Old and disjointed. No idea what baby Mar was up to, tbh.
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DUST ‘EM OFF (PUT 'EM BACK UP ON THE SHELF)

6TH PERIGEE OF THE 760TH SWEEP
ICONIC CONETL: 10 SWEEPS / 21 YEARS OLD

six months prior to the detonation of the pidgin parlor
(14,181 words)

When you flee, there’s only one place that nobody would ever expect you to go.

You’ve rarely spent a lot of time in your hivestem, the past few sweeps. Why bother, when Raphae’s is so undeniably better? Your matesprit has got drones to clean it, heat running through the floors, and the sort of kitchen that’s large enough to keep three half-grown psionics fed through all of your molts. He’s got an entire floor to himself, with ceilings high enough that you can light into the air without even scraping your horns. The doorways are all large enough to fit your lusus through them, and there’s a private lift, straight from the lobby. It’s better, in every way, and after nearly four sweeps living there, it’s more your hive than his.

It’s your cozies strewn across the sofas. Your plushies are the ones nestled onto the beds, your porcelain kittens are on the coffee table, and it’s your ashtrays that cover every available surface. It’s your auspistice who sleeps in the spare room, and your moirail that sleeps in the enclade suite. Oh, Raphae has the master bedroom, but aside from his makeup cabinet and his gun cabinet, what in there’s actually his? It’s your colour that stains the walls, yellow so pale that it’s courting white. The signs of Raphae’s touch rest like stains in the room: the drape of the black-out curtains over the windows, the purple hemming the bottom of each wall, and the faint smell of cat, clinging to every surface.

Everything always smells like cat, for a fellow who liked to keep his lusus outdoors.

Oh, Sipara lives there. So does Iphige, when she bothers to be around! But she’s hanging off of Shepherd’s arm more often than not, and Sipara knows who’s hive it is. Everyone does, by this point, and they keep their things to the backstage accordingly.

Except it’s not yours. And everything there is red.

This hivestem - nestled four blocks from the gate of the Kinnor campus, thin-walled and packed with enough lowbloods you can hear your neighbours breathing one block over - this is your hive, and it’s strange to walk back in, and realise exactly how much you’ve forgotten.

Raphae’s penthive looks like your home. This hivestem block looks like the memory of a home, maybe, at the very best! It looks like a snapshot of you back at seven sweeps, back when you’d thought painting the walls chalkboard black was the most brilliant idea you’d ever come across. You’d spent an night, and most of the day, painting all the walls. And then you’d spent what felt like half your stipend to decorate it in neon swirls and decorations.

There’s lists up on the walls, from the last day you’d been there. There’s ballet slippers on the counter - old, tattered, with yellow still dried on the tips. There’s a mug with the rim still entombed in sugar, and a dinosaur on the front, and a half-smoked pack of cigarettes next to it. Everything’s left just like you’d abandoned it, even down to the hoodie you’d tossed onto the floor.

You’d meant to wash it later! But you never quite got around to it. You’d never managed to sweep up the feathers on the floor, either, or fix the dent your lusus had left on the counter, or come back for your charger. The entire room, when you turn, feels like a list of things you’d left undone, that last night - but that was you, at age seven. Everything’d always felt a little undone.

You’d liked it that way, mostly.

When you breathe in, the air smells like dust, and birds, and there’s no traces of cats at all. The only colours here are your own pale yellow, and the sort of white on the stonework that comes from decades of sun exposure. It might be old, but it’s yours, from tip to bottom.

Almost. There is a glass on the counter. It’s shaped like a bear, round earred and soft-eyed, with the streaky yellow colour that comes from hand-painting. When you pick it up, the message’s still right there, just like you remember, back when you’d barely known your moirail’s kismesis as more than a name on a website:

ʕ(づ- ᴥ -)ʔづ
beary nice to meet you!

And he’d scribbled his name, raphae irrigo, in a wriggler’s heartfelt cursive across the bottom.

You bounce the mug in your hand, thoughtful, testing the weight of it, and then you hurl it hard against the wall.

A moment later, someone knocks on the door, crisp and loud as a gunshot in the freshly broken silence.

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CHOKING ON YOUR ALIBIS

SIPARA NZINGA & PHERES DYSSEU | eight sweeps

“My back hurts,” he complains one day. He’s built a nest of blankets and covers, and is now sprawled across Sipara’s concuscpecient couch while she works on the floor next to it, husktop in her lap. He’s supposed to be sleeping, but.

She isn’t paying attention. He reaches out and tugs on a curl. “Sipa~,” he whines.

She turns her head, and he yanks his fingers away just before her teeth clamp down. Sipara is the worst. “Take off the shirt, then,” she says irritably. “Iunno why you even got it on still, jfc. I promise I won’t cull you.”

Pheres huffs. “Like you could!” Still, she has a point. His undershirt is hardly tight enough to be actively detrimental to his health, but… it’d be very nice to take it off. Let his skin breathe.

He hooks his thumbs into the bottom, and pulls.

> VITILIGO

The shirt comes off easily enough. The shirts for hiding, not compression.

The skin underneath is mottled with colour: not just the uniform dusky gray of his hands and face, but lighter shades of pinkish red, where the pigment has worn away, and rose gray where it’s in the process. Looking at it makes his skin itch, and his hands curl.

It’s spread, since the last time he checked.

He wants to scratch it off, dig his claws in and rip until it all looks uniform under the rosewood of his blood. He used to do that as a grub, when the first translucent spot appeared: pick and dig and scratch, because the dark weal of scar tissue is ugly, but the piebald marks will get him culled.

He places a hand on his side, and Sipara clears her throat.

“Nice spots, dude,” she jeers, and he drops the shirt on her head instead.

> SPHERES

The shirt is a struggle to get off.

The bottom wants to roll, for one, and the top wants to cling. Every time he tugs one way, the fabric wants to go the other, and when he finally gets it over his head, it’s to be greeted by the sound of fabric ripping.

“You broke the strap,” Sipara says, ever helpful.

He makes a face at her. It’s nice to be uncompressed, and he takes a deep breath, just for the novelty of it. After days in the undershirt, it almost hurts, but the feeling of his lungs expanding and detracting, unrestricted, is more than worth it.

The way that his spheres shake with the motion is a little disconcerting, though.

Pheres flops back down on the bed, and he’s promptly reminded why he wears the undershirt: he has to shift positions and figure out a new way to lay, because it seems like his rumblespheres are constantly in the way. Getting resettled takes a moment.

He’ll have to figure out a way to fix the strap before he leaves Sipara’s hive. He already has enough trouble with his horns: he doesn’t need a third rack always getting in the way, too.

> SCARS

He pulls the shirt over his horns, balls it up, and tosses it to the corner.

He isn’t planning on looking down: the scars haven’t changed in sweeps, and he’s worked hard to keep it that way. But curiosity gets the best of him, as it always does. The little nicks from knives and claws across his collar and chest, the rippled flesh where a blueblood stabbed him on his breastbone, the bite from Rmeros’s lusus… there isn’t much skin left unmarked, and he can feel bile rising in his gorge as he looks at it.

(Each one is proof of some mistake, writ large on his flesh, and he hates it, but what he hates more is the impression it gives. His torso is a mottled weal of scar tissue and damage. It’s not the skin of a docile book-keeper: it’s the skin of some sort of thug.)

“Hey, dude, stop eyefucking yourself,” Sipara says, and when he looks up, she raises an eyebrow and sneers. “My dads got better scars than that shit.”

“Hell, I bet your dad has better scars than that shit, and he’s dead.”

He huffs, flings himself back down on the bed, and bundles himself in one of the blankets, until there’s no skin showing at all, just fabric. It helps, a little. “Oh, shut up.”

> GILLS

He outgrew this shirt two sweeps ago, and wrestling out of it is a chore. When he finally gets it over a shoulder, it gets stuck to a horn: when he wrests that free, it clings around his face like a eggshroud, and Sipara has to get up and pull it free.

He was hoping to avoid her, but now that she’s up, there’s no point in objecting as Sipara performs her usual survey. She runs her fingers along his sides, prying gently at the closed operculum and peering at the maroon gills underneath. For once, she’s careful of her claws.

“Deep breath,” she orders, and Pheres obliges, dragging in air through his lungs and forcing it slowly out of his protesting gills. He doesn’t look down as she works, but keeps his eyes focused on the cracks in the ceiling.

(Mutants deserve to be culled. But he’s not a mutant: just a cusp, Sipara says, like her, like Myrrha, like Rmeros and every other member of their line.)

(Of course, none of them have gills, not even Rmeros. He checked.)

“You need to use these more. Like, shit’ll starts rotting if you don’t -”

“Use them where?” he asks, incredulous. “In the river? Shall I remind you that the last time I tried that, we had to cull someone?”

She paps him in the face, her claws little pinpricks of pain as they drag on the skin. “No, dumbass,” she says, patient: “In my tub. Come on, I’ll get my husktop and you can like, blow bubbles or whatever. You need to get some water through those fuckers, ‘cause if they start crumbling off, I’m not cleaning it up…"

>NOTHING

He doesn’t get much farther then rolling the bottom of his shirt before he gives up.

Logically speaking, cloth is no protection. There’s nothing the opaque shirt does to benefit him: it won’t stop knives, claws, or even sharp words. But the constant pressure against his skin feels like it could, and he finds the idea of stripping and leaving nothing between his thoracic struts and the rest of the world thoroughly unappealing.

Even if he’s only lounging around with his moirail.

"No,” he says, flicking one of her oversized ears, “I think I’d rather just complain.”

>AFTER

The room is silent save for the gentle bubble of water beside you. The transition always takes a minute, but once Pheres is in the water, he’s generally out like a light.

It wasn’t like this when you were kids, but you didn’t have a trap back then - just that salty ass river. Everyone knows that sea dwellers are made for salt, but Pheres isn’t exactly a sea dweller: he might be weird and cuspy, too close to the edge of the circle no one wants to admit exists, but he’s still a lowblood.

A lowblood with gills in his chest and psionics in his pan. Ugh.

Your husktop is in your lap, and the diagram for your latest apiculture rig is up, waiting to be simulated and test-run. But it’s hard to think when your freaky ass moirail is asleep next to you. Even in your washing block, with all the doors shut and locked, you still feel on edge, knowing that all it’d take is one person seeing to spell ruin.

You’d feel better if he was awake, wrapped up in his cloth and clothes, but he does need to let water through those things, so you suck it up and stew.

Times like this, when all of his freakish vulnerabilities are lying out in the open, you fucking hate having a moirail. You look at him and you just want to cut him open, so you can catalogue everything that’s wrong. How deep does his highblood contagion go, beyond the gills and blood? If you cut him open, will you find salt in his veins and tyrian on his pusher?

If you did, could you fix it?

You trace the place where you’d cut with a claw, pressing just hard enough to leave a dark line on the skin: a line and a swoop across the torsal cavity is all it’d take, to make the skin peel back and let you see what needs work. You’ve never dissected a seadweller, but you’re not crazy. You know you can’t just cut out the gills from his side, drain the blood from his veins and replace it all with something right - but sometimes, you’re tempted to try.

It’d be so easy. All you would have to do is ask, and Pheres would pass you the scalpel and say please.

Maybe he senses the way your pan is churning, because he stirs, head half-submerged in your ablution trap. His snouts slipped under the water, trailing bubbles with each push of his chest, and you can see the obscene red flash of his gills at work under his covers as he breathes. Pheres’s eyes open, slowly, eyelashes lit by the glow of his psionics, and you watch as he blinks at your hand.

“Stop that,” he rasps, voice heavy with sleep but still affectionate. “Don’t you have work to do, instead of -” He yawns, his mouth stretching wide and showing all of his blunt, blunt teeth, painfully bright against the muted red of his membranes. “- haah - fondling me like a deviant?”

“Wow, gross!” You flick his nose, and then move your hand up, letting your nails work their way through the damp curls. “I was just thinking you need to like, eat some fucking food for once, that’s all. You could wash clothes on that shit.”

He murmurs something in response, but it’s sleepy as he sinks back into the tub, shifting his head so that you can get better access to his scalp. He’s already going back to sleep, and his voice’s broken the spell that’s brewing in your pan.

Pheres isn’t a fucking fish, and you’re not going to filet him like one. The only thing here that needs to be fixed is the apiculture rig lying on your husktop, and with that in mind, you turn your gaze firmly away from the mutant drowsing in your trap, and you get to work.

