TheAmishPirate

Breathless Dead

It takes him some time to answer. Because he has no foundation to stand upon. Because energy spent speaking is not energy spent on thinking of what to say. Because her clever tail will slip from his throat to his mouth and he cannot stop trying to speak or else the momentum may crush him before she does. So he sounds the words against and again into her scales until she grants him a voice again, one he hardly recognizes.

She no longer needs her eyes to tease the truth from him. The truth is all he has left.

“Mmphhh…don’t know what is best. I haven’t, haven’t found it, yet. I onlyyyy-”

“Mm?” Her hands knead lazy circles through his wool. Her fingers are strong, and insistent. “What was that?”

“I. Only see its absence. All my life. I started a, a, a cafe? I thought I could make it myself. Feel more c-c-complete…h-ha…”

She glides across his bound form, coils parting just enough to let her nails trace over him. Neck. Chin. The sound of the fine collar on his shirt tearing, thread by agonizing thread.

“It wasn’t - ghhh - enough. To have a little place of my own. And just. Watch. The world. From behind my windows. A little right here. Ev. Every other, where, not. Everywhere the same. And all of it coulddddd, be. Be swept…away….”

“You’ll have to speak up, Dolce.” She breathes into his ear. The perfect hush. The perfect hiss. Tingling shivers race down his spine. “E-nun-ci-ate.~”

“Thhhe, problem’s bigger than one house. And I, couldn’t ignore, that. I need a wider view. I have to see more. I have to join the Service. A-as an official. Not as a…as a-”

“As a what?” Her tongue flicks at his ear. His head rests on her chest. She tightens around each limb in turn, building slowly, inevitably, to the moment when she closes in around his middle. “As a what, Dolce?”

“A-as…as..a…mghhh…”

“I can’t understand you unless you speak clearly.~”

“Ggghhghhhhh…nghhh…”

“Mmm, poor thing. So exhausted from the trip here, is that it?” Her tail cups his cheeks fondly as she seals away his mouth. “You don’t have to do allllllllll this hard work yourself, you know.” Her voice flows from somewhere behind him, always moving, like her coils, like her hands. Winding him up until his vision blurs and he fights a hopeless fight to wiggle just a little bit until wave after wave of pressure squeezes the tension out of him anew. And she can wind him up all over again.

He is exhausted. How long has it been? Where are they? He has to keep talking. Don’t stop. The other shoe. It might. He has to say something. It could. She’s waiting. Shoe. Which was, any, could.

Where is the princess? Where is 20022?

“Shall I finish it for you? You tell me when I’ve got it right. ♥”

Where…where………?

Breathless Dead

The shoe might still drop.

He repeats the thought like a mantra. As fast as his gasping breath. As slow as the lazy shifting of her coils. The shoe might still drop. The shoe might. Mi. Miiiiiii. Ght. Htt. Shoe, might. The shoe might. Still drop. The shoe might still drop. That much is true. The shoe might still drop.

What other bit of solid ground has he to cling to? This is no hello. There is intent. There are glowing eyes piercing him through and if he could shut his own then he’d surely see them in the dark. His leg twitches. The motion is swallowed whole, absorbed into her thick, powerful muscles and nothing remains. He is held still. He is held tight. Her tongue flicks his nose. Her hands run across his cheeks. Her words wrap tight around his ears, such a pleasant, soft voice. She lingers, she hums, she purrs. The shoe might still drop. His senses are simultaneously overwhelmed and smothered. He can hardly think. He cannot observe. But even as his heart thrills she tightens in a steady, squeezing rhythm that he is forced to follow, and the shoe might still drop, and in the room there is a child’s skull missing a tiny chip of bone. There is Too Much. There is Nothing.

Crushing pressures on all sides, and he hangs, weightless.

“Dol…” He can still breathe. He is out of breath. “Dol. It’s, ha, it’s…ddd…Dol…ce…”

“Mmmmmmmmmmm. Dolce.” She purrs, and he feels it from every side. “Such a delicious name~. “

“Is this -ngh- really an appropriate working relationship?” He grits his teeth, groaning with the effort to remain coherent. “I had thoughtttt.” Panting. Hazy. “I had thought, as, representative, I might…be treated as a man…and an official.” His cheeks twitch, and from the depths of her grasp, this innocent, inexperienced morsel novice gives the Lord Governor an earnest little smile. “Wouldn’t that be best?”

