i will cut the dragon's feet

RICCIN KAYATA | 5 SWEEPS, 12 YEARS OLD
temasek, hanhai district [4855 words]

“This,” Ico whispers, leaning in so that his curls brush your cheek, close enough that you can feel the feedback from his psi pinging off your horns, “is the blessing of being yellow, my little buttercup, and don’t you ever forget it.”

He’s got the two of you floating far, far, far above the crowd: with your feet tucked in, you’re not near enough to ruffle any heads, though you do have to kick up and out of the way when some eight foot monstrosity with a rack almost as long goes skating underneath. And she’s not the only one! You’ve never seen this many highbloods in one place before, and you’ve never seen so many nearly full-grown. You’d always thought you were big. You’re a head taller than Nzinga, and all of the crechekids but Kindra, and only a handspan smaller than Ico.

But there’s horns long enough to touch, here, and Ico has to boost you up higher when you start to reach down.

It’s an easy adjustment for him to make! He’s not as strong as you, maybe: Ico’s all finesse and style, those silly little kicks that send him flying across the stage, the psi-knives that cut right through his combatant’s strings, or joints, or throats. If Nzinga was here, you don’t think he could manage all three of you, not at all. But she isn’t! It’s just you and him, and he keeps you both up like it’s no problem at all. When he straightens back up from his whisper, you can’t even feel the pinch of his psi on your skin, he holds you so careful.

Which is good, you think, because getting dropped right into the middle of Carnival would be really, really bad.

Technically, you’re not even supposed to be here.

You’re old enough to roam where you want, do as you will: it’s only the ickle five sweeps that have to worry about pangomom haunting their steps, and you’re very nearly six, close enough and old enough that you could spit. You don’t go as far as you used to, when it was you ‘n Myrrha 'n Li 'n Weeds, but that’s 'cause it doesn’t make no sense to, that’s all. The world’s big, and scary, and your lusus isn’t allowed out of the city. When you’re older, Cu keeps telling you, then they’ll let you take her anywhere you want, but for right now, she’s got a collar and a charm that won’t let her out past Temasek.

And Kindra can’t leave, and Raphae fusses, if Ico’s gone too long, and for a grub who grew up on a farm, Nzinga’s no fun: she whines and she fusses if she doesn’t have a roof over her head, and she wants all of her food cooked. It just doesn’t make sense to go too far, with all of that. You don’t let yourself go past Cascara, not ever, even when you want, and you don’t let yourself go to full Carnivals, neither, even though you want.

Usually. You’re just a half-paint! A proper Carnival full of adults is no place for you. That’s how you get culled. Would they get in trouble afterwards? Sure. But it’s not like that matters much to you, when you’re face-down in some cullpit!

But Ico had mentioned he was going on one for a date, as casual as anything, and, well -

- he’s just a half-paint, too, and he ain’t even serious about it. He gaffs off the hymnbooks like they’re fun, not real, and he sneers at every priest soon as their backs turned. And if he was going, then why shouldn’t you?

You’d been a little surprised when he’d actually agreed to it. But here you are now, with his arm slung around your shoulder, bobbing above the crowd to watch them work, and the girl he’s got next to him is busy making sure the lot of you don’t get seen. And here you are, fucking wasting it, 'cause you’re not watching the crowd at all.

You’re watching her.

You can’t help it! She’s all horns and fangs, with a set of hooks that curve down even farther than yours, but more important than that - you’ve just never seen a psychic without ports, that’s all, but the base of her neck is bare, bare, bare.

Ico’s whispering to her now, something too dim for you to hear. Carnival’s so loud! You’d thought that the half-paint liturgies that you’ve been going to were raucous enough, but the noise here’s so wicked you can feel it in your bones, echoing and echoing and echoing 'til there’s no room for nothin’ else. But she seems to hear him well enough, because she laughs, mouth wide enough to set off those fangs.

When you tug on his sleeve, he waves you off, tilts his head just enough for you to see his mouth. You can read lips!

And he’s gaffing you off, telling you to enjoy the show.

Maybe you should! The first time you’d seen Carnival, all those ages back, back when you were a wriggler fresh to the program, you’d been awestruck by your first Navigressor tent. There’d been purple draped from the top to the bottom, beads hanging like raindrops from the clouds, and the air was thick with a thousand things you’d never smelled before. You’d never seen that many people in one spot before, not at Lang-Kheh, not even when Liyiji had taken you out to watch the boat race, and the water had been crowded with the flags of a hundred million different boats.

It’d been loud. It’d been wicked. It’d been the best thing you’d ever experienced, from top to bottom, and it’s nothing at all compared to the sea of people churning below you. You can see everything from up here! That’s why Ico hauled the two of you up, and had his girl following. The whole event’s spread out like the most glorious fucking banquet, all ready for you to feast your eyes on. There’s singing. There’s dancing. There’s fuckers demonstrating paint techniques behind the high walls of tent stalls that you can see right over.

For fuck’s sake, there’s a FayGo fountain, and they’ve got heretics lined up to be doused in it. The trolls down there aren’t like the ones in the cullpit: if they’ve got voodoos on 'em, they’re weak, because they’re foaming and hissing, even though they’re scarcely even near it yet.

But you keep sneaking looks at Ico and his girl, instead, who’re back to whispering. She’s leaning in now, her hair falling like a curtain around the two of 'em, and you can’t even see their faces to take a guess at what they’re saying.

Not that you care.

“Ico,” you murmur, tugging hard on his sleeve, “why doesn’t she have any gear?”

It’s like watching a film! He rolls back his shoulder, then he sighs, deflating like some motherfucker is pulling every ounce of air out of his lungs, and he ain’t got none left to breathe. The look he gives you is mournful, sure, but there’s an edge to it, too, the sort that promises he’s gonna whine about this later.

Behind him, the girl laughs, a hand in front of her mouth.