PHERES DYSSEU: 8 SWEEPS / ALMOST 19 YEARS OLD
SIPARA NZINGA: 8 SWEEPS / 18 YEARS OLD

“I love you,” you declare, and Sipara jostles, her ears pulling straight up like she’s been slapped. She stares at you, wide-eyed, a hand flitting towards her mouth.

Then she yelps: “- fuck off, I love you MORE.”

“You can’t,” you say, peaceful. “I said it first.”

“Well, I’m saying it better!” She puffs out her cheeks, flouncing off of her seat on the crate. Her heels thump as she begins to pace, the solid whack of keratin against wood. “I’m saying it, like, super better,” she adds, wrinkling her nose, and you laugh.

Her face is all circles, all fat: her weight fluctuates but it always stays round, round, round as the day you met her, sweeps and sweeps ago. “I love your face, and your nose, and yes, even those silly ears,” you tell her, and they flick back, just like that. Her eyes are big enough that you can see the gray specks in them, right at the edges, where the colour’s still mottled. “I love that you look like you’re six, for heaven’s sake. I love –”

“I don’t look like I’m six!”

“You look like you’re six and a day,” you give, and she squawks with outrage. Then she’s in your face in a flurry of curls, hands braced on your knees, her face inches from yours. When you lean back, she leans in. Her nose squashes against yours.

“I love you better,” she announces. “You’re dumb, and you’re extra, and you can’t even tie your shoelaces without, like, falling over.”

It’s your turn to squawk. “That is untrue –”

“Then do it!” she crows, right in your face, pulling back so you can see the waggle of her eyebrows. Then she’s grabbing your hand between both of hers and tugging. “Do it, do it, prove me wrong -”

“No!” You’re laughing, loud and bright, and so is she, as she tugs you onto your feet. “I am not!”

She huffs at you, but her shoulders slump, her ears relax. Her grip on your hand loosens, and just like that, you reach up, pap her on the cheek.

The first time you did this, she’d bit you on the wrist for your trouble. But that was sweeps and sweeps ago: now she nuzzles her face into the curve of your palm, presses her lips, fangless, against your wrist, pale as the moonlight above. Now she flings both arms around your shoulders and bounces up on her toes.

A kiss to both cheeks, a kiss to your forehead, a kiss to your mouth: each perfunctory, careful, with just enough force that you’re going to have to wipe lipstick off. “I love you,” she tells you, and it’s not a proclamation. It’s not a game: there’s a steady confidence to it, now, like she’s telling you the sky is blue, or the trees are pink. “I love you more than, like, anything I’ve ever, ever seen, ‘n more'n anyone I’ll ever, ever meet, and -”

Liyiji clears his throat.

“Please get a room,” he says, flat, peering down at the two of you from the front of the ship, his hands on the shipwheel. Riccin’s face is as orange as the sun, and they’re steadfastly staring at the moons, their mouth twisted like they’re trying not to smile. “I’m not into public piles. Sorry.”

> IN THE FUTURE

> IN THE FAR, FAR FUTURE

Congratulations: after ten long sweeps, there’s finally blood on your hands.

Won’t Sipara be proud?

When you try to laugh, you choke on the sound.

The room is quiet except for your own ragged breathing. In the dark, againsnt the near-pitch of your skin, the blood on your hands looks mutant bright, the sort of swill you find in animals and the antagonists on pupa’s shows. The blood of a thing that deserves to be culled! But that’s just on shows. You have to be reasonable. This is still blue streaking your skin, and flaws like the saturation are just.. character traits, in bluebloods. Signs of nobility!

Quanin’s blood is nearly this bright.

The blaster in your hand slips, nearly clatters to the floor. You have to fumble to catch it, the slick plastic sliding against your hands, but you don’t dare to lose your grip. If you drop it –

The glance down is involuntary, then you’re jerking your chin up, squeezing your eyes shut. You suppose it doesn’t matter if you drop it. (She’s dead. Blueblood durability does not cure a hole in the head.) The blaster’s got blood on it. There’s blood on your lenses and your cheek, and when you try to wipe off your face, you just smear it. ‘Backwash,’ Sipara used to call this when she’d stumble out of the ring, covered in some unfortunate’s chrome and laughing from the pain of it.

You’ve seen people shot. You know how it works. Why didn’t you add some distance?

Why don’t you ever think things through?

“Holy shit,” Emerel says.

.. oh. That’s why.

He sidesteps the body on the floor. There’s still jade on his mouth where she hit him, but he licks it off of his lips absently. He can’t remove the jade on his face half as easily: even in the flickering, watery light of the room, the flushed green blemishes are already turning garish against his pale skin. Your gaze keeps drifting back to the mark on his face where her blaster’s handle struck. It’s still hard to believe that she hit him. Jades are vital to the empire, just as important and rare as any violet. People don’t hit them. People certainly don’t try to cull them for anything short of treason.

But right now, nothing makes sense. Not any of the past hour, not your own actions, not the way that Emerel’s looking at you, bright-eyed and startled. But at least he’s familiar.

Perhaps that’s why you don’t move when he closes the distance between you. You don’t even move when he reaches out, even though your heart is racing. If he’s going to take the blaster, then that’s fine. It’s not like he’s going to cull you! Emerel is your matesprit, and you just helped him: he’s not going to cull you for that, no matter what hue the legislacerator was.

No matter how hemoloyal he is. No matter how much this entire situation is unquestionably, undeniably your fault, because redroms don’t cull their partners: isn’t that what everyone says? Even knowing that, when he reaches out, you flinch all the same –

– but he just picks you up, hands sliding neatly under your arms, and pulls you in tight againsnt him. The blaster drops out of your fingers. Suddenly you’re clinging to him, burying your face into his neck. Everything feels brittle and awful and wrong, but he’s familiar. He’s safe. He’s yours, damn it, and even the faint reek of blood under his soaps and perfumes can’t ruin the way you relax into him.

(If he culls you, that’s fine. But he’s not going to.)

“Holy shit, Pheres,” he repeats. There’s something off about his voice. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” It comes out muffled. You don’t want to lift your face, or break contact, so you shift your cheek instead and press your nose against his neck. You’re smearing blood on him. Emerel is probably the only person in the world who won’t mind, and at that thought, your breath hitches with something that’s close to amusement. “Let her shoot you?” you accuse him.

The pause lasts a moment too long. This time, when you laugh, you don’t choke on it. “Don’t be stupid,” you say, and if it’s brittle - if your voice is a little shaky - well. It’s softened by fondness. Emerel can’t help it. He is stupid, and you just culled a highblood for your stupid, stupid matesprit. “I’m not - if I thought -”

There’s mottled green blossoming along his jawline even as you watch.

“I wish I’d’ve shot her sooner,” is what comes out, vehement.

The arms around you tighten. Em makes a startled little noise, buries his face in your hair, and suddenly the blood on your hands barely matters at all.

PHERES DYSSEU | ~9 SWEEPS / 18 YEARS OLD

“Really? Really,” you repeat, dubious: “- you want that?”

Hinnom bounces back on zir heels and then forward again, eyes bright. “Yes,” they say.

No, that’s not accurate: they shout, and Marduk cringes, lifting her gaze to you in a silent appeal. “It’s not that expensive,” she says doubtfully. “Is it?”

“If they think we’re paying that price, they’re mad.” The toy has a core of woven reeds and mesh, fat and hard in turn. The arms are bones, made mobile through some clever stringing: the claws and the button-bright eyes are bits of horn, carefully smoothed and polished until the mottled ochre of the keratin fairly shines. The tag says that it’s a troll. It only resembles it in the faintest sense.

And it’s roughly twenty caegars too much.

“Then why’re we paying at all? We could just take it,” Hinnom says, curious, and for all that there’s a line forming between her eyebrows, just like that, Marduk is pullling out her credit-chip.

“Oh, don’t be silly. I’ll handle it. My treat!” The line lessens, just a little. But just for a moment, Marduk’s eyes flick down, taking in your outfit, the dark cherry of your symbol. “Are you sure?” she asks, her credit chip still lying between her fingers. “Twenty caegars isn’t.. too much?”

Your smile thins. You’re in Temasek, in the lowblood district: it doesn’t do to dress up over here. Your clothes are standard, cut for the heat. Your hair isn’t rolled. But just because you’re dressed down doesn’t mean there’s a need for that kind of unspoken discourtesy.

“I’m not paying twenty caegars,” you assure her, and you stalk into the store, leaving them to hustle after you.

(The story you spin is fake as the name’s you give. You think Marduk’s going to laugh, or cry, or both as you work - but when you pay fifteen and show her the five that the shopkeep gave you back, surreptitiously, she’s certainly impressed.)

PHERES DYSSEU | 16 years old / 7.44 sweeps

SIPARA NZINGA | 15 years old / 6.92 sweeps

Sipara’s sprawled out across the floor of your cart, her head nestled into the bony curve of your lap. She’s gone and ruined her headfluff again since the last time you’ve seen her, combed and pressed and perm until it flows thin and straight through your fingers, and you don’t have the slightest idea how you can fix this sort of damage.

If she’d stay with you long enough, then you could deep-condition it. Give it a protein treatment, see how it responds. Trim the ends, maybe –

But she won’t, anymore than you’ll stay with her. Being near Sipara means dealing with ID, and being near you means dealing with Malaya and the rest of the troupe. Better to just sneak moments like this when you can then to deal with the stress of clashing with each other’s quadrants.

(Friends. Whatever the troupe is to you.)

So for now, you’ll have to content yourself with merely combing her headfluff. Your fronds are working their way through, and it’s much more difficult than normal: it’s matted in the normal tangle that she lets it fall into, but there’s scratches in there, too, and blood, slick as oil under your fingertips.

When you inspect your clawtips, you discover it’s blue.

She’s half-dozing under your attentions, rumbling away like a purrbeast. You flick a horn to get her attention, your digestion sack coiling with distress. “Sisi,” you murmur, “what have you been up to?”

She opens one orange-streaked eye and shifts until she can peek at you through the frizz. “Dude.” Her face is drowsy with sleep, and her words are slurred with amusement. You pap her just on instinct, and she laughs, nuzzles her face into the palm of your hand. “You don’t even want to know.”

How Sipara spends her nights is a mystery to you: she does her fights, but you know there’s other things, too, things that require new hives each perigee and act as a constant depletion of your bank account. She dismisses it as part of her prosthetics business, and you’ve never pressed further.

With blue on your fingers and scratches on her face, you remember why.

(“You don’t want to know,” she says, but you know what she means: she doesn’t want to tell you.)

(That’s fine. There’s things you don’t tell her, either.)

She butts her head against you, already asleep again and still purring away steadily. Quietly, so you don’t wake her, you go back to her hair.

PHERES DYSSEU: 16 YEARS OLD / 7.38 SWEEPS | 2092 words

It’s Saturday morning, and Malaya was supposed to be accompanying you and Chapar to one of his parties. The rest of the troupe had deigned not to join: Khaneh said it sounded lame, and Trieua had work, both of which you’d been grateful for.

You’d never admit it, but Chapar’s maybe your favorite person in the whole troupe. And of course, you never turned down an opportunity to have Malaya to yourself! (Or, well - mostly to yourself.)

But at the last moment, after the two of you had been dawdling in your cart for nearly an hour, Malaya’d arrived, his hair wind-tousled and already apologising before he’d even made it through the doorway. “Sorry! Mysore called,” he’d said, pressing the invitations into Chapar’s loose grip. “But you two have fun, yeah?”

And then he’d bolted back to whatever emergency his moirail had embroiled themselves in this time.

If you’d had it your way, that would’ve been the end of it: you’ve been to highblood parties before, and they’re not much fun, if you don’t know the people there already. (For one, no one wants to talk to the maroonblood, not unless they’re trying to order drinks.) But Chapar had insisted on going. “When’s the next time we’re going to get to go to a bash like this?” he’d asked you, pleading. “Come on, Pheres, I already picked out an outfit and everything!”

So you’d agreed.

And now that you’re here… well, it’s not exactly as bad as you thought it’d be.

Both you and Chapar are wearing white and one of Malaya’s scarves, the fancy ones embroidered with his symbol. He’d insisted on it, back when the three of you were supposed to be going together: for safety’s sake, he’d said! None of you are quadrants, but you’re a sort of clade all the same, and that makes showing off his colour like this alright.

