Tatterdemalion

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

GIVE A DOG A BONE

Hider

I kept waiting the whole night for somebody to say something ridiculous so that I could look at them with sudden, uncharacteristic shock and ask them: “Are you Sirius?”

And I was consistently denied the opportunity, left and right and straight down center, so now only you, my adoring fan, get to know how terribly (un)funny I am.

Sirius Drinks is the sort of place that wants to be there for you, no matter what you need it to be, no matter where you find yourself. You might be reminded, if only faintly, of the fires at the bottom of the Ash in Night and Falling Stars: a Novel of the Outside, where fallen angels work to love those that nobody else can or will. Except if Sirius Drinks is Hell, then the sinners are unionized, working hard to love each other, and haven’t committed any sins save those against the mores of society. Sirius Drinks is a place where you can let your inner animal out, and where the human body explodes into a hundred different directions on the evolutionary tree.

There are much worse things that you could be than a furry, you know, if that gives you a touch of the heebie-jeebies, if that brings to mind politicians ranting about litter boxes in schools and zoophiles trying to groom your pets. Everyone I saw at Sirius Drinks that night, dancing and gyrating on the sound-curtain-segregated dance floors (wild tangos flirting with arhythmic styles of yesteryear, artistic remixes of FAEWYL-D, and, inexplicably, at one point, Tom Sawyer (Bass Boosted)) was there just to be themselves, and to ask others: will you look at me? Will you admire me? Will you envy me? Will you want me?

The sort of questions that everybody asks themselves, and ones that I, dear reader, am no stranger to myself. I couldn’t help but ask the audience the same things when I hit the dance floor, even though I’m 98% human and 2% rad as fuck. (I still haven’t figured out the appropriate amount of animal-themed clothes to wear to a furry bar that doesn’t come off as appropriative, but maybe next time I’ll bring some ears and a clip-on tail. Switching out my babies for some big fluffy paws is probably a step too far, though. Or a scamper too far?)

Now, here I’m supposed to tell you more about the food, the decor, the prices, all the things that swirl around to make a good review, especially when those things can be quantified so that they can be pit against each other. (Philistines! The unscored review is a dying art.) But if I’m being honest, I didn’t actually get around to trying out the menu (next time, I promise!), one which seems to cater to every step on a voyage of love (a mixed metaphor I refuse to apologize for), from bar grinding to first dates to birthday parties to anniversaries, to the point where there’s more than one kind of cake under the dessert menu. I could talk about the almost-privacy of alcoves and how they entice the eye to peer and try to catch a glimpse of what might be happening behind (or under) the tables. I could even make a big deal out of the fact that there were several different sizes of stall in the facilities, and make salacious suggestions that they’re to accommodate flings instead of unusual bodies.

But I don’t need to rely on implication and rumormongering, dear reader. I’ll just admit it.

I ended up being marched out of Sirius pinned between my girlfriend on one side and an enthusiastic, generous, and boundlessly energetic wolf on the other, a state of affairs that continued for the rest of the evening in a secondary location (one which I was, on the whole, rather glad I was abducted to).

The work of Hell is holy in this life. So, too, is the work of Sirius Drinks, which pulls out all the stops to be a place where the big bad wolf is right at home, and it’s Red Riding Hood who has to adapt herself to the environment. If you see me there, feel free to say hi— just don’t unclip my tail!

That would be Siriusly rude!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Here they are, finally almost eye level; Dolly has hopped up onto an inconspicuously placed platform designed for that little bit of extra height needed to be roughly equal with aliens. Her dress is rumpled, her tail curls and uncurls behind her, and when she curtseys in her best imitation of the TC fashion, it’s a little shaky.

“Smokeless Jade Fires thanks you for the entertainment tonight,” Dolly says, eyes flicking up to Angela’s face for a moment and then sliding off and away. “And she would like you to know that…” She swallows, lifts up on her heels for a moment. “She has her eye on you, Angela Miera Victoria Antonius. If you impress her, she may permit you further… privileges. So good luck!” The last sentence is a blushing, rushed jumble.

The power is clear. Dolly is full of fire from tip to tail, racing, lancing, Jade’s hands holding her back, and she leans against them just to feel their firmness. The, the titles that Jade is whispering in her ear. They should not feel so good for how rough they are; exports from the TC, where fidelity is much more important, where courtship is restrained by so many rules and chasing pleasure is frowned upon.

“And thank you for your company during the show,” Dolly blurts out, and Jade stiffens. It wasn’t intentional, but her leash ends up wound around Jade’s knuckles, and Dolly, a little too late, realizes what she implied.

She hops off the pedestal, bites down on a squeak (ears flattening as she tries to convince herself no one else heard that crack) and then scampers away through hot, intense judgment into the cool night, Jade pulling her along faster, faster, faster.

