Tatterdemalion

Fellowship: The Heart

Coleman!

Good thing, too: the Wreck shoots after you, apparently having been waiting for an opening, and by the time you’ve got them in the stairwell, you’ve barely got any time to brace before it slams its bulk into you. Sasha’s legs whine as she tries to plant her feet, but the floor underfoot is slick.

You’ve got a little bit of time: Sasha’s very fast, and you’re a good engineer. Enough time to figure out a plan. Ailee’s got a big fuck-off hammer, maybe that might help crack the shell?

***

Ailee!

You are denied your vengeance! And now you’re in some gross stairwell. It’s horribly treacherous underfoot, but, oh, yeah. You can fly. So in the event that this calamari platter cracked open Sasha and ate your guide, you and Jackdaw would still totally be fine.

But you don’t want that, do you? You want victory. You know, if Coleman managed to hold that thing steady, you might be able to take out your clown-based frustrations...

***

Jackdaw!

She is below. This isn’t the last obstacle. That would be kind, and fair, and the Heart is neither of those things. The Flood is waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs, just to make leaving that much harder. You can feel her, hear the furious rush of her waters.

This will, however, not be anything for you to worry about if the giant crab thing scuttling towards Sasha at high speeds smears both of you into a greasy paste underneath Sasha.

***

Lucien!

Well, isn’t this a merry farce? You and the clown go one way, everyone else goes the other. At least this way you’ve got time to chat, and a clear shot at its nigh-impenetrable back, if you had a clever plan.

“Why, thank you, my good man,” the clown says, giving you a questionably soggy clap on the shoulder. “That was one of my former students, you see, back when I was chasing after fleeting collegiate fame. But now I am pursuing life eternal! Have you ever considered your own mortality? Why, one day you might just wake up and the old ticker you’ve got there comes to a sudden stop, and then where are you, I ask you?”

Oh god. You’re getting recruited for a cult. By a clown.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

||Interstitial||

Canada!

You go down, hard, into the empty fountain, and before you can get your head straight the monster’s on top of you, pinning you down, neon blue saw-tongue lashing in front of your face as it opens its jaw full of jagged teeth, throbbing white eyes rolling madly, its rubbery flesh fully retracted from its horrid skull as it screams.

“And you’re dead.” The Cat’s acidic tone cuts through the howl, and the monster sits back up on his haunches and offers you a hand. The Cat hops up onto the fountain next to you, smooth as butter. “Can you tell me what you did wrong?”

You are, like, 90% certain that the Cat is Variance’s patronus. Variance and the Cat have the same mannerisms, the same inflection, and the same worldly-wise manner, and they both give you withering looks whenever you bring up the subject. On the other hand, the Cat’s monochrome eyes are neon green, not milky white. And Variance wouldn’t be caught dead in such a dapper little waistcoat. It’s got a tiny pocketwatch and everything!

“I reckon it was when ya let me get you to bang your shin on the fountain,” Goudan says, cheerfully. Strange beings come and go on an irregular basis here, but Goudan is a regular. He lurches about, doing what he calls important work in the upper corridors, but always is happy to provide a sparring match if the Cat calls for him. “Got skittish. Gotta get that skit all outta your system.”

“Quite,” the Cat says in Variance’s clipped sarcasm, her tail lashing impatiently. “But I’m more interested in Canada’s analysis, Goudan.”

“Right, sorry,” he says, his ruff of fur settling back around the back of his skull. “Go ahead, Cannie, tell her what you learned.”

***

Anathet!

“You will perform a one-act play in honor of the Lady Tirzah,” Auntie Rose hoarsely whispers. Her eyes glint under the cowl of her voluminous robes. Her emotions are like an entire thornbush filling up your little shrine, prickly and mean. “It is to praise her virtues and commend her in the eyes of her judges.” Who could forget that Tirzah has ~important secret police exams~ coming up? And how insufferably corrupt is throwing a party and inviting the judges over beforehand, anyhow? “You are not to take on the role of one above you on the Chain. You are not to be boring. You are not to be indecent. You have until tomorrow at sundown to offer me your script for review.”

