WHEN THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN//O, SWEET FEVER!

[YoungMeme]

WHEN THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN//O, SWEET FEVER!
Etherlite Heart, Wandering Tower. Do you see them dancing? the future is indeterminate. 314 Eschatologies Corrected. 1.5 Remaining.

1.1: Dead End Dreaming//Bird of Hermes

There's nothing. All around her is black salt and ashen mud, sticking to her knees where she's fallen into it. It's a tar pit, she thinks, this and that place she crawled out of, and yet she doesn't care. perhaps it'll take her. Perhaps she'll be left to ossify in it, some ancient thing to be found and studied by those that come after. If anything comes after. After this, after the nothing that she became, she's not so sure. This world, this world, this world created something like her, knowing she would kill it one day. Only, it didn't, did it? That girl was made by idle hands, men and women who dream of being titans in their own rights, gods not of the new world but of the old one they've lost, so blind, so fucking blind that they can't see they're building new apocalypses every day. Every weapon is an ending, every machine is a calamity. And her, she's both. A machine fashioned into a weapon when she wouldn't work right, when they finally stole that glimmer of common sense to understand that they made a fresh ending, an apocalypse arisen.


Her hands form into fists in the dull sediment, and she thinks that no, she won't become a fossil. More than likely, she'll become fuel, a fire in the belly of whatever it is that they'll use to end the world anew, a cascading mobius loop of fatal errors. Perhaps that's a better use for her corpse. She can't claim to have had a part in whatever they do with her, at the very least. It's a small comfort, that only one of the eschatologies she'll invent is of her own doing. Let them play with her body. What's it to her?


Six bodies surround her. They stand in a circle, each one wearing a face a little different to her. They're all dead, save for the one that's newer than her, and even then she's not sure she isn't amongst the powdered obsidian that's left. They're dead, some of them dead longer than she knows, and yet here they are. Watching. Not judging. How could they? Her sins are theirs, after all. What she's done is nothing more than a result of their failures. Because the first one failed, the second one was built. Because the second one failed, the third one was built... it goes on like that, all the way to her. But her, she's broken, flawed, not fucking right, and that's the price of their weakness. How sad, she thinks. She wonders if they're disappointed in her, or themselves.


The sand cuts her fingers, red on black, and for a second she marvels that they bothered to fill her with real blood. Not the synthetic stuff, artificial nutrients and oxygen carried in a thick colorless paste, they gave her the real thing, made her understand how it feels to bleed. She wonders why they did that. It hasn't helped her, not really. Only made her feel sorry for the things she's not, the things she can never be. She won't ever be a human, not when her ultimate, unintentional purpose is to end them. But, at least she knows how they feel when they hurt. She wonders if that's a mercy, or a cruelty. She wonders who that mercy is meant for, who that cruelty is meant to sting. She wonders if it even matters. Probably not, she decides.


"Stop looking at me."


It's quiet at first, not directed at the five who stare blankly at her naked, bloodied body, but at the one before her, the only one whose sins aren't already hers to bear. The one who comes after her, the one on whose shoulders her failure has come to rest. The seventh of her name, and yet they both know she isn't a success either. That's the next one, the one she can't see but she knows is there. She's watching from some place far off, the empty red moon that hangs over the silent night like a kindly doctor, attending her patient as the life finally leaves them. The eighth of her sisters will surely save the world, even if it kills her.


---Hah. Seven. The irony of it makes her nauseous. Good. Saving the world, or ending it, not that there's a difference, that's a task that's meant for one person, she thinks. There's no point in making one's own siblings shoulder that burden, even if she's already carrying their failures herself. She looks up, and grimaces, because she's still fucking looking at her.


"I said stop!"


Her voice echoes across the desolation, for there is no one in front of her to hear her demands. Shaking, her hands scrape something amongst the ashes, hard and metallic. A different shade of black, gleaming and polished. Pulsating red, a hunger the colour of her blood. She smears some of that red across the oily, unearthly metal, pulling the familiar shape free. A weapon that's meant to kill her. A weapon that could kill the world, or its mother. A weapon that can kill anything. Can it kill her failures, the failures of those that came before, and the ones that will come after? There's only one choice. She cradles the Black Barrel in her lap. Half her body isn't there anymore, turned to shards of glass the color of night, but she has enough left to fire. Turning it away from her, she points the gun that shot down God at the moon, and murmurs a prayer for her sister she's yet to meet.


"Dead Count, two thousand and thirty. Spiritron Barrel loaded, Etherlite core.
--Black Barrel, Full Trance--"


The barrel begins to alight, coruscating with magic called 'death'. She closes her eyes, leans her head against the stock--
--And pulls the trigger.

----

You wake up with a shudder, the taste of salt and copper still on your tongue. it takes you a moment to realise why-- you bit it in the night, as the familiar paroxysms of your moribund consciousness assaulted your dreams. Not the first time. Not the last, either. You stare at the ridged plastic of the van's ceiling, a dull blue robbed of every detail by the night creeping in through the gaps in the blinds, razor-thin lines of sickly streetlight orange crisscrossing your prone body like veins, or incisions. The sun isn't up yet. You should try get some more sleep, you think. There is a... function tomorrow. Things will be expected of you. There'll be socializing. Networking. Pretending that you care about these people, like your very presence isn't a careless insult from your mother-- no, from your makers. It's not good to think of her like that, you chide yourself. It's dangerous. You understood long ago that you are only a tool to her, and a faulty one at that. What good is a gun that fires backwards, after all?

It's a shame. That was the first time you managed to break through the headaches and the melancholy into sleep's embrace, and look where it got you. Dreaming of an apocalypse you're sure you'll cause, just like every other time you manage to steal a little luck from Ole Lukøje, crotchety old bastard that he is. Heart racing far too fast for 4AM, with only the meaningless quiet of a cramped camper van for comfort. It's your baby, this rusty old Volkswagen, and any other time of the day you'd love to show it off, all the little things you've done for it, to it, but right now the silence feels like a grave-- though, it's one that fits you just right, you think.

Your name is Rani, you think. Rani the Sixth, though you're not supposed to call yourself that anymore. It's not like they gave you a replacement, when they replaced you.

Author's NoteWoah, it's a thing. This is an evolution of a lil something I wrote last year, one that I'm gonna try spin into something serious. Admittedly, life is a bitch, so who knows if it'll go anywhere? Even if it doesn't, I think it'll still be fun. Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a comment.

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Table of Contents


ACT 1: Clock Tower 20XX//Diplomatic Incident

1.1: Dead End Dreaming//Bird of Hermes

1.2: Aegis

1.3: Nascent State

1.4: London

1.5: Ghosts Under the Deep Salt Sea//Predation Event

1.6: Ghosts Under the Deep Salt Sea//"It's an Act of Trust."

1.7: Green Man//Pareidolia

1.8: Thus, We Devoured Our Mother's Suns

1.9: Ghosts Under the Deep Salt Sea//Pilot Fish

Compendium


Characters

Rani VI

Bahretiya Al-Alawah

Julienn Fallenflue

Ysaos Sycorax Archelot

[Potion]

Nice

[YoungMeme]

1.2: Aegis

Well. You're awake now, you think. Sleep is a doubled-edged sword, and one that's slippery in your sweaty grip, besides. No, sleep isn't what you need more of, not right now. All it offers is the promise of another miserable nightmare, if your eye manager to close for more than a minute, anyway. So. What are you going to do, instead?