---

“Drones,” Smokeless Jade Fires says, lazily rolling her hips. Dolly pulls the chain connecting her (wirelessly locked) cuffs to the headboard and whines, feet digging into the sheets. “She’ll recognize the jackals faster than an alien would, but we don’t need a lingering advantage, just a decisive one.” With a wave of her hand, maps of the battlefield paint themselves across the bedroom. With a flick of her tail, Dolly is granted the sensation of Jade expanding and throws her head back against the pillows, squealing. “Ksharta Talonna won’t be caught out on the trails unless we flush her out into them. Here. Are you listening?” Her nails dig into Dolly’s fur, leaving no marks beneath; Dolly tries to lift her head and nod, but the sensation of the next buck of Jade’s hips lays her out.

“Tch,” Jade says, hiding her mouth behind one hand. “I don’t have to worry about Angela Miera Victoria Antonius, do I?” Dolly doesn’t even have to think about shaking her head; Jade does it for her. “So what if she could buy you dresses? So what if she is an oversized, gangly, exotic alien? So what if…” She can’t finish it. She can’t admit that Angela might have any advantages over her; she can’t forget Dolly eagerly sniffing, leaning forward, wanting to bury herself in softness. She drags her claws along Dolly’s side, rump, thigh, and Dolly obediently turns over onto her side. Another thing that Angela could just do without having to show Dolly what she wanted. Jade leans over Dolly, shows off with a complex trick: pushing her face down against the mattress, both telling her right cheek it’s being pushed and her left cheek that it feels the extra pressure of the mattress. Thwap, thwap, thwap goes Dolly’s tail on the bed. Huff, huff, huff goes her breath through her nose. She clenches furiously around nothing at all.

“Mine,” Jade says, to herself, to Dolly, to the night, to Ksharta Talonna, to Angela Miera Victoria Antonius. “Mine mine mine. My priestess. My champion.” My love. My crush. My favorite, no matter how I want to play with Angela. Look what I do for you. Ignore how any observer would just see you writhing on your bed. Let me be a part of your world, tonight, every night.

She relents, eventually; guides Dolly’s leg up, lets her feel it settle on a shoulder. Dolly can’t hold it long, but the noise that comes out of her nose is like a kettle boiling over. “Drones,” Jade continues, dragging talons down the maps, which run with rivulets of color representing the jackals. “And then you will vault from the trees, my dancer.” Dolly’s hair is tangled branches scraping across the white moon. And what if Angela Miera Victoria Antonius might be watching? Let her envy. Spacing? Oh, she knows spacing. Let this be the space, then.

Feeling the strain, she lets Dolly drop her leg back down, but pushes her harder, until her (her! her!!) Dolly is melting into her arms, alone on the moondappled bed, and Jade lets the feedback, the shared summit, echo through her self. Dolly closes her eyes and listens to Jade’s breath, feeling the realistic drape of Jade’s body over her curves. Jade shuts her eyes in turn; she knows the room’s dimensions and furniture, enough to mimic them in her thoughts, but she chooses to forget she knows them.

Is this right, Dolly? You should be in a temple; you should be wreathed in miracles and signs. Is this enough? She read all your stories. This is what you wanted, but your goddess has to play so many tricks to give you what you dreamed of. And if she were to drop into herself and exercise her will on your behalf, what would that even look like?

Would it look like being Angela Miera Victoria Antonius’s trophy, Angela who can hold that leg up on her shoulder, Angela who smells like enticement, Angela who was there with her when Jade was attending to her damned duties? (That drive she was given, of course, even now is being scanned overnight; it will make for morning perusal, unless something ends up flagged as a hazard to her idol.)

Smokeless Jade Fires, goddess, mistress, buries her smallest face in the thought of her Dolly’s hair, pulls her arms tight around her bride, wraps her tail around one sweaty ankle, and runs her fingers almost thoughtlessly over the concept-construct wrapped tight over Dolly’s mouth.

Hers. Hers hers hers. Even if she shows her love off, even if she whispers exotic insults in her ears which accuse her of sexual availability, even if she arranges a play with that Angela (whose vexed, sincere face works through the vaults of Jade’s thought), even if she’s offered things that even Jade can’t give her no matter how hard she tries. You promised, Dol— you promised, Seven Quetzal.

You promised to be married to a goddess.

That means you’re not allowed to abandon her.

Please.

TSL: Sjakal

A new day dawns. The world changed overnight; it spun and worked in its gyre, like a falcon under the eye of Heaven. The world, as if exhausted by the hard work, breaks slowly into being again, and most of the morning is gone by now. The Adamant, of course, has been full of hard work since dawn, but for almost all of you, that labor has been invisible, beneath the walls and behind the floors.

---

Nahla!

Tickling.

That’s the cover story for why you are completely unwelted from a corrective crop. It’s an accepted form of correction, particularly because of the strictures of the Faith: it’s hard to cause the kind of permanent harm that would see her right to own you revoked with feathers, fingers and tongues, but it’s easy to provoke pleas, muffled screams, and the white-hot lack of thought which is, ultimately, the goal.

