#a sort of universal entropy? not sure if that's the right word

[081098]

bit of an epiphany that religion to other people is what i see as The Curious Ways Of The Universe

[fenmere]

Another NaNoWriMo practice prompt: Have a character tell a joke. Now show us whether the other characters think it’s actually funny.

---

Most of the Monsters that Gretcha knew liked to call their gatherings Enclaves. Like, instead of an enclave being a place where a people live and develop their own culture, as the word was supposed to mean, it was any gathering of Monsters anywhere.

A Monster Enclave was pretty astoundingly rare. Most Monsters were fairly solitary and independent folk, feeling too weird and different from everyone else to spend much time around anyone, even other Monsters.

It wasn't universal, of course. There were Monster families here and there, and at least one Monster city deep within the Fallow Decks of the Sunspot, nestled up between one of the larger Shipyards and a an automated mushroom farm. But, that was called a city, not an enclave. But, to prevent any sort of misunderstanding, "Enclave" was typically spoken with a capital first letter, just to be sure. Like certain other words tended to be. But still, anyway, most Monsters weren't part of that city. It was a matter of statistics and demographics. And Enclaves were rare.

Ze had been a Monster for a hundred and twenty-two years now, and Gretcha had been to maybe three other Enclaves. And ze was pretty active in Monster politics, too. For instance, ze'd been in about ten fist fights with Veron, who was also there today.

Oh, right, Gretcha was at zir fourth Enclave this day, and staring at Veron, watching their body language for signs of bullshit. But ze was kind of otherwise zoning out as the host of the Enclave described why it had been called. Veron was being uncharacteristically relaxed, and was effortlessly ignoring Gretcha's stare.

Usually it was the other way around, but somehow Veron's sudden display of flawless nonchalance had thrown Gretcha off zir game.

It was irritating.

It was particularly irritating considering the subject matter of the meeting - sorry - Enclave.

When the nanite neural terminals and exobodies were first being rolled out experimentally to some of the Sunspot's Children, Veron had been one of the most vocal against it, and against helping those Children to self advocate against the Crew. Like, to the point that they'd broken Gretcha's nose over their disagreement about it.

It was that broken nose that had won Gretcha the argument, according to Monster law. If you were provoked to the point of assaulting your opponent, you lost. If you both attacked each other, the one with the fewer injuries lost. It was a law that was supposed to prevent these kinds of tussles, but it seemed to have turned them into a highly ritualized game of sorts. But anyway, that was years and years ago, and Gretcha had been granted the right to give Morde the words of the Vow of the Monsters, and society had begun to change as a result.

And that was what Veron seemed to hate. That kind of change. Even if it brought everyone else more freedoms and autonomy.

Gretcha really didn't understand their antipathy, and despite zir own aspirations of open-mindedness ze didn't feel inclined to try.

Maybe it was all just Veron's focus on hating the Crew. But if that had been the case, you'd think they'd have agreed to let Morde have the Vow. It just didn't make sense.

But, like Gretcha, Veron was a Discordian. So, not making sense, and doing the opposite of what might be expected was in order, sometimes.

Anyway, Kashirrk, the host, was now explaining that some sort of Monster consensus was needed to respond to Phage's offer.

Which was that Phage, the so called Chief of Monsters, and a real live supernatural entity that calls itself Entropy Itself, was offering to elevate everyone aboard the Sunspot to become equals to itself. This would entail somehow, magically, unlocking the supposed inherent abilities every conscious being has to manipulate physics with just their mind. But only if absolutely everyone aboard the Sunspot bothered to vote on whether or not to accept the gift. And it wanted a unanimous vote, which seemed like an impossibly tall order.

Pretty big stuff, in any case.

At this point, everyone in the Enclave had been visited by Phage in their sleep, and a good part of this meeting was meant to share these dreams with each other and discuss what they meant.

So, here Veron was, blithely ignoring the greatest change ever offered to the Sunspot, and chatting casually with their neighbor while the host, Kashirrk, spoke.

And it irked Gretcha even more when Kashirrk obviously noticed what Veron was doing and stopped to wait for Veron to cease speaking, which they then did and apologized.

Veron watched and listened attentively while Kashirrk finished vem's speech.

"As I was saying," Kashirrk continued. "We are behooved to take it upon ourselves to share our conversations with Phage so that we each have the most information we can before we tell it our votes."

And that's when Veron stomped their booted foot.

"What?" Kashirrk asked.

"I only see four people here today who have hooves," Veron observed.

Gretcha leapt from zir seat and shouted, "Oh, come on! That's my joke!" Everyone's gaze turned to witness Gretcha's discomposure.

Veron smiled and calmly looked back over at Kashirrk to say, "Anyway, regardless of what I hear today, I'm going to be voting 'yes'."

Off, in the far corner of the crowded Audience of two hundred and forty-seven people, one person had snirked at Veron's remark. The closest thing to a laugh heard that day. And they did, indeed, have hooves.

[yatharth-stuff]

Booktube Made Me Broke

If you are a reader, it is inevitable, at some point, to not want to be one. To want to throw that book, that is in your hands, right across the room because you are now physically incapable of sitting with it. To be swallowed up by a bout of sudden accidie at the thought of having to roll your eyes up and down a page and do a mental juggling of sorts with your comprehension. Other readers, if they are sympathetic to you, will tell you that this is a phase and will go away, but will offer little advice as to how. If they are not sympathetic to you (and if actually, they hate you), they will steer you towards Booktube.

“Reading slump”, type in these two words or anything close to getting rid of it in the YouTube search bar and you’ll be blasted with hundreds of videos. Videos telling you about the “10 best books to get out of a reading slump” or “50 best books to beat a reading slump”. Videos that will tell you that to read again, you need to buy books again. Videos that will make you want to pick up that book you threw across the room and tear it to shreds.

Booktube (I don’t think I need to define that term) is where I get my reading lists (or TBRs). It is the place that introduced me to some of the best literature. Never otherwise would I’ve felt compelled enough to pick up the Bell Jar or the Christmas Carol. Who even was Joan Didion?  Booktube is also the place I think of when I am broke before the end of the month.

Speaking of reading slumps, of all the achievements of Booktube (if there are any), curing my reading slump isn’t one of them. It can’t be when the best book to read is not the one I have but the one I am about to buy. There’s always bigger fish to fry and a better book to read. It’s just never this one.

After consuming Booktube for years now, I’ve realised that there are rules. Rules which are unspoken but dictate themselves with great command.

You are to always buy the books. Booktubers (the biggest names included) would know every bookstore in their city but seem to be oblivious to the idea of library subscriptions and the concept of borrowing in general.

In terms of ambition, you are to compete with the Library of Congress.

Just this year Booktok was abuzz about men pretending to read in public. Now you need to understand that performative reading is a complete anathema to the online book community. What however is acceptable, is to log every book on Goodreads (or Storygraph, your choice) and to not settle for less than a hundred books a year.

Entropy is the law of the universe and it sure did happen to my reading. It degenerated from me reading (and enjoying) Normal People, to adding Conversations with Friends and Mr Salary by Sally Rooney to the Amazon cart. I organise Amazon wish lists now (I have three of them, each with more than ten books). I still organise my bookshelf, but only to end up piling it with more books that I buy.

Of course, a point can be made about the benefits of Booktube and Booktok. They have increased representation not only for marginalised authors and translators but also for the oft-overlooked regions of the world. They fuel the publishing industry, making sure that the printed book remains intact as a commodity, and that is exactly my point—books have always been a commodity, Booktube (and Booktok) has made people not read them, but consume them.

[sheisaloneandlonley]

03/02/2024

There is poetry that lives in me and is eager to get out, in a fiery burning sort of way. Persistent at its best and sore and achy at its worst. Rushing and uncaring of the eloquence I wish to use to unleash it. Refusing to wait for the right word or structure. Living and breathing and insistent. A gift granted to an ungrateful and unwilling host, whose mind is too restless and painful to do justice to its magnificents.

......

There is a boy who consumed the sun. It's golden illumination, too bright to be dimed by his body. It explodes out of him physically, golden hair thick on his scalp, a coronal event, and hardly visible, spun like thread on his arms, tiny slivers of glittering light. His body, heated by the rays, always hotter to the touch than my own skin, stop my personal entropy. No need for heat exchange so close to the warmth radiating off of him held safely in his embrace. The universe never felt small except in those few precious moments when his arms were wrapped around me. Times that I wish I could stay in unmoving, natural laws held impossibly at bay by such a simple gesture. Everything, anything he does so simplistic in its actual function is amazingly impossible in my eyes,all of it done with the assistants of the celestial body that he had consumed.

The ocean is in his eyes. On a clear still day it seems to reflect the perfectly blue sky, but when shadows fall like those of ancient Greece wrote dark like wine and turbulent and somber. And they would look unwelcoming if not for the fringe of golden lashes paired with lines that denote his existence is filled with laughter and joy. This focus is unwavering and ((too much)) and had I not known him in youth my naivety could lead me to believe him dangerous, rather than willingly observant. Conventionally attractive by almost all standards happily aware and mischievous about the fact. Exciting, enthralling the invitation of camaraderie.

His skin is the night sky, inverted. Consolations scattered arbitrarily across his body, angel kisses no less lovingly placed for their haphazardness. All I need to be starstruck is to gaze upon his face, there the heavens reside. Infinity showing many faces in him, fearfully and wonderfully made. Creation beautifully on display with a flush of cheeks nose and ears, highlighting delicate detail. His radiance.

Longing, scarily known to me rises up and immediately I think of his scent. The feeling coming on apropos of nothing the memory of smell quickly coming to the forefront of my mind. Sense memories of his hand on my waist and the huff of breath as he laughed against my ((cheek))((face))((the side of my head)) His voice, bounteous and surprisingly pitched lower than I had first expected. When this occasion calls, I only want to hear him speak knowing surely that's all that's needed to be satisfied. Such as it is, my experience is no more than digital, and this is all that I can fathom.

He feels like revelations. Like the first taste of chocolate, like the sun he so splendidly devoured, breaking over the horizon after the darkest night.

All I want to do is revolve around him, blissfully pulled along in his gravity. He magnetized himself, pulling along all manner of hoi polloi. Blissful, all of us caught in this orbit. Is my ellipsis so common place?

.....

I want more. More of everything he is willing to give and in my cowardice I am unwilling to ask for anything. Fear, the little death I die everyday, how can this possibly be a better option than loss? Loss of familiarity of friendship or of the possibility of more. Why should I want to stay suspended? Is the prospect, the hope for more, better than the truth of Knowing.How long can I go non pretending this is all I need...... In this gray area I can pretend that he also is too shy to say anything, too scared to lose our companionship. That he, like me, is unwilling to lose us, as we are now. How would I recover from rejection? After laying myself bare? What humiliation, what heartache, what listlessness existence would I doom myself to?

This rejection would be the last. My already damaged heart, too fragile to take more grief, would undoubtedly split along long forged fault lines. There is only so much I can ask of this poor exhausted organ, congenitally defective haphazardly fixed. Another blow and I fear I will become ephemeral, or void. With nothing left what will this do to me? Is it worth the risk, all or nothing. Love or oblivion? Black and white, no in between. How could there be? I couldn't go back to who I used to be, she's nothing to me. Knowing could kill me. Is it better this way, to linger? Has little more than a decade taught me anything? How useless these words are!? Nothing but an ego boost if not returned, nothing but agony if not requited!! What a mess!

...

Do my eyes not inspire ostentation? I am inimitable.

My patience, not standing still, just willing to wait. There is a reason, there has to be. Is he blind? Am I? There is distance here no matter how intimate the space I try to create. I build bridges with my arms, not a fortress, don't I? I will not. In this circle I say my amens because I feel blessed. Borrowing words from others because I have none of my own, but the sentiment remains. Here in this space in this circle of my arms, to have held you I feel blessed. I refused to wall myself away. But clarity I could not give, and not for lack of want, but for fear of what's unreciprocated.

.......

I want to burn with fire not with cold, I fear most the paradoxical hypothermia. My longing would put me on my head. Where is my mind? Way out in the water, the ocean of your eyes I would gladly drown in, but much rather I would swim.

......

There's history here and all of it is good to me, a story I go back to read over and over. But on your side? Is the pull strong enough? Can you feel it? Can I project it loud enough, to touch across time?

.....

If he was your soulmate he'd want to date you.

But, but

Nuance exists in this thing between us, doesn't it? I'm too tired to initiate and you're too sad to turn around and take my hand. Have you moved so far away from me that I am now out of reach?

....

Every time I want to write to you it starts with love and ends with sadness.

....

Sometimes I think that right now this is the best that I can get and I should be so greatfull

...

What a delusional joke, I hardly ever see him. We do not hang out. I just send him tictocd once in a while 😮‍💨

[honourablejester]

Ideas for Deities and Cleric Domains (D&D)

I absolutely love clerics as a class in D&D. They’re up there with warlocks for customisation, it’s fantastic. But clerics, more than many other classes, really seem to be dependent on the setting and worldbuilding, because a huge chunk of their story and background is dependent on their deity. A cleric’s power comes directly from their deity, and they can possibly lose it if the deity disapproves of them or their actions. I know a lot of DMs won’t do this, but in-universe it does make sense that a deity is not going to keep giving power to a servant that is actively acting against their goals. If I’m building a cleric, I do feel a bit of a desire to have their personality and history either fit in with or comment interestingly on their deity’s personality and domains. They’re a class you really have to build in collaboration with the DM, I feel.

So. On that worldbuilding end, going by the cleric domains. Some (admittedly highly biased) thoughts on the associations of each domain, and some ideas for deities and maybe clerics for each. It got LONG (as in, 7000 words long), because I have thoughts apparently. If you want to skip around, the domains are in alphabetical order of:

Arcana

Death

Forge

Grave

Knowledge

Life

Light

Nature

Order

Peace

Tempest

Trickery

Twilight

War

Arcana

This domain feels slightly sticky to me in D&D because of the difference between arcane and divine magic. Like, do wizards view arcana clerics as essentially cheaters? Oh, sure, no study for you, you just get it for free! Arcana gods who were once mortal wizards, do they view clerics as cheaters? Especially given that a lot of the existing arcana gods are also knowledge gods, how do they feel about just granting magic without, so to speak, the effort of acquiring knowledge by your own means? Or do some of them prefer clerics? Gods of magic that are embodiments of magic as a force, do they like that clerics have an intuitive grasp of them and thus magic? Knowledge deities who believe that all knowledge should be available to everyone, they’d be fine with it too, presumably. There are lots of paths to knowledge, and for some people that would be through a teacher, in this case the deity. If knowledge and magic should be shared, then the path of the cleric is just as valid as the path of independent study.

And then there’s deities for whom magic, arcana, is a secondary domain, in service to their primary one, who’re happy for their cleric to use any power at their disposal to enhance their service (for example, deities whose primary domain is war or forge or death might not care how their arcana domain servant gets their power, provided they use it for the right causes).

Arcana is an interesting and slightly sticky domain for me. But. Some other domains it combines interestingly with, for deities with different views:

Knowledge. The most obvious. Fits well for a wizard-type deity, magic as study, but maybe also a more … theoretical physicist sort of deity? Deities who like people who just appreciate the raw wonder and intrigue of magic on an emotional level, a vast and beautiful unknown that needs to be interacted with and both studied and experienced. You know those people who just want to babble about their field of study, and you don’t even have to understand, though it would be great if you did, they just want you to come up and look at the cool thing? Deities like that.

War, Forge, Death. Like I said above, these would be big domains for gods who view magic as a fundamental tool to serve other causes. War, the destruction or defense of things. Forge, the making of things. Death, the breaching of the walls between states. Trickery could also go here, for sneaky deities who view magic as an obvious tool-kit. In worlds with magic, it’s such an obvious factor to deal with when it comes to their primary domains that these deities have sort of been forced to acquire the expertise, and sometimes they might want servants who specialise in supplying that tool-kit for the cause. Forge might also lean a bit in Knowledge’s direction as well, your ‘tinkerer with the universe’ sort of deity. Trickery also works because Arcana clerics get a few nice scout-and-secrecy type spells, like Arcane Eye, Nystul’s Magic Aura, and Leomund’s Secret Chest, so a trickery deity having an ‘agent’ cleric with a disguise as a pious scholar and a toolkit for spying and smuggling feels like a fun idea.

Order, Twilight, Life. These also work as primary domains for deities who view Arcana as a toolbox domain to supplement their primary one. With features like Planar Abjuration, Spell Breaker and several of the abjuration, divination and conjuration spell options, arcana clerics feel like they could be good ‘civil defender’ sort of agents. The sort of magic civil servants for deities of civilisation, making sure that things stay where they’re put and that the righteous are not influenced unduly by arcane powers.

Death

The necromancy domain, for when you want a divine boost on your path to lichdom. I’m going to say, though, that I do like the disease aspect of this domain. I blame reading The Legend of Huma as a teen, and Morgion’s corruption of a certain knight to the shock and betrayal of all his fellows. On the cleric end, I really, really like this domain as an expression of, not so much malice, as just absolute despair. It’s the necrotic domain, the domain of entropy and rot and decay. Murder, secrecy, death, decay, despair, disease. Miasma. It’s an evocative domain.

Deity-wise, this domain is the four horsemen (or three of them, Death, Pestilence and Famine – pair a War god to add Conquest and War). The walking wasteland. The crawling oblivion. It’s the Black Death, the Red Death, the White Death. It’s a pale figure atop a pale horse. Poison in a cup, rot in a wound. Petyr Baelish, sowing chaos just to see where all the pieces fall. It’s false dawn. The calm shallows of despair. It’s black and white and green. Every Outer God ever, from the crawling chaos to the blind idiot god at the centre of the universe.

I love the disease aspect. Start with plague. Start with fire and drought and famine. The aftermath of war. The fevered, skeletal survivors. Have a voice in the dark make them an offer. A shelter, an assurance, that the worst has already happened, and nothing more can trouble them now. All they have to do is … offer other people the same thing. The fire and the fever and the pain. And then ... the quiet place beyond it, where there is only peace and purpose.

As a domain, Death feels perfectly capable of standing alone. Add Arcana, if you want more a focus on necromancy. Add Trickery, if you want more chaos and entropy, toppling towards annihilation. Add War, that old friend and partner. Add Tempest, the scourging storm, or Light, the searing, radiant fever. Add Life, to pair and partner with Disease, the poison and the antidote in one cup. Add Peace, for the quiet oblivion when all pain and strife has been toppled gently away.

Forge

This is an odd domain for me, because I absolutely love the image of the smith deity, Hephaestus, Wayland, Prometheus, and I love characters like Tony Stark in the MCU, people who forge their way out of captivity and pain by raw force of will and ingenuity. But. A lot of the available deities for the Forge domain feel a bit on the lacklustre side, and I don’t know if that’s because the smith imagery for me is so bound up in image of conflict and captivity, Prometheus, Wayland, Tony Stark? It might just be a case where the domain evokes such specific imagery for me that I’m a bit blinkered by it.

The Forge domain is bound up in imagery of fire and metal, war and craftmanship. As a cleric domain, it’s fairly focused on weapons and armour, rather than the wider applications of the craft, so the clerics will likely be a bit more specialised than the deities. Mythologically, forge deities are often creation deities, civilisation deities, discovery/exploration deities, even healing deities. There’s a lot of ‘whatever the problem, we can build our way out of it’. Which is awesome.

So. Some interesting domain combinations:

War is the obvious one. Forge clerics are pretty clearly designed as front-liners. And on the deity side, war is often a necessity for a forge deity, both as a primary market for their wares, and also because they tend to be prime targets for forces who want to have exclusive access to said wares. There’s a reason I associate the forge with captivity. Going to war because the enemy forced your hand and you had to build your way out of captivity seems to be a typical job hazard for a smith deity. An interesting addendum, put Life with it, for deities of War, Forge and Life, who build prosthesis and solutions to the aftermath of war. A lot of actual RL forge deities do seem to have a ‘mechanical solutions to biological problems’ sort of mindset.

Knowledge is the other immediate aspect. Discovery, invention, civilisation. Tool-makers, more than weapon-makers. Prometheus. Fire and the taming of the natural world. Craft. Trade centres. In more industrialised settings, invention and industry. So, Order and even Nature might be good domain mixes as well, for the civilisation and harvest/nature-tamed end of things. The plough as much as the sword. Forge has some hearth associations, for gods of city, home and protection. On the darker side, Order, forges are also where you make shackles. But then you have my favourite image. Prometheus, Wayland. The chained or hobbled smith god forging his way to freedom. I like chaos in a smith god. Fire and freedom, creation, wringing possibility from the raw material of the universe. Forge, Knowledge, Arcana, Life. Tempest, even Trickery. The smashing of chains.

Grave

I love this domain so much. I’ve always loved psychopomps, guides, and the gentler aspects of death. Hades and Persephone, Isis and Osiris, Hermes guiding souls. Charon the ferryman. Death-the-Gatherer, rather than Death-the-Hunter. I’d love a dual-aspect deity, Life and Grave domains, the Lord/Lady of First and Last Respite. Peace, ease from pain, freedom from slavery.

Grave pairs very well with Twilight. They have the feel of boundary guardians, the liminal deities. Grave’s use of necromancy spells feels very much like something drawing power or essence from the boundary between life and death itself. A border guardian, authorised to open the gates when needed and ensure that they are safely closed again. Twilight sits so well with that.

Life, Knowledge. Medicine. Hermes and his caduceus. Peace. Laying to rest what should not have been disturbed. Nature. The acknowledgement of natural cycles of decay and reinvigoration. Grave lies very much on the ‘slow and steady, all things in their course’ sort of feeling. It really does pair well with Life in a single deity, not a raw striving against death as an enemy, but a more balanced understanding of what to push and how far, before life itself becomes a tyranny of captivity. First and Last Respite. You strive and you strive and you strive, and then you rest.

It also goes well with War in this regard. Again, its partner aspect. Death domain pairs more overtly with War, but Grave also has a place. Poppies in the fields. Last rites. The soldier chaplain. War as necessity, and then the aftermath. A grave domain cleric has a lot to do in a war.

Interestingly, with the likes of Hermes, and even Isis to an extent, there’s also a Trickery association. Thieves on the boundary line. Stealing knowledge or wealth or time past the line of death. People who have seen things that were never meant to be seen. Truth behind illusion. Journeys, exploration, knowledge. Outcasts. Death is the great equaliser, after all. It welcomes all, even the most wretched. There’s the interesting balance for a thief god, ‘you can’t take it with you when you die’, but maybe you can? Or a thief who will not be stolen from, and that includes their life, the one possession everyone should have the right to defend. Trickery and Grave have some interesting mixes, and a grave cleric with a criminal background would be fascinating to me.

Knowledge

Again, I adore this domain with all my heart. Knowledge domain is the seeker archetype, both in deities and clerics. A shared wellspring of knowledge, and a mission to perpetually add to it, to ask questions and then go and find the answer.

A thing I find with deities for this domain, they can have an oddly static feel. Like the sum of all knowledge already exists, is already stored in some library somewhere, and no knowledge deity ever needs to discover anything themselves. It’s a danger to get stuck in the static ‘archivist’ image of a knowledge god, even though the collection and processing and classification and archiving of information is a whole dynamic activity in itself. Knowledge changes, is always changing. Knowledge is about seeking, archiving, analysing, understanding, drawing linkages. Disseminating, teaching, sharing. Though there are and should be gods who focus on recording information, because that’s a right and necessary thing we like to do with knowledge, there’s a lot more to the domain than that.

On that note. I feel like Knowledge and Trickery are a very nice pair of domains for a deity. What’s that quote about the basis of trickery being knowing one extra fact? Plus. Espionage is a whole industry based on, essentially, the theft and dissemination of protected knowledge. And the flipside, that to protect knowledge, you have to know how people will try to steal it. A lot of the knowledge domain’s abilities and spells lend well to spying. Even your static ‘archivist’ god, with his library and his scrolls, has probably seen just about every idiot seeking forbidden knowledge, and was possibly the cause of what happened to quite a few of them. Heh.

With that in mind, War is also a potential partner domain as well. Finding information that your enemy doesn’t want you to know is a huge part of warfare, and messengers and couriers are also vital during wartime. If you wanted to make a god of espionage, Knowledge, Trickery, War and maybe Arcana would be a good mix of domains.

Knowledge also just goes well with a lot of the civilisation-focused domains. Order, Life, Arcana, Forge, even Nature. And with more chaotic areas as well. Knowledge is about exploration, discovery, invention. Maybe even Tempest can fit alongside, especially combined with Forge as well, for that ‘lightning strike of inspiration’ idea. Knowledge over tradition. The heretical pursuit of truth in the face of order. The defiance of demanding answers to questions people don’t want asked. Prometheus, after all, is one of the archetypal deities of knowledge.

Knowledge is just … about seeking. The pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge clerics are seekers, especially in the adventurer mould. The explorer, the archaeologist, the pilgrim, the messenger, the spy, the broker, the medium (Knowledge pairs well with Grave too). The teacher, the protector. If a god of knowledge wants a mortal pair of hands, it’s to find, protect or spread knowledge. Or to use it for a specific purpose. Ideas can be the levers on which a world turns, after all. Not all knowledge deities might be neutral …

Life

The bog-standard domain of the jobbing cleric. The domain people maybe feel they get saddled with if the party needs a healer. But I like the Life domain a lot, although for some reason it’s locked on to orcs and half-orcs in my head (every life cleric I’ve ever built has been one or the other). I like the feeling of striving and equality you get with the Life domain. The endless fight against evil, destruction and even just normal decay. Life is the bulwark domain. Life is the stubborn domain (which, actually, might be why I associate orcs with it). And I like a lot of the existing life deities.

Life is about preservation. It doesn’t create, but it preserves. Life holds the line. It’s considered the bog-standard domain, and to be fair it does fit most anywhere. You can tack the life domain on to the portfolio of nearly any deity you please, and it’ll probably fit.

And! It doesn’t have to always be good. I don’t even just mean that you can have a racial life deity for an ‘evil’ race, like Luthic for the orcs (which is a whole other thing, racial pantheons are … a tricky thing), but Life itself can be an enemy. If you’ve ever read the fairytale ‘The Soldier and Death’, you’ll know what I mean. And, for a more recent example, the Many-Faced God in Game of Thrones is an example of a death-as-mercy deity that moved towards punishing and/or preventative medicine later down the line. Life without cease can be a hell without escape. Life is as much a force that needs to be tempered and balanced as any other. You have options with Life deities.

So. Domain combinations. I LOVE the Life/Grave duality. I said it above with Grave, and I’ll say it again down here. Pair the two. They work beautifully together.

Life has the obvious solar association, so Light is a common pair for it. Twilight actually works very well as well. Life is the bulwark. The preserving line that enemy forces founder against. Pair it with a domain that ventures protectively into the darkness, or with one that vengefully shatters it. Life, Light, and Twilight are a nice mix of domains.