You need a mirror, you think. These aren't normal dreams. They're hateful, corrosive things, eating a little at your identity with each fevered movement beneath your eyelids, each blasphemous murmur of your misfiring brain. You forget a little more each time, and right now, the image of your own face is a hazy nothing-- oh, you're sure it will come back, with the rising of the sun and the resumption of the ticking clock called life, but do you really want to sit around for some four odd hours, living in absence of the knowledge of your face. Maybe you do.

--Hm. You feel strangely apprehensive, as you sit up and shuffle around the slightly-too-tight confines of your little home, reaching over to the drawers which hold your entire life for the pink-rimmed circle of chipped glass that rests upon it. Face down. You're not sure why, really. Sick of seeing a face that you don't even own anymore? Something like that. Maybe the reason your mind's so eager to forget your face is the memories it stirs, of a corpse with the same face and the face of someone you wish was a corpse, your blasphemous little hatred of your seventh sister a rare indulgence in bitterness-- well, you think it's rare. A outside observer might disagree, you suppose. Ah, well. No reason to put it off anymore, really. What have you got to lose, other than the bliss of ignorance? You lift it up to your face with some trepidation, and stare--

Ah. That's not so bad, right? You let out a breath you didn't quite realise you were holding, and recline back against the backseat-turned-bed, pulling the mess of blankets you've accrued over the last year or two over yourself in a futile attempt to claw back some amount of comfort from the just-a-bit-too-cool air that permeates the slightly stale air, a grim promise of what lays outside the windows. You study the reflection of your face carefully, carving every inch of skin and hair into your memory, building a effigy of yourself in your mind-- to replace the one you lost, and perhaps to burn in your place when the time comes. You look as tired as you feel, brow pinched and lips set in a thin, irritated line. There'll be bags later. Very poor form for high society, but it's not like anyone really expects any more of you. Well, they do, but they also know they have no way to wield it against you. You crawled out of that pit, after all, and that affords you certain protections, as a representative of your former masters. Hah. "Representative". The only thing you represent is their utter lack of interest in the playground games of scions and second sons, high on the thrill of power and politics, a format loop that quickly has them forgetting the part they all have to play in this little world that's been made for them to share.

That's what you are. You were defective in some way, some terrible way that you think you might know in the pit of your stomach, even if they won't tell you. The hushed whispers and the cold gazes are proof enough for your little hypothesis, but you still have your loyalty, even if you're not sure whether that's a feeling in your heart or a instruction seared into your brain. You won't lay any accusations until they admit it to you, you think. You want to know for sure, so you can form your own opinion on the reasons for the miserable state of your life. Normally, that would be enough to have you scrapped, stripped for parts, taken apart bit by bit, the most valuable pieces of you shoved into your successor-- not least of all your name, your identity. Your personality... that's not something that comes along for the ride. That you even have a personality is proof of your flawed nature, you think. A Homunculus that can feel for itself isn't much use as a tool, or a weapon.

Still, they haven't killed you. You don't know why, and this part you have no clue on. Was it written in their stars, seen only in charts drawn out millennia ago and the eyes of curious Familiars, or in the entrails of birds born beneath a mountain, killed before they ever saw the sky? It's a comforting thought. Maybe, just maybe-- if you're alive, you can help to stop the end. It's the purpose of your masters, after all, and thus too is a purpose of yours, a promise. You wouldn't mind, you think, if that was the case. At least your body would be good for something, then. It isn't so much of a problem if you give a personality to a weapon, so long as it still remembers how to end another life-- everything else is superfluous.


--So now, what are you? An exile? Practically, yes. You get communiques, of course, but they're short, sharp things, straight to the point. It's almost comforting, at this point, how terse they are. Reminds you of home. Well, the home you had before this van, at least. Go there. Do that. Today, it's attending this party-- if you're being honest, if you haven't bothered learning a single thing about it, save for directions. Why bother? You don't matter, and neither does whichever lordling is getting a nice little ego boost today. You doubt you'll do anything interesting-- nothing interesting to you ever happens at this kind of thing, but this is what was expected of you, and you're nothing if not loyal to your makers. Maybe one day you'll understand why, but you can't say you're that interested. You're happy to swim just beneath the surface of mediocrity, gorge yourself on all the tasteless canapes and heady champagne you can, and try to forget it all. You hope they don't seriously think the Atlas Institute is favoring them with your presence, that they see you for the insult you're meant to be. There's few things you hate more than people who want things from you that you can't give them.

You sigh, curling up a little amongst the countless pillows and covers, bought with whatever you can scrape off your miserable food fund, so that this home you've built feels a little more like, well, a home. No point doing anything, not at this time. Better to fortify yourself against the cold, and wait.

[YoungMeme]

1.3: Nascent State

You're barely conscious of time moving, slow and sticky like treacle, trying your best to shut down the thoughts rattling loudly about your head. You've let go of your partitions for now, the walls of your divided consciousness collapsing back into colours and mayhem, distinct thought processes and conclusions resolving themselves into a single, cohesive mind, lesser but at the very least unbroken, undivided. It's pathetic, you think, that you even think to call yourself a child of the Titan's Pit when you struggle to maintain your partitions. It isn't that your technique is wrong, or even that you lack the capacity. No, the problem's with the hardware. Your brain's not up to scratch.


You wonder if it's a problem each of your sisters had, or if it's the 'flaw' that's unique to you-- probably the second one. Your eyesight is the weakness you all share, the glasses perched on your nose passed down passed down since the very beginning of this absurd little project called 'Rani'. It doesn't really matter, you suppose, but that doesn't make it any easier to bear, the way that all your parts start to go astray when you work your partitions too hard, carefully arranged blood vessels bursting like overripe fruit, careful craftmanship reduced to a red smear leaking from your nose and a screaming headache. So, you save them for when you need them, and hope the next time doesn't bring an aneurism with it. Maybe that's the reason you were discarded as a failure so quickly. It'd certainly make sense, you think.


Eventually, you slip into some kind of fugue, some dreamless false-sleep where your eyes are open but the stillness of your surroundings never quite resolves into anything more than darkness, and time becomes a stringy, meaningless thing, a second stretching into a thousand years and snapping back into the shape of an hour, then two, then a few more, until finally you blink the world back into one shape, and it's time to get up.


Well, you still have a while. But you should probably leave plenty of time to find the place-- you're haven't been here long enough to get to know the locations and layouts of all the different campuses that make up the unwieldy beast called the Clock Tower, and you haven't visited this one yet, as far as you can remember-- admittedly, the days blur together a little when you don't do anything of value with them. Not quite willing to shed the blanket cocoon just yet, you blindly fumble for the opened envelope sitting on the counter next to your sofa-turned-bed, slipping your glasses back on with the other as you bring it your eyes. Hm. Botany. Home of witch-botherers and dead-eyed dream seekers, wasting their lives trying to resurrect seeds of plants they can't even prove existed. It's a private estate, but it's close to their campus, which you take to be a sign of their importance-- or at least, how important they'd like to be in the workings of that place. If you're being honest, Clock Tower politics doesn't interest you much, and it interests your masters even less, but here you are to observe none the less, and to observe isn't really any different than participating. One way or another, they'll find a way to drag you down with them.