[Rolling to Speak Softly: 6 + 4 + 3 = 13 Dolce forges a Bond with the Crystal Knight, and asks a question: Can she, an Azura, see Dolce - a sheep, a Synnefo, a Servitor - as a person like her?]

Breathless Dead

If he braces too much, then when the shoe loudly drops, all the tension will leap out through whatever path of least resistance it finds. He will jump, or yelp, or some other such disastrous display. If he does not brace enough, then shock will seize the wheel before he can stop himself. There is a sweet spot. A rhythm of breath, a flow of anxious energy, a bow held at a draw he could find in his sleep. There is him. There is her. The knowledge is in him. He can find the draw.

Except.

Thick coils flex around his legs. Up and down. Up and down. He isn’t wiggling. He isn’t fighting her, why would he fight her? (This could just be how they say hello, after all) No flicker of realization disturbs her deep, brilliant eyes as she thoroughly envelopes his lower half. How does she know the secrets of his muscles, his body? It may simply be that her coils are opposed to stiffness and tension on principle, and they are powerful enough to make their will reality. Up and down. Up and down. Coils thicker than both his legs put together gradually squeeze tight, then loosen. The pressure ripples from one to the next, working with surgical precision, irresistibly pushing.

He grasps for the draw. He is not permitted the luxury. He knows he should be ready. The tension slowly leaks from him, and his thoughts find no fuel for their signal fires. There is him. There is her. There is a question. There is an answer.

“Of course, Lord Governor.” He bows his head, but cannot break her gaze. “I am just a chef from Beri, right now. But 20022 has shown me the world is much wider than my cafe and town. I rather would like to see more, but there is only so much he can teach me. “

The words flow out from the swirling clouds of his heart, a steady stream of honesty. ”If I am to know where I stand and what I can do, I need to see much more of you, Lord Governor. I hope you will not mind my presence overmuch.”

Breathless Dead

“I knew an Assistant Secretary, once…” The flickering flames dance upon the logs. Strange and grotesque forms, rising and falling, undulating, feasting upon the dry wood. “But, I think he was only Acting, until the position could be properly filled..?”

“Pardon?”

The spell is a weak one; it bursts at a single word. Dolce returns to himself with a start and a shake. “My apologies, I thought…my thoughts are a little mixed up. It’s been a rather long day, you understand.”

“Of course, of course. You musn’t forget; you don’t usually operate at this altitude. It takes a body time and energy to learn to cope with the thinner air.”

“I thought I felt a little off. That must be it. It’s been ages since I last climbed anything taller than the road to the Mayor’s estate.”

“I haven’t pressed us too hard, have I?”

“Not at all, not at all. It’s the pleasant sort of tired, you know? Where you know you’ll sleep wonderfully deep, and even a sleeping bag on rocks feels like it’s made of clouds.”

They pause, drinking in the satisfaction of a day well-lived.

“Your dream sounds lovely.” Dolce continues. Rude, to be trusted with a treasure like that without a word to its value. “I wish everyone in Beri and everywhere could have as few troublesome years as possible.”

“It’s quite another thing to know your daily work makes it so. Like I said; there really is no higher pleasure.”

And a sheep thinks of kitchens, and feeding hungry faces. He thinks of Synnefo watching Ministers come and go, and different visions passing through the same soft hands. He sees the world through the eyes of this planet’s representative, and wonders what the view is like from elsewhere. His ears ring with the piercing words of the best orator he’s ever known. A purpose…a purpose…everything for a purpose…

He wants to learn. He wants to help, and keep everyone safe. And there is only one way he can go from here.

Breathless Dead

Never in his life had he been more grateful for an uncomfortably diplomatic phrasing; it kept his thoughts from scattering to the winds, fleeing in mortification. “I see. That’s not exactly what I meant by it-”

And it is that moment that the cloud locked away in his hands found the tiniest path to freedom. It leaps from between his fingers, swirling into the night sky like a rocket, carried up with the flickering embers of their campfire.

Dolce watches it rise, until it’s barely a smear against the night sky. He looks to his hands. He looks to the sky. He looks to his hands. He looks to 20022.

His snout crinkles with the effort to keep from smiling.