Peace and Order are an interesting set, in that they can edge Life over into its darker aspects if left unchecked. The rigid, tyrannical end of lawful. Stepford smilers. Whatever happens, we can fix you right up! So just smile, and take whatever happens. Life is a torturer’s dream domain. You can go dark, dark places with it if you want to, and these two are a good pair of domains to set alongside that journey. Make a deity of Order, Life and Peace that would put the greatest Archdevil of Tyranny to absolute shame! Though you can take them gently too. You can take them as they were intended. Make bulwark deities. Protectors against the dark. Holding the line.

I also love Life, the same as Grave, as an equality domain. This is more on the cleric end, but I love outcast characters who take up the mantle of a healer god because the deity just accepted them. I do like Ilmater for this, for example. Life as the healer domain knows all about what people do when they’re in pain, and it works to heal rather than punish that. The ideal of a medic who heals regardless of nationality or creed. Dr McCoy from Star Trek, because I adore him. Make an angry healer, an outcast who works to help other outcasts, who struggles with the ethics of helping even evil people, because if you ignore pain when you see it, what does that make you? But if you cause untold pain with an act of mercy, what does that make you? There’s a lot you can work with here. Life is more than just a jobbing domain.

Light

The spear of god, the lance of the heavens. Light is the glorious, radiant, blinding, burning domain. The domain for when you want to smite people and set the world on fire. There’s also a vigilance, eyesight, ever-burning, all-seeing sort of association. The lantern ever-burning in the dark, the eye in the sky that sees all. So it has a sort of a, a half-and-half sort of feeling. Light will wait for all eternity, as patient as the sun, for their enemies to move. And as soon as they do, Light will smite them with fire from on high. Light is a distinctly decisive sort of domain. You can’t take back a fireball once you’ve launched it, so be sure you know where you’re aiming it first.

Light is honestly such a fun domain. It pairs well with a lot of things. Life. Tempest. War. Knowledge. I love a lot of RL mythological figures here. Helios Panoptes. Light and Knowledge are such a good mix. Light is knowledge as in surveillance. The big staring eyeball in the sky. The sniper’s little red dot on your forehead. I see you. Light is the crusader deity. ‘I’m going to see what’s happening, and then I’m going to act on it’. Add War in, sure. Tempest. The lightning bolt from on high. If any deity is going to have combat celestials to throw around as well, it’ll be Light domain deities. It’s a very smitey domain.

Light does have a gentler aspect. Light clerics tend to be blasters, mobile artillery, but they still have the standard cleric options. And light is the dawn of life. So. Life. Nature. It has a preservatory feeling against the forces of darkness and decay. Stand in my radiance and I will shelter you. And a sower of life feeling. Show me your grain and I will ripen it. Energy is epitomised by light. So you could pair Twilight as well, a deity with twin aspects, the light and the twilight. The spear and the shield. A deity who will venture out watchfully into darkness, keeping faith with it, until crisis point is reached and they bring the sudden dawn instead.

Nature

Gods of the natural world. I’ll be honest, while it makes absolute sense that you would have nature deities, as a cleric domain it feels slightly superfluous and like it’s stepping on the druid’s toes a bit. But. On the deity side, lots to work with.

With raw elemental might mostly given to Tempest, the Nature domain focuses on plants, animals, the land, the waters. Nature in its neutral state. There’s also a bit of an emphasis on survival, with things like heavy armour and Dampen Elements. Nature is very much about working with the land and creatures around you to survive. It can lean towards the wilder end, unspoiled nature, or the tamer end, the gods of harvest and field. You have things like your gods of the hunt, your gods of the wood, your gods of the field. Hearth, home. Freedom. Travel.

If you want to lean towards the wilder side, Nature combines well with Tempest, Trickery and War. These are your gods of the hunt, gods of the storm, gods of the jungle, the defenders of nature unspoiled. But you can also combine with Life and Light here as well, for the raw majesty and vibrancy of the wilderness, and with Twilight and Peace, for the shadowed forests and wilds.

On the tamer end, the gods of field and harvest, of fertility, Nature combines with Order, Life, Light, Knowledge and even Forge. Order, for the rolling fields of agriculture that feed the cities. Life, Light, for the sun that ripens the fields, the harvest that feeds the world. Knowledge and Forge, for the craft and the tools that tame the land, the knowledge of plant and soil and properties that provide food, medicine, systems of produce. Also, a deity of Nature, Trickery and Knowledge as a god of trade, of travel and produce and negotiation and knowledge. I like that.

Trickery combines well with either end as well. On the wilderness side, for nature’s more fey aspects, the gods of travel and wilderness and getting lost, the trickster deities of echoes in the mountains and lights in the swamp that lead people astray and protect their secrets. On the tamer side, I love Trickery and Nature (and Life) for a god of hospitality, the arcane rules and soft power that prevent violence by alternate means. And, I mean, if you want Hotel California, the little god of the vanishing inn, try some combination of Nature, Trickery, Life, Death and Twilight. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave … I actually really love the idea of a Nature deity that defends the wilds just by luring and trapping intruders under the guise of civilised hospitality. The liminal deity of the boundary between the fields and the wilds.

On the deity end, Nature is actually a really versatile and lovely domain. Add it to everything. Heh.

Order

Apparently, I tend towards neutral or chaotic, because I kneejerk don’t like the Order domain. For much the same reason I’m not too fond of the enchantment school of magic. It’s by nature on the far end of lawful, and the focus is on control and conformity before free will. It’s a hard domain to balance. Gods of Order are going to be on the hard lawful edge, deities of law and cities and justice. Justice is the better end of the domain, but the spells and features … This domain leans a bit dystopian, yes? Law by compulsion. It’s ridiculously easy to slant towards evil.

But. Let’s try and get past the kneejerk. At its best, Order is the domain of cities and civilisation, centralised law, law by consensus. It’s a domain focused on discipline, on justice, at least in the sense of rigid adherence to the law. At it’s worst, it’s the domain of empire and tyrant and dystopia. Zealotry. The slaver domain. Deities with Order in their portfolio will lean in one of those directions. Justice and discipline, or conquest and control. Either way, there’s a focus on civilisation, on the polis, on centralised authority.

The natural domain pairing is War, for the conquest end, and Peace, for the civilisation end. Peace is very much the gentler, more consensual partner to Order, enabling willing communal links, while Order enforces unwilling ones. Peace encourages people to act together, Order forces them to act correctly. There’s an interesting tension there. On War’s end, I feel a deity with both Order and War domains will prioritise Order, viewing War as a tool to extend the reach far enough to ensure control, but the reverse is also possible, viewing Order as a way to maintain a strong enough army to feed War. You can sit anywhere on the lawful end of the alignment chart with any of these. A crusader for justice all the way down to a tyrannical despot.

On the polis end, civilisation, Arcana and Knowledge both sit well with Order, as well as Forge. A Knowledge and Order deity will be one of those ‘gods of lists’. Everything in its place. Arcana will be a toolbox, less a focus on the exploration and experimentation of magic. Though you could have an interesting tension of a deity of Order and Arcana trying to fully map and thereby control magic as a force. That is an arcana deity who will very much not like magic’s more chaotic expressions, which could go interesting places. If you want a theological war on certain types of magic (especially sorcery), that could be an idea.

Order as a domain feels very overbearing. It’ll dominate any domain mix its part of. You could put it with Light, with Nature, with Life, and it will bend and shape the other domains around it. It even goes with Trickery, which feels like it should be a chaos domain, because again, espionage is a fundamental part of warfare and control, and a domain that doesn’t balk at enchantment won’t balk at illusion either. Tools in the toolbox.

The one domain that doesn’t feel like it pairs well with Order is Tempest. Tempest does feel too rawly chaotic to sit nicely alongside Order. If you want a pair of gods to set in opposition, try Order vs Tempest. The city vs the sea, the storm vs the doldrums, raw force vs overbearing will.

Peace

I’m calling this the Hufflepuff domain, and like a good badger, it has the potential to be absolutely terrifying. Peace is one of those domains that you really, really don’t want in an enemy. This is the siege domain, the tank-generating domain. Come and have a go, dear, because you are guaranteed not hard enough. Put this with Life and then Order or Light or War, and you are dealing with an absolutely terrifying unified force that won’t go down. If you don’t like the Hufflepuff comparison, you can also try Starfleet. Walk softly in the sure knowledge that you are carrying the bigger stick.

An evil peace deity is such a fantastically terrifying thought. A long, calm walk into night, hand in hand, carrying each other when we falter. I want this domain for a post-apocalyptic setting so much. William Hope Hodgson’s Night Land. Dying Earth. A philosophical debate between two deities of peace, whether it is better to be the last bulwark standing firm against the darkness, or if true peace is found in gently letting go together. Put one with Life, put the other with Grave, and debate in a world of horror and darkness and madness and despair which one of them is ‘good’ and which one of them is ‘evil’.

But. Even normally, in non-dying settings. Peace is an exciting domain that can go in some interesting directions. The line between good and evil for this one will be what we’re willing to do to have peace, and what we’re defining as ‘forces that prevent peace’. Obviously if you’re going for a Peace/Order evil combination, ‘freedom’ is a thing that could prevent peace. If you’re going with Peace/Grave/Death, life is a thing that could prevent peace. It all depends on how you want to play it. But you can go gentler as well. Peace with Life, with Nature, with Grave, as a genuine, gentle attempt to help as many people as possible find a life free from pain or fear. Peace with Order as a good-aligned hope for civilisation and diplomacy triumphing over fear and war.

It’s just very fun for me personally to imagine the darker aspects here. An evil peace cleric as a cult leader. ‘Stand with me, help each other, stand together, and no one can stand against us’. All the worst aspects of group-think. Genuine loyalty, genuine camaraderie, and just a complete lack of actual morals. It would be terrible and fantastic. Hang an evil party around a peace cleric and have your loving, psychotically loyal bunch of clowns go to town on the rest of the world.

Tempest

The first D&D character I ever made was a high elven Tempest cleric, ex-slave, ex-city official. Looking back up at my thoughts on the Order domain will probably give you an idea why. Tempest is just a gorgeous domain for me. Distilled chaos, and all its tricky balances. Where’s the line between raw destruction and needful freedom?

It helps that I’m from an island nation and strongly associate Tempest with the sea. In the absence of an actual Ocean domain, Tempest is where that part of me gravitates. So Tempest gets all the associations of freedom and power and terror and awe that the ocean gets from me. The volcano and earthquake aspects aren’t as fun for me, though elemental storm very much is. Air and water and lightning and sky.

Tempest isn’t a kind domain. It doesn’t really feel nurturing or safe. At its worst, it’s raw destruction, power pitted against all comers. At its best, it’s freedom for those strong enough, a storm to break the oppressive swelter of summer, a sea wave to smash through walls. Like Order can sit at any end of the lawful spectrum, Tempest can sit at any end of the chaotic spectrum.

Tempest deities will probably lean towards one end or the other. Destructive and overbearing, or fierce opponents of tyranny. It pairs fantastically with Light, as the celestial realms’ shock troopers, with lightning as a nice conceptual bridge between them. Tempest probably lacks Light’s more patient aspects, though. Although maybe not. The sea is always power held in potential, after all. The promise of the storm is always there, even when it’s calm. So. Light is a good mix. War and probably Forge will work just as well too, though for Forge you will want the more volcanic/seismic end of Tempest.

Tempest is an interesting mix with Trickery. Whatever else Tempest is, it doesn’t tend to be subtle. But misdirection is as much an aspect of trickery as disguises are. Sound and noise, signifying nothing. Until the right moment. If you want Tempest to match Light’s patient aspects, pairing the two of them with Trickery would be a very interesting mix. Add War, and you have a deity with a full martial suite of domains, from the espionage and information gathering stages all the way through to shock troops and invasion. Or go Tempest, Trickery, Knowledge, to emphasise the secrets of the ocean depths, and the powerful forces that protect them.

On the gentler end, Tempest pairs naturally with, well, Nature. Wildfires and ocean storms serve their purposes too, clearing ground to help systems rebuild and refresh. Rainstorms to break droughts. It’ll still be a bit on the survivalist end of nature, cruel to be kind, but it can be much gentler than its more destructive outbursts imply. You can have a deity of Life, Nature and Tempest quite easily.

Trickery

The domain of illusion, secrecy, misdirection, stealth. Okay. So. I adore this domain in terms of deities. Adore it. Anyone who knows me will tell you I love trickster deities with a passion. I will say that cleric-wise, this domain feels oddly blinkered, purely focused on stealth and misdirection, though the spell list does add some more fun, chaotic things. But in terms of deities, oh, I’m gonna have fun here.

On a base level, trickery is about accomplishing your goals by indirect, unexpected or subtle means. It’s about stealth, misdirection, leverage, diplomacy, theft, murder, guile. It’s about breaking the rules, taking the unexpected path. It isn’t necessarily chaotic, you can do an unexpected thing that is purely within the rules of the game, and for certain stripes of trickery deities I would suggest valuing exactly that, a matter of pride in pushing the rules to breaking point and highlighting all their absurdities in the process. White hat hackers. A lawful good trickery deity whose sole purpose is to test the bounds of law and tradition and show where it can be improved.

It also doesn’t have to be evil. It seems to come up a bit, that Trickery is added as a domain to an evil god’s portfolio simply to emphasise that they’re a liar. Which is … valid, fine, but it’s just … Lying is not all that Trickery is. You can do more with it.

I’m also not fully certain of the association with luck for Trickery. I feel it’s because 5e doesn’t yet have an actual chaos domain, so Trickery is used as a stand in for anything on the more chaotic end of concepts, but the thing with luck is that it’s random. The Dice Gods are the gods of fate, destiny and chaos. I’d give them … Order domain, Chaos domain, Balance domain, something like that. If you want good luck and bad luck, I’d give them the Life and Death domains, positive and negative energy, creation and entropy. But Trickery … implies more intent than luck allows. You have to set out to trick someone. Trickery is to accomplish goals. A roll of the dice, outcome uncertain, feels like something a trickery deity would go out of their way to avoid where possible. Tricksters try to play with loaded dice. I feel like they don’t like to rely on luck.

But. Moving on. Trickery deities are your gods of subtlety or change. Your thief gods, your spy gods, your gods of revolution, your gods of motion and change. Your gods you send out to accomplish things that other gods can’t. Your gods of desperation, your gods of last resort, your gods of hope. And, yes, also your gods of lies, of deceit, of hidden things. Your gods of manipulation and planning. Your gods of murder in the dark.

In terms of domains, Trickery goes with everything. Seriously everything. There is nothing you can’t put with Trickery, because it’s all about your methods, not your goals. In that sense it’s a bit of a toolbox domain, like Arcana or Knowledge. There are so many ways to go.

Trickery, Knowledge, Order, War. Your god of spies and espionage. Trickery and Light, your god of surveillance. Trickery and Knowledge and Arcana, your god of hidden, illusory and experimental magic. Trickery and Grave, your thief psychopomp. Trickery and Twilight, all in on illusion and hidden things, the god thieves pray to for protection and silence in the dark. Trickery and Nature, hospitality, trade and soft power. Trickery and Peace, diplomacy in all its forms. Trickery and Tempest, the god of sound and fury who knows how to level it strategically. Trickery and Life is a god that’s going to help and heal by whatever means prove necessary. Forge and Trickery is Prometheus and all my other beloved tricky smiths. Trickery and Death is your chaos-sower, your force of subtle entropy, your silver-tongued dark messiah.

Honestly, you can never give Trickery to too many deities! Add it everywhere! Well, no, you do need a contrast to it, deities who are genuinely honest and straightforward or blunt as the face of a hammer, but it is a versatile domain. You can do a lot with it.

Twilight

This is such an incredibly gorgeous domain. Twilight, dusk, shadows, borders, liminality. The quiet secret spaces. Flight. Second star to the right and straight on til morning. There is nothing I do not love about this domain. Here is the gentle end of Peace, the balm of Grave, the sheltering arm of Life, the watchful care of Light. Here is the darkness made gentle, a shelter, neither pitch black nor blindingly bright. The borderland, the crossing point, where all are treated equal, where the thief finds as much shelter as the righteous man. Good gods, I love this domain.

Like I said. Life, Light, Peace, Grave. All of them are natural combinations with Twilight. Grave, for the borderlands. Peace, for a peaceful crossing. Light, for the vigilance against the dark. Life, for the shelter and solace there. And Trickery, too, for those who live in shadows and draw their comfort there. A deity of Trickery, Grave and Twilight, the thief god with the hooded lantern who guides souls to their rest. A deity of Life, Light and Twilight, the hermit, the patient watcher, who shields travellers under their cloak and stares unblinking out into the night, standing guard until dawn. A deity of Trickery, Arcana and Twilight, the god of dreams. A deity of Nature, Twilight and Peace, the god of the twilight woods, of still pools, of unicorns.

This domain feels like magic to me. I mean the wonder of magic. The feeling you had as a kid watching The Last Unicorn for the first time. I can’t be analytical or eloquent about this. This is the bus stop at 4am domain. The silence in the desert at night domain. The domain of flying dreams, where a god or a fairy touches you in your sleep and tugs you out the window to walk on air. Here are illusions, here are secret truths, here are fairytales.

It’s a good domain. Make me some gods who evoke the quiet wonder of it. Please, I love you.

War

Ending on a bit of a blunt note, really, in that War is arguably one of the simpler thematic domains. To quote Fallout: ‘War. War never changes.’ Maybe not, though. There are a fair few dualities and contradictions bound up in the domain.

There’s your obvious, Athena vs Ares, intellectual vs physical war, strategy vs combat, civilisation vs barbarism. There’s your theological, Augustine of Hippo and Thomas of Aquinas and the concept of ‘just war’, the surgeon vs the soldier, under what circumstances and in defense of what ideals does violence become justified. War for conquest vs war for defense, and the boundary where one becomes the other. Ideological crusades. The honesty of violence vs the hypocrisy of honour. War as ritual, war as necessity, war as a vehicle for personal advancement.

All right. So maybe War is not a simple domain at all. You have a lot of options of what other domains to pair War with in a deity’s portfolio to put a different slant on them. War with Life or Peace, war for defense of values. War with Order, war for conquest and crusade. War with Death, war of annihilation. War with Tempest, blitzkrieg, lightning war, war of force and sudden might. War with Grave, the god of warriors, who cares for war’s people. War with Light or Twilight, guardian against invasions from beyond. War with Knowledge or Trickery, the wars of states and nations and intelligence, wars of trade, black ops, espionage. War with Forge or Arcana, strategic, toolbox thinkers, getting the tools to do the job.

War is one of those domains that works just fine alone, but you can also add it on to any other domain that someone would have to fight for. Now, granted, War is organised fighting, large-scale fighting, so it’s not just picking a fight in a bar, but even then, War gods who value warriors who strive to prove their might at any provocation can still pay attention. But you have a lot of potential variety with war. You could have one war deity in your pantheon, or have six or seven who at least dabble in the domain. There isn’t a single other domain that you couldn’t add War onto. Nature is probably where it strains most, because War is usually the opposite of helpful for fixing problems Nature might be having, but even Nature has her champions. Even Peace, which you think would be the opposite of War, can happily stand alongside as the end goal, and War the means.

And as a stand-alone domain, you have a LOT of philosophical room for argument with War. Fittingly enough. Heh.

[narukoibito]

St. Mungos, since feeling is first who pays attention and Muggle FWB for the WIP Game?

Thank you for the interest, Anon! This took a while because things in my personal life are in chaos, but thank you for the request.

St. Mungos

This is my Healer!Ginny story that has been lurking in the back of my brain since last year. I’ve written a good amount of words, but then an entirely different plot appeared and now I may have to rewrite most of it, hence it’s lack of progress. But I still really want to finish this one day.

Ginny is a Healer on the 4th floor of St. Mungos. Her first patient is someone named Harry Evans. (This is a Harry never to Hogwarts story.)

The first thing Ginny notices is his eyes. They’re the most vivid, bright green that she’s ever seen. It’s unnerving how unseeing they are. A pressure builds up in her chest, an aching pain and nostalgia she can’t place.

The morning light from the window washes over his face, dancing off these round wire-rimmed glasses. His dark hair (black like a blackboard) appears to be on some ineffable scale of entropy — tousled and pointed in every which way, yet somehow it’s charming and works well with his sharp, unconventional features. Some of that hair spills over a bandage wrapped around his forehead. 

But it’s also the pleasant, vacancy in those eyes that strikes her, like she’s looking at the embers of a once bright flame. He looks like an innocent, half-lost child, his lips curled in a ghost of a smile.

Her clipboard and supervisor tell her his name is Harry Evans. The name creates an itch at the back of her head, something she wants to scratch at, but the odd sense of nostalgia must be misplaced significance. He’s her first real patient. 

He must matter to someone important to have his own room on the fourth floor of St. Mungo’s Ward 49. Usually they lumped all the long-term spell damaged patients in one place, let them wander under the supervision of one Healer. But this room is spacious and private, protected by complicated wards and concealing charms. Someone really cares about Harry Evans, and for some reason it causes a subtle burning behind her eyes. Maybe it’s because he looks like a newborn fawn. 

Who wouldn’t want to protect him?

“You’re new, but he’s not difficult. It’s mostly maintenance,” her supervisor says. “He makes it easy, don’t you, Harry?”

Harry’s gaze drifts toward the window.

Ginny scans his file. It’s actually surprisingly thick, but a lot of it has been redacted. The summary page sums it up though: he’s twenty-one; he has been here for three years; the diagnosis is vague (severe curse damage); there’s a long slew of attempted cures, none of which were successful obviously; now it’s about making sure he’s comfortable whatever that means.

“All right, let me know if run into any trouble.” Her supervisor is already starting for the door.

“Um — what about — I know his treatment is maintenance, but can I…?” Ginny’s not sure what she’s trying to say exactly. Harry Evans has seen a lot of Healers if the list of attempted cures is any indication, but she gave up Quidditch to become a Healer in the long-term spell damage ward specifically because she wanted to do something.

Her supervisor gives her a rueful smile. 

“Stick to maintenance. Harry Evans is a special case.”

Ginny turns back to Harry, who is facing her again, looking painfully innocent.

Somehow she doesn’t need convincing that he’s special.

since feeling is first who pays attention

This was a gift for the Harry/Ginny Discord Incognito Elf exchange. I managed to finish in time to gift it, but I want to take some additional time to rework it before posting. It is missed moments over the years as Ginny and her feelings for Harry evolve.

Ginny presses her face against the wall, peeking between the stair spindles. Her bright brown eye lands on the two boys hunched over a chessboard. Her brother Ron and Harry Potter, who, despite appearing to be losing, doesn’t look the least upset.

Harry Potter. 

The Harry Potter is in her house. Looking comfortable on their couch despite the faded, mended cushions. His face crinkles in laughter at something Ron says, his green eyes bright with contentment. Ginny doesn’t miss the occasional look of awe at the things she’s always taken for granted. It’s almost as if he can’t believe he is really here.

He isn’t what she expected – isn’t what she imagined he would look like after all those years listening to Mum recite her favorite bedside story, about the heroic Savior of the Wizarding World. She had pictured neat hair, a dashing smile, someone who would recognize a comrade in her and take her on all sorts of adventures. He would be different, he wouldn’t discount her dreams of flying and doing everything her brothers could and more.

Instead, Harry Potter has the messiest hair ever, a sheepish smile, and clothes that he nearly swims in. Oh, and he has somehow missed the memo and found the comrade in her brother Ron instead. 

Her fingers curl around the spindle. Not for the first time, a spike of envy shoots through her. If only she were a little older or a boy. Then maybe she would be the one playing chess with Harry. Maybe she would be the one to hide under his invisibility cloak and battle trolls and face You-Know-Who with him.

Ginny presses her face a little closer and lets out a sigh.

But Harry Potter is kind. He ignores all the times she has made a fool of herself. And he has the greenest eyes she’s ever seen. They are as green as those glowing jars of pickled toads at the Potion ingredients store Mum had taken her to. Pretty and kind and not dismissive of her patched clothes or her glowing red face.

Harry Potter. If he likes Ron, if he looks like he actually likes the Burrow, if his face grimaces at the attention at Flourish and Blotts, could it be possible that one day he could like her too?

Muggle FWB

Hah, so this was the first idea that I rambled off to my beta, which ended up with long, long emails back and forth on this idea that I never wrote! Here’s a snippet of that exchange:

Harry thinks he only see Ginny as a little sister, so when she suddenly proposes that they become friends with benefits in uni, he’s floored and says they’re practically family. Blinded by her anger over the rejection, she kisses him so that he knows what he’ll be missing. Of course, he then realizes his attraction to her. As their physical relationship progresses, they develop feeeeeeelings (gasp!). But Ginny thinks she only wants a physical relationship and once they have sex, it'll get out of her system. Harry has to work to convince her that she actually wants more.

But the backdrop is that Ginny doesn't think she wants more than sex is that when she was 11, she was kidnapped by Tom Riddle for as a kid (they met at the park a lot, and none of her brothers/Harry/anyone realized he'd been "befriending" her). Kid Harry figures out where Riddle took her and saves her.

Ginny wasn’t molested but she/Harry/everyone else is deeply affected by this event even though they don't realize it. Ginny thinks she's overcome it, and she's still a BAMF some the books but she's not fully over it as shown by her fear of being emotionally involved with Harry. It's why Harry refuses for a long time to think of her anything else outside of a brotherly way. 

Ginny has a really bad sexual experience (though it doesn't go all the way), and as a result she's disgusted by men (not scared), but doesn't feel any revulsion with Harry. After not being able to get close to any boy for a long time, she decides to proposition Harry. Harry, being noble, absolutely refuses at first, but she kisses him, he's very attracted to her, and is convinced by her that he's helping her get over this tick. So it's FWB but it fits their personalities, and still stays true to the Ginny is subconsciously afraid of a real relationship/intimacy with Harry, who realizes he wants more but doesn't know if just getting to be physical is more than he'll ever deserve and he wants what he can get if not real love from her - until, of course, he realizes he can't do it anymore and she has to decide if she's brave enough to actually let herself feel.

HAHA omg I’m reading over my emails and I talk about getting into The Changeling and only sleeping 4/5 hrs a night and then the exchange ends with my coming up with my alternate dimension idea of Harry getting thrown into the BWL!Neville universe. So you guys can see why this story never went anywhere despite several thousands words between me and my beta.

–

Whew, long post. Hope that satisfied your curiosity! 

I’m honestly not sure there are any left, but let me know if you have any other wip asks! Though note that I will be rather absent in the near-future because of life.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Believer

Genre: futuristic sci-fi, wlw

Words: 20k

Summary: Cara doesn't believe in the sunrise on her planet. Summer does.  On an ice planet where the sun only rises every 4 years two girls attempt to make the long journey to see it for themselves.

Website ⭐ My books ⭐  Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon 

i.

She didn’t believe them when they first told her about it, not really.

