Thanqol

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"Hmm!" said Machia, pausing from her examination with genuine surprise. "That's - you said you can't do any more? Objectively you can't, it's time for enforced dinner and bed, but I thought I'd have to -"

She embraces you. The levitator deactivates, and it's her turn to pull you down into a princess carry. Machia stares at your bruised collarbone for a moment, lips twitching, then lifts you and carries you over to the table. She sets you down and slides the bonds from your wrists and ankles, ensures your tail is sitting comfortably, and then she opens the rice cooker.

Heaven in saffron. An obsidian spoon drips with golden rice, spice stains leaving crimson ribbons amidst the peas and onion. Half of the rice grains are soft and fluffy, and half of them are crisp and caramelized. Three huge, golden synthprawns add a centerpiece, and after a moment in the press, quartered flatbread slices heavy with greens minced into a dipping sauce add a refreshing side. More than a little artistry had gone into the timing; having a meal ready to serve at any point during the evening forestalled a repeat of yesterday's complaints.

The session had been much shorter, and the bonds had been much better on the circulation. Machia still picks up a prawn with chopsticks and holds it to your lips without waiting to be asked.

"Baseline," she said, touching your shoulder gently where her teeth had been. "Leave the marker on for now - it'll keep if you don't use the pink body wash in the shower. That was the 20% mark, we'll only progress once you have that mastered. Oh yes, I meant to ask - I sent a drone to your apartment to pick up any pillows or plush toys that would help you sleep, but I think I somehow have the wrong place because it's saying that there's nothing there except coffee cups."

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

"You kept up, right?" said Gata. "That's all you need."

She took a long sip, looking out over the city. Put the empty can on the edge, finger toying with it as feline instincts compelled her to push it off. She didn't so much resist as ride the temptation, letting her hand sway ominously back and forth across the can, never letting go.

"That's all I needed to know too," she said, slitted eyes locking onto some distant person - one amongst millions picked out for predatory scrutiny. "But it would be rude of me to leave without saying anything." A learned sentence. An artificial social ritual she is emulating using incorrect hardware. Her attention is locked up in her stare, her swaying tail, the thought of the pounce. She kept those instincts under control too. Everything like her was like those fingernails drumming restlessly on that can on the edge of the abyss. Always tempted - never falling. Cat to the bones.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Dot. Dot. Dot. All the way back up to the shoulder. Dot. Dot. Dot. There's a rhythm to it, as calm and precise as the music. Pain as performance. Order. Structure. Predictability.

Dot. Dot. Dot. Star.

The star is the part where she bites you.

Her teeth sink into her shoulder. Her fingernails scrape down your side. It's not as painful as the circle but it's far less controlled, far less predictable, the music descending into chaos - you are blindfolded and bound and in the claws and teeth of something that is biting you, clawing you, you are a prey animal and you need to run, need to run, need to run -

Then - then!!

Something soft and warm touches your lips. Coffee, perfect gentle warm. Your blindfold is pulled off. Magenta eyes are staring directly into yours. A raised hand, fingers counting down from five, hot breath on your face. Hell into heaven and you are running out of time to remember how to deal with the transition - to reject what is against your lips and bring them back under your own control.

Do you?

The Three Mountains

"Tenfold returns?" chortled Angus. "You want a casino, ma'am. This is finance. And no, don't talk to me about pumping and dumping, there's no real money in the stock market these days and our organization doesn't have the culture to pull that one off in any case. No, the time to invest in a war was five years ago. What I do with the money today depends on where we plan to be five years from now."

A completely normal request, entirely reasonable: he does need to know what the plan is in order to make money off it. This is his job.

The catch is that once he knows the five year plan he becomes almost indispensible.

"But yes, the old administration's agenda was just to increase next year's budget," he went on. "Harder than it sounds! Without direction, strategy, anything coming out of R&D. Let no one say that I did not deliver! I improved the budget from 80 to 100 over five years. Solid, sustainable growth! And in our traditional industries: Construction, glass, cement and infrastructure!"

And a smidge below what you'd have gotten by sticking the whole thing in an index fund. Solid 4/10 results. But at the same time, no risk, no secrets, no direction, no alternate powerbases, no agenda. That was the price of loyalty.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Oh, darling.