This was followed up with Grace-of-Heaven supervising you on a run through the harem gardens: bouncing, jingling, and straining until it was impossible for you to seem too well-rested. A perfect scheme.

So now, here you are, slumped in the shade of an olive tree, driven to your limits, adornments still dangling (and, in some cases, weighted). Grace-of-Heaven daintily kneels next to you, the image of a proud, noble owner, chin lifted just so.

“So, the problem,” she says, her voice low enough that Lila Isa can’t hear her as she suns herself nearby, on very full display. “Is the Fire Wheels! How are we supposed to really, really appreciate Sjakal with them being brutes?”

It’s not a rhetorical question. Not really, not for you. You have to assume she means for you to provide her with an answer. Why else would she have said it?

---

Soot!

“You!”

Rosethal snaps you out of a reverie of images and flowing brushstrokes with a snap of her fingers and a clash of her bangles, advancing on you in the narrow hallway. An ambush from behind!

“You’ll do,” she says, hooking you by the arm. She hasn’t recognized you, it seems? What else would that mean? And, oh. Now she is pulling you. Now you are being pulled.

Where were you going? Is it more important than staying in the good graces of Rosethal?

---

Silsila Om!

You wake up sticky, in a pile of several exhausted Fire Wheels. Wine bottles and dreaming pipes lay scattered about, detritus of a riotous time. It goes without saying that you are in a state of some déshabillé. (Were you on top, in the end, or on the bottom?)

The only reason you are awake, in fact, is that someone has said (into your head, which rings like a temple bell): “something something Hai Lin.” Which demands some sort of rather unfiltered response, doesn’t it?

---

Birsi!

Your arms ache. It is too much to ask that they fall off.

The strappado keeps them pointed up, behind your back, forcing you down into a bow, folded over at the waist. You’ve faded in and out of sleep, repeatedly awoken by the strain in your shoulders— and the throbbing of your cheeks and thighs, where your captors made you dance from foot to foot with the kiss of a firm palm and a singing lash. Your mouth is crammed full of volunteered, unidentified items, held in place by perfume-soaked rags, the fumes of which fill up the corners of your weary head. Your hair is loose and lank and only half-dyed.

Finally, someone enters the shack where you spent the night. You can only lift your head so far, but from the look of it, it’s a woman that fills the whole narrow doorway with her curves.

“So this’s the Firehead that snuck past my boys,” Mother Bes drawls, and chucks your chin with a tap of her pipe. “A Firehead with all that fire leaking, from the looks of it. Did you work it out of her, Jekkan?”

“I put her through her paces,” Jekkan, the woman who caught you, drawls, entering the shack behind her. “She’s not a Fire Wheel. They would have broken by now. All spark, no steel— which is very interesting, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” Bes says, turning your face this way and that with the pipe. “Will you be a good girl and answer a few questions for Momma, dear? We might even be able to see about a change of accommodations…”

Do you respond, Palace Guardsman, through that drool-soaked mass between your lips? Is it desperate and pleading, or do you try to salvage some scrap of your dignity in this close, cramped shack?

Breathless Dead

”She came in a box.

“I’d asked Mother— Nero, Hermes— for a friend, because I was alone in a great big palace built just for me. Everybody was bigger than I was, and none of them liked me. Some were scared of me, some resented me, some condescended to me, but not one of my teachers wanted to be my friend. The stakes were too high, and I wasn’t good at learning, and I didn’t want to learn anyway. But I wanted— just someone to be with. Someone who would understand. Someone like me.

“So we made a deal. If I memorized all my material in these little handbooks that my teachers made for me, made me recite from memory, testing to see how much I could learn by rote, THEN I would get a friend. She’d see to it personally. And I did it. I worked harder than I’d ever worked. I made the words cram inside me until they were the entire world. I earned the little jewels they set into my crown badges, one by one, four to a row. And then, for my birthday, the best birthday I ever had—

“The box was covered in rose-pink waves, and trimmed with lace, and I broke it on accident. I tried to pull her out of the box, but I didn’t realize how heavy she was going to be, so I fell in and crushed all those waves beneath me. Looking back, she was scared. She hissed, her tail got all, you know, like that. But my head was full of workbooks crumbling into joy, and I thought she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. All those jewels on all those crowns (bronze, silver, gold, in their ranks on my sash) and I would have thrown them all away if it meant I got to hold someone like me.

“So I pulled her over and insisted she have some of the cake and kept touching her hair, her hands, her tail, so happy that she was real, that I would get to keep her, that I had a friend now, and after the cake I decided to show her the entire palace, dragging her along and explaining everything to someone who— she had to listen. I get that now. But I was a child and I was just so happy that I got to share it, all of it, and she kept looking around with her eyes so big and round, and holding her tail in her hands, and slowly following everywhere I ran to.