“Ah. Excuse me.”

To his great professional credit, 20022 only let a snort escape him.

It…would be rude to ask more, wouldn’t it? After all, you ask a question when you’re not sure of the answer, and you’re not sure of the answer when either possibility could be true. And it’s not that he didn’t have faith in him. If he could somehow ask while also passing along exactly how he thought the odds broke down either way, he certainly would. But he couldn’t. And it might hurt, after 20022 had already explained so much of his work, hadn’t gotten mad when he’d gently sabotaged the Mayor’s court, who’d walked with him all this way and meant to do so tomorrow. He could all but hear him ask the questions: Did you really think so little of me? What more could I have done to earn your trust? Has all of this meant nothing to you? No. No, it would be rude to ask more.

It would be rude to imply 20022 shared anything more than his wool with the sheep Dolce had known.

“Your Function, though…” Dolce continues, musing along different routes entirely. “More or less, it’s to aid in administration of the Skies, ensuring that decisions are ultimately made for - how did you put it - the greater glory of the Endless Azure Skies? What does ‘glory’ mean, exactly? You hear the word so often, but it’s not so often somebody stops to tell you what they mean by it. And it’s not like it comes up often in my line of work either. Maybe I’d use it, speaking to myself, when I see a loaf’s come out of the oven just right, when I wasn’t sure how much time it’d need, because I had to make emergency substitutions in the recipe and the oven got switched off partway through.” Yes. Yes that certainly would be a glorious moment, wouldn’t it? “But what does it mean here, to you?”

Breathless Dead

The cloud has condensed, spun into a dense cotton ball. No longer twirling around his fingers, but enclosed in them. Occupying the space between nails and palm. Resisting, gently, the squeeze of a fist.

“I see.” Says the little sheep, a speck on the side of a mountain, on the fringes of the Skies. “Your job is - my job would be, regardless of my practical station, to ensure all decisions made are made with the…greater glory of the Skies as the first priority. Whether overseeing someone else’s choice, or overriding it.”

He tilts his head questioningly.

“And what do you think about it, 20022? Not in comparison to anything else, that’s a different matter entirely. I mean, just as it is. What do you think of the Apollonian response?”

Behind folded hands and simple curiosity, his tail twitches. Once.

Breathless Dead

It sounds so natural and sensible to hear 20022 speak of it, he doesn’t catch the implications at first. There is a Princess that needs housing. There is a house capable of housing. It’s inconvenient and uncomfortable, but what else is there to be done? The pipe is halfway to his lips when his thoughts encounter the bump in the road and launch into the stratosphere.

“...pardon, you did what?”

This smoke is wonderful stuff, and thank goodness for that. He fumbles his way to a deep breath, and blows out a wispy tuft of cloud that hovers lazily before him, too sluggish to rise any further. With his free hand, careful and quick, he draws his hand through it, spooling and twirling the semi-solid fluff. Round and round his fingers it swirls, lighter and fluffier than any of his swirling thoughts. Activity of the hands to let the mind free to pick up the pieces. Lovely stuff. Lovelier to share.

“How…how did you do that? I thought you just assisted the Mayor with secretarial matters, give the odd bit of advice. I wouldn’t think unexpected royal visitors were your purview. Is there a form you have to fill out afterwards for review of emergency circumstances? Will an inspector come by someday to take your statement? Will there be meetings?” Because surely, surely this sort of authority had to be official. Maybe it was also a secret, and that’s why they were talking about it in a hidden alcove halfway up a mountain. Maybe this was something only official members ought to know.

But when you’ve spent a day climbing up a mountain with somebody, marveling at the same wonders, helping them over slippery patches, laughing in moments only for the two of you, and you’re camped out for a well-deserved rest, then. Well, maybe propriety matters just a little bit less, and that’s how Dolce can ask such a question without couching it. Maybe that’s enough for 20022 to share a little insight with an uninitiated novice too.

[Rolling to Speak Softly: 4 + 6 + 3 = 13. What is the nature of 20022’s authority? Forging another Bond with 20022]

Breathless Dead

There are a few ways he can go from here.

