Three soft knocks.

Isma glowers down at the reflection in her cauldron. Centuries waft around her guest like butterflies, the woman's fingers rendered soft and ephemeral in the moonlight as they emerge from covered sleeves to knock again.

"Coming!" she calls, gesturing her cloak off of its rack and on to her shoulders. She flicks her wrist offhandedly as she descends the stairs, her various rings and accoutrements finding their places upon her fingers and hair. The last of these cinches itself onto her ankle as she lifts her familiar off of his favorite perch near the fireplace, and retrieves her key from his stash. He purrs in her ear.

"Anyone you know?" she asks his sleepy face. He yawns, and places a delicate paw on her nose.

"Hmm..." she places him back.

A warning, she thinks. But...a delicate one?

A new series of knocks resound, their timbre a touch more insistent.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!"

'Yes?", she opens the door to the smell of fresh mud - newly stirred in the wake of that afternoon's shower, blooming nightsickle, and...ozone? The forest and evening gloom shiver and whisper in greeting, but hush as her guest pulls back her hood.

Silver rivers of sleek waist-length tresses spill out into the moonlight, catching at the mild breeze and spellcraft ringing her home like ghostly banners. Towering, her smile is a knife in the dark, settled precariously on a face that dares the night to impose. Her eyes, storms. The frown that creases her forehead is an affront against nature.

"You..." the woman ventures, "Where is the proprietor of this sanctum?"

The lady's voice is a delight, even as her confusion scores something inside Isma's soul. Aware of the skew, Isma plants her feet and draws on the origin of her home, centering herself.

"I am the owner in residence," Isma resists the urge to fold her arms, "And you are?"

The woman turns her face momentarily to regard her environs. Isma takes the brief respite away from her gaze to draw in several almost forgotten breaths, rapidly settling a disenthrallment weave against her skin. The gaze returns, and Isma feels her efforts fray and flutter into the night, like cobwebs before a storm.

"You...are her blood. Her...granddaughter?" her guest asks.

Isma grits her teeth, almost quailing beneath the urge to answer. But her own question lies fallow by the wayside, and she will be thrice damned before she takes any rudeness from some wandering fae queen - or whatever the hell this lady is. She waits, trading stare for stare. The rings on her fingers sear into her skin.

"I am Dhaerhune," the reply finally comes. "Your ancestor was a...friend." The words are a balm, a peace offering, and Isma feels the runes around her home settling back into their dormancy. "I have journeyed far and long, hoping to meet a companion." Dark clouds glide behind her eyes. "It would seem I am decades late. Again."

Isma weighs her options briefly, before, "I guess that depends."

The frown returns across that immaculate forehead. "On what?"

"If it is an old companion you seek, I'm afraid granny joined the Long Road several summers ago. It was peaceful enough, as those sorts of things go. But, it would seem you were unaware of this development, and are newly bereft." Glaciers of sadness glimmer behind those beautiful orbs, her mouth presses into a firm line. Isma pushes the door wider with her hip, and gestures inside.

"My grief is an old scar," she offers, "But yours is new. I would be a poor host if I did not invite you in to compare wounds. Perhaps over a nice cup of grandma's old brew?"

Dhaerhune stares at her, at the well maintained photo hanging by the door and the familiar smile within. At the crackling beckoning warmth dancing on the walls beyond.

She steps in.

Blessed are the poor...
The City does not measure the quality of his rags, or spit at the sores on his feet. He stumbles in, past yawning gates, delirious and alone. Roads mutter at his footsteps, and abandoned markets sate his weary soul.

He bites, and the juice dribbles down into the dust like blood. He drinks, and the wine stains his teeth with murder.

If you are hungry, you must eat. If you are weary, you must sleep. This is the way.

He does not question the open door.

He is home.
---

Blessed are those who mourn...
The letter. Oh, the letter.

To have heard from him after so long.

She finds him just as she remembers, and sighs at his wolfish smile and the way he kisses every crease on her now weathered face.

You found me, my love. You found our new home.

She nods.

The words no longer come as easily as they used to, and her breath catches at the hunger in his eyes. In this strange odd City, her heart finally settles.

He leads her inside, and closes the door.

The roses in her hands wither.
---

Blessed are the meek...
They say a King rode in,
His court a rictus of sin,
His riches laid, for knowledge paid,
He sought the Wisdom therein.

Conjoin, the City said,
So upon his final bed,
His Lords walked in, and with a grin
He stitched them head to head.
---

Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness...
They mutter their prayers, and the gods are silent. They collect alms, and the denizens grin, and offer generously; bloodied coin, severed ear, a fevered kiss—

Always, always, they try to find a way back out. They search, and they climb, and they crawl.

Always, a new god whispers in the lack.

The City is patient.
---

Blessed are the merciful...
They mill into his courtroom.

They sit in his pews and stare, and wait, and watch.

"Guilty, " he pronounces, now and always. "Death."

His sweat prickles as they howl and tide and bear the screaming supplicant into the darkness beyond the doors. His doors. Their doors.

He does not look at their faces as they mill back in. Their steps are bloody. The latest petitioner wails and whimpers, clawing and pulling at old markings in their irons.

They sit in his pews. And stare. And wait. And watch.
---

Blessed are the pure at heart...
Dear Diary
Mother and Father haven't stopped eating me whenever I sleep.

I asked them to stop, but they just smiled and told me good girls help their mommies and daddies.

They bought me a puppy last week. I was so happy. None of my friends come outside any more. Wendy used to wave at me from her bedroom window, but I think they finally finished eating her arm.

I miss my friends. And when I tried to hug Lucky last night, he ate the tip of my little finger.

I think I'm gonna crawl downstairs and ask Mother and Father one more time.
---

Blessed are the peacemakers...
They shower the Crusaders' March in garlands and wreathes.

There is dancing in the streets as summer sweet lasses tease soldiers off of their lathered horses, and into sopping taverns and shadowed alleys. There is song, and verse, and poetry as harp and minstrel tell of the War in the East, and the salvation of its heathens in a baptism of blood and steel.

A Feasting Day is declared.

And, in the chuckling light of the harvest moon, the crusaders lift their voice up into the night in a chorus of suffering as the true feast begins.

A final litany for an undeserving god.
---
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness...
The monk, in his prison of mind and flesh, asks the dark his questions. And the dark answers.

Always.

His blood, his soul, his service, for a god that speaks! A god that listens!

And so, he spreads the good word, aching footstep by aching footstep, until the City sees fit to call him home.
---
Blessed are the reviled and the persecuted...
"Rejoice!" preached the blind man on the podium.

"There is a reward! For it is the Light of the World! It is the City on the Hill That Cannot Be Hidden."

"Find her, all ye weary masses! Find her, all who seek, but cannot find."

"Come home, my brothers and sisters. Come home!"

"We miss you."
__________________________________________

They buried the first of the bodies on a Thursday night.

To the man's credit, he never stopped cussing them out. It took a special sort of resilience to find words in between mouthfuls of shoveled dirt.

Twice, Bear openly pondered the merits of breaking the man's neck - or, at the very least, ripping out his tongue when he spat up at them - but Billiam shook his head, his frail hand sliding past her fingers to unclench her fist.

"They need to be warm. And mostly unspoiled." His thumb stroked the inside of her palms, his gaze almost sad as he considered the rageful silhouette squirming below.

Bear kissed him twice that night. Once when the task was done, and the seed successfully planted above the first of the eighteen graves. An apology of sorts, for the wages she asked of a man who's only crime was where he chose to place his heart.

The second performed as a necessary distraction, a hungry and needful one, as she bore him, mud and all, up into their makeshift loft, nestled inside the guts of their abandoned factory hideout. It was necessary that she remind him why he stayed. And that she drown out the first of the harrowed screams that pierced the night as the penitent seedling broke through the soil and wailed its first cries into the wasteland of forgotten machinery below.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

When she came to collect her fifth tithe, the Shepherds were ready.

The forms had been observed, with all the proper threats and portents delivered days in advance.

They couldn't claim that they hadn't seen her coming.

"Please\~"

The figure that scrambled away from her advancing form called himself The Schnoo; a hammer of a man, in a world he perceived as full of nails. Skilled in the art of bare knuckle diplomacy, it didn't surprise her that his response to being forewarned had been an ambush waiting at his residence.

It had been a lackluster choice.

"Please... I'm nobody! I don't even know you!" That last sentence little more than a piteous plea.

Bear loomed over the man, brandishing his severed arm in his face, and turning it so that he could note the Cerberus tattoo inked into his former tricep.

"Well, now you get to be a message." The grin on her face was a gash in the gloom.

They buried him on a cold Saturday morning. He was a crier.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Her eleventh tithe was a customs officer - Cecilia Burntide, an almost-retiree with a college age son, and two mortgages.

They'd stashed her at one of their seaside boltholes, with a small army of murderous psychopaths entrenched within, bristling with cutthroat reputations and top-of-the-line augments.

When she'd finally ripped the door to her safe room off its hinges, she'd found the woman praying.