And, surprisingly, it’s effective even without him here. No one’s mistaken you for one of the serving staff the entire time you’ve been here, and no one’s even really noticed your symbol: their eyes hit the white and then the scarf, and then they slide right off like oil on the water, like the fact you’ve got a rich highblood quadrant - friend - roaming the halls somewhere is all that matters.

If you’re honest, the party so far has actually been pretty amazing. People have been talking to the both of you, and not because they want you to take drink orders: they’re chatting and joking and flirting, which you’re used to, but Chapar’s face keeps lighting up whenever anyone so much as looks his way. It’s adorable.

Adorable, but a little exhausting, so you and Chapar have holed yourself up at one of the tables near the mostly abandoned buffet, making a game of stacking your plates full of the fanciest tidbits you could find. Chapar’s been winning, by virtue of the fact he’s more willing to rummage through the platters to find the sort of things they hide in the back. “Look at this, Pheres,” he crows, lifting the lid off of a plate bristling with roll-up bugs: “They’ve got stuffed idotea!”

“.. stuffed with what?” They didn’t bother removing the legs, or the antannae, and it looks like they’re ready to unfurl right off the plate. You blanche, wrinkling up your nose, but Chapar dumps a handful onto his plate like he’s not even bothered. “I dunno,” he says, cheerful. “But I’ll find out!”

You don’t even like food much, but every time you finish something, Chapar’s right there, dumping some appalling new find on your plate to try. (Not just stuffed idotea: they’ve got candied seastars. Gross.) And between bites, the two of you gossip about the people around you. Guessing who’s who’s quadrant turns into a discussion of outfits turns into –

“Look at her,” Chapar breathes beside you.

– bluebloods are so pretty.

And Chapar’s got an excellent eye for spotting the most striking ones. The girl he’s nodding towards is tall, with the sort of smooth, glowing skin and softness that only highbloods ever seem to quite get, and small, elegantly curving horns, so unlike the massive clodhoppers stuck on you and Chapar’s heads.

For one, she’s got jewelry on them, little gold chains that are just as delicate as the horns holding them up.

But there’s something off about the way she’s walking: jerkily, a little unsteadily, like she’s got on shoes that’re a size too small. (She doesn’t: she’s barely even wearing shoes, just blue slippers, and they’re perfectly fitted. So maybe it’s the way her skin is moving? It’s dimpling in a way you didn’t know skin could move, bunching up like rubber every time she moves.

It takes you a moment to realise it’s the fins.

You’ve never actually seen a seadweller before in real life! They stay in the docks district, for the most part, or with the Imperial Education Program, and you’re not allowed near either of those things - that’s the one thing that everyone you know agrees on, from Sipara to Malaya, like they think something terrible will happen if you even see one.

Nothing terrible’s happening, though, except for the way your mouth’s gone all dry and papery. There’s just enough off that it feels a little like you’re looking at a mutant - the sort of prickly unease you get whenever someone’s got too many pupils, or too few horns.

You’re just being silly, though, because when you glance at Chapar, he’s all big eyes and sunstruck looks. “Man, she is so hot,” he murmurs, and you bob your head before you can think twice, because that’s just the truth, no matter how you feel: she *is* pretty. She looks like everything a highblood should, even down to her clothes, and, yes, the fins. “.. but she’s too high caste for me,” he sighs.

“She isn’t!” The denial’s reflexive. You like Chapar so much: he’s the only other lowblood in the group, and he’s only half a sweep older than you, which means the two of you might as well be clutchmates compared to everyone else. More than that, he isn’t like Khaneh, or even sometimes Malaya. He’s always seeking you out, asking about your books, talking to you even when he isn’t bored or looking for attention.

He’s nice! And the idea that anyone’s too high for him feels like a personal affront. “You’re olive,” you huff, looking away. He’s staring at you like you’re speaking Common. “That’s only…”

You count off on your fingers, each movement slower than the next. “.. um. Six steps.”

“Seven. You’ve got to count olive, too.” He sounds glum.

“Ah, it doesn’t matter how much of a caste gap it is!” He sounds soglum. You puff out your cheeks and gesture with your free hand, a big, decisive swoop that nearly knocks the plate out of his hand. “Don’t you watch vids? Everyone likes analogous pairings, and you’re practically blue. You could talk to her! I’m sure she won’t mind.”

“I could talk to her first, if you’d like,” you add. “Just to show you how!”

He blinks at you, like he didn’t quite hear what you said. “What? Pheres –”

“Just stay right here,” you tell him, shoving your plate into his hands, and you trot over to her, ignoring the way Chapar’s spluttering behind you.

The crowd’s easy to navigate. Everyone here is so tall! (Everyone’s always so tall compared to you, but that’s alright: you’re sure you’ll grow soon enough.) All you have to do is bob and weave to duck the occasional wayward elbow and slip between the dancers, and then you’re next to the seadweller girl.

“Hello!” you chirp, angling your head up so that you can see her face. You’re going to get a crick in your neck if you try to keep this up, but you don’t care. You’re going to prove Chapar wrong.

She blinks down at you. The movement’s all wrong: too slow and too twitchy all at once, with a soft, wet noise you can hear from all the way back here. This close, you can see what you thought were fins are just a strange sort of ear, instead, and her eyes are purple as the church tents you see sometimes. She must be a cusp. You’ve never seen one of those before! “Hello,” she says, baffled, and you clear your throat, making your eyes big and apologetic.

“Ah, I’m so sorry to bother you, miss –”

“Oh, no, it’s alright,” she murmurs, still confused. This is why you love dealing with highbloods: they’re so reflexively polite, and it’s easy to use that to your advantage. You dimple at her, tilting your head so that your hair cascades to the side, and her smile becomes a little more genuine.

“- but I just saw your dress from afar, and I thought.. well, it’s just amazing! And that’s such a lovely colour.” It’s made of leather, and it has to be the most ghastly shade of black you’ve ever seen, somehow yellow and brown all at once, but her face lights up all the same.

She’s only said a few words, but they were thick, heavy in a way that you don’t really recognise. But you used to talk strangely, too, before you learned how to speak Standard properly, and it gives you an idea. “Did you buy it in Temasek?” you ask, widening your eyes.

“Temasek..? Oh! The city! No, no, I bought it from Blackstone.” She gives a self-conscious little laugh. “I’m not from around here,” she explains. “Farther up north. Much farther.”

“But, ah, I like your scarf,” she adds, reaching out and taking a hold of the end. You hold still patiently as she rubs it between her fingers, testing out the fabric even as her eyes flit down to your symbol. You’re used to this sort of thing: everyone’s always touching you, like being maroon means they don’t have to ask, but you suppose that’s alright. It’s not like you mind! “You’ve got a Juno as your matesprit, hm?”

“Oh, no, not my matesprit! Just my friend. Ah..” The conversation isn’t going where you planned: she’s talking to you right now, but there’s no way you can bring in Chapar, and that was the entire point of this.

But that’s alright. If the conversation isn’t working, you’ll just have to make it work! Luckily, she seems like the nicer sort, and you’ve always got a plan for those. You sigh, letting your shoulders fall just enough that she notices, and when she makes a little questioning noise, you put on a brave face: tilt your chin back up, furrow your brows just enough to look worried, and then you smile weakly, biting your lip just the slightest amount.

Most people like it when you look pathetic, and judging by the ways her eyes soften, she’s not any different.

“He was supposed to be here, but I think.. well. He just forgets sometimes.”

“Oh, that’s dreadful,” she breathes, pressing the back of her palm to her mouth.

“Oh, no, no!” You shake your head, hard enough that your hair goes flying, and you make your voice high and earnest: “I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea! He’s just - you know -” You wring your hands, glancing up towards her long enough to make eye contact, and then letting your gaze drop back down to the floor. You can’t push it too heavily! People get mad when they think you’re trying to manipulate them. But a soft enough touch - “I suppose he just forgot Chapar and I don’t know anyone here,” you murmur, peering up at her through your eyelashes.

“You don’t know anyone? And he left you here by yourself?” She looks appalled. You hope she isn’t a gossip, or else Malaya’s going to find this all dreadfully unfunny. “You know..” She bites her lip, and then frowns, decisive. “You can sit with me at my table, yes. Plenty of people! Friendly people,” she says, emphasizing the word. “Not everyone here is friendly to little lowbloods, yeah? We will make sure you have good time. You and your other friend.”

“Oh,” you say, clapping a hand to your mouth and letting your eyes widen. (The better to hide the way you want to laugh. Of course it worked, but – you can’t believe this worked.) “You don’t have to! Ahh, I don’t - if we’d be a bother –”

“I insist! Where are they?”

All the way back against the wall, Chapar’s looking at you like you’ve grown a second head, a toothpick full of vegetables dangling from his hand. You beam at him, give a little wave. “Chapar,” you call, and the girl behind you turns to gesture with you. “Come here! She wants us to sit with her!”

PHERES DYSSEU | 7 SWEEPS / 15 YEARS OLD

CW: AGE GAPS, EXPLOITATION OF A TEENAGER

Your name is Pheres Dysseu, you are seven sweeps old, and right now, you can’t swallow, because there’s a sword pressing into your neck.

To be fair: it’s a wooden sword! But just because it can’t kill you doesn’t mean that it can’t hurt.

Hasn’t Triệua has spent the last hour proving exactly that?

The night started off well enough. You’d spent all of yesterday with the re-enactment troupe, helping them repair their clothes for tonight’s big event in between running off through the city on coffee runs with Chapar. (”The price of being the youngest, yeah?” he complained to you, and then he’d filched money off the top to buy you both lemons.) The lot of you’d all fallen asleep in Malaya’s recreation-block - no, no, living room, and by the time the moons had come up fully, you’d been out on the road.

But when you’d actually made it to the field, you’d discovered the coordinator had had some crisis with her moirail, and the event had been cancelled.

The smart thing to do would’ve been just to go back to Malaya’s hive. But it’d been a three hour drive, most of which he’d spent behind the wheel, and he’d had different ideas. “We have the equipment,” he told the milling mass of your cohort, his eyes shining bright in the moonlight: “- and we have enough people! Why not just hold our own event, lah? Much better than theirs, anyway.”

And then he’d paired all of you up, given you the wooden practice swords and set you to work. He’d pulled you to work with him at first, of course, and that’d been fun: he’d spent most of that time correcting your pose, your grip on the sword, your posture, your stance, and you didn’t actually have to practice anything at all.

But then Khaneh had called him away, and Triệua had taken over as your partner instead.

There’s sweat pooling through the cloth of your shirt, and your hair is plastered wetly to your forehead, the back of your neck, the exposed skin of your shoulders. Every breath feels like you’re pulling air up from a well deep below, one with a ragged rope and a handle that doesn’t want to turn. You’re ready to quit. You’ve been ready since she landed that first blow to your side, but she won’t let you.

And worse yet, though her face is faintly teal, she’s not even really winded.

You could just teleport away. If it was just Triệua, then you would! (If it was just Triệua, you would’ve never agreed to this dumb training session in the first place.) But the rest of your cohort’s stopped practicing to watch, and everyone hates when you use your psionics. It hurts their eyes, they say, like they don’t get warning in the spark of your horns to close them beforehand.

At least right now, you’re not having to move. Triệua’s got you pressed up against a wall, her sword to your throat, and it’s a relief just to stand here and try to breathe - there’s no need for her to be this close, is there?

She’s got her free hand braced on your shoulder, the curve of her palm cool against the arc of your throat, and she’s leaned in close enough that you can smell her breath. (She ate fish for breakfast. It’s horrid.) She’s not saying anything, just glaring, and…

She’s won. She could step away. And even if she wants to make a point - what point? - then she’s got long arms: she doesn’t need to be looming like this to keep you penned. She’s close enough that you can feel the chill radiating off of her skin, warmer but less pleasant than Malaya’s, and that is entirely too close.

“Are you done yet?” you ask her, deliberately bright.

“When you yield,” she snaps, and your eyebrows go up. You’ve been shouting yield since the first time she hit you, and she didn’t care now: she just kept it up, forcing you to block, keeping you moving.

… herding you back into this corner.

When you peer over her shoulder, your cohort is still watching. Chapar is frowning, worrying his lip - Khaneh is leaning forward, her eyes narrowed like she’s trying to see - but it’s Malaya who you’re searching for. He doesn’t look concerned at all.