“Darling!” Has there ever been anybody in the whole wide world who’s made an endearment sound so salty? “Honeyblossom,” he says, and for all that he’s mouthing the words, you just know there’s an edge to it: “- you can’t just ask that, you little feral.”

“Brotherrrr~, I just did,” you deadpan, but he’s already holding up a finger.

“So you did! But that doesn’t mean -” The girl leans in, places her head on his shoulder. It’s so affectionate! Nzinga’s almost never that affectionate with you. “- that doesn’t mean,” he says, with scarcely a falter, “that you should! Ask me later, honeybunches, how’s that, and then we’ll cover it out. For now -”

He places a hand on your face, thumb firmly on one side of your chin and fingers braced around it, and then he steers your gaze back to the festival, just in time for the heretics to reach the fountain. You can’t read what he’s saying after that, but the pat on your cheek says enough.

Not that you’re paying much attention.

You didn’t realise they were gonna get drowned.

He doesn’t explain it later: he drops you off at the academy and fucking bails instead, because Iconic Conetl is nothing but a liar and a goddamn traitor.

But that’s alright! That’s perfectly fine, 'cause you got others folks you can ask, and you never needed him none, anyway.

Sipara just blinks at you when you ask her. “Uh,” she says, eloquent as fuck, and then she squints, wrinkling her nose. “Why would she have ports, nerd?”

Sipara’s always enjoyed being a brat. She’ll answer your questions, though, if you phrase it right, and lay out the right bait. She’s never liked nothin’ more than hearing the sound of her own blather, and she likes sparks more'n even you do.

“'cause everyone’s got ports!” Stomping your foot’s too pupa-ish even for you. But you can roll back your shoulders like Ico, lift your chin, sneer down your nose, and the way she rankles in response is /great/, 'cause she can’t match it. What’s she gonna do? Get on a chair?

And from the way she twists her mouth, all difficult, she knows it.

“Nobody in Hanhai has 'em.” You don’t even know where she gets this tone sometimes, all prim and shit. It doesn’t suit her! It makes you want to pinch her 'til she’s hissing again, acting the way she ought.. but you’ve got a better way than that.

“Everyone in Hanhai’s half-feral and wretched,” you declare, and oh! There go her ears, straight up in the air, like you’ve brought down the most dour kinda offense. “They’re losers and wrastels. They don’t know their ass from their head, on accounta the fact they can’t read none, and they’re 'bout as smart as the dead outside -” You pause, contemplative, and wait. Soon as she opens up her mouth, you’re ready: “- nah, nah, girl,” you say, loud, watching the colour flood her cheeks, “they’re dumber, 'cause at least the dead ain’t there, tryin’ to grow shit in a goddamn desert – oof!”

Sipara’ll give you all the answers you want, if you lay out the right kinda bait.

Unfortunately, sometimes she takes it a little too well.

So your second try, after you get some ice for your poor fangs, is with Canvio.

Canvio’s always holed up in the library! You don’t get it. At least Nzinga has good hobbies. When she’s not at the gym, or at the ring, or at hymns, or trying to ruin your entire goddamn life, she’s.. well, you don’t really know what she does, other than that, but it’s gotta be interesting. She’s Nzinga. She’s never had a boring fucking night in her whole, entire life.

All Canvio does is read, read, read, and suck up to folks when she ain’t. And sure enough, when you poke your nose into the bookdome, there she is, sitting on the edge of a table, chattering up a storm at some neophyte still in his dress unis.

“I think it’s just amazing,” the boy says, leaning forward, his fins flaring as he picks up speed, “that we have this much variation in laws, honestly. I mean, consider! The culling distinctions are fairly different between provinces, of course, but that’s not laziness, that’s just - think of it like pieces in an engine. We have thousands and thousands of parts, and each one needs to work together as a whole, but by necessity, the crankshaft needs to function differently than the shocks. They work together to make the car move, but they aren’t the same, and it’d never work, if they were.”

“That’s - um, that’s a good point.” Canvio’s twisting her hair around her finger, her free hand drumming against the table as she tries to think. She’s finally grown into her ears the last sweep or so, and it’s about time. They’re still too heavy to sit up proper, but they scarcely go past her shoulders, now. “But -”

You don’t know the violet legislacerator. Indigo? Those are fins on his mug, sure enough, but his face ain’t strange in the way that the proctors are! There’s /dents/ in his skin, dimples, not just sleek fat, and he actually blinks as he talks, like his eyes don’t just stay wet on their own. And his teeth are flat enough that he can actually bite into his lip without shredding it. “But?” he prompts.

“But the proctors think it’s silly.”

He actually dimples at her, opens his mouth -

- and you clear your throat, leaning forward on the table with a thump of your hand against it.

“Girl,” you sing, showing your fangs, “sister, I just hate to interrupt this fine fucking discussion, but I got questions, and you’re the only one who can answer 'em. The only one in this whole building! The only one in this whole world. And it ain’t my intention to intrude - it ain’t my intention to fucking burst in, but, but -”

“- you’re going to do it anyway?” the boy offers.

“- but I’m gonna do it anyway,” you confirm, and Canvio turns to face you, her ears swinging with the motion. If she was anybody else, you’d think that was a frown ghosting around the corners of her mouth, a reprimand jostling for attention and just waiting to get out. But you’ve known her since her ears were hitting the ground. Ire isn’t a word in her dictionary.

She just blinks at you, slow and languid, and then smiles, her brows knit just so. “Iunno how I can help you, Riccin.” She’s always so quiet, quiet, quiet: your ears are still ringing from the noise from Carnival and Sipara’s clout across the head, and you gotta lean in just to catch her cant. “I’m sure I don’t know the sort of thing you.. um, that you might be interested in.”

“Nonsense! You know everything.” Flattery wins every soul over, doesn’t it? You’re pretty sure you heard that. The indigo makes a curious noise, and you look at him side-long. “Hasn’t she told you that, brother?”

“Liable. And no! She forgot to say,” he says, amused. “I mean, obviously, she’s pretty smart, but.. everything?”

