Balmas

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

This… is not a situation that can be solved by an elephant.

Weird, right? S'like, big stompers, able to throw your weight around, and talk about junk in the trunk, which is a phrase she's heard used and one day she's sure someone will explain! Elephants are great! Also, ears. Big flappy ears, perfect for swatting flies, which is a problem she's never had until getting here, because heaven doesn't have flies. Very satisfying to wave around.

But! But but but! The point is, that an elephant cannot solve this.

Or rather, an elephant could solve this, but only if they didn't care about what would happen immediately after that happened, and.

And the point is that Shifu is being so incredibly careful when she starts moving furniture.

Shhh, Joshua, she's doing alright, see? Righting chairs, scooting them out of the way, moving slowly, like Izi's gonna run for the door any second.

Because she could just transform here, standing over Izi. But that phone is still pointed at her,a nd she does not want more pictures, and humans are weird in that they don't like it when they're being engulfed in flames?

She's tried to explain that it doesn't hurt, right? It's like… like that second before a sneeze, right? And your nose gets all pinchy, and then when you do sneeze, it's a relief? Look, look, you could hold anything you want in the fire! It's cold!

But still, she clears a space, and lets the fire wash over her until nothing but a lionpuppy is left.

"Izi? Are you okay? I'm super sorry I messed up your game. Could you. Could you delete that picture? Pretty please? For me?"

And also, the great thing about moving furniture and transforming is it's noisy, right? Noisier, certainly, than any gagged princess in the back room. We're all friends, no need to cause problems, and you can go on your way without needing to blow up the news with pictures and things.

Breathless Dead

… Where did that come from?

Bitemark. Who put that in her head? Was it Dionysus' purple dripping out her lips?

She's starting to grow familiar with the feel of the gods inhabiting her, as much as you can. Like electricity, wired through every muscle. Ares' red, Dionysus' purple. And the insistent absence of gold.

Which is, by the by, kind of a terrifying thought? It's like, two kinds of heroes get used to this kind of thing, and half of them are morality plays.

Bitemark. Huh. She's heard something about that, but can't remember what right now.

Dangit, now she wants a motorcycle. Completely impractical form of transport, but there's such a thing as style.

"I may be absent for a while. I've been given my next assignment, I think."

Breathless Dead

To her credit, Dyssia actually does consider the question.

Is she bored?

It's like, in all of her stories, it's nonstop action. Or, you know, heh, nonstop "action" of a very different sort, if your writer knows what they're doing.

And this isn't that, of course.

But also it's not…

"Not bored," she decides.

She could never be bored of this. Are you kidding? A never-ending chain of problems to be solved, puzzles to be wrangled, people to meet, in planets that are fantastic and new and with people that only sometimes want to eviscerate her! She's constantly being asked to do the new and different, a nonstop drip-feed of something to tickle her brain.

But…

"Useless," she amends. "Frustrated."

It's all new and interesting, every time. It's a learning experience, every time. She has to think on her toes and figure things out, even if the Dust Knight seems to think that the one solution he has is enough.

But…

"It's like, if you tell me to make ten thousand teacups, I'll see a mountain of clay. My brain might choke on it, might let me get good at making a mug before I move onto something new, and maybe the mountain sticks around.

"But there's an end to the mountain, if that makes sense. I might not make them today, or tomorrow, or years, but the mountain will be there, and every teacup made is one less bit of clay on the mound."

She can see the exhaustion in her own eyes, in that hynotic mask.

"It's not boredom that might kill me here. I don't abandon projects because I'm bored--I find new projects that are more interesting. This is interesting all the time!

"But it also doesn't end. Eventually, if I make enough teacups, the mountain will run out of clay, I will be a master teacup maker, I will have walked my Path, and will choose a new one.

"But the mountain of virtue just keeps getting bigger. I climb the ladder and don't gain height.

"I'm working and trying and helping, but making no progress. When do I win?"

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

[Marking Guilty]

You ever see an elephant hyperventilate?

