Balmas

Breathless Dead

Dyssia frets over her notebook as if doing so will make the words line up better.

"What even do I say to them?" she half-whines, half-wails, and tosses the notebook into a drawer. It's not staring accusingly at her, she knows, but still she turns away from the drawer's gaze.

"Oh hey, by the way, I know you told me not to steal them, and whoops I did anyway, and now it's causing trouble, but actually it's your wife's warrior servitors who are causing the problem, can we weaponize them until we find a good spot to dump them?"

She's less pacing than she is orbiting--hovering around a fixed point, tail trailing behind her like a particularly stressful comet.

"Dolce, you were with them on Beri, right? You seem like you know them so much better than I do. What even can I do to help here?"

Breathless Dead

This is torture.

Everything is bright, right? Eardrum-piercingly noisy. Too fast, too loud, too stimulating. Too many things happening at once, all demanding her attention at the same time.

She'd thought the olympics idea would be… you know, a release valve. A way to vent competition in a way that doesn't involve more than metaphysical spear-rattling among the various groups. Keep it meta, that's the ticket, prevent the outbreak of violence in the other half-sense of the word.

Too much happening at once. Competitions demanding rules adjudication. Feathers to unruffle.

Preen? Is that the right word for this metaphor?

The attempt to return to that timeless state was not successful. Maybe a controlled test of the Crystal sword? Cloning?

It's a stall, is what it is. A stalling tactic to avoid allowing the thought to seep into her head as anything more than a background of dread.

But…

"We can't keep them," she admits quietly over her shoulder to the sheep nestled securely in her tail, as if the thought itself is deeply shameful.

Below, a fight breaks out between the Pix and a cluster of Summerkind. Something about the relay being run, probably.

You only get one shot at a conversation, is the worst bit. The words have to be right the first time. Torture, over and over.

"But what can we do with them that won't get them dumped right back in the waiting arms of Liquid Bronze, or at the mercy of whatever 'administrator species' happens to find them first?"

Breathless Dead

… Is she going to get in trouble for this?

Not. You know. Not yelled at, never yelled at. But like, looked at in that one way? Like someone is registering the words that just came out of your mouth, and you're sitting in that split second when the smile falls away?

Because she's… ninety-eight? Ninety-nine percent she didn't do this?

Not one hundred percent. Never one hundred percent, but again, she likes to think she'd remember stopping time.

(And especially, if she did, could her brain kindly remember how to do it again?)

She wanders the ship, staring at the endless trichrome friezes: scenes, in their hundreds, of friends, family, strangers, all painted in shades of grey. A movement, and the world explodes in reds and blues. Then… more grey.

She's… Alone. Alone, with nobody but herself to talk to.

Which, you know, could be worse. Turns out she's a fantastic conversationalist, and for once, nobody's there to look at her when she talks out loud.

It just… feels weird to sit there with no sound.

It doesn't even echo, you know? She says the words, feels them leave her mouth, feels the vibrations in her jaw, and… nothing. Not even anechoic. Like the room has swallowed the sound entirely.

She tries to resist the urge for the longest… Time? Can you call it that like this? It's just… She wandered the ship, right? Not a sign of life anywhere, no movement except hers. Who knows what's going to happen when she sleeps?

Turns out, you wake up leaned on a shoulder, eight--

Damn the terminology, she's going to continue calling them hours and days, because "cycles of subjective periods of wake and sleep" is two much of a hassle, even in her own head.

Eight hours later, you wake up on a shoulder, having nodded off. And you dust yourself off, and you realize… we have infinite time. We can do… Anything.

Which means that finally, finally, there's time for…

Well, let's be honest with ourselves. There's time for everything.

Art, picked out in shades of grey, made of paints chosen less by the color they are and the color they ought to be, based on the materials mixed. No idea what they'll look like when time starts again. She's looking forward to it, honestly--to seeing just how good she is, or even how hideously ugly they turn out.

Steel, worked and reworked until she begins to pile up the statues. Furniture, planed until the sawdust is its own room.

Oh! Turns out, her own unique style of cleaning--which is to wander, pick something up, move towards where it needs to go, and then get distracted by something else which needs cleaning--is still capable of leaving the ship spotless!

Spotless except, you know, where there are people.

She talks to them, you know? Tries out the words, even in the spotless silence. Infinity means you have as many tries as you need to get things perfect. All the words to express how much they mean to her in exactly the right way.

And once she's figured it out… Well, it makes no sense not to write them down, right? She won't remember, that's for sure, not without a reminder.