What that really means is that she expects it tonight. If you’re on time, you’re late. You’re “not showing enthusiasm.” You’re “a concern.” Auntie Rose makes sure no concerns ever trouble the Annunaki, and she does it like a gardener dealing with dead limbs. You have a cushy job here, but piss off Auntie Rose (and become boring to the masters) and you might find yourself scrubbing toilets instead.

“I do hope you rise to the occasion, Earther,” she whines, touching your shoulder with a spindly hand, her fingers heavy with jewels. “Do not disappoint.”

***

Étoile!

Jezcha ab-Marduk is the worst. She pledged early and wholeheartedly to the House of Marduk, following in the footsteps of her father, because nothing says ACAB like a bunch of swaggering bullies. (The ab-Marduki are, like, the beat cops and prison guards to the ab-Ereshkigali CIA.) And she learned to punch down early. That’s why Tirzah’s so good at ducking out of rooms.

Today, this bullying has taken the form of telling Tamytha that the two of them are going to the Wilderness Preserve to hunt. So here you are, sitting in the close quarters of a chariot (which is more like an enclosed, fighter-jet-sized podracer with engines shaped like space horses) with the Worst Person and her nervously chittering Macaw manservant.

“Maybe if I’m lucky,” Jezcha sneers, “some animal will kill you. Then Dad will let me go kill some of them until they’re punished enough.” Tamytha sniffles and tries to take up less space. “Tranqs are fine, but you haven’t really had fun until you’ve gone animal hunting with real guns.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to catch anything,” Tamytha says, flatly. “I’m not very fast...”

“Of course you won’t,” Jezcha says, leaning forward. “Because you’re pathetic. Dad says you must be part Lynx. The sick part. Mom went down the Chain and made you.”

The Macaw cackles until Jezcha shoves him, choking him against his seatbelt. Outside, the Eiffel Tower is visible for a moment, flying a massive banner dedicated to the gods.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile!

“Oh, you silly girl, come here.” Shakily, she guides you up onto the sheets. You’re not dressed for bed, but that doesn’t matter; she rests your head against her breastbone, which is feverishly warm, and lets the tension bleed out of her. She closes her eyes and rests her face against the top of your head and slings one leg possessively over you.

She’s out like a light before you can say a word more, and you can’t resist the music of Caphtor lulling you to sleep as hard as you try.

***

Anathet!

“Thank you,” Tia said at you. Her smile is so bright, and vulnerable, like a newborn deer. She closes her fingers around the sapphire, and then breathes out, relieved.

When she fades away, it is like unfocusing your eyes, or realizing that you’ve been seeing an optical illusion: that what looked like a face was just the way light shines between those bushes, that what was two legs tucked up underneath her is just grass. You feel a sense of aching relief, like finishing a workout, and then she is gone. And you are alone.

She didn’t even stay.

***

Canada!

You are asleep when a light, lilting laughter echoes through the fortress. You are sound asleep when a figure flits from mirror to mirror, dancing from one to the next. And you are down like a log when that figure, faceless and indistinct, takes a seat in the mirror opposite you.

“Oh, this should be fun,” they say, and now she has your face. Her eyes are an impossible orange-gold, and she watches you all night long, breathing in time with you.

She is gone when you open your eyes.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile!

You blow Am’met and Visha’an a kiss and wiggle your rumpled rear one more time as you pass inside your lady’s chambers. The door slides smoothly shut behind you and your shoulders slump like cut puppet strings. You have been groped and rubbed and felt up everywhere. On the other hand, you have their names and even their ID numbers, so it’s really up to you whether your Lady does something about it or Marianne pays them a visit. Mmm. Now there’s a thought. See how interested they are in kissing when they’re dangling from a bridge upside-down...

Tamytha is in her bedroom. You can’t help yourself; you have to go check on her. You pad stealthily through the reception room and down the hall, down into your Lady’s chamber. (The moonlight filters in through the open casings. In the private garden outside, the fountain burbles. Breaking in would be so simple for someone who can get past guards and evade the ever-present eyes of Caphtor.)