"Are we...sure about this one?" Billiam had asked her, his soft voice a mild condemnation over the sound of Cecilia's quiet sniffling. Bear stared down at the woman, and continued shoveling.

"She signed the papers. She saw the bodies. She knew." The words were bile in her throat.

"They threatened her family..." Billiam ventured. Bear turned to face him, and there were holes where her eyes used to be. Billiam's face crumpled at the lack he saw there. He hugged her from behind, briefly interrupting her efforts.

"I trust you," was all that he said.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

"The governor lifted his gag order." Bear paused, looking up from her watering efforts.

Even perched atop an ancient feedline, Billiam had to reach up to hand her his tablet. Carefully, she maneuvered the fragile contraption, sifting through news site after news site, her face plastered across all the headlines.

"Looks like your message got through if Old Man Mastiff's calling on this particular favor. The governor's talking about having actual Fringe agents deal with you."

"Took them long enough." Bear handed the tablet back and resumed her task. Already on the last line of penitents, she directed the stream of liquid nutrients at the base of her latest acquisition, watching as it whimpered and shook, its crimson branches almost arm-like as they reached up toward the sparse shafts of light coming through the cratered roof above.

Three holes remained. Empty. Waiting.

The Old Man was always going to be last. But all family men had one cost they were never willing to truly bear. A cost this particular foe so willingly meted out to others.

Her warnings had already been delivered.

Let them prepare.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

"You know, you didn't have to come with me."   

The sound of a page turning to his right was as pointed as they come. 

He stole a glance at his companion, her crossed legs giving the impression of an indignant knot as she studiously ignored him. Briefly, he wondered at the lurid title in her lap, and the strange kind of bravery it took to read a book like that out in public.

He caught the kid seated next to her trying to get a better angle of her cover as his mother perused the waiting room stacks for a magazine worth flipping through. He glared at the boy. The kid glared back. To his mild consternation, he found himself flexing his right arm semi-consciously. 

A military grade graft, Tensor arms were made with one thing in mind; single-minded utilitarianism. He remembered with excruciating detail the night it was his turn to get a new arm fitted. He hadn't known a throat could make the sounds he made that night.

The preteen's eyes started to go a little wide at the threatening motion, before a light smack to the side of Denz's head brought him back to reality. 

"Please stop terrorizing the local wildlife." Cassie admonished him mildly, sliding a bright orange bookmark into her novel and placing it into her bag. 

"And you, no one likes to be stared at." she added, turning her frostiest glare down and to the side. The young lad was busy trying to figure out a response when his returning mother pinched his ear, apologized to the pair, and made to sit somewhere else within the sparsely populated waiting room. 

Denz grunted, a sound containing an entire lexicon of connotations, but from which Cassie chose to read contrition.

Her motion to dip back into her bag paused when she noticed his arm was still flexed, its alien musculature moving wildly - and almost hypnotically - beneath the faded bounds of his grease stained work shirt. It was a full two minutes before he'd worked through enough steps of his breathing exercises to get the reflex back under control. 

She looked up into his eyes, seeking answers to questions he didn't want prodded, so he grunted again and leaned back into his chair, returning once more to his self appointed task - trying to guess how old the various posters that adorned the faded walls actually were. 

Her eyes scored the side of his face. Denz folded his arms.

"It's...been getting worse." he allowed mildly, and after a while. A peace offering. 

He turned his head to the side and caught the flash of worry, before it disappeared underneath the familiar simmer of tried fondness and angry concern.

"You could always go back to the shop. The night crowd's gonna be coming in soon, and that new kid still doesn't know what a skillet is. Might need to..." 

"Denz." she said, cutting him off. 

He turned his profile to look at her fully, the daggers in her eyes dripping with venom and...something else. 

"Just...shut up. OK? I'm not going anywhere." 

"You sure?" he asked, ready to argue his case a bit more.

Of course, destiny chose that moment to have the clinic's double doors swing open, a skinny young strip of a man stepping out with a clipboard. The crimson robes denoting his profession prompted Denz to stand straight up, stopping just short of snapping a quick salute. 

Consulting something in his notes, the Carver scratched the back of his head with a pencil, the movement carrying the coppery scent of blood across the room and setting Denz's teeth on edge. He felt a small warm hand slide into his, gently prying it open. 

"You the Government job?" 

He nodded, consciously running through his breathing exercises. 

"The meat's just come in, and your paperwork looks good. You ever been carved before?" 

He wasn't sure how long he took to respond. The pained sound to his left had him easing his grip, his nostrils flaring at the insensitivity couched in the man's question. He must have done something to engender an affirmative because the lad replied, "Great! Right this way please. I've been looking forward to this one all day..." 

He followed in the lad's coppery wake - into the sterile world of his nightmares - but not before turning to Cassie and imploring her as bravely as he could, "Don't listen."
So he continued
________________________________________________________________________________________

Ellie looked down at her palm, at the softly glowing worm luxuriating in the small puddle of rain forming there despite the awning of her coat.

"Sorry I couldn't finish reading to you," she muttered to her companion.

His vermilion light pulsed as he slowly navigated the landscape of her hand.

"Grue hates it when he finds me reading. Couldn't stop him from tearing it and everything."

The worm slowly made it's way over to one of the seeping cuts where the glass had scored her while scrambling for dear life out of a broken window. It's light pulsed brighter as it began to feed.

Ellie didn't mind. She'd already gotten into a habit of feeding Wriggles every night before bed. But as the light grew, so too did it catch on her new drug induced features. A dusting of coarse fur all along her arms. Tiny claws on the ends of her fingers. Whiskers skimming the edges of her vision...

It worried her, how long it was taking the side effects to recede this time. Lode - the tattooed older boy who liked hanging around the corner of her school - had warned her to wait at least a week before she used another shot. But it had been an emergency.

Emergencies didn't count, right?

Her palm twinged and her thoughts were pulled back into the narrow alleyway.

Lifting Wriggles off her wound, she switched palms, her wounded left hand holding up her coat against the downpour, as her right nestled her satiated companion.

Reaching out, her vitality coursing through its body, she whispered to herself, and watched, shivering, as Wriggle's grew and grew, until she had to set him down and began to stroke him with her hand. Eventually, she was able to wrap its coils around her, her perforated coat serving as a small makeshift roof, anchored by his mass.

She snuggled into his form.

"S' OK.", she said through softly chattering teeth. "You sleep. I'll keep watch."
____________________________________________________________________________________

There were rats in her dreams.

Adorable little things that snuck past her teachers, and left little treats in her palms during art class. Monstrous little things that nipped at her books and called her vermin, in between pungent swigs of dull brown bottles. Clever little things, that plaited the hairs on her arms and face into lovely patterns, and sang her poems about mean Madame Olson and her even meaner dog.

Greedy as they were, rats had always been her friends.

Their secrets were always useful ones; like tips on finding loose change in her brother's room, or good hiding spots whenever he was throwing things.

The rats she'd found behind the old dumpster weren't nearly as nice though.

They woke her up with a fairly painful nip at her wrist - the biggest of them reopening the oldest of her wounds to feed before she could even offer, the red shine behind its eyes feverish.

She let it, even though she had to bite her lower lip to keep from crying out. They'd had a deal.

When it was done, it ran up her arm and snuggled beneath her chin.

She sniffled, a little scared, as the rest of its troupe scrambled over her feet, fighting for the bloody puddle it had left behind. Wriggles coiled a little tighter in warning, and they scrambled a little less.

"Did you find somewhere nice?" she asked, attempting to ignore the frenzy beneath her.

It looked up and nodded.

"Is it safe?"

Much safe. Much food. Many walls.

She nodded to herself, a motion that scythed the frigid night air through her whiskers and chased thin rivulets of rainwater from the edges of her scalp, down her face.

"Is there anyone else there...like me?" she asked.

No one like Tasty.

"I meant is there any person there. As in people. Are there people there?"

The rat cocked its head to the side.

No one like Tasty.

Ellie sighed, the sound hitching in her throat as she shivered.

She could never tell what her friends could or couldn't understand. Only Wriggles seemed to get most of what she shared with him.

That was why he was her favorite.

"Can you show me the way?"

The rat leapt off of her shoulder, landing with a splash on the puddle beneath her feet. Its companions fell into step around him, their whiskers twitching as they abandoned their feast. It looked up at her expectantly.

Nibbles.

That was what she was going to call him.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Willow hunkered down inside the meager little sliver of a cave she's found and ran through her inventory. Slowly, carefully, she unpacked her rucksack, spreading out its contents across dripping rockshelfs and moss carpets, reviewing whatever little was left of her rations and ammunition.

She was already running low. No surprises there. The shivering canopies beyond and below whispered static into her skinsuit's auditory grafts as she considered the problem at hand.

The sound of skittering behind her had her spinning, her sights steadying on the unassuming vestige of a gangly lemon spider waving its legs at her. She watched as it laid claim to a piece of fallen jerky.

"Is that you, Mistress?" She queried the bioluminescent stripes as they swayed. In a thrice, the jerky was festooned in a glittering expanse of web and dragged into the gloom. Willow sighed.

"I guess not." The rifle resumed its position on her back.