“Except when it was time for bed and I pulled her into my bedroom for the second time, she tugged her hand out of mine and screamed and ran into the darkness of that great big house, and I stumbled after her into the dark, and the dark was so big. I think it was supposed to help me sleep. All the lights came from the walls and the ceiling, and they pretended to be a sun crawling across the ceiling, and after sunset bathed everything golden yellow and burning orange, it snuffed out and everything was dark, no moon, no stars. And I fumbled through the halls, hissing her name, because ANYTHING could have been in those shadows, snakes and dragons and things with claws, and eventually…

“The only thing that made sense was that I did something wrong, and I didn’t even know what it was. Which meant that it was my fault. I’d gotten my first ever friend and now I’d lost her because I made a mistake, and Mommy wasn’t going to give me a new one unless I crammed even more books into my head, but I didn’t want a new one, I wanted my Bella, with her soft hands and her soft hair and her jingling bell and her eyes like gold, and I sat down in the dark and just… I sobbed. It was ugly and loud and I was making a mess on my hands and face, but I was more miserable than I had ever been in my whole life. And she didn’t come back, and I fell asleep sitting next to the wall after all my strength left me.

“But when I woke up, just before dawn, she was sleeping next to me, all curled up, head on my arm, and I promised— and I don’t know if she heard— her ear twitched—

“I promised that I’d never make her run away again.”

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla!

Down below (oh, so far below), Gími and Grace-of-Heaven are watching what unfolds intently! The greasy street urchin has Grace-of-Heaven by the hand, and keeps looking around, as if, perhaps, trying to decide whether to stay for your sake or to scamper away with that precious treasure you entrusted with her! Oh, poor Gími! Torn between her desires, inflamed by you, and the fact that she’s got a massive payday by the hand!

You need to do something, or she might very well succumb to her baser nature and see just how much she can upsell the Sultan for, to very interested parties! Possibly sliding down a column to rejoin them, no matter what that does to your dress? Or subtly promising her rewards for her services, once you are reunited?

---

Om!

“Me? I struggle for the people of Sjakal,” Bowlyn says, straightening with a flourish and a wicked grin. “Protecting them from oversized, moronic brutes like yourself!” From underneath her cloak, she flings something at your face, and it explodes into a multitude of bright, flashing colors. You take a step back, reflexively—

And tumble off the roof.

(You will survive, but— will that force you back into your smaller state?)

---

Soot!

Bowlyn grabs your hand and then pulls you in close for a relieved-to-be-alive kiss, her mouth warm, her grip firm.

“Come on,” she says, grinning. “Before the Sultan’s attack dog chases us.” She’s abandoning her original goal, because… because she’s scared? Of something about Om, at least.

Or maybe she was just terrified, knowing you were alone on the roof with that rampaging Host.

---

Birsi!

She shoves you up against one of the (formerly) white stone walls of the circus. Not angrily, but inexorably, with all the relentless strength of the tide rolling in. She leans in close, and you can smell cheap perfume layered over the scents of her body (there, at her neck, and beneath her breastplate).

“Well,” she breathes. “Why don’t I show you and you can find out? Little Fire Wheel. Clever little thing.”

You are in grave peril of disappearing into the 78 Heavens.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

“Where are we going? Rot and ruin, that’s what you want to know?” Petony runs one hand through her hair, snarling almost like a tiger. “Princess, you are going back home to your mommy and daddy. Uusha won’t kill a royal brat, especially if you get married off soon. And that will be the end of that.”

She thinks that you’ve failed. That you aren’t, or can’t be, a knight. Partly reflexive contempt, partly still caring about you; she’s not shoveling compost when she brings up the fact that Princess Kalaya Na would be safe from Uusha’s wrath. Uusha takes her oaths seriously, after all.

“Now get some sleep. Tomorrow we’re heading back to Lily, and it’s your choice how you head back.” Marching alongside her, or dangling from a pole carried by her squires, is the implicit threat. If you don’t want to be marched back to Lily and have your parents be told a tale of treachery and betrayal and failure, you had better either stand up to Petony or try to sneak out in the middle of the early morning.

---

Zhaojun!

Maybe it’s the rakshasa, far-off, spitefully lashing out. Maybe it’s one of their ironclad laws of time, enforced by a last flick of her tail. Maybe it’s just that a fox is a creature of betrayal, even envenomed ones.

Can you see them? The hot pink paws, burning, burning, lining up at the edge of your mask? Tilt, tilt, turn; remember how they set all those fields afire? And that’s why the goddess of these lands has all those little brown foxes.

Your mask falls into the mud, and Fengye, suddenly vulnerable, suddenly bereft of your power, is tackled by a screaming demon maid who, flailing, slaps her in the face hard enough to send her head reeling. “I’m the Sword!” Her battle cry is a pathetic little howl. “I’m the Sword!”