Just.. amused.

(She’s not winded, but her face is a blotchy teal.)

(Oh.)

You could still jump, the complaints of your cohort be damned. But a much more interesting idea’s just struck you. Leaning up just presses the wood in harder against your throat, but that’s alright: you can deal. Triệua isn’t that much taller than you! And you only need to lift yourself a few inches until you’re close enough to kiss her.

It’s nothing personal. You’ve kissed nearly all of the people in your little self-made cohort: none of you are properly clade, but it’s just a thing that’s happened. You spend most of your time with Malaya, but everyone here is handsome and older and blue, and they like you. They think you’re funny, and smart, and they laugh at your jokes, and most of them think you’re cute.

(”Adorable,” Khaneh told you once, and you’d bit her for the indignity.)

If indulging that makes them like you better, then why shouldn’t you?

Triệua’s always been the exception, though. She’s never said it to you, but Chapar’s told you all about the sort of things she says when you’re not here. (Not even because you’re too young, which would be nonsense, but the sort you could almost understand - but because you’re too red, which doesn’t even make sense. Only animals are red! You’re burgundy.) You’d always figured it was a platonic sort of distaste, though. Triệua’s so much older, old enough that she’s got an official adult title and a job off in the city proper, and you’re… not.

So kissing her is just a way of making her back off. She’ll recoil and move the sword, and you’ll abscond before she can hit you. It’s the perfect plan!

Or it would be, but Triệua doesn’t pull away immediately: there’s a beat where her eyes go wide, and then she’s actually leaning into you, her grip tightening on your shoulder, biting at your mouth until you’re tasting iron. She’s got teeth almost as sharp as Sipara’s. Each nip stings, and not in a pleasant way.

She’s heavier than you thought.

She’s not moving the sword.

You make a surprised noise, trying to twist away as the wood pushes in hard against your throat, and.. oh, thank heavens, she’s pulling away now, looking appalled.

At you? At herself? You don’t care. Your throat aches from where the wood dug in, your lip is bleeding, and there’s a wall to your back, but that won’t stop you from scampering away as fast you can. She doesn’t even react as you slide past her, just jerks back to get out of your way, and it’s a relief.

Malaya and the rest of your cohort are lounging there, and Malaya’s laughing. “Good work on the escape, la,” he calls out, his hands cupped around his mouth. You can’t see his grin, but you can see the skin wrinkled under his eyes, hear the amusement in his voice: “Unusual technique, but points for the execution!”

Behind you, Triệua is not laughing. Whatever dilemma she’d been having is over: there’s a snatch of air above your head, and you duck your horns low, pivot around to face her. It’s a mistake! She’s looming over you like a bad daydream, her blue eyes water-bright in the shadow of her face. She’s teal, barely blue at all, hardly worth paying attention to - hardly worth being afraid of, but when she’s baring her fangs like this…

“I have a fucking kismesis,” she snaps, like you all haven’t heard her whining about how Perlis does too, like there isn’t burgundy blood on her teeth. All you did was kiss her! She was the one that went and escalated it.

She was the one who penned you in in the first place.

You need to abscond. You need to apologise, because you thought you were just playing around, but she’s clearly taking it more personally than you thought. You should do a lot of things, but there’s burgundy blood on her teeth, your lip hurts, and she’s not supposed to try and intimidate you!

(She’s not supposed to hit you. You didn’t think that was how black-flirting went.)

“.. ah, but obviously he’s not as pretty as me,” is what comes out instead, sharp and brittle, and you regret it immediately. Triệua‘s eyes go wide enough you can see the red at the rims. Absconding is not an option, not when she’s this close, so —

When you jump, landing neatly in the stands behind Malaya, everyone’s too busy trying to calm her down to even yell at you.

PHERES DYSSEU | EIGHT SWEEPS | 18 YEARS OLD

RS: | So |
RS: | I Was Thinking | Since I’m Here |
RS: | Would You Like to Go Shopping | ? |

You have never met a child as excitable as Hinnom.

To be fair, you go out of your way to avoid wrigglers, given they don’t have much money and they’re not very interesting. But still, you’re fairly certain you weren’t this energetic at his age.

Nor this physical.

“Hold still!” you demand, laughing as Hinnom pivots around you. It’d been a lark to shoot them a message when you stopped in Temasek: you hadn’t really expected them to reply! You certainly hadn’t expected them to be so enthusiastic that they agreed - insisted, really! - on coming up immediately.

But here they are, spinning around you like a top and dragging you along for the ride. They’ve got a tight grip on your hand, pupa nails digging sharp into the fat of your palm, and they’re stronger than their size would have you assume. You don’t mind, even though they’re hauling you through the market place like a bag of produce.

Even though everyone’s staring.

Well. Let them! It’s Temasek, and you’re in the lowblood quarter. Not the sort of place you like to go usually, but it’s the only place you felt safe bringing your little feral friend – and to be honest, it’s probably the safest part of the city. No one here is going to try to hassle two maroons, not when there’s plenty of easier, richer targets all around.

“No!” Hinnom’s laughing too, nasal and obnoxious and thoroughly infectious. “C'mon, c'mon, I wanna show you some really ghoul shit –”

“I thought we were going shopping, Hinnom!”

“Shopping’s boring as fuck,” they yowl, letting go of your hand so that they can bound forward. One step, two, each impossibly long even for those gangly legs - and when they pivot back to face you, sure enough, there’s maroon crackling on their horns. What a little cheater. “Hey, hey, hey! BOO!” They’re bouncing in place from one foot to another, their raggedy poncho catching the air around them: “I’ll race you to the fountain!”

“It’s not - I’m not -” They make a face at you, wrinkling their nose hard enough that the paint scattered on it cracks. “Unless you’re sca~ared,” they jeer. “Huh? I bet you are! I bet you’re super scared of losing, like, you’re super crypt out by losing, like –”

The fountain isn’t that far, and it’s not cheating to use your psionics, not when they started it. And the way Hinnom cackles with delight when they spin around and see you already sprinting towards it is well worth the bloody snout.

1. Yellow - 9 sweeps | FLUSHED

The first thing you notice is that Riccin is much taller then you thought when you were drunk.

They’re leaning against the doorway of their hiveblock, arms folded and eyebrows raised. Without their facepaint, and dressed in pajamas, they should be less intimidating, not more.

But those pajamas look like they cost more than your entire annual stipend, despite the yellow embroidered neatly into the collar, and they’re not smiling: just watching you with their strange teal eyes, and waiting for you to speak.

“Hello! I don’t know if you remember me, but -”

“Guess the drones didn’t cull you,” they say, dry, and you laugh sheepishly.

“They didn’t! Lucky me. Ahh.. well.” You clear your throat and put on your most winning smile. “I’m afraid I didn’t paint the best picture of myself when we met. Being, ah, drunk and all. So I thought it might be nice to start over! Introduce ourselves properly.”

“My name’s Pheres Dysseu,” you say, “and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

You hold out your left hand, the flushed skin of your wrist exposed and the palm empty for them to grab. Handshakes are a greenblood thing, but the gesture is one that is recognised by all castes.

You’d thought. The disbelieving stare suggests you were wrong.

“Alright,” they say, standing up. The smile Riccin gives is languid as their movements as they step forward. “Shit sounds fair. But cut the bileblood shit. You want to do a new meet and greet, brother, we’re doing this the church way.”

If all clown greetings involve tongue, you decide later, maybe you will start going to Carnival.

2. Indigo - 8 sweeps | PITCH

That is one thing you’ll give bluebloods: they’re very pretty.

Oh, not all of them: you’ve had customers missing eyes or teeth, with crooked horns or features that, put together, just really weren’t very flattering. And you’ve met a great deal of lowbloods who you would say go beyond being merely pretty. (Yourself included.)

But for the most part, your customers all have sharp teeth, clear eyes, and horns that they keep sanded and oiled. A higher allowance means more money towards food, and medicine, and self-care, and there’s certainly something to be said for the effect a healthy flush can have on one’s appearance.

Just because you think they’re pretty, though, doesn’t mean you’re interested. You don’t mind appreciating an attractive troll, and you’re friendly to everyone - but unfortunately, sometimes that means your customers get confused.

“I’m sorry, but - I do have to go," you say, laughing, but it’s not from amusement. Vignei’s been crowding you since you first came into her hive, and now that the caegars are in your account, you’d really like to leave. She’s always been one of your friendlier customers, but lately she’s been getting uncomfortably so.

Case in point: she’s draped an arm across your shoulder, and she’s tracing a finger along the spiral of your caudal horn, just hard enough that you can feel the scrape of her claw. Vignei has to notice you’re stiff as a wire beside her: it’s starting to strike you that she just doesn’t care.

(You shouldn’t have come inside. Some of your customers seem fine, but they’re bluebloods, and as far as they’re concerned, you might as well just be an especially clever animal.)

(There’s a reason they call your lot redbloods, and it has nothing to do with hue.)

"Whatever it is, it can’t be that important," she purrs. "Just give me a moment; I have a very convincing argument on why you should stay–”

Her lips are as cold as saltwater against yours when she kisses you, and that’s what finally spurs you into movement. Sometimes jumping is a chore: at others, like this, it’s instinctive. One moment her arm is around you, and the next you’re across the room, your horns ringing as you try to reorient.

Vignei blinks: for a moment, she just looks confused, eyebrows knit with growing displeasure as she scans the room. When she finally spots you, inching your way towards the open doorway, the look she shoots your way has entirely too many teeth to be flushed, and you flee.

3. BROWN - 7 sweeps | FLUSHED

It’s amazing how much will fit into a bag. You never thought much of the easy way Elilah’s things had spread through your hive over the past few perigees, but watching him pack, it’s striking you exactly how much of what you thought was yours is actually just his.

You stay tucked in the corner, watching him work. He made it clear he didn’t want your help, when he first said he couldn’t deal with someone who was just going to end up as a ship engine, and you should probably just have left then, let him pack in peace.

But if you’re never going to see him again, you want to lock him into memory now: the way he stands and moves, the clothes he wears. He’s been growing faster than you lately, all lanky legs and long limbs that you thought you’d get to see evened out, and you want to remember that, too.

“Well,” Elilah finally says. “That’s all.”

He looks at you for the first time in what feels like ages, and maybe he still does pity you, at least a little, because he comes up and presses a kiss to your cheek. If it’s any colour, then it’s white as snow, but you lean into it, because that’s all he’s going to give. “Later, Dysseu,” he says, picking up his bag. “Have a good life.”

4. Brown - 5 sweeps | PALE

Your snout is leaking like a faucet, and your ganderbulbs are rheumy and red where the vessels are oozing. There’s blood all over your face, and no matter how much you blot at it, the streaky rivulets won’t stop. And your pan aches.

There’s blood on your hands too, the same streaky rosewood as the stuff on your face, but this isn’t your blood: it’s Rmeros’s, and the thought makes you start crying again, wet, loud sobs that leave you aching from your horns to your toes.

Sipara was trying to figure out the cart controls, but she drops the ignition sticks and bolts over at the sound that rips from your chest. The noises you’re making are horrible, but your ganderbulbs and your snout and your pan all hurt, and you can’t seem to make yourself stop.

“I killed my moirail,” you wail, stumbling over the words. Each breath feels like it’s being ripped from your lungs, and no matter how hard you gasp for air, it’s not enough. “I killed him and he’s dead and it’s all my fault-”

“Shh,” she says, frantic, “sh sh shoosh!” She grabs your face with her hands, nearly jabbing you in the eye with a claw, and then she stops, like she doesn’t know what to do. There’s snot on your face now in addition to the blood and tears, and you are just a complete and utter mess, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Sipara stares at you, her eyes wide with fear and worry and determined concentration, like you’re one of her broken tools and she’s figuring out how to fix you -

And then she plants a kiss on your forehead and the shock of it makes you stop mid-sob. Sipara is all fangs and elbows and claws that scrape even when she’s playing nice, but right now, she’s holding your face like she holds her lusus, like you’re something she has to be careful not to break. “We didn’t kill your moirail,” she says, as matter as fact as if she’s telling you the moon was green, “because I’m your moirail, okay? So shoosh.”