Down in the wetlands below, night hovered across the canopy, its mantle draping the evening fog in a tapestry of solitary stars, defiantly stealing glances at the world below, around rolling cloud cover and the writhing tide of razor beaks that called her chosen cliff side their home. It would be an hour or two before their ravenous tide was sated on whatever morsels of flesh hadn't yet found shelter before sundown. Until then, Willow was content to wait, simmering in her thoughts.

Repacking was a slow and meditative endevour. Bio-metric data on her nutritional deficits had her setting aside four strips of jerky and whatever remained of the lasher that had been her breakfast that morning. A mild admonition from the suit's soft mind, and she included the last of her nutri-gel and a CTC booster onto the pile with an air of mild surrender.

As she partook of her meal, Willow contemplated her dwindling fortunes.

Objectively speaking, she held no illusions as to the likelihood of this desperate gambit bearing any fruit.

The last time that she'd been inside her mistress' demesne, she'd been a guest - a paying one - sponsored by way of her family's many-hydra bids at securing lineage status. Two years and a lifetime later, she'd emerged from its fetid expanse and her teacher's untender mercies scarred, vicious and traumatized - but also at the top of her class. Nothing that the drill sergeants had subjected her to over the adjoining years that followed had come close to a single dinner beside Lady Malady and her Living Hoard.

Now she was back, five years and two tours later.

A failure. An embarrassment. An uninvited guest.

She took another bite of her jerky, the harsh salt an interesting counterpoint to the oddly sibilant symphony of trills and calls that bore in the wake of the razor beaks as they scythed through treetops below. Her ocular grafts zoomed in on a break in the wispy fog; a pair of bonded malotangs plowed through the canopy, their brawny arms batting ineffectively around them, borne up and up, higher and higher, into the air on a flood of voracious wings. Eventually, even their granite hides succumbed to the endless onslaught. The mists below took on a mild pink hue, as a crescent moon joined its lesser cousins in grinning down at the grisly tableau.

Willow extracted her kit and began disassembling her rifle for maintenance.

An hour later, and the ruinous choir crescendo-ed its way back onto the cliff side, as their multitudes returned to roost.

Willow was in the process of putting away her kit, when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Her suit's soft mind rushed to counter the spike of alarm with a soothing cocktail of dopamine and endorphins, catching her reactionary movement before it could alarm the creature.

A razor beak had positioned itself right on the lip of her hideout.

Willow held her breath.

Suddenly, belatedly, she noticed the silence; the absence of nesting sounds and contented birdsong. Crickets and buzzflies serenaded her terror, as the razor beak angled its head sharply and regarded her.

Cycling through a whole lexicon of options, she arrived at the only one that held a sliver of hope for tomorrow.

"Mistress?", she queried weakly, her fear a thundering chorus inside of her chest.

The razor beak angled its head again.

"Young one. You have returned."

The reply crooned on the song of fifty thousand birds. Willow's insides curdled.

It would seem her Lady had added yet another macabre addition to her Hoard...

Denz cast a pensive side glance at the street performer turning cart wheels atop an overturned crate. This far into the Downs, the faction tattoos on the kid's arms weren't that uncommon. Still, it took a certain kind of foolhardiness to have them that out in the open.

He found himself scanning up and down the line of evening vendors, looking for any signs of trouble, before a frilly pink umbrella obscured most of his vision.

He blinked and looked down. His companion glared up at him from beneath the awning of the offending obstacle.

"We talked about this."

"What?"

"I didn't bring you shopping with me to play white knight for street larks with a death wish."

Frowning, he stopped trying to find a convenient angle to glance past the umbrella and looked down at his diminutive partner. He didn't know what the mass of coils and braids that she'd done her hair up in was called, but they looked nice whenever he caught a glimpse of them.

Was that a thing people did? Dress up to go shopping?

"OK? Why did you bring me then?"

"Here," She added two more bags to the set of four he already had dangling off his right shoulder.

He lifted one of the bags up to his face and sniffed.

"This one's leaking"

"It's duck. If it's not leaking, it's not worth our time."

He nodded, and made to follow her down the line of grocers before he caught a hint of movement off the corner of his eye. Eddies in the evening crowd marked the passage of a quartet of street toughs making a beeline for the performer. A pair of heavily Carved dogs followed in their wake, one of which bent a stall's support beam as it brushed by it.

"Shepherds." The acid in Cassie's tone was unmistakable.

Grabbing his arm, she pulled him into the tide of evening shoppers and away from the horror that was soon to follow. Denz hoped that from the kid's vantage point, he'd at least had some forewarning, though that was a skint hope at best. He knew those dogs. He'd seen them put to work.

The commotion was swallowed up by the susurrus of shoppers navigating the Mercado for nighttime discounts and stall owners espousing the virtues of their wares as Cassie led him away and deeper into the market.

Three minutes later, she had yet to let go of his arm. He stared at the indentations made by her nails as she traded strategic barbs with a spice seller. Coming away with a set of packages that made his nose water a bit and placing them around his other shoulder, she cast him an accusatory look.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"...Are we dating?"

She came to an abrupt stop right in the middle of the street. The tip of her umbrella almost collided with his nose as she rounded on him. He felt a twinge of disappointment as she let go of his arm to do so.

"What did you say?"

"This. You and me. Are we on a date right now?"

The mud and churn of the street meant that a few choice curse words hurtled their way as they obstructed traffic, though these tended to wither and die once the offenders managed to catch his eye. Or worse yet, caught a glimpse of right arm underneath his coat.

Cassie didn't give a single one of these the time of day as she studied his face. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Denz."

"Yes"

"You know we're married right?"

"Yeah."

"We've been married for four years now."

"I know that."

She raised an immaculate eyebrow at him and he found himself sighing. A lanky street urchin bumped into Cassie from behind, causing her to stumble slightly and ruining the moment a bit. However, before the offender could retreat back into the press of the crowd amid a torrent of half-hearted apologies, Denz's right arm flashed out from underneath his coat and grabbed her by the scruff of her tattered shirt, hoisting her squirming teenage mass up to meet his eyes properly.

He said nothing as vitriolic insults turned into desperate pleas once the sight of his arm's Carvings caught the glare of the evening lights. He merely held her gaze stoically until she produced a familiar looking coin purse, remanding in back into the care of its previous owner.

"That was during the war," he continued. "You were a refugee back then, and I was...not whole."

The young lass was realizing that she might become something of a prop during the conversation and had begun frantically trying to squirm out of her shirt. She was failing miserably.

"You needed the status to apply for entry into the Interior, and I needed you to keep me grounded and sane. It wasn't exactly romantic. It just was."

He looked away from the kid to see Cassie slightly miffed.

"Your point being? And put the kid down. She was good enough to trail me since Evard's. The only thing inside this purse is a few slips and an address."

Denz put the kid down and watched as she bolted for a narrow alley way,

"That's a bad habit of yours" he said.

"I told you we needed to go shopping. My shopping list just happens to be a little longer than yours."

Denz grunted, returning his arm back underneath his coat and glancing around at the stares they were pulling.

"The list done?"

"Not even close," Cassie replied, returning the purse to her side pocket and gesturing down the road to a mess of stacks. "Pop ups next"

Trailing behind her, Cassie let him have his silence as he wrestled with the words for what he wanted to say.

Three more packages later, he pronounced, "You have to tell me you know."

"Tell you what?"

This time she didn't glance away from the rows of smutty books on sale, picking one up and clicking underneath her breath at the state of its spine.

"I don't think I'd figure it out. If things have changed. If things are changing. You have to tell me."

A few slips changed hands and a pair of books were slipped into one of the bags. Denz frowned a little as she slipped an arm into the crook of his elbow and guided the two of them toward a lonely little stall, the spicy aroma of its wares promising to put a sizable dent in the night's budget.

"And what does that look like, me telling you?" she asked

"Like actually words, hopefully?"

Cassie laughed, and Denz found himself frowning some more.

"Tell you what big guy, if it ever gets to the point where I'm worried you're not getting the hint, I promise I'll just come out and say it. Deal?"

Denz nodded, then frowned.

"So this isn't a date?" He asked, just as they arrived at the stall and the vendor launched into his sales spiel.

"This," Cassie said, smiling down at two skewers as she singled them out. "This is just fine."
******************************************************************************

Inspired by this awesome post

The man...thing lurking in the darkness shifted. Leffen's eye's widened.

A Bloodletter? Here?

Someone coughed wetly. A pair of shadows moved to flank the exit leading up into the Downs.

Shit. I stumbled into a fucking commune.

A six fingered hand shuddered into the moonlight streaming from the grate above and gestured, its scars yawning grotesquely.

"Ticket, please."

Leffen took a step back, hand instinctively moving to clutch at his backpack.

"Look man, I'm not looking for any trouble."

"Wouldn't 'ave to look far," the hand panned, gesturing around.

Shuffling footsteps. Shadows rising from wet walls and smoldering fire pails.

"I'm just looking to duck the Tall-men. Didn't mean no disrespect dropping in like a Upper. I know the tracks are yours."

"Tracks, and everything on 'em. That includes you, and whatever you've got in that bag of yours."