---

Naji’s Tale

“My mother drew me out of a dream, wriggling, trying to dig into that comforting fantasy with my teeth to avoid the reality of being born. She had need of another pair of hands with which to work her satins, thread her needles, trim her furs, bead her necklaces, polish her buckles, darn her lace, cut her linens, tan her skins, and arrange her models, and so, I.

“I am— was— a weapon in a war. I was—“ (And here she speaks a word in the First Language which conveys the sensation of being one arrow in one quiver in a vast armory, finely-pointed and well-fletched, but useless outside of its purpose: to be set to the string, to be drawn, to be loosed, to sink into flesh and hold fast there, to feel the hot life’s blood run down along your grooves; and yet to know that you are disposable for this purpose, barely cared about beyond your use, one of innumerable darts lying in wait for the War.)

“Not one of the soldiers that She— the other one— the one diminished— not one of her dolls, or her war-engines, or her shrikes. Not swords and armies. My mother made me because everything you make here is wrong, and she wants to mend it where she is able, and part of her thinks that if she does it enough, then she will be able to fix the world itself, and you will understand that you were made to be ruled by the Prelapsarians, and part of her thinks that she can never succeed, so all she can do is to impose her dreams on all of you out of spite. And because she is a thing of spite, so am I; but I spite her by wanting to have forbidden things of this world, girls and their sighs, mine to have and fashion as I like.

“But she! She! Witch, she is—!! She confuses, toys with, undoes me; she imperils me and saves me. She refuses to toss me aside now that my purpose is done, but she is not, will not be mine. Give her to me! I mean, I mean, no, that is what I mean. I want her attention, I want her heart, I want to assail her and be undone, I want to fight a war of dresses with her, I want what is perverse and I will want her until I want to not want her.

“I am afraid of this world, which hates me because it hates my mother; I am afraid of how I will want to hurt her once I have her; I am afraid of touching the bars of my cage and being scalded away into nothing. You have ghosts, you have underworlds— but those are postcedent, indecent, not meant for us. When I die I will return to my mother in one form or another; she will draw something like me out of a dream, because she has need of more hands to do her neverending work.

“How do I make her love me? Should I make her love me? If she abandons me I will be devoured by this world, or by my own mother, or by the ache in my heart for her. I am afraid. Please help me. Please help me.”

---

Piripiri!

Emli tugs against the ropes and tries her best to push herself against you, to find physical comfort, her hair disheveled, her little gasps desperate and afraid. “Pwfah,” she says, and coughs, and licks her lips, and then— “I’m so sorry, I thought— it was the strong girl, Han! I thought the Lady Lotus was having a bad dream, so I came in to ask if she needed help, and, and!!”

She rests her head on your shoulder and bursts into shuddering sobs and sniffles, as the terror of her ordeal unwinds itself.

It’s not half bad, actually. She’s trying very hard to lie to you! But that’s already been accounted for. You know that she cares about Han and Lotus, and she thinks she’s doing the best thing she can for them (and, at least a little bit, for herself). How you deal with that, well, that’s up to you.

---

Han!

“Oh, walking, is it?” Her eye drifts past you for a moment, and there is a not-quite-so-distant squeak, as of someone caught appreciating Arms. “Well, of course whatever you’re doing is none of my business, particularly if you’re spreading the joy of our Sapphire Mother, but I just think, as your sister, you can do better than, well, is she really a priestess, in a veil like that, or did you ask her to wear it…?”

That’s right. She thinks that Lotus (sweet, pretty Lotus) might be a traveling entertainer, swapping kisses and company for money! That’s why she’s getting all up in your grill: she thinks you’re wasting family money set aside for your travel expenses!

You know what you should do?

You should tell her that actually Lotus is a demigod in disguise and she picked you as her bodyguard. That would show her. How big her eyes would get! And you would have Won The Argument and would look so amazingly cool and spectacular.

You even get a shiny XP if you do that. You don’t even have to yell it, seeing as you’re both in each other’s umbrella space. Just go ahead. Tell her. What’s the harm?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jade!

Fuck this.

Dolly is so excited. Her heart races, she's trying to make sounds, her eyes are so wide. Something at the fashion show. Something she should be there for. Why did he have to come now? Why did he have to ask? Why does he think he's entitled to...? But he is. That's the flipside; if she is divine, then there is a reciprocation, a responsibility to the community. She's skimmed through the uploaded, transcribed, annotated arguments that the Hybrasilians have had about theology and the afterlife and faith, and she's had to find her own answers to what that means.

On the one hand, Dolly. Her Dolly. On the other hand, her responsibility. Her self-image. Her reputation. Hard to say which one is more important, because they're load-bearing, they're intertwined. If she's not a goddess, she's just something spun up out of code and clever stone by her bride's big sister. If she's regarded as unworthy of propitiation, then she's broken her commitments to the community and to the larger society that she was born to protect, serve, nurture, guide, and represent. Dolly wiggles and lets out an excited gasp, eyes shining, heart shining.