We have not reached the star yet.

We have

drip

just about

drip

Reached the first

drip

circle.

Heat. Iron. Pressure. The base of your spine, just above your tail. A screech of tearing guitar through the crystal focus in your ears. A branding iron presses down into the circle. One. Two. Three.

Release.

The beat cycles for a moment. A moment of breath. A whisper of soft breath on your skin, eyes close enough to feel, checking for damage, ensuring that the healing is taking properly. Listening for a sign that this is too much.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"Your key phrase is, 'Autumn Wolves Can't Won't Chorus,'" said Titanomachia.

Voice. Hands. You couldn't see her eyes, but you could feel them following the lines upon your body. All the way back to the origin. The headphones slipped over your ears, fingers again touching the spots of the piercings - and then, sound.

Not coherent. Barely audible. It was not music, not rhythm, not open skies. This was not sound for sleeping or dreaming, this was sound for focus. Crystal lines of sound, the sound of foreign skyscrapers in winter, glass shining crystal. A heartrate that was aspirational, coaxing an increase in tension, even as the gentle cushion of the levitation field intensified. There was no pressure but even squirming against the bonds became almost impossible. The will for movement became disconnected from physical results. A tired mind was intensified with nothing to focus on. The feeling of the cubegel across your skin crackled. And then

Pain. Scalding pain. Familiar scalding pain. A single drop of boiling hot coffee had dripped precisely down onto that point in the center of your spine where the first dot in the sequence waited. It hurt as it channeled all the energy it could directly into your nerves.

Soon the fire was spent - a single drip of warm sweat on your exposed spine. The gleaming beat of the music was not aspirational any more; your heart rate had risen to sync with its pounding, hypnotic focus. It held your mind there, as suspended as your body -

- and then the next drip landed. Just as hot. Just as painful. The next drip in the sequence.

The Three Mountains

"Transfer granted!" said Orange brightly. "A modest amount like that might even deflect more suspicion than it raises. Thank you for calling!"

*

"On the whole," said Director Angus through his enormous walrus moustache, "we aren't doing too badly, down here in finance. It's diplomacy that's been suffering worst of all, for all that Trajan will whine and all that. No, nothing bad is going to happen to us financially one way or another, but you know what you say - put a dollar in, get a dollar out!"

Director Angus was by far the least qualified of Lhotse's senior leadership; an intellectually inert throwback risen to station by way of playing the game in that patient, agreeable way that took decades. Nothing was going to come from his quarter, good or bad - at least nothing that was his own idea. An empty piece like him made for a valuable and predictable pawn, and that's exactly what he had been to your predecessor, and your predecessor's predecessor. You couldn't trust him not to stab you in the back, but you could trust him to not do so until the political winds had already shifted so far that rebellion was the status quo.

"Director Lights, that's where the problems will be, mark my words," he nattered on - an old windbag, for sure, but he listened as intensely as he spoke and knew all the gossip. "Been a bit into the bottle, as we'd say. Can't blame her. Nothing to do! Nothing to do it with! Asked her who the president of Crown and Slate was the other day and she burst into tears, would you believe it?"

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"This is why you're hard to read," said Titanomachia thoughtfully. "On the grass you're so strong, but here..." her fingers gripped Madeleine's toes, pressing the last of her devil substance into the soles of her feet. "Yes, I do like them. But not at the expense of your ear mobility - though maybe that's the point?" she touched a gleaming wet finger to her lips thoughtlessly as she thought. "Maybe something could be done with - mm. Mmm!" She tried to brush her elixir off her lips without wiping her hands first. Then she laughed, bit her lip, and went over to the basin to wash her hands.

"Silly - itchy, right?" she gave another futile brush of her lips with clean hands. "I forgot how sensory this stuff is. Normally it's drowned out by the injury, but if you put it onto healthy skin - oh, that's another idea - another time. Okay. Well, this still works to my agenda."

Blackness. The blindfold was soft, silken, wrapping gently and firmly without the smallest wrinkle or crease. Then the wrists, pulled into a silky bond - absolutely impossible to shift despite feeling soft and relaxed on skin. Then - the push.