They're tucked away where they'll find them. Little surprise bombs of feeling, inside pages of a book, or under a pillow.

There are people missing, though. Messages to deliver that can't be, not without their recipients.

She's gone through the ship… She honestly doesn't know how many times. They're out there, in the massive battle, the sunshark frozen above them, the Ceronians scattered to the winds.

She collects them. Brings them home. Rides the Tiger's Roar out and back, again and again, checking against mental inventories. Who's missing? Who's…

They're on the Cancellation. Of course they are.

And what a strange feeling it is to walk across that deck, is it not? So familiar, so feeling of home, so alien.

She shuts the door on the wedding, and hopes she hasn't been noticed. There will be time for them, last of all. There is always more time.

Floor by floor, she finds them. She brings them home.

And…

She shouldn't. She definitely shouldn't. Brightberry…

The vats are hard to lug across, but she manages it. Eggs next. She scours the ship, does her best to leave no egg behind. How many summerkind were in the wedding? She'll need a shuttle. Should have used the shuttle instead of the plover.

They will need guidance. A biomancer to wake them, and teach them, and give them the tools to make their own choices. But there will be time for that later.

And… What next?

The Cancellation needs to go. Somewhere far away. Somewhere away from a gravity well, where its maneuverability is worst. Somewhere far from a hyperlane.

She makes the offerings. Performs the rites, the auguries.

She's only one person, but she turns the engines. Prepares them. Sings the shanties to herself, sweating as she directs that great, grand imperial tail, stokes the Engine at its heart. Into deep space you go, warsphere, if nobody figures it out soon enough. If nobody warns you. And then, kaboom, the tail overloads, and whoops, a warsphere's worst nightmare.

And if she's already a thief…

The Cancellation has a nice temple, with shrines to every god. Dyssia memorizes them, every one, before grabbing the chisel. And brick by brick, she rebuilds them aboard the Plousios.

It's overkill, definitely. And probably blasphemy, besides. But it leaves the flagship stranded in deep space, in a humiliating, political-career-ending move, with no guidance on how to return.. There will always be resources, yes, but let us see ol' Bronzey get the support for them after this.

Stoke, again, the engines of the Plousios. Offer, again, the rites and rituals of deep space navigation. Sing, again, the shanties of the one-woman engine crew.

And with a full belly, a fuller shuttle, a ransacked Warsphere, and a deeply tired back, Dyssia finally wanders towards the blanket, shhhhhrugs just so, and coughs politely.

She still hasn't figured out the words for these two.

There will be time for that later. And now, there is time. And it is time to make haste, before anyone realizes what has happened.

Breathless Dead

And what then?

Is that what the Azure Skies asked, right after they won? What then? What do you do when the knights fall, and the world opens before you, and you can wreak your will across the worlds?

Dyssia's eyes are liquid mercury, shimmering, shifting pools spotted with pink and purple.

Well, you solidify. You expand. You project power, create beauty. You engage in passion projects. You've fought long and hard and sacrificed so much for what you have. You've become a monster in its name, and now's the time to finally do that good you always promised yourself you would, now that you have power.

And it's the only thing you see, is the prize you won. It's the center of your existence. And if someone threatens it, well, you fought for it before, you'll fight for it now. You won't let it die, not after so long dreaming of it.

To stop…

To, to, to, to not even hold what you have. To willingly be content, to allow it to slip into the waves. To look at the immortality of kings--of empire, of prestige, of accomplishment--and willingly…

The words giving up feel wrong, don't they? That's the thoughts of the old way, the thoughts of the clock. That if you're not going forward, tick-a-tock, you're losing ground. You have to press onwards, keep going, get stronger, consume, grow, consume, grow--

So long as there is desire, the clock ticks. Today is not enough, only what is Next, what is More. Good intentions, one step at a time, until you devour your own children.

To stop… To declare that this is enough, to accept oblivion, to be happy with what is, instead of what could be, if only you took that next step… To stop, even knowing all you have fought for will vanish into the ether and be forgotten?

Her eyes gleam like silver spotlights in the dark

To stop would be madness, wouldn't it?

Breathless Dead

Is the sheet ruined? Or a work of art?

The ink covers the page from edge to edge, dripping ink into the mechanism. Jewels form around the center, locking up the keys in crystalline splendor

Blindly, she hits a key, and watches it crick-a-crunch a glistening impression of a "K' into a puddle

Glisten. Lovely mouthfeel, that. If ever a word felt like what it is, glisten does--a pool of saliva, holding the light of the 's' in your mouth. Guh-llllissss-en.