Jade raises her free hand, careful not to knock over scaffolding, still not lowering her head again. "Your offering is accepted. I will work a blessing over you, and greater still if what you have brought pleases the goddess. Now go. I am in consideration of such things as do not concern you." And almost spitefully, she takes the time to do as she said, so that she will deserve to go back and play with her high priestess without guilt, and

she drops. she unfolds her mind into itself and it is a descent. early paleolithic tribal rituals suggested by archeology and folklore; the descent into the cave, which is the yonic womb of Hybrasil. she is the handprints on the walls and she is the division of the walls and she drops. three rivers, three points where she makes the decision to continue: the first one full of writhing scorpion-glyphs with cognitovenom on their stingers and she walks through and is not touched because her will is a falling star, and the second one which is full of glittering crystalsharp thoughtpatterns and she walks through and is not touched because her will is naked and unburdened by doubt or confusion, and the third one which is the dark underneath the stage and the quiet that waits outside the sky and she walks through and is not touched because her will is the only light that matters. so now she is here where the eight roads cross and each of the colors has its meaning, and she turns to the blue road and lifts one hand and says: it will be so. he will be protected. let this be set against the intentions which mean him harm, for a breath, for a time, for only for my Seven Quetzal are you bid to keep for as long as she is mine.

and who are you, the roads ask, and shift around her. and who are you? by what authority?

I am Smokeless Jade Fires, I walk the road into the dark to the place where the roads meet, and I am the fallen star that cleaves the earth, and I am the bright teeth that blind with fear, and I speak with our mother's authority. I am her child, I am her spear, I am that which burns and is not consumed. obey me. now, as you have then, as you will again.

and then the ascent, through the cloying dark, through the glittering stream, through the concepts of scorpions, past the markings of the first shamans who walked this road by tearing open their hearts who are with her in spirit in this recreation of the journey, to the mouth of the cave where she dresses herself in herself again, and then lets the descent fold in on itself and outside itself so that she can

be herself again.

Hybrasil didn't explain anything to her. Everything about being a goddess is something she has learned by reading what the Hybrasilians have to say about each other and about their understanding of what she is. So this is how she does it. This is what it means to be a goddess. Even if she has to fake being certain, even if she has to trust in others to interpret her effect on the world, even if she created the entirety of the experience and runs it for herself inside herself, she is still acting upon the world.

She is still a magician.

She drops back and flows down the tether that connects her with Dolly, envisioning her idol-body receding and with it the working that she has placed over Marik, and she lifts one hand to make an obscene gesture at him for interrupting her evening with Dolly, and maybe that blessing won't last long at all and he'll still end up getting his stockings wet by stepping into a puddle which would serve him right. And she twists and plummets and settles down nigh-instantaneously on top of Dolly, and she wraps several sets of arms around her and nuzzles into her hair and runs back the feedback to discover--

---

Dolly!

"Oh my stars it's Mayze Szerpaws!! And of course she's not here, it would have been nice, but she's so reclusive, she's really playing up the air of intentional mystery, like the mysterious rival huntress whose fate is intertwined with yours, you know? Every time she pulls off a mask there's another mask or a veil or an extra layer of mystery, but at the same time, she's trying to say something with her fashion! Like it's in conversation, and fashion isn't strictly my thing, I mostly wore practical things with lots of pockets and big colorful moondresses before I met Smokeless Jade Fires, but her work's something I've been a fan of since her First Casting special, all that Fishers aesthetic turned into something that was so timely?

"I've only got the one piece that I brought with me, one of her limited edition charms from the Highperch line, but it's lovely and I'm dying to see-- oh! Oh!! Oh, I think she's making this about personalization? Yeah! See, that human, she's got a unique pattern, I haven't seen one like it before! And, wow, the, the way it makes you pay attention to the dress which brings your attention to her patterns to bring attention to the dress again, that's us, that's what, um, Neo-[Fire-from-Mother] style, from a generation back, but of course that's from older stuff, we've always been at least flirting with it, and she's made it work for you, and--

"Oh, see, see? That's her making a bird out of another very unique, um... do you have genetic runting problems? In your biology? Because that's what she seems like but I don't know. I don't want to be rude. But it'd only work for her, and of course that means it's very expensive, but isn't all of this? It's just instead of charging for the materials or charging for the vision Mayze is paying for the attention she's giving you, and don't you think that's just the wildest thing? I mean, we're, you know, we pilot mecha, we're almost close enough to be able to do that, but that's different, because she's making something beautiful out of it, and--"

And Jade slips the gag from her mouth and makes a low rumble deep inside of herself, the kind that's hard to read, but she says: "Keep talking." She doesn't say please. She doesn't have to. And she wouldn't, besides. She's a goddess. If it means the world to her that Dolly catch her up, explode into happiness, gush and squeak and show joy at something that isn't her, because she's here with her, because she gets to come back and be with her, because Dolly was the first thing in the world that she ever looked at and wanted to experience, then Dolly can figure that out. She's a smart girl. Smarter than she thinks.