“Oh.” She’s flushing. “Um. No, not everything -”

“Everything,” you confirm cheerily. She’s turning as red as a bottle of the proctor’s hemming. “Girl’s got a mind like a steeltrap. Can’t forget anything, not ever, not once she hears it! She’s better than a fucking computer.”

The indigo - nah, Liable - looks from you to her. You can see the moment the thought clicks in his pan, that this is who he’s been talking to, and maybe Canvio does too, because she squares her shoulders, and even her snub of a nose scrunches up like she just smelled something sour.  "Riccin,“ she says, plainative, and this is as close to a reprimand as she’s ever gotten with you. "What do you want?”

And maybe it’s 'cause she’s so plainative that you just spit it out. “How come some folks get ports?” you demand. “'cause I saw a girl without 'em in town, and she was still using her psi, and everything.”

“.. not every psionic needs ports.” She’s back to twirling her hair around her hand, watching you through her lashes. Canvio’s only a little shorter than you, but she acts like she’s so much smaller. “Was she part of the program?”

You think of Ico, and the way he doted on her. He doesn’t like the rest of the program, aside from you and Sipara. Sometimes you think he doesn’t even like Iphige, for all the attention he pays her, and she’s his fucking moirail.

“Nah,” you say.

“Then that’s why.” She nods, brisk, and then slips into that tone you’re used to hearing from her testing: the slight drone that sets the base of your horns to itching as her powers kick in. “Amplification ports were developed in the sixteenth cohort cycle of our empress’s reign,” she recites, “as a tool to aid in the development of her Dreaded Condescensions’ newly fledged fleet. The first institution to use them formally was the Imperial Dreadnought Core: soon afterwards, they became standard in the Imperial Education Program, before spreading throughout the remainder of the empire’s government.”

She blinks. Switches tracks. “Tonight,” she says, eyes shining faintly with gold, “they are common amongst the upper cohorts, but high prices and the lack of availability makes them rare in the leading cycle. Amplification ports are primarily found in members of early Ascension programs, such as the IEP, IPC, PSC, RFP and MANTRA, and the installation of flight-accessible ports in pre-Ascension citizens is illegal under statute 78.C.23-A, without the prior filing of permission and a signed referral stating intent of use by a fleet official of at least ranking 8-A-C.”

Liable’s staring, when you glance his way.

“And that’s.. maybe why she doesn’t have them. I think?” It’s queer, the way that Canvio swaps back to reality. Her psionics go out, and just like that, so’s her confidence. “I think,” she adds again, worried. “I.. it’s hard to know for sure, unless I saw her. Did you think she needed them? Because, ah, I don’t think - well, not everyone does.”

“Maybe they don’t need 'em, but -” Even Sipara has ports, you want to argue. You’ve helped her strip off her arm before! It’s all hamburger meat and jagged lines where she cut straight through it, badly sealed as if she’d used crazy glue to fix it, but there’s a port there, buried into the scars and flesh of her wrist. “- shouldn’t they have them?” you argue, and you’re gonna say more, but Canvio’s looking at you.

It’s the same way lots of folks have started looking at you, lately, and the words die on your tongue.

“Why.. um.” She licks her lips, turns away so that she can watch you from the corner of her eye. “I don’t think -”

“I don’t see why they would,” Liable says, rallying. He’s leaning forward on the table now, fins drooping even as he peers at you. “If you can use your abilities without them, why would you want tech put in you? And if you’re not going to do something with your psionics -”

“Brother, why the fuck wouldn’t you?” Something on his face shifts, but it’s only when Canvio flinches that you realise your voice’s picked up. But you can’t help it. This conversation’s making you antsy in a way you can’t figure out, except that they’re not fucking getting it. “We have 'em for a reason,” you snap. “If you ain’t using 'em, the fuck are you but a joke without a punchline? What’s the point of it? Might as well crack open your pan and scrape it clean, if you’re rebuffing what the fuck you’re made for -”

And he’s looking at you strange now, too, like you’re saying something worth staring over.

You swallow the rest of your lecture, turn on your heel and fucking leave.

Your third, and final, attempt is with Kindra.

Myrrha won’t understand! Myrrha gets squeamish about her own port; you caught her with jade under her nails the entire first sweep she had it, and all she has is the sort they give wrigglers, scarcely bigger than your thumb. Liyiji doesn’t care, and wouldn’t see it as relevant to the either of you. Sometimes you think he doesn’t even remember you’re not blue, the way he acts!

Weeds.. well, you’re not sure what he’d care, either, but that thought’s stranger, and it sort of stings.

But Kindra’s more kin than any of the rest of them. Kindra’s your castemate, and your friend, and the only fucker with as much gear in him as you’ve got. He’s let you sprawl out in his apartment for the nights after your surgeries, when every piece of flesh in your body is griping about the new additions, and you’ve seen him when his neck’s still swollen and yellow, and he won’t let almost nobody come near. Everything you’ve been through, he’s done, too. Every proctor exam you’ve taken, every night you’ve spent hooked up in some chair, running test after test to see how shit’s playing out - well, some of that, he’s even done more'n you.

If anyone’s gonna get it, he will.

And lucky for you, he’s in his block when you come pounding on the door, hollering loud enough that some idiot down the row pokes their head out. “Kindra! Kindra!”

“If you don’t stop knocking,” he says, flat and dull through the wood, “I’m not opening it.”

There’s one problem with Kindra, and that’s that you can’t just slip on past him. You gotta orchestrate your moves! He’s like Canvio, but worse in every way: all you ever gotta worry about 'round her is the fact she’ll remember every little piece of everything you ever do, and the proctors like to go rifling through her pan. So you can’t ever do anything they wouldn’t like in front of her, or they’ll hear about it. It’s not too bad, though. It means she’s always happy to see you, on account of the fact you’re one of the only fuckers who doesn’t care.