She can't even tell where one sentence ends and the next begins. The page squirms with letters like bark on a tree. You know, bark, that thing that famously squirms.

The marionette's strings are cut.

No, no, not cut. Wrong word. Discarded. Abandoned. Left to sag beneath her, pull her down, tug on her wrists and arms and chest like an event horizon. The music is dead, poisoned, probably on the end of a lovely stiletto.

"X" splatters its way through the mirror, and the page is left as smooth for its passage as a rough pond.

Ways of thinking. That's what--

The thought should electrify. Light her on fire, push her through life.

It's the answer she's been seeking. Or, perhaps better said, an answer.

We get so set into ways of thinking that we cannot even see the bars of the cage. Not just in, in ritual, in ceremony, in the "correct" way to worship. In what we want, instead of what is, what could be. We build and rebuild, every day, the way of thinking that reinforces the way we think.

… It's not enough. Not enough to simply destroy the Azura Skies. To cast them down, and then do a nicer, politer version of it. It's the same thought patterns, the same cage, the same seats, over and over again.

But how to. How to avoid the cage?

She stares into the mirror at the figure behind her. At the purple eyes, so full of a smile. New thoughts. And carefully, she reaches up and places one hook in his fingers.

Breathless Dead

Somewhere, Dyssia can hear screaming.

The music continues, you understand? Pulsing, pumping, throbbing, beating. And she continues the dance, hands flying across the keyboard. They keys are slippery, she notes. Red. Unpleasantly tacky.

It's not Aphrodite, for sure, because he's here, did you know that?

You can't have desires like this, she realizes. No plans, no rules, no wants. Nothing but the infinite yawning void of the typewriter and what we'll put in it next.

Information. Curiosity. Her first, her greatest loves, since the days of leaning over a barrel and hearing about Out There.

Why is she so distracted? So distracted she can't even focus on who she is? She couldn't stop if she wanted to. What is want? Who is Dyssia? The tempo pulls her along, blood dripping in her wake.

She should--needs?--wants! Wants to do literally anything else.

Dionysus smiles, and runs a finger along her neck. The tempo changes, the hooks dig in, and her body follows.

The keyboard is hungry.

Breathless Dead

It's not actually a full decision to lay her fingers on the keyboard again. And honestly, that should probably concern her, right? Seems to happen a lot? Decisions just makin' themselves, down in that heart? But also the music hasn't stopped yet, right? There's more yet to the dance.

And so she dances on, heedless.

… Why "heedless?" Heedless of what? Heedless is a strange choice of internal monologue, the censor insists--

An olive finger brushes her neck, shoots lightning through her spine, and she hurls herself into the dance with renewed vigor.

Of course it was Hephaestus. No wonder that the universe is so different now from the time of knights--the gods themselves are different. Demeter herself takes on his aspects, subsumes him, becomes the craftsman--ha, the graftsman!--of life! And so it follows that noting can remain the same.

Is he still around? No god can undo what another god has done, yes, but if one mortal can steal fire from the gods, certainly another should be able to do the same? Is Hephaestus dead? Consumed? Dormant?

She's shining, brilliant, metallic, a blade--no, no, a tool. She dances, gleaming, across the keys. New input! New information! More! What then, life? What happens then?

Would that be better? To live in the age of knights--to live in the never-ending Portuguese? Smash the pyramid, return life to death--Life to Death, whispers the chortle in her ears--Could that work?

Aphrodite. The purple strings dance her fingers clicka-clack so satisfying across the keyboard. Aphrodite, around since time began, around as Time. Desire. If he were imprisoned, what would that do? How would the universe change? A wish, a boon, a journey, a chance, the beat drumming in her ears like an earthquake, frantic, continuous, heedless, thrum, thrum, thrum--

Breathless Dead

Does a marionette ever feel the strings?

Or do they just feel the whirl of the dance, the pulse of the music? She moves, and did the string pull, or was it just the right movement in the moment? Another string pulls, but she's moving beforehand to--

Don't you hear it? Not as the ears hear, but as the heart, as the feet, coming up through the floor and pounding in every cell of her being--

She's not a puppet of Dionysus--she's his dance partner. His fingers sit on her hips, her back against his chest, his breath runs down her neck and into her fingers.

What to ask? What to find? What to make?

The chairs, the chairs, it comes down to the chairs, floor to ceiling, heavens to abyss. You can't enter the same parameters and expect the experiment to come out different.