Sure, Cara could wrap her head around the thought: Mother Stars and perfect planets caught in their pull, where you could stand and watch the ground end and light begin. All sorts of things existed in the universe- vast and unknown as it was. There must be planets where stars were close enough to feel soft against your cheek, taste warm in your mouth, and set your life to their movements.

But it wasn’t here, not on Anlok, not in any way that mattered.

Like most people on Anlok Cara hadn’t been born there, she had spent six years on a long journey. Back then she hadn’t been sure she’d make it past the Redshift Galaxy, there had been so much hacking, wailing babes, and the blinking eyes of robots reaching low battery.

Cara had had a cot on the lowest deck, tucked in between a family of five and a man who wore all black and spoke in mumbling prayers. It had been the man in black who shared his meager bread portions with her, bandaged her scrapes, and had her sound out letters from books on the floor.

They had said the Redshift Galaxy was cursed; the Pox broke out just as they passed. Fat yellow pustules, cloying coughs, and raging fevers, bodies had disappeared from their beds faster than she could count them. Her Monk, the one with voids in his eyes and praying to unnamed Gods of Entropy and Singular Truth, had told her this too would pass.

This would end and the dawn would come. The monk had read from great tomes of Entropy, droning on between coughs and slow blinks, she waited for him to disappear as well. He was right of course, it would pass- even if there was no dawn, or at least, not one she believed in.

But she was released from the giant holding bay, released from the belly of the ship and greeted by sharp, frigid air that made her head spin and vision blur. It was hard to register the strange white plains surrounding her in all directions and sudden touch of whipping winds outside. The blast stung Cara’s cheeks and made her eyes water.

She drew back into herself, shying away from the wall-less bounding space and strange white, white, white world. She was almost relieved when Bots shepherded her into a metal-box as cold as burning ice and bent from age. A group of them gathered on a large platform with walls filled with diamond-shaped holes; Cara’s teeth chattered, and her small body violently shook as they waited.

Metal scraped against metal as the doors eventually closed, the iron lattice walls rattling threateningly and grinding together. Cara was on the last lift down into the city. Her, along with a handful of other nascent war orphans, were given the exception to stay.

Many of the adults on the cargo ship would have to continue their journey to elsewhere, somewhere quieter and even farther from the hungry fingers of the conscription. She looked up once, through the crisscrossing ceiling, right into the above.

It was unsettling, nothing like the speckled black expanse she was used to, her mouth made a small ‘o,’ taking in the horizon like a thick drink. It was pale blue, on the cusp of something else, stirring with distant wispy clouds and a faint silvery yellow glow.

One of the older kids, one racked with wet coughs and wearing a threadbare coat, went to the side and put his fingers through the holes in the cage, head tilted up. “Sky,” he said softly, and nothing more.

The elevator gave a coarse screech and started rumbling gradually into the ground, taking the sky with it. At first, all Cara could do was wrap her arms around her body and clench her eyes shut, blocking out the journey. There might have been an announcement about all this, about the ice planet and the metal elevator- she didn’t know. She was never very good at paying attention to the ship announcements, at some point she assumed they were all the same.

She hadn’t been listening. Now, she was being fed into the fixed, unmoving earth, it could be anything, the mouth of a beast with a throat longer than black holes. The bottom of a silent ocean where she would be forgotten and pushed aside, like she had never existed at all.

This could even be some sort of sacrificial ceremony, like the stories of old. The monk’s face came back to her and Cara shivered with the thought of being passed to something more. Perhaps given to the teeth of angels or ancient beasts or entropy itself to please a decaying universe.

Her imagination ran absolutely wild.

Time slipped by with a maddening slowness, no one in the cage spoke, they were all well-versed in keeping to themselves and trusting the walls more than the bedraggled crowd. The rattling went on, it was only when she felt a faint warmth leech into her skin that Cara cracked her eyes open.

She stopped shivering, heat slowly soaked into the space, working its way through her layered clothes and pushing life back into her cheeks. She tried to look over the edge of the elevator, but there was only black stone walls and cankerous clanking there.

Balmy steam snaked past, little pockets of damp heat that smelled of sulfur and metal. She was still trying to peer over the edge when the wall itself opened up, giving way to an enormous cavern, colored in blacks, browns, and dewy amber light.

Cara sucked in a breath, muscles tightening on reflex. She had heard of cities before, of human structures and busy roadways, but this didn’t look like the picture books. Buildings stacked on top of each other all the way up to the ceiling, metal walls and flat roofs, square windows and dark brown metal doors. They were squashed together horizontally and vertically, connected by swinging bridges, rope ladders, pulley systems, and makeshift stone stairs.

Houses protruded from the walls, sat on flat dirt cliffs, and stood tall on clunky stilts; steam puffed up from deep below like breaths of a sleeping giant. If she looked down, past all the houses and winding bridges and moving parts, she could see the barest sliver of total darkness below. She looked away again.

Dim, hanging lights were fastened to the walls and ceiling, fancy torches sat on the handrails and softly blinking little fire lights floated aimlessly in space- like cotton fluff caught adrift. Maybe they were augmented small bugs or tiny drones, the light was much softer and more honeyed than any she had known before.

And there were people.

Cara’s eyes bulged. People, streets and porches and houses filled with figures in all directions. Chattering voices, busy feet, and even distant music flowed from below, and Cara took a step back, the cargo ship had always been crowded, but this was something else entirely.

How can they all live together like this?! It must be suffocating.

She looked down at her ill-fitting boots and told herself to never take her eyes off them- she had had to make quite a few trades of bread rolls for their thick soles. Who knows how many of these city people have fast fingers and bare feet? She’d have to be vigilant.

Cara and the other children eyed each other, unsure of this new development. The ground approached much more quickly than Cara would have liked, passing the stacks of messy city and then slowing.

The elevator lowered noisily toward a small pocket of waiting people and landed with a soft wheeze. Cara tried to situate herself at the back of the group, but so did all the others.

A tall figure stood behind the lattice walls, solid and towering, Cara held her breath for whatever possible new shock this could hold.

“Is this them?” A hushed voice asked outside the elevator.

“Yes, exactly on time.”

The doors opened noisily, revealing a tall man holding a clipboard and looking down at them. He had a thick mustache, sharp blue cap and buttoned jacket, and an ashen look to his skin- grey almost. Cara set her jaw and pressed her back up against the wall. He surveyed them mildly, if he was surprised by anything, he didn’t show it.

“I hope the trip down wasn’t too bad,” he said with a thin smile. “We’ve been meaning to upgrade this thing for ages.” He nodded at the elevator, no one said anything, keeping their eyes downcast and bodies tensed. Another moment passed, “well,” the man cleared his throat and stepped aside, “welcome to Pitch Springs then. We’re happy to have you.”

As expected, no one responded again, he gestured forward, “this way. I’ll get you set up here, I’m the second-tier Conductor, pleasure to meet you all.” It took some prompting, but there was nothing for it, the group found themselves ushered out into the enormous cavern and toward the curious eyes of bystanders clumped together just past the elevator. They were wearing short sleeved tunics and yellow tights, loose dresses and baggy jumpsuits, every one of them observed the kids with intense curiosity. Cara shrank back.

Later, she would learn most of them were just there to learn some news on the war but weren’t expecting a half-dozen disease-pocked kids passing by. One of them wasn’t so taken aback by it all though.

“Did you see it?” A voice piped up, right next to Cara’s ear.

Cara turned slowly, nerves prickling at the loud voice. She faced a young girl with messy pigtails and a generous gap in her front teeth, she had a shaggy appearance, slightly upturned nose, and a similar ashen pallor. The girl held Cara’s gaze in a brazen, unflinching kind of way, almost caustic in its reach.

“Tell me you saw it.”

Cara stopped in place. “What?” It was her first word in a while, raspy and dry against her throat.

“Vega,” the girl said as if it was obvious. “She’s rising.”

Cara wrinkled her nose and turned back to man with the clipboard, looking for some clue or escape. His back was turned, and he was prompting the kids forward toward a squat building with a large plaque on the door. Cara followed quickly after her group, but the girl chased after as well, asking again, “did you see it? Did you see anything?”

Cara ignored her, pulling back and making a mental note, she’s probably the type I have to watch my boots around.

Cara ducked her head and left the girl, following the conductor off into her new future. That was the first year she was close to seeing the sun rise.

ii.

Cara adjusted her shift, making sure she hadn’t sweat through her undershirt already and ruined it for afternoon classes. Her bangs fell into her eyes as she moved, she was always told to grow her hair out, a proper ponytail was a lot easier for climbing than an uneven mess. She never could bear the feel of it on her neck though, every few months she woke up in the middle of the night and hacked it off again.

Cara pushed her bangs back, stared out over the Topaz District (no actual Topaz included), and then looked back up toward the jagged dark ceiling. She took a deep breath and nodded; her ruffled black bangs fell back into her eyes.

A bell rang in the distance. It was somewhat musical with a rusty undertone, producing three tones, one right after the other.

When Cara first arrived, she thought it sounded ominous and unnatural, a singing in the dark from all directions, there was no escaping the chimes of the bell. However, years later and after endless 25-hour cycles, she barely noticed it anymore.

It was almost past lunch. She would have at least an hour to herself, she slipped up a set of steep black rock stairs and toward one of the highest cat walks, a bridge swinging loosely across the expanse.

It had been one of the central footpaths back when Pitch Springs had been founded, now it was just a shortcut for the prickly and impatient. She picked her way across the boards swiftly, sure-footed and agile after four years of traversing the messy colony.

The bridge swung gently but she was used to that as well, she crossed like a shadow, a lithe girl that had never entirely recovered her weight from the trip over here. Another bridge connected to that one, tied sloppily to one of the rope handrails and then quietly forgotten. Cara hopped the rope and followed it toward the mouth of a small cave, a place just as quietly forgotten.

She slid into the low dark cave, its rock walls were smooth and solid black. Pitch Springs was painted in colors of ink and honey, black stone and yellow lanterns. Her clothes matched that now as well, a dark yellow shift and black leggings.

She had finally gotten proper boots with a grip on them after years of clinging to her old slippery ones, refusing any offers from her House Patron up until recently.

She used the sticky rubber bottoms of the boots to quickly dash down the tunnel, lit only by a few long-lasting bulbs and lost firebugs. The firebugs were friendly, warm insects that were augmented to release Vitamin D in their glow, both useful and frankly endearing creatures.

Cara made her way down a short tunnel and then turned into a warm pocket under the earth. She entered a round closet-sized room with various holes and a small pile of trash and rags in the corner, odds and ends left there over the years.

Cara knelt down and surveyed the walls, studying the uneven surface and craggy openings, she clicked her tongue and reached into her pocket. It only took a moment for a pair of eyes to appear in one of the holes in the wall, they were bright green and almost luminous.

She smiled, “I’ve brought you something.” She took out a little bit of dried meat from her pocket and offered it quietly. A lean creature stepped into the light, twitched its tail, and darted over to her. Cara beamed.

Two more small black creatures followed, they were fluffy, small creatures with long elegant tails and tufted upright ears. No animals had been found on Anlok when travelers first arrived, but the first settlers were loose about what they brought into the community, including furry stowaways hidden in grain deposits and the jackets of animal-lovers.

Cara scratched behind the ears of the first one, a patchwork mother with a limp and huge orange paws that reminded her of socks. Cara had named her Samara for a type of sweet orange fruit she had eaten once.

She smiled and emptied her pockets, presenting one bit of meat after the next, experimenting with trying to coax the creatures to eat out of her palm. She dangled a piece in front of one of the more skittish ones, a young male, prone to fluffing up to twice his size and hissing weakly.

“Come here boy,” she crooned, creeping closer and closer as he watched her intently, ears perked and body stiff, she made slow progress. Maybe the rest of the hour would have passed like that, waiting and watching, but it was not to be.

“Cara!” A booming voice called, echoing down the long passageways like a pebble dropped down a dry well, “what are you possibly doing?”

Cara sat all the way up and her animals scattered, startled by the noise and disappearing into the crevices as a new figure entered. “Trick question,” an older girl with pigtails came into view, putting her hands on her hips, “I knew you’d be here with your cats.” “Summer,” Cara frowned deeply and dusted herself off, “they’re not cats.” Summer clicked her tongue, “cat. Cat-thing. Same difference.” She shrugged, “are they bringing you dead rodents yet or anything? Have you tamed them? Are you a cat queen?” Cara rolled her eyes, “no.” She sniffed loudly, “but thanks for your suggestions.” Summer lifted her chin, gaze just as bold and fierce as it had been when they were younger. “Man, I don’t want to get a ransom note one night like: Dear Human-People, give us all your meat rations. And maybe fingers. And we’ll return Cara, maybe, sincerely, Catty Cat-Things.”

Cara sighed pointedly at Summer’s derisive tone, “they keep the caves clear. We should be praising them for taking care of the pests for us first of all.”

Summer just grinned widely, “everybody says they’re pests too you know,” she snorted, “but I'm not here for an argument.” Cara crossed her arms over her chest, “why are you here? Did you want in on this?” She held up a piece of meat, “I can feed you out of my hand too, but no licking. I’m sure someone will thank me for taming you yet.” “Ha. Ha.” She leered, “I can’t believe you forgot. I knew I’d have to come get you.” She shook her head, “you’re lucky I have eyes.” Cara gave a sharp sneaking smile, “isn’t that all you have?”

Summer had been assigned to Cara’s Housing Detail since she first got there, the same girl that had harassed her the second Cara stepped off the elevator into Pitch. She had a bed across the hall from her and showed Cara how to climb the ladders and bargain for extra rations.

Summer was well-known for having eyes and ears on everyone’s business. It helped she had won an apprenticeship with the clock keepers and used the bell tower as a vantage point, it also helped she wanted everything from everyone all the time.

Eventually she got some of it.

“No,” she said smartly, “I also have a stunning personality too."

Cara took a deep breath, “is that a sales pitch? I don’t think that will flag down any passing ships.” Summer pouted slightly, “I’m only here as a courtesy you know. A woman of her word if you will, a good Samaritan.” Cara arched her eyebrows up, “oh?” “Yes!” She said forcefully and stepped forward, “we’ll only have a few hours before they’ll start paging us and giving out more than a few demerits.” Cara took a step backward, “I get enough of those on my own.” She laughed, “what’s a few more?” She pointed, “it's not far from the entrance from here anyway.” Cara furrowed her brow, “are we going to play twenty questions or …?” Summer simultaneously held up a pocket watch and took Cara by the elbow, “you said you wanted to see the sun, didn’t you?”

Cara glanced at the ticking watch and then back to Summer's smiling face. She leaned away from her, “I said it could be interesting.”

“Well, now’s your chance!” She sang, leading Cara down the cave by the arm, “come on.” Cara took a few steps with her, but dragged her heels, “the public elevator is still under maintenance.” She pointed out, “and it’s not like we have access to the vendor one.” No one really did. Summer shook her head, pigtails bobbing in place. “I have something else up my sleeve. It might even knock the socks off a person like you.” Cara just raised her eyebrows and let herself be led out of her Cat Cave. Summer turned them away from Pitch and toward the opposite direction. They faced a narrow tunnel she had never used before, leading up and away into the darkness. “Uh,” Cara just blinked at it.

Summer hurried Cara up the sloping path, and she tried not to slip on the rocky ground as they left the dimmest echoes of the city’s clamor behind. Only a few lights appeared up ahead.

“Your whole socks,” Summer muttered to herself. “Off.”

“I’m not wearing socks,” Cara commented dryly as she squinted ahead. “Oh my God,” Summer sighed, “then I’ll put some on you. This is big!” Cara couldn’t keep the small smile off her face, “everything is big to you.” She said softly as she watched her feet.

“Big to me?” Summer snorted, “look who’s talking.” Cara stuck her tongue out, “I’m not done growing!” She turned away, “and I’m just saying. There’s no knowing it’s up there.”

Summer stopped just to wag a finger at her, “your skepticism is not welcome. Very unhelpful.” Cara snorted, “noted. But,” she paused thoughtfully, “how do you know that this is even the right time? Right hour?” “Caraaa,” she whined, “I know you own a calendar because I own a calendar up in the mess room. Did you not see today highlighted and circled? The stars? The stickers?”

“Sure,” she nodded, “but when was the last time someone confirmed the planets rotations? When’s the last time you’ve actually talked to someone who’s seen Vega?” “Sun’s don’t just stop rising,” she said dismissively, “and why would they lie to us about this?” Cara simply sighed. They took a gentle turn and a splash of weak light shone from up ahead, Summer bounced on her heels, “come on.” She towed Cara toward a mouth of the tunnel, an exit, and climbed up to jump out first. The other girl was all knees and elbows and bursting citrus energy.

Cara followed and stuck her head out tentatively, blinking a few times and then sliding down carefully into the new cavern. When she looked up there was a moment of awe. The area was huge and filled with powdery white light, filtered down from terribly high above, totally unlike the yellow lights that dominated the underground city itself.

In the very center of the room was a set of stairs, metal ones erected in a perfect square shape, zigzagging up back and forth over one another. They climbed up and up and up, clambering high above into the light with no visible end.

She tipped her head up at the touring free-standing construction, “huh.” “Huh she says,” Summer made a face, “huh.” “Hu-uhu?” She made an exaggerated sound, just for her.

Summer snorted, “come on.” She hurried over to the stairs, “we have to get this party on the road.” Cara followed slowly, carefully behind. “How did you find this?” She frowned, “what is it?” “It’s an old fire escape,” Summer explained simply. “A ‘just in case’ sort of thing.”

Cara stared up at it, head tilted completely back and thoughts churning. “We’ll need warm clothes.” She said with a scoff, “and robot legs.” “Well,” Summer turned quickly, “your old pal Summer has come through for one of those things,” she hopped over some rocks to a little box that blended into the ground. She opened it carefully, “found these in the discard piles years ago.” Cara cocked her head to the side, “you really want to do something like this?” She squinted, “climb forever so we can be both cold AND exhausted?” Summer rolled her eyes, “duh.” She slung the coat around her shoulders, “this is important, like actually important.” She sounded insistent and abrasively certain of herself.

Cara just scowled softly at that, Summer didn’t pause to keep convincing her, she simply went to the gate and tugged on the aged metal. She grunted with the effort, but it swung free with a grating screech.

Cara stood in place; feet stubbornly glued to the spot. Summer only gave a glance over her shoulder, a grin, a wink, and then her footsteps echoed with a twang as she began to climb.

In a different world, Summer might have stayed and tried to convince Cara to join, Summer was known to hate doing things alone. If Cara had been Pip or Miramin or Ty-ji maybe she would have put up more of a meaningful fight, come up with some solid arguments about demerits and the dangers of old unstable architecture.

But Summer knew Cara too well. Cara looked up at the soaring contraption, at the possibility of a fiery ball in the sky and her insides clenched, stirred, pulsed. She sniffed loudly. I don’t have to. She reminded herself, it’s probably not real. Not really.

Cara remembered distant stars from her long journey, but no sun from her own birth planet. Of course, most her memories from her birth planet were a jumbled, scattered mess. They were things she actively strove to attach cement blocks to and sink to the bottom of her consciousness, a story best left forgotten.

Cara contemplated the sun for a second longer.

Then she was moving all on her own, racing toward the gaping entrance and her own foolish impulses. “Don’t waste all your energy on the first bit!” Cara called up, “we have to pace ourselves.” Summer poked her head off the side of the railing and simply beamed down, a knowing look plastered on her face. Cara just groaned.

They climbed.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

Sweat beaded down Cara’s forehead, warmth still surrounded them from the giant hot springs inside Anlok. Cara’s new coat was not helping the matter, but a distinct chill was whispering down from above nonetheless, just enough to tug at her awareness.

She took a gulp of air, “so you’re saying this is going to alter me as a person? A big life changer?” “Oh yes,” Summer chirped, her spirits hadn’t flagged. “You will turn from a grouchy toad lady into a cheerful gentle princess after this.” “Truly terrifying,” Cara said dryly, “I don’t think I want to see the sun.”

Summer snickered, “you’re probably right.” She said lightly, looking over her shoulder to hold Cara’s gaze. Summer’s looks were shrewd as any dare and perpetually hungry. She snorted, “I can’t imagine you being possibly any different than a grouchy toad. It’d be too shocking.” “Are you really settling on ‘toad’?” Cara scrunched her nose up, “You’re a jackal then.” She grinned tartly, “a jackal and toad.” Summer returned a wild, unconfined laugh, as big as it was abrasive. It seemed to be an answer unto itself. Neither of them had ever seen these animals, but nature documentaries from long ago were a favorite of the recreation area.

Numbers were printed on the landing of each stairwell, Cara started to count. They were on level ten.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

The girls traveled in silence for several minutes, nothing but their heavy breathing and clanking footsteps filling the space. Summer kept the pace urgent, always a couple steps ahead of Cara.

The scenery around them was unchanging: dark rocky walls on all sides of them, misty light filtering from up above, and grungy silver stairs underneath their clanging footsteps. It smelled of the sulfur from the springs and something rusty that Cara couldn’t place.

Summer only paused once as they reached the fifteenth floor, stopping in place and watching Cara intently. “What are you going to wish for?”

Cara blinked a couple times, “a shorter walk back?” Summer frowned deeply, “I’m serious.” She looked up, “not that you have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Cara shrugged and climbed past her. “Nothing.” She said quietly, “it’s a sun. Hot plasma with a nuclear core and a thousand little explosions.” Summer’s footsteps banged twice as loud as she followed her, “that’s the point.” She said hotly, “I swear Cara, I might be all eyes but you’ve got some blind spots.” She blew air out of her nose, “I know you’ve never been above ground Summer,” Cara hurried up the steps, not looking back at her. “But that doesn’t make it anymore magical or special than down below.” Summer went quiet for another several minutes.

“Vega is different,” she whispered, “she’ll hear us.” Cara said nothing back, she didn’t have the energy to point out that suns couldn’t hear. And didn’t grant wishes. Something pricked under her skin, Cara’s real age had been lost on the journey over, doctors determined she was anywhere between 7 and 9. It had been years since then and they had both reached past 13.

Either way they were both too old for fairy tales.

“How is a plasma sphere made by explosions not the most magical thing in the universe?” Summer prompted; she never did know how to let things go. “It’s not all ships and black holes out there.” Cara kept her mouth clamped; you don’t know. She thought softly, you haven’t seen it.

“I know what I’m wishing for at least.” Summer kept going and Cara thought: yeah, I know. I know you too.

They reached the twentieth level.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

They were both panting heavily, their breaths bursting into tiny white clouds and dissipating into starry nothingness. Cara was shivering now, shoulders vibrating and teeth clattering together, she was still too small for her own good.

She was considering crawling at this point, getting on her hands and knees and dragging herself up shamefully the rest of the way.

Cara wiped her brow, “that’s it.” She said with a wheeze, “this is our final resting place. I can tell, I’ll be stuck here forever, with damn stairs and you, of all people.”

Summer drew a breath to respond, but a musical sound interrupted her, letting out an almost comical jingle in the flat cool air. Cara heard a loud thunk behind her and she turned slowly.

Summer sat heavily on one of the cold metal steps, holding a pocket watch and looking off into nothing. She tilted her head back and held herself at several jagged angles, both boneless and taut all at once.

“Summer?” Cara asked carefully.

Summer glanced up in her general direction, “that’s it.” She said loudly, “that’s all.” Cara frowned deeply, “so that was…?” “We missed it,” she announced casually, eyes closing, “who knew stairs would take so long.” They hadn’t made it.

Cara dropped down, her boots landing heavily and slipping on the metal, she collapsed gracelessly next to Summer.

“So that’s it.” “That’s it.” They both glanced over at each other, Summer opened her mouth, seemed to taste the frigid misty air and then pressed her lips together again. After a moment she tossed her head back, and let out that high-pitched jackal laugh- coarse and ruthless. She laughed and laughed until she started wiping tears out of her eyes.

“I’m sorry I dragged you all the way up here,” she said with another savage laugh.

Cara leaned in toward her, “nah.” She scratched the back of her neck, words flat and bloodless. “What’s life without a little suspense?”

Summer finally looked at Cara, eyes focusing and laughter withering. “Suspense?” “Yeah,” she lifted her chin in a way she hoped was confident, “this way it’ll be all the more amazing when we do finally see it, a good suspense.” Summer sighed, “think she’ll wait for me?” She said in a light tone, but something ached underneath the words. “My wish is kind of on a time schedule here.” Cara knocked knees with her, and they leaned back on the towering construction, “what type of wish would it be if you didn’t have to work for it? Really.” Summer gave a melting smile, something earnest buried under all that frantic energy. “Thanks,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Even if you don’t mean it.” Cara made a face, “do you prefer I ribbit at you grouchily instead? I’m open to ribbiting.” Summer chuckled, much less loudly, much less of anything.

“Plus,” Cara moved to get up, “we got to experience these awesome freezing stairs.” “Ugh,” Summer sat back up, “I’m taking Pip on my next adventure.” Cara put her hand out to help her up, “Pip will start crying before you even get to the adventure part.” Summer took her hand and Cara heaved her up, steadying her as she rose to her feet.

“Right,” Summer said with a deep breath, “don’t bail on me then, Ship Girl. I’m expecting full commitment here. Sunrise or bust.” They turned toward the way down, “I worked for this too.” Cara said indignantly, “even if the above ground is literally the most desolate cold boring thing ever, I’m committed.”

“Cold and desolate?” Summer shot her a cheeky look, “a rival for you then.”

Cara stuck her tongue out at her, Summer chuckled warmly, color returning to her ruddy cheeks as they moved.

“You’ll see,” Summer commented airily, “it’ll be beautiful.”

Cara scratched her chin, “which part? The big shiny thing in the sky or all the flat frozen ground?”

Summer clanked downward, “the part where you’re wrong about everything.” She laughed and dashed down the next flight of steps.

Cara chased after her, “yes, well,” She called loudly, “I’m sure I will get less demerits than you if I get back to the house first. We’ll see who’s right then.” They ran, fumbling their way back down the dark steps and carrying their aching bodies to their Housing Unit, trying to forget as best they could what they missed that year.

iii.

Cara didn’t hesitate that morning, the bell had already rung eight times. She wiped her hands down on her smock and tore it off her waist, tossing it into the back closet. “I’m heading out now Mrs. Havershaw.” She called loudly and hoped that would be enough.

It was a cramped back room with brown tiled floor and a grungy mop pushed into the corner, a massive silver sink covered the back wall next to an elaborate drying rack. It was already filled from the night shift, clean and ready for the day’s activity.

The place smelled like bleach and burnt things you were never fully going to scrub out.

Hooks sat in the very corner, holding the staff’s personal belongings and old aprons, next to that was large locker that someone lost the key to years ago, and a bench. Cara found her light jacket and knapsack there, slipping them on quickly and glancing at the door, escape was close enough to taste.

Mrs. Havershaw bustled around the corner, hair tied up in a tight grey bun, and eyes squinting fiercely. The main theory behind her eternally scrunched gaze was that she just needed glasses, but she was as stubborn as she was old.