BIRDS AND LIONS [PHERES POV] - 10k

“I..” He hates when you stall like this, so you clear your throat, bounce over to the other side of the table like it was intentional. “Right,” you say, going up on your toes so that you can peer at the plate, and you’re watching him through your eyelashes. His face is soft again, his eyes half-lidded as he focuses on the food, and that’s a relief: he’s a little scary when he’s mad.
(You’re being silly. No one’s scared of their moirail!)
“It’s alright. You’re a pupa. You’ll learn.” He looks at you and smiles, exasperated and thin but still fond. The ball of tension in your thoracic cage unwinds, just a little. “We just have to make sure it’s the right things, that’s all.“

4.15 SWEEPS | 9 YEARS OLD

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4.15 SWEEPS | 9 YEARS OLD

(575 words, drowning mention! alsooo I just noticed this ate second symbol?? so feel free to resend if you remember :o)

There’s no glass on the viewing pane, just a rotted net that you make quick work of. The rope dissolves under your claws, and then you’re wiggling your way in, a stream of bubbles escaping from your snout as you push past the sills.
This is the deepest into the river you’ve ever gone, and to be honest, at first, you were kind of scared! Not of the ghosts, like your hivemates are always warning you (like you’re a wriggler who still believes in that sort of thing!), but of running out of air. But the pain in your central cavity is managable: it’s barely even a tickle still, even though you must be twenty feet down.
Maybe even thirty!
It’s a relief. You’ve been working up to this for the entire sweep, ever since Whydah first brought you down here and showed you the ruins, but it’s one thing to hold your breath when you know the surface is just a quick teleport away, and another to hold your breath down here, where you can’t even tell up from down. Even with the hive’s spires to orient you, because crushed or not, you know they’re pointing up,there’s still a creeping sort of apprehension building in your fear glands.
But it’s still worth it, because the hive is amazing.
The way the room is laid out, you think it must be the respite block, because it’s so big! Even with the glow of your eyes brightening up the room, you have to stay close to the wall, because you can’t see much farther past it. Still, it doesn’t look a thing any room in your hiveblock, or even Sipara’s. For starters, the walls are creepy: even in the water, they look slimy and shiny and wrong, like they’re cocoon that’ve gone moldly. And for second, there’s things floating in the water everywhere.
It takes you a moment to realize the strange, shining thing twining in front of you are more ropes, brighter in colour than the one you ripped through to get in. They’re hooked to the floor, and must be hanging from the ceiling, because they go up and up and – oh!
You thought they were just tangled, but though the strands are loose, they’re woven like a basket, and they’re furniture. Sort of! The thing in the center is a respitebench, and there’s a resting station, and oh, when you push away from the wall and drift towards the center to investigate, the thing you’d just thought was a rock- that’s an actual nutrition mesa, with mossy drawers and everything.
But when you tug on the drawer, your fronds wrapping tight around the rusted handle, you can’t get it open. No matter how hard you kick, it stays stuck as tight as a clam.
And, oh. Maybe that was dumb, because the burn in your air sacs is switching from irritating to a sharp, stabbing sort of pain, and your airtube is aching with the need to breathe. If you don’t head up soon, you’re going to drown, and that thought makes the creeping fear spiral into panic.
(You can’t die down here, or else your hivemates will turn you into one of their dumb ghosts.)
The ruins have been down here for sweeps and sweeps, and they’ll be here tomorrow, so you take one last, quick look around the room, and then with a kick out of the window, you start the swim up.

When you were brought to your father, the midwife told him that you’d lead a hard life. “There’s nothing but fire in her,” she’d said, while you’d laid there, wrinkled and brown and twice the size of your cousin, for all that Pheres was a year older. “You’d do best to dampen it.”

He never did. Your father had let you do as you wished, and taken in everything you did with pride. On your thirteenth birthday, you lost two fingers to a gharial, and the most he’d said, when wrapping you up, was you’d have to learn to be careful.

On your sixteenth birthday, you stole one of your aunts ship, and you took to the seas.

On your nineteenth birthday, you got married to the woman you’ve spent the last two years trying to kill.

Your father never tried to dampen your spirits, but sometimes, you wish he had.

The first wedding lasts three weeks, and you hate every minute of it.

“I’ve seen the way you look at her, you know,” Pheres tells you, digging the comb into your curls. “If you can’t stand her, why did you go and marry her?”

He tugs. You whine, and he just hums in response, separating out the next chunk of curls with a ruthless efficiency. Your hair’s too short for braids: has been, ever since that first raid where one of the sailors had grabbed you by them and yanked. But that doesn’t stop Pheres from trying.

“Because I had to.”

"Did you impregnate her, Sipara? That seems a little implausible,” he says, curious, “but I suppose, if this is a case of you protecting Lady Ryalis’s dignity, I can understand. Of course, you could’ve just asked me to do it. I like her well enough. The court would think it plausible. Or Riccin. Heaven only knows they’ve got enough bastards running around already –”

“No!” you squall, furious at the images that brings to mind. (You and Quanin - Pheres and Quanin - Riccin and Quanin - each one is just worse than the last.) “Go to hell!”

He laughs, taps the hard metal of the comb against your tender scalp. "She’s not kin. She’s not even your friend. Whatever could have you so obliged to endure this suffering?”

You don’t have an answer.

Here’s what you know about Quanin Ryalis, privateer, the rightful heir of the Fenêtre à Mer:

She’s older than you.

("Old enough to be going blind,” you’d crowed, the first time she’d shot at you and the bullet had swung wide.)

She’s a better fencer than you.

(She cornered you once in the belly of a steamer you’d captured, when your crew were fighting with her people high above, and you’d thought to sneak away with the captain’s lockbox. The first sweep of her saber had knocked the claymore out of your hands. The second had cut right through the skin of your face. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of your officer, the third would’ve gone straight through your heart.)

She’s awful, and dreadful, and one day, you’re going to see her strung her up from the rigging in your steamer –

– but like hell if you’re going to let Lantis fucking Ryalis do it for you.

“You might as well kill me,” is the first thing she says when your crew brings her to you.

Chasing down Ryalis had started off as a convenience: her boat was so much larger, and the targets she took were so much better. Easier to swing in when she was neck-deep in the raid and steal the best of treasures out from under her, then risk your crew trying to take a war galleon by yourself.

But it’d turned into a sport in itself: seeing how close you could get, how much you could steal, how narrow of an escape you could make before that saber of hers caught flesh instead of cloth.

(Seeing how red her face could get from the sheer rage of seeing you where she least expected it.)

It’d turned into a game, but you’d never thought of what would happen when you won.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Q,” you sing, scrubbing at your face. There’s blood in your mouth and on your teeth, because she actually went and punched you in those last few, hectic minutes. You’d be more impressed if she wasn’t wearing fucking rings. “I’m not going to kill you. How stupid do you think I bloody am?”

“No, we’re going to ransom you.” You clap your hands together, bouncing up onto the tips of your boots. “No warrant can be issued for a ransom,” you crow. “So long as your family pays, it’s perfectly legal under the Queen’s law - it’s not even a ransom, really, it’s just a sort of finder’s fee -”

“My family isn’t going to pay.”

She looks dour. She isn’t joking, not at all, and just that quick, your elation’s trickling out like gold at a brothel. This isn’t going the way you planned! She was supposed to be witty, furious, practically frothing around each barbed comment, not - not –

- defeated.

It’s not fun if she’s given up.

“Of course they’re going to pay.” You’re not smiling anymore. “Your father is one of the richest men –”

“No. I am one of the richest women in the court, and that is through my mother’s line.” There’s that familiar, infuriating flicker of pride. She lifts her chin, stubborn, staring down at you from that sloped nose like she doesn’t have a gun to her back.

And then the light dies. “Or I was,” she says, “until that bastard stole it.”

Your family is very close-knit. There’s five different lines in it, and a sprawling tangle of bloodlines and relations too thickly woven for you to ever break through. Everyone older than you is an aunt, and everyone younger is a cousin. Blood doesn’t matter, and neither does the name; what matters is that they’re kin, and that’s freed you from disaster more times than you’d ever admit.

You forget every family isn’t like that.

“And you can get it back if you get married,” you say, dubious, and she grimaces.

Your crew’s collected in a circle around the two of you. (Her crew is down below, bound in the cells ‘til you reach a port to drop them.) Someone’s brought out the wine they found in Quanin’s private stores, and the lot of you have been taking turns passing it around.

It says something, maybe, that this time, she doesn’t protest when someone holds it to her lips.

“Archaic law,” she says when she’s taken her swig, and it’s been passed to the next. “My mother was a strong believer in the ways of the old ones, and Lantis found a justice who supported him.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s because you’re a savage and a simpleton. One cannot flout the old ways. It isn’t done.”

The first wedding is for your family, to soothe their nerves. Petitioning the queen for the right to marry in court is a process that takes months: there are papers to be signed, justices to be met. The proper courting rituals to meet, to prove this isn’t some marriage of convenience.

(When Quanin tells you this, you laugh in her face.)

But your family isn’t of the court, for all that they’re trying: you’re a brood of diplomats and ambassadors and merchants, and there’s different standards to meet there, to gain their approval for the official court registrars.

(Quanin charms your father, who is elated. She charms Pheres, who is distraught and amused in turn, and accuses you of all sorts of terrible plans afflicted on an innocent woman. She does not charm Daedal, who pulls you aside to ask you what you’re thinking, but it’s worth it for the look on Quanin’s face when your grandmother turns on her about her intentions.)

The second wedding is for the court, and the justice, and for her family, to prove your legality.

You still hate every minute of it, but it’s worth it, afterwards, for the duel -

- and to see Quanin with her sword at her cousins neck, her signet bright on her hand.

After the wedding, your rooms have been merged. As separate households in the courts, you’d been given your own suites, but a couple only needs one.

(When you’d slunk back to your rooms just to check, you’d found Pheres had already seized it. “I left you a bed,” he’d said mildly, when you’d protested. “It’s over by the cloak rack. Do you really want to sleep in here?”)

All of your things were there, neatly sorted out by some earnest maid, and so you’d collapsed on the bed, still bedecked in the frills the ceremony had demanded. “You can sleep on the rug,” you tell her.

She rolls her eyes. You take that as agreement.

(”It’s alright if you hate her, but, Sipa, dear…”)

She’s brushing out her hair at the vanity. In the low lights of the fireplace, it looks lovely. She looks lovely.

But not in the way you’d always thought someone you just married should. There’s nothing warm about it. You’ve spent all day staring at her face, pretending that the two of you share something earnest, something real, but –

“Sipara,” she says, looking back at you.

– all you want to do when you see that aristocratic face is to break it.

(”You’d best make sure she feels the same.”)

“If I see that wretched contraption near my ship again, I will shoot a hole through the hull properly this time, ceremony or no,” she tells you, and you laugh.

“I’m keeping the bed.” You kick off your shoes, just for the way she grimaces when they hit the wall. “But Pheres made up a cot for you in his closet, if the rug’s too hard.”

RICCIN KAYATA | 8.7 sweeps / 19 years old
imperial education program headquarters, temasek | hanhai district

When she pries back your lips, it’s a wonder you don’t bite her. You hate medical exams. You hate medical examiners, and out of the entire bunch, your proctor is the worst of them all. At least Kazumi takes care not to scratch you with his nails while he works.

The Shepherd doesn’t give a damn, so long as you don’t flinch.

“The teeth are mostly grown in,” she announces, stepping back and stripping off her gloves. You keep your ears up and your face bland. Kazumi’s keeping a steady murmur into his pen behind her, barely blinking as he throws away the gloves, but when he catches your eye, he winces.

Only for a moment. By the time the Shepherd turns to look at him, fins flared, he’s back to his usual stoicism. “Incisors may continue growth. Make note to keep track of future length. Removal may be necessary.” She’s got the naval accent, nasal and so soft, it’s like she ain’t talking about removing parts of you. “What is the current height?”

“7'2, ma'am.”

“Foutredieu. What’re you people feeding them, straight protein? Get leg measurements before they leave, Kazumi.”

Your breath catches.

“Yes, ma'am.”

If you were a proper helm by now, you could be halfway out of your pan and into the net. It ain’t like there’s a reason they’ve held off. ID had that put in when he was seven sweeps, along with the nanny, and Proper.. well, you don’t know when they plugged that shit in, but you’re half certain they’ve got it, too.