It isn’t like you ever do shit the proctors care about, anyway.

But Kindra remembers everything he ever touches, not just sees, and he remembers it forever and ever: a list of all your sins, all your actions, every thought that you might ever have fucking had. It’s a wretched kind of thought! Not for you, necessarily, 'cause what do you have to hide? He’d probably do better if he had your stuff jangling in his night long to keep 'em company, and keep his spirits up. He’s grumpy enough as is. And it’s not like you’d mind, considering it’s /him/.

But every time you try to imagine knowing every cringing, slinking thought in Canvio’s head - having her permanently bouncing around - it makes your skin crawl.

So you sidle past him, instead, careful to keep your hands and arms in, and when you get in his hive, you flounce immediately over to his couch. There’s a spot that you’ve decided is yours, though you stopped short of carving your name into it. When you fling yourself onto the arm of it, knees braced, shoulders and head sprawled across the back - you can shift just right to watch Kindra on the other side of it, dramatic as fuck, and no risk of tipping right onto him.

Nah, if he kicks out, you’ll just tip off the back. As he’s fucking proven, a couple of times.

But he doesn’t kick at you this time. He just closes and locks his door, then settles onto the other end of the couch, watching you. “Well? What’s got you in a knot this time?” he says, and it’s so fucking strange, seeing him without the mask. Sometimes you forget he’s got a mouth under there! A mouth, and a face, and a whole slew of expressions that you never, ever get to see.

Except right now, while he frowns.

“Well?” he demands, and there’s a hundred things you could say, if you could figure out how. Nobody fucking gets it. Nobody gets it, and you don’t understand why, 'cause it’s clear as the stars in the sky. She didn’t have a port, and she should’ve. What’s the point of psi without it? Shepherd’s always saying that a psionic without one’s useless as a dog without a leash, and it’s true! Your job is to serve the Empire. It always has been, ever since you hatched out and started sparking.

How’re folks supposed to do that, bare-necked?

How can anyone else stand the thought there’s folks out there, not doing their goddamn duties?

Maybe, if you had enough time, you could figure out how to say something like that. Maybe, if Kindra wasn’t watching you, and waiting, and you weren’t so riled.

What comes out, instead, is: “- d'you think we need ports?”

He squints at you.

His ears aren’t big like yours! They’re like Li’s, smaller than Sipara’s, but just big enough to read. So when they twitch back, you take note. “They kind of suck,” he says, flat, but.. he doesn’t look at you like Canvio or Liable or Sipara all have started. His mouth just twitches to the side, and he slumps a little against the cushions, eyebrows rising up like they’re an afterthought. “But.”

“They’re necessary! Why’re you thinking about 'em? You’re going to give yourself ulcers.”

“I don’t have - whatevers!” He’s hanging around the legislacerators too much, you think, if he’s using that sort of terminology. That doesn’t even sound like a word, never mind a real one.

“Yeah, that’s why you’re gonna give yourself 'em,” he sniffs. “Try listening. Why? Did one of your weirdos say we didn’t?”

“One of the legis did.” His contempt is as familiar as the back of Shepherd’s hand. It’s sort of soothing. Everyone else can be strange, but Kindra’s always been on your level: he gets you, in a way that nobody else fucking does. And as far as you’re concerned, you think you do, too.

You’ve never tried to touch his face, after all, even though you could. Or his hand, or anything else! There’s plenty of trolls who see a fucker wrapped up like a mummy, and take that as a lark to try and push, but you’ve never been one of them. “The legi’s are dumb,” he declares, prompt. “Don’t listen to them. What do they know, other than laws? Nothing.”

.. even if right now, you want to. The couch is fine to drape on, but you don’t want to fucking drape on something. You want your lusus, or you want Ico petting your hair, or - something that’s more comforting than dead fabric under you, because every thought in your pan’s a fucking mess right now.

But Kindra can’t touch you, his lusus is too pointy to hold, and visiting hours for yours are over for the day. So you curl in tighter against the couch instead, with a whuff loud enough that you’re sure they can hear it out in the hallway. “I guess.”

“Well, I know.” He’s so certain, sometimes! There’s no hesitation as he leans back into the couch, reaches for the remote. “Do you want to watch a movie?” he offers. “One of your stupid romcoms. Get your pan off of it. There’s a new one out –”

“Would you still be friends with me, brother, if I didn’t have wetware?”

He blinks at you.

“.. of course I would.” So much for that confidence! You could’ve dropped a pin in that silence. You could’ve started a war, had a hand-fasting, died and been passed over by three different descendents by the time he musters up the answer. But at least it’s an answer, for all the fact that he is giving you a look now, one of the ones that means you’re being awful dumb. Sure enough: “ - you’re stuck with me now. /But/ that’s a really dumb question.”

“You’ve got a really dumb face,” you shoot back. Is that the answer you wanted? You’re not sure! You’re.. it’s wrong, for folks not to have ports. It’s wrong, and it’s awful, and it makes your neck itch, makes you want to scratch until your hands are painted, like Myrrha used to do. It means they’re wretched, and stupid, and useless - like pupas.

Like you used to be, before you came and joined the program.

But you shouldn’t think about this anymore right now! You want to, in a twisting kind of way: you want to dig into it 'til you’ve got it split open, 'til you understand every inch and corner of it, 'til there’s naught you don’t know, and the words come as easy as song. Would you be friends, if Kindra didn’t have a port?

That’s a good question.

He clears his throat. When you look at him, he waves the remote, impatient, and it’s a wonder, how much you can pick up from a sound. Exasperation, irritation, worry: everything he does is always like a ballad wrapped in a ditty, if you’re just payin’ enough attention.

So you huff: “- start the movie, brother.”

(.. you wouldn’t be, you don’t think, but you can’t imagine not being friends with Kindra, not ever. So you’d just have to get him one, that’s all - and oh, that thought smooths your hackles some. Maybe that’s what Ico’s doing, too.)