She can fix this. She can fix this! She has to--

Oh she's in so much trouble. Why did she think she could--

Do. Not. Move.

But she could do so much to--

Or she could crush through the floor, and Izi's still under her, and--

Izi. Izi no. Izi, please.

Moving gingerly--no feet moving, see how good she is at not moving, not crushing anyone? See how good she is?--she puts her trunk on Izi's hand.

Izi. You could make her life really bad right now with that phone. She's not gonna stop you, not gonna put that elephant strength to actually wrapping around that wrist to stop you.

But she is going to make the biggest elephant eyes she can to beg--beg, Izi!--you not to pick up that phone. She is so sorry, and she's gonna fix this, and we're gonna go back to being the best of friends, and all you have to do is please, please please please let her explain, and try to fix this and just put down the phone, okay?

Breathless Dead

Why do they need to push the rock, though?

It keeps bugging her, you know? The only thing worse than pushing the rock is not pushing it. And she hadn't said anything at the time, because she was busy, yes, geeking out, and then there was all the work to pick up the pieces, and then she had been out there doing things, and it'd felt so good.

But the entire point of the story, right, of the guy pushing the rock up the hill, right? Is that it doesn't work. Sisyphus or whoever spends all that time and effort and sweat, and every time it rolls back down. It's like--he doesn't get that his story is a tragedy, right? He's trying to live in the kind of story where he's successful and powerful and a king and can outthink, outfight, outwit the rock.

They're fighting a losing battle.

Nobody's willing to say it, but it's true, innit? It's a good battle! She's out here, she's seeing the galaxy, being helpful, and doing something nobodyelse is doing, for probably the best cause she can think of. It's a fight she can't stomach the idea of not fighting.

And maybe that's the problem.

Put yourself in the spot of the king, right? Invincible hill, massive fuck-off boulder, and capital-S Success at the top of the hill.

But the king, at least, can find success in other places. In leaving the boulder behind. In carving the boulder into stone to build a home. Put up a plaque, In This Day In The Year 20086 The King yada yada yada'd, and boom, now you have a monument.

But for the Publica, the mountain is sentient, and fickle, and can come smash any town you might build somewhere else, and also owns the infrastructure you need to build somewhere else, and it keeps shitting all over the mountain.

And they've been winning, right? She's feeling super good about what she's doing.

But none of that changes that the Skies are building the mountain more quickly than the Publica can take it down.

Did Sisyphus ever feel like this?

It's like. She can see the trajectory if left unchanged. But the only other trajectory she can think of is, you know, a massive public campaign where she, outcast and red-robed, somehow convinces the shah and all her men to change course on a project that's been in the works since… well, since forever.

But what else can she do? The alternative to pushing the rock is, well, not pushing it. And there are too many people who'll get hurt if she doesn't. She just has to hope that she figures out something else before, you know, the worst comes to worst.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Ah. This has become a difficult situation.

It's not that this isn't, y'know, nice and all but. Uh. Um.

She's reaching out for that like--you know, the little pinch, that little nexus, the little pit of fire that'll blossom out and--

Small, that's the ticket. Small, get out of the pinch, hope that.

D'you know, she has the weirdest mental image of like, a beartrap being sprung around something small and squeaky? Fire, chipmunk, a metallic twang?

And it's not working is the thing, right

It's not working oh crap why isn't it working

Is it girls?

Are girls her secret weakness?

Why are girls her secret weakness?

She can't transform around girls! No, no, that's dumb, she transforms around herself all the time! And Rain! And Hsien! And Izi, now that she thinks about it!

Girls would be a terrible secret weakness! Like that one movie Mr. Chan doesn't know she watched about the aliens who were weak to water, or something!

But it's not working and she can't transform and she's being squeezed and she's pushing, pushing, rising like Godzilla from the ocean, sloughing off desk and monitor and cables and girl like water, because she can't transform and isn't safe and--

Breathless Dead

Dyssia hems and haws, and holds up two hands as if to mimic a scale.