You sigh a little, replacing the envelope but not yet quite up to finding the resolve to start the day. You haven't even thought about food, not that you often do. It's a little overwhelming, you find, all the different flavors and textures they have out here. Two years spent on flavorless nutrient bars leave you unprepared for anything more exciting. But, why waste anything more than that on someone like you? You understand, really. Bread is easy enough to handle, at least, and you like the taste when you toast it. Maybe you'll work yourself up to more adventurous meals, eventually.


It takes a while, but eventually you find it in you to shrug the blankets off, the cold stinging your skin in the few moments before you manage to shrug on your shirt, the soft silk admittedly not doing that much to actually help stave it off. As you've quickly discovered, the Atlas Institute's uniforms aren't well-suited to winter in Great Britain, and neither is your nascent sense of fashion, or well-- calling it fashion is a little optimistic. Style? No, that's too grandiose, too. You just have clothes that you like, you think. There's nothing special about that, but... it's not defective, or anything like that, either. It's just a preference. There's nothing wrong with that, you try to remind yourself, even as dormant parts of your degraded brain mock you for the supposition that anything about you that wasn't derived directly from your makers is worth anything.


Even if you're not wearing the uniform, you have to at least wear the shawl and the beret, neither of which really suit you, in your opinion. The skirt is your own, and the tights, a strange little impulse you're not really sure you're meant to be following, but, hey, just your plain old uniform doesn't make the best impression at social gatherings, does it? Well, maybe in these particular ones it does, where the appearance of a representative from the Titan's Pit is still something special, something unexpected, but really, you'd rather that wasn't the case. Maybe if you don't wear the uniform, you'll draw less stares-- yeah, right. The insignia emblazoned on the shawl hasn't changed, and that symbol is the one thing you've never allowed to be without. It's more than just a logo, after all. It's a brand, a mark of ownership, proof of your true nature. You could call it merchandising, or something like that. Not that they'd ever sell one of their toys, but they like them to be recognizable.


Once you're dressed, you slap a few pieces of bread into the cheap plastic toaster you allowed yourself to own, oddly transfixed by the hum of the heating element, the smell of blackening carbohydrates. If you were a human, would that smell stir something atavistic in you, some primitive gene-memory, the simplest requirement of continued survival all contained in a scent, encapsulated in the now-crispy face of the bread slice? You have no genes, no biological memory, only the flesh it creates, the information encoded within provided by human instruction rather than the complex process of evolution. It pops up, and you have to remind yourself not to grab it immediately, but to wait a few moments, taking the slices of toast delicately between your fingers and bringing them to your mouth, not bothering with a plate or anything like that. You're meant to slather it with butter, or liquified fruit, or something like that, but-- too much. You'd rather have the taste of char.

[YoungMeme]

1.4: London

You reach for the letter once more as you eat, scanning over it a little more thoroughly now you're not half-paralyzed by the vague dreariness of the inbetween state you found yourself in before. There's around three hours until the event begins, and you're around an hour's drive from the nearest parking spot-- assuming the typical London traffic, anyway. It's twenty minutes to walk to the manse from them, and it's a good idea to be fashionably early, so... you have an hour to go until then, you suppose.




What to do with that time? You're coming up empty. You are a void of hobbies, of personal interests, of anything with which you could distract yourself. Your mind claws at itself, as if trying to drag any semblance of a time-wasting exercise out of its own darkened corners, but it finds only glimmers of dust and hesitation, ideas strangled long before they come to fruition. What do you do when you want to distract yourself? You think about all the other things you should be distracting yourself from, or stop thinking altogether. It's a grim ouroboros you've trapped yourself in, and yet you can't quite seem to find a way out. What would your creator do? Even that thought eludes you, though it feels terribly like it shouldn't.


So, it's just you and your thoughts. What a miserable combination. You try it at first, sure, sitting there, empty of anything but yourself, but it doesn't take long before it becomes intolerable, a revulsion that you can't quite put into words slowly working its way up your throat, threatening to choke you. Revulsion at what you are, what you failed to be. It's part of your programming perhaps, you think, your loyalty to that pit clashing with the scale of your failure, soaking in disgust for the thing you've failed to be like a perpetual motion machine, a recursion loop of self-admonishment. It's... pointless. Useless. There's no value in flagellating yourself like this, not that that's ever stopped you before. So, you need to stop.

Eventually, you decide to set off, entirely aware that all you're doing is kicking the problem down the road, making it a issue for the you that exists an hour in the future, giving it a little longer to marinate. Still, you might be able to avoid it. There's always a chance something will capture your attention instead-- that's the only coping mechanism you've ever had, really, distraction. It's a bad one, sure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. You pick over the scattered detritus of your life as you shimmy over to the driver's seat, frowning in disapproval at your own little piles of clothes and forgotten books. You used to be neater than this, you think. Your 'life', such as it was, was as compartmentalized as your brain is, all your habits and your idiosyncrasies drowned in the sterile sea beneath the mountains. Out here, with the weight of the world removed from your fragile shoulders, they've started to fester, like an open wound. You're coming undone, you think, all your artificial perfection breaking and drifting apart like pack ice. You're becoming more like this world, and for a member of Atlas, that is the greatest possible curse.


You put your hands on the steering wheel and sigh. It will do you good, perhaps, to get out of this cramped place, to be near humans. It will be exactly what you need; a distraction. You are dwelling on yourself entirely too much, and you already know what the consequences will be. With a frustrated hum, you turn the ignition, and pull out from your little hiding spot. The world awaits.

---

Well, if there's one thing that can get you out of this newest funk, it might well be the red haze of London traffic. The manse in question is close to Hyde Park, the kind of place you can see Botany's campus from, and that means driving right into the heart of the capital like a stake, and that is a uniquely frustrating experience. If your creators knew you would be doing this, you think, they would've given you a great deal more patience when they defined your mental characteristics. The irritation certainly helps wash out some of the melancholy from your synapses, but you're not sure it's all that good a trade. You bite your lip to hush the anger you feel bubbling up, and focus on just... getting where you need to go. even if it means sitting behind drivers who do not know what the speed limit is, or seemingly where they're intending to go at all. Driving is something you never expected to do with your life, and it's a rare source of enjoyment for you-- you like the feel of a machine beneath your feet, responding to your every command like some kind of long-dead beast, one of steel and cobalt and fossil fuel. You like it, and that's a rare, valuable thing, but there are some parts you most certainly do not like this. Like this. You are going to throw something. You're not, but it's a nice thought.


Eventually, though, it passes, the traffic thinning out as you eventually reach your destination. Private parking and everything. In the middle of London, that's a pretty serious display of wealth, ostentatious in the extreme. It'd be one thing if it was a few spots, but this is a whole square carved into the heart of the concrete jungle-- there could've been a whole extra parking garage buitl here, were it not for the ever-present forces of generational wealth. It's an almost prototypical display of Clock Tower excess, but even then-- you're not really sure why you're so thinking so much about this. What does it matter you? It bothers you, for some reason, but really, you have no reason to care about such a flagrant display of plutocracy. You're funded by Atlas, as little as they care for the concept-- you're being bankrolled by the same forces. So, you suppose you're not really sure why you care. But you do.