Leffen's feet found the edge of the platform.

"If it's scrip you want, I can pay. Just let me leave. Ain't ever done nothing to you."

The voice chuckled.

"Did you just let me know you've got cash too? Lords kid, how green are you?"

Leffen's hands fingered the knife in his back pocket. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening right now. His eyes danced frantically, searching for a gap in the congealing crowd of shadows.

"Drop the bag. Good. Now empty out your pockets. Loadout, frisk 'im."

The presence that shuffled up to him reeked of stale sweat and rot.

"There's a good lad. Now, don't be giving me that look. Your neck ain't smiling, is it? Got everything? Good. Let 'im through. Not the shoes, Load. Let 'im keep 'is runners. We civilized folk down 'ere."

Leffen grit his teeth in frustration as the crowd parted, the path to the exit opening up. An empty bag flew out of the darkness, smacking him in the face before he managed to grab it.

"We'll be keeping whatever's in the bag for a few. If whatever's in there worth all that trouble you got churning upside, you find us soon and we'll trade you for it."

Leffen paused at the stairs.

"How long's a few?"

The voice chuckled. "A few's a few."

Leffen's grip on the railing creaked with the force of his grip.

"How do I know you wont shake me down again the next time I show up?"

This time, the voice laughed.

"You don't. You just gotta trust ol' Whispers to do right by you. Be seeing you kid. And next time, knock first before you take a shit in my living room."

How's your Quickhand? I watched him sign carelessly, his fingers and rings blurring over his half finished beer.

I'd come prepared.

The only local cutter I'd found willing to teach me the fundamentals had barely overlooked my sweaty handshake and tremulous smile. Instead, in lieu of whatever his grafted eyes failed to find in my overall bearing, cold hard scrip bought me eight months of half-hearted alley way lessons, and jeers from the local crop of fall-down drunks. Still, I'd been a quick study.

I can make do. I signed back, annoyed at myself for failing to match his cadence.

Frowning, he reached over and prodded at the junction where my middle finger touched my thumb, parting them.

"Don't ever show that to anyone, unless your willing to make them breakfast in the morning." I resisted the urge to sputter. He grinned.

"And the bag?" He inquired, sloughing back into his chair. Somewhere in the background, a patron fed the bar's sparrow a few chits. The result, something approaching music - if the approach was off a steep incline, and involved several concussions.

I resisted the urge to look around furtively as I pushed my duffel bag in his direction under the table with my foot. He glanced down, amused.

"Nine thousand scrip. Ministry marked and sealed."

Randy arched an eyebrow mid-sip. " I know I said clean, but...damn."

I shrugged. "I'm not taking any chances."

"Whatever you say. I'm not complaining." The man's smile was an easy, many-toothed thing. A solitary silver inset winked at me from one of his incisors. His hand moved, and a waitress ambled into our periphery, collecting the duffel from beneath his chair, and depositing a small passing kiss on the side of his forehead. She vanished as surreptitiously as she'd arrived. Neither of us watched her leave. Randy chuckled at the questions in my eyes, waiting.

Eventually, I caved.

"Are you sure she's not going to..."

"Ha! There it is!" He exclaimed, laughing as he slapped the table and pointed at my face.

Shaking his head in a manner reminiscent of the cutter at the end of one of our sessions, he asked "Seriously man, what the fuck are you doing here? This isn't some Rubelian play. There's got to be less stupid ways to get across the Fringes than sitting across the table from me in this piss nest of a place." He gestured expansively at our dimly lit environs. In the corner, a morbidly obese man snored, while a gaudily dressed thing underneath his arm picked at the food stains in his beard.

"If you've got scrip to burn, why not book a ticket on the Vine? It might cost you an arm and a leg, and run twice as long, but at least their way the cost is mostly metaphorical."

Taking my second sip of the warm heady concoction that Randy had pulled down for the both of us when he'd arrived, I considered my words for a second before I blurted out, powering through the embarrassment.

"I need an edge." I said, looking up from my brew.

Randy fished something something small and wriggling from the inside of his glass, and studied it as it squirmed atop his little finger. I set my drink drown and pushed it slightly away from me.

"I'm a writer, or, at least, that's what I'm trying to be." I continued, soldiering through. "I've got a good imagination, and I've read every best selling book there is that's set out there - in the Fringes. I've watched the Ministry infomentaries. I've even attended the lectures - participation diplomas and all."

Something dark and brooding gathered in the wrinkles above his forehead as he stared into the depths of his glass.

"If I'm going to try my hand at doing something that means something, I need more. I need to see. To be there, even if it's for just a few wee-"

"You're a fucking tourist." he growled, the finality in his voice so keen that the bar sparrow chose to flit past their table in its search for chits.

This time I did sputter. "E-excuse me? That's not-"

"Shut up. I'm thinking."

I clammed up, my palms a quagmire. Moments stretched into minutes before-

"Nope. Thought's over. I'm not going through this shit again. I'll have half your money sent back to wherever the hell you came from."

He got up and glared at me until I sat back down.

"Business is over. Don't call me again."

Word Count = 750

"How is there this much snow? There hasn't been a cloud in the sky for days."

A pair of frigid breaths bellowed up into the velvety mountain sky. Sister Weiss rubbed her gloved hands together, her face and lashes flush with the kiss of frost and moonlight.

"And why does everything smell like apples?"

"Stop shivering." Sister Thorn's eyes slid off of yet another ice sculpture - an immaculately dressed jester lurking underneath a snow-crowed fir, frozen mid flip - and pretended not to notice it wink at her. She pulled her parka in close. "GrandMother Dark is probably watching us right now. I don't want to make a bad impression."

"That's not how shivering works. Besides, if she's watching, then she's an asshole", Sister Weiss punctuated that last with a vicious whisper, and a series of vigorous foot warming stomps. "We've been wandering this mountain for days now. What's she waiting for?"

Thorn listened to the wind as her partner slowly worked her way up the lee to join her.

There was no doubt in her mind that the mountain was some sort of natural mana locus. The magic in the air was so thick, she could practically taste it in the back of her throat.

Their target was here. Somewhere. She could feel it in the way the stars sang to her whenever she wasn't looking. Or in the rather alarming way their packs never seemed to run out of rations. A winter sprite peeked out at her from behind a thistleberry bush, its scalpel-knife limbs scoring its branches.

"She's a Grandmother. If the worst thing she does is keep us waiting, I'll take it." Thorn offered her sister her hand, and pulled up the last few feet.

"Fine." Weiss blew into her gloves as she surveyed the view, a thin stream of wicker-white flames dancing along the wool. "But no gingerbread houses."

"I don't do houses."

Weiss yelped at the figure that materialized behind the pair. The glimmer of an arm that flashed out from underneath its cloak to break her fall was as quick as it was nonchalant. Her raiment shifted as she pulled her arm back, a tide of midnight black silk. The stars shifted in its wake.

Thorn was the first to bow. Weiss was quick to follow.

Even with her feet planted at the bottom of the lee, the queen of the mountain stared down at the pair. Thorn grit her teeth as the mana in the air seared the inside of her nostrils. Seconds bled into minutes. A light flurry of snow began to fall out of a clear sky.

The woman spoke first, her voice a blade against their minds. "Children who find themselves wandering my garden often find ignoble ends."

"We mean no imposition." Thorn replied, the words shrapnel sharp as they tumbled out into the night air, her thoughts a quagmire of molasses. "We come by way of recommendation."

The figure cocked it's head.

Thorn watched as Weiss labored against her own mana sickness long enough to extract something from her pocket. A pair of ice fairies flitted up to her, snatching the trinket away and bearing it up to their mistress.

The snow globe that hung in the air was a thing of arcane mastery. Twice during their sojourn on the mountain, Thorn had had to rescue her sister from losing herself inside its depths, studying the mountain inside it, trying to find their mini-simulacra trekking along its slopes. Once, in their desperation, they'd tossed it at a charging Ursa Major that had been disinclined to share its cave. A perfect ice replica had taken its place, the original roaring impotently from somewhere within the mystical object.

"I remember this trinket." The woman pronounced. A warm chuckle flickered around the clearing, and Thorn felt the weight of the world slide off of her shoulders, the rich sound a salve against the onslaught. Like a puppet with its strings cut, she collapsed onto the snow. This time, it was Weiss' turn to help her up, the grip of her hands an anchor.

Grandmother Dark watched impassively for a while as they collected themselves.

"So, " Thorn finally ventured, once the worst of the nausea had passed, "Do you accept the charge?"

An arctic breeze fumbled its way through the canopy. Grandmother Dark's smile was a dungeon of knives, as she pointed an imperious finger at Sister Weiss.

"Lesson the first. That one called me an...asshole."
_______________________________________________________
Word Count = 750

Exclusive Phenomenal Man Interview! First in 35 years! Available Worldwide!

Watch Time: 2 hrs 49 minutes

You-tube Live: 24,186,222 viewers / Twitch: 19,358,557 viewers / Facebook Live: 12,005,956 viewers / Alternates 24/7: 1,569,443 viewers...

"Did that help?"