In the bedroom, dimly lit, Caphtor is playing an instrument somewhat like a harp. She is mathematically perfect, making music so ethereal and gentle it’s hard to keep your eyes open. In the low light, you can see Tamytha tangled in her sheets, her veil hanging neatly on the bust of Ishtar by the side of her bed. Maybe it’s guilt that makes you linger there in the doorway a moment, but it’s a moment too long; Tamytha stirs, half sitting up.

“Lamassie? Is that you?” Her voice is weak. She always takes a turn after certain Salamander plants contaminate her food. This one’s... this one’s bad. Her forehead’s slick with sweat even from here. “Is it you this time?”

Oh. She’s... oh.

***

Canada!

This time (as it used to do, as it has not done since the day you betrayed the world) the mirror yields. You tumble through, yelping, like the first time you came here. The mirror place. The fortress of solitude. The upside-down. Really, you’ve got your pick of nicknames.

It’s a disorienting place. It’s like a big old house, maybe even a castle, except all the walls used to be tiled with glass. Used to be. More than half of them are broken, or fallen, and what’s behind them is peeling green-yellow wallpaper, and underneath that... you know, you never worked up the courage to dig your fingers in and keep pulling back.

It’s an imperfect place for an imperfect hero. It’s a place that sometimes has just what you need, and sometimes reflects you back at yourself. The worrying thing is that sometimes there’s movement in the mirrors, out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes there’s the intense feeling of being watched, and sometimes? Turns out you are.

Looks like you’re alone tonight (as alone as you ever get). The walls around you reflect you back on yourself, and if you get just the right angle between two unbroken mirrors...

You go on forever and ever, Canada without end, amen.

***

Anathet!

The black-eyed girl touches you with her hand. It’s like the idea of being touched, more than actual contact.

She shares with you, more gently, a sense of being vast and seeing without eyes. The infinite shades of black. The swirl of tides... but it’s as if from far off. Something you remember, but only as something that happened to someone who happened to be you. Tablets, sought; a sense of self, coalescing.

“Tia,” she said. Her lips move, but the word was already shared with you, and there is no sound. She is focusing so hard. “Name. Tia.”

Breathless Dead

A pang of guilt uncoils inside Redana. How could you take someone away from something this beautiful? “It’s lovely here.” Yes, that’s right: and if you convince Epistia to leave with you, you’re putting it all in danger. Look closely at the houses, princess: see the stones set about the mantel? Opals the size of your fist, rubies shaped like pomegranates, diamonds for door-knockers. Flowers bloom everywhere, the sound of rushing water is all around, and even if she can’t stay... “Hades, Keeper of Stones, your blessings are grand. The work of your hands is that which men remember.” A simple prayer, an offering of praise. If this is what Elysium will be like, she can understand why the Ceronians would risk their lives in battle. This is a paradise.

But no paradise can survive a locked door. And there are so many things that she hasn’t seen, and Epistia never has! Her heart settles back into its course, grateful that she does not have to consider turning aside and risking the violation of her oath.

When she offers freedom, Epistia will smile. When she does that, she has to follow through, or what good is she? She has to let Epistia see the stars[1].

And also she needs to let Epistia learn about other gods. This is disastrous. How do the Ceronians have good counsel if they do not offer praise to Zeus? How can they see their relationships thrive without the eye of Aphrodite and Hera? And Athena... well, a situation like this is exactly why you need to sacrifice to Athena regularly.

Jas’o. Down the hill, over her shoulder, she can see his squat, ugly shuttle at the end of a trail of ruined, smouldering crops. “Can we hurry? Your story is lovely,” she says, reaching out and brushing her fingers against the Assistant Secretary’s slick skin, “But the longer I’m here, the more danger everyone is in from the peacock who just showed up. I’m sure an accomplished public servant like yourself knows how to do things quickly, so please... let’s hurry and meet Epistia!”