Funny how those things work.

You step out of the car, noting you've still a good while to go before the official start. That's a little annoying-- you might've welcomed the idea before, mired in your own self-loathing, but now you're actually here, the thought of hobnobbing with a bunch of cold-blooded lordlings is not exactly an appealing prospect. In fact, it seems downright miserable. Ah, well. You're here now. You take a moment to look over the rather elaborate hedge displays that dot the parking spaces like moles-- each one an absurd work of beauty, the kind of thing you can't quite believe anyone had the time to sit down and create themselves. As expected of Botany, you suppose. mastering mundane horticulture presumably has to come before any kind of serious applications of it in Magecraft. Shrugging a little to yourself, you lock the doors to your van, double-check, then set off towards the ornate, ivy-laden doors of the mansion before you, swallowing an uneasy, twitchy sensation that pricks at your eyes like a warning, or a reaction. Might as well get this over with.

[YoungMeme]

1.5: Ghosts Under the Deep Salt Sea//Predation Event

You're not the only one who ended up arriving far too early. In fact, if the way the trickle of people becomes something more like a crowd as you approach the grand entrance to the mansion is anything to go by, you're beginning to think that most of the attending invitees had the same plan to show up as fashionably earlier as possible. Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it. Sounds better than 'had literally nothing better to do with your life', anyway. By the time you reach the heavy doors there's a uncomfortable buzzing hiss at the base of your spine, crawling its way through your nervous system to prick at your brain like a needle-- you've spent most of your short life underground, in cramped corridors, under cold fluorescent lights and the hum of ancient oxygen recycling talismans. This is already too many people, too close, the open sky above feeling nauseatingly like a hole, a wound-- a gaping void you might fall into if you lose your footing and stumble.

--He wasn't holding up the sky, you think. He was holding down the world.

The thought passes, feeling almost alien in your skull, and you're left alone with nothing but the discomfort scratching at your senses, conversations all around you like the chatter of machine gun fire, drowning out everything beneath their rhythmic screaming. You need to be away from this, but you can't-- you can only hope you learn how to tolerate it. You always do, eventually, every time you're thrust into one of these miserable little scenarios, this diplomatic farce. It's just a matter of how long it takes.

The doors offer benediction and torment in equal measure-- once you pass between them, the varnish smelling of some forgotten, long-dead pollen that makes your sinuses twitch in the gap between your eyes and your nose, the sky is at least gone, no longer threatening to swallow you whole in its great overriding emptiness. The sky is gone, but there's even more people all around you. This is Magus society, of course, so no one touches you. Behind these doors, a bump or a knock against your waist means an assassination attempt, the errant brush of someone's thoughtless knuckles against your clothed wrist akin to a declaration of war. There'd be a tragedy on the evening news if a Magus ever took the subway during a rush hour, you think. Not that you like it, either, the few times you've had to crawl into those unfamiliar tunnels, but at the very least you don't have that particular paranoia so thoroughly carved into you.

--You're so caught up in the thought of it, you don't notice her approaching, hidden entirely by the warm glow of the chandelier-- smouldering bulbs of plant matter instead of glass and filament, half meter-thick vines with lazily pulsating red veins fulfilling the role of gold-skinned bronze. You wouldn't have noticed her anyway. She's the not the kind of person who likes to be noticed, and she's good at stopping it from happening. No, it's the feeling of cold skin beneath warm cloth wrapping around your shoulders like a serpent that wakes you from reverie-- no, an eel.

You turn your head, and you're greeted with a mouthful of little, knife-like teeth, split in a wide, careless grin. That's not a metaphor, or an exaggeration-- she literally has shark's teeth. It's a little unnerving. She is close, far too close, she's touching you and it's setting off every panic response your body has hidden in its systems and functions-- maybe you're not so above that particular fear, after all. It's more than the touch, you think. It's how willing she is to let other people see it. It's an announcement, a challenge; I don't care about what the things that are sacred to you. She is telling every magus in this room that bothers to look, be afraid of me.

It's an incredibly dangerous thing to do, and more importantly, you'd rather not be associated with it. Your position is precarious as it is, you don't need anyone in this viper's nest to start getting ideas about your opinions, your political leanings. The Atlas Institute has no politics-- or, rather, it does not want anyone looking down into that pit to think that it has politics. It's vitally important that you cleave to that philosophy, cowardly as some part of you thinks it might be. So, when being touched is a political action, having a girl you don't know grab you by the shoulder like you're her best friend is downright provocative. It takes you a second or two to process all this, and it must amuse her-- her smile gets a little wider, her cool eyes glinting with not a little bit of amusement. Is it just you, or have some of the conversations around you stopped?

She smells of sea salt. Sea salt and... something else. Your olfactory organs can't process it. It's not something you've ever smelt before.

--You didn't mean to smell her, but your brain provides the information anyway. That's the second intrusive thought to poke a hole in your mind it can shout through. Is... did you leave a partition running? If your thoughts are partitioned, but you're not aware of it-- that's bad. That's very bad. You need to try to sleep again, seriously this time, after this. You try to disentangle yourself from her, but she doesn't seem interested. Instead, she starts talking, that half-predatory smile never leaving her face.

"Man. Didn't think I'd get a chance to actually meet the Atlas girl. Figured they'd keep you up there with the important people. Sure they'll be after you once they see you, anyway."

Her head inclines a little towards the balcony that hands over the whole affair like a funeral shroud, the twin staircases spiraling up towards it guarded by uniformed men with the uncomfortable expression of hireling magi, the dead-enders without the pedigree to really go anywhere beyond General Fundamentals and without the grit to hunt Designates for money and... not fame. Fear, maybe. They're mostly considered hangers-on in this world, despite how often the well-to-do have need of their service. There's less now, apparently. Something about the new Lord of Norwich having a soft spot for people like that, the ones with no chance of amounting to anything. Well, you think he's new, anyway. When you're playing the serious games up there, in the depths of the Clock Tower, even a decade isn't enough to be more than 'new'. He could have started a month ago, or ten years. You wonder which it is, and if it matters.

"So. Guessing you don't want to be up there, since you came in the front with the rest of us plebs?"

You nod weakly. You shouldn't be agreeing with her, or encouraging her, but it's true. Your eyes rake over her again, your gaze slipping off the edges, filled with something like panic. She's wearing... a dress, something black and blue, modest and yet very loose around her, as if she's swimming in it. Middle Eastern, you think, though you don't enough about the region or the fashion to say anything more than that. As far as the Association goes, that'd make you both backwaters. Maybe that's why she was interested in you? It's a little absurd. The cursing schools and mountain retreats aren't respected like the Atlas Institute is-- or at least, as the Titan's Pit publicly is. She knows that, too, but maybe she doesn't care. You get the sense this girl doesn't care about a lot of things. Your eyes linger on her sides a second, and you swear you see the fabric rise and fall, like it's breathing. That's enough to make you divert your gaze, and hope she didn't notice. She probably did. Instead, it returns to the balcony, and you see a shape, a figure with its back to you that compels something in you, makes you want to say something, ask her about it. But, she's already talking, and the chance is lost.

"No sweat. Doubt I can keep you down here forever, but I can make 'em wait a little bit longer."