But you’re not. You don’t get a single thing put in your pan, or in your body, without the Shepherd’s say so, and all she wants to do is work on your psionics until you’re in the rig. It’s fucking absurd to think that it’s bullshit. Your proctor is older than your entire bloodline: she pulled you out of the slurry like thread on the loom, and without her, you would’ve been lost. Anything short of acquisal is nothing but the most vile kind of treachery, the sort of worthless ingratitude that they try to beat out.

You’re not fucking ungrateful. Ain’t even a doubt in your mind that every instant of her attention is a blessing upon you. But..

You just wish you could at least pull out your phone.

But the Shepherd demands respect, and you know what happens when she doesn’t get it. So when she turns to look at you again, you’re holding still, your chin up, ears high.

“Arm,” she orders, and when you hold it out, she strips off your sleeve like it’s hardly worth a note.

Her nails catch on your skin. When you look down, there’s white streaks left behind, little furrows free of blood. (Give ‘em a second, they’ll fill with orange.) But you can’t look down for long, because she’s prying at your ports, long nails hooking under the metal caps and pulling up.

There’s not much sensation in your ports. There’s just the feeling that it’s wrong, wrong, wrong, the silent klaxon of someone touching something they shouldn’t. Like fingers on your lungs.

Or a hand in your mouth.

You watch the walls, ears up high so you don’t look ungrateful.

“They’re wearing indigo,” she says, brisk, and you jerk hard enough to startle. Or you would’ve: there’s an iron grip on your shoulder suddenly, fingers firm enough to bruise as they hold you in place. “Still.” There’s no ire in her voice, just impatience. You can feel the impact of the knife hitting your ports, for all that you can’t feel the actual slice of your wires.

(You don’t need to. You shouldn’t be thinking of them. It’s not your blood catching on the blade. The wires aren’t actually a part of your body. There’s nothing here to hurt, even if you could feel it.)

“Why are they wearing indigo, Kazumi?”

“Ah…” He blinks at you, wide-eyed, his mouth twisted to the side. But whatever answer he’s looking for, you can’t supply it, not with the Shepherd sitting right there. “They.. it’s a part of the program, ma'am.”

“They’re putting the helms in their colours?”

“.. yes, ma'am.”

“Ridiculous,” she says, flat. “How are they supposed to learn their places if they are being treated as highbloods? Look at me, Kāyata.”

The knife klacks against the edge of your port, loud enough that you can hear it.

“ Kāyata.”

And then you feel the pinch of fingers digging into your cheeks as she pulls your face to look at her. “They can’t even obey orders.”

“I’m sorry, proctor,” you murmur, your voice rough. Seadwellers always look strange. Their skin’s too sleek. Their eyes don’t blink. “Hearing’s been on the fritz since Carnival.”

She clicks her tongue at you, close enough to Sipara that it feels like a slap. Your ears go back, and that doesn’t please her none, either: her mouth pinches, her fins flare, then she lets go of you. “And then they offer excuses. Mon dieu.”

“Burn the clothes, Kazumi,” she adds, and steps back. It’s only when she turns away that you realise she’s done; when you look down, the caps are back on your arm, and the tray next to you is filled with wire, and the fuschia-tipped blade. “And get them some in the right colour.”

PHERES DYSSEU | 5.2 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

“So what do you actually eat? Not the filth around here, I hope,” he says. “Honestly. Who eats lizards? Half of the children here act like ferals.”

And then a moment later, exasperated: “- Pheres, look at me.”

Face flushing, you clasp your hands behind your back and turn to face your moirail. A thousand excuses are jostling at the top of your head, but those are all a little sma- a little paltry to say, when you were being rude. It’s not your fault, you’re tempted to say, because it’s only been a few seconds since you looked away, and already your eyes are trying to trail back to the top of the cart. It’s just…

It’s so high! If you were up there, no one could reach you, and no one could see you, and no one would even think to see you. And the look-outs right there. You never noticed it on the inside of the cart, though you’ve been inside half a dozen times now. Maybe it’s just a storage hole. Maybe…

… you could put so much food away up there, away from Bennue’s beak, away from Alsike’s complaints about risking bugs and Simoom’s veiled threats. It looks big. You could fit armfuls of apples, and an entire loaf of bread, and not have to worry about Bennue fussing because you’re eating too much of Sipara’s food, or Alsike figuring out how to feed you, or Simoom getting mad about stealing ever again. Because no one would even know it was up there!

You only realise you’re back to staring at the hutch when Rmeros clears his throat. “Pheres,” he says, flat, and oh, no.

If your face goes any warmer, you’ll die. “Ah. I’m sor- my apologies,” you say, clasping your hands in front of you now, and you shift to look at him, turning your whole body towards him. That’s the only way you’ll stop staring, you think, but the hutch is still there out of the corner of your eye, taunting you.

You beam and tilt your head to the side, so that your braids hide it from view entirely. A moment later, you dampen the smile to something less objectionable, because Rmeros is looking at you. “I was just thinking. I didn’t mean to be rude! Um.”

There’s no way around it. “.. what were you saying?” you say. Or you start to, because Rmeros clicks his tongue, rolls his eyes, and then grabs a hold of you.

Two meaty hands underneath your arms. It’s a wonder you don’t hiss at him: he doesn’t touch you, on average, and neither does anyone else except for Sipara and Alsike, and it’s all you can manage to do not to hiss and kick, because you don’t like it. There’s fingers digging into your ribcage. Your feet are off the ground.

But then there’s burning metal against the bare of your legs, and his hands are off of you, and you’re scrambling back before you can think twice. When you do, your sandalsthump down on metal, a hollow, echoing noise. He put you on the roof of the van. You didn’t even know he was that tall.

“There.” When you peer down at him, he’s blank-faced. Your moirail has got a face like yours, so unlike everyone else at the hivestem, and for the first time, it strikes you how hard you could be to read, because his face is like stone. Small eyes, no ears to speak of: when his mouth is a line like this, just barely tugged down at the edges, you’re never certain of what you’re supposed to be seeing.

“Is this what’s been fascinating you? Don’t fall off,” he warns you.

“I won’t,” you promise, eager, and you’re halfway to the hutch before you remember he was talking to you in the first place. You slow down, turn on your heel, and return to the edge. The hutch is right there! But it’ll be there in a few minutes, too. “Um.” Should you thank him? He’s watching you, waiting, and - yes, you decide. He’s always on you about proper manners, and this is a thing that deserves manners, you’re pretty sure, even if he just grabbed you. If you’d been Sipara, you’d have gored him!

.. if you were Sipara, you wouldn’t have a moirail at all.

“Thank you!” You sit on the edge, prim, careful to keep your hand on the top. If you fall, it’s not exactly a big deal. You’ll just teleport down: this isn’t even a wink, this distance, for all that the ground seems impossibly far. You can still feel it. “What were you saying?”

“It’s irrelevant. Clearly.” He turns away, picking up his huskto- his laptop from the chair, and he’s halfway through the door of the van before he starts speaking again.

His voice drifts up to you from the hutch. You startle, then scramble over to that, pressing your face against the glass. “- come inside when you’re done.. staring at whatever you’re so fascinated with up there,” he says, tinny, “and we’ll cook something.”

“Something that’s actually food.”

ICONIC CONETL | 11 SWEEPS / 23 YEARS OLD

derevnya | 1,171 words

You’re starting to think that Vadaya’s infected you with a fucking virus, because Alexar’s built like a brick shithouse, and you’re not entirely sure you mind. He’s been kneading bread for the past five minutes. There’s not supposed to be anything attractive about that.

You’re not some sort of bread-enthralled deviant! It’s not like that. It’s just - it’s more than a little impossible to deny there isn’t something attractive about the level of attention he’s showing to it. And the tight shirt isn’t hurting things, either. You’re supposed to be cutting things, but instead you’ve been lounging in the air, watching the smooth pull of his shoulders rolling as he works.

Inviting him to a cooking class had been a lark! Bakers like cooking. It only made sense. You hadn’t expected him to offer to drop by your hive, instead, but of course you’d taken him up on it. Vadaya’s ruined your tastes, evidently, because there’s nothing about how solidly square that Alexar is that should appeal to you. The man’s a fucking triangle, all hard muscles and soft planes in turn, with downhooked horns, and hair that brushes his shoulders, and nothing, nothing at all that so much as reminds you of Steamy, or Gelato, or even fucking Dysseu: nobody that your gaze’s ever lingered on, even in passing, except Vadaya.

And now, apparently, fucking Alexar.

It’s a tragedy! If he was a little curvier, you could sling an arm around his waist and draw him in close. If he was a little more slender, then you could work with that. This is the first time that you’ve ever had a fellow follow up your date with the announcement he’s gotten back with his matesprit, but you’ve dealt with dozens of trolls a great more committed than Alexar fucking Spigot.

Unfortunately, none of them have been twice your size, and over six inches taller. As far as your usual strategies go, you’re having to improvise.

Though, if you’re being fair, it’s not like you’re having to do anything. Alexar’s not exactly a prize in himself. He’s fun, and he’s sweet, but you didn’t have an eye on keeping him around at first. Why would you? He’s not your type. He’s so very aggressively not your type - he’s not even highblooded, poor thing, and he’s a flatscan to boot.

You’ve never had much interest in that sort of person. They’re like cullbait: defenseless and soft and sad, in all the wrong kind of ways.

But if this is a competition, now, between you and some fellow you’ve never met.. well, the fact Alexar’s not a prize in himself doesn’t mean much.

All that matters is that you’ve never met a prize you haven’t taken.

“Are y’ even watchin’?” Alexar accuses you. He looks up from the bread, finally, lips curling into a smile. As far as these things go, it’s a nice mouth! Full lips. Nice shape. It looks better when they’re curled up in that lopsided smirk, dimpling his cheeks and pushing the bottoms of his eyes up. “Or,” he says, stretching out the word, “did y’ go ‘n fall asleep on me? World t’ ID. Bread’s almos’ done, sleepin’ beauty -”

He’s not a prize! But when you curl your lip at him and huff, rolling over mid-air, he laughs. It’s loud, and it’s brash, and it’s just as drawling as his speech, and it shouldn’t be charming. It is, though. He laughs, the sound echoing, those fucking dimples in his cheeks, and..

Oh, you hate the way you brighten.

(He’s not your type, either, but that hasn’t stopped you from taking him back home, has it?)

“I didn’t fall asleep, prettypear! I was just thinking, that’s all. You’re making an awful mess, you know that?” You grin back at him, and for the first time, you almost wish you had ears mobile enough to pin back. You don’t know how to look charming, rather than just intimidating. It’s not something you’d ever thought twice about; you’d slunk back hive dressed in blood and bruises, and all Steamy had ever done was get upset on your behalf. You could’ve culled someone in front of any of your paramours, and they wouldn’t have blinked an eye.

But she and Raphae had been indigo.

Alexar’s a jadeblood, and he’s a flatscan to boot. You could cull him in a thousand different ways! You’d taken him out to a culling fest, for heaven’s sake, just to show it off, before you’d given any thought on ever seeing him again. And he hadn’t flinched, but you don’t want him cowering like Dysseu or Lu. There’s no gratification in that.

But maybe you don’t need ears to set him at ease, because he doesn’t seem intimidated by you, for all that he should be. He just snorts, amused, as he looks himself up and down. “Am I?” he says, all guileless doubt, and for all that you should be irritated, all you do is click your tongue, straightening up from your roll as you set your feet neatly on the ground.

“You’re covered in flour! It’s a mess.”

“Really? Hh. Y'know, ’s what th’ apron’s for?”

“You’ve got it all over you,” you complain. “It’s a mess, darling. Here -”

His t-shirt is awfully tight. And it dips just dreadfully low, collarbone clear and exposed, the top of his chest highlighted - but you’re carefully not paying attention to that. No, he has a matesprit, and being obvious isn’t how you’ve ever won anything.

You have to be subtle.

And that’s why you make a show of sighing, like this is all some great burden, before you carefully, meticulously wet your lips. Alexar’s watching you as your tongue slides across them, slow and pointed. Of course he’s watching you, but it’s easy enough to pretend you’re not watching him through your lashes as you take a second pass.

Or as you slide your thumb across your bottom lip, forefinger positioned to brace it and draw emphasis to them, just in case he’s blind. Then you step in, balancing one hand against his shoulder as you lean forward and drag your thumb across his collar. The flour smudge comes off, just like that. Of course it does. It was barely there in the first place! And his skin’s so /cold/ under your hands, icy enough that it reminds you almost of Vadaya’s.