She was an age Cara could only guess at and persisted to have enough energy for three people hopped up on Gladiator pills. She was portly and hunched from age, always wearing a knee-length pink dress made of material so thick it could have been a grain seed bag. Mrs. Havershaw’s withered hands hung at her chest like dinosaur claws, she spoke to Cara without looking.

“Have you restocked the back room? We have inventory next week.” Cara took a step back, “Miramin is coming in thirty minutes, she’ll cover my shift.”

Mrs. Havershaw’s tight face became even tighter. “Miramin’s an idiot.” She said dourly, “can’t tell a fart from a yawn. Terrible at stocking.” “I understand,” Cara said slowly, she was well-versed in appeasing the temperamental woman. “I’ll have a double-shift tomorrow if anything needs fixing. It’s all on the calendar.”

Mrs. Havershaw went over to the time schedule and ignored Cara for a moment. Cara considered slipping out the backdoor then and letting the pieces fall as they would. But disappearing on her would probably do Cara as much good as a splinter in an open wound.

Cara had been doing the morning shift at ‘Rail’s End Diner and Dive’ restaurant since she was shuffled out of General Studies a year and a half ago. She hadn’t shown much of a knack for engineering or mining, two very important Pitch career paths, and ended up here. Originally, she was worried she wouldn’t be picked up for any apprenticeships since they usually took quite a bit of networking to get.

Cara didn’t exactly have a knack for networking either. Luckily, Mrs. Havershaw had a sharp tongue and an alleged soft spot for tiny war orphans.

She auctioned for Cara’s education right away.

The old woman had her washing dishes and doing backroom work every morning and then sent her to classes at night. Cara never quite figured out the connection between it all, but it did ensure she didn’t completely give up on society and retreat into the depths of the planet to become a witchy cave woman.

Of course, Witchy Cave Woman was still on the table after her hands kept peeling completely raw and cracked like dried clay after a long shift, but that was beside the point.

She looked Mrs. Havershaw in the face, waiting for her response after she checked the calendar. Mrs. Havershaw just nodded, “knock some sense into Miramin on your way out, I won’t have her mixing up pickled radishes and pickled beets again.” Cara just waved and slipped out the door, “bye Mrs. Havershaw.” She neatly escaped into the streets.

Cara forced herself to walk slowly at first, passing morning shoppers and youths without class bustling around. The Diner was situated on one of the busy shopping district ledges, busy and dusty, and a good place to get lost.

She forced herself to walk. And then Cara was speed walking. Then she was jogging quickly against her will- legs pumping like something tangible was nipping at her heels. She climbed, crossing the Fiora Lee bridge, and scaling a swinging ladder three stories up.

She heard the crowd before she saw it.

Buzzing voices, chattering, laughing, singing children. Cara poked her head up and saw a long line already snaking across the ground near the far side of Pitch.

The elevator was located right at the back. It was the same rickety metal cage it had always been, but reinforcements shone new on the bottom and a fresh chain attached to the top. A velvet rope hung right in front of the doors, people hovered closer and closer to it, some daring to try and touch the thing itself.

“Line up, line up,” A conductor shooed the masses, guiding them into proper weaving lines and then returning to the front to do the same thing again in an endless cycle.

Cara looked around quickly, scrambling over the ledge and dirtying her hands and the knees in the process. She perked up as she saw a bright red shirt. And then another one. And a third.

She quickly ran alongside the crowd, trying to see a tall dark head in a red robe. She almost considered yelling when someone else did it for her.

“Cara!” They called, “silly girl, over here.” Cara swiftly turned around and found a bright tall girl waving at her. She exhaled and started jogging over. Summer had grown even taller over the years, shooting up as she hit fifteen and towering over as many heads as not.

Seventeen had filled her out, wide hips and round face that presented prettily straight teeth. She knew the dentist well, or maybe she had something on him, it didn’t really matter.

She wore her favorite red robe with matching worn red slippers and black tights, Cara had no idea who she knew in order to get those.

Cara was waving too as she approached, “how long have you been here?” Summer was situated smack dab in the middle of the growing line.

Summer puffed out her chest, “I staked out for the night.” Cara’s eyes went wide, “you and,” she looked around, “all these people?” Summer made a sour face at that, “some of them cheated while I was sleeping… but yeah.” She looked around, “kinda lame.” Cara cocked her head to the side, “it’s been years since it’s been an option to go up to see Vega.” “I know, I know,” she said dismissively, she grinned impishly, “but did any of them climb a thousand stairs to try and see it before? Tch. No devotion.” Cara raised her eyebrows, “keep your voice down.” She snapped and glanced around, but no one was looking at them. It had taken a lot to explain where they had been for five hours to the House Patron all those years ago, youths were watched carefully under community authority.

Too many spirited kids had strayed too far from the city and fallen into the hot springs or narrow cave passages with no footholds back up. Cara had become a little more cautious over the years, she was all too aware she didn’t know how to swim.

They would have gotten enough demerits to last through their teen years if the community authority knew they were climbing ancient steps into the sky. The truth wouldn’t have gone over well.

Summer waved her hand through the air, “oh, they don’t care, the whole city just thought we were off getting in trouble.” She winked, “or making out.” Cara rolled her eyes, “the only one you are interested in making out with that day was the sun.” “Exactly right,” Summer bounced on her heels, “a star crossed lovers tale finally coming to fruition.” Cara sighed, “Let’s just not lose our place in line.” They faced forward, observing the conductor making a brief speech about “opportunities” and appreciating the world they are given. Then he made a metaphor about light and thanked the Legislative Council and engineers for making this all possible.

Cara only heard every other word of the speech, but Summer whispered the rest of it in her ear, adding a bit of exaggeration and an accent that was not his. Cara tried to cover her mouth and suppress any laughter.

The first batch of Pitch residents entered the elevator, cheering erupted all around as the doors rattled shut and the machine whirred to life, it slowly lifted into the air. The contraption was impressively less noisy than it had been for Cara’s first trip down.

The most affluent families were first, waving and beaming as they ascended, Summer’s eyes were huge and clouded with reverence as they left.

“How long do you think it takes?” She asked softly.

“Less than our first try at least,” Cara said flatly and then smirked, “maybe.”

Summer elbowed her in the ribs, “haven’t you been on it?” Cara shook her head, “I wasn’t exactly watching the time back then,” she looked away, “also, you know… don’t get your hopes up for the view. I was there, it’s just tundra.”

Summer sighed so loudly it almost startled her, “I know for a fact your memory is crap.” She said abrasively, “I’m sure you’ll see it again and we’ll be in a love triangle with you, me, the sun, and Anlok itself.” She tilted her chin up, “I think that’s a quadrangle.” Summer made a face at her and started checking her pocket watch for how long it took the elevator to reach the top and then come back down again. It seemed to take approximately thirty minutes, they restlessly played cat’s cradle with some bits of string and read each other’s fortunes.

Summer had bought a book on how to read palms properly, but Cara stubbornly told her that the center line on her palm meant she was going to die in a canoeing accident. She almost got a noogie for that.

Time passed languidly, there was a surprising number of people in front of them, some that just showed up at the last second and got to cut in front of everyone else. There was some definite grumbling as the crowd grew increasingly fitful from that.

They played cards with the family behind them, the little girl flagrantly cheated, but they all let it slide. Summer threatened her with a story of the clock tower ghost at the end: a specter that saw all your sins and punished wrongdoers with songs of the past dead.

That ended up being a little much. They put the cards away.

At around twelve bells Summer looked up sharply, “I’m going to go get us some food.” She announced, not taking her eyes off the elevator. “We still have another thirty minutes.” And then probably thirty more. Cara nodded slowly, “there’s still a couple hours before the main event anyway.” She guessed. Summer sighed and jumped to her feet, “pita sandwich with spinach, yeah?” She said with great certainty, taking out her ration slips to count them.

The spinach crop had been doubled recently, though Cara swore the botanists were messing with the current batch- it was tasting a tad metallic. Cara at one point wanted to be a botanist, growing the colonies food under massive sun lamps in the lower caverns. She imagined spending her days combining and re-combining different chemicals and crossbreeding seed species.

She liked the idea of being useful, but Cara didn’t have the chemistry marks for it. She was considering this as Summer hurried off.

“Don’t forget the hummus!” Cara called after her, but Summer was already gone.

Cara settled down in the dirt and tried to busy herself with thoughts of her literature homework, there was a poem by the AI Lillian they had to analyze. She had only read half of it so far.

Cara was distracted by the chatter around her.

“Well I’m wishing for a personal butler Bot.” Children’s voices carried from behind.

“Oh yeah? Well I’m wishing for two Bots. And a dog!”

Cara frowned delicately at that, Anlok regularly took in those that needed to disappear from the big bright universe but most the residents had never been above ground. They didn’t know. It was popular mythos that the sun granted wishes.

There was a story, passed from the old to the young to the hopeful, about a great starry galaxy nymph that birthed the young sun, Vega. Around Vega came one wintery planet to keep it company, Anlok. The nymph made the waters boil deep in the planet and the springs grow mineral algae that oxidized the planet- gifting air, atmosphere, and a haven away from the endless Leviathan war.

And finally, she gave the sun the power to grant wishes.

Cara never knew how to respond to the talk of wishes that sometimes bubbled up around her, she turned away from the crowd and edged off to the side, waiting for Summer to return.

Cara was shrinking away when she heard a single woman loudly repeating something to herself nearby: “You may know truth. Truth is our path. Light is our birthright. The sun our guardian, dark our father.” Cara’s brow folded in, she found herself turning toward the voice. A tall, gaunt looking woman stood in front of her, head bent down and voice ringing out.

“The truth is to know…”

Cara found herself speaking, “is that from the Text of Entropy?” For all those years, Cara had never forgotten the man in black on the cargo ship that shared his meals with her.

He too always spoke of the singular truth, the certainty of all cosmic things: entropy. We all burn to less than we were before, but in the burning there is purpose and truth above all things.

It wasn’t exactly comforting, but it did stay with her for all this time.

The woman wore a white handkerchief in her piles of brown curly hair, a loose peach dress, and raggedy black slippers. She turned slowly toward the sound of Cara’s voice, blinking rapidly, as if coming out of a trance. She was holding a crystal necklace between her fingertips with a glass prism at the very end.

“Yes?” She said in a loose, wind-swept voice, caught between the steam and her own thin red lips.

“Uh,” Cara realized her mistake, “nothing.” “No I’m happy to share the word,” she grew a smile.

Cara pinched her lips together and pressed onward, “I was just wondering… I used to talk this monk who was part of the Church of Entropy. I was just thinking about… what happened to him. Or if you were one.” The woman’s mouth twisted, but not in an unpleasant way. “I did my studies on the planet of Neribon.” She announced airily, “I read about the errant Monks of Entropy.” She shook her head, “no child,” she looked up to the space above, “I’m here for a pilgrimage of light, not decay.”

“Okay.” Cara took a step back.

“Have you heard of the Faith of the Spectrum?” The woman edged toward her, “it came to me in my lowest point, brought the greatest joy where I thought I’d lost all.” She smiled, eyes focusing for the first time, the irises were strikingly bright and maroon colored.

“Mmm,” Cara hummed, shifting back and forth in place. The woman looked Cara directly in the eye, waiting for a response. Cara cleared her throat, “Can’t say I’ve heard of them.”

“Then I have a story for you.” She smiled, “it’s a story you know, the story of all of us.” The woman’s face cast upward, stuck in some unseen veneration.

“Oh?” Cara furrowed her brow, listening warily.

The woman pointed to one of the bell towers, “if you run the clock all the way back.” Her voice became monotone and deep, a cavern unto itself. “If you go back to the beginning. It was hotter than all things, and just as dark. Darker even, the darkest thing. Light could not move, nor could anything else. Until…” She mimed an explosion with her hands, “the first gift.”

The woman nodded to herself, agreeing with some unseen figure. “That is the story of us. Light, the first gift, the only one that matters.” She smiled, a curl falling loose to her cheek. “It’s a story for you, too. I can tell.” Cara looked the woman up and down. “I’m not much one for stories.” She said apprehensively, she had never met this woman before.

The woman cocked her head to the side, “we are alone, don’t you agree? People are terribly alone, the second we are born until death, dreaming, hoping, hurting, alone, alone, alone.” Here eyes darted around as she spoke, ghostly and gaunt, searching for something Cara couldn’t see.

“Uh,” Cara looked around, looking for someone who could better answer to this woman’s intensity.

“Cut off from each other, from ourselves, from the universe. There is only one thing that stops the endless separation… that is light, my child. Light is always with us: it connects across the universe without boundaries or barriers.” She closed her eyes, “it is the great truth, that we are not isolated, but connected, light our great thread.” The woman tipped her chin up, “that’s what kept me alive.”

Cara’s gut flipped over with something she could only call “regret,” she wasn’t one to engage with public displays of vulnerability or philosophy. “That’s. Good.” She replied stiltedly, torn between wishing she had better words and wishing she could just turn and leave. “Very good.”

The woman examined her for a long moment, “I am Pyra. You should find me again if you need anything.” She finished, “I must return to praying now, today is my pilgrimage.” Cara nodded, the back of her neck still prickling.

Summer returned soon after that with their food, claiming that the line to the sandwich shop was entirely too long and she almost punched a nine-year-old for it. Cara tried to shake off her feelings and quickly took the sandwich, swallowing her unsettled thoughts with each bite.

She didn’t talk to the woman again, but many years later someone spoke of a nuclear physicist from the ravaged planet of Neribon, the only survivor of the whole thing. She retreated into the caves, taking a vow of silence and creating altars of light in the crevices of the planet.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

Summer shook her leg up and down relentlessly, “there’s only fifteen minutes left!” She seethed through her teeth, “at this rate, we’ll only see the tail end of it.” There were only eight people ahead of Cara and Summer, theoretically, they could all cram into the next elevator soon, but it hadn’t come back yet. And two other families were standing off to the side, arriving only a few minutes ago. Summer kept glaring at them with a truly bloodthirsty threat behind her expression.

Cara worried about them too; they were wearing thick white hats and yellow coats. They looked ready for the above ground.

Summer had her pocket watch out, Cara looked decidedly up at the wall, her frown growing long and pronounced. She glanced at the conductor’s booth off to the side and then frowned at that too.

There was a new conductor there, a magazine propped open on his knee and glasses perched on a nose that had been broken a noticeable number of times. Cara stood up, “I’m going to go see what’s up.”

Summer kept shaking her knee and staring at the elevator shaft, as if it might appear from sheer force of will alone. “Yeah, good.”

Cara jogged over to the conductor’s booth, “excuse me.” She came up to the booth and tried to catch the man’s eye.

He looked up slowly and put his magazine down equally slowly. “What can I do for you?” He was middle-aged, eyes crinkling around the corners and hair graying around the temples. Cara drew herself up, she was good at keeping her tone business-like. “We were just wondering when the next lift was arriving. The sunrise is really soon, and we’d hate to miss it.”

He frowned with his large mouth and angular square jaw. The conductor glanced over to the two families in yellow gowns and thick hats. “Sorry ma’am,” he said, he didn’t sound happy either. “The last lift is for ticketed individuals only.” Cara’s eyes went huge, “we didn’t know there were tickets.” He looked away, “only for the last one. Went up real quick.” She glanced at the other families, she had a hunch they were the only ones informed of the prospect of buying tickets this morning. She swallowed thickly.

“Sir,” she said sternly, “me and my friend have been waiting for years to see the sunrise. It’s terribly special, it’s,” she struggled, “it’s the most important thing. Not just a day trip.” He looked her over with a discerning gaze, “I hear you.” He leaned back in his chair, a long beat passed, “I’ve seen you at Mrs. Havershaw’s, right? A smart woman.” “Yes!” Cara lit up, “and my friend,” she pointed, “works for the bell master. We’ve both been with the community for years.” The man found Summer in the crowd as Cara pointed, his expression pinched, and eyes narrowed. Cara realized she might have made a mistake. He rubbed his chin, “the bell man’s girl,” he sat back even further his chair,

Cara fidgeted in place, “we’ve both been looking forward to this for our whole lives.” Not entirely true, but she could play it up.

He took a long moment to respond, he looked her over again. “Tell you what, I’ll make an exception. You seem like a sweet girl and Mrs. Havershaw’s done right by me several times. One ticket, for…?” Cara suddenly felt an itch in her veins she couldn’t scratch, the conductor’s words crawled over her. Sweet girl. Sweet girl. Sweet girl.

Cara had spent many years keeping her head down and voice low. She was also aware her face was doughy and girlish; many people mistook her for much younger than seventeen. Summer on the other hand was well-known, louder than light bulbs and vividly partnered with the well-known bell master.

A tall girl that never shrank or knew when to keep her mouth shut.

“Why not my friend? What’s wrong with you?” Cara wished she asked. But she didn’t. She was only a sweet girl.

Summer was the one that never really fit, ate the space up and forgot how to smooth out the rough edges. Cara had never doubted that they found each other for that fact, misfits on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Maybe that’s why Summer desperately wanted to find the sun and wish for a ship that would take her away from all this.

“Could I have… two?” Cara prodded delicately, “it’s something me and my friend have wanted to do together.” The conductor shook his head, “I’ve only got one left.” She somehow doubted that, he reached into his desk. “I’ll jus’ put your name here, Mrs…?”

Cara quickly turned around. “I’m not really feeling well actually, I should go. Have a nice day, Conductor.”

Cara didn’t look back as she stomped back over to her friend, Summers eyes glowed, “what did he say?” “Come on,” Cara took her arm and tried to pull her up, “I bet there’s some left over cake at the diner. I know like, two people who scheduled birthdays today.” Summer’s face completely wrinkled inward, a rare collapse of her wide features, “Cara?” It was probably fitting that the elevator clanked all the way down right then. The two families dressed in yellow gowns and large white hats got in. A dawning light of realization passed over Summer’s face, no one else was allowed to board.

Summer’s chin clenched and dimpled, she said nothing else as they left before a small protest could erupt from the others or the true disappointment of it all sunk in. They walked in silence back toward the market street.

“Suspense, right?” Summer said weakly as they bumped into each other and Cara just grunted.

“It’ll get sweeter with age.” Cara said without looking over at her. They ate cake in the backroom and didn’t bring up their failure up. At least, not that night.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

iv.

Summer kept the date of the next sunrise pinned to her and Cara’s wall. They had moved in together out of convenience the year before and Summer was the main decorator for the house. She outlined the date in thick marker and surrounded it with bursting stars and glitter, writing in enormous red letters: GD 25TH!! 5050.

Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. She practically colored in the whole calendar the year of the sunrise itself, square after square: 300 days until sunrise, 233 days, 141 days.

The countdown was at 90 days.

By that time Cara was moved to her “tertiary” night classes, they still included general studies of math, science, history, and literature. But after that she’d actually have to choose a “Track” and apply for it.

The spots for Tracks weren’t exactly rationed out evenly. It took “need based” and translated it to “skill based” and whoever had the wallet for it. Not that Cara’s wallet mattered, she had no doubt she would fail the Tracking Test.

Cara had already decided on working at the diner from then on out.

Of course, Mrs. Havershaw had other plans. General Education 3 had taken Cara a lot longer than those who didn’t work, and she was well-aware of the graduation and following test days. However, it had been news to her when Secretary Lin called to confirm Cara’s Tracking Test date in two weeks. Mrs. Havershaw already paid the fees.

Cara suddenly needed to have a conversation with her boss that neither of them would be keen on, heart to hearts weren’t exactly their thing. Cara hid the paperwork in her knapsack and swore to herself each new day that she would take them out and confront the old woman. Cara never seemed to find the nerve.

She had been upgraded to waitress that year after a counselor’s son had dropped too many plates and a spot opened up. There were 90 days until the sunrise.

Cara’s shift that day went by quickly, she sped through orders, smiles, and filling up endless bubbly drinks. She watched the clock dutifully: three hours, two hours, one.

She wasn’t paying attention, not when customers’ heads suddenly leaned together, and they tensely whispered over their meals. Not when passing residents eyes flicked around uneasily on the streets and someone cried on the bench outside. Not even when the streets emptied along with the restaurant booths.

It wasn’t until she encountered an older gentleman, a regular who worked in mining and tipped her extra rations, said something. That’s when she stopped.

“Hey there Cara.” He was holding a newspaper open in front of him.

Cara nodded quickly, “how are you doing today, Mr. Crow?” He only blinked, “oh well, I suppose not very well.” Cara’s eyebrows skyrocketed, he was usually an equally amiable and private man. “Oh,” she stood up straight, “well let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” His gestured loosely, waving a hand back and forth. “Not unless you have some magic powers over turn of events.” Cara’s froze completely, her thoughts grinding to a halt, “what?” “You haven’t you heard?” He shook his head, “terrible, terrible news.” He heaved a sigh, “but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” “What?” She took a step back.

Mr. Crow mumbled something else, “I’ll have a chocolate milkshake I think, large. Figure it’s time.” She opened her mouth to continue to prompt him, but his dark eyes were drooping and she somehow lost heart. “Of course.”

She hurried into the back to put his order in, but she stopped when she heard the buzz of a large radio the moment she entered.

Two of the other wait staff, one busser, and a cook were standing around a Stellar Radio. The radio and several other gadgets had arrived with the newest batch of refugees (for all of its faults, Pitch Springs was still taking in as many fleeing people as it could). The Stellar Radio was allegedly one of the strongest radios invented in the last couple decades.

Every face in the back room angled toward the transmission, expression’s stiff and dark, one of the waitresses was covering her mouth with both hands.

“What is it?” Cara felt like she was outside of her body, distant and dreamlike.

They glance up at her, the cook turned the radio up, but someone else answered her lowly. “An armed frigate has passed the Redshift galaxy.” A busgirl, only fifteen Cara guessed, answered hollowly. “Less than a light year away.” Cara held her breath, “who?”

The cook shrugged, “does it really matter?” The oldest of them, a fellow waiter, shook his head. “The Polypheme Band I heard,” he responded without feeling, “not that it matters.”

Cara’s arms fell to her side and looked unseeingly ahead. The Leviathan War was encroaching on their doorstep.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

The Leviathan War, also known as the “Many-Headed War,” and “The War of a Thousand Sovereigns,” described as “The Great Wildfire” and “Final Hand.” But those last two were used more for speeches and dramatizations.

It had been raging for as long as she had been alive, and for all her parents’ lives too- back when they were alive. People in Anlok disagreed on how it started.

Some people blamed alliances, too many complex attachments between too many great powers. A good majority blamed the advancement of wormhole tech, making it so armies could show up anywhere with greater speed and accuracy. Some blamed the media and lack of communication between the sprawl of Goldilocks Planets with all their resources and all their empty time.

Cara had no concept of the Goldilocks Planets, of what they were and what they used to be. But the combustion of their union was felt in crushing wave after wave across the known universe.

The emerged warlords were ravenous, angry, bloody, always looking for new warm bodies to conscript into their ranks. In the beginning AIs and robots were foot soldiers on the endless march, but technology bit back, broke down, advancement stalled, people were soon considered easier and preferable.

The perpetual conscription started with the Penny Brigade and spread to all other factions, all eager to not lose their footing and add new energy to their ranks. Righteous and justified, almost none of them took “no” for an answer. Soon, there was nowhere to hide for those who didn’t wish to serve, people spread farther and farther away from the known hospitable planets.

The warlords followed as far as they dare, into the dead-lands of the universe where people hunkered down in the cold and the dark. But any colony that got too big or noisy could be found, sucked in.

Cara had heard of all this before; her history professor was a talker and invited her to meals to fill her ear with the past- and Cara enjoyed the free food and perhaps her mind was a little greedier than she let on.

Cara had always assumed that Pitch Springs was too quiet, too hidden, too useless, an icy ball in a solar system with only one planet and one weak sun. She thought they would never bother to come. A part of her could hear the politicians’ voices in her head: we expanded trade too far, we became too flagrant, too bold with our interactions with passing merchant ships.

Cara didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

The war was coming.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

The emergency drills became constant, urgent and then mundane, rote, but somehow, they filled her chest cavity with suffocating weight each and every time. She made sure the feeling didn’t show on her face.

She went to work, she went to class, the Tracking Test was canceled for the time being. She picked up the Holy Doctrine of the Spectrum and then the Text of Entropy. She put them all back down again.

Summer filled her ear with chatter, telling of the latest gossip and any news from the retreating merchant ships that fed them any tips at all. Cara hid with the others during the drills, assigned to underground bunkers so deep that no army would take the effort to find them.

Summer hid as well, but Cara suspected she wasn’t as afraid as the rest of them, that she was built more fearless and foolhardy, a granite to their sand.

Summer pointed at the calendar several times, “they better not ruin the Sunrise Trip this year, I swear to God, I will destroy them myself if they ruin my chances of seeing it.” Cara gave a wane smile, “lucky you,” she ate her lentil soup, barely tasting it. “The sun will still be there when it’s all said and done. Vega isn’t going anywhere.” Unlike us.

Summer made a face at her, “she’ll be there, sure, but what if I can’t show up? AGAIN.” She gave a dramatic sigh, “it’s a one-sided romance right now. She’s waiting at the restaurant booth, thinking I stood her up, that I’m some sort of huge jerk who skips out on every date.” Cara leaned on her hand, “I’m sure she’ll understand,” she looked up at the ceiling, responding sardonically, “suns have very long lives, this wait is nothing.” Summer whined, “it will just have to be a brief but sensational romance.” She shook her head, “even if she ignores me for so very, very long.” Cara made a face, “eat your soup.” She prompted her, “you can pine when I’m not around to watch it.”

Summer just sighed again.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

The sunrise date was highlighted on the calendar, bold and starred in all directions, however they weren’t looking at it when the day finally arrived. When Cara woke up that morning all the lights were out. She had never known total darkness in Pitch Springs before, it was deafening.

She woke to the darkness, complete and terrible, and then the blaring sirens, crowing round and round in an insistent blare. Cara rolled to her feet, stuffing her feet into her boots by feel alone and grabbing for her pre-packed bag.

I know what do to, I know what to do. She repeated to herself, Pitch Springs was built for this, it trained me for this. They wouldn’t just take me in, feed me, educate me, just to let me be stolen back to the war all this time later.

She felt her way toward the door, and then out into the kitchen, outside her bedroom there very distant and dim emergency lights glowing through the windows.

It was barely enough to see by, but she supposed that was the point. It was made for this.

The first High Councilor wrote in her final speech, etched into the stone wall above the capitol building itself: We Will Know Shelter. We Will Know Refuge. Sanctuary Not for the Few, but for the Many.

I will know shelter. Cara repeated it, but she didn’t believe it.

Cara’s legs felt like jelly, an incomprehensible numbness spread from her nose to her fingertips and the room itself seemed to tip back and forth like an ocean. She chastised herself, fool, why are you breathing so hard? Fool.