She says it like she hasn't just brought the attention of everyone around the two of you squarely your way. You're not sure how she's going to manage it, but abruptly her hand is on yours instead of around your shoulder, leading you away, and sure enough the background chatter starts up again, eyes seeming to slide off you and comfortably back into the whirlpool of social nothing that constitutes a pre-party, the empty waiting before the function is made official, made anything more than a accidental gathering. Once again, it's unnerving.

She sees ghosts, under the deep salt sea. She knows their ways. She loves them.

It doesn't take her long to find some secluded alcove, the gap between a kitchen door and a planter, leaden down with plants you're not sure are meant to exist anymore, curling around iron frames as naturally as bark on a tree. The air is laced with a slight spicy scent, like the skin of the strange, crossbred orange fruits hanging from the leaves is leaking capsaicin, flavouring the halls with its defence reaction.

"Alright, miss Atlas. End of the line. I'll be expectin' some kind of payment for services rendered, of course. Your name will do. Think I might already know it, but still.

"Rani." You lie, because you don't have the right to use that name anymore. But, it doesn't matter. It's not like you've decided on another one. It will do for now.

"Wicked." She mutters, idly running a hand through her messy hair, any attempt to tame it in time for this little sojourn evidently discarded as fruitless. Her hand comes away streaked with something-- salt? She licks it away without a care in the world for your existence, though her eyes quickly return to you. Distantly, you feel some kinship with a minnow, or a deer-- prey animals, beneath the gaze of something hungry. Her bare skin hasn't met yours yet, somehow, her hand never straying lower than the cuffs around your wrist, and you find yourself missing the flash of insight it might have provided, as much of a faux pas as it is. Not like she would have cared.

"Bahretiya. Not fair if you don't get mine, too. That wasn't the name I was expecting... but I like it. Sounds like you."

God. How do you tell her?

[YoungMeme]

1.6: Ghosts Under the Deep Salt Sea//"It's an Act of Trust."

"A-ah, well, it's not really--"


"Your name? Nah. That's definitely your name. Dunno what kind of shit they get up to down there that you think you have to change it, but from where I'm sat, you're one hundred percent a Rani."


It comes out of her naturally, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Her accent is something like an amalgam, London infecting each of her words, and she's letting it. She doesn't care about things like that. Her voice is something that belongs to her, not a nation, not a city. She'd speak the same way, no matter where she was, because she likes the sound of it. Idly, you wonder if you have an accent. Where do people think you're from, when they hear your voice? When you speak, it just sounds like you.


She looks you over once, as if trying to discern if her words really got through to you at all-- evidently, she likes whatever it is she sees on your face, because she nods almost imperceptibly to herself, before her body goes rigid, frozen through with politeness. There's a sudden clockwork formality to her movements as she reaches out to take your hand, carefully spreading your palm open, and on her it feels... electric. Like a ghost is kneeling down before you, laying a kiss light as a feather on the point your ulnar artery spreads out into tributaries, delivering vat-made blood to each flattened finger. It's an achingly old, archaic greeting-- from the era when Mystery was plentiful, and the foundations of this institution were only just being laid. No magus would trust another magus to perform it today, and yet she does it with the same ease she carried when she wrapped her arm around you.

[Compendium Updated: Bahretiya Al-Alawah]

All that matters to her is the meaning. It's an act of trust.

--The thoughts keep coming unbidden to you, sounding nothing like the ones you call your own. The worry scratching at the door of your mind is getting more insistent now, but-- but, there's a time and a place. You can't exactly do the mental equivalent of turning yourself off and on again in the middle of a conversation, though, admittedly, you don't think she'd be too bothered. She's looking at you again, judging your reaction-- that is, a slight flush and a inability to put your spiraling thought patterns into something like works. The Etherlite beneath your skin is humming with stolen information, feeding it back into your nervous system, adding another book to the library in your mind for your partitions to peruse in the course of their calculations. You catch flashes of it-- a great, vast sea in the desert, the burn of something acidic in organs you don't possess, a incalculable sense of longing-- before it's all safely stored away for you to pick at later. A violation of her privacy? Certainly. The Etherlite only records flashes of what's beneath, but even that is unfair to take from another person without asking them. Still, you don't mention it. Why would you? You're too scared.

"Hello? Earth to Rani? Didn't think it was that big a deal..."

"It's- It's fine. I'm fine."

"Wicked." She repeats it, enjoying the way the word tastes on her tongue. Her smirk says it all. "You smoke?"

As if. You'd probably die. Alcohol makes you nauseous-- hell, even fried food makes your stomach rebel. You're fairly certain your internal organs are delicate enough that a cigarette might just make your lungs shut down altogether. You shake your head, and she shrugs before fishing one of the thin white sticks and a lighter out from a pocket you didn't even notice before, setting the end alight before bringing it to her lips, chewing on the filter as she inhales deeply, a little shudder of relief passing through her body. It might be your imagination, but when she exhales, you swear you catch sight of thin curls of smoke escaping from between the stitching in the sides of her clothes. She must've caught you looking, because her grin goes wide again, her teeth sharp enough to puncture the filter paper in countless places, utterly destroying any protective qualities it might have once held.

"Eheh, you caught it, huh? Figured you'd be the sharp type. Wanna see for real?"

Her voice is low and conspiratorial, and you sincerely consider it for half a second, before remembering where you are exactly-- you're not even particularly out of the way, you can see other guests a little down the way glaring at her as the smoke wafts lazily towards them, almost certainly on purpose. Then, you consider it again, and question why you were so eager to have this woman you've never met take off her shirt and show you the intricacies of her body. That flush gets worse, although even in this state of embarassment you're strangely aware that it wasn't for any disreputable reason. It was... curiosity. Wonder. You wanted to see what made her different. What made her like you. How pathetic, the colder part of you thinks. She isn't like you at all.

"Not right now, no." You mutter, trying to downplay it as much as possible. It doesn't work at all. She laughs, a slippery sound halfway to a cackle, before shrugging again, the white of her cigarette rapidly disappearing, lost in the red heat haze. "So you would be interested another time, then? Interestin', very interestin', miss Rani. I'll keep that in mind. Oh, uh, you don't gotta call me by my full name, or anythin'. Just Bahre is fine. I'm not really from this crowd... but they like to get someone from every Department, y'know? Me, I'm Spiritual Evocation, mainly."

This part is harder for her, unexplored territory. She likes big, provocative gestures, likes the attention, but she's not so good with the small talk, the empty space between each eye-grabbing stunt. Doubly so for you, someone from an entirely different world from her, someone without a frame of reference even close to hers-- although, maybe that's not so bad. It isn't as if she really suits this place, either. She's more entrenched in it than you are, but she's still fundamentally a stranger to his place.

--That's probably a good thing, you think. You don't like the Clock Tower, and that isn't just your pining for the halls of the Institute speaking. This place is a den of vipers, expecting you to play a game you never signed up for. You suspect you're mere moments away from being dragged into it once more. It's going to be miserable, and you doubt you'll be able to take this strange girl you've suddenly found yourself attached to with you when you do. No one should live like this, you think. You can't imagine anyone coming into this place and coming out a person worth knowing.

--Like you can talk. Atlas produces monsters just the same as this place. They're just more finely tuned, more deliberate. What would this girl think, if she saw the lab you were built in?

