Balmas

Breathless Dead

Sight, blurred. Visor, smeared with blood, mech straining to absorb the chitin piled over and across it.

Arms and legs, leaden, burning with the built-up lactic acid of a year and a day of piloting.

Ears, full of the skittering susurration of a million billion legs, swarming around and past and over.

It's like, some of it is memory, and some of it is imagination, and she's not sure where the line starts and ends.

"But you're still happy to keep them around," she notes. "Still happy to benefit from what they create, willing to let them manage all our affairs, to arrange things so we never have to think about what life without them would be like. Happy to pay them nothing, and then repay them with annihilation when they're not convenient."

And she can see the logic? See where it started--see where things went wrong, see the horrible wrench that Zeus dropped into the gears.

No, no, that's not right. The problem wasn't the lack of mind control. The problem started far earlier than that.

"You say they're smallpox. They're a threat. We're a threat for teaching them that they have rights, that they don't have to brainwash themselves. We need to remind people how awful it would be if we were replaced in our own cultural model, if we lost.

"So why not have done? Why keep them around? You have no issue with genocide, so if they're so awful, if we're so terrible, why not just wipe them out? Start fresh! Begin a new, heroic era of nothing but the Azura, in every corner of the galaxy, doing nothing but Azura culture everywhere you look? What's stopping you?"

Breathless Dead

You know, normally Dyssia hates touching the ground.

It's not a sensory issue, you understand? Not a matter of germs, or of the feeling of pebbles grinding to dust beneath her. It's just that touching down binds her, grounds her, feels like swimming through molasses.

And here, she can't help but do it anyway.

It seems appropriate, you know? Like here, in this breathing, pulsating heart of the ship, listening to the flow of ichor and sap, it's only fitting to-- Well, not to become one with the ship, but to let her thoughts slow. To let the moment soak over and through her.

Dyssia sits under a tree.

"The worst thing is, you're not wrong," she admits. "I want the end of the Azure Skies."

And that stings. It feels like--like admitting defeat, almost? Even though it's not her project, even though she's taken step after step away from the Skies?

"I can't stand the way we treat others--abuse them, uplift them, always with that self-assured magnanimity that we have the correct way of doing things.

"But also it's terrifying to think of what that looks like. They'll have figured out new and better ways to become closer to the gods than us--what does that say about our own? What do I do when what is comfortable and safe and known is demonstrably not the best way? There's a part of me that wishes that the new way will be close enough to the old way that I won't have to change who I am to fit into it."

Outside the window, a flash of plasma splashes against the ship, and she watches as a gash opens in the Generous Knight's elbow, watches as it starts to knit together again.

"It terrifies me," she admits, "that the better way will be so alien to me that I cannot help but fight against it too."

Breathless Dead

That's the worst thing, right?

It's like, look at them. Look at the variety here. Politicians, outcasts, mothers! Sons, stoners, salesmen! Hundreds--thousands!--of walks of life! People, people, people, in every shape and color! A cacophony, an explosion!

Subsumed!

Swallowed, extinguished, samed!

They clutch their axes as if the axe is what makes them special! As if--

She's doing her best not to look at the paint, because if she looks at the paint she's gonna try to read what it means and she's gonna be disappointed again, because--

They act as if they've been let in. As if a hatchet, mass produced and airdropped from a supply center a million lightyears away, is proof that they're part of something. That they're trusted. That they understand. They've been let in.

That they're not being deployed like chaff so the real people don't have to get involved.

Well, that ends now.

The pseudowolves get the kindness. When they're picked up and hurled, they land somewhere soft. The painted palace of the Ceronians, on the other hand? They get the building-rumbling impacts, the targeted implosions.

They'll come down from their building and face them properly, without sacrificing their minions, or they will not have a building to sit in.

Breathless Dead

It's worse that it's beautiful.

She sits, drinking in the scene with eyes closed. Air, dripping with scentmarks, heady, strong. Music, tickling at her ears. The electric whine of a charged esoteric.

And she knows that opening her eyes will bless her with--

It's like, she doesn't have the words to describe it? Like drinking nectar after chewing cardboard your whole life. An insane burst of flavor, of texture, of meaning made more potent by the surrounding drabness.

It's only been a few hours, and already it's a relief.

It's worse that it's beautiful, because how can she stare at this and not make the comparison? How can any of the new, uplifted, not make the comparison?

How is it fair--no, wrong word. How can it be right that they--the Azura, humanity, servitors, anyone with biomancy--can stand on the precipice of this, and determine who is or is not worthy?

At the same time, Mosaic's words ring strong in her ears.

That's the issue, then, isn't it? Is that somebody's sitting on the gateway, opening the door only in the way they imagine right.

But--

But the alternative, right, is--

You can't demand that someone be given free access to the tools to destroy themselves, and at the same time demand that they only use them in the way you approve, right? Not in any kind of self-coherent way.