The floor itself seesawed, blurry and nonsensical as she tried to move forward, she found herself falling.

Cara never made it to her designated cave bunker. She never even made it out of her house. She collapsed on the floor and crawled under her rickety table, dragging her body along and cursing herself with every trembling thought.

Fool, fool, she gritted her teeth, what are you doing?

Her body had no response for her, only devastating, rapid breathing that smashed everything else inside her, every rational thought drowned out by the sirens and her own pounding heart.

She kept glancing at the door, but she couldn’t get to it, no matter how hard she begged herself to move. She clenched her eyes shut, just as she had all those years ago on the cargo ship, she never prayed, but she did turn off.

She snuffed out the noise, the light, and curled up there on the floor in the tightest ball she could muster, retracting into her closest version of “nothing.” She wasn’t sure how long passed, maybe an hour, maybe the rest of her life.

A voice whispered in the dark, “Cara?” Cara jumped violently, “ah!” She screamed.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me,” a figure materialized out of the grey darkness, just enough for Cara to make out a face.

“Summer?” She croaked. The girl nodded, kneeling slowly next to the table, “what’s going on?” She looked Cara up and down, “what are you doing here?” She balled up into herself, knees tucked to her chin. She shook, “what are you doing here?” “You didn’t show up at the bunker,” Summer said simply, “I snuck away to find you.” She felt a soft touch on her shoulder, Cara retreated from it, but Summer didn’t let go.

“You… snuck away? You’re so bad.” Cara sniffed, chest heaving as another siren went off.

The warm hand held Cara’s shoulder more firmly, “the very worst.” She whispered, huddling closer to her. “But I couldn’t let my favorite toady-companion disappear on us.”

The siren abruptly cut off, its voice withering away and leaving them only with echoes, and then nothing at all.

Cara couldn’t help it, the sirens turning off could only mean one thing. “No, no, no, no,” she clenched her eyes shut and turned off, but it wasn’t going off, none of it was going off. Hot, sticky, terrible tears burst down her cheeks and heaving sobs robbed her of breath and dignity. “No!”

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Summer wrapped her arms around Cara’s trembling shoulders, pulling her close, holding on tight. “The sirens are meant to go off like that, it’s okay.”

Cara didn’t feel the warmth, she barely heard the words, only the pounding in her ears. Stop this Cara, stop it, it was so long ago, her own thoughts fought back, you can barely remember the war.

Her breath crescendoed into a shallow frantic thing, a feral animal caught in her chest. “I can’t go back.” She cried, “I can’t let them get me, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” “They’re not going to get you, I won’t let them.” Summer hushed her. “We’re all going to be right here. I’m right here.” Cara shook her head violently, “they know we’re here. They know we’re weak. That’s why they’re coming on the day of the sun, so they can see our entrance hatch! They planned this.” She tore at her hair, trying to tear out chunks, she shrieked, “they’re coming!”

Summer took Cara’s hands and roughly pinned them down so she would stop yanking at her hair. “Listen to me Cara,” She hissed, “I’m not going to let them take you. The Council won’t let them take you. Fucking Vega won’t let them take you!”

“Vega is fake,” she sobbed, “you don’t know. You’ve never been up there, you’re a fool, an ignorant willful fool and don’t know anything of the world. I know. I know what it is.” She paused for a long bruising second, her eyes went empty and listless. “I should have known,” her voice broke, “I should have known it would go like this, what else is there? I knew, I knew.” The ugly weeping felt like it would never stop, her face stained with stickiness and body spent from a sickness so deep it felt like it would rip her spine out and leave only a pile of jelly and fear behind.

You know the world, she repeated, you should have known.

The dark and the silence consumed them from all sides. Summer didn’t comment on Cara’s nasty words, and she didn’t let go either; Cara didn’t push her away. The tears wouldn’t stop, but she did manage to make them silent and small, waiting for the world above to come crashing in.

Summer only moved once, to kiss her on the side of the head, directly on the temple. “It’s going to be alright.” She whispered into her skin, “you’ll see.”

She waited. And waited.

Cara waited until she was a brittle husk, more nerves than person, and waited so long she almost wished they’d get it over with and smash the ceiling down on them already.

Her eyes were almost drooping shut from the exertion of her grief, the one she buried so tightly it flavored every bit of soil she grew from.

“Cara,” someone shook her, she hadn’t realized her eyes were squeezed shut again. “Cara,” Summer said so gently it hurt, “the lights are back on.” She squinted, empty and raw. The lights were faintly glowing once more, little honey things, with fire bugs floating around the cavern of the buried hot springs. Cara could barely register it.

Summer sniffed messily, wiping at her own grubby face. “We made it.” Summer rose, picking Cara up with her, the lights blooming  golden around her head, “fuck.” She laughed like a newborn dawn, “we made it!”

≿————-　❈　————-≾

 Cara didn’t know how it happened, some people told the tale over and over again across the diner counters, shouting it across the streets and bursting, but Cara didn’t dwell. All she knew was that one of the Leviathan warlords passed overhead and they somehow missed them.

 They had looked, and they had lost.

 It has hard to make sense of.

 The following weeks all felt like nonsense. Cara feared she might never fit together right again, that all her pieces were shaken loose and scattered for good. Even if the war hadn’t found her, all those bygone fragments- formally fused together in cold iron and wrenching defiance, were cracked. She wasn’t sure she could go back.

 Her control wavered; other things floated to the surface.

 She looked at Summer more, just a look, and she made a wish like she never had before. It wasn’t something she permitted in the past, Cara kept her head down, her heart swallowed, and her vision clear. She wasn’t one for flights of fancy, Cara knew who Summer was, and she knew who she was.

 She permitted herself to look though, just for a few indulgent moments. When Summer was telling a story to a recreation room crowd, hair flying in all directions and voice so big it could make cats yowl. When she tried to stuff seventeen grapes in her mouth and say gibberish for the benefit of a crying baby. When she complained of bellyaches, sang off-key, fell asleep with ink from the paper staining her cheek, clapped for joy, talked of the sun.

 Cara let herself look, for just that moment.

 Sometimes she even peered up at the bell tower and let her mind wander to the dimple on the other girl’s chin and light scar across the knuckles of her right hand. The bell tower sat stoically above, and Cara wondered if Summer could see her from the up there, if she was looking too.

Cara went straight back to work, her feet and back ached from the extra hours, but she needed to keep her hands busy and mind occupied. She forgot about all the other little things. It was only after Mrs. Havershaw stopped her at the very tail end of a long shift that she paused.

 Her classes had taken a two-week hiatus, so she was covering new night shifts. Technically, classes never had to start again for her, it could be like this forever. It was closing time, Cara and Mrs. Havershaw were both counting the ration cards from the day and locking up.

 Mrs. Havershaw didn’t move to leave when they finished, instead, she sat heavily down on a stockroom stool and her expression soured. It was prone to doing that.

 Cara looked in both directions and then hovered closer, “is there anything else I can help with?” She offered, though she wasn’t sure she meant it.

 Mrs. Havershaw got out a pair of half-moon glasses and balanced them on her long thin nose, lips peeling back to reveal her yellowing teeth. She had only been convinced to get glasses that very year, though she rarely wore them.

 She sniffed loudly and her eyes landed heavily on Cara. “Sit,” she said sternly and gestured to a bench across from her against the wall, “there’s no more avoiding it.” She sighed with an exasperated edge, there was always a certain air about her of someone constantly disappointed.

 Cara fidgeted, shifting in place and creeping up toward her, eyeing the floor and taking her time settling on the edge of the seat. “What’s up?” Mrs. Havershaw smiled thinly at Cara’s nervous, casual language. She reached into her apron and took out a sheet of paper. “I was a little too forward about this the first time.” She passed the Tracking Test dates toward her.

 Cara didn’t take it. “I really appreciate your efforts Mrs. Havershaw,” she said in a perfectly controlled tone, “and I am so grateful for everything you’ve done for me, it’s above and beyond anything I could have hoped for. But,” she took a deep steadying breath, “I don’t think…” She struggled, voice fading out as she continued. “I don’t think the test is worth either of our times. Or your rations.” Mrs. Havershaw humphed loudly, “I didn’t ask if you thought it was worth my rations.” Cara opened and closed her mouth, her cheeks flared. “It’s just not worth it, I won’t pass.” The words felt almost venomous in her mouth, but they needed to be said.

 “Isn’t that perfect bullshit,” Mrs. Havershaw continued, “You haven’t even taken it yet. How would you know? You can take it more than once.” Cara drew back, “With all due respect,” she tried to hold herself up tall, Mrs. Havershaw had to know. “But I only ever get average marks. I’m not even good at testing, I’ll fail. It’ll be a waste.”

 Something stirred in Cara, doesn’t she know? Her hands clenched, how can she ask me to do this? I’ve already accepted how it is. The restaurant is all there is for me. “What’re you even saying,” Mrs. Havershaw spat, “do you even know yourself?”

 “Yes.” She crossed arms over her chest. “And that’s why I’m telling you this.”

 “Do you know why I auctioned for your instruction?” Mrs. Havershaw continued unperturbed. Cara’s face clouded over with confusion, “Because I’m a war orphan?” She offered, “Because you needed someone to work the dishwasher?” Mrs. Havershaw snorted loudly, “Yes. But also, no, of course not.” The woman lifted her chin proudly, they were around the same size at this point, but it somehow looked more impressive on the old woman. “You don’t see yourself. You lack confidence.” Cara’s blood started to run hot, “thanks.”

 “But that doesn’t mean you should stop here. All those other jackasses Tracked children have tutors and time for studying.” She shook her head in distaste, “you work hard. And even if you didn’t, I wouldn’t deny you this chance.” Cara blinked a couple times, “shouldn’t that chance go to,” she struggled, “people in the community who will be of more use?” “I hate that word. Use.” Mrs. Havershaw seemed to be working herself up, that couldn’t be good, but Cara would really have to draw the line here. “Use!”

 “I mean…” Cara said hesitantly, “the professors were only recommending me for the humanities track. My engineering marks weren’t, um… anything encouraging." “I know,” Mrs. Havershaw exhaled greatly, “Cara,” she said steadily, “when you first came you children were given an assessment test, to see your levels, you all were supposed to write a sentence or two.” She flinched, “yes?” “I read all of them.” “I- I see,” Cara looked down at her lap, she had been old enough to write basic sentences by then, she didn’t remember if any of them had been coherent.

 “You wrote about the war. Pages of it.”

Cara bit her bottom lip, she remembered writing those pages in large frantic sprawl. Back when she hadn’t been hellbent on forgetting those piecemeal tattered strips of memories.

 “It wasn’t anything important.” She assured, “it probably barely even made sense.” Mrs. Havershaw caught her gaze in her half-moon glasses. “You remember,” she said softly, “we need people to remember.” Mrs. Havershaw straightened her hunched shoulders, “I talked to Professor Kelly. She said you could excel in her history program, that your interest surpasses any of the others... And even if you were at the very damn bottom, you think you’re not worth my time? Rations?” She snorted like a raging bull, “what absolute bunk.” Cara pinched her lips together, “I’m,” she fidgeted in place, “what would I even do for the community?” She asked softly, “there’s already enough scholars, more than enough among the old families.” Mrs. Havershaw smiled like a jagged crack in the wall, “there’s more universe out there than just Pitch Springs,” she said the name coarsely. “You’ll see.” Cara shrank back, “the places outside Pitch Springs aren’t easily traversed right now. Or ever, Mrs. Havershaw.”

Mrs. Havershaw tossed her head back, “ever?” She said hotly, “ever?!” She laughed, mighty and wheezing. “Bastards don’t win. Not with guns and ships and all their bloody tantrums.”

 Cara made a face, “they don’t lose either from what I’ve seen…” “Your friend is trying to get off planet, right?” Mrs. Havershaw cut to the chase.

 “I’m not going with her.” Cara said quickly, how could I?

 “Well then, if you go. After you pass the Tracking Test and get all learned up.” Mrs. Havershaw nodded, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t let any of them forget, don’t give them luxury. You see what’s happened out there and scream it across this blasted universe. I know you’ve got some lungs on you yet girl.”

 Cara brow furrowed, “Mrs. Havershaw…”

 “When we can leave this planet. You remember this stinking time for us, write it down, don't let them sanitize the rough parts, keep our humanity. Tell them we didn’t all just roll over and climb into the war machine, that there were still good and decent people,” she grinned, and it was impenetrable. “Even if they had to live in a dank pit for it.”

 Cara was bundled up into herself, a deep and red place. How is she like this? Color rose in Cara’s cheeks, how can she think they'll lose? That I could even do any of that?

 Her chin tucked down, “how do you know it ends?” Her voice set like cold steel. “You can’t see the future. No one knows if we’re getting out of here, if the war ends. No one knows if being ‘decent and good’ even matters. How do you know? How do you know any of that?!” “I don’t,” She said, perfectly calm in the face of Cara’s rage. “But they can’t take it away from me. I don’t know, there’s no knowing, but I believe in my bones that evil loses and wars end and that one day we will throw stupid parades with streamers and ugly hats and their bombs turned into party poppers. And I won’t stop believing it,” She laughed, a red flag erected on scorched earth, “because they don't get that too. Because fuck ‘em.”

 Cara examined her, growing silent and still.

 Slowly, with her cracking skin and withered hands, Mrs. Havershaw touched Cara’s shoulder gently, she leaned in like it was secret. “And I’ll tell you what else,” She rasped, “I’ve seen you... And I have faith in you.”

 Cara gave a watery smile, “you shouldn’t.”

 “You have no choice in the matter,” she said lightly, “the rest is up to you, take the test or don’t, leave or don’t. But I’m going to be sitting here like a bitter old crone telling you how it is. I have faith in you Cara, always have, always will. You have no choice in the matter.” Cara’s eyes went wide. She wished like she didn’t feel like crying again.

 v.

Cara’s exact age had been lost a long time ago, she had hit puberty, hit back, and then become barely taller than some of the larger 12-year-olds. She probably should have learned to eat more vegetables instead of watching her boots for thievery all that time ago.

 It didn’t matter, she was sitting in a classroom now, tiny, smelling like cooking oil, and with hacked-off hair and the yellow smock of a waitress peeking out of her book bag. Seven other students sat in large wooden desks near the front, they were all roughly younger than her, and knew from birth they were bound for this. Around the time of Pitch Spring’s founding, the wealthy founder herself set-up a “higher education” establishment.

 We Will Know Shelter. We will know refuge.

 Cara didn’t know about all that, but she did know she was the only one in the class who was not the daughter or son of a Council Legislator or top business manager.

 Dr. Kelly wrote on the board, “now, let’s review the reading, who established the first agricultural exchange across the nine Goldilocks planets?” Dr. Kelly was a slender woman with dark hair braided down her back, heavy-lidded eyes, and a prominent bone structure.

 She lost her left forearm in the flight from her university, carrying over a hundred of texts with her and a group of other escapees. Cara never understood why she didn’t just run for it, abandon the book caravan and make her own way, only five professors survived the trek.

 Pitch Springs took them in just as Dr. Kelly herself almost died of a blood infection, she was beautiful in the way people are beautiful for themselves.

 “It was Teller Gregor,” Jace, one of the top three students, answered. “Descendant of the Kinderland’s first leadership.”

 “Correct, how would this influence the rise of the first alleged ‘Golden Age of the Nine’?” Someone else answered.

 Cara’s eyes itched, her blood thick with exhaustion and a well-known sluggishness. The Highest Tracking wasn’t for the fainthearted, and most people usually didn’t keep a job alongside their studies. It didn’t help that Mrs. Havershaw insisted she was the only one worth a damn in the program, and that would make anyone work harder.

 “How did the initial Spy Network formed from trade networks function to entrench power?”

 Cara’s hand shot up; she knew this one. “It didn’t.” She said roughly, the class’s eyes flew to her, she steeled herself. “Power was already entrenched…” She mumbled. “It eventually counterbalanced the entrenched power by letting information flow in from different sources, the first Counter-Union was fed information from the spy networks. They were a counterweight, not a single tool for the Leadership.”

 Dr. Kelly just smiled, “good. Very good,” she turned, “now, who has a counterargument for Cara?” All seven hands shot up for the first time that lesson.

 The class continued, it was longer and demanded more of her than she had expected. But she scratched out every single word in wobbling notes and splashed it with yellow highlighters.

 She didn’t call it a wish in those movements, in every question she answered, and every time her words flew across keyboards or notebooks- frantic and feverish. She’d call it a duty maybe, or simply something to do.

 But that wasn’t true either.

​

≿————-　❈　————-≾

​

Samara’s sons and daughters had grown, matured and had kitten-like creatures of their own, Cara kept feeding them and eventually coaxing them into her lap. She was busy petting one she named "Zoink" behind the ears and repeating facts of the first Interstellar War for her next test.

 “1151 ED,” she whispered, “the first soldier is augmented using hummingbird code, dies in transit. 1152, second test subject is augmented with hyena code, dies within the first hour. 1153, second battle of the Belt.” She was mumbling and humming to herself when she heard voices carrying, she would have ignored them if one of them wasn’t quite so familiar. Cara perked up and stopped petting Zoink, he started mewing pathetically as her hand froze.

 Cara left her last piece of dried meat for him and crawled toward the jumbled voices. They were loud and arguing heatedly, she crawled into the next cave and toward an opening in the black wall.

 She poked her head out just as she saw a merchant cart and a figure throwing his hands up in the air. Most of the passing merchants simply dropped off their goods, payed remotely, and were quickly on their way again.

 Few lingered near Pitch, even fewer were allowed to. Nonetheless, a young man she had never seen before stood before his cart and gestured around wildly.

 “Look girly, unless you have rhodium, zinc, or some damn potable water in your pockets, I can’t do lick for you.”

 The girl Cara knew very well growled, “I can work. I’m good for it. I’m healthy, I’m strong-” “The more people I carry the more the Blood Brothers wanna take a bite.” He shivered, “me and the dog are enough risk as it is.” Summer rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll find you some rhodium and you drop me off at the nearest Free Outpost and we’ll call it even.”

 “No way.” They continued arguing, Cara simply raised her eyebrows at her friend’s newest attempts to leave the planet, it was going as well as any of the attempts before. Cara should have stuffed her head back in the wall then and stopped prying.

 But she let herself look, for just another second. Summer was as boundless as the steam itself, shaggy brown hair tied back at the nape of her neck and long red tunic secured in place. Her face flushed from the exertion of her argument and voice carrying across the caves.

 “Fine, fine,” she waved her hand dismissively, “I’m getting off this planet with or without your help. You’ll just be a poorer man for it.” She stuck her tongue out.

 “Yeah, yeah,” he turned, “this is what I get for mingling with the locals.” Cara took that moment to dart back up down the hall, her face hidden before Summer could look up and spot her. Meeting eyes with her old friend wouldn’t mean anything, even if Cara was spying on her from above- it’s not like Summer didn’t spy on her.

 But Cara had been avoiding Summer’s gaze a lot more recently. She liked to think nothing had changed, but maybe Cara had.

​

≿————-　❈　————-≾

​

It was well past the dinner time bell when Cara and Summer sat down together for the first time in a long time around their rickety old plywood table. Neither had felt like cooking that night so they had a few rolls and a bag of oranges between them.

 Cara didn’t look up as she tore off a soft piece of bread and stuffed it in her mouth.

 Summer hunched over, “can you believe them?” She seethed quietly, “they won’t even let me get a tiny look at the flight charts. This is censorship, right? This is what censorship from the public is.”

 Cara flicked a tiny smile, “I’m pretty sure it’s just a clearance thing.” Summer shook her head violently, “and how am I supposed to get clearance? The bell tower doesn’t exactly come with a lot of ration bonuses,” the tore at her bread, “clearance my ass. If it’s not available to everyone that’s censorship!”

 Cara reached for her juice, late-night clamor and voices of the Springs surrounded them. “I’m sure you can bring an Admonishment to the Low Counsel for it.” Summer just humphed loudly, “and wait another nine months?” She groaned in the back of her throat, “I’ve waited long enough! They’re doing this on purpose. They don’t want anyone to leave, they believe this funky pit is ‘paradise.’” Cara raised her eyebrows, asking lowly. “How do you know it isn’t?” Summer snorted gently, “paradise would come with better air fresheners.” Cara gave a brief laugh, “maybe the rest of the universe smells a lot worse than this,” she spoke lightly, carefully, “maybe it’s all sweaty socks and curdled milk from here.” Summer leaned on the table, “there’s only one way to find out,” Cara looked up just in time to see Summer wet her lips. “And they aren’t making it damn easy.” Cara shrugged loosely, “I guess the only thing for it is your wish then.” She teased, mouth twisting to the side.

 Summer looked away bemusedly. “You up for that? There’s still a month left.” Cara made a small motion, noncommittal, “I'll ask Dr. Kelly for the day off class.” “That’s not what I meant,” she said softly, eyes burning into the side of Cara’s face. “I was serious when I asked.” Cara looked dejectedly down at her feet; lips pressed together. She didn’t respond for a long moment, Summer seemed to take that as the answer and rose to her feet. She turned to go to her own room.

“What happens,” Cara’s shoulders tensed, and she bit the inside of her mouth. “If… we don’t?”

 Summer gave a lilting, almost cruel, laugh. A rakish jackal still, “then nothing changes.” She said bitterly, “then we’re stuck like this forever.” Cara looked up, she couldn’t help it, there was so much heaviness caught in her tone. She met Summer’s bright brown eyes, knitted together and bruising- sorrowful with all their might and lightning.

 “Would that really be so bad?” Cara whispered, trying to make herself known.

 Summer just shook her head, “I can’t live like this Cara,” her voice broke, “my parents left. They knew they couldn’t live like this, and I can’t either. It’s all walls, and fear, and, and, nothing!” Cara drew herself up, “you have me here. You have the community. There are things for you in Pitch,” she drew herself up, “and we’re safe, that’s not nothing.”

 Some light went out of Summer, her shoulders falling and head crumbling under some unknown weight. “I know. But I’ll have you all with me.” She said hesitantly, wetly. “Even if I leave, it’ll all be in here.” She pointed to her chest, “it’s not like I’ll forget.” Cara nibbled on her last slice of orange. She clenched and unclenched her toes in her socks, “I know I can’t convince you to stay…” Summer took a step toward her, “I’m still offering.” She whispered, “come with me. We could do it together.” Cara sadly lifted her chin, trying to smile. “It’s your adventure.” She looked away, “you don’t need me. And I’ll be… fine.”

 “You’re satisfied?” Summer’s arms flew out, encompassing the whole area. “You’re satisfied with this?!” She stomped her foot, “Cara…” Their eyes collided like a strike across the face, in the way Cara had been trying to avoid for years now, sensations raced down her spine. Things have to stay the same, they have to, I’m not who you think I am.

 She shook her head bitterly, “I don’t have an answer for you.” Summer turned on her heel and slammed the door loudly behind her as she went to bed.

 She’ll never find a way off planet anyway, Cara consoled herself, it’s for the best.

​

≿————-　❈　————-≾

​

The elevator had a maintenance day. The counsel canceled the sun viewing, the rickety machine just couldn’t handle the constant trips for the day.

 Cara wasn’t sure if she was relieved or uneasy. She told herself she saw this coming, that this was how it had always been, and would be.

 She was in her third year of the history Track; she would be done in another year. And then she’d have another choice and question of the future.

 She rejected five new "Family Housing" proposals from some gentlemen and one lady in the area, she let Mrs. Havershaw chastise her for not even humoring any of them. Cara wrote her final paper on the great Leviathan war, and then she erased it and wrote about trade route development instead.

 She watched the day of the sunrise creep toward her. She slept fitfully and the house was quiet, empty, as it all came together. She barely slept at all the night before.

 “Crap!” Cara heard someone cursing early in the morning, Cara screwed her eyes shut against the noise and curled up tighter in bed. And then she remembered the date.

 Cara untucked herself slowly as she heard a series of footsteps from the other room, she cracked her eyes open and fumbled toward the door. “Summer?” She called thinly.

She didn’t hear a reply. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and found her way to the next room. “Summer,” she said slowly, “they’re not doing trips above ground today.” She yawned widely.

 Summer’s door was propped open, she darted back and forth inside. “Don’t need it.” She said with a boom, “do you remember that cave lady?” “What?” Cara rubbed her eyes again.

 “The cave lady. She calls herself a priestess, she makes those freaky pedestals in the caves-”  

“Altars.” “Yeah, yeah,” she said airily, “well I told her about my problem like months ago. Last night she handed me this paper about a passing cruiser. Said that it used to make rounds here during sunrises to pick up ice- and hitchhikers sometimes.” Cara wrinkled her brow together, “you’re…?” “I got a friend to open the stairs again, you know, after they put that bolt on the door.” She was talking so fast it looked like her tongue might fall off. She broke into a terrifyingly huge smile, “it’s happening.” Cara took a step back, “you’re listening to Pyra?” She wrapped her arms around her frame, “how do you know she’s telling the truth? Or that this ship will still be coming?”

 Summer shrugged, “I don’t.” She put the pack over her shoulder. “What do you say Cara?” Her monstrous grin widened, “you want it?” Cara frowned so heavily it felt like a new set of gravity was applied to her face, “you really want to do something like this?” She squinted, “climb forever just to maybe-maybe leave the planet for God knows where?” Summer rolled her eyes, “duh.” She stood tall, taller than she had in years, “this is the only important thing.”  

Cara just scowled softly at that, Summer didn’t pause to convince her further, she simply went to the door and looked over her shoulder, grinning, eyes shining. She winked, “I’ll be at the stairs.”

 In a different world, maybe Summer would have stayed and tried to convince Cara to come, Summer was known to hate doing things alone. If Cara had been someone else maybe she would have put up a fight, come up with some solid arguments about wars and dangers and a whole of slew good reasons not to leave your childhood planet.

 But Summer knew Cara too well, even after all this time. Cara looked at the door of her house as it swung shut and her insides clenched, stirred, pulsed. She sniffed loudly, I don’t have to. She reminded herself, a ship probably isn’t coming. Not really.

 And then she was moving all on her own, racing back to her room on her own foolish impulses and tore a bag away from her closet. She started stuffing it with her shirts and shoes and notebooks, any of her texts she could find, and her tiny class computer.

 She couldn’t believe herself, but neither could she stop herself.

 She jotted down a note to her professor, and another very simple one to Mrs. Havershaw: Thanks for everything. I’ll be back. I’m going to go find out if you’re right.

 Promise I’ll see what’s out there and remember. I’ll be yelling the entire time.

Yours,

 Cara

 She added one last part before she fled, something she didn’t bother to read over twice, words she never said, but were worth saying all the same.

 “Wait for me!” She was out the door. “Don’t waste all your energy on the walk over there, wait!”

 ≿————-　❈　————-≾

 They were quiet on the first few flights upward, weighed down by their bags and new coats, their steps echoed cold and empty in the hollow space. Cara watched the back of Summer’s neck, her hair tied up in a bobbing uneven ponytail and just a sliver of skin visible. Cara let herself look.