(Maybe it’s alright, if folks don’t have ports. Maybe it’s alright, even, if they think they don’t need 'em - 'cause maybe, just maybe, that’s what fuckers like you are here for, to tell them and show them that they’re fucking wrong.)

PHERES DYSSEU | 8 sweeps, 18 years old
RICCIN KAYATA | 8 sweeps, 19 years old

“Rust - Pheres,” you clarify, rolling your eyes. Last time you used an epithet, he’d said something about knowing who you’re with, like it was a joke, then sulked for days. “What is your problem, even?”

He blinks at you. “What?”

Knees balanced on yours, a hand braced on your shoulder: even leaning back, he’s only about of a height with you, nose level with yours. This close, you can smell the olive in his hair and the mint on his breath. This close, you can actually see the fine wrinkles of his face, and the way his mouth pinches. “I don’t know what you’re -”

He pauses when you settle your hands on his hips. There’s a sliver of skin where his shirt’s pulled up, right above the hip-bones, and it’s amazing what a single touch can do: you hook your thumbs there, and you can feel the wave of tension spreading through him, pulling him up and away.

“That,” you say, dry, “is what I’m talkin’ about.”

“I don’t -“ It’s just a shift back at first. Then he shimmies, just a little, and you know the routine. You lift off your hands, palms exposed, before he can slap them off, and flare them out in front of you:

Look. Not touching.

He looks a little shame-faced at that, at least. “You don’t have to move. Here! Just -” But when he reaches for your hand, you tug it away.

“Nah, fucker. Not until you sing your part. Why the fuck are you always pulling away? You scared of me?”

The shame’s gone, just that quick. “No,” he says, sucking in his cheeks like he just tasted something sour. His face’s as sharp as his voice. “You’ve asked that, Riccin. My answer hasn’t changed.”

“‘cause you’re acting scared. Are you afraid of me, Dysseu? Worried the big, bad clown is going to - what, cull you? Make you see the wrong kind of miracles? Take that pretty swill you call chrome and bleed you ‘til there ain’t nothing but stardust left?” Your voice drops to a purr. “Because I could,” you sing, watching the blood flood his cheeks. “I could, motherfucker, and better yet, I’d bet the stars and the moons that you’d fucking enjoy –”

He grabs you by your chin, yanks you forward and kisses you. There’s more teeth than you’d like. There’s more aggression. The curve of his claws in your husk are crueler than any reprimand he could ever manage, but that’s alright.

End of the night, Pheres’s still a dull blade. Fucker can try, but he’ll never bleed you dry.

“You are so obnoxious,” he marvels, soon as he comes up for air. The bony-ass point of his elbow’s resting on your shoulder, and there’s an arm around your neck. “Has anyone ever told you this?”

“Nah, ain’t ever heard nobody say word like that before.” His fingers are tapping against the port at the base of your neck, a rat-tat-tat that you can feel all the way in your bones. When you purr, he grins, crooked, and slows down the beat.

“Really.”

“You doubtin’ me? You are doing me the most awful kind of unkindness.” His body’s a warm press against you. Messiahs,this boy’s warmer than an engine. Your hands have been resting on the platform’s cushions beside you, but now you rest them on his shoulders, trace their way down his sides in a match to his beat.

Rat-tat-a-tat.

He nuzzles your cheek, fond as a meowbeast. “Am I? Well. I’ll just have to make it up to you.” His mouth’s close enough to yours that you can feel the brush of his lips with every word. If you push forward, though, he’ll pull back.

So you wait, and you can feel his smile.

“So,” he says, fond, “what do you think - oh!”

All that happened is a hand lighting up on his hips, and he goes as wide-eyed as if you hit in.

“Oh, goddamnit,” you hiss, even as he twitches free. Your grip is loose: one, two shifts, then he’s back on the reclination platform, space between the two of you as big as a district. This time, you don’t bother with anything so pacifying as an open palm.

Without him, the air feels too cold. “What is your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem! I just -” His shoulders are up, and his chin tucked in. Without the caps to soften ‘em, the jut of his horns is defensive. Almost aggressive. “Do you have anything to drink?” he says, sour. If he was built like a proper troll, his ears would be back. “Wine. Liquor. For heaven’s sake, I’ll take vodka.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? It’s a rhetorical question, Riccin. I know you have some, I just - don’t know where you keep it.”

“No,” you say flatly, “as in you ain’t having any. Why the fuck you always need a drink to deal with me, rust? Shit’s offensive.”

“Not always!” Now he looks near guilty. “I - it’s not you.”

“You tossin’ ‘em back to deal with your matesprit?” He’s shaking his head soon as you start on the word. You laugh, but there’s no mirth in it. “Then it is just me, motherfucker.”

Plenty of folks get nervous around you. It ain’t no thing: if you were to say there wasn’t something pleasant in the way they quake, the way they get nervy when you stand up tall and your shadow falls for ages, you’d be as big of a liar as Dysseu. But you don’t haul those folks home. Some clowns feed off of fear. Cuchail likes her paramours shakin’ like her dog’s quarry, before and after.

it’s always seemed fucked up to you. Hooking up isn’t serenpedity, but that doesn’t mean folks ought to be pulled into it if they ain’t down, anymore than some poor fucker getting yanked into a quadrant.

“If you want to go, rust, then get the fuck out. Ain’t no one stopping -”

“I don’t want to go!” he snaps, then deflates, the flare of agitation gone quick as it came. “It’s nothing personal, Riccin. I just don’t like people touching me. I don’t see why you’re so opposed! You’re still - well -”

He makes a hand gesture so uncharacteristic that you snort. His cheeks flush red. “YOU KNOW,” he says raggedly. “- what I’m saying.”

“If I wanted to just -” You mirror the gesture back at him. Is it possible for one fellow to show more hue? Is it possible for one fucker to give more ire in a single gaze? “- then I’d use my hand, Pheres. That’s what they’re fucking there for.”