The Crystal Knight is the only Azura around. Someone of her station must have a vast household, and in a vast household there is often more need than hands. If the Service has someone for Mayor Kaspar, the Service must have someone for the Crystal Knight, and perhaps that someone could use another someone. The Crystal Knight is just one Azura, true, but she must deal with others, yes? Correspondence, house guests, superiors, friends, allies, rivals, enemies, the whole lot of them. He could secure a quiet vantage point in her staff, and watch, and learn.

He and 20022 have gotten off to a wonderful start, despite a perilous first meeting. There is much that can be discussed between coworkers. Hopefully, if he is careful, reads the room, and minds his manners, a new hire such as himself could be excused the odd question or two in the onboarding process. Nevermind the standing offer of counselors and union representatives, ready to listen and share what they know. If the Service runs alongside the whole of the Skies, then there must be plenty that could be learned if he just kept his eyes and ears open.

It’s always polite to leave room for a third option. Things won’t always go the way you think they will. Somebody else may have an idea that you never would’ve considered. Nothing good ever comes from assuming too much.

Whichever way he goes, all paths start the same:

“Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to meet with me again.” Dolce says, offering 20022 a scone to go with his mid-morning tea. “You have trusted me with the knowledge of just how busy you are, and I do so appreciate both your confidence and your time.”

Breathless Dead

Intentional is a difficult word. It’s a word of purpose and desire, and discerning it from the outside in is about as difficult as counting the spoons in a drawer without opening it. Not impossible, if you know a thing or two about spoons, you’ve taken a careful survey of the room, remembered when you last washed the dishes, and correctly ascertained which of your recent houseguests prefer to eat their ice cream with a fork. But difficult. Let it not be said that Dolce approached a drawer imprudently.

Fortunately for the ongoing conversation, much could be done with the facts at hand, and the trust that the Vasilia he knew wouldn’t bring them up without purpose.

“I think,” Dolce ambles along with the idea. “You could ask the same question about the Manor, no? I don’t remember the Majordomo ever giving less than his best for his job. He was the first one awake and the last one off duty, every day, and never grew tired of his work. The guard dogs too. Perhaps they lazed about on the odd sunny afternoon, but they were no less alert and on-task about it. What did they have that I didn’t that made it worthwhile to them? What point did they see in it all?”

“If I wanted to know that,” and he most assuredly did. “Then the first thing to do would be to hear it in their own words. No chance of doing that now, I’m afraid. But if the Manor is like the Skies, then the Skies are like the Manor. And it’s not impossible to speak with the Azura. Or at least listen to them.” But difficult. Most assuredly difficult. A whole silverware set while blindfolded sort of difficult.

But if the Skies are like the Manor, then the Manor is like the Skies. Maybe the answer to one would share some territory with the other?

Breathless Dead

“Dissatisfying and discouraging,” says the lump of wool at the edge of the clearing, freed from the shackles of needing to maintain a presentable shape. “Every time I talk to someone who feels just as strongly as me in the opposite direction, my first thought is that they must be seeing something I’ve missed. I try to imagine what things look like from their perspective. I try to look for the missing piece. I get so far from my own thoughts I forget why I even had them in the first place, and everything I just believed in starts to look suspect. Nevermind that the other person could simply have been mistaken all along. It’s work to hold onto a thought when you’re the only one in town who thinks it's important.”

He checks, periodically, on the curve of her back and the serenity of her face. It hasn’t shifted in any of the other hundred times they’ve chatted mid-meditations, but you never know about the hundred and first time. Better gaze at her a little longer. Just to be sure the mountain of fur and muscle and sunlight is as solid as it always was.

“She asked me why I wanted to get involved in politics in the first place. There was enough else to talk about, so I don’t think she noticed I didn’t answer her. Not really, anyway.” He shifted about, hugging his knees to his stomach and resting his back against a particularly comfortable rock. Making himself as small and as comfortable as possible. “She had a point; that’s the part that makes it extra frustrating. I’m one sheep in a small town on the edge of the Skies. I’m not anywhere close to levers of power or high office, and it’d be forward of me to act as though I’d ever get such a chance, much less that I’d be any good once I got there. All I have is a little opportunity to help with local affairs, and here I can’t do a thing until I’ve figured out how an entire Empire ought to be run. And all everyone in town can tell me is that things can only be the way that they are.”

He blew a stray, wispy curl from his eyes. “I don’t even know why I can’t believe that too.”