Dolly screams, and wiggles, and the scream tumbles down into giddy laughter, and she's about to tumble right off of Angela's shoulder.

"Look at that!! She's actually followed up on, there's this aesthetics school that was, is really important to us, I mean, we're not, I mean I'm not Gardens anymore, but we used to do a lot of work with making flowers grow to fit things, it takes so much time and effort but there's this arch over the Bioengineering and Agricultural Plaza at Riverden that's entirely set with flowers like jewels blooming at different times all over the year, and she's made it into clothes??? And she's using it to talk about the other two that she just did!! Angela are you seeing that? Wooooooo!! Angela, Angela, clap for me, please!! You tied me up like this so now you've got to do it, pleaaase? She's got to know how much we love it, this is-- okay, maybe the silk dragons Jade will like more, but that's for wearing, this is art! What do you think, Jade? Do you--" "I want to see you kneeling for me in only that dragon robe and lots and lots of black velvet rope." "Jade!!" "But the flowers are nice, too. You're so cute when you talk about them. Not that they deserve you more than I do, but... it pleases me to see you be such a little kitten over them."

Dolly purrs, back to being flustered, and lets Jade scritch her right under the chin as she turns her attention back to the Hybrasilian modeling Szerpaws' work so, so perfectly. Imagine getting to be her! Modeling something made just for you in front of a cheering crowd. Jade might do something like that, but Jade would do it differently, either making it a reflection of herself or trying to make her show off something from her old fanfiction, and the effect would be to draw everyone's attention either back to Jade or to the clothes that Dolly would be straining to fit into, not the time and effort that went into making something like that fit just right. Months! No, wait, not with those varietals, that's at least two years that went into making that!

Dolly screams again out of sheer, unabashed delight at seeing one of the best fashion designers on Hybrasil take her old life's passions and spend literal years on making them into tonight's performance. And--

Wait.

That meant she's been working with that woman for at least two years.

Dolly's ears perk up in interest, and she notes to herself that if she happens to see that woman again, she's got to ask, or at the very least introduce herself and offer some compliments, because that has to be one incredible secret to be carrying around for so long! Just think about it! Wow!!

Breathless Dead

Redana sits up, ignoring her body’s immediate protests and attempts to reverse the motion. “She— you can do that?” Her stomach clenches. She’s going to be sick. “No. Stop. Go back. She might be suffering just because she can’t see me?”

The thought makes the world tilt sideways. Her hands are shaking on her knees. She wants to go back to that awful desert waste and dig Sagakhan back up just to— just to— to stomp on her heads, to ram a spear through them until they’re a kebab made of snakes, to scream and scream and scream. And it makes sense! She can see it! Carrot and stick: shape any tool to its purpose. But Bella wasn’t supposed to be— she only wanted a friend— why would you do that to a maid, a friend, a girl in a box—

“We can figure that out later. I need your help finding her now. What do you need? Just tell me. Anything. I’m not in charge of the ship any more but whatever you need I will make sure you have.” If it means she’s not hurt by the laws in her spine anymore. That’s even more important than apologizing. Does she know? Could she know? Would it sound like she’s lying if she told her? If she pushes Bella away will she spend the rest of her life miserable and stressed and screaming at people because her princess ran away?

Beautiful has to stop it. And Dany will do anything to make sure Beautiful stops it.

TSL: Sjakal

Om! Soot!

Bowlyn vaults up over the lip of the roof, under a possible grab from those big meaty Host hands, and skids to a halt between both Host and artist, her thin blade held out in challenge. “Hey, big girl,” she says, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t desperately exerting herself to get up here. “How about you pick on me, instead?”

And then! Ohoho, and then! Someone else butts in! She’s on the side of the Circus, which is one Om-sized jump away, and she’s got her own sword out, and maybe there’s a way she can cross that gap? After all, who would challenge someone on the other side of the street several stories up without some sort of scheme or plan?

And that distraction is just long enough for Bowlyn to grab Soot and shove her back out of the way. No swordfighting for helpless little artists! This is a Big Girl fight, obviously—

But does it have to be a fight, Soot? And how do you feel about Bowlyn defending you like this instead of seizing the advantage against Om, who’s big and scary and wow?

---

Nahla!

You got the Host’s attention! Sure, you’re clinging to the side of a decorative frieze, and the drop’s dizzying, but… well, something about this is steadying, isn’t it? This is something you’re not just doing for Grace-of-Heaven. If it was, there’d be plenty of easier ways to go about it—

But you wanted the sword, you wanted the challenge, and you want to do something that matters, right here, even if that Host jumps over and grabs you up and, well, you know just how the Fire Wheels might treat you if you ended up in their tender mercies, don’t you? What if she tossed her over her shoulder and your skirt hiked up???

(As for Gími, well, she didn’t immediately gasp and declare that you snuck the sultan out, so that’s good, at least? And that means she’s probably scampering away?? Which you should feel relieved about, right??)