So what if there's a universe with a normal Dyssia? Or a universe with a Dyssia who chose not to become a Knight? Who cares about that? What's the point?

The chairs.

A world without--the consuming hunger, desire that destroys. What did Demeter do? Why isn't Hades here?

… what would happen if Hades were here?

The strings are pulling, but already her fingers pirouette across the keyboard.

Breathless Dead

The lighter is the entire world, glittering and sparkling like a malevolent jewel.

But it's the smell--foul, acrid, and yet somehow also sweet--that chases lightning down her hindbrain, flushes the thoughts out like ice cold adrenaline chases out tiredness.

You know that smell is one of the oldest senses? Before mammals, before Azura, before biomancy or anything, when life was nothing more than bacteria in an ocean, smell defined chemicals, smell was food, smell was life.

The smoke fills her nostrils, lays heavy on her tongue.

Aphrodite was in the vault.

The thought lands in her head with the certainty and finality of a thunderbolt.

Zeus was pissed. Why was she pissed?

Because the father she'd put so much effort to imprison had been released.

Had been reborn. Gods get reborn. Dead relics to twin gods Athena and Mars, trapped in a submerged and temple, needing to be purged and rededicated to the proper gods of war.

Chronos, the titan. Aphrodite, the titan. The desire that destroys.

How do you change the results? You can't target the gods. You have to target the seats, you have to target the laws, you have to change the constants and she can feel the thoughts whirl, see the lighter, see it click see it change see it mold and break and reform and--

And disappear.

She has to know. She has to understand and she can see the world in shades of lavender and she has to know and this is the one chance to meaningfully change the world and make something different, something better and--

She has to come back when Mosaic isn't there to stop her. Has to know. Has to hear Vesper speak.

She has to know.

Breathless Dead

Purple eyes.

She's always been struck by his eyes, you know? Purple, but in the way a nebula is purple. Deep, like you could fall inside them and never hit bottom.

Those eyes look like he's just told the best joke, and is caught in the split second between punchline and laughter.

A whole--

Just like that? A whole universe, in a typewriter?

The implications are explosive! The seats do the decisions? It makes sense--you can't solve structural problems with personal addresses, but--

So if you replaced the gods--

Could you even replace the gods? Would it do anything? How would--

She could find out. Right? If Vesper can rewrite reality to--

Fuck, that just caught up with her. That's-- Is there a single well-adjusted person on--

Well, no, no, and if the Generous Knight was right, that's objectively correct--

She could--

The experimental possibilities. To rewrite time. To rewrite the gods! To rewrite herself, the Skies, the what-ifs--

She can. What would she even ask? What if I--

Dionysus's stare is like a drill, a pressure, a weight on her. Why does he even want her to-- Does he have a-- No, of course no, Dionysus never plans, so why does he--

She's hovering, she realizes. She--Gods help her, she does want to touch it. To have your fingers on the levers of the universe. She could spend days--no, no, years toying with this. Figuring out what happens if she does this or if she does that, like a perfect oracle.

… Is it real? It can't be real. It's an artifact, a gift, a, a,

An icy chill runs down her neck.

What does it mean to be real? When there are--no, not swords, the sword is different, but, you know. Crystals. Guns. Whatever they are, of Hades, summoning alternative selves, alternative versions. Is this the same thing? If she--

She stares at the levers, fingers frozen in the act of reaching out.

If she changes the universe, it's a blink of an eye for her. An instant rejiggering of time and space, all in a handy jug of a universe where nothing bad spills out.

She could find out what things would be like for herself if she. Well, you know, if she hadn't made any number of decisions. If she hadn't been a knight. What things would be like in a world where she had never needed to become a knight, because she'd been more normal. If she'd ignored the push of prophecy. If she hadn't saved the Pix.

She doesn't regret those choices, but at the same time, they hang over her, a never-ending stream of what-ifs. You can't live your life that way.

But also, if you-- If you fall down the well of seeing everything else, you can't live today, either.

… Is it real for them? If she moves a lever, makes a decision, what happens to the people on the inside?

Well, the same thing that happens to people when she makes a decision on the outside. Except on the outside, there aren't do-overs. There are real relationships that suffer, real people that suffer, and you can't take it back. You can't try and retry until you--

It's real enough. It's real enough that her hand is already shrinking away from the levers of power by the time the snarl reminds her that there are more than three people in the room right now.

And to her credit, she doesn't flinch! She was already decided!

What was it that Demeter did?

"I'm also curious how it works."

Eloquent as always, Dyssia, your teachers would be proud.