“I don’t know if you’re making bread, or dusting my kitchen,” you sniff. “But there! One spot off.” He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, and you tsk, tilting your head up to look at him. Your hand’s still on his shoulder, a single finger braced on the bare expanse of his neck.

When you curl your lip, you feel his pulse jump. “But,” you say, bright, stepping back, pressing your hand against your chest, “I guess it’ll just have to do. Try to be more careful, dearheart! And, now - what were you saying about the bread?”

PHERES DYSSEU | 9 SWEEPS / 19 YEARS OLD

scimitar academy grounds, ghoulisar

“Okay, but you have to tell me,” Kit protests, “why are you in the fountain, of all places?”

The water here is deep enough to hit your knees. If you sit down, it brushes at your chest, right where gills would be - and you know, because you’ve been lounging around in it all evening, since the moons first came up and it was safe enough to come outside. The Scimitar Institute has a pool somewhere on campus, but the water’s chlorinated there. It stings when you swim in it.

The fountain in this abandoned courtyard is all fresh water, clear and familiar as the air above. You’d discovered early on that no one ever comes to this corner of the campus to notice you splashing around in it, and you’ve taken to lounging around in it all that you want, on the nights that you’re free. You can hold your breathe, close your eyes and just lean back in the water, letting the air stream out of your lungs one bubble at a time like you’re a pupa back in the desert.

It’s just the moonlight on your skin, the water rushing through your ears, and no around except you. You’ve sat for hours like this, coming up only as long as it takes to refill your lungs. It’s the best thing you’ve ever done, and it’s the most peaceful thing you’ve ever done; it’s only ever you out here, in this courtyard full of vines and neglect.. and Kit, when she’d finally made her way over and hauled you up with a yelp.

Now your curls are dripping streams, little thunks of droplets that pop as they hit the surface. There’s water rolling down your face, collecting on the edges of your lashes, and the wind feels like it’s dragging on every pore in your skin. Everything feels.. so much more than it usually does right now, from the pulse of the water around you as you sit here, even down to the colours of the trees hanging down around you.

When’s the last time that you felt like this?

You always feel amazing in the water. But not like this.

Kit’s waiting for a proper answer. She thought you drowned, you think, judging from the way she’d looked at you, and oh - you should be guilty, but you can’t muster anything more than this bubbling exhilaration. She’s worried you’d drown.

If you ever breathed in, would the water keep you? The idea of drowning seems so foreign to you, for all that Sipara’s feared it since the first time she’d seen you sink below the tide. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t, you think, hurt you more than the air in your lungs.

Can you drown? Lu doesn’t think you can drown. You’ve never worried about drowning, not ever, not once, and sometimes it feels like you’ve spent more time in the water than you ever have on land. Sometimes it feels like you belong here, more than you ever have on land, and maybe that thought should stick, but it doesn’t.

Rmeros drowned, but -

- when was the last time you thought about your signmate?

“I love you,” you blurt out, and, oh, you’re laughing.

(Perigees. Perigees and perigees, and you’re not him, and you don’t think you could ever drown.)

Kit blinks at you. “Oh. Oh, wow.” Another long blink, but her mouth’s creeping up in a smile, even as she hooks a hand behind her neck. Her smile keeps widening, like she can’t help it: “- um. Are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine. I just, ah -” Your breath catches when you exhale, all at once, but it’s not uneven. It’s as steady as it’s ever been. “I love you,” you repeat, firm, and her eyes widen. “I’m.. you’re amazing, miss London, and you’re brilliant, and.. ah. If I didn’t know you, my life would be so much more dreadful. But I do, and I love you, and I just -”

“You should know,” you say, as her fang bites into her lip, and there’s water all around you, and it feels like everything around you’s been stripped down to the things most important you; the water, and her eyes. “It’s not fair, that I ever thought you shouldn’t. Everyone should know, I think, and.. oh, it’s a shame they don’t.”

“Oh, wow, Pheres. Um. Well! I love you, first of all, and second of all, I think,” she says, wry, “maybe you’re being a little silly, but -” and then you’re reaching up to tug her in. Hooking your hand around her head, you tug her down, and she laughs right in your face, half a protest - then she’s falling forward anyway, one hand braced against the bottom of the fountain as her feet catch on the edge.

The kiss is clumsy. It’s stupid. Her nose bumps into yours, her teeth clinking against yours, and - oh, it’s nothing like your books, or the movies, or anything even close to dignified. It’s silly, and soppy, and it’s her, in a way that sends warmth pulsing through you. It’s Meukit, in a thousand different ways you could never even try to explain, and it’s..

.. you, really. It’s the both of you, through and through.

“Okay, um - I’m sorry, but we’re not going to drown in here,” Kit finally says when she pulls away. “And I think, if we stay, that’s what’ll happen.” This is such a dreadful position the both of you are in: her half-sprawled into the water and half-sprawled over you, one arm hooked around your neck like that’s the only thing keeping you from sinking in entirely. Her lips are blue as she beams at you, slightly chapped along the edges. The cerulean in her cheeks is blotchy, as uneven as the colour in her eyes, and with the way you’ve ruined her hair, she looks seven.

A sweep ago, you’d have died before you ever dated someone as young as seven. “And, um -” And she even sounds seven, a laugh catching at the edge of her voice, the slightest edge of an adolescense’s break: “- neither should you.”

When you titter, your voice blurring into hers, you don’t sound much older. If someone looked at the two of you, half-toppled in the fountain, water dripping from your clothes and red and blue all over, they might not even know you’re much older than seven -

But you aren’t, and for once, the thought doesn’t make you want to peel away layers until you’re something better.

If you were a cusp - if Lu is right - then maybe things would be different. Maybe Kit wouldn’t be in the water with you, water dripping down her chin, her brows knit like you’re the stupidest person she’s ever met, her mouth twisted like you’re the best person she’s ever met.

But Kit loves you right now, and you think she’d love you regardless.

“Maybe I wouldn’t drown,” you offer, bright, rubbing your nose against hers, and her fingers are cold when they lace through yours, but her grip’s strong.

“Maybe not,” she says, warm, as she pulls you up, “but let’s not try it out.”

You think you could love you, too.

THERE WASN’T ANY WATER IN THE WISHING WELL

ICONIC CONETL

10.5 sweeps / 24 years old | somewhere in the continental core
^{2191 words}

“Sweetling,” you say, “d’you figure I’m just bad at this?”

The bathroom smells like bleach and copper, sharp enough that it makes you want to gag. The cool of the tile against your forehead’s some help! It’s a distraction, at least, for a few moments at a time. And then you hear the scrape of metal on metal, and your gorge is back up, heavy as a softball in the back of your throat.

You’d known what you were getting into! But, oh, knowing your intolerances didn’t mean you’d realised it’d be quite this bad. If anyone’s going to be pawing at your ports, though, it might as well be Sipara.

She was the first to see them after they were installed. Why shouldn’t she be the first to see them now that they’re broken?

“Bad at what?” she says idly. When you glance back at her, she’s still digging through her toolkit, pulling things to the side and setting them on the sink. Her little sterilisation box is behind them, its mouth half-open and waiting with a patience that nearly feels palpable.

When you look at it, it winks at you.

“Don’t ask me. Oh, everything? Bonnie’s off in space. Vadadear is -” You drag your tongue across your lips. “- a bad idea,” you decide, slowly. “A terrible idea. Steamy’s - well, Bonnie’s off in space. D’you think she would be, if I were, y’know - better at this?”

“I think,” she drawls, “your face’s going white, nerd, so, like, stop watchin’ me set up?”

You turn back to the tile, closing your eyes as you rest your head against it. This isn’t Sipara or Hadean’s apartment, you don’t think. Maybe the little brownblood dawdling in the living rooms? The walls are all green and white, painted up in something that edges uncannily close to jade, and if you stare long enough, you think you could dig up the hex code. “So bossy, sweetling.”

“But fine! I’m looking away.”

“Good.” All you have to listen to is the clink of metal as she moves. A message from Cramel pops up in the corner of your vision, but it’s as scrambled as everything coming in from your wetware’s been, lately, so you blink the notification off. Oh, if it’s important, she’ll call. “And, umm - Bonnie’s your rail, yeah?”

“Mm~!” If you just focus on the conversation, this is all nearly tolerable. There’s something nostalgic about this, for all that you’d never let Sipara work on you back when you were still quadrants. Shepherd would’ve skinned the both of you if she’d so much as nicked any of her hardware, and the scars had still been fresh, back then.

No, it’s not the portwork that’s familiar. It’s just the feel of her, and the comfort of being near. Sipara’s practically a weight in any room she’s in, and it’s soothing enough to fall into her orbit. You’d mostly combed through her problems! She was a pupa. But that was a sweep ago, and she’d always wanted to try, at least, for yours. “Mm. She’s gone all the time. Policeradicator business, y’know,” you say, and you hear the twitch of her ear. “Which is fine, I’m not exactly a clingy sort of fellow, but - well - it’s just kind of wretched, isn’t it, when you don’t know when someone’ll be there, or when they’ll be gone?”

Your words are getting a little heavy. You roll your shoulders, letting your eyes drift up for all that no one can see it. “How did you manage with your dear fourprongs, sweetheart?”

She doesn’t reply. You give her twenty seconds, then thirty, but the silence is just dragging on, getting heavier with each passing moment, and then you give in. “Sipa?”

When you turn around to look at her, her shoulders are hunched in, and.. oh. She’s not looking at you. You step over, careful, and each step feels like weights are tied to your feet. (How do people ever manage without psionics?) “Sipa,” you croon, reaching out. Her hair’s covering her face, thick as a curtain. You have to tuck your hand under her face to tilt it up, one thumb on her chin, and -

- she’s crying, the sort of runny brown tears you haven’t seen since she was little. “Oh, no,” you say, alarmed. “Oh, no, sugarpop - Sipadear - what’re you doing?”

She snarls at you, baring every last one of those fangs, and just like that, you withdraw. There’s plenty of old scars on your wrists and arms from her snits as a pupa, rings of weals and chalk-white skin. You don’t need to add more. “Sipadear,” you scold, but that doesn’t bring down the threat display; she just whines instead like a broken car engine, with the sort of rasp that you don’t know where she got. “What’s wrong? C’mon, sweetling, you’ve got words. What’s the matter?”

She sniffs. You croon at her, voice pitched low and soft as a lusus. “Cinnamondumpling,” you half-sing, “c’mon, now, spit it out -”

She opens her mouth.

There’s a sharp knock at the door, loud as a gunshot, and just like that, Sipara wilts.

“Sips?” Hadean calls a moment later, and you’re going to strangle him. “You okay in there?”

“I -”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, she actually sobs, before she clamps both hands over her mouth.

It’s a little too late. If it was anyone else, you’d be impressed by how quickly the door snatches open! Hadean’s certainly got a mind for dramatics; if he wasn’t as ruint as the rest of you, blood-dark shadows marring his skin and hollows in his cheeks, it’d be almost striking. His horns are up, his lip is curled. He looks like a hound stepping in front of his herd, after it went and got hit by a car.

It’s pathetic.

“We’re fine,” you drawl, stepping forward. There’s blood streaking down his face again, a sticky cherry river creeping down those cheekbones, and if Sipara wasn’t here, you’d lick your thumb and wipe it right off.

But she’s right here. It’s a shame, really! If she wasn’t, you can’t help but reflcet, this would be a nice enough opportunity to get rid of your little clone, once and for all. (Even down to the initials - every time you’re over it, something reminds you of exactly how subpar her replacement for you was.) “We’re just talking, sweetheart. Y’might’ve heard of it~! It’s what folks do when they’re not cracking heads with strangers online, mm?”

“So don’t worry!” There’s the smaller brownblood peeking out from behind him, dull eyes wide as saucers in the dark. “You and your little sap-eyed potoobrain can just settle down.”

“We’re fine,” Sipara echoes behind you, scrubbing at her eyes with a palm. “I promiiise -”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure!”

He glances your way with a derisive flick of his eyes, and then he clicks his tongue, pulling the door shut.

You give it thirty seconds, then you tilt your head at her. “Sipara,” you coax, soft. “Sweetheart! What’s got you started, hmm?”

“.. Pheres’s dead.”

Oh.