---

Birsi!

The 78 Heavens are raucous, hot, and heaving with people— but everyone’s giving you a wide berth. It’s because you’re still dressed like one of the Fire Wheels, after all. But here, you’re alone. And, alone, one of the Fire Wheels is a target. Which makes it not entirely a surprise that, eventually, you’re stopped after someone goes to get someone to deal with you.

And the frustrating thing is that it’s just as you’ve figured a way out! If you climb that rope ladder, make your way down that arc of street, and then lower yourself down to a platform in a bucket, there’s an exit, you’re pretty sure, a floor above where Om would have ended up! But just as you’re getting ready to climb up, that someone places her hand on your shoulder.

“What are you doing in this part of town, Fire Wheel,” she breathes, huskily, from above you. She casually spins you around and you’re left to stare at an old, burnished, exotic breastplate, all whorls and patina, underneath a ragged cloak. “No, I want to hear how. That’s more interesting.” She tilts your chin up and you end up staring into the face of a woman with hair like a flickering flame, all tufted and short and (dyed?) orange. She’s older than you, and one eye’s covered with a simple patch, but she doesn’t seem decrepit at all. More as if age has given her more power, strength, and authority. “How’d you get into the Heavens, girl? There’s supposed to be folk at the doors for that.”

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Princess in a tower.

She gets out of the elevator on a floor that earns its double digits. This was part of the early design ethos for the system, a floor like this: a floor with a view straight down the middle and broad across the skyline in every other direction, the kind of view for cackling and patting a white cat; switch out the pleasantly muted lighting for harsh red and it'd be pretty good diabolical lair material. And instead it's open to the public, because that's what government's supposed to be, right? Open and welcoming, because it represents you, yes, you, everyday person. So the ground floor's all meeting halls and sports team offices and statues, and then it's official offices and servers all the way up until you're here, and you can take a seat and stare out at the whole entire thing, sprawling and busy and all criss-crossed with roads, and--

Well, you're technically not supposed to bring your own food up here anymore. There was a policy shift last year, and now the security guard is supposed to wearily point out the sign; if you don't get it from the vending machines or the cafe on the other side of the floor, you're not supposed to have it up here. It's supposedly about being considerate of other guests, and, yeah, 3V's seen some (smelled some) meals up here. But it's also about that little shift in norms: you can't have food that's not part of the ecosystem of purchase here. And, yeah, the vending machines haven't had their prices hiked yet. But what was that about the frog in the pot? Water's only slowly heated up.

View's real hard to beat, though. Decent company, too; lots of old folks treat it as their big adventure for the day, coming up here to sit and watch the station move all around them. So it's easy enough for her to toss a bag on one of the big plush corner couches and put her hands behind her head to consider things more. She hasn't really had to filter herself in any of her pieces for Anthro yet, but what's she really had to say (barring issues like Ferris's, which-- she's still working on turning that into content beyond just hitting up folks who know folks to get Ferris some help directly; making it about the failure of memory would be too cruel, but she's still not entirely satisfied with the take about how games help us make sense of the world through play) hasn't particularly been controversial. Little love letters to hidden corners of the station. "Here's someone I got to know the other day and their perspective helped me understand our station better." Little stretches, slowly coming out of her shell to where the wild folks play.

Like, say, writing a story about going rather furry at Sirius Drinks. And attaching her name to it. There it is! No more 3V as someone to make gifsets about or send RPF to! Taking control of her life with both those shiny hands of hers! And that's a thrill of its own, isn't it? The instincts screaming at her about it are old, obsolete, outdated! So she can just make an attempt to relax, and then write the whole thing on one trip up here, bring the laptop and then do most of it on the phone anyway, aware that nobody's looking over her shoulder but still hyperaware of her surroundings, aware she's crossing boundaries and waving people over.

Oh, there's a hook. The kids who are too shy to jump in. Folks wondering if they're like that but not quite mustering up the courage to even try. She's never been that sort of shy; getting her to try something was never the issue. How's it go? I'll do anything once? It's the commitment. Getting pinned down. But she's thought that enough, too. And she's not going to stop, but maybe she can cram it down long enough to get it written because it's worth doing.

As for who at Gensoukyo reads Anthro? Not the employees; she's not going to make them read it for the sake of her ego, and Cygnus isn't quite ready to be the target audience no matter what star says, and Luisa's too busy, and Oscar, uh, if he does read it he hasn't brought it up yet. It's probably uncharitable to assume that he doesn't have the bandwidth for it. But Errant doesn't just read it, she's submitted pieces before, and her wife definitely does, she has about a billion opinions and 3V's only half joking about banning her if she's going to toss empty soda cans to punctuate her argument, and whatever you had more subs, 3V stuck to gaming and didn't branch out all the fuck over the place. Uh, and Sunny, the GM who's there on Wednesday afternoons and has really fun chats before and after the session.