 It was on the fifth flight of stairs that Summer began to sing.

 Her voice was light and silvery, a mist in the wind, so much crispier and more fragile than anything else about her.

 “They’ll be bluebirds,

Over the shores of the sky,

Tomorrow,

Just you wait and see,

 When the bombs have all fallen

And the dawn was sunk

The bravest people I ever met

Braving those angry skies

For naught

 They’ll be bluebirds,

Over shores of the sky,

Tomorrow…”

Cara joined her, just for the last lines, adding her shaky uncertain voice to the song haunting the great and terrible steps. “They’ll sleep again, the valleys will bloom again, we’ll be home. They’ll be bluebirds, tomorrow…” The last notes carried and sank all around them, the girls were somewhere far above the ground now, a new feather-light cold descended. Summer looked over her shoulder and gave a victorious smile, “think they’ll pay us to sing for them? That’s gotta be worth a free ride.” Cara gave her a threadbare smile. “Maybe they’ll simply pay us to shut up. That’s gotta be worth a free ride.” Summer chuckled and turned straight head, “does that apply to this trip too?” She pointed to the stairs, “I’ll stop singing if you promise to carry me. I’m feeling very charitable you see.”

 Cara rolled her eyes, “sing away little birdie.” Summer took a deep breath and burst into a jaunty tune, “and she pulled up her skirts and tore down her shirt, said to the farmer: look here, I’ve got two-” “I’m not carrying you!” They kept climbing.

 ≿————-　❈　————-≾

 Chill sank down around her with little nippy pinprick teeth and frozen hands down her neck. She had forgotten how cold felt, how it snagged and cut, how the little vibrations of the first shivers felt.

 Cara wished she could say she minded, but she didn’t really, everything was deliciously new again.

 “What if they want to sell us?” Cara asked grimly. “What if they want to crown us?” Summer countered, “or rename us minor Gods?” Cara grumbled, “I’m the only one about to keep us alive on this trip, aren’t I?” Summer glanced back and winked, “tell you what, I’ll keep you alive and you keep me alive. It’s a foolproof system.” Cara pushed her bangs back, trying to control the chattering of her teeth, “is that what you’ll finally wish on Vega for?”

 “Oh no,” Summer sang, “I have a much better wish now.” Cara sighed, “good.” She hummed, “we are going to need every bit of impossible magic we can muster.”

 “God,” Summer’s ponytail bobbed as she looked up, “I love proving you wrong. The look on your face is going to be priceless when my wish comes true.” “When have you ever proven me wrong?” Cara grumbled, disliking the taunting tone to Summer’s words.

 The other girl stopped in place, forcing Cara to almost bump into her. Cara blinked, examining Summer’s profile, it was oddly serious. “Summer?” She asked softly.

 Summer reached out her hand, Cara almost jumped out of her skin as their fingers brushed. “I said the war wouldn’t get us, right?” She clamped down, squeezing Cara’s hand tightly. “And they didn’t. I was right then.” Cara tensed, “not yet they haven’t.” Summer shook her head, squeezing tighter, “come on,” she tugged her up, “we both of have more things to be wrong about.” They climbed.

​

≿————-　❈　————-≾

​

Cara thought that she would never see the top. That maybe that was fake too, along with everything else.

 The stairs never ended, the sun never rose, the sky was rock and metal and nothing more, it didn’t matter that she saw it all those years ago. But maybe the things Cara told herself didn’t matter either.

 “Cara,” Summer looked upward at the glass in pure delight. “Look.”

 Cara followed her, slowly, thoughtfully, looking up at the wintery white light falling from above. “Ah.” She exhaled the word, and there was a sheet of thick, heavy, glass above them, and above that was something else. “Summer…” They were very close. Through the glass was blue, kissed blue, soft and frightfully pale blue, it seemed like a deep pool that fell forever.

 Summer bounced in place, she turned to Cara, a fire in her face all her own. “Come on.” She grabbed Cara’s hand again.

“Woah!” Cara’s heart thudded painfully, but she didn’t have time to crash and burn in her own sweaty palms, Summer yanked them forward, insistent and bursting. They ran and ran, “pace yourself!”

It was too late. After their hours long trek there was only three more staircases to conquer, only three more to stop them- they sprinted. Knees banging together, feet rattling against aged metal, and hearts pounding.

They ran, sweating through their coats and breaths freezing in puffs of white ash in the air, she looked up just as a hatch came into view. “Summer!” Her voice split, they lurched to a stop.

The hatch was solid metal with a huge round wheel in the middle, it was situated in the center of a dull silver square, and around that was glass. A little rusted sign hung off the sheet of glass between them and the sky, she read it briefly, Caution: Hot.

They both pulled on their gloves in quick movements, making sure their hands were covered before grabbing the freezing handle. Summer’s hands were first on the silver wheel, tugging viciously on it, the metal gave a truly fantastical screech but refused to budge.

“This thing is ancient!” Cara noted, “let’s be careful.”

“Ugh,” Summer strained, mittens slipping across the material. “Help me!”

Cara grabbed the other side of it and heaved, they pulled on the wheel together. What am I doing? A part of her asked, but the other part strained and growled and shoved.

“It won’t budge!” Cara panted, looking up through the glass as a new color breached the sky- something blooming egg yolks and autumn leaves. “Whoa…”

“There it is,” Summer tugged off her gloves with her teeth, “just the motivation I needed.” “What?” Before Cara could do anything Summer put her bare hands on the wheel and gave a ferocious yank, “ah!” Her fingers went red and puffy on the cold metal, the wheel itself gave an angry howl- metal grinding against metal.

“Stop that,” Cara shoved her aside to stop her from ripping the skin off her hands, “are you bleeding?” Summer shook her head and shoved her hands beneath her underarms, “no,” she said through gritted teeth, “but that did smart a bit.” “No,” she grumbled flatly and started turning the wheel. Her muscles complained as the wheel groaned, now free to move beneath her hands. Cara gave the final yank, letting metal hatch fall free, a soft release followed- sounding like a great sigh or hushed whimper.

They stood back as a truly wicked gust of fresh air blew in from above, Cara took a deep shuddering breath of it in through her nose. A full minute passed as she tried to process it all. The air was sharp and clear and something she barely recognized.

The hatch led to a tube with handholds leading upward, past the thick glass and into the above. Cara steadied herself, fingers shaking, thoughts aching, Summer reached up first and hauled herself up.

Cara didn’t know what to say, how to frame any of this or mark the occasion. So, she didn’t say anything and simply followed. She tugged the hatch closed behind them, sealing off the stairs from them, closing off the rest of Pitch.

She didn’t think about that either.

“Woo!” Cara heard the whoop and the cry from above, “awwwwhh!”

It was a scream, a reckless, heartless, fight of a thing. Cara pulled herself up one rung of the ladder at a time, and then her head was right beneath the exit, hovering under the pale blue sky.

The tundra was waiting.

“Cara!” Summer shouted, cheered, screamed, her feet pounding. “Cara, it’s beautiful.” She lifted herself up and blinked into the endless white, her eyes went wide, wind whipping around her head and heart clinching together, tight and electric. Summer was spinning in place, arms raised up and framed by the whole of the icy landscape.

It was white, glittery and almost perfectly smooth in all directions, limitless.

Grey rocks peppered the white and snowy mountains rose in the distance, just where the slimmest bit of frayed yellow light sat, cradled against the planet’s horizon. Cara couldn’t stop looking, it was all so huge.

How did I forget this? Her eyes were slightly damp, what is this?

She did a slow spin in place as well, the atmosphere was thin, and barely there, they wouldn’t be able to breath out here for long until they got light-headed and ready to faint. Then they’d be frozen by nightfall- a night that would last several years.

She inhaled another cutting edge of raw air and then threw her head back. “Oh.” Summer crashed toward her, “‘oh’ she says,” Summer slung her arm over Cara’s shoulder and shook, “she just says ‘oh.’” “Oh-uh-ah,” she made an exaggerated sound just for her and then pointed, everything in her building to this, “it’s here.” The edge of the sky was dripping with runny watercolors, the wisps of yellow and kiss of pink in the distance. Summer squeezed her shoulder, “there.” She said softly, “there it is!” She shook Cara more vigorously, “it’s really happening!” There was no stopping her smile. They shuffled off the side of the heated glass panel, and fumbled for a seat on the hard ice, sitting heavily down and tilting their heads back to watch.

The sun rose with all the ease and grace of a dream. First the tendrils of white and yellow, snaking and impossible, and then the body of a star, glorious and huge, white, yellow, orange. She breathed it in, and barely registered the cold or pulsing hollow place in her chest.

She heard the distinct sound of sniffling and soft whimpering besides her, Cara glanced over, Summer’s face was in her hands. Her shoulders were quacking, and little sobs escaped from between her fingers.

Cara reached out to rub her back, “you’ll miss it.” Summer peaked between her fingers, eyes red and glistening. “Did you make your wish?” Cara shook her head, “did you?” Summer took her hands off her face and blinked, her cheeks were puffy, and water streaked. She sniffed loudly. “Not yet.” They both focused silently, prayerfully, on the rising light, a warmth softly pet Cara’s brow and she could feel her eyes filling too. Even if the ship never came, she certainly didn’t regret this.

“Cara?” Summer leaned into her, “I’ve made my wish.” There was something small about the way she said it, shy even.

Cara turned slowly, gradually, a stone bending to the winds of time. She faced her, their shoulders brushing and eyes barely meeting. “What was it?” Summer gave her a miserable look, “for things to change.” Cara shrank down into herself; a deep pleading was in Summer’s gaze. “Why?” She gulped the word, swallowed it whole. “It could be much worse than this.” “Or better.” She said softly, “if you’d let it.” Cara held her gaze, “I dunno,” she clutched her hands together, “things don’t always work, don’t usually. Not really.” Summer reached for her, crossing the endless bleak expanse. She put her hand on Cara’s cheek, cradling it. “Would you let me try?” She said with a clear weakness, straining. “Just for a second. That’s my wish.” Cara gave the smallest of smiles, “what about my wish?” Summer tilted her chin down, holding Cara’s gaze boldly in her shining eyes. You can ask me, Cara thought to herself, you know I’d do anything for you. And Summer was finally asking.

The hand on her cheek drew back, barely touching her now. “Cara,” She said quietly, eyes downcast, “I always, I wish… a lot. I wished for a long time. But I would never force it.”

Cara closed her eyes, she reached for Summer’s hand up and put it back against her cheek, securing her touch over the axis of her jawline. She opened her eyes slowly, “you know I don’t believe in this sort of thing,” she whispered, “but you do.” She leaned forward, closing the gap between them, eyes fluttering shut, and mouth finding hers. It was cold. And then warm as the daybreak, coursing through her, painful and blazing, leaving nothing behind.

Cara’s world shrank to one single moment and her mind filled with the horrors of bright light and soft lips. She kissed her in the whipping winds of the tundra and the whole world tumbled together and ascended up, up, up, for her, just once.

She told herself this would never happen. She would never let it.

Cara could look, maybe, wish, maybe. But she wasn’t built for this or anything else, she knew she was built to curl into herself and never come out. But maybe that didn’t have to be true.

They kissed deeply, soundly, Cara’s skin warm and radiating and when they parted, they were laughing, roughly, rashly, dawn prickling across their skin and the hollows of their throats.

They tapped their heads together and Vega bloomed all around them.

“Can I say it?” Summer vibrated, “I’ve meant to, I always meant to. And I don’t want to be scared anymore.” “You? Scared?” Cara laughed, her breath licking Summer’s cheek. “Never.” Summer gave an uncertain, wobbly smile, “terrified.” She whispered, “you’re the scariest thing in the universe you know, the war is a far second.” Cara shook, her whole body lighting up like fireworks were set off, she uncurled. “Scarier than war, huh…” She grinned, “Promise?” She nodded, “promise.” Cara inhaled, deeply, the sun warm in her mouth and brimming in her chest. “I might not believe you.” Summer wrapped her arms around her neck, “then you’ll be wrong. And I’ll have to keep saying it.”

Something snapped within Cara, snapped so hard it hurt. “Okay.”

She dove forward, quick and sweeping, she kissed Summer again. It was deep and raw and red. It coursed through her in waves, reaching into her chest and planting itself there. She kissed until there was nothing left, stealing all the air in the universe and filling her up with everything else.

It was like flying or drowning or breaking into a thousand little pieces all over again.

They blinked slowly at each other when they are forced to surface, giggling at their puffy, flushed lips, and messy expressions.

“Hey,” it rolled off Cara’s tongue, there were some words she would never say, but were worth saying all the same. “I love you.” Summer fell into her, breathing like she just ran a marathon. She gulped, voice quacking like a blender on high. “You took my line.” Cara gave a crooked smile, “are you mad?” Summer brought her fingertip delicately to Cara’s chin and tipped it up, “furious.” “Good,” she chuckled, face flushing. “You can say it next. Even if I don’t agree… I’ve heard I am a good learner.”

Summer closed her eyes and leaned in, yellow light bright on her skin, she pressed her lips into the nape of Cara’s neck and spoke into her skin, vibrating there. “I love you.” And then it was over, it was all over. The sun began tumbling down toward the horizon again, setting just as quickly as it had risen in a perfect arch. They watch, softly, hand in hand, waiting for it all to change.

The sound of an engine came from overhead and they looked up to see a turquoise ship entering the atmosphere. They both stood up together, eyes filled with the last of the sunrise and flushed with each other.

They waved it down, “hey!” Summer shouted, “hey you! Give us a lift!”

Cara never believed in the sunrise on Anlok, not really, not here, she also didn’t believe in passing ships that would pick up strangers either.

But there were worse things in the universe than being wrong. She chased Summer down toward the ship and the ice and the bright pale sky.

🌸

if you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or supporting me on patreon (even a dollar helps!), check out my book as well!

Edit: I also have another new book out! This one is Sapphic Urban Fantasy.

[curiosity-killed]

unmaking

@littlewhitetie​ this may have gotten even weirder than the first but it is (eventually) (more or less) a fix-it

sequel to too deep a poison

Word count: 3008 Warnings: psychological horror (sort of?), loss of self, betrayal, PTSD, side effects of not having a body for a year???

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You are too hard on him. He dropped the armor in a clattering heap onto his mattress. Black’s tone was mild, nonjudgmental. He still swatted at her presence like he could just brush it aside. The reply was a low rumble of something between amusement and annoyance. Dropping his hands to his hips, Shiro stared down at the pile, lips pursing. She lingered in the back of his mind, unobtrusive but waiting. A surge of irritation rose hot and biter in his chest, and he shoved back a wordless tide of memories. Time worked differently in the astral plane. Chemical reactions slowed to such a crawl that he could see individual electrons passing by, and simultaneously, entire universes bloomed and died in the space between heartbeats. Everything and nothing existed as one, impossible and indivisible. Touch went first, or at least it was the first he noticed. Suspended in nothingness, there was nothing to feel, and so he didn’t notice until, at some point in the eons and milliseconds, he realized he couldn’t call to mind what his armor felt like when eh ran his left hand over the still-gleaming plates. He could tell that it was there but nothing more. Smooth, chipped, cold, or hot — he couldn’t drag forward any memory even to remind him what those words meant beyond a dictionary definition. 

He’d burned his hand when he first had the prosthesis and didn’t know anything of how to use it, and the scar still shone a muted pink across his palm. He remembered the pain, surprise, horror — but the sensation itself was absent. It was like watching someone else, on a screen: he sympathized but couldn’t imagine he feeling. 

He’d panicked, then, at his first unmaking, but as his other senses slipped away, he stopped noticing. At some point, he couldn’t taste the food he conjured from the ether, whether it was the shitty hot dog that made him and Adam both sick at a local festival or the bubbling champagne they’d served for toasts at the Kerberos send-off. His body flickered away in stages, ashes on an unfelt wind. Hearing and sight remained, sharped as the rest of him fell away. He knew no name or home, but he witnessed everything. There was no sound too soft, no movement too quick. He roamed nebulae, crossed black holes, bathed in the magnetic songs of the stars. The threads of existence unspooled before him, through him. Stardust strands led him across the infinite abyss, named him Witness to entropy and evolution. He was spread thin, diffuse, a spiderweb of sensation. And then Keith stepped into Black. A rubberband jolt snapped him back, an inverse reaction rushing all his backs back across space and time and into his own shape and self again. He gasped on the first breath he’d taken in centuries, and his first word came as a hosanna: “Keith! Keith,” he wept, a hundred thousand sensations returning in an instant. “Keith.” In the cockpit, Keith sat hunched in the pilot seat, hands stretched out tentatively over the grips. They dropped to them like a giving-way, like defeat. “Shiro,” he’d whispered. “Keith!” he’d called, surging forward. “Keith, I’m right here!” The lights flickered, Black rumbling to life as he strained against eh boundary of this plane. She rose as if from slumber, an iridescent flame between rushing stars, and there was a flicker, a lull, before the tide crashed around him. She spoke in no human language, but the roar of her joy formed two words: my Paladin, my Paladin. Keith’s head dipped low, hands tightening over the controls. Frowning, Shiro took a step closer, silent on the metal floor. “Please,” Keith begged, “no.” “Keith—” Shiro started, reaching out, but Keith jerked from the chair and bolted, running through Shiro’s outstretched fingers. He was left staring after, hand still extended and a new cold hollowing a cavity behind his ribs. It was the same every time after. Keith took up the mantle reluctantly, and each time he forced himself into the cockpit, Shiro pushed all his energy into reaching out, into bridging the gap between planes. Black tried, in her own way, but Keith remained closed-off and desperate, and none of Shiro’s calls broke through. Then, they found him. It had almost been an accident. Shiro had been...well, whatever was the closest equivalent to meditating when he had neither body nor breath. He’d pieced together what had happened, or at least thought he had. He remembered the fight with Zarkon, the explosion. Black had supplied him with replays of the moment over and over; looking at her memories, decrypting them, took a different lens and he felt himself shifting, adapting, as he kept watching until it started to make sense. In memory, her quintessence loomed leviathan-like around his, dwarfing even Zarkon and his machine. In the instant after the flash, her sword-edge wings flared wide and then snapped tight around his own. He vanished. By his best guess, she’d absorbed his quintessence somehow in her effort to shield him. His body was either teleported somewhere, thrown off by the supernova of quintessence unleashed, or...dead. The thought didn’t send him reeling like he thought it might. He swallowed, took a deep breath with lungs he knew he didn’t have anymore, and let it be. Even if his body was dead, he was still, impossibly, alive and he wasn’t going to let go without a fight. If his body had been transported somewhere, then maybe they could find it through quintessence. Black took to the form of a lion during these, only not quite. When he reached up to touch her mane, he could convince himself it felt coarse, thick, and she took the general form of a lion as if pulled from his own memory — but that was where the similarities ended. She glimmered like a constellation in motion, a shadow of light through which he could see the swirling stars on her other side, and her eyes burnt purple-white like twin stars. Still she towered over him, goliath. Her wings echoed in her movements, unseen, like water rippling over the cosmos. Time slipped by in nothing-or-everything tumbles, but he’d found himself still instituting some kind of schedule. He didn’t get tired or sleep, but if he stretched himself too thin, worked too hard at their search for too long, he fell away again. It took three times of Black reaching out, catching the unraveling edges of his essence with her teeth and dragging him back, before she started growling at him when he started to push himself too hard. After that, he would rest by leaning against her flank and calling up old memories, a slideshow reminder of who he was and where he came from and what he was fighting for. He was getting close to giving up for now; Black thumped her flail-like feathered tail down beside him as a warning, and he sighed. “Yeah, just…a little longer,” he said. The rumble she gave wasn’t exactly happy, but she settled back. She had the strength to pull him out of this at any point, he knew. He closed his eyes and stretched out again. There — a flicker. He lunged, focusing all his will in that direction. It was faint, fading, but he recognized it, Black recognized it. Hope rushed up on him like a wave, surging up through his chest. It would be hard for the team to see his body if it was lifeless and still like he expected, but if they could recover it, resuscitate it, then maybe — The ship glided into Black’s hangar and Keith leapt from the seat, sprinting down the length of the lion. His hope was a painful thing, such a sudden surge that mirrored the tenuous glitter in Shiro’s own heart. At last, at least, his heartbeat seemed to whisper. The cockpit hinged open, and Keith was up in it in mere strides. He knelt, hands brushing the cheeks, the jawline. Shiro’s name spilled from his lips like pomegranate seeds. Tears ran thin tracks down his face, eyes alight with quivering hope as he scoured the still, blank face. Shiro pulled back. This wasn’t him. This was — that was his face, but this was not him. Couldn’t Keith see it? The hair, too long for a year away; the details of the face, just at a slightly wrong angle. It was as if someone had tried to draw him but with only a single photo for reference. Surely, Keith could see it, surely he would — Keith lifted a limp hand and pressed his lips to the bared knuckles, eyes scrunched tight in painful relief. Horror grew roots in Shiro’s chest, twined between his ribs. If this stranger with his face existed, how many others did, too? What if he was not himself but one of them? How many times had he died? How many times had he woken believing himself narrowly saved when instead he was a simulacrum booting up for the first time? He disappeared, for a while, after that. Black cradled him, let him curl away from the world and into the stillness of nonexistence. She could give him no answer, could only tell him he was her paladin and not whether he was himself. He sat down in the pilot’s seat. Shiro unfurled inch by inch, anger itching red up his spine. How dare he, this fraud this charlatan this puppet — everything had been taken from Shiro and now he thought he was owed this, too. Snarling and vengeful, he slammed shut any connection the clone might try. He could not have Black. He could not have Shiro’s help. He didn’t deserve it.

“Please, people’s lives are at stake. Our friends need us.” He pulled back. The clone didn’t know. He thought — Shiro looked away. Black nudged him gently, just a little pulse. She would follow him, but he knew what she wanted. Sighing, he closed his eyes and breathed in stardust and comet ash, hands curling into fists. Fine. The Black Lion awoke. After that, it became a strange triad: Shiro, serving as the force and energy behind every flight; Black, the wings that allowed them to soar; and the clone, a grounding wire tethering them to the right plane. Throughout it all, Shiro felt his control strengthen, his senses integrate more fully with Black’s until they were nearly one and the same. Their edges blurred, glitched, fused into line. Throughout it all, the clone never noticed. Neither did anyone else. The anger that had awoken at the clone’s first entry smoldered in Shiro’s chest, hurt turned red and cutting. Every time the clone acted out, lashed out or made choices he never would, they all brushed it off as Shiro acting strangely. They made apologies to each other for him but never questioned it, never formed a pattern from the incidents. All of them believed he would do it: cut down Keith, undermine Allura, lash out at Lance. Each betrayal stung, but the worst of all was Keith. He accepted it so readily, so openly and without question. His hands brushed over the clone’s, tender and careful, and when the clone pulled away, Keith accepted that, too. Shiro screamed for him, called out every time he approached Black or skimmed the edge of the astral plane. Keith turned away, and the Blades took him. And then, after. Everyone still walked carefully around him, stole glances out of the corners of their eyes as if he were a wild animal and they didn’t know how he’d react. Irritation boiled over into anger, and he shut himself away. If they doubted him so much, if they were so quick to believe him this feral thing, then so be it. He was sharper now, adamantine and edged. His time in Black’s consciousness had left him with different senses, an altered understanding of experience. He had reforged himself alone in the nothingness. Black nudged him, a push that brought him back to himself. He shot an annoyed look in the direction of the hangar, as if she could see it through all the walls and not just feel his irritation through their bond. If he was too hard on Keith, then fine. It was what they all expected of him now, anyway. The universe needed Voltron to stay together, and he wouldn’t shirk that duty, but the family he thought he’d found, the home they’d made through each other — it had been taken from him, like everything else. A low rumble was all the warning he had before a wave of memories rushed over him, shimmering technicolor like dragonfly wings. The team, weeping for him and struggling to limp forward. Keith, scouring the universe till he was ragged and spent. The lions calling out, reaching for their missing leader, for the hole gaping in Black’s essence. They were Black’s memories, not his, and they shivered and glittered with senses he no longer possessed. They were followed by his own, by memories he hadn’t realized he’d stored.

The gasp, the rush, of being poured gently back into his own body — his body, his self, his his his — and the warm hands pressed carefully to his temples. Keith’s face, the first thing he saw, those wide fearful eyes and the first word out of his mouth like a prayer: Shiro. Hands, the whole team reaching for him, each trying to find a way to help him stand. A thrumming undercurrent in each shaky voice and desperate hug. He looked away, blinked away the images and found tears hot on his cheeks. Sensation was still overwhelming at times, after so long without it, but he found himself craving it all the same. He brushed his hand against fabric he’d felt a hundred thousand times just to feel it again, through water just to enjoy the simultaneous tickle of it on his skin as he watched it roll away. Now, he lifted his fingertips to brush away the tears and found the skin underneath fragile.

They are hurting, too. Yeah, fine. He got the message. Dropping down onto the edge of the mattress, he curled his arm around his belly and gritted his teeth against the gnawing hurt there. He knew, of course. He wasn’t an idiot. It was just… He curled his fingers into his palm till the rubber squeaked against the metal plate. They stopped looking for him. They believed he would turn his back on all of them. They believed he was found. They wanted so badly for it to be him that they would rather be hurt and abandoned than think him still gone. Swallowing, he eased the clench of his fist. That red anger had burnt itself out, leaving behind something ashy and hollowed-out, like a tree struck by lightning. Tired hurt echoed in the space behind his ribs. How is he? Black rebuffed him with a mental snort, the closest thing to an arched eyebrow she could manage. She wasn’t going to make it easy on him. He could feel what she wanted, could sense the hum beneath her thoughts, but she didn’t push him. One way or another, this would be his choice. He exhaled, slow, mindful of the way the air felt cool against his throat, how it whispered into the silent room. Releasing his hands, he brushed away the tears with the heel of his palm and stood. The ship was quiet now, the hallways muted and lit only with the low lights tracking along the floor. His own footsteps barely made a noise, just little hushes of noise against the metal as he followed his own path back. Keith had rolled over while he was gone, twisted the blankets around him till they coiled rope-like around his torso and legs. One hand dug into his pillow, knuckles blanched by the pressure. The other was bound up close to his chest by the blankets. Shiro paused on the threshold before taking a step inside and then another until he finally, carefully, lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Keith’s hair was still damp when he brushed it back from his face, his skin soft against the backs of Shiro’s knuckles. His fever had broken already, his skin no longer hot and slick with sweat. He loosened the blankets just-so, just enough so he could breathe, and Keith gave a little whimper of noise, nestling deeper into the tangle. Reaching over, Shiro lifted his hand finger-by-finger from the fist it had formed around the corner of the pillow. Huffing out some cross between a word and a growl, Keith jerked around to roll onto his other side. He curled inward once more, tight, and his knees pressed into the low of Shiro’s back. His head slid to the edge of the pillow, nestling into his own hand. The hand Shiro had freed dropped to hang over the edge, just shy of Shiro’s knee. “Shiro,” he mumbled, but his eyes were not open and his voice was heavy with dreams. Running his hand through his hair, Shiro smoothed it away from his face and let it trace along Keith’s cheek to pause over the scar curving fang-like over the edge of his jaw. He swallowed, breathed out. He brushed his thumbtip across it once and brought his hand away to fall into his lap. Sitting here, the hollow seemed to ease. It wasn’t contentment that took its place or even hope, but the first brushes of something like a salve pushed back the darkness. Keith’s hands twitched, fingers flexing by Shiro’s knee. Reaching down, he slipped their hands together, palm-to-palm. Keith’s gave a little involuntary twitch before tightening, clamping down around Shiro’s as if grabbing hold of a lifeline. Okay, he thought, closing his own fingers around Keith’s. He closed his eyes, breathed deep. Keith’s heartbeat echoed his own, a sure and steady pulse. They were alive. They were together. They could figure out the rest. “I’m here,” he said aloud.