***

[1]: a thought she has the good sense to bury whispers to her that Poseidon’s stars shine brighter than the greatest of Hades’ jewels. A thought like that never ends well.

Fellowship: The Heart

Lucien!

The sight is awe-inspiring. Or dreadful. One of the two. There is another whirlpool, far, far below: the roaring of water tells you that much. The stairs themselves are deeply, deeply unsafe: slick, viciously sharp spurs of dark black rock, draped in mildewing carpet and pocked by chunks of broken masonry fallen from the ceiling.

The good news is that it’s easily vast enough to fit the train larva(?) inside, if Coleman doesn’t mind a tight squeeze. The bad news is that it is also vast enough for that monster to follow behind you. The worst news is that anyone who tries running down here is just begging to have their skull split open. Slow and steady is the only way to go: but, again, that means you might as well walk back outside and rub yourself down in butter for the appetite of whatever that thing is.

***

Ailee!

You’ve already figured out how this conversation is going to go in your head. “Well, I never,” Professor Hamptonshire will say. “That’s quite unbecoming of a young lady,” he’ll add, his patronizing pride pricked. “I actually need your help,” he’ll say, “But I’ll do what I can with my silly clown tricks to distract the monster after I tell you the way out.”

You have made the one fatal mistake of forgetting that he has been learning how to be a clown. And the clowns have lots and lots of things to say about the holy meaning of rage.

Smack, goes his fist in your face. Crack, goes the bat over your head, while you stagger back. Crack, it goes again over your shoulders, shoving a nail somewhere tender.

“SHUT UP,” he froths. “YOU PATHETIC LITTLE SHREW. I’VE FORGOTTEN MORE THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW.”

“...I have, haven’t I?” He turns melancholy again, and philosophically rams his oversized shoe into your solar plexus with a pathetic squeak. “No, man up, Hamptonshire. Sacrifices must be made. Now, forgive an old man,” he says, turning to Jackdaw: “I seem to have misplaced your name, young lady.”

Take damage, and be aware that can happen again.

***

Coleman!

Oh fuck, it’s a clown.

Wait, no, it’s a seeker of the Grail. Still bad. Maybe even worse, if they’re overcompensating.

Clowns are terrible passengers. They’ll laugh while beating you to death with a gaudily painted hammer if you piss them off, and once the bloodlust hits it starts spreading non-stop, until you’ve got an entire congregation ripping arms off train staff and honking their damn noses.

The only reason to even give them a hand is that their Ringmaster, a monster of a holy roller (several thousand years old, doesn’t look a day over thirty-five), is both very generous with his friends and very, very vindictive with anybody who pisses him off. Remember the Vladislav?

Yeah. Exactly.

Help them out, and they’ll be a pain, but if they don’t get themselves killed, the Ringmaster will remember. Kill them, and fail (seriously, clowns are like cockroaches) and that will be remembered, too. So if you mean to kill them, make damn sure they’re dead.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

“You never do stop, do you? Idiot.” Her voice drips painful contempt; it is possible she means it. (It is possible she does not.) For a moment, you worry that her nails will draw blood, will trace strange glyphs in red on your skin. Then her hand retracts.

“Count to ten, then run to your room and do not stop. Do not let me find you sneaking around after curfew again.” Okay, look at the positive side: she probably just told you how to avoid the guard patrol, and she also told you not to get caught sneaking around, which she probably totally knows isn’t the same thing as telling you not to sneak around. Think positive!

Tirzah ab-Marduk of the House of Blue Stone (but not for much longer, not with her Inquisitorial trials fast approaching) melts into the shadows, leaving you alone in the low light of night in the House. Alone.

Mark Insecure, as she takes Influence over you and tries to shift your Savior/Superior, which cannot be done. You cannot be more of a senseless martyr.

***

Étoile!

The Inqusitor is handed a small square of white linen by her Lynx, which she unfolds in front of you. The simple veil is completely unadorned, completely opaque and unflattering, about as fashionable as a tighty-whitey, and try very hard not to think about that connection any more than you already have as she loops it over your head, lets it hide your face, acting with silent dignity.