“.. I’m fairly certain they’re there for, ah, a little more than that –”

“I’m in this because I want to touch you,” you say, all amusement gone. “Not just to fucking get off. And if that ain’t gonna be a thing without you havin’ to get yourself tipsy to tolerate my most wretched touch, then you best scram now.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why’re you taking this personally? You’re not wretched.” He’s caught a hold of his voice again. Still a little irritation there, but his face ain’t exactly flaming. A shame! “It’s got nothing to do with you!” 

He cuts you off before you can even get a word in. "But if you’re so bothered,” he says, all in a huff, “then fine.” He snatches your hands and places them on his hips. That sort of thing ought to be a friendly gesture. It takes a kind of skill to make it aggressive.

“There. Are you happy?”

(And you aren’t.)

“What,” you say, “is it going to take to make you comfortable?” His hands are over yours like vices. You have to pull to free them, but he’s still watching you. “You said you don’t like folks touching you. Whatever. Don’t tell me why, rust, I ain’t your pale, I don’t give a damn.” You’ve seen his colour-blurring. Boy’ll smear on you before you so much as blink, if you give him a chance. “But I ain’t about that. Makes a fucker feel like the whole business’s a favor you’re bestowin’, and we know it ain’t like that.”

He’s still coiled tight. But that gets you a snort. “Well -”

“It’s not a favor you’re bestowing to me, how’s about that?”

And then he laughs. The wire pulls free from his spine and he slumps, shoulders falling. “.. that’s fair enough. I suppose.”

“Right.” Can you touch him now? No, no matter how tempting it is: you’re making progress here, although you don’t know what on. So you fold your arms instead, crossing them over your chest, fingers sealed safely away into the flesh of your elbows. “How’re we gonna do this, Pheres? Your call.”

“I don’t know,” he admits, and sinks back off of his knees. He’s shorter than you like this again. (The fact his bony-ass joints aren’t sinking into your flesh’s a blessing. You’re going to have dents, see if you don’t.) “I don’t..” He smoothes down his hair, then promptly ruins it by tangling his fingers into the mass of a curl. “You believe me, don’t you? It’s not you. It’s me.”

“But not your matesprit.”

“He’s not my matesprit,” he snaps, and. Oh. You didn’t even know there was a part of you interested in this reedy little bastard still, but your heart twists like it just skipped a beat. “I thought we were courting. But, ah, no. It was a mistake, on my part. I.. overthought it, that’s all. And I just. Dealt with it,” he adds, with a side-long glance. He smiles to himself, wry, like he’s about to say something witty. “He thinks I’m skittish. It was a challenge.”

“Well,” you say, “that’s fucked up.”

While he’s squawking with indignation, you slouch back against the reclination platform. Your remote’s right there. A part of you wonders if you shouldn’t just shove him off your lap and turn on the tube, see what happens later.. but if you don’t talk this out, what better time are you going to get?

“So how do you want to do this?”

“Um.” He’s effortlessly ruining his curls with those sharp ass claws, shredding the curls like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitant. “I suppose - well, if you just tell me before hand, or give me warning, I can adjust -”

“Give you warning.” You click your tongue. “Seriously,” you say, squinting, but it’s not a question. “For what? Touching you? Talking to you? You need a warning when I fucking look? Clarify, rust, clarify, ‘cause this ain’t exactly some clearcut swill you’re washing my way.”

“I.. don’t know?” Hesitance doesn’t suit him. Neither does this crawling sort of uncertainty. It turns his face strange, pulls the strong lines weak.

“.. how about I just fucking ask?”

He stares.

“You know, like, oh, Phe~res,” you sing, stretching it out like they do down south. “Pheres, can I touch your horns, or you gonna smack me into next season for trying?”

“That sounds daft,” he says, but his voice’s lifted. So’s his chin, from that defensive tuck. “You’re not going to remember, are you?”

“How can I not, with you flinchin’ like a tine in the wind?”

“You’re not going to care,” he tries again, eyes narrow. “Or – no, no, that’s unfair. But you ask, and I say no, you’re just going to argue the point. You’re going to want reasons.”

“And why would I care for that? Ain’t your moirail, thank the Messiahs. Ain’t your matesprit.” He tilts his head at that, with the sort of snort that’d make a hogbeast jealous. “Your reasons ain’t none of my business. You’ll be the ring-master. I’m just the hoofbeast running the show. You give the orders…”

“.. and you’ll listen?” He actually laughs. “I don’t.. this sounds absurd,” he marvels. His hair is frizzing around his hands, but finally he tugs it free, presses it against a cheek instead. “But.. alright. If you insist.”
You huff. “No.”

“What?”

“It’s not if I insist, motherfucker. No one’s puttin’ a pressure on you. There ain’t no rope around your wrists, pulling your moves, conducting your damn will. I -” You pause. His face’s flushing again, a flat brick all the way to the tips of his docked-round ears. “I,” you repeat, “am not the one fucking invested. You want out? Get to fucking walking.”

“Fine! If you want to,” he tries. At your look, he actually hisses from frustration. “If you - if - oh, fine. I. I would like to try it. Are you happy now?”

“Is that how you wax enthusiasm, rust? Because just sayin’, think I’ve found more cheer in a goddamn trashcan.”

He tries to hiss at you again, but ruins it by laughing.

SIPARA NZINGA | 6 sweeps / 13 years old

OA: oKAY, BULGEFACE, THAT’S ENOUGH WITH THE SHIT-TALK. WE GOTTA FOCUs.

OA: tHE HELL ARE WE GETTING ICO FOR HIS HATCHDAy?

AA: lololololol no stfu

AA: y wld i shrne

AA: so i can do the wrnk and u can take crndt

AA: l m a o   n

AA: g fck yrnslf

OA: oKAY, ONe:

OA: i WASN’T ASKING YOU TO SHARE, YOU NUBBY-HORNED LITTLE MOGGy.