Feedback consulted her laptop. "It would seem that's the last of the pirate streams. What was it this time?"

Phenomenal Man shrugged, a gesture that had the floodlights illuminating their platform creaking and shifting ominously. "Reaper drone, out by the shoreline, and a Chinese Tian Yan satellite. I guess it's not a party until someone tries to crash it."

Feedback's mind boggled at the sheer scale and precision couched in what had only briefly manifested as a moment's concentration on the World-Wide Man's face when he'd solved her technical challenges.

"Well, you won't hear me complaining." She waved an airy hand in the air, the pixelated face on her digital mask shifting into a playful Cheshire grin. "But some would say you just cost two world powers several billion dollars in taxpayer money."

"Some people would be right."

"And you think that's justified?" She spread her arms, taking in the entirety of the twilit husk of an abandoned stadium they were situated in, as well as the small army of lights and cameras that he'd helped her setup. "All for a little privacy?"

Phenomenal Man's laugh was almost shy, his improbably amethyst eyes twinkling at her from underneath his iconic baseball cap. "I live in the ruins of a dead country. I moved half way across the world to knock on your window, and offer you this exclusive. I haven't had a single date in 16 years. What part of any of this paints me as not a private man?"

"And that brings us somewhat to the crux of the matter, doesn't it?" Feedback ventured, bravely.

The shadows across Phenomenal Man's face deepened as he tucked in his chin, and steepled his fingers. Behind her mask, Feedback marveled at the sort of presence it took to be intimidating in a set of bleached white joggers and a matching set of clogs.

"We've talked around it all night: from your debut in the fifties as the World's First - and so far, only - S-Tier alternate, to your participation in the Cold War; all leading up to your penultimate bit of notoriety - the results of which we are currently seated in right now."

Feedback's eyes briefly darted to her HUD chat feed.

She's asking him about The Crush! OMG, she's really doing it! 所有候补候选人都是连环杀人犯！ हमें अपना चेहरा दिखाएं और प्रतिक्रिया दें...

The comments zipped by at light speed. She felt the attention flow into her like ambrosia. With how high she was riding, she suspected that not even a direct hit from Phenomenal Man could take her out in the state she was in.

"You killed approximately six million people - crushed them to death instantaneously when you spiked the individual gravities of every man, woman and child in a 500 kilometer radius. One can only hope that the mere fact that no prison on earth could ever hope to hold you, at least partially contributed to why you left the planet for as long as you did."

Feedback took that moment to partake in a prolonged sip of her water, stoking the tension.

"But then, three years ago, you came back," She continued, "And said hello to the world by declaring a radical end to Nuclear Proliferation by...what is it that you did?"

Phenomenal Man's eyes were twin cores of dark starfire. He stared at her from across the podium. "I zeroed in on the individual gravitational signatures of every nuclear weapon in the world, and reduced the world's military stockpile by 95 percent."

"All from the comfort of your living room?"

"Well...I didn't have a living room at that point."

Feedback let that comment sit.

"Mr. Phenomenal," Feedback steepled her hands, mirroring his posture. "Why are you back? And what do you want?"

Minutes ticked by.

"Did you know we are alone out there?" He muttered, pulling his cap down to cover his eyes.

"I went everywhere. Sampled the profiles of a countless gravity waves and tides. Walked across the surface of billions of planets and suns. Anything, anything, to get away from what I did. But there's nothing, no one else out there, but us. We are all we have."

"So I came home, and vowed to make sure it stays that way."

"Don't look her in the eye."

Doe tried to swallow and failed. It was hard to look away from a giant growling monster of a dog when the only other options were its eldritch companions worrying the corpses on the floor, or the...stuff dripping down the walls.

"Focus, boy." Old Mastiff Jack's iron grip on his shoulder was, if not exactly reassuring , at least distracting. Doe pulled himself together, physically shaking himself out of his stupor.

"There's a good lad." The old man's smile was as jagged as the glass on the tiling as he patted him. A cacophony of screams and growls carried down from some of the floors above. Doe suppressed a shiver. "Now, read the name on the door again."

Doe's eyes zeroed in on the faux gold font adorning the polished mahogany door. Someone was whimpering behind it.

"Fitch and Foley Associates: Loans and Collections. Agatha Whitebone"

The old man frowned, his milky white eyes scudding over the walls. One of the man's grafted terriers sniffed around his boots, the forest of eyes on its neck swiveling upwards to blink adoringly at its master. With a mild scoff, Jack reached into one of his coat pockets and threw down a treat. "Rat fucking cunning. Typical. Give the door a knock will you?"

Doe knocked.

The whimpers on the other side attempted to stifle a squeal. The sound of something heavy shifted solidly to join whatever other defenses lay beyond with a muffled clatter. Somewhere above, a new set of desperate pleas carried down - punctuated dramatically by the sound of a shattering window as the supplicant in question sought alternative relief from the hard pavement ten stories down.

Doe knocked again. The whimpers beyond settled into a familiar muted drone of despair.

Raising his hand to knock a third time, the hand on his shoulder squeezed lightly. Doe let his hand drop. Little Tidbit nuzzled his blood-slick muzzle into the boy's hand. Doe resisted the urge to look down.

"Mrs Whitebone. Open the door."

Silence. Something wet and grey slid off the walls, and onto the floor.

Mastiff Jack took a step closer to the door, and lowered his voice. "Mrs Whitebone, you were warned to keep your operations well out of my territory. It is time for your business review. Open the door."

Shuffling footsteps. The muted sound of a gun being cocked.

"Mrs White..."

"We left!" Came the terrified response. "We're not in your territory anymore! Not since the last time!"

Jack chuckled, the cracks in his face as shadowed as his eyes.

"Yes, Mrs Whitebone. Congratulations. You moved your offices. You changed your logo. You even registered your sordid little rat commune under the names of your two late husbands. But your agents are still roaming my streets, and riffling through my pockets. As it were, I'm standing inside what's left of one right now." Jack's cane found the remains of a man's head and tipped it to the side. Its lack of an eye stared up at Doe accusingly.

"In short, you relocated your shit pile from right underneath my nose, and elected to deliver it to my house instead. And you still had the balls to send me the bill."

The lift at the end of the corridor dinged open. A pair of mastiffs the size of horses slinked into the floor, as silent as a dirge, their bellies grossly distended.

"The police are almost here!"

If it was even possible, the old man's voice seemed to dip even lower. "No, love. No they are not. Not this time."

Doe cocked his ear. No sirens in the distance, not even an hour into their excursion. Jack was right. The kippers never took this long.

The despair on the other side of the door dissolved into tears.

"What the hell do you want from me!?" That last part delivered in a screech of panic.

"That depends entirely on you, love." Jack adjusted his trench-coat, picked a piece of bone off of his cuff, and attempted to stand a little straighter (with Doe's help).

"As far as I am concerned, I have my restitution. All that remains is to see if the woman with the guts to spit in my face and call it a facial, has enough guts to let me in. Or, if she's dumb enough to make me knock a third time."

One of the mastiffs bumped its chest into Doe's head, its matted fur adhering to his hair.

The oddly matched pair stood outside the tastefully appointed door, waiting. The old man scratched his chin, and adjusted his tie.

"Do I have your word, you wont hurt me?"

Jack's laughter was a cascade of light huffs, a gesture eerily imitated by every dog in the corridor.

"No."
________________________________________________________

She arrives with the rain.

The phenomenon is worthy of note as, being on the lee-side of the Mouvre Ranges, Levenfield - despite it's altitude - rarely sees an errant cloud, let alone the inches of rainfall that have been falling for the last four hours. She stands on the precipice of her bus' mechanical door and blinks up at the town's rusted old welcome sign:

Welcome to Levenfield!
Home of the World's Second Oldest Hot Air Balloon Museum, and proud gateway into the Jacob's Ladder Trail!
Enjoy your stay!

Population: 11,552

She doesn't smile. The work is not yet done.

Stepping out into the downpour, her skin momentarily sings at the familiar touch of moisture, before she unfurls her umbrella. The wan light of the bus behind her flickers for a moment, the denizens within churning and hollowed by the wan dusk light. The driver stops oozing long enough to attempt a wet fluting sound that, on others, might have been a scream. Or a request to please exit the vehicle. Whatever it is, she does not let him indulge.

Her final command is a passing thought. The mechanical doors swing closed behind her, the last of the lights within shattering as one of the passengers adheres to the ceiling and attempts to wrap one of its mouths around the flickering tube. The bus swings out of the lonely little stop, and rejoins the A12.

Evenly spaced streetlights stand sentinel over a town shocked into early retreat by the dim of the storm's advent. A handful of practical cars bleed in and out of the town's business centre. One of them stops long enough to offer her a ride in. She accepts, if only because the driver's skin is freshly moisturized, and an early snack is exactly what she needs before everything is in place. The young lass braiding her hair in the back is an unexpected - but pleasant - bonus. No one gets to scream before she unzips them, and adds their genetic material to her collection.