“Janissaries. Escort this innocent home.” Yes! She’s letting you go! “It is no sin to be assaulted by the wicked, as long as you refuse their lies.” She steps behind you, and you hear the sizzling of live-wire lashes. (No, your shoulders and spine say, instantly tensing up, please, not one of those, you asked for anything else, you’ll pass out—) The links of your shackles fall to the ground, hissing, and you slump forward onto your, well, your front, sobbing in relief as the lashes of her scourge retract into her gauntlet.

The Lynxes help you up as the Inquisitor steps out of the circle of dim light around you. “I promise,” she says, and she means it, “You need not fear. I will protect you from chaos.” Then, silence and night and her absence, and you can barely stand out of the aftershocks of terror and the dread of her voice. (She meant it. You could have had cotton stuffed in your ears and you’d be able to tell. She believes.)

Then you are squeezed. Between the thong and the trousers’ waistline.

“Don’t worry, little pet,” the male says, still squeezing and kneading. “We’ll take you home safe and sound, and our little jokes will stay between us, yes?” He’s deliberately trying to keep you flustered and off-balance and meek so that you’ll agree to whatever he wants, and luckily, what he wants is for you to keep your mouth shut, play along with their harassment all the way home, and absolutely under no circumstances to tell your Lady.

He very much wants you to stay off-balance and terrorized and squeaking so that you do not realize that there is a very high chance that if Tamytha decides to take insult to the treatment of her dear, sweet handmaiden, his ass will be in the deepest shit, and you in fact have him over a barrel.

***

Anathet!

It’s difficult, but you manage to figure out why as she slaps you in the face with a feeling of [gratitude; the feeling of unwarranted grace, like being forgiven for knocking someone down] (At least it’s not hammering into you any more. Baby steps!) She’s not like you. You are centered and present; you are vast and certain as an iceberg. Or at the very least an ice cube. But a big one. She is water, moving wherever her own consciousness drifts; if you are an iceberg, she is the salt-sea. She needs to be anchored. She needs something to cling to, so that she can give voice.

Maybe a name. Or a talisman special to her. Or meditation lessons. Being her anchor, offering to be a stable point for her, would be dangerous (and risk changing both of you, like water changes the shape of the ice and is displaced in turn) but you can do it right here and now. Or you can do things slow and safe.

As for the danger? She is the salt sea all around. She is being very careful and considerate. If she wanted to crush you like a bug, you have the definite feeling she could. She might lose coherence doing it, in fact, she probably would, but she could. As easily as you could close your fist.

If your sensei were here, he would tell you that no compassionate act is ever truly wasted; that kindness, when given, enriches the cosmos. That some may act out of deliberate cruelty, but that we should first always find where someone is hurting and try to help them mend.

Reach out. Connect. Help her understand you so that she can understand herself.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

[Storytime: 3/9 (+1 here)
Adventure GET: 5/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 2]

Okay, back it up one cherry-picking minute. I’m Rinley Yatskaya. I can sniff out the joy in someone’s heart when they sing its song, and you know what? Sessily puts her whole heart into her dancing! I’d rather have Sessily as my dance partner than a dozen handsome boys with perfect rhythm, so there! And that is why we’re doing this together as Scheherazade and Dinazad, Warrior Princesses!

(Caroline told me their stories to help me get to sleep when I was little and missed Mom. Two sisters with an unbreakable bond, fighting ghuls and evil viziers and creepy old magicians, all told in flashback as Scheherazade won them a stay of execution every night from the wicked King Boney! I don’t think we ever got all the way to the thousand and first night, but that’s okay. I think it’s better that we never ended them. If I close my eyes, I’m in King Boney’s underwater castle, with Dinazad dangling over the lobster pit, and another story to tell...)

The only problem is trying to figure out what the perfect costuming choices are, and how to get Dulcinea to help us with our animatronic giant snake (specifically, the part where it doesn’t exist yet), so we’re digging through the stacks at Party Warhouse (the E fell down years ago) trying to find some jackets that would look right with paste jewels glued on, but secretly? I’m trying to find the perfect gift for Dulcinea to bribe her! I can always use a clean hankie as a veil, but an animatronic snake is essential for “Follow: 1001 Visions Adventure,” and I need my number to be perfect.