A gentle, guided push, pitching face-forwards in the dark - caught by something/nothing. The levitator. A surreal feeling - gravity still applied, down was still down, hair spilling down around your face until Machia smoothed it all over to one side. But there was simply no desire to fall beyond a certain point. It wasn't a cushion of air, it wasn't being lifted and held, it was that all the potential energy of your fall was -

Not all. You were still falling, just very, very slowly. Your hair and tail, lighter strands, could fall faster as they had less kinetic energy to drain. But for the rest of you it was an unreal feeling; the freedom to move and thrash and kick and spin and continue moving through an eternal, windless skydive.

At least until she grabbed your ankles and bound your feet. Then it was just...

The earphones weren't on. You could hear Machia humming, hear her absently rubbing her sensitive lips, hear her pulling the lid off a marker. "We haven't started yet," she said, taking your ears in her hand, feeling the holes of the piercings. "I need to be very precise for the next part, so I'm going to trace my work first. Try to hold still -"

The cold, wet tip of the marker touched your spine, right between your shoulder blades. Dot. Another point, a centimeter down. Dot. Another. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Down to the base of your spine.

Circle.

To the left. Dot. Dot. Dot. Going up. Dot dot dot. To your shoulder - star. Under your arm. Circle. Across the top of your arm, dots all the way down to your elbow, another circle, dots to your wrist, star. Down each finger, then back, then a circle in your palm. Then back up your arm, the patten repeating, stars on each shoulder and a circle on the base of your neck, before descending down the other arm.

Then she turned you over. It was so easy for her, in your weightless ever-fall, your hair tumbling in slow motion and racing ahead of you. Dots up the arms, broken by circles at sensitive points. A star on your navel, then dots up along your body. Dots and circles run around and across your breasts in a figure-eight. Finally the pattern concludes with a star on your throat.

Calm. Methodical. Timeless. Soft. You could imagine your body, the pattern of circles and stars wrapping around you like a dress. Machia hadn't spoken while she was working, other than the occasional soft sound of her biting her sensitive lips. Only at the end, as she clicked her marker back into its lid, did she say, "Are you ready?"

Aristeia! Becoming a Champion

To the top.

The penthouse suite gives way. Doors open, cypher-locks break, automated defenses disable. A vision of the heavens passes by unnoticed and unremarked.

To the top.

The last flight of stairs. Hard concrete industrial fire escape, the core of the building from which there can be no escape.

To the top.

The industry of the rooftop. Antennae, satellite dishes, air conditioning machinery. The link between the heavens and earth was not royal paradise, it was the grinding of these celestial gears.

The top.

Only the old are here. Old machines, paint peeling with rust. Old stains, vape canisters, beer cans, champions. Sitting on a roaring serpent in a patina of seafoam green and orange rust, screwdriver in hand and tongue extended as she tightened something on her bright pink slippers. A mane of savage hair in brown and white, the ferocity of a time before the catgirl was domesticated.

Gata looks up. Looks over the city. Looks at you. Pulls a six pack of beer from her bag and puts it out next to her. Invitation, wordless.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"One possibility is that I can see the future," said Titanomachia, placing her freezing cold hands on your neck, slicing down the shoulders and to the elbows before the gel runs thin. "In which case, you will easily pay me back with your winnings, with a travel budget to spare. The other possibility is that I do not, in which case I will wash out and return to a life of popping bubblewrap at neurologically significant moments. Naturally, I have no idea which!" firm fingers ran the gel down your neck and back. "The frontier is where science and magic touch, after all."

The gel didn't stay cold. It began prickling against skin, a pepper spice crackling and tingling, patches of heat and numbing moving like sunspots.

Machia was voice, eyes, hands. The way she moved made it so hard to focus on what she was actually doing, how she was dressed, what she even looked like. It was a constant magician's trick - listen to my voice. Look into my eyes. Feel the touch of my hands. There was an awareness of her outside those things, but her attention was sword and shield and when it was pointed at you it was so hard to focus.

Hands. Down your front. Across your stomach. Over your hips, skipping, skipping, thighs - Voice. "The earrings - when did you get them? I haven't seen them before. Are they comfortable? Do they interfere with your ear movements? Who made them?"

Eyes. Vibrant magenta, looking up at you. This time she is kneeling before you, hands on your legs, running lower, shielding herself with her absolute attention. Too much of you in her for you to distract.