A waiter walks past, offering unidentifiable canapes on a silvery plate, weighed down by a elaborate rose wreath as much as it with food. You're... not really sure what you're looking at, so you don't take one, but Bahre does, nabbing it between two fingers as he walks past. She brings it up-- to her nose, not her mouth. She inhales once, before making a face and dropping it unceremoniously on the floor, grinding the little mountain of cream cheese and herbs into the carpet with the hell of her shoe a moment later. You'd call it rude, but looking at the hideous pattern weaving through the carpet, and the obviously absurd expense of it, you can't say you blame her.

"Smells fuckin' weird. Probably vegan or some shit. Hope you don't go in for any of that shit, girl."

You don't, more because of an absence of preference than any strong feelings on the topic. She takes your lack of response as an affirmation and smiles, about to say something before something makes her stop, head turning just a little to look behind her, past the waiter offering the partygoers who had just scoffed at your companion the same overwrought snacks. Her smile turns into a scowl, before she sighs softly.

"Time's up. The bigwigs are after you, now. See you after you escape their clutches, yeah?"

You don't even have a chance to answer the presumptive request because the audacious girl spins on her heels and vacates the area, disappearing into the nauseating crowd filling the foyer and leaving you alone with your encroaching demise. You sincerely hope that's just you being melodramatic.

[Kamera]

Damn, she's cool. Really like the premise of this, keep up the good work!

[YoungMeme]

1.7: Green Man//Pareidolia

Her dire prophecy comes true soon enough, in the form of one of the hirelings you noted earlier, thin hair greasy with sweat and the forced rictus grin of a man with absolutely no aptitude for providing this kind of service. His suit is too tight for him, just about to rip at the shoulders, but he perseveres all the same. You're just glad he doesn't offer you his hand-- you don't need this man's story collecting dust in the back of your mind, reminding you how much worse you could have it, how little you're doing with the miracle of your creation. He would kill you in a second, if it meant he could take the parts of you that make you useful. He would be happy with the life you live.

There is a dim glow behind the white of his teeth, painted-over Formalcraft carvings. Beneath the cheap suit, tattoos, scars. Every inch of this man is a grotesque attempt to amount to anything.

--He would be happy, because your failings are lesser, and there is nothing more you can do about them. You might not understand it yourself, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he understands-- you've never had to hurt yourself in some half-futile attempt to become what you're meant to be. But then, there's parts of him you envy too. You'd like to be free, the ungrateful, hateful little part of you whispers. It's a venomous suggestion, full of self-loathing and more directed hatred, but more importantly, it's meaningless. That's another thing you both lack. Meaning. You both do what you're told, you because you have nothing better to do, and him because these are the only chances he has. You're startled from your reverie by his voice, tired but still making a admirable attempt at polite geniality. If your thoughts were written on your face, he doesn't say a word in response. No, what came out of his mouth is a script.

"Pardon me, Miss, but Mr. Fallenflue asked that I escort you to the balcony. He does not wish to make the representative of the esteemed Atlas Institute feel unwelcome."

--You look at him again. Is this being free?

"...Ah, certainly. I didn't mean to keep anyone waiting. Please, lead the way."

The words feel as limp in your mouth as they sound in your ears. Neither of you care about this situation, this place, these people, and yet here you are, bound by your respective obligations. No, he isn't free, and neither are you-- it was terminally foolish to ever believe there'd be anything better for either of you. Let's leave this place, you ache to say to him, let's find somewhere where we mean something. You don't, of course, and instead what happens is the two of you stand there for a single frozen, awkward moment, the few seconds where he processes the words and draws the route in his head, and you're left with the great, gnawing sense of emptiness that permeates the both of you.

"Right away, Miss."

He doesn't call you Rani, or worse-- ██████. You don't know how you'd react to that name, but you doubt it would be healthy. Still, that's good. If the host's hired help haven't been told that name, then said hosts probably don't know it at all. You'd like to keep it that way. Besides, it attracts attention, the kind of people who knows what it means are not the sorts of people whose eyes you're particularly keen on drawing. He turns on his heel, eager to stop allowing your eyes to meet, and you follow him down and back into the thick of the crowd. It's just as overwhelming as it was before, at first, but evidently you're expected-- the churning mass of human bodies soon begins to part before you like the tide retreating from the shore, drawn back by the moon's pull-- though, you can't say if it's the weight of your host's name or your organisation that's making it happen. Still, you're grateful for it, even if the replacement for the physical crush is a mental one, countless eyes staring at you, each gaze loaded with different intentions, people that want to use you, to own you, to hurt you, to simply get rid of you. Your heart thrums angrily in your chest, as if some moribund part of you is struck by the urge to sing along with that song burning a hole in your ribcage, let the fiber-cord unravel inside you until it becomes a chain reaction, a hole that starts to burn away the skin of the World instead.

--What a overreaction. If that much social pressure is giving you fantasies of self-destruction, you really aren't cut out for this life. Oh, but it would be beautiful, wouldn't it? You're not quite sure if the thought of death terrifies you or soothes you, but the thought of reducing all these biting parasites to vapour does stir some primordial gut instinct in you, the lizard part of your brain crooning at the thought of such rapturous violence. A chance to become the top of the food chain.

--Only, there'd be nothing of you left, either. Those animal impulses are useless to you, you think, and yet you have them anyway, another mystery your creators left in you, as if they expected you to be more curious, more... philosophical in questions of your own body. Instead it just makes you angry to think about it too much, or sad. Eventually, you pick your way through to the stairs, and you swear the whole room hushes in expectant reverie as you carefully take them one step at a time, fully aware of the fact you will never be taken seriously again if you trip now, and that, for these people, at least, the reputation of the Atlas Institute will share the fate of your own. The Clock Tower's inhabitants need only one scrap of rope to hang you with, no matter the length of it.

When it comes, they will not be aware. For them, a day will pass.

Eventually, after what feels like an age, with countless carrion feeders' eyes watching each careful movement, waiting for any sign of weakness they can pounce on, you reach the top no worse for wear, your escort about to shuffle you on to a pair you can't quite make out, talking just off to the side, but before he can herd you in the right direction you're stopped by a white suit, a shock of red hair and a genuinely disarming grin.

"Ah, you must be Atlas' representative, right? I'll take it from here, Muzkelief. I noticed you earlier, but it seemed to me that you weren't interested in wasting your time up here amongst the, ah, guests of honor. My father had other plans, I suppose."

He pauses, before offering a hand, the limit of bodily contact the average Magus can usually tolerate, a shiver running down your spine as new data is written into your memory unbidden.

[Compendium Updated: Julienn Fallenflue]

"My name is Julienn Fallenflue, and it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rani... ah, do you prefer the number be included? I must admit, it's rare to meet a Homunculus of your station. I hope my peers haven't made an issue of it. I'm afraid I'm the reason you've been unduly troubled by this little soiree... more specifically, my recent accession to the rank of Pride. I don't suppose it means much to a esteemed alchemist of the Institute, but it's rather an accomplishment for me, you see."