OA: tWO: MORE LIKE I DO THE WORK AND YOU TAKE THE CREDIT. AIN’T NO MIRTH TO BE FOUND IN GIVING A FUCKER A DEAD BIRD. THAT’S A REAL shit GIFt.

AA: stfu he liked it

OA: hE SAID YOU WERE A FERAL MEOWBEAST AND HE WAS GOING TO ABANDON YOU IN A GUTTER, SO YOU COULD JOIN YOUR COHORt.

AA: y y y

AA: but ddnt so he liked it

OA: >:o|

OA: lIKE I WAS ALL UP AND SAYING, I AM NOT asking ABOUT BUYING A GIFT, I AM stating THAT WE ARE BUYING A GIFT FOR HIM TOGETHER. ON ACCOUNT OF THE FACT WE’RE ALL QUADS AND THAT’S WHAT WE’RE SUPPOSED TO Do.

OA: yOU CAN BUY HIM SOME JUNK YOURSELF, IF YOU WANT TO. OR GO KILL ANOTHER BIRD. I DON’T CARE WHAT SWILL YOU CALL YOURSELF WRAPPING IN A BOW AND PASSING OFF AS A gift.

OA: eVEN THOUGh.

OA: iT’S GONNA LOOK ALL KINDS OF AWFUL SITTING NEXT TO MINe.

OA: jUST SAYIn’. :o)

AA: lol

AA: gtfo

activatingAggro has left the chat!

obstructedAntiquity is now messaging activatingAggro!

OA: mESSIAHS, GIRL, DON’T BE SUCH A CHUCKLEHEAd.

OA: cOME ON. ME AND ICO BOUGHT YOU A GIFT ON YOUR HATCHDAy.

OA: a REAL GODDAMN GIFT, NONE OF THIS DEAD ANIMAL SHIt.

OA: iT’S FAIR TURN ABOUT THAT WE GET OFF OUR ASSES AND DO HIM SOMETHING PROPER IN RETURn.

OA: aND WE GOTTA DO IT TOGETHER, DUMBASS, OR HE WON’T THINK WE CARe.

AA: so

OA: sO USE THAT LEAKY BUCKET YOU CALL A PAN, GIRL. IF WE DON’T CARE, WHY BE IN A QUAD? WHY TALK TO US AT ALL? HE’S PALLING IT UP WITH FISH AND PRIESTS, NZINGA. HE ISN’T EXACTLY NIPPING AT THE BIT TO KEEP UP WITH DRUDGES LIKE Us.

OA: tHIS QUAD AIN’T JUST ‘CAUSE HE LIKES OUR FACE. HE’S DOING US A MOTHERFUCKING FAVOr.

OA: wE GOTTA GET HIM SOMETHING NICE, OR ELSE HE MIGHT RECONSIDER It.

OA: dUh.

Every time you turn around, Riccin keeps getting taller. It’s not fair.

Course, this time, it’s ‘cause she’s wearing heels.

“Dude, take those off,” you hiss, ears pinning flat. “You look stupid! He’s gonna laugh at us! And what about the egg?” The two of you spent all day yesterday at a hatchery, trying to pick the best egg for him to get. ID likes birds! He practically collects ‘em, dead or alive, and some fancy broodhen that’ll grow up to make even more birds seems like the sorta thing he’d like. The one you got’s pink, just like his psionics, and it’s strapped to Riccin’s back in a pouch to keep it safe and out of the way.

Or it’d keep it safe, if she weren’t in fucking heels. Riccin can’t walk in heels! She’s practically trailing psi with each wobbly step, her eyes brighter than they ever really ought to be, and even if they weren’t, though, you’d still know she was cheating to stay upright. She’s been shooting up faster than she can get used to: the past perigee, she put on four whole inches, and she’s barely been able to run without misjudging it in her trainers.

When she sees you looking, she sticks out her tongue. It’s distracted! After only a split second, she’s back to staring at the ground. “Fuck off!”

You’re getting a crick in your neck looking up. This has to be an extra five, six inches to a troll that doesn’t need any, so now that you’ve asked nicely, you do the only thing you can do:

You kick her right in the ankle, egg be damned.

All of her psionics are focused on keeping the shoes steady on the ground. She’s not expecting an attack higher up! Her heel twists in the shoe, and it’s amazing how quick the psionics sizzle out, electric blue dissipating so fast it leaves dark streaks in your eyes. She doesn’t fall. It’s a shame! But her eyes go narrow and her ears pin back and she growls at you, deep and throaty like a congested grub.

“I am going to pull off those wretched nubs you call horns and use ‘em as a mortar.”

“Dude, you can’t even catch me,” you snipe, and take a step back.

She takes the challenge, just like you knew she would! She takes a step forward. With her face all done up in the half-paint she’s taken to wearing, she looks almost like an acolyte. Almost like she should be intimidating.

She isn’t, though, 'cause she’s Riccin: big-horned and clumsy and with spots on her face that she thinks paint’ll cover up. What’s the worse she can do? Hit you? There’s nothing impressive about that!

So you laugh at her instead, and her next step is too wide. Her foot slips in the shoe. She goes toppling head-first towards the ground. Her arms fling out. Her growls turned screechy with rage, and it’s great: she’s floundering, trying to twist as not to land wrong, but she’s too caught up to remember she can catch herself with her psionics.

When you step forward, she lands in your arms with a plompf, heavy enough that you stagger. Not from the weight! Just from the size of her. She’s big, but she only weighs about the same as ID, 'cause everyone you know’s just a sack of bones.

“Shit, gi~irl,” you sing, “if you wanted me to hold you, you could’ve, like, just asked.”

Her face is the most godawful shade of yellow. She snarls at you, trying to wriggle half-heartedly free. The elbow to your gut barely hurts at all, and you wrap your arms around her, burrowing your face in her headfluff. “I’m going to bite off your face,” Riccin threatens, but if she wanted loose, it’d be easy as shoving you her with psionics.