She doesn't want them to biomance themselves into servitors. Or to biomance themselves into what Aphrodite showed her--into eternally happy seekers of bliss. What's the middle? Is the middle even the answer? Is the answer to let people do what they want, or is that just the lotus eaters again?

For now, she resolves that, even if she doesn't have the answers, it's important to ask the questions. And, you know, more important to focus on the immediate, the esoteric, the presence of the shadow-hunters.

She tastes the scene again, but this time for a different presence--of the shifting, the invisible. She's looking for the partially uplifted, the ones who are able to see, able to smell, able to see. There will be more than a few, she's sure.

Breathless Dead

It's important to remember, here, surrounded by--

Well, let's be real, calling it drab and uninspiring is giving drab and uninspiring far too much credit. It's like someone sat down and said, "what's the single most soul-crushingly ugly thing we can build I the name of functionality? Great, do that a dozen times."

Does it even count as something being functional? Like, in a situation where there just aren't resources to go around, she could maybe understand making something to do just the job it needs to be, but that's--

Honestly, even in the survival stories, you don't think about things just being ugly. Like, for no reason! The landscape is beautiful all on its own, everywhere you go. Everywhere but here, where even the things the Portuguese have deliberately made are--

They're people. She has to keep repeating it to herself, keep telling herself that, because no matter what they've produced (ugh) or how they've built (yuck) or how they're dressed (why even bother), they're still, you know, people.

Delicate people. People who she doesn't want to hug because, you know, what if they squish under her? People with eyes that--

Honestly, she wants to scoop them up even more when she looks at the eyes. It's like they're all waiting to die. Like they've given up on improving their situation, like hope is just another thing that hurts, and so they've resolved to work every day for the rest of their lives until they blessedly keel over dead from old age.

Still a weird thought, that.
She wishes they didn't look at her like that. Like she's a god, or a curse, or a reincarnation, or worst, hope. Not when she knows they've gotta get out of here as quickly as possible, not when she can't meaningfully help.

Still, she flags one down, and asks, quite gently, if she could be shown to--what was that, a factory? Yes a factory would be delightful, off you pop.

Breathless Dead

Dyssia pauses, and gingerly tears out a bit more of the insulation in her Plover.

The noise has to be right, d'you understand? It won't be the Electric Tiger II if the noise isn't that same spine-rattling purr as before.

It's dumb that she gets one.

Gets to spend time painting it so the stars gleam against its orange. Make it hers. Actively change its configuration to fit how she flies, how she listens, how she's shaped.

She gets a plover, after losing the last one. After losing the one the crews already customized for her.

It's why she's pulled this into a side hanger, banished the plover crews. It has to be her doing it, her fixing her own mistake.

It has to be her. She has to show that she's learned, even if nobody but her will notice.

Breathless Dead

"That… seems unideal."

Brilliant. Perfect. Spectactular. Master of the understatement.

But it's true! The idea of--
Well, of a species being at war with itself, when nobody has anything worth fighting over is absurd! It's like someone went into things with the idea of creating a system worse than the Skies!

Granted, it comes from a place of, of, you know, of scarcity, right? Of not having enough? Of everyone fighting over scraps, simply because they don't--

She's so used to having enough that the idea of worrying about where something might come from is alien. Everything's made somewhere, right?

But if that's what they want--is it her place to tell them what they actually want? The Azure Skies genuinely have something better!

But they don't even know what they want, and--

Well, are we even better than them? Look at the Azure skies! Look at these three doofuses here--one generous, one warlike, one confused, and none of them willing to--

Guiltily, she sneaks a glance at Mosaic. Dyssia's still thinking in terms of how to help, how to--not control, but influence maybe? In terms of what she thinks is ideal, what she thinks is better, how she can 'help,' when it's obvious that that's a different thing for everyone.

But what else is she to do when--when someone is this backwards?

"How are they taking the shipments?"

Breathless Dead

Dyssia is dressed to the nines, every inch a prince and knight of the Publica.

Or, you know, as much to-the-nines as the budget and surviving stores will allow.

It sucks so much. Like, not from a perspective of impressiveness, though now that she's here, she kinda wishes she hadn't bothered? Whatever her best is, it's less than the best of two Azura who aren't willingly handicapping themselves with ethics, so swooshing in here--and she's doing her best to swoosh, be sure of that--is less useful than you might think.

And it's uncomfortable, to boot.

Still, she does her best to look regal and commanding as she asks about the Portuguese. What do they want, apart from not being raided by Ceronians?

Breathless Dead

"You know, the worst thing is I don't even disagree with what she's doing?"

It should be impossible for a snake to pace, but Dyssia is managing it. Up and down the window, occasionally glancing out the window at the gleaming planet below them, and then back at her friends as if she expects to be scolded.