You don’t think congratulations are what she’s after, exactly! Or, well, no. Of course it isn’t, for all that it’s warranted, and for all that he isn’t her quad any longer. But that’s alright. You can say something comforting, the sort of things she’s waiting to hear. You open up your mouth -

- and what comes out is a crackle of static instead, as the censoring device kicks in.

If you could, you’d scalp Raphae for this. But he’s over two hundred miles towards the sea, and you can’t focus on the swell of rage, not when Sipara’s right here. “Don’t cry over it,” you try instead, and this time, when you reach out, she doesn’t growl. Her hair’s wiry under your palm, the way it always was. Has been. And when’s the last time you had to comfort her when she cried? “C’mon, now, chin up, sweetling. What d’you think that’s gonna do?”

“It’s not fair.” She leans into your hand hard, eyes fluttering shut, and if her voice’s ragged, her expression’s just tight. “It’s not fair, Ico, it’s - he’s dead, and I couldn’t do anything - nobody even knew to do nothing - and - and Riccin’s hurt, and -”

“Everyone keeps leaving.” Her voice’s getting thick. Your throat’s tightening in response, a cold weight hanging in the back, somehow so different from the way you were gagging before. “Hads almost died, too, and - everyone keeps leaving, and so did you, and now you’re trying to pretend we’re normal.”

“I thought you were dead!”

You’d have preferred to stick with the gagging, you think.

Her eyes are shining red, now, that rheumy cusp-hue that you’ve never been sure what to think of. It’s trailing sticky tracks down her cheeks, for all of her swiping; there’s tears dripping off of her lashes and rolling down her nose, and it’s awful, because through it all, she’s watching you. And you don’t know what to do.

With Bonnie, you’d have papped her. Or shooshed her. A sweep ago, you might’ve done the same with Sipara, properity be damned! How many times is your fledging going to swing into the nest, singing her sad songs? These are the sort of things that her moirails should be dealing with, but..

Well. Sipara’s always had wretched taste in that sort of thing, hasn’t she?

So you ruffle her hair, running your fingers through the ironed-flat strands, letting your nails scrape at her scalp in the way you know she appreciates. “Oh, my poor little hellion. D’you want an apology?” Her eyes are so red. “Because I’m sorry I left you,” you say, warm and soft and carefully, meticulously free of your usual contempt. Sipara’s all shining light and brittle edges, right now. The wrong word could shatter her like a pane, you think, without even trying.

So you keep it docile. “I would’ve brought you with me, if I’d thought about it - but, gosh, I didn’t, and that was downright cruel. But I’m here now. And I’m not going to leave again, how’s that?” You free your hand from her hair, give her ear a little tug that sets all of the rings to jangling. “It’ll be you and me, from now on,” you half-croon, lusus-soft, but she’s just.. staring at you.

The last time you’d had to comfort her like this, she’d been round-cheeked and moptopped, nearly a whole sweep younger. Her face’s got angles, now. She looks older, and the shade of her pupa-self rests in the twist of her mouth, the cant of her ears. It’s painfully familiar. It’s distressingly new, too, and like a routine set to new music, you’re not sure exactly where to set your feet.

“Sipa -” you prompt, and then she flings down her tools in a clatter of metal, and throws herself at you.

Her face fits neatly into your collarbone. She’s just small enough that her curls tickle at the bottom of your chin, and her hands, when she wraps them tight around your back, are entirely too warm. She’s too warm, really, to be touching you; you can feel the heat of her sinking through your skin and burning each of your scars, wedging its way in like brands on your husk. You’ve gone stiff as a rod, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

You hate folks touching you like this, but it’s Sipara. You pat her head, awkwardly, twice, and you give her a moment before you start gently prying her off. She goes, grudgingly, ears drooping so low that they’re brushing her shoulders. “Don’t strangle me,” you tease her, once she’s finally loose. She looks like a half-drowned rat, poor pupa, so you sling an arm around her shoulder, haul her in as close as you can tolerate.

“It’s understandable you’re upset, sugarhorns.” There’s a fine line to dance here, between true sympathies and false, but you can manage it. Haven’t you spent sweeps learning how? “And I’m sorry for your loss. For everyone’s. But you’ve still got your little red-mite out there, don’t you?” A beat. “And you’ve got me.” You give her shoulder a tug, then you let go. Her hair’s all a mess from your tousling! Fingers through it straightens it out neat enough, at least. “So don’t fret -”

She exhales, deflating under you, and then she pulls back. “I don’t believe you,” she says, quiet. “I dunno how I can.” She’s not looking you in the eyes as she turns away, shoulders down, her ears still drooping, and.. oh. Oh, damn it all. “Sipa,” you try, coaxing, “hey -”

“We got work to do, dude.” Her voice’s getting steadier, now that she’s not looking at you, and somehow that hurts. It used to be that you could comfort her out of whatever ruts she was in, as easy as soothing your lusus.

But you suppose a lot changes, in half a sweep. “Go ahead and take off your shirt, and we’ll get started.”

ICONIC CONETL | 8 SWEEPS / 17 YEARS OLD

RAPHAE IRRIGO | 7 SWEEPS / 16 YEARS OLD

temasek, hanhai region | 1,406 words

“What,” Raphae says, with great despair, “are you doing?”

You pause, one foot still on the tile. When you twist up your leg to check, the sole of your boot’s still scraped clean of mud and blood entirely. “I’m not going to track on the carpet, dear,” you protest, squinting in the light, “but - well - if you’d rather -”

When you yank on your psionics, you nearly double over.

There’s fire in your pan, coursing through your veins and scalding everything they pass by. Pain ripples through you, all the way from the top down: burning through your skin, seeping out in pulses from your horns. While there’s pink dancing in front of your eyes, when you blink, there’s yellow, too.

Hands clamp down on your shoulders. You’d bent a knee without thinking, horns ducked, but all you can manage is a thin rattle of protest as Raphae steers you over to the couch. “That was dumb. Sit down,” he says, and you could take it, if he was angry.

But he’s not. When you blink the iron out of your eyes, his brow is knit and his lips are thin, and he looks so dreadfully disappointed as he fetches the tea.

You’d hit him, if you could. You don’t want his help. You hadn’t asked for it, not once, not ever, and if you thought carving the words into his thick skull to make him believe that, then you would - but you can’t. Even the thought has your pan nanny weighing down on you, heavy as a fist, close enough to pain that it makes your eyes flutter closed, and no amount of ire’s worth that, not when so much as sparking already aches.

So you push the thought down, douse it to the bottom of your pan, until it’s nothing more than a bittersweet pang to deal with later.

Instead, you curl against the arm of the couch, ignoring the way you’re streaking green and yellow across the black. The cleaning droids will take care of it. They always do, and if they charge a little more, then he should’ve just let you go to bed. “It’s just a little burn-out.” Small-talk isn’t what you want, not when your mouth stings with unfamiliar iron, and everything aches. But Raphae’s rounding the corner from the kitchen nook - ha, nook - again, a glass of the iced brew in his hands, a rag on his wrist, and you can already tell he won’t let you sit in peace.

You’d slunk into the hive hours after your performance to try and avoid him. But of course he’d stayed up waiting for you. Why wouldn’t he?

He is your matesprit.

“Barely stage one,” you insist as he pushes the glass into your hands. All you want to do is curl up in your recuperacoon and sleep for the next three days, but it’s dawning on you that it’s not going to happen, not until you drink the tea. Perhaps you could stall! But what if he ordered you to drink it? So you take a sip instead, grimacing at the chemicals that lather your tongue. Rubbing it against the roof of your mouth, unfortunately, does onthing to dislodge them.

“Barely stage one is too close. That’s -” If Raphae ever got angry, this would be so much easier! That’d be an allowance. If he got angry, then maybe so could you, without your nanny pressing in like an anvil on a weight, but he just sighs instead, like you’re a pupa, like you’re Sipara caught in his room for the third time. “There’s only three stages.” If Raphae layered his patience on any thicker, you’d drown in it. You wish you could. “You shouldn’t have pushed that far at all.” His eyes soften. “You could’ve hurt yourself. You - god, ID, what were you thinking?”

His fingers brush your cheek, and bile rises in your throat. When you pull away, he exhales, shoulders slumping, but he doesn’t follow.

You take another sip of tea. You can’t get angry. You won’t get angry. And if your voice goes dry, that’s not the sort of thing that draws more then a buzz of discontent from your pan. They can make you mild! They can’t make you pleasant, no matter how much they try.

“I was thinking, darling, that it’d make a good show -”

“You tortured them,” Raphae says, flat, and his eyes aren’t nearly so soft, now.

Thank the gods. The way he’s looking at you is so much better than before. Anything’s better than that, so you smile at him, crooked and lazy, so he can see the green on your teeth. “But the crowd loved it, didn’t they?”

“You weren’t supposed to, Iconic.” He runs a hand through his hair, tangling his hair in the strands. And maybe you should be pleased, but it’s hard, when the next words he says are so stiff: “Shepherd’s furious. Wattan had a prestigious career ahead of them. And they were scheduled to start working under Neophyte Dimseede next perigee. You knew that.”

“Working under, hmm?” At his look, you laugh, curling your lip at him. “Don’t prosleytize me. I did them a favour, Raphae, and you know it. D'you think they wanted to be sent off to be someone’s personal assistant? No. They wanted to dance.”

“Same as the rest of us.” There’s drugs in the tea, meant to bring down your temperature, freeze all the straining in your blood vessels and slow the expansion until it’s no longer a danger. And although it’s unpleasant, you can feel it working. When you tug at your psi - gently, gently as you can manage, more of a tap than anything else - although there’s a ripple of protest down your spine, it’s nothing compared to earlier.

Not even stage one, then. You’ll be better in a night or two, and Raphae’ll have no reason to stay hovering. Maybe you’ll suggest the troupe does a tour outside of Temasek, too, in the next week or so. Shepherd does hate for him to leave the city.

“No one can dance forever. Psionics don’t save your knees. And - this is a stupid debate,” he finally huffs, hand still in his hair. “And you’re not taking it seriously. Don’t pretend you did anyone a favour, and certainly not Wattan. Shepherd is furious, Iconic.”

“I’m supposed to entertain, sweetheart. The crowd thought I was amazing.”

“You flayed a troll alive!” he snaps. “You tortured them, like some sort of a fucking clown. The crowd thinks you’re a feral.”

“If a little violence bothers you that much,” you say, conversational, “why, I bet you could just add that protocol to my head, too.”

He takes a breath, dragging his hands down his face. You like him better when he’s angry, over when he’s trying to simper at you. “That’s unfair.” Raphae frowns at you, but only for a moment: then he just looks sad, tired, and you’re all the way back to disappointment. “You know I wouldn’t do that, Ico.”

You swallow the last dredges of your tea. The bottom is chalky, as always, but your head’s feeling better - you’ll give him that. And when you swing your legs over the edge of the couch, your pan has cooled just enough that you can take some of the weight off your feet. You hate walking without psionics. It makes you feel drunk.

“I’m going to bed,” you tell him, brisk. “If Shepherd’s so gosh darn mad, I suggest you - oh, I don’t know - pap her, and tell her that ticket sales ought to be out the roof for the rest of the season. What’s that, compared to one little green? Why, I bet she’ll be able to make dozens just like them.”

“Really? You liked Wattan.” As much as you like anyone, he starts to say, lips forming the words, but for once, he thinks better of it. Perhaps the protocol slap had stung more than you’d expected! Because instead, he just sighs - and isn’t he ever tired of sighing?

“And I did her a favour.” Your psionics aren’t solid enough for you to really walkproperly: there’s too much weight on your feet, too much pressure gluing you to the ground, but there’s scarcely a sway as you step around the couch.

Your room’s the closest to the door for precisely this kind of reason. You’ll do just fine.

“She always promised she’d do the same for me,” you add, jauntily, and you don’t stay to see his expression. He knows you can’t lie. He made sure of that. “Light, Raphae. Thanks for the tea.”

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December 2018

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DUST ‘EM OFF (PUT 'EM BACK UP ON THE SHELF)

6TH PERIGEE OF THE 760TH SWEEPICONIC CONETL: 10 SWEEPS / 21 YEARS OLD

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RAPHAE IRRIGO | 7 SWEEPS / 16 YEARS OLD

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6TH PERIGEE OF THE 760TH SWEEP
ICONIC CONETL: 10 SWEEPS / 21 YEARS OLD