[unsettlingshortstories]

The Last Question

Isaac Asimov (1956)

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way: Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

"That's not forever."

"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't forever."

"Will, it will last our time, won't it?"

"So would the coal and uranium."

"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."

"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."

"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did all right."

"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

"I'm not thinking."

"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."

"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."

"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

"The hell you do."

"I know as much as you do."

"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

"All right. Who says they won't?"

"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'"

"It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

"Never."

"Why not? Someday."

"Never."

"Ask Multivac."

"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered. "That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've ----"

"Quiet, children," said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for "analog computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

"Why for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."

Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."

"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase."

"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done, " whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back.

"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

Jerrodine said, "and now children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?" MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --"

VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we'll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?"

VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it's sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

"Why not?"

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, "See!"

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space. Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it, " had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF."

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."

"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

"They must all die. Why not?"

"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

"It will take billions of years."

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal AC answered. "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable. Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic AC," said Man, "How may entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT."

"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

Man said, "We shall wait."

"The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down. One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man. All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light----

[senseandaccountability]

writer asks meme

ooh, I was tagged by @heyitsharding, thank you! I’m tagging @obliobla, @thievinghippo, @arlome, @persephonechiara and @threewhiskeylunch maybe? I’m awful at tagging, you don’t have to feel obliged/everyone else feel free.  ---

ao3 name: lilith_morgana

fandoms: Dragon Age and Lucifer are my main fandoms and those I’m still active in. Also Mass Effect, Skyrim, SWTOR and some other stray fandoms are represented. I wrote a lot of ASoIaF once upon a time and my first online fandom was Harry Potter. number of fics: 72 on ao3. 

fic i spent the most time on: Cartography, definitely. It’s long, it has plot and I wanted to pace the unlikely romance in a way that made people think it made as much sense as it did in my own head.  fic i spent the least amount of time on: A lot of my oneshots are quick writing, I’d say most of my fics under 3K are mostly spurs of the moment/concepts I want to try out. I write fast in general. 

shortest fic: Not counting drabbles/prompts that are part of some collection ao3 tells me Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us is the shortest at roughly 700 words. Then I have a lot of fics at around 1-2K. 

most hits: There are names for what binds us, hands down. Followed by Not in our stars, my still unfinished Sith Warrior/Vette story. Though I think it’s safe to say that if I had posted my Loghain/Cousland fics to ao3 from the start, the stats would be a bit different. 

most kudos: There are names for what binds us. 

most comment threads: There are names...

most bookmarks: There are names... Though here the Lucifer fandom has changed the list so number two and three are And all this devotion I never knew at all and O you were the best of all my days. If we count ffnet, I think In All These Wasteful Hours/Cartography would win.

highest total word count: Cartography at 170K. 

favorite fic i wrote: I’m very fond of In All These Wasteful Hours and it still doesn’t make me cringe much when I re-read it, some ten years later.  I’ve written some Lucifer stories that are pretty good. I like Entropy because I loved writing Zaeed. And this is the best SWTOR fic I wrote, I think: Every hollow has its favourite sound. 

fic i want to rewrite/expand on: I recently took down my post-DAI ensemble roadtrip story because I have no hope of ever finishing it in that shape or form. Which means I want to tell the story in some different way.  And my Cousland/Loghain universe is wide-open, waiting for new canon. 

share a bit of a wip or story idea you’re working on: Currently trying to wrap up some WIPs and in between that I’m indulging myself in some Trevelyan/Cullen because the romance makes me feel but it’s also annoying. Or might not be if I can make it work for my Trevelyan who is emphatically not the sort of Inquisitor that I feel the writers had in mind for this romance. This fic will probably never get posted but it keeps me entertained. I’m also writing a Loghain/Hawke friendship fic that absolutely no one except for me wants to read.

“I remember your name from Ostagar.” He says it levelly, almost in passing. “From the roll of soldiers. There were two of you, if I remember correctly.” Hawke raises an eyebrow, the sting in her chest at the thought of Carver still a faded wound, dull and itching.  “That was many years ago,” she says and reaches for her goblet of warm, spiced wine. It’s freezing outside and she’s longed all day for a chance to sit down in a warm tavern. “Yes.” Loghain nods, an unreadable expression on his face. “Yet I recall it.” “I believe you. I just think it seems… obsessive.” He gives a low chuckle, as dark and unexpected as the fact that the two of them sit here together right now. “There is truth in that. I used to learn the names of all the soldiers under my command.” It’s a pity Aveline isn’t here. She would like him, Hawke is sure of that.  “Did it help?” she asks, though the answer will hardly matter. Loghain takes a swig of his ale and glances sideways at her. “Help with what?” “The guilt?” “Hardly.” He pauses, scrutinizes her face for a moment. “Did you lose someone at Ostagar?” She leans back further in her seat, trying to loosen the sore muscles in her neck by forcing down her shoulders. The room is still only half-full and business seems slow. “No,” she says. “I lost all my people afterwards. Mostly in Kirkwall. None of it could rightly be called your fault.” “Is it yours then?” “Probably.” 

[astrojmonaf1]

A Neutron Star Merger, The Fall of A Formula One Hero, and a Belgian Maiden Grand Prix Win

The LIGO/Virgo collaboration teams, observed a gravitational wave event of a Neutron Star merger "with the probability that the source may have at least one object in between three and five solar masses" said LIGO, on September 1st.

📸: LIGO Twitter

Kilonova observations are extraordinarily rare, for when Neutron stars collide, the remnants left are showers of gold and platinum scattered into the universe. These showers bring forth metals like the ones found on Earth.

Elements beneficial to our very existence.

Although the remnants here are believed to have merged into a black hole.

Who would have imagined that to the world of Formula One, that same rip to the fabric of space and time of a binary system hundreds of millions of years in the making, could have different consequences in the racing track.

It would arrive the same day that Charles Leclerc would make his Maiden Grand Prix Win.

While one can’t be certain what Einstein meant when he said, "God does not play dice with the universe,” we can only think of this moment. The Universe may be 14 billion years old, and with that, heroes and legends can be made because heroes are not born. Through pain and tears, downforce and minimal drag, Gravity much like F=ma, can be good friends, but in one wrong Turn, all can become the enemy, to Formula One drivers.

They are made, on the track and in moments such as these.

Racing For Anthoine

Like the great Carl Sagan once said, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”

Anthoine Hubert, 22, of France, lost his life at the Belgian Grand Prix on August 31st.

The Renault French driver, was involved in a major accident with American Sauber driver, Juan Manuel Correa, at the Spa-Francorchamps. Hubert's car hit the bars then collided with Correa’s.

Correa, underwent surgery and “will remain in intensive care for at least another 24 hours to ensure that his condition can continue to be monitored by his surgical team,” read the official statement released on his website.

Anthoine Hubert, succumbed to his injuries after that tragic accident at Spa-Francorchamps.

A childhood friend to Charles Leclerc, someone he raced Karts with, laughed with, and joked with, perhaps looked up to race with head to head in this very track, the Monegasque now ran alone.

For Charles Leclerc, securing his maiden win at the Belgian Grand Prix, wouldn’t be the first place in his legacy, but a bequest to honor the memory of his now departed childhood friend. 

Notwithstanding, everyone was racing for Anthoine and to honor his memory.

This was no ordinary race and as challenging as it was it would become one to remember.

The morning of Charles’ race, he'd been seen by the media talking to Anthoine’s family.

His mother, Nathalie, Father Victhor and brother Francois, gave him their support, as Nathalie embraced him.

That heartbreaking sight will live in the hearts of fans forever.

The Love of a Mother

📸: Kym Illman

It might have instilled love and strength in the Monegasque and a little extra push to go with the respect of millions of fans as a reminder that Anthoine would have wanted him to get to P1.

His last race having been practically stolen in Bahrain, this time, nothing would get in his way.

Phased, and unbelieving that any of it had happened, Anthoine’s loss, and his win, Charles said: “We were four kids dreaming of getting to Formula One.”

Anthoine Hubert, Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.

“We have grown up in karting together, so to lose him is a big shock for me, and everyone in the sport.”

“It was definitely the first situation for me where I have lost someone and then raced the following day. It is obviously quite challenging to close the visor and go through the exact corner —where he died— at the same speed as I did the day before.

Pierre Gasly, the Toro Rosso driver, gave Leclerc a little fuel to win the race too, had the words “ALWAYS WITH ME #AH19,” above the open view of his halo:

“I've grown up with this guy since I was seven in karting, we've been roommates, we've lived in the same apartment, in the same room for six years."

“We’ve been class mates, I’ve studied since I was 13 until 19 with him, with the same professor at a private school that the federation did. I’m still shocked.”

“You have to put it out of your mind because otherwise, you can’t race,” he added,

“I told Charles before the race: Please win this race for Anthoine, as we started racing in the same year, Charles, Anthoine, and myself. And Anthoine won the French Cup in 2005. We raced for many years and knew each other.”

Overtaken in Bahrain by a one-two Mercedes win, and getting wheel banged by Red Bull's, Max Verstappen in Austria, back in July, costing him-his first win, this one; means more.

“We lost a friend first of all — I would like to dedicate my first win to him. In my first race, we drove together, it's a shame what happened yesterday, I can't enjoy my victory fully.” Charles added.

"It is difficult to enjoy this victory, but hopefully, in two or three weeks, I will realize what happened.”

Everyone was cheering for Ferrari’s 16 to win it for Renault’s 19.

In the aftermath of Hubert’s passing, it’s hard to express what Leclerc must’ve felt like when he got to lap 19.

19 was Anthoine’s racing number, and the crowds paid tribute as well when the drivers came through.

it was no consequence that of all days, that Neutron Star Merger would be named S190901ap. The date that recorded the LIGO/Virgo's Neutron Stars Merger, which coincided with Anthoine's number.

And then you heard a solemn “This one is for Anthoine,” coming from Ferrari’s radio, said by Charles Leclerc upon finishing first.

Everyone burst, there was commotion everywhere, a good day and a sad day in Motorsports indeed for all the right reasons.

“It’s a good day but on the other hand losing Anthoine yesterday brings me back to 2005, my first ever French championship,” continued Leclerc during an interview.

📸: Kym Illman

A League of His Own

Seeing the Monegasque separate the Silver Arrows and keep good pace through and through, was what Formula One is all about, but is unfathomable to know how he must’ve felt while driving down Spa’s circuit or how he feels now that it’s been completed.

As youth of this new century, explorers and pioneers, one often forgets that millennials have much on their shoulders.

They’re here to make a name for themselves, and it's undeniable that on the way to greatness, they’re bound to lose those they love because this sport is ruthless.

Charles Leclerc won't be the exception, to the rule, but he's been the valid example of losing in every aspect and yet here he is. Racing and winning. Nothing deters his will to keep going.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver, and godson to Jules Bianchi, the last casualty to the sport before Hubert, is the living reminder that today's youth, still have plenty to look up to and much to fight for.

You could see him in the podium wearing a black armband with his entire Ferrari Team, as he raised his Trophy to the sky in honor of Anthoine.

Empowering generations of new drivers to not feel like outsiders. He might have lost a friend, his godfather, his father, that battle on two multifarious and defining races before, but on his third, he got his maiden trophy with a little help from above.

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes spoke encomiums of Charles Leclerc after the race.

"It's not easy for any driver to jump into a top team like Ferrari against a four-time world champion, with much more experience, and then to continuously out-perform, out-qualify and out-drive him. But Charles’ results speak for themselves. There is a lot more greatness to come from him, and I am looking forward to racing alongside him in the future.” 

“Then once I got in the car, as I did for my father two years ago, you need to put all the emotions to one side and focus on the job.”

Said, Leclerc “I was happy to win and remember him the way he deserved to be and, yeah, happy to do it on this day.”

"They are so much faster than us and Monza is all straights ... We will do our best, but it is going to be a tough job to match them.”

He lamented his inability to master those straights like Leclerc, before. Something the Monegasque is seemingly able to do. Monza will be the place to put the five time World Champion to a test.

"So, there's a lot more greatness to come from him and I'm looking forward to seeing his growth and racing alongside him ... Today, it was fun, trying to chase him. He was just a little bit too quick.”

Maybe, Chekhov was right after all about Entropy, that beautiful chaos that makes our universe work, It does come easy, but as I wrote in my book, “Entropy comes easy, but Love outgrows the Universe,”©️

"I was struggling in the corners, so that allowed him to get close," said Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and Leclerc's Team mate.

"I couldn't hold him off for a very long time. I tried to obviously make him [Hamilton] lose time in order to give Charles a cushion, and in the end it was just enough, so it did the job.

"I couldn't stay in range to look after myself, and I was sort of playing a road block to make sure that Charles was gaining some time." He did everything to help his team mate achieve his first victory.

In a statement given by Daniel Ricciardo from Team Renault, he too admitted not wanting to race following Hubert’s untimely death.

“I know that, weirdly enough, the best way we can kind of show our respect was to race today,”

“But I don’t think any of us actually wanted to be here or wanted to race”

 “At least, I’m speaking for myself, but I’m sure I’m not the only one. It was certainly tough to be here and try to put on a brave face for everyone.”

 “I know a lot of people in the paddock are hurting so I think everyone’s relieved it’s done, we can move on from here, and hopefully it’s the last time that this happens.”

For the Renault fans, Ricciardo racing that day meant everything.

To know that a driver from his team had perished, how does one reconcile, to keep the morale high for the millions of fans aching so racing is the answer.

Is the one thing the Aussie does to help the fans, and he does it well. We appreciate the effort even when we know the heartbreak he's feeling. A collective effort from everyone now to help each other heed the call of the F1 neighbor even on social media.

We love him for it.

It becomes a Labor of Love.

“Since I was a child I’ve been looking up to Formula 1, dreaming to be first a Formula 1 driver, which happened last year, then driving for Ferrari this year, and then the first win today.”

“It’s a good day, but on the other hand, as I said, losing Anthoine yesterday brings me back to 2005, my first ever French championship. There was him, Esteban [Ocon], Pierre [Gasly] and myself. We were four kids that were dreaming of Formula 1. We grew up in karting for many, many years, and to lose him yesterday was a big shock for me but obviously for everyone in motorsport, so it was a very sad day.” - Charles Leclerc

📸:© Reuters/ FRANCOIS LENOIR

A day filled with grief, racing, camaraderie, and the inextricable reminder that; the Universe is always at work.

Congratulations, Charles Leclerc and Team Ferrari for a well-deserved win.

We knew you had it all along.

“And when you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Paolo Coelho

Jen McCulley TM Sep 2, 2019

[radioromantic-moved]

mordecai vs. the universe

word count: 2200

a soulmate au that got way too out of hand. i mostly wrote it when i was supposed to be sleeping or working. please enjoy it. cara is my 1920s-sona

entropy, noun- lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.

Soulmates are a complicated business. They’re notorious that way. People joke that everyone who ever wanted to study the process of soulmates gave up after a few weeks on the job. The only real concrete thing that’s accepted as positive fact is the simple the first words they say to you appear on your body in their handwriting a few years after puberty; some get them, some don’t. No dates or timestamps, no scientific explanation, no clear-cut pattern. Soulmates are tricky, multifaceted, and chaotic.

Their lack of organization is one of the reasons why Mоrdecai HelIer hates them.

Although it’s certainly not the only one.

He’s been surrounded by marked people his whole life, almost as if they gravitate towards him. His mother and father were soulmates; his mother doesn’t speak about it often, but on the occasion that his father, now deceased, happens to enter the conversation, he’ll catch her adjusting her shirtsleeves to cover up something, fading, written in a neat, flowing font. His youngest sister got her mark remarkably early--a few months before he left home, she was speculating aloud who the mystery phrase scrawled across her neck would be spoken by, in the dreamy tone of someone who can still afford daydreams. 

He can’t escape soulmates at his place of employment, either. Atlas and Mitzi not only flaunt their matching marks, they’ve been known to use them to entertain--Mоrdecai’s witnessed them reenact their first meeting in a floral, overdramatized skit of sorts, culminating in the removal of Atlas’ jacket so the crowd can see the words written on his collarbone and Mitzi dramatically sweeping back her hair to reveal what’s been penned on her cheek and jawline. 

The words aren’t particularly impressive, either; he paid her a casual compliment on her musical skill after a performance. 

Then there’s Viktor, who never reveals anything about his soulmate, but Ivy swears on her life she’s seen ink on his back before when she catches him off guard. Mоrdecai suspects that she just has soulmates on the brain, though; she’s at the age that most marks appear, and she’s constantly fidgeting with her clothes to check if anything’s appeared while she wasn’t paying attention. 

Mоrdecai finds the whole business to be wholly a waste of time. He has more important things to worry about than romantic entanglements, and he certainly does not need a mysterious, undefinable, uncategorizable force attempting to force him into one. Leave the prettiness and fairytales to AtIas and his wife. When it comes to socialization, particularly done with romantic intent, he could arrange an alphabetized, structured list on all of the things that he would rather do.

Which is why he could not be more annoyed when he sees the sentences crawling down his arm one otherwise unremarkable day.

His mark somewhat matches his mother’s--perhaps they do follow genetic lines in some way, he notes, even as his brain is insisting there are more important things to worry about right now--but his seems to take up more space than his father’s organized writing did. One could hardly call his soulmate’s handwriting neat--it’s a messy scrawl, as if they were writing in a hurry. Well, I’ve been worse off, though I guess not by much, claims this permanent, unwanted tattoo of his, and he’s inclined to agree with it.

He let himself get too secure; he was so sure that he was out of the age range of expected mark appearance, but if his studies of statistics have taught him anything, it’s that there are always outliers in any data pool.

There’s also Murphy’s Law to contend with.

But he will make a plan and follow it to the letter, the way it always does. He refuses to let this distract him. He has a job to do, and this mark will not change that. 

If anyone at the Laсkadaisy notices that he’s particularly taken with long sleeves all of a sudden, they don’t say anything about it. Sometimes he thinks he sees Mitzi giving his arm a sideways glance, but a well-placed stony glare often gets her to back off. 

All is well, for a while. 

Until a soaking wet stranger stumbles into the Little Daisy Cafe on yet another day that would normally be considered entirely ordinary.

Atlas, Viktor and Mоrdecai are seated in a booth near the entrance when the door blows open and someone hurries inside, shutting the door behind them and sealing off the fierce rainstorm raging outside. The stranger takes a seat at a barstool and pulls off their jacket, gathering it into a pile in their arms. They must look sufficiently like a drowned rat, because as soon as Mitzi emerges from behind the counter, she hurries over to the shivering would-be customer. “Oh, my--don’t tell me you just came from out there! Are you alright? You look halfway to the grave.”

The stranger attempts a half-shrug. “Well, I’ve been worse off,” they say affably, “though not by much,” they concede with chattering teeth. 

Mоrdecai’s arm burns fiercely. He rubs it, trying to look casual.

“I’ll get you a towel,” says Mitzi, heading to the back room. She turns around and adds, “Although I hope you’ll clean up that mess you’re dripping all over our floors. We just cleaned in here, you know.”

Atlas heads over to the new arrival, who is murmuring to themselves under their breath. Mоrdecai follows, although he has a terrible feeling that he will strongly dislike the outcome of this conversation. 

“What brings you out in this weather?” Atlas asks mildly.

The stranger takes a towel offered to them by Mitzi and sighs. “Job-hunting gone wrong, I guess,” they say in a dry alto. “One rejection too many, suppose I wasn’t paying attention to much anymore. I got lost, and when it started raining I just ended up more turned around.”

They’re dressed for a job interview; they’re wearing an expensive-looking red suit that would probably come off as more impressive if it wasn’t rumpled and soaking wet. They’re holding a stack of papers that seem to have taken less rain damage than the rest of them; Mоrdecai would guess they were shielding the papers with their body. 

Atlas tilts his head and stares at the would-be interviewee with a look that Mоrdecai recognizes as an appraising one. “You seem decent,” he says slowly. “What, if you had to guess, was the common factor in your rejections from your prospective jobs?”

It’s a loaded question, but Mоrdecai has a feeling he knows what Atlas is looking for. 

The stranger pauses a second. “If I’m being entirely honest, sir, I believe I lack the charm needed to succeed in a career when one’s of my particular persuasion.”

There’s something in her eyes. Mоrdecai has never claimed to be good at reading people, but he has a feeling that there’s something more to her job quest than she’s letting on.

“You know,” says Atlas, “we could use someone else to wait tables around here--we’re rather shorthanded as of late.”

This is a lie.

“If you’re inclined, I’d be perfectly willing to take you on--on a trial basis, of course,” Mоrdecai’s employer says, extending a hand to shake. “What’s your name?”

The stranger at the bar counter only hesitates for a second before shaking his hand firmly. “Cara. Cara Bergman. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.”

Mоrdecai makes his exit not long afterwards. No one cares much; they’re used to him disappearing when he pleases.

He has built his career on being unnoticed, and it pays off. No one notices when he starts avoiding speaking out loud in front of the new hire; if he must say anything at all, he says it in low tones to Atlas or Viktor. No one notices that every time Cara happens to get too close to him, he holds his arm as if it’s been burned.

He has successfully adjusted his plan to include every confounding variable, every scheme and trick and twist of fate that the universe, in its cosmic complication, has tried to throw at him.

Or so he thinks. 

Because as it turns out, Cara Bergman is remarkably difficult to predict.

A crisp knock sounds on his office door, and he heads to open it, almost spouting a reflex greeting--but when he sees who happens to be standing outside, he’s glad he didn’t.

“Hello,” Cara says calmly. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.”

She takes a seat facing his desk, and maybe he’s just caught extremely off guard by her sudden insertion into his personal time, but he finds himself sitting back down to face her. He doesn’t say a word, and they eye each other for a few moments.    

Cara breaks the silence eventually. “Look, I know you can talk. You and Mr. May are always off gabbing away in your little booth in the cafe. And from the way you always snap to attention when he says anything, I’m assuming your hearing faculties are in order, too.”

He doesn’t say a word, narrowing his eyes slightly.

Cara continues. “I’d write it off as you just being antisocial, but when I bumped into you the other day, the way you flinched--I thought I’d stabbed you or something.”

So maybe he wasn’t quite as subtle as he thought.

Cara folds her hands in front of her. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’m sure you’re awfully busy with bookkeeping or whatever it is you do. I just want to hear one sentence from you. Any sentence will be fine.”

Mоrdecai considers his options and finds himself woefully lacking. He scratches his arm, which is stinging dully. He meets Cara’s eyes, and he can tell that she’s got a fair idea of what’s going on already. 

He sighs, and throws caution to the wind.

“Alright. I suppose it’s best we finish this sooner rather than later.”

Cara grins toothily. “That’s what I was looking for. And may I just say, that’s really the best thing to have tattooed on you for eight years or thereabouts. Are we factory workers? University students? My guess is as good as anyone else’s.”

Even though he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, it’s a grim confirmation when she shrugs her shirt off one shoulder to reveal his own handwriting penned in inky black. 

Suddenly, one of the things she’s said hits him. “Eight years? I’ve only had a...mark--” he hears the contempt in his voice as the word comes out--“for a few months, five at the most.”

Cara snorts. “What, did you expect something involving soulmates to make sense?”

“Fair point,” he concedes. 

He straightens his cufflinks, unsure of where to continue from here. Luckily, Cara saves him. “I know you’re not excited about this or anything.”

“What gave it away?” he deadpans.

“Look,” she states, side-eyeing him, “I know there’s a lot of pressure on people to settle down once they find their soulmates, or at least make a big to-do about the whole thing. But no one’s making us turn this into a production. Just because we’ve got each other’s handwriting on us doesn’t mean we have to go all--” here Cara leans forward and bats her eyelashes in such a dead-on impersonation of Mitzi that Mоrdecai nearly chokes in surprise-- “on each other.”

“I--well.” 

Somehow, he has been struck silent yet again. Cara has presented something that he never considered seriously before. “Well, what do you suppose we do about this, then?” he asks.

“You know, there’s this thing called a friendship that I’ve been thinking about trying out,” says Cara. “I understand the concept might be foreign to you as well.”

“I have friends,” Mоrdecai protests. He doesn’t realize how indignant he sounds about it until it’s already out of his mouth.

“Lovely,” Cara says. “Now you have one more. Here--let’s shake on it.”

She offers her hand, and he takes it. A jolt of something runs through him like lightning (static electricity, he tells himself, common at this time of year) and all at once, he realizes that his mark has stopped stinging. 

“Now, as friends,” Cara muses, looking at the stacks of books arranged meticulously on his desk, “we should probably find some common interests. Do you like reading?”

“When it’s for work,” he says, turning his head back down to the figures he was calculating before she walked in.

“Well, that’s awfully boring of you. If we’re going to be friends, I’ve really got to introduce you to some H.G. Wells. Oh, or maybe Poe. You’d like him; you’re both dark and brooding.”

He doesn’t dignify her with a response, and waits until she’s left, carefully shutting the door behind her, to lean back in his chair and consider things. 

He refuses to give the universe the direct satisfaction of being right, but he will, at the very least, admit that there are worse ways that this situation could have played out. Much worse.

Her eyes were teal, he thinks, with hints of spring green--

He shakes his head and turns back to his calculations. 

[merryfortune]

Forever Lost Child

I’ve decided to crown this fic my farewell to Vrains piece. The finale broke my heart and then put it back together again. It was wonderful. I look forward to the next iteration of  Yu-Gi-Oh but Vrains has a very special place in my heart

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Word Count: 1.9k

Tags: Post-Canon, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

  Using only a name, they were able to track down his final resting place. No one was bold or brave enough to reach out to the family directly, instead, they relied on underhanded means to ascertain where the grave would be located. Then, they all agreed on a date and now, said date had arrived and there was no turning back; minds couldn’t be changed or disagreed upon as they had made a promise.

  So, the five of them gathered outside the cemetery. Between each other, they murmured exchanges of placid greetings. Yusaku, Takeru, and Jin had arrived as a group whereas Miyu and Spectre had made their way to the spot individually. It was weird to be altogether, and yet incomplete, as they were when they were as a group.