"So, to clarify, on the one hand--" and the left hand dips, cupping as if to feel the weight in it, "a life of ease, requiring me to submit to the whims of the skies, but which rewards me with infinite resources, infinite privilege, free time, the chance to perfect myself, the certainty that we have crafted the universe in our image like someone who hasn't quite learned about hubris yet."

The left hand rises at the same rate as the right hand sinks. "And on the other, a harrowing life of struggle, underfunded, underclassed, perpetually on a shoestring budget, harried from planet to planet by an empire larger and more willing to stoop to the heinous, requiring me to think on my feet in the service of people who may or may not welcome my help, with no resources or assistance and with much more demanding personal ethics while making myself an enemy of the public good in the name of

"Do I understand correctly?"

This is the moment, isn't it? The call to adventure.

Or, like. You know, the call happened a month ago. Two months? A time.

The scales balance momentarily, wobbling, and she grins as the right hand drags itself down.

It feels… liberating. Like a relief, almost. Like the shoe has dropped, and it's because she dropped it, and-- and she's able to say things she's been thinking to someone who agrees with her, holy shit--

"Where do I sign up?"

Breathless Dead

Dyssia doesn't answer right away, which is her first victory.

It's like, intellectually, there must have been a time before the Azure Skies, right? It's not that she hasn't thought about it, right? Or like, what it would be like if the Skies were different.

But it's in terms of eons, if that makes sense? There was a time before the Skies in the same way that there was a time before the planet existed. There was a time when the Azura lived in the oceans, before they surfaced and looked at the sky. It's ancient history--it happened, yeah, but nobody's old enough to remember it or for it to be relevant.

He was there. He's over five hundred years old, which--

It's like, you're immortal, I'm immortal, we're all immortal here.

Unless you're a servitor race that's been created with a short lifespan. Or created to be fodder. You know, things that are, again, heinous shit when aging has been eliminated and the only reason for their suffering is to optimize for the betterment of the empire.

But five hundred years just-- it's like, it refuses to fit in the mind. Stops being a period of time that is understandable and devolves to just a number. What do you even do with that much time?

What do you do, knowing that you have infinite resources, can build whatever you want, create whatever you want?

"That's insane," she eventually says, horror struggling with--no, actually, yeah, just horror. "That's not an argument for the Azure Skies to keep being around. That's-- That's hundreds of thousands of millions of people, all playing a never-ending game, all suffering in the name of pleasing the neurotic psychopaths who want to paint the galaxy blue.

"That's not justification for an empire. That's justification for the empire's destruction--for breaking it down so entirely that the name loses meaning, and replacing it with something--

"Infinite resources! Infinite time! The ability to go anywhere, do anything, with anyone! Get as good as you can at anything you want!"

Oh fuck stop talking before he--Dyssia, you're shooting your mouth off and you don't know--why can't you--

She can't bring herself to stop, staring at the night and hoping against hope that he gets--

Please understand her.

"There's got to be a better answer than 'everybody dedicate themselves to this one idea that's hurting everyone,' hasn't there?"

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

One the one hand, interrupting a mystical sage during their meditation is probably definitely almost certainly a good way to wind up cursed. Possibly even accurséd, which like double cursed but with extra syllables!

On the other hand, if she's a mystical sage, then is she virtuous? Is it possible to be an unvirtuous sage? A sage of, of, uh, spreading bad virtue? What's the word for that? She should know this.

She should figure that out. After all, if she's a virtuous sage, then she'll support this plan!

She takes one paw away from the power strip cables--because she doesn't have any ropes, you see--and wriggles under the desk so she can get between Izi and the keyboard. Perfect location where she can look at Izi's face and, purely by coincidence, put her ears at scritching height if someone were to be so inclined.

"Pardon me, great sage, but would you like to help us bring virtue to the wicked?"

Yeah, that's the word! Wicked sage!

She's so good at this.

Breathless Dead

"Fifteen-hundred Ceronians."

