopstick considered. She made sure to take the longest, slowest pull on her cancerstick before answering. “Who’s Daniel?”

The man looked at Chopstick bewildered, “Danny? From the war? Our best friend? Took a bullet to the teeth while on the gun. Our Danny boy? You pulled both our arses out of that hellhole... Is this a joke?”

Chopstick sighed. “Oh yeah. That guy.” She grinned, fit to swallow something very large, though the right side of her face seemed to have developed a twitch. “I reckon she’ll b- he’ll be pretty chuffed to see me, ey?”

“I hope so,” the man held the door for Chopstick, “I have a pit in my stomach, you know what they say about some of the good old boys who never adjusted.”

“Eh, don’t worry. I think she’ll be juuust fine.” Chopstick chuckled and slithered out of bed and onto the floor, her white vest hanging loosely from her frame. Now let me just figure out what a Studebaker is and we’ll be right as rain.

Within a few minutes they were on their way. Choppy let her head dangle out the car window like a over eager dog. They zipped by grey sidewalks and brown buildings. People were going about their business and the clouds hung low over them. The man with Chopstick wore a worried look, like he was about to be sick and then finally he cranked the shifter in the car and put her in park. They were outside an apartment building.

The man exited the car with a slam and began to walk up the chipped stairway to the front door. Chopstick followed suite as the man pushed the heavy door open and made his way down a stained hallway that reeked of cigarettes. To her, it smelled of heaven.

Eventually the pair came upon Apartment 2B. The man gave it a stiff knock but there was no answer. He shared a cursory glance with Chopstick before trying the handle, it turned. The man sucked in a breath and pushed the door open.

“Daniel?”

The door opened into a kitchen that was rather unkempt, with dishes piling and the icebox open and thawed. The man made a face as he exited into the living room, and then he froze.

Daniel sat on the floor in his pajamas, tears staining his face and prosthetic right jaw. Burn scars wrinkled the back of his bald head and the nozzle of a gun was pressed into his mouth.

The man held out his hands, “Daniel- what are you doing. Daniel!?”

Daniel met eyes with Chopstick. Her skewers stared at him, unwavering, and the room grew so quiet you could just about hear them creak. Very gently, very slowly, Chopstick stepped across the room, put one hand on Daniel’s shoulder, and pulled the gun away.

“Here,” she said. “It’s much easier if I do it.”

Daniel’s brain peppered the floor for an instant before he fell, his body covering the mess. The other man was screaming, swearing and rushing towards Chopstick. Before he could ever get close enough, a man wearing a nice black suit, smoking a long white cigarette appeared in the corner of the room. He looked over the scene with a long stare to match the drag on his cig. Suddenly the stranger snapped his fingers and-

And then she was awake.

The sea lapped gently at the gravel beach around her feet. Wind rustled in the leaves. Some had fallen to cover her- she’d been here for some time. She sighed. Building the Feasting Forest had taken a lot out of her.

She rubbed her mouth and yawned. The right side of her face had developed a twitch. She looked out over the strait (why was it boiling?) and thought back to the images flashing in her head. A dream. A long dream. She didn’t know what to make of it. But...

Vakk was right, she thought. Killing is fun.




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