Balmas

Breathless Dead

Is she the right person for this job?

No, no, wait, flip that around.

Because if you're looking for someone who can do the job of high priest--no, no, again, rephrase, chief philosopher, maybe?--If you're looking for someone who can do the job of figuring out in a few days in the middle of a not-yet-active warzone the basic tenets of a new civilization, then she's your girl.

It's just that while she may be the right person for the job, does she have a right to the job?

Anything she makes is going to be at least based in the same Azura sensibilities and priorities. They're a new civilization, they could be anything! She's come so far from who she was before any of this happened, but think how long it took her to, to, to even see how the Azura manage things.

Unfortunately, the alternative is to stand back and do nothing, which means that any lingering bits of programming Bronze left get to influence this new group of people as they learn and grow. So--

Be Kind.
An odd commandment for a species of warrior servitors, certainly. But recognize that you are more than just what you are, and that there will be times when you are not fighting. Take every opportunity to recognize that the people around you--the people you fight, the people fleeing, everyone around you--is a person in their own rights, with as many emotions and thoughts as you have. Remember that nice and kind are not always the same thing. Care for others, tend them, shepherd them, but--

[b]First, care for yourself.[/i]
Put your own mask on first. Can't serve from an empty vessel. Pick whatever idiom you care for, but recognize that if you're not taking care of yourself, eventually you won't be able to care for others. Make sure your own needs are taken care of first. Yes, yes, in theory you could go your entire months-long life without eating, sleeping, or drinking, but there's no reason to do that if you don't have to. Things are worth doing in their own right and properly, and that includes good food, long naps, and friendships.

Give people the opportunity to be good.
You don't know what people are like, or how they'll treat you. Extend them kindness first, and watch how they respond. Watch for those who would exploit you, treat you as things, treat the kindness as weakness to be mocked or used. Kindness is mutual, trust is mutual, and you should give people the opportunity to show you they're not worthy of either.

Pass it on.
You, of all servitors, are the most vulnerable to having your culture disrupted. Enshrine things in ritual, in language, in how you live, so that the next person clever enough to steal you can't steal you from yourselves.

Breathless Dead

Bingo.

It's a special feeling, you know? To have someone in your arms, to feel safe enough in them to let go.

Of course, she's only too happy to feed her friend--to present morsels at his mouth, to hold them out and let him eat out of her hand.

Food's a dangerous tool, you know?

It's like food has a magic all its own, right? You can tease, play, let it dance in front of their mouth before they finally get to nibble that dainty bite. And of course, if those muscles tense, if those shoulders tighten up…

Well, she's waiting with another little cream-filled bite at your lips.

"I keep thinking," she says, and feeds another cream-cheese-and-cucumber-laden cracker into Dolce's lips. "Omn mentioned a group of Ceronians that sold themselves into slavery."

And doesn't that image just float, unbidden, to the front of her mind. Muscles, barely covered in gold and silks, the clinking of small golden links, and wouldn't she look nice like thaaamoving on

Revisit that thought later, It's a nice one.

"It's just like--. Um. Thoughts, words, shit."

She taps the butt of her hand against her temple, as if the motion will make the jumbled thoughts slot into place.

"They have the urge to expand, right? It's their nature, their programming, it's who they are. But they're not brutes. They can be subtle, slow, work towards a goal, even if it means moving away from that immediate goal right at this very moment. We can present them with that opportunity, if we can find something they'd pursue now for greater power later."

Pause. Select a cracker, load it with hummus, hover it just in reach.

"And I keep thinking of a comet, trailing stars, riding a seabeast against a capital ship."

The sentence hangs in the air.

"You've something special, you know that? I'm a master of the rail in my own right, and I've never seen it used like that.

"I guarantee the Ceronians haven't either."

Again, silence, broken by cracker crunching.

"And of course, if they wanted to learn that style--to have that power for themselves, to use down the line--they'd need to play for her favor. They'd need to make her happy, and whoever wins the contest gets her favor and her teaching."

She takes a bracing bite of cracker, and continues.