It's like, she's been lectured about this before, right, during her training in ? You're expected to be dignified, and stately, and have your thoughts composed, and roll with the punches, and not do that thing where your hands talk as much as your mouth without you telling them to do that?

It's nice to be with friends, whether or not that sentence ends with 'who don't care' or 'who don't know better.'

"It's like, the thought of your body just, you know, up and crapping out on you one day, for no other reason than because some virus disagreed with your liver and you wore out is, is, is horrifying, right? So Cash Money, bringing that to these people, good thing?

"But doing it the sneaky way is just. It's like, you could appear in whatever town square you like, say 'who wants to not die,' and have people lining up. She's doing it to people who'd sign up for it anyway, but wants to control, wants to force it on them. She's--what's the phrasing?--she's feeling good about herself instead of helping people, if that makes sense. She's not willing to give it out on their terms, because that would mean thinking of them as people, as equals. She's treating them like a project, as objects, as things that will be ever-so-grateful for her help and worship her feet as a demigod for her kindness and mercy."

The Argumentative Portuguese. She wishes she knew what they called themselves, if for no other reason than, you know, distinguishing herself mentally from the other Azura. Meaningless, except it isn't.

"The only reason to side with the Generous Knight over Cash Money is that it'd be easy. I already have an in with her, I'm a friend of a friend, I could probably talk her over, get her to put in some supply requests for us, get us gone nice and simple. I don't wanna, though, because she's an asshole. She's technically correct, in that uplifting the Portuguese will cause a lot of short-term problems in terms of, whoops, all our supply and medical issues just got solved and now whatever power structures the Azura like are going to calcify into a terrifying cancer-clump of abuse.

"But she's also only doing it because she wants a fight that will be entertaining. She could sweep in and crush them right now without a thought, and that's not fun. Better to let them die by the millions if it means she doesn't have to wait to sweep in and crush them later on. Because let's be real, the Portuguese aren't winning this militarily--the only reason they haven't been subsumed already is because the Azure Skies aren't threatened by them enough to care. If they actually fought and won against old Genny, they'd be a target for every aggrieved knight and minor noble looking to make a name for themselves."

Like us, she very carefully does not say.

"The Synnefo is a non-starter. Just, no. He'll be polite and obsequious and oh-so-willing to help, but of course madames will understand that he cannot help just one of us, and somehow in the conversation you'll be back in the ship, feeling grateful that he's here while also having been given homework out of it. He's going to be neutral. He might care about whether Cash Money or the Generous Knight come out on top, but he's never going to let it show, and he's certainly never going to help us over them.

"The only lever he has--thank you Brightberry, this information is incredibly helpful--is that pack of rogue Ceronians. It occurs to me that if we could incorporate them into ourselves--Ember, you're Ceronian liason duty, you'd know whether that works or not--we could simultaneously remove a threat to the Portuguese, ingratiate ourselves with the person in charge of supplies, and also bulk ourselves up slightly in case of any fighting we need to do.

"So, two options as I see it. Option one: bribe NBX-462 by taking care of his Ceronian problem. Option two: try to support Cash Money and, in so doing, make the process more aligned with the desires of the people on-planet. Option one is gonna cause less problems for us long-term, but I think I'm slightly leaning option two."

Breathless Dead

You know, there are times when she hates the color blue.

Which is a weird thing to say, right? Blue's nice. Got no end of variety to it. The blue so dark it's almost black of meditating on a shifting sea floor. The blue of a lapis, polished, gold-flecked. The infinite in-betweens, the rich, the thin.
And hate is a strong word, insists her mental censor. Does she actually hate the color blue, or just what it stands for?

Has she met an alien? When could she have? Going from a sheltered existence as a backwater neophyte to thrusting herself into the arms of constant pressure and danger? When and where would she have had the opportunity?

Which isn't to say she hasn't read stories about them, right? Daring heroine first contacts an alien planet? Stories that, with the benefit of hindsight, wow, sure do involve those daring heroines showing alien people how much better life is in blue?

It's like--

Fuck, she feels selfish even thinking of it like this, but it's like all the Azura can see is their favorite food, right? Favorite food, favorite music, favorite opera, favorite story, favorite everything. And now that they've decided what their favorite is, everything has to be that favorite. If their favorite dessert is cinnamon rolls, then whatever aliens have come up with now needs to be round and glazed. Whatever music they came up with is now filled with horns, because such is the fad.

Blue. Blue everywhere, even if it means that theres no room for reds, greens, purples, and so on. It seems like such a small sacrifice to make--even reasonable.

Bow to their sense of art, and all shall be well. Incorporate yourself, get used to horns and cinnamon rolls, and get comfy.

And ignore everything that isn't blue.

For a time, she can spare them. For a time, she can keep them--the actual them, not the them in the stories that are told afterwards--for a time she can keep them alive.

And also, handily, keep her and her allies alive, if perhaps a touch toasty. Seems like a good deal, if they can pull it off.