--Curious. This party is supposedly all about him, a celebration of his achievements, but the crowd seems to have entirely lost interest in you once you started talking to him and not the patriarch your guide was trying to push you towards, the buzz of countless chattering voices filling the room once more as they return to their canapes, their champagne and their gossip, not a moment's thought spared for the supposed focal point. He doesn't seem bothered, at least-- in fact, by the slightly sheepish way he rubs the back of his neck, you think he probably prefers it this way. He's clearly proud of his achievement, but he doesn't wear attention half as well as he wears his suit, and if he had it his way you doubt this party would even be happening. Looking at the crowd again, you notice there are very few magi his age, those that are sticking out like a sore thumb in unusual outfits-- representatives from other Departments mostly, marked by a conspicuous lack of botanical iconography in their dress. The rest of them are older, incorporating little hints of their craft into their fashion in a way that makes it clear that these are the Magi of Botany-- and they are here for Julienn's father, not him.

"I'm sure my father will want to make a show of talking to you, but please let me know if you need anything beyond that. It is theoretically meant to be my party after all, aha."

Your gaze flits back to the pair you're meant to be talking to, a little closer now, as if they're moving towards you. The older man is probably his father, you think, you can almost see the resemblance, and before him is a woman, the one from before. It's the same here, but the effect is clearer here-- it's hard for your eyes to focus on her, your gaze sliding off her like water every time her features start to solidify in your vision. You almost say something, but then she turns to look at you, and her eyes--

[YoungMeme]

1.8: Thus, We Devoured Our Mother's Suns

--Your head explodes, the voices you've dismissed as errors in your partitioning suddenly screaming as one, a low, unbroken note that permeates every inch of your brain, the sound ricocheting around your skull like a bullet. They each beg for your attention, each one trying to force another thought into your head, not realising it's already fit to burst.


She hates you.

She hates the world.

The world hates her.

She needs you.

Her face is a screaming nightmare, a churning mass of colors and mayhem, every possibility and every impossibility carving themselves into the world in a splatter of ontological gore. Her eyes are the worst part, at once filled with impossibly beautiful stars and empty of everything but the reflection of you, trapping you within the void of her sight. Dimly, you feel something warm begin to trickle from your nose and down to your lips, a familiar coppery taste spreading across your tongue as your blood seeps slowly into your mouth. If you keep looking at her, you'll die. You'll die. You'll die. You'll die. You were always dead.

The witches laugh. The mother is stillborn, but the son persists. There is a deer in the woods. It eats. It eats. It never stops eating it's eating it's eating it's eating you. The deer watches you. It watches because it knows you. It is you. You are the same. Thus, we devoured our mother's suns.

You wrench your eyes away from your face and down to her shoes at the same time as she lets out a soft gasp of concerned surprise-- or at least, a well-crafted imitation of one. You can't bring yourself to look up again, at the hole in the world that was her face, but the hand that appears in your vision to offer you a intricately patterned handkerchief seems normal enough-- pale, with a different colour of polish on each nail. Through the haze of feverish ache that has consumed your senses, you take it with a wordless groan of relief, drawing a small, worried noise from the person offering it. Your fingers momentarily brush against hers as you take it, though the flash of knowledge doesn't come immediately, delayed by the deleterious effects her face had on you.

"Are you okay, dear? That's quite the nosebleed."

"I'm... gh, I'm fine..."

You half-cough the words, a nauseating slurry of phlegm and blood clogging up your throat, making it hard to speak without choking on your own bodily fluids-- god, you don't even want to think about how many people are watching you embarasss yourself like this right now. Eventually, you're able to swallow it down and stand upright again, though you're careful not to look anywhere near the unidentified woman's face. Julienn's father didn't seem to have any trouble talking to her earlier, you think, so this reaction is unique to you, though you have precisely no idea why. In fact, you don't even know who this woman is... although, the way that the older man seems to stand a little away from her, head tilted in respect, has you beginning to try put the answer together even as she opens her mouth to speak.

"Well, unfortunately timed nosebleeds aside, I'm of course honored to finally meet the representative of the Atlas Institute that's got everyone so excited. It's certainly been a long time since a member of your organization has deigned to take up a dignitary position at the Clock Tower."

Even if you are a homunculus, she doesn't say. Her voice is soft, formal, only a little above a whisper, and there's an imperceptible quality to it you can't quite pin down-- you're not sure if she's mocking you, or if she's genuine in her appreciation for your new position. Not that you chose it willingly.

"Ah, but where are my manners? As amusing as it must be to my colleagues, we can't be expecting you to be familiar with all the ins and outs of our little system here in London. Ahem. Lord Ysaos Sycorax Archelot, at your service. Please, if the Department of Botany is able to offer you any support in making you stay here a pleasant and productive one, do not hesitate to ask me or a member of my faculty. I'm sure Rufus here would be happy to help, wouldn't you, Rufus?"

--Ah. Well. That certainly explains why almost everyone in the room is focusing their attention on your interaction, all pretences of pretending they're not doing so discarded the moment your nose started bleeding. YOu try not to look at them, though you quickly realise that doesn't leave much in the room for your eyes to settle on. Thankfully, the Lord's voice gives you diirection, and you find yourself watching as the man you identified before as Julienn's father looks up suddenly, as if he didn't expect to be brought into this conversation. He coughs once to clear his throat, then looks you in the eyes. His gaze is a colder one than his son's, sizing you up in a way that reminds you uncomfortably of a scorpion raising its tail in self-defence, but at least he doesn't make you feel like the contents of your skull are about to start leaking out of your ears.

"Of course, Lord Archelot. That was precisely why I invited miss Rani here today, after all. The Fallenflue family is proud to extend the olive branch of friendship to the Atlas Institute, even if others might shy away from our brothers and sisters across the world."

He doesn't care, of course. If his Lord wasn't here, you have no doubt he'd be turning your attendance into a publicity stunt, using you as a tool just like your creators did. He's still doing that now, really. You don't blame him, of course. That's simply the way of things here. He holds no love for Atlas-- no magus of the Clock Tower does, a inherent predisposition to xenophobia mixing with a fiercely competitive sense of rivalry to create the hint of antipathy you see so often in the faces of the Magi of the Clock Tower. Ah, here's one of Atlas' toys, they think. So they've finally decided to share. Ysaos hides it beneath the quiet tenor of her voice, but you've no doubt that she's disappointed in the quality of the piece that Atlas decided to play against her-- not even a true member, not even a real human. A failure. Your presence is a insult.

"Now, I'm afraid that Rufus and I have a few more topics to discuss before we can enjoy young Julienn's party as well, but please don't let us keep you. I'm sure your new friend is waiting for you. Ah, but have no fear-- I'm sure we'll speak again before the day is over, miss Rani."

Her voice lingers on those last words a little too long, her tongue tasting your name with something caught between relish and disgust, but before you can think more about it, she turns back to Rufus, and you're forced to blink hard to avoid seeing her face again-- and by the time your eyes open, the two of them are lost in their conversation again. You could try to eavesdrop, you suppose, but that's probably something of a political faux pas when it comes to your hosts, and if you're being honest, you're not sure you really want to know. As long as they're not talking about you, you're happy.

--Idly, you wonder; how did she know about Bahre?