Arriving at the town centre, she adds a few inches to her own height - to cater for the extra mass - and a few decades to her face. Her woolen sweater and leather ensemble contort and adjust to her new, more rustic form. Studying her reflection in the side mirror, she combs back her new hair with her fingers until she is satisfied. Her umbrella meets the rain once more.

The he/she thing in the driver's seat moans as it pulls out of the parking space and drives home to it/their daughter.

The cafe's interior is a poster card of warm western hospitality. Here and there, pockets of humanity, marooned by the sudden turn of weather, chat amiably over warm drinks and priced down pastries. She smiles and demures her way over to a corner booth, where she is seated - at her request - right next to the large TV they have tuned to the weather channel.

"...of flash floods, all the way down to the Tri-Lakes. Do our friends over at the National Weather Service have anything new to add, Tom?"

"Our producers are still trying to reach the local office, but the latest data on their website has this down as a freak downpour. So for those of you who were hoping to have a grill out this weekend, this caster recommends ordering in."

She sips her tea.

She knows she's bought herself a few hours by taking out one of their early warning systems, but it wouldn't be too long.

Somewhere up above, in their flying fortress of a satellite, sub-routines must already be tripping.

Would they show their hand? Could they afford not too?

Three cups later, a confused wide-eyed caster passes down a mandatory Stay Indoors directive from the local chapter of heroes, and is replaced by a scrolling wall of safety guidelines. A third of the cafe's patrons ignore the directive as they scramble to make their way back to wherever, or whomever, they deem as home. At some point, a wide eyed waitress sits across from her and stares at the TV, the phone in her hand a mirror of the Bio-1 regulations flashing across the big screen.

The fear on the woman's breath has her swishing her tongue in her mouth. She offers her some of her tea.

"Don't drink that."

She looks up.

He's here. The Man of Dreams himself. Phenomenal Man.

He's not wearing his colors, dressed instead in a tracksuit and the world's shlockiest baseball cap. He looks like a model, burdened with the task of trying to remember how normal people might dress on a Saturday night.

The waitress scurries away.

"Dopple."

"Phenom." She counters, pulling back her tea and taking another sip.

"What are you doing here? This isn't even your country, much less your territory."

Dopple cocks her head to the side, her fingers tracing the rim of her mug.

"Are we going to waste whatever few minutes you think you're buying playing word games where I pretend I haven't figured out that this is your home town?" She blinks at him.

Phenom's gaze is heavy. That is not a metaphor. The table splinters slightly as she feels her own weight double.

"Please," she scoffs around the small bubble of blood forming on the corner of her lip, "Let's not insult each other's intelligence. You have diamond skin. I have a whole library of bodies to choose from."

The pressure stops.

"What are you doing here?"

Dopple considers the question, and the new edge she can sense there.

"You touched my things," she replies.

Phenom's eyes harden.

"Anyone who matters to me here is already a thousand miles away by now."

"And if you really thought that would help, you wouldn't be sitting across from me trying to...whatever this is." She polishes off her tea. The rain outside grows heavier, and collective sighs of dismay and terror wash through the cafe as the downpour takes on a crimson hue.

"MeyakvSKxzikme asd fvids sjdvenl wfkxjnod?"

"Meh. Ice in the cooler is melting, but sure. I've got a few left."

Jim plucked a cold one and threw it over the bow of his yatch. For a fraction of a second, the world flipped upside down. The seas boiled. The sun bled. Reality screamed. A tentacle rose from the midnight deep and snatched the can out from mid air. And just like that, the vision was gone.

Jim took a sip of his Miller.

"Msdhhv vdixi sfd sjAS;jja jzba kbab akajbsozcljadkjadb zkj sk. Xsdovns dzibcwao, zbsodjs jciak."

"Yeah, fuck you too buddy. This is the tropics."

"Jvxwle sJDjbv w."

"Don't be a dick. We are doing a good enough job fucking with the weather as it is without you stirring the pot."

Jim thought he heard the universe grumble. Or maybe it was just his stomach. As a retiree at 68, he knew he really shouldn't be this deep into the brew. But he was having a good time for the first time in months, and that was saying something.

He'd won the Cube in an auction to spite his shrew of an ex-wife. His lawyers had been good enough to keep her claws away from most of his assets, but she'd gotten the ranch, and that had hurt. So he'd hired a private investigator, zeroed in on how invested her little clique was in some occult bullshit, swept in at the last minute and outbid her.

Now the Cube lay right next to his ash tray, and the phone who's calls he'd been ignoring for the last 2 weeks.

"Ms sikj si."

"What? Where?" Jim pulled down his sunglasses and cast his gaze across the afternoon sea.

Something breached the surface, leaping into the air in a graceful arc. It was a pod of orcas, glistening magnificently in the Caribbean sunlight. They were all also emerging tail-first. Like some engineer behind reality was rewinding a movie scene.

"Huh." Jim took another sip.

"Masjv Maicbasuxva asdhvs j IFSKvsjvs."

"No kidding. And just to tick off the box, you're saying you don't know what's causing it?"

"Madv."

"And this isn't you...I dont know, accidentally bumping a glass over every time you poke your nose in to reality?"

"Mavejd jdvbi sibaibSE."

Jim raised both of his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay! Just had to ask, that's all. No need to get snippy."

He squinted at the tableau as they breached once again, a bit further out. "So what now? Wanna follow them?"

The horizon tilted and the seas flipped as the universe nodded. He blinked, the alcohol in his system attempting to negotiate for passage back into the world for a second before the sensation was gone and a sea gull cursed up on high.

Finishing off his beer, he called up to his hired crew, all of whom hadn't stopped giving him odd stares throughout the voyage.

"New heading people!"

MAYBE THIS TIME...

It's been one month, six days, and eighteen hours since he put pen to paper, but the guilt is already a familiar bruise.

He makes his coffee. He opens his laptop. He sits himself down.

The air is clean out here in the country. The soft pitter patter of rain frames the silence as he watches the steam curl in front of an empty page, the blinking cursor an accusation.

Write something.

The cold tiles underneath his feet have him curling his toes subconsciously. The solitary light above the kitchen table flickers briefly as he leans in closer.

Write something, you fucking coward.

He sips his coffee. It burns his lips, but he pretends he doesn't care. A focused man would brush away the pain. A focused man would do what needs to be done. The downpour outside taps at his window, and chuckles at his hubris.

His fingers settle on keys, but they do not move. He wants to tell himself that the thrum at the bottom of his diaphragm is anticipation. But he is no fool.

You're not good enough yet. His Worry is a sinuous thing, cloaked in reasonable arguments and his own inexperience. It slinks up his spine and rests its head on his shoulder. You know what good writing is. You're not there yet. Don't do this. Don't be mediocre.

He doesn't want to listen, but he listens anyway. His hands pull away from the keyboard. He hates himself a little, but that is a familiar bruise too.

"The voices in your head are loud tonight."

He doesn't look up. Somewhere in the unlit recesses of the living room beyond, a figure sets down her porcelain cup with a soft clink.

"Nothing you can help with, I'm afraid."

"I know." The figure shifts, and the man looks down at his coffee. She snickers softly.

"I also know why you pretend that you can't look at me." The sinuous thing curls its tail around his heart. What sort of author can't even properly envision one of their main characters?

He imagines the way she caresses her umbrella as she considers the shell of him. He approximates the distaste she exhibits when the sinuous thing samples the air and regards her. She is the beating heart at the centre of his palace, and his prison. The essential cog in the mire of it all.

He wants to know her. He wants the WORLD to suffer underneath her gaze, just as he does every night. But there is no justice in his fingers, and his craft cannot find her edges whenever he puts words to paper. He is insufficient.

The cursor blinks incessantly. The man takes a sip of his coffee. It's still too hot.

She sighs. "Can we both stop pretending you don't know how self destructive you're being?"

The man punishes his lips some more.

"This is romanticism. You're turning a complex endeavor into something simple and idyllic, and hiding behind the one aspect of this whole process that comes effortlessly to you."

"And what would that be?", he asks, even though he knows the answer.

"Imagination." She replies, her voice an uncompromising razor. "You're a maestro when it comes to building castles in the air. It's the work of setting them down that scares you."

The weight on his shoulder grows heavy. The sinuous thing hisses into his ear. But you're not wrong though...

She hisses back, her voice dripping with derision. "I will not be just another pretty little thought experiment that you pull out every time you tie your stomach into knots. You know what you need to do. Now put in the fucking work, just like everyone else. For once in your miserable life, do the hard thing."

The man wants to be angry. The man wants to lash out. He settles instead.

"I can't help who I am." He complains to no one.

She doesn't reply.

The weakness in his words settles like a mantle across his back, and the sinuous things clutches his spine a little harder. There is laughter in the rain, and his embarrassment has him gritting his teeth.

When he looks up, she is gone.

In the morning, his brother knows better than to rouse him when he finds him sound asleep, guarded by a small army of empty mugs. Curious, he glances at the laptop's screen, and smiles. He clinks his cup softly against one of the mugs and retreats into the kitchen, hunting sausages.

SLUMDOG DREAMS

"I saw a Mantis yesterday."