Because I made sure to leave flyers all over the shrine, especially plastered on the coffee maker and the wall outside Caroline’s room. With the date circled. She’s totally going to come out of her room and leave the shrine, for once, even if she does it cradling a cup of coffee and wearing an evilish witchy robe over her tank top. She’s going to get to see me do something cool. A celebration of bedtime stories and sisterhood and giant snakes!!

That’s why I am going to find the perfect Dulcinea bribe. It will be flawless, and Dulcineaey, and I will have the only one, and she will throw herself around my ankles and beg me, Rinley Yatskaya, to give it to her, and I’ll look down and say, “After you build the giant snake.” And then I’ll laugh like this: nyahaha, nyahaha, nyahahahaha!!!

[Will 2 + Dulcinea Bond 1 = Intention 3 to find the Perfect Dulcinea Bribe in the stacks at Party Warhouse.]

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

“I am already saved,” Tirzah says, her tone just as impossible to read: quietly gloating, or quietly resigned, or stating a simple fact. “And I saved you. But there is a way that you can help me.”

Her finger hooks your collar, tugs you closer. For a moment, you’re back then, when everything still didn’t make sense but “Tanya Gold” had chosen you, her lips on yours. But there are veils between you now, and not just physical ones. “It is very difficult for me, now that Canada has come back. Tirzah, they say to me, Tirzah, tell us about her. How did she survive? How can we stop her mind control? How can we find her? I am the expert on her, you know.”

She’s different than the Tanya you remember. Tirzah has different teeth, long and straight and pale under her veils. (That crooked front tooth was designed; it was grown from the gums by magic science and then adjusted with drills and styluses. You didn’t see her for days after the surgery to replace them with “proper” teeth while she recovered.) She should be wearing sunglasses and jorts, her skin blotched like a treasure map, not these stupid slinky see-through dresses that show off skin like bronze, smooth and unblemished and uncanny. Just another reminder she’s an alien.

“I think that it was a mistake for her to come back,” she says, and is that a tightness in her voice. “And that whoever helped her hide might be regretting it.” Her nails are light on your skin, for now. There is a great deal of control in her fingers. “So I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, as a slave to their better. Why do you think Canada risks everything she has been given by this fool?”

(It’s her. She’s the fool. She’s the one who hid you, who helped you, who knows who you are. Who could tell the Inquisitors who you are at any time.)

***

Étoile!

“Twenty shavings says she took it off herself,” the Janissary says to his companion. They have expertly taken control of the situation: now that one stands on either side of you, waiting for the arrival of the chain-clippers (after their commanding officer ordered them not to try shooting them off with a laser-musket, because you were obviously an expensive house-slave and needed all your fingers), you are not a revolutionary sign screaming defiance at the Annunaki, but a Bad Girl who is being punished by display in Six Wave Commons. The loss of your veil is to shame you, obviously, and in conjunction with the lashes is to show what happens when you are Bad and step out of line. And the lack of jacket is because the Annunaki don’t care about toplessness and assume all their slaves stop caring, too.

These Lynxes, evidently, still care. A lot.

“They’re animals,” the other one hisses gleefully. (Like she’s not an oversized serval herself. The hypocrisy!) “No self-control.”

A tail bats in your face. Ack! Hair! Up your nose! “Imagine owning this one,” the male growls. “Having her wake you up for morning drill! Whoops, lost her veil again... let’s look for it in the showers!”

They laugh. That tail is pressed firmly against your lips. Your back hurts. The light is pale and weak, designed for curfew hours. You can barely see the tiles in your shadow. A shiver runs through that tail from base to tip. Gross.