[Compendium Updated: Ysaos Sycorax Archelot]

[YoungMeme]

1.9: Ghosts Under the Deep Salt Sea//Pilot Fish

You half-stumble down the stairs back towards the milling crowd, a buzzing sort of anxiety chewing through your skull into your brain now that the adrenaline of the moment has burnt itself out of you, leaving only a stark sensation of absence, and the throbbing pain of the burst blood vessels somewhere in your naval cavity. At least, you hope it's just your nose. The grim threat of massive, irreversible brain damage is an uncomfortably real sword hanging over your head, made even worse with your partitions running autonomously, your nervous system losing control of your mind entirely. It's the fate of all computers, after all-- obsolete hardware always destroys itself eventually, if you're not willing to let go of it. If you were thinking straight, you'd probably feel bad for disappearing so quickly after just barely speaking with the host, but you're not thinking straight, the taste of copper is thick on your tongue and right now the only thing you're thinking of is finding an acceptable receptacle for you to void the contents of your stomach in. It's almost funny, how welcoming the crowd feels, after how overwhelming it was only a little while ago-- the comforting, nihilistic blanket of anonymity feels like a blessing after the hideous ordeal of being made into an 'event', a thing for people to stare at and whisper.

The dripping blood is certainly a head-turner, of course, but thankfully the selfishness of the average magus works to your advantage here, most of the partygoers more interested in keeping the crimson off their shoes than helping you out, especially when your eyes meet those of the tiny handful that do try to help. You couldn't say what it is exactly, but something in your unblinking gaze and bloodied face that makes them reconsider, quickly averting their eyes, finding something else to do, anything suddenly better than rendering you any kind of aid-- or interacting with you at all, really. You're not complaining.

Eventually, you find your coffin, the edifice in which you'll profess your sins-- that is, the plant pot you're currently vomiting into. Of course, given this manor belongs to a family dedicated to Botany, you're almost certainly committing the gravest of social faux pas by convulsively coughing up bile into the loamy soil in which some kind of unidentifiable golden flower is growing-- though, given the degree to which you're altering the acidity of said soil with your expulsions, you doubt it's going to grow much longer. Sure enough, there's flecks of bright, alarming scarlet in the mix, and even as you're retching your overtaxed brain is picking at itself, trying to understand what exactly has just happened to you. It isn't as if you have any particular connection to Archelot-- it isn't as if you have any particular connection to anyone, really, let alone Clock Tower nobility. It's-- maybe it's the nausea, the splitting headache, but nothing is coming to you right this second. An issue to consider when you're not bent over a plant pot worth more than your home, killing a plant that probably doesn't exist anymore.

Suddenly, there's a hand on your back, and you whirl around, panic filling your lungs, accidentally swallowing the last shudder of vomit in your haste and immediately blunting whatever abortive attempt you would've made to defend yourself. You double over coughing, and you're met with familiar shoes-- not the Lord's thankfully. Bahre's voice is... well, you think there's some pity there, but she is also obviously finding your distress more than a little funny. Fair enough, you suppose. You're keenly aware of how ridiculous you look right now-- that's why you snuck into a sparsely populated side corridor, so you could lose your lunch in peace. Not that you've eaten lunch, or anything since the plain toast you broke your fast with. You should probably change that some point.

"Damn, girl. You really look like shit. Or, well, maybe it's not too bad. You look like you're used to throwing up."

What the fuck does that even mean, you want to ask her, but the burn of the stomach acid is still arresting your throat, the coughing bad enough it takes a few moments more before you're able to stand up at full height and respond to her.

"I-I guess you could say that?"

"You've got a fucked up kind of elegance about it. You didn't get any on your shirt or anything. Hey, turn your head up for a second."

Of course you didn't-- you really don't have enough clothes in the rotation of your daily outfits to risk sullying one with anything at all, never mind vomit. You still need to wear this for at least two more days before you can justify using a laundromat to yourself. You only have a few clothes, so if you don't make them last then you'll be burning half your stipend on the laundry costs alone, not to mention how much you hate actually sitting there, watching your clothes spin endlessly in the soapy water with nothing but a vague sense of ennui for company. Your little mental tangent in abruptly interrupted as your new friend's hands suddenly reach out to grasp your chin, making your whole body freeze up in some malformed panic reaction that almost has you hammering the metaphorical self-destruct button lodged somewhere in your heart, the part of you that will turn this city into a star for just a moment. It's terrifying, how easily your body starts to squeeze that particular trigger in response to something as simple as human contact, and yet it does, the klaxons of fear not stopping even as she delicately turns your head up, peering up into your nose. It's a hideously intimate thing to do for someone you just met, and you hate it, and yet you're not even sure you want her to let go. Is this how starved you are for human contact?

"Sorry, you were takin' too long." She murmurs, without even a hint of regret. She's grinning from ear to ear, in fact.

The blood on your face isn't dry yet, her fingers coming away stained red, and somehow it's that sight that stills the thumping in your chest, a strange sort of concern settling in you. If touching is inappropriate, smearing your bodily fluids over someone's hands is infinitely worse-- she initiated it, of course, but you can't help but feel a little guilty despite yourself, self-flagellation rising as easily in your throat as the bile did. It's also incredibly dangerous, not that you really care. There's all kinds of magecraft that can be wrought with nothing more than a drop of the victim's blood, from witchcraft and all manners of curses to esoteric thaumaturgy from distant stores. Theoretically, your blood is not your own. Your body, your life, it all belongs to the Atlas Institute, to your maker, and you should be doing everything in your power to preserve it. In practice, you don't think you'd really care if she did curse you. You'd hope it was a quick way of killing you, but curses rarely are. Cursemakers fight wars of attrition, a little more misfortune at a time, over and over until it becomes a cataclysm, something beyond even their power to stop. Bahre doesn't feel like the type, somehow.

If she wanted to kill you, she'd do it with her own two hands. Violence is a language beyond magic, a lovers' shorthand.

She lets go, carelessly wiping the blood off on a handkerchief she produces from another of the pockets hidden carefully throughout her dress, all covered in intricate patterns of black and gold, soon smeared over by the red. You want to tell her to not do that again, to get her to take her out fo this place, something to hang on to in the strange atmosphere the impromptu contact has left behind. Instead, you mouth wordlessly for a few moments, and she seems to pick up on your difficulty with kickstarting this sort of conversation. For a second, you can tell she's thinking about hanging you out to dry, before her grin softens a little and she relents.

"Looks like the bleeding's stopped, at least. You gotta be careful, in a place like this. Blood from a top-of-the-line Atlas Homunculus? The freaks here'll be trying to grow you on trees if you let them get a drop of you."

Top of the line. You were that, once. You weren't there for long, and you're not sure you ever felt like it, but it's a bitter thing to hear now. You are a creature of regrets, and you'd be lying if you said you enjoyed her poking this paritcular one.

"Can't help it. Don't even know why it happened." You mutter, your voice still a little thick with congestion, the unpleasant coppery taste still hanging around in the back of your throat like an unwanted houseguest.

"Eh, probably some fucked up ward Archelot has that doesn't play well with whatever hardware you've got in there. Saw a kid activate a Mystic Code from home and pop the heads off another kid's familiars once, some kind of feedback loop. Be glad it wasn't that bad, I guess."

She shrugs, as if that's the end of it. Maybe it is. If you had it your way, you'd certainly prefer to never talk to Ysaos Sycorax Archelot again in your life if you can help it. You don't need your errant partitions to tell you that probably won't be the case, though.

Author's NoteWhew, what an awful couple of months. Hopefully we're back for good now.

[Kamera]

Welcome back. Looking forward for more Bahre contents.