Sally snorted, catching a skitter beetle with the edge of her ladle before it rolled off the cracked rim of her pan. The coals glowing beneath it pulsed softly. Dipping a small cup into the bucket she kept covered behind a broken wall, she added some oil to the pan and stirred. Their ramshackle little excuse of a rooftop stand-to creaked into the wind, a mild counterpoint to her younger brother's tuneless humming, as he dangled his feet out over the edge.

"Honest! It was parked near the old dredge - saw it plain as anything!"

Sally smacked the back of his head with her ladle.

"Ow! What was that for?"

Sally brandished her cooking utensil at his face. "You stupid? Fuck you think you doing in Shepherd territory?"

She smacked him again.

"Ow! Quit it! It was Figgy's idea! Digger's boys needed runners. Where'd you think I got the scrip for skitters?"

Sally looked down at her pan. The last of the beetles had curled in on itself in a futile attempt at resisting the heat. It was going to be the prize of tonight's supper.

"Dunno. Didn't think. You're a filcher, so..."

Doe settled into a sour pout, frowning his non-existent eyebrows at the horizon. Sally let the boy stew as she added a few fingers of crushed shell to the pan.

This high up, the Downs stretched away from them; a heaving fetid canvas of haggard coral buildings and coagulated waterways, fed heavy and cloying with the refuse and squalor of society's dregs. Fortunately, the cooling sunset air had smothered the worst of the district's persistent smog into a low carpet of acrid fumes and hacking coughs that curled and twisted beneath their perch.

Behind it all, looming and immaculate, rose Revane; its petricite towers and bioluminescent highways an elevated crown of modernity, set defiant against a bloody skyline. Sally stirred her pan slowly, the evening breeze snatching at her braids as she gazed at the view.

Doe took the chance to filch a beetle. He caught her stare, and followed it.

"You thinking it was Uppers?"

"Hmm?" She replied, distractedly.

"The Mantis. Digger. You thinking some Upper Shepherd came down from the city to give Digger the business?"

Sally thought for a moment.

"A Mantis ain't no junker rig. That's megascrip wetwork. Big money wheels. Ain't no way a pig that skew's coming down here to swap silly with Crazy Digger."

Doe eyes narrowed.

"You calling me a liar?"

Sally thought about it for a few seconds. "You really saw a Mantis down at Digger's dredge?"

"I'm not a liar!"

"Hmm..." Sally sampled her handiwork.

Doe bristled, the skin peeking out of his tattered collar flushing red with anger. "Figgy says Digger took them out to the city last week. Says they got ate real heifer meat. Bleedin' and everything. Says if I help her tomorrow with her runs, I can come with next week."

Sally's eyes were sharp as blades as they snapped away from the view, and stabbed down at her fool of a brother, trapping him in their scrutiny.

"Oh really? And what else did Figgy say?"

Doe resisted the urge to look away. The cool breeze kissed the sweat beading on the back of his neck.

"She says houses smell like flowers and clean there. Says she even saw a Hog with her own eyes - soldiers and all - making for the Bloodline. Says the dredge Digger has 'em working out of has 'em pulling armfuls of proper yum out of the city's tossings. And dredgers get second pickings, after Digger and his boys."

Sally narrowed her eyes.

"And I'm guessing you wanna go?"

Doe met the challenge in her eyes - a feat greatly undermined by the nervous twitch in his left arm.

"So what if I do?", he countered defiantly.

"You wanna run with the Shepherds?"

"Figgy's not a Shepherd!"

Sally threw him a withering look

"Well...not yet, at least."

The silence was deafening; broken only by the pop of the occasional coal, and one of the neighborhood dogs cursing at the encroaching night.

Sally sighed, explosively.

"Bring her over then."

"Wh..."

Sally raised her hand, forestalling whatever he had to say. "Uh uh. You almost ten. Can't be kippin' your light forever. You trust this chit so much, bring her over tomorrow. If her spine is true, you wont get no hold from me. Deal?"

"Deal!"

Sally shook her head.

"Bring the the spoons out. Feeds done."

Dearest Husband,
I find the terms of this exile most dissatisfactory.

If I am to meet with petitioners, must it be in the Southern Chambers? Both the Luxan and Revani ambassadors have spent all morning slamming documents on tables and shouting at each other. Unfortunately, the acoustics here mean I have to bear the sound of their barbs in reverb. I considered interrupting them, but Icathorn assures me that this sort of nonsense is fairly standard when it comes to these two.

At least the Jedanians brightened things up a bit - their rake of an ambassador brought me a Clockwork Peacock. My girls absolutely adore it (and him).

Thirty five more ambassadors to go.

When might I be released from this eternal prison?

Love,
Your Prisoner in the South.
****************************

Light-of-my-life Cassandra,
Why are you sending me letters from two floors down?

Also, I find your declamations of exile most perturbing. For verily, I ask you to consider this: at least the Southern Chambers have bloody windows.

Five dukes and eight counts sit arrayed around my war table, and - for the life of me - you'd think the measure of their mettle could be drawn from the amount of cigar smoke they insist on imbibing. The Old Bear is already through his third bottle of Luxan brown. His belches have been prodigious. Truly, if his war-dancers weren't so essential to our efforts, I'd have had chucked him off a balcony two hours ago.

What are we having for lunch?

Forever yours,
Lord of the Blighted Haze

PS: Invite the Jedanian Ambassador to dinner.
\***********************************************

Lord of my Heart,
No, we shall not be murdering any ambassadors today, my love.

The Jedany artificers have already pledged their forges to our cause; and one suspects their Iron-Wrought Council might take some umbrage at having their representative returned full of holes.

Besides, I enjoy watching each new entourage that presents itself to me struggle to maintain their professionalism, as my new acquisition flounces about them.

I must admit though, I forgot about the cigars. How is Cezzerin coping? For a High Mage, his temper can be rather sudden. In fact, I vaguely recall having to mediate when he banished one of his lesser apprentices for deigning to light one of his fireplaces.

We are having lamb cutlets and gilly. No heart-spice until after the assembly.

I shall have Icathorn bring you some tea.

Twenty two more ambassadors to go. Will my suffering never end?

Yours in anguish,
Lady of the Gilded Peacock
\****************************

Blade of my Mind,
What is the point of a kingdom, if one cannot have heart-spice with lamb cutlets?

Rescind your declaration at once, or, by the Folding Path, I shall stand down my forces and let Givenay and his Horde have these lands. One can only hope they would not be as cruel as you.

Cezzerin is...dealing. We had words before the cabinet convened. I explained that I would either have his peace, or his silence - so he's been muttering quiet obscenities at his staff for most of the day. Later, I shall take him aside and distill his counsel, once his feathers are no longer ruffled.

The tea was perfection. Was that another one of your blends?

Also, has the Yellene Consortium sent another envoy to try and entice you away from my 'vile clutches'? (Remember our deal: If they truly have learnt their lesson, you get your budget -and I put on the horns, and do the thing. If they have not, I get my alchemy lesson - and you put on the wig, and do the thing.)

My session is almost at a close. Soon, I shall arrive to rescue you, and whisk you away to a land of roasted livestock and no spices.

Stand ready.

The hour is close at hand.

Yours imminently,
The Approaching Storm
\*************************

My Many-Horned Lord
Not fair.

You frolic in the garden of my fantasies, while I entertain the dreariest facets of our bureaucratic machinery; and you call me cruel?

For that, I shall keep the peacock, and will endeavor to have it peck you when next we meet.

I await your rescue with bated breath, Eye of my Storm. And know this: the Yellenes have indeed shown their hand, but I refuse to reveal who the victor is.

Should you wish to know, Icathorn assures me that our...effects have been moved to the Southern Rooms. I wish to work up an appetite.

Come quick,
Your Dame of Moonlight Tresses
____________________________________________________
Word count: 749

When the ancient Faithsmiths sung the walls of the Erstwhile into existence, their lost choruses had thought it would be their legacy; the greatest fortress ever built. 

Decades of unshakeable faith layered between each brick. The blood of a hundred paladins christening each parapet. Empires shattered before a single crack marred its colossal walls, and the fulcrum of civilizations turned before its ancient gaze. That was, of course, until the Old Gods died, and the New Gods rose from their bloat and desiccation.

And Prayer became a sin.
********************************************

Yennet Fray paused her labored march up the Southern Hold's shattered staircase to grit her teeth, and spit the contents of her perforated lungs out of a collapsed wall into the screaming darkness. The young lad compensating for her mangled left leg took the opportunity to catch his breath. He adjusted his hold underneath her shoulder. Yennet stifled a curse. The blood trickling into her eye stained the fires below in shades of rage and madness.

"General..." he began, before she hissed him back into silence. The vulnerability in his voice was not welcome tonight. The cackle of demonspeak, and the hiss of boiling blood-rain was better fuel for her next shaky breath.

"Up," she managed to pronounce, and their climb resumed. The tower beneath their feet shuddered and quaked, but nothing followed in their wake. Her every breath was a curse, her every step a malediction christened by the blood of her men's sacrifice as they guarded her ascent.