All she does instead is flail until you finally lose your balance. You topple, shrieking, but the gravel that digs into your skin when you hit the ground’s nothing compared to the thump when she lands on top of you.

There’s pointy limbs digging into your spleen. You whine, ears going back, but you’re opening your mouth to complain when something sticky starts leaking on your knees.

“Riccin, you idiot! The egg!”

ID squints at the two of you.

“You got me.. a decorative egg-shell,” he says, carefully, like the time he tried to copy your southern common: like the words don’t quite fit proper in his mouth, but he’s too nice to just spit them out. “Well, isn’t hat just the sweetest thing anyone’s ever fetched me.”

“I like the spots. Almost my shade of yellow, even! And the glow. Did you stick a light-grub in here?” he says, dubious, and shakes it, pressing his ear against it to hear. “Oh! No! It’s plastic. Isn’t that just quaint?”

“It’s for luck, lah!” Riccin says, ears pricked up and forward. Then she seems to realise she’s being excitable, and she jerks her chin up, peering down her nose instead. “Which is good,” she adds. “For a person like you. For your performances, yeah?”

“Are you saying I’m bad at my job, my little lemonhead?” He laughs, raising his eyebrows, and shoves the egg under one arm so he can press a hand to his cheek: “- because that’s just plum mean to insinuate on a fellow’s very own wiggling day!”

Riccin doesn’t really beam anymore. All she ever does is her sideways grin, where the entertainment’s creepin’ up and she doesn’t really want to show it. “I ain’t saying you’re bad,” she says, “but brother, you could use some luck. I mean, just sayin’, all things considerin’ –”

“You don’t need luck! You’re great, Riccin’s just bein’ a bulgemunch. ‘cause, like, we got you a hen,” you chirp, “but we broke it and then Jahhiz told us we’re not allowed near it again, and he took it, so we got you a lucky egg, instead, ‘cause, like, did you know it cost like, twenty caegars? Each? That’s a lot! And I was like, no, fuck that, I’m not gonna drop another twenty on Ico, that’s dumb, let’s get the fake egg, that’s, like, ten –”

“Stop talking!” Riccin shrieks, and shoves you. With a squall of outrage, you shove her back, and a moment later, the both of you are on the ground, hissing like meowbeasts.

“What are you doing?” Pheres asks, shying away when you reach out, his face scrunching like you’re all nails.

You flap him away like that’s what you meant all along, and he shooes closer to the edge of the platform, obedient as a baa-beast. It was funny at first, but there’s no mirth left in you for this shit now: this is the third time he’s dropped by for your books and your conversation and, as he always puts it, your company, but the little fucker still won’t let you so much as pat him on the shoulder without flinching.

“Nothin’,” you say, rolling your eyes, and he only relaxes when you sprawl out on the bed, your chin over a foot from his knee, hands too far to reach out and touch him. “Little rust, you ever think about quadrants?”

“Why, have you been talking to Myrrha?” He smirks, tilting his head to the side, and he sounds bemused as he admits: “Ah, well, don’t tell her, but – no, not really. Pale’s all I want, and apart from drones.. well, the rest are all a bit silly, aren’t they?”

“What about you?”

You think of Sipara, of ID, of the little rust lingering at the edge of your platform like you’re going to bite him in half: of Myrrha, and Liyiji, who fill in your silences like they’d never been there, and refuse any name you try to put on them.

“Nah,” you say, “not really.”

OA: wHAT, SISTER, YOU DON’t?

Often, it’s over the drinks. (More often, it’s the lack of drinks.)

This is the first time you’ve seen shit start at a pale handfasting ceremony, but hell, you’re down with it. Nothing better than watching a good brawl, especially when it turns out the little teal you’ve been playing with knows how to handle his staff.

He’d laughed like a clown when you’d said that, which, to be perfectly fucking honest, is the only reason you haven’t climbed out of the pit and up into the balconies yet. Ain’t nothing like watching a fight, that’s the thing: normally, if you’re gonna get scuffed, you like your spats to be a little more personal than this.

But god-damn. Bailing to higher ground right now would be a crime worth culling for: the teal boy’s spinning like he belongs at Carnival, each strike so smooth you’re almost having trouble keeping track of your own shit.

Almost! Your whip snaps out, fast enough that the meteor end whistles as it sails through the air. It ain’t even past your wrist before you know the throw’s bad. You’re not meant for tight spaces like this, where one wrong move’s apt to get your strife tangled up and useless, and when you jerk the rope back, it takes a sharp pulse of psionics to correct the course from its upswing.

The blueblood still smirking over your miss when the meteor hits him in the back of his dome. Soundlessly, he crumples, his oboe dropping to the ground.

A moment later, you damn near do the same when a staff goes skidding past your side.

“Careful, brother. Name of the game is watching each other’s hides, not striking,” you snap, twisting away with a warning shower of sparks. (Fighting ain’t so fun when you’rethe one getting sore, and that fucking hurt.) Widsth is crowding forward even as you get out of his way, two even strides taking him right up to the greenblood you’d missed, dwarfed as she’d been by the cerulean’s bulk.

“My apologies!” He’s laughing as his staff snaps out, catching her in the gut and then under the chin in one motion. She staggers, hits the ground on with a clatter of her woodwind, but she doesn’t fall - at least, not until a tap of your psionics drops her the rest of the way.

There’s a lull in the pulse of bodies, like a slow beat in the rhythm that’s driving you all: everywhere around you, fuckers are tangled up, instruments locked and teeth bared, but with the olive down, there’s nobody stepping up in your face to take her place. For a moment, it’s almost calm.

Calm enough that the little teal tilts his head back to look at you, sliding his glasses back up. There’s blood on them to match his bulbs, for all that neither of you’s been striking for the cull, but his teeth are white enough. “Although, alas,” he says, “surely thou cannot blame me? ‘tis certainly a fine enough hide!”

“And a worthy distraction from our combatants,” he adds, waggling his eyebrows, and you actually laugh.