  It was an unusually warm day with a breeze. It seemed unusually appropriate given what they knew about the person they were visiting. And in such weather, they were all dressed appropriately in their nicest clothes and as appropriately as one could be on a hot day to visit the grave of someone they knew intimately and yet, not at all.

  To begin with, as they stared down the gates until someone – Spectre – pushed it aside so the others may pass, it was easy to be solemn. Once they passed through, uncertain of where they were going save for a name and a subsection, it became difficult to maintain a façade. It began with Spectre, who made insensitive comments to peers who couldn’t care less. After he, it was Yusaku who took solace in being able to quieten Spectre; scolding him for his aforementioned sensitivity and then to Jin who took glee in being able to scold Yusaku for being so one-track minded about this sort of thing. Takeru, however, took it all in stride, happy to listen to their different perspectives. At least until it then wound around to Miyu.

  To cope with this strange grief and mourning, Miyu’s bravado began to show even though it was apparent by the wobble in her lips that she was going to be the first to break. But, instead, she pushed that weakness onto Takeru. He was an easy target for her teasing, especially in a cemetery on such a hot day; murmuring and whispering to him that even though it was completely and utterly bright out, now was the perfect time for supernatural phenomena to take place. Including and especially the appearance of ghosts. And even though she could not have made it more obvious that it was all in jest, Takeru cowered at her talk regardless. But she found it unsatisfying, so she soon quit.

  After Miyu quit teasing Takeru and after Spectre quit making his inopportune comments and after Jin and Yusaku were able to nit-pick about said comments, it was like a black cloud had come over the group whilst they wandered through the cemetery. Yet, the sky itself was cloudless. As they continued through, a creeping sadness entered their veins, their thoughts, and it was Jin who found the gravestone they were looking for.

  It looked like every other in the area, though perhaps shinier. Recently cleaned, it seemed as it shone so brightly in the reflective sun. And burned incense scraps remained as well as some flower petals from dried and discarded bouquets, long carried off in the wind. The other gravestones around it, to commemorate the lives of yet more strangers, were darker in comparison; not quite as well loved. It was strange seeing the tall post to commemorate the short life of this boy. It was harrowing to stare down and each of them stared it down, memorising the curves of the sculpted calligraphy and the way it portrayed the name.

  Miyu was the one who broke such an unrelenting, clinical gaze first. Her eyes sealed shut and her jaw slackened. She bawled. Completely and utterly without inhibition with jagged, broken sobs which hiccupped in the otherwise still air. The boys listened to her, feeding off her open misery and gaining catharsis to that as they evaluated their own emotions in front of this gravestone.

  Yusaku licked his lips. “Someone should… We should, um…”

  Miyu continued to bawl and as Spectre was closest to her, she decided to cling to him. He made a sour expression, no doubt because her face was on his breast and she was a snotty, wet girl, but he placed a protective hand on her shoulder whilst she hugged him tightly. But Spectre relented regardless; his stern, annoyed expression softening to something akin to regret but it could have been petulance. He had been huffy all day as he already had to show some consideration today by bringing respectful flowers and now, he had to deal with this.

  “Look, over there, we can, um,…” Jin mumbled, his voice was a louder outburst than he had intended and that made him feel awkward but he brushed it off as best as he could; he pointed to a faucet and bucket they could use. They were located beside the next block of gravestones.

  “We’ll handle it then.” Takeru said and he shot a sympathetic look at Spectre who rejected it with a roll of his eyes. Though, his hand betrayed him as he had begun to pet Miyu who was still bawling on his chest.

  So, between the three of them, they got to work. Yusaku filled the bucket with Takeru whilst Jin, with a dour smile, removed the remains of flowers and incense already on the altar. After that, Jin stepped aside and let the other two clean. Spectre watched and bit his tongue. That’s not how he would have done it, but his attention was elsewhere, comforting Miyu.

  Spectre especially had to bite his tongue when Yusaku and Takeru awkwardly decided that they ought to let this gravestone – and consequently, the spirit of – know who they were. What they were to this boy, now passed on. And their connection to his subsequent death. Their musings, so sweet and polite, were not how Spectre would have enlightened this monument to this person, but his experiences weren’t universal. And especially not within his peer group. If they could be called that at all, in his opinion.

  “We’re sorry about what happened,” Yusaku mumbled whilst he scrubbed, “the other Ignis are really sweet, we swear.”

  “Mm, Flame’s really nice! You would have liked him.” Takeru said, deciding all on his own the likes and dislikes of this stranger who they could wrought however they felt, based on what little information remained of him online or in accessible memory.

  Jin’s lips twitched as he listened to the two of them exchange conversation directed at the marble whilst they cleaned. Soon, they were satisfied. Miyu, in the meantime, had calmed down enough to face her fears and how they congregated. She smiled weakly, murmuring a greeting and even an apology for being rude. Spectre made no such gesture, instead watching the scene as though he were uninvited.

  “I’ve still got the incense and stuff.” Takeru said. “And Spectre, you should give him the flowers.”

  “Understood.” Spectre quietly replied.

  Takeru shuffled closer to Jin and Spectre slotted in. He placed the spider lilies on the altar and made sure to leave room for Takeru so he could light the incense. He easily set up the spikes of incense but screwed around with the matches for longer than need be. But, soon enough, a flame was sparked, and the dry smell of the cemetery had to compete with the smell of vanilla and something else. Something smoky.

  After that, it didn’t feel like there was much else to do. Strangers were strangers no matter how intertwined their pasts were.

  Takeru lifted himself to his feet. Jin and Yusaku followed suit and the five of them found themselves in a line as they clustered around the boy’s gravestone. As strangers. And as something far more intimate than friendship. Thus, fingers intertwined. Interlocked and slipped through personal boundaries which existed differently outside of this place in the cemetery.

  Jin, to the far right, and Spectre, to the far left, were the bookends. Miyu, who still clung quite close to Spectre in her grief, took his right hand. Takeru took her left whilst Yusaku took Takeru’s right. With Jin being left with one hand empty and one hand full of Yusaku’s. And together, they silently looked onto the gravestone, shining in the sunshine and withstanding the warm breeze. Again, both were far too appropriate based on what they knew.

  Each of the five found it confronting to be as they were. Securely interlocked with one another, yet so alone in their thoughts, in their heads. Mortality had always been on their minds. Yusaku, Takeru and Jin, honestly not thinking they would ever grow to be the ripe old age of sixteen and yet they had and were finding the courage inside of themselves to do something good with the time that they had. As compared to Spectre who wanted to remain in those six months as a child eternally yet, since he had not, aspiring to live to the same age as his darling Ryoken-sama sans one day because he couldn’t think of anything worse than having to outlive his master. And then again, compared to Miyu who aspired to live as long as she could, to prove the doctors wrong and to grow out of the sense of her mother’s well-meaning smothering.

  Yet, the gravestone in front of them, was a stark reminder that accidents happened. Life existed in randomness, a sort of entropy one got used to until something dire or radical happened. Though, his death wasn’t accident. It hadn’t been a quirk of chaos. It had been planned. But, the sentiment of the alienating sense of death could happen any time, anywhere, and to anyone remained underlying.

  And that evaluation of their mortality was enough to break them all down. Yusaku was the first to cry out of the five of them. His tears streamed down his face with a rare vulnerability from him as he had spent so long trying to be strong and, for some time, had succeeded in it, at least publicly. Miyu bawled openly once more whilst Spectre shed reluctant tears, hiding them despite the futility of such a thing. Takeru who’s sobs were choked up and of tears which burned hot as they streak down his face, hideous in how twisted it became whilst grimacing. Finally, there was Jin who cried like some faint spirit with his tears more akin to omens than droplets of water and salt with a palatably unreadable expression, so blank and yet so revealing.

  Eventually, the five were content in their mourning. They had shed their tears and made themselves known to the gravestone. And thus, they bid the gravestone bittersweet farewell. As they turned their back on it, lingering close to one another with the sense that they would never truly feel complete. They were the victims of the Lost Incident and they were supposed to be six – not five – and therefore, one of them would always be lost. And none of them liked that sentiment or how it was an omen for the future because sooner or later, five would become four and four to three and three to two and two to one and then, the unthinkable.

  But, for now, such grim matters did not have to be heeded as for now, they were five and their dear, unknown friend who was permanently the forever lost child.

[rpgchoices]

Heaven’s Vault part 9: empress’ extra lore (part 2) and the Book translation (+ theories)

Some extra stuff from my last playthrough and a list of new things from the BOOK!

Information from dialogues with Enkei during the game:

It takes many lifetimes to understand the true depth of a soul (Enkei doesn't seem to believe in the loop, so this could refer to the layers on a robot's foil)

The people before her believed in a pantheon of seven. Waiting to take the people to liberation.

The holy empire was founded on the belief of rebirth (if the robots started the loop religion, then this would predate the empire)

Enkei led a vengeful army through the palace gates and they slaughtered them all. This means that the robots did harm people... so maybe the overlaying written on the foil sort of cheats the ethical core? Enkei might still follow the ethical core because no ancient word to bypass it has been used now on her.

Enkei says that the emperors had to fall because they were no better than the mechanicals she overthrew, confirming she led the rebellion against the robots' overlords. These robots she deposed were on Elboreth.

The empire led by robots (Steel Empire) had its palace on Elboreth (Enkei changed it later to Iox, after deposing them)

Some robots were kept around by the emperors to work (maybe servos run the mines?)

Enkei shared her secret (ancient words to control robots, which she used against the robot empire) and she was betrayed (during the fall) because of it

The well at the Withering Palace held robots, they rose with Enkei and they took Iox (the fall)

Enkei has been in the market place as a girl (this is a rich place, could it be she wasn't a slave or miner, but someone with power even before?)

Enkei's secret is control words. She probably knows words that can override everything

Miners freed the robots from the underground chamber at the Withering Palace

The robots invented the loop as a way to minimize human suffering at the thought of death but mostly to miniseries their own (this could have happened way before the age of steel)

Other general information:

Aamir says that the market place gets busy at night with ghosts, who are angry... not sure what this means, maybe nightmares?

Robots and foils are pre empire, the empire made copies of the collars/projectors/foils

The ethical core is probably burnt right down in the foil, lower than any other layers

The Vault washed up "beyond the knot of the three rivers" (the knot is the ancient aquifer). This section was removed from the Annals in the Empire

Telescopes have a rebeske foil in them (recording the movements of the sky)

The Nebula is a loop (the rivers are a loop, water gets recycled, and some gets lost because of entropy, because of hoppers breaking/getting lost and because of the vault repaiting its core)

Age of sail had propellant based ships (crystals?)

Ships carried crystals during the age of sail

Piece of paper from the library: Follow God's Road. One God. The overseer?

THE LIBRARY

Just like on Elboreth, there are the feet of the God in front of it. Aliya wonders if that is the seventh god or the Nebula's own god (maybe they are one and the same).

New translation of the BOOK!

In the book "The History of the Lost Future" Aliya translates:

This book is a history and this book tells what will come everything this book tells is true and nothing is false record and measure? but do not assume? never rest until follower? is taken? the people of the Nebula grew from seeds the robots are gardeners with sharp eyes the robots grew people and tend their bodies the robots are your friends the Serpent's Eye holds the key (the Serpent's Eye is the name of the dock/crater) ships sail into the Serpent's Eye but the walls hold. The library will save the future never forget that power corrupts? the vaul will save us The great path begins where water joins the rope of your weakness? is built of iron? The seventh God drinks from the waters of the Nebula the people escaped from the seventh God but seventh God waits under mountain? inside tomb? the book has a beginning the beginning was the vault ship flew? and did? vault across old sea but the ship came down in fire -------heaven and rock ?? the heart of the ship was broken sleepers? wake? they wait as the gods bring the heart together the seventh god will bring the heart together when heart is complete we will sail end? of our journey? to our new home but until the heart is full we wait we sail the rivers of the broken heart we make our homes on the moons of the Nebula we wait and we listen for the seventh God's voice may Gods guide your decision when the sevenths God speak we must listen when the heart is full we must sail for our new home world above cannot be reached? you are phoenix? who rises we wait and we listen we are slaves from birth?

Now, I’ll try to decipher the meaning D:

never rest until follower? is taken? this sounds like priests were trying to convince everyone of the truth of the book, as a way to not lose the fact that humanity was not supposed to vault into the Nebula the people of the Nebula grew from seeds the robots are gardeners with sharp eyes the robots grew people and tend their bodies the robots are your friends we know that robots care for people and feel compelled to make them feel safe. It could be that a part for some people (or one captain/overseer) the majority of people were born from embryos that the robots developed? the Serpent's Eye holds the key  ships sail into the Serpent's Eye but the walls hold. the Serpent's Eye is the name of the dock/crater where the robots were “monitoring darkness” and were there are two tripods. Maybe that’s the place from which the knowledge about when the core is fixed was supposed to come? never forget that power corrupts? this is so ominous! I want to believe that the title of the overseer is inherited and the big priest who was supposed to read the book is also supposed to be the overseer. We know that the god was killed (the god with feet = a corrupt overseer who had too much power?) The great path begins where water joins ancient aquifer the rope of your weakness? is built of iron? maybe the rope as in “saving line”? LIke the only thing that can save you humans from your weakness is the robots? But the book calls “us/we” humanity, so the “you” would be the person reading the book (future overseer?), maybe this is just a ship to get to heaven’s vault? The seventh God drinks from the waters of the Nebula we know that the ship is restoring water and repairing its core the people escaped from the seventh God but seventh God waits under mountain? inside tomb? the people might have escaped because the water on the first landing site was the first to go? We also know from the HV murales that the people killed the god and put its body inside (a robot? as the ship takes control of Six to speak, so the cross in the vaul could have been the original body of the ship’s robot) the book has a beginning the beginning was the vault ship flew? and did? vault across old sea but the ship came down in fire -------heaven and rock ?? the heart of the ship was broken we know heaven’s vault crashed and destroyed a moon creating the Nebula. The old sea would be the universe then sleepers? wake? maybe some people were in stasis? they wait as the gods bring the heart together the seventh god will bring the heart together when heart is complete we will sail end? of our journey? to our new home sleepers = humanity, woke up and had to wait to restart their journey but until the heart is full we wait we sail the rivers of the broken heart we make our homes on the moons of the Nebula in the meantime humanity can explore the Nebula and the rivers of the broken ship we wait and we listen for the seventh God's voice may Gods guide your decision not sure who is you here a part from the priest/future overseer. The seventh god will say when it’s time (monitoring darkness), and may gods guide the overseer’s decision? you are phoenix? who rises not sure again who is “you” if not the ship, in this case? Or again, the overseer who will cause the crashing ship to rise again? we wait and we listen we are slaves from birth? slave to the destiny?

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Show Recap

Time for the WMTW end-of-show comment! This isn’t going to be anywhere close to Tephi’s fantastic TTGL closing, but I’ll do my best.

First off, thank you. Thank you all so much for letting me get through this unspoiled. I mean sure, I’ll call you all jerks for leaving me unprepared for some brutal moments (Mami’s death, revelation of Magical Girls’ true nature, learning where Witches come from), but I definitely understand the appeal of PMMM WiWs now. Especially since you all knew the ending! There I was muddling through Doom, Death and Destruction, utterly convinced that Urobuchi was cackling away at the misfortunes of these poor girls… and then:

Kurotowa said:All hail Madokami, the ascended one! She who broke the eternal wheel of suffering and freed us from the chains of negative karma. Through her sacrifice she has opened the path of happiness. In other words, Madoka is drawing really heavily on messiah tropes, especially Buddhist ones. This is very much core to understanding what the series is about.

I didn’t see how there could possibly be a happy ending. Bittersweet maybe, Madoka Wishing her friends back and Homura coming to terms with her grief. But resetting the entire universe, changing the core aspect of the Magical Girls so everyone, even the Madoka-damned Incubators were better off?

I mean, wow. How good of an ending is it where the antagonists of the show end up in a better position along with the protagonists? Most any other story the Big Bad would be locked up or dead, so that the Good Guys can move on without their negative influence. Because if the story ends with the Big Bads still around doing their original plan, then what was the point of the story? But that’s the core of the Incubators: I love to hate them, but even I have to admit that their actions had a point, although I stand firm in my belief that they were at Lordgenome-levels of Stupid Evil in attempting to bring it about.

I just can’t get enough of the fact that Madoka looked at the shoddy system of the Incubators (Incubators need emergy, talk girls into becoming Magical Girls so they will eventually become Witches and release large amounts of emergy) and rewrote it to where Magical Girls fight the literal emodient of humanity’s negative emotions (if I’m understanding the Wraiths right), Magical Girls still have a purpose, their deaths don’t cause greater harm than their positive actions, and the Incubators get a steady supply of emergy to work against entropy. Everybody wins!

Except Homura, I guess. But before that… Good grief, I am embarrassed at my original read of her character. I saw her speak to Madoka in a hallway, and while you all knew her story I just freaked out over how she clearly was Evil and threatening Madoka’s family. That’s like Malfoy meeting Harry on the train and me saying “Well, this lad seems like a stand-up fellow.” And then my conviction that Homura got her powers from an Anti-Kyubey (HAHAHA) and she was going to summon Wally to get a Super-Gem? Bleh.

Anyways, interesting to note that while everyone ends up better off after Madoka’s Wish (and I include Madoka in this, because she always wanted to help people and now she’s got divine power to do so), Homura sorta… doesn’t. Her Wish to protect Madoka got co-opted by Madoka wishing for Divine Power, and then the person she fought so long for goes off to take care of the entire universe. And Homura’s left in the new Universe, fighting Wraiths and keeping the memory of Madoka. A better life for her, for certain. But not necessarily what she fought for.

Although that still doesn’t answer the question of what the fudge those after-credit wings were about. What’s up with the disconnect there? Homura seemed ok with pink angel wings before the credits, but then she’s walking alone through a desert to fight Wraiths, and she’s suddenly got dark wings?

As happy as I am with this show, I’ve still got questions. And apparently there’s a followup movie…

But that will have to wait. I definitely want to see the continuation of this story, but I’ve got a lot of classwork and workwork coming up. Not to mention that all of your comments warning me against seeing it too fast? When you all watched me blindly stumble into PMMM? That raises all sorts of red flags.

So to that end, I’ll go ahead and announce that I’ll plan to watch PMMM-Rebellion in mid-March, after I’m settled into apartment life and don’t have to worry about classes. Stop on by the new thread to help me figure out how I’m actually going to WMTW a movie! And I’ll have to ask suggestions about what shows I or Tephi should watch next move to the WMTW Suggestions thread. I’ve got a few potentials I think she’d enjoy, but it’s always neat to find something neither of us have watched.

Thanks for stopping by!

[theorynexus]

We now begin 51, which will likely take us to an entirely different perspective. Thanks, Monty Python!

On a random note, though... 

Man, this is fricking crazy, from a dramatic irony perspective. I do appreciate that Homestuck is written such that that spreads from not only the author’s possession, but to that of the audience via rereads.  As... macabre as this particular example is.

Finally, Dorothy is gone, and all that is left is the Witch (and her little dog too)?

Well, maybe not even that. Certainly, Bec’s powers are muted, and I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if his instincts are too; on the other hand,they could be strongly contributing to this. This sequence strongly reminds me of the sequence wherein Jade’s destiny to become fused with him was first alluded to. “You eat a weird bug, and don’t even care,” and whatnot.  Certainly, 

Words slough from the busy mind like a useless dead membrane as a more visceral sapience takes over. Something simpler is in charge now, a force untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright, that farcical yoke the bipedal tow. It now drives you through the midnight brush ...  as you and your new friend must claim the night with piercing howls moonward.

seems reminiscent to me of all of her thoughts of her former existence fading as she is beckoned by the call-- not of a moon, but of another reflection of the light of the sun: the Void-y remains that come with its demise. Obviously her “new friend” in this case would seem to refer both to Bec (who is a part of her, now, thus explaining the uniform motion) and through allusion, to the Alt!Calliope that her other version of herself had already befriended, who would be the one beckoning in the first place. It should also be said that shoes could be taken as a symbol of civilization, in this case, beyond just the obvious symbolism that is being pointed out to the viewer.  Regardless, whether this similarity was intended or not doesn’t actually matter. It’s just that this scene vaguely made me think of that.

What irony, considering this is coming from the one who just bewitched the Seer (which, I would just like to say, is honestly some nice narrative symmetry, considering this is almost exactly like what Doc Scratch did before him [not that I don’t still feel disgust toward him, even if this might turn out in Rose’s favor, in the long run]).                    Oh, yes, and by the way... very nice confirmation of the fact that the Green Sun Black Hole is Void-oriented. I appreciate that coming from an in-story source. (Even if you don’t connect emptiness with Void, which you should, the fact that the Ocean is connected with it is almost indisputable. That’s part of the reason why Rose’s quest was to bring life to the dead ocean by Playing the Rain. It was about using her inner Light to counteract her tendencies toward its equal opposite.)

Which is part of the reason why Alt!Calliope and Jade get along so well, and why there’s a connection between them, I’m sure. (Both of their lifestyles/life histories emphasized thematically their inner Space orientation. [This may also be why Kanaya lived in them middle of a desert, with no one but her Virgin Mother Grub to directly keep he company.])

Yes, way to downplay one of the core Aspects of reality just because it doesn’t necessarily always function in the way that perception would suggest it does. This doesn’t make it illusory, nor does it invalidate the continuum aspect of it:  that it is intrinsically relevant to how life persists and interacts with the world itself demonstrates the importance of this part of Time. It’s like suggesting an iceberg is an illusion just because you can’t see the depths hidden away below the surface (Void hides it from your eyes [read: Light is blocked]).   Gah, you are so bloody irksome and pride-projecting in your demeanor just because you managed to pick something up that the Trolls basically illuminated to the Beta Kids way back when they were all 13.  Congratulations.

Fool. (Oh, and I would argue that time continuing to be relevant conceptually, despite its non-linearity, helps to emphasize its importance as a pillar of reality. That it is an existence persisting independent of its consequent internal signifiers [entropy, {temporal} causality, direction] allows for it to play the very important role of acting as a medium for general interaction and consequence; particularly, it allows for the persistence and simultaneous activity of all possible states of being within its domain [e.g.: reality or the meta-narrative Existence within the context of MSPA, or whatever set of other works which would necessarily include all relevantly connected miscellany] which are additionally allowed for via the logical intermingling it has with the other Aspects.            In other words: Time is one of the two necessary present architectonic forces that undergird the Narrative.   Your suggesting that it is given disproportionate attention and that loneliness is therefore an illusion is just the sort of insulting, crass, and perspective-locked claptrap that I’d expect from someone who’s so enthusiastically embraced a departure from humanity, and who thus has lost mooring in the solid, political existence which sapient, physically-connected beings dwell in by nature.   I suspect that your distraction and loss of perspective will eventually come back to haunt you.  ) Yes, I realize that the Ultimate Self is a timeless construct, but this does not mean time is irrelevant to it or the limited forms it girds itself with when connecting to physicality. (On a random note:  I do appreciate his decision to call Aspects ideas.)

Along with the creepiness with regards to Dirk pushing thoughts into Jade’s head (which is honestly par for the course in Homestuck, and at least he’s mostly trying to remind her of something he believes she already knows, so it’s somwhat benevolent), we get this interesting snippet.  Seems he wants to foreshadow difficulties between Dave, Jade, and Karkat in the future.   I suppose the only logical question is whether Jade will break their hearts in turn.   Love is hard. It’s hard and everybody (with actual experience) understands.

Ha ha, “How much of Homestuck was actually illusion seen in the perspective of the characters involved, a la the kids’ rooms before Gamzee’s Chucklevoodoo curses were disrupted,” ha ha. On a more important note:   I very much appreciate Dirk’s well-arranged metaphors relating to time, to Calliope’s Muse-inspired-powered Spatial-influential music. Dirk is indeed quite bad at distracting hyper-focused people with thoughts he thinks they will reasonably find seem similar to thoughts she might have.

Hey, man, don’t give up. Your breaking from the narrative of trying to help her is making it seem like your nervousness is throwing you off, meaning we won’t know if your attempts to help her had any chance to succeed in general! Way to go, “hero!”

“Time is an illusion,” you say?   Yet here’s your narration, there’s Jade.  Oh!  There she goes, persisting to fly off into the dead sun, just as linear time would demand of her!  What’s wrong?  Couldn’t make the time to properly put your thoughts together or try until you got it right?   Gasp!         My word!  It’s almost like Time is pretty fricking important to the narrative and reality of the story!

HEEHEEHAHAHAHA!!!        Serves you right, getting spooked like that, you incompetent, over-confident knave!

... Now, let’s see how the rest of this goes, now that I have a better handle on my humours.

You’re dealing with the Grim Reaper, inspirer of great woe and terror, as well as happy children drawings and stories everywhere.  Obviously, you were overmatched. Perhaps you should have tried focusing on Jade initially, rather than John?  That might have given you a little bit more time.   I am reminded of a group of trolls who didn’t properly think through their attempts to mock and cajole those they perceived to be the artificers of their downfall.  Perhaps this will turn out as well.

Demiourgos, your pride showeth. Your composure runneth down and streaketh thine face like free-flowing ichor. Hubris, doth it become thee?   Thou reflecteth thine flaws, and by thy own hand. Revealeth thou not the weakness of thine breast with Rage-filled uproar?   A lion in thine face we see, but at this flickering of that glamour, a snake in masquerade is spotted. Foul wretch, I pity thee:  for it is truly painful to behold the disheartening of the ambitious, and the glorious in the midst of downfall. What do you fear?  What compels such panic into one normally so serene?

I suppose I should have known. A mechanist always fears uncontrollable variables.    (I do wonder if his fear is truly warranted, though. Certainly, things aren’t as bad as they could be, but there is much to be depressed about in these outcomes as they have emerged so far, you know?)

And thus, a new star was born?   Well, we’ll see.   I certainly do appreciate the physics of black hole mechanics being involved, though I am not 100% sure that this is accurate to how such an ultra-massive construct would actually work. I know super-massive black holes effect objects differently than normal ones, when they approach the event horizon, so it seems rather reasonable to guess that one the mass of multiple universes would behave a bit differently from either.  I do not know, however.  ... All in all, a pretty great page, I guess.  It was nice to see the Narrator lose control so badly.  A bit sad that the consequences of that were as they were, but I knew that this would likely be the case, regardless. I wonder when John and Terezi will be back in focus~ ... P.S.:  I am pretty sure that subtle interference with the narrative is the normal role of a Muse, and that her Mastery over Jade in particular makes a great deal of sense, given who Jade is. I wonder what has compelled her to speak in such a manner that her voice is actually visible in the text, rather than subtly bending it to her will as presumably has been the case over the course of Homestuck, generally.  Could it be that she did this specifically to teach the Narrator a lesson?  Shall we ever find out?