"What I am in fact proposing is that we encourage packs of wolves--ideally, split up if we can--to direct their passion and fury into a game of competitive husband pampering."

Breathless Dead

Dyssia listens.

And for once, that's all she does. One hundred percent all-in on listening. Doesn't spend time planning what to say. Doesn't line up sentences and examine them for phrasing and lyrical assonance in the spaces between parsing words. Doesn't, in the mental pause while waiting for the other person to stop talking, consider the number of tiles in the wall mosaic and, hmm, that one is chipped, isn't it?

None of that.

He's trembling, she realizes. And the the teacup is cold against her scales.

"You know," she sighs, and swirls the dregs of her tea, "I feel the same way, sometimes? Like, almost more so now that I know better than I did starting out?"

"I'm an Azura! An administrator species, for what good that hogwash title ever did me. A Publica Knight, a veteran of multiple battles and campaigns! I've become the kind of person I used to sigh about when I heard stories about them in the bars near the shipyards!"

She sighs, sagging back in midair as if into a heavy, padded chair.

"And somehow I still feel like the frightened kid that dove into trouble to avoid being caught by bigger trouble. I'm still… Still winging it. I thought I'd have things figured out by the time I became a hero."

It's like…

"Everything's so big, right? Like, biomancy, right? How do I solve that? How do I take these hundreds of species with different wants, desires, inborn needs that are at odds with each other, and make everyone happy?

Quiet. Quiet, as if the words are hard to admit.

"I'm… I'm just one person. What good can one person do, against all of that?

"And I think the answer is, more than zero, if that makes sense? Like, maybe I don't have all the answers and solutions, but… I've made a difference, and a good one, in a limited sense. More than I would have if I'd just… let things happen. Just sat back and had an easy life."

She frowns, and swirls the dregs of her sugar slurry, before eyeing the top of the bundle of wool.

"And you could have too, Dolce. But you've chosen to… To help, whenever you can. To be someone who helps, in hundreds of ways, to make life better for the people around you.

"And maybe, you know, maybe I'm just one person. And maybe you're just one person. But that makes two of us, and we're not alone anymore, and you know, I'm pretty sure a bunch of people working together can do what one person can't."

Are these the right words? She's not sure. But... But how can she not say them? How can she not look at this sheep and tell him how much he's already helped?

Breathless Dead

Do other Azura rankle when they're being managed?

… Do they even notice?

No, really, honest question. There are… well, there're a frankly staggering number of things she's. Not discovered. Discovered is the wrong word. Realized? Had the curtain pulled back on?

Figured out. Things she's figured out through exposure to people with different needs built in at the molecular level.

Do they notice when that disarming smile comes through and peels back the layers of defenses?

You're never supposed to. The entire game is designed to let the administrators get on with their no-doubt important work without thinking of all the many, many steps that have to function at every level.

… two sugars, please.

… three.

Just leave the bowl, please.

It's built into her just as surely as in any servitor. The only difference is that now she's aware of it happening.

…and yet.

And yet, it's--

It's different, right? It's not managing. Not giving a series of easy, quick bursts of success, not out of a need to serve or a, a, an instinct, or--

She swirls the tea in her cup, and stares over its lip at the bundle of fluff in her tail.

She's expected to say something, she's sure of it. But the words, not for the first time in the past few weeks, refuse to come.

Alas, timelessness, alas.

Clink, goes another spoonful of sugar.

It's not their fault, indeed.

She stares again at--yes, at a friend. Not a Synnefo and his charge, but someone who, in a time of deep distress--and she's sure of that, even in the complete absence of any ability to point at what indicates it--a friend who took time to reassure her.

There's probably a fight breaking out somewhere in the ship. A debate over how a baton was passed, or something to do with the Ceronian's pet magos.

She takes another sip, and holds him as tightly as she dares. Security, warmth, and, yes, friendly comfort.

"It's… nice, not to have to wage this alone," she admits. Lets the sentence dangle, as if to invite the comment. How long have you been alone? How must it feel to have… Well, a listening ear?

You can tell. She keeps secrets for her friends.

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.