She's going to die. She's going to die because she opened her stupid mouth to make a joke that only ever made herself laugh and that only in her own head. The flush is starting at her head but she can feel it surging down her tail like a fire. Just bury her ashes in the ground here and find something more pithy for her tombstone than "fifteen-hundred Ceronians."

You know, with all the trees having sprouted, the soil's probably nice and soft, could do the burial nice and easily.

"What?"

"In-joke, sorry. It's that each Pix is, uh."

Bail. Pivot. Topic change now.

In all her years she's never seen a more compelling question of wife or life.

Fuck, fuck, change back--

Because on the one hand, whoof. The silver scales? The scars? The shape, that armor--

Note to self. Invest in armor. Find a tailor, invest in armor. Research tailoring, invest in armor. Hell, she's already half a blacksmith, and they can probably pick her forging gear out of the wreckage--

God, she could climb him like a mountain.

But it's like, it's not just the physicality, right? Not purely the sex appeal of a big buff guy made more buff by armor?

It's the confidence, is what it is. Every inch of him says that he knows what is right, has bound himself to live it in both word and deed, and to look at him is to want to do better personally.

Red, right on the face. Red, right where people can't help but see and know and be confronted by and--

What other people think doesn't matter. This is his virtue, he shall live in it, and the petty opinion of the Azure Skies will not change it.

Fuck, she actually has to explain why she did it. The words bubble up--excuses, lies, witty sayings--

But looking at that face--looking at those eyes, those eyes--the words gurgle and die in her throat. It's like, she doesn't need them? Doesn't actually need the full reasoning, either, it seems. She could explain her reasoning, explain how it happened, dance around the fact that she wasn't exactly in control of piloting while still accepting the praise (and she's realizing now that the praise of this man abruptly matters quite a lot), could spend a whole lot of stammering and words to say not very little.

But there's a certainty here that cuts through all of that.

It's like, she's heard questions like that before. Dyssia, why would you do that? Dyssia, why are you like this? How could you do this? Why would you not do this other thing that nobody told you about but which somehow everyone is supposed to know anyway? Always with that same air of Dyssia, you moron, you fuckup, you embarrassment to your family, clod, idiot, like getting stabbed by knife after red-hot unspoken knife.

(And then they never stay for the answer, by the way, which is even worse. Because it means it's not actually about getting an answer--it's just about making her feel like shit in a way that doesn't make them feel like shit.)

But he'd asked as if there was… Admiration? No, maybe not, but at least certainly approval. Curiosity. She'd done something interesting, something unusual, something he approved of, and now wanted to find out whether she'd done it for the right reasons. And he was listening, as if what she said actually mattered. To him! To a knight of who knows how many campaigns and seasons!

"How could I not?"

Four words. As if they were the most simple, obvious thing in the world. Because if the world is one where they aren't, the world is a shitty place that Dyssia doesn't want to live in.

"They were going to--"

She gestures emphatically at the forest around them, as if nothing she could say would say it better than just looking around.

"As if it were their fault that we, you know, made them. And then decided that we didn't like the way we made them. And so because we made them in a way we didn't like, somehow that means we also have the right to murder them all?

"S'like, what part of that says that we should be the ones with the fingers on the trigger, huh? We fucked them when we made them, we fucked 'em again when we played around with them, and then when we can't twist them into something useful, oh well, we did our best, obviously we can't be blamed for this, we'll do a little light genocide in the morning and then go out for brunch after?"

Probably a bad first impression to have that much bile in your voice, but she can't help it.

"They're people. People who are different from us, yeah, but whose fault is that? Who picked and bred and programmed them and then decided they weren't needed? What's a ship compared to them? What ship would replace them? We can make more ships, or we could, if--"

She bites her tongue just in time to cut off the treasonous sentence. We could make more ships, if the system actually even fulfilled its promises. If the Skies existed as more than a phantom of its former self.

Would she want it, even if it did?

"… We shouldn't be killing people. Like, bare minimum. We owe them too much to even contemplate anything but trying to help them as best we can."