“Oh, human, don’t be silly! If there’s no milk in the rations, I’ll show you where to get more!” The female makes noises. Mouth noises. That damn tail is curling lasciviously against your jaw while the male cackles. Shut up! People are trying to sleep while he’s yakking it up at your expense! What if they open their windows and look out to see what woke them up? More eyes to stare at the little tableau under lamplight. And even if they don’t, slaving away another day without even the comfort of sleep is miserable.

“Don’t worry your silly little face,” the male says, his tail finally leaving your mouth, but working dangerously down your chin and neck towards that tight little band. “I’d teach you all kinds of things you could do without a veil, little slut—“

“Hssst!” The female’s tail fluffs up and smacks you in the cheek. “Great one coming!”

The two Janissaries stand at attention, tails nowhere near you, and now you hear it: clack, clack, clack. Annunaki sandals, impractically heeled. And then one of your worst nightmares looms out of the dim light of night.

The Inquisitor squats down to look you in the face. She’s wearing impractically skimpy armor, made of a silvery metal you can’t quite place, over a bodysuit of swirling, sickly color: bruise-like purples and greens and reds. Her veil is gaudy, purple and black and gold, but her eyes are grey and steady and they’re drinking you in. Be the mask. Play your part. She decides whether you go free or need to be re-educated. Or disappeared.

“She stinks of the demon,” another Lynx says, looming in the dark behind the Inquisitor. “It’s the slave that Ma-Ri-Ann stole.”

“Hmm.” There are wheels turning, delicate and fine like lacework, behind those steady eyes. “Why here.” It’s not really a question. “Marking territory, or perhaps a distraction. It’s difficult to say, yet.”

She reaches out and caresses your cheek. (She’s allowed.) Underneath the cold metal of her gauntlet, her bodysuit feels you, writhing like a worm, clammy and hungry. It wants you. It wants to eat you. Maybe those are the same thing.

“Confess,” she commands you.

***

Anathet!

[love, the deep and enduring love of holding a stuffed animal that you’ve owned your whole life]

The black-eyed girl sinks her ghostly fingers into the rich black soil and smiles. She radiates that love at this: gardening, earth, growing. Then she concentrates and thinks an image at you.

It’s ferns, growing rich and wild. You can hear the insects chirping. You can feel the humidity crushing you. You can see the ferns coiling around a ruined Annunaki outpost as it slowly decays and the sun flickers in the flashing sky. You can taste mud and sunlight, the way that a fern would, the exact way. You can smell the release of gasses from the stinking mud and the rich, subtle scent of ferns uncurling. The shadows yawn and uncurl and the world fragments—

Then you’re back, the sensory information cutting off. It took a moment for something so rich and info-packed and... dangerous. At the end. She was barely keeping control, wasn’t she? She could only avoid overwhelming you with wrongness for so long.

She curls her arms over her knees and scoots closer, like a skittish wild animal.

Breathless Dead

Princess Redana has had context for everything thus far: parley with a god, a daring feat of piloting, the discovery of a paradise inside a beast caster than worlds. All of that was understandable; all of that fit inside her understanding of the cosmos. There is no context for a brainsquid, and so her brain tries to provide one: is it a Servitor made in octopoid form, or a child of the gods, or a creature of the ecosystem tamed by the Ceronians? She latches on to the title: Assistant Secretaries might still be outside her experience, but she knows of them. So she offers a nod of acknowledgement, not offering insult by either ignoring the introduction or treating the Assistant Secretary as an equal[1].

“A pleasure, Assistant Secretary,” she says, and for a moment her voice is her mother’s, centuries past, her diction elevated and her inflection precise. The effect is uncanny. She doesn’t have the walk down, though, that stride that eats distance and sets her apart from the unworthy masses. She’s too eager, head forward, sneaking glances at the undulating Servitor(?). “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s an... well, it’s kind of an unusual department.” Here it comes, the magic words: “Tell me more!”

***

[1]: if you treat the Assistant Secretary as an equal, you bestow more expectations on them than they have accepted, and expect them to know more than they do and make decisions they have no authority to make. If they have to explain that they are unable to meet your expectations, the shame will destroy them. Therefore: never treat a bureaucrat with unearned rank.