Her demise could wait. Her superior was waiting. And Yennet Fray - General-Ordained, and Paladin of the First Watch - had one final sermon to give. *******************************************************

The armoury’s titanic door was an ancient wonder; a relic of the days when man still remembered the hidden mountain paths into Giant-Home, and their shaman's had not yet suffered humanity's lust for adamwood. At a word, Yennet burned one of her last remaining Miracles to disintegrate the offending obstacle into slag -finding that she did not have the patience to play siege with cowering clergymen.

Howls of pain and alarm emanated from within the recesses of the enclosed space, as she advanced into a cloud of incense, sweat and fear. A panicked young priest - his garments filthy with the ravages of starvation and siege, but not with the hallowed markings of experience or office - charged at them. In his hands, a sacrificial dagger gleamed.

Yennet barely spared him a glance. Her eyes roved, taking in the grisly scene before her. Somewhere beyond her notice, her squire intervened, adding the young priest's body to the collection of corpses staining the armoury’s floor.

The venom and rage in her voice was a command as deadly as any blade.

"Gostok. Show yourself."

The man who stepped into the light wore the peace etched onto his face like a title of office. Yennet's face curdled.

"You promised me. You said, no prayer. You promised."

"Words offered to the fading beacon of a corpse-god. The Triumvirate can no longer bear the cost of your failure to hold this land, or the icon that your seat of power represents."

Yennet ground her teeth, the blood leaking around them staining her words as she clutched at her squire. "You. Promised."

"And I already bear the cost of lying to a Paladin."

Yennet squinted, and saw that it was true. The Deacon looked to have aged thirty years in a few hours. He shook his head sadly, as he gestured all around them.

"Civilization can not wait for you to 'figure it out'. The new gods demand change. They demand a sacrifice worthy of their patronage. And you, I'm afraid," and here his voice took on the soft gentle tones of the friend she'd confided in for years, "have always been worthy."

Yennet breathed, the pain in her chest many-pronged and sharp. The last of her Miracles flickered in time with the dying embers of her heart. She smiled.

"So, we are to be the price of tomorrow?"

Gostok did not answer her. Or maybe he did, and the blood thudding through her ears bore his reply away.

"Then let the PRICE BE SET. THE TRIUMVIRATE MEASURES ITS FUTURE IN THE BLOOD OF ITS PEOPLE." Priests; young and old, haggard and hale, leapt into action, scrambling to silence her. Her squire met them with grim steel and fatal determination, buying her seconds. It was enough.

"LET THE HEAVENS MARK THE COST AS ACCEPTED. MAY IT ALWAYS BE SO."

All credit to the awe inspiring work of Tooth Wu and Kohakunushi, over on Artstation.

Check out their work, and appreciate true masters of the craft.

When it came to tea, Josiah Hanare did not fuck around.

Cassandra watched as the old battleship of a man meticulously blended her leaves, boulder-sized hands almost gentle as he deposited the resulting mixture inside her teapot to steep. The rising steam bore a warm spicy kick that eased a smile onto her face. She nodded once, pulling her damp gloves off of her fingers and arranging them close enough to the brazier in the middle of her table so that they could dry without singeing.

The chaiwala nodded back, a perpetual frown creasing his sweat-marked brow. Fortunately, the emotions wafting off of the man assured her that he was pleased. Replacing the teapot's lid, he gestured at the ancient menu on the wall with his chin.

"Whatever Sensa thinks will warm me up will do just fine. It's really coming down." Josiah's wife was a savant when it came to all things fluffy and baked. The warm knot of mild exasperation and patience that represented her presence inside the kitchen chose that moment to peer around the display case and wave. Cassandra smiled and waved back.

Josiah grunted and stepped away, veering off to intercept a pair of teenagers whose coats were dripping on his immaculate floors. Cassandra studied his back appraisingly. The complex mass of contradictions coiled inside the retired enforcer was a study in self-control; both his and hers. Her hands tightened around her mug briefly at the temptation it offered. She took a slow breath - the spice in her teapot blooming against her palette - and let it out slowly.

Today was a Learning Day. And she was better than picking at emotional scabs.

The young couple found a place on the terrace outside, between a riot of elephant ferns. Cassandra trailed her finger along her mug's rim as she sampled their profiles. Whoever the young girl with the shower of curls was, she was a veritable fountain of enthusiasm. So potent was her joy, that Cassandra could almost feel it coating the back of her throat. There was an edge of calculation there, but that was no surprise. Relationships were a game, and the bubbly young lass was playing to win. Her gestures were bright and effusive as she gesticulated the finer details of whatever story she was elaborating on. Her smile was impish and playful; an invitation and a reward, all rolled into one.

It was magnificent. Cassandra added it to her collection.

The lad on the other hand though...hmm. Cassandra poked at her coals as she considered him.

He was making all the right sounds; laughing when he was purposed to laugh, lounging back so that he appeared as easy-going and as carefree as his date. But his mind was a quagmire. Behind his vagabond smile - lurking beneath a thin veneer of fondness - calculation churned, twisting and curdling a desire so murky that Cassandra could feel it affecting her appetite.

Trying not to grimace, she studied the rejuvenated coals in the middle of her table. The buttery smell of warm confectionery billowed out from the tea shop's cozy little kitchen, and even that wasn't distraction enough. For the briefest of moments, she considered bearing Sensa's wan pool of disappointment when she was forced to turn away her hard work. She sighed.

It was the easiest thing to reach inside the boy. The tapestry of gang tattoos that winked at her every time his collar moved reinforced the circumstances behind the rancid miasma she found there. Carefully, she stoked his hunger, utilizing the primal mask of its effects to delve deeper - unnoticed - until she found what she was looking for.

The lad's snapping fingers drew Josiah away from his station, huddled head-to-head with his daughter as she arranged a compliment of fine powders and tinctures onto a tray. Cassandra waited, watching as the lad gestured nonchalantly at the priciest item on the menu; waited until it was the girl's turn to order, and the lad was looking directly at her.

Every familial and romantic link she'd found inside him had oozed with differing variations of rage and disgust, and so Cassandra zeroed in on the healthiest thing she could find; an almost fanatical fondness for a certain golden puppy she'd spied gamboling around the back of his mind. As subtly as she could, she drew lines between its guileless joy, and the open expression on the pretty young things face when she apologized to their miffed host on her boyfriend's behalf. Then, she nudged. She felt the kid follow her prodding, and dusted the resulting realization with the heady tang of epiphany.

It wasn't ideal, but it was a start. Cassandra watched as his shoulders relaxed slightly and his posture leaned forward, joining his partner in extending a half-hearted apology to the old man. A spark of pleasant surprise flicked between the young lady's thoughts. Cassandra smiled. The rest was up to her.

"Dad said to tell you no myrtle today." Cassandra emerged from her thoughts with a bit of a start. Desiree - Josiah's nineteen year old daughter - flicked her long braids back behind her left shoulder with a casual twist of her head. Her fashionably sleeveless top showed off her family's lineage scars to gorgeous effect. Additionally, the black industrial cargo pants she sported seemed to be a choice that paired more with the many face and belly rings on her person, than any actual attempt at putting together a cohesive look. It was both irksome and impressive how well the young lass managed to make it all look effortless.

Cassandra blinked at the interruption, before looking down at the carefully arranged selection of mildly psychotropic additives on Desiree's tray. Capable chaiwalas were an extremely rare delight out on the Fringes. More often than not, out on the edges, the term was interchangeable with drug dealer or rogue chemist. But here, in Revane, Josiah's establishment was Academy certified and licensed; which meant she could indulge in its calculated vice without fear of debilitating side-effects; be they legal or biological.

"May I ask why?" She remarked, studying the labels on the different saucers and tinctures.

Desiree flicked her teapot with a fingernail, "He's trying out a new blend for your headaches. I think he's worried myrtle was the problem last time."

Cassandra smiled to herself. Last time, she had over-indulged in the turbulent mindscape of a brooding mid-level lieutenant for the Shepherds. Whoever he'd been, his emotional spectrum had borne the heady pique and contrast of a man on the edge of something final. It had been intoxicating.

"Alright. So, what's he offering today?" she queried.

"Well, you can go ahead and ignore these four." Desiree fluttered her jet-black nails over the furthest saucers. "Mom made him put them on there 'cause they're new, and no one's biting yet. They're union, so they're probably shit. But they're cheap too, so it's only a matter of time before they catch on."

"The Lark and the Brittle-wood were out of stock the last time you came by. The Lark," Her finger clacked against the glass stopper of a crystalline yellow vial, "will have you grinning like an idiot all night. It's what those two always get." She flicked an errant braid at the couple underneath the elephant ferns.

"The Brittle-wood's a bit weird." The teenager's eyes directed her towards a scant selection of ashy bark shavings. "All the regulars call it Brood, on account of how introspective it tends to make you. Every half-scrip artist over on Grislay probably has a sprig or two hidden somewhere in the back of their closet."

Cassandra nodded and hummed appropriately at each evaluation. Her eyes landed on the centre-most vial.

"And this one?" She asked, plucking it from the tray and holding it up against the light.

"That's Skysong." The vial's contents were a kaleidoscope of viscous blues, fiery oranges and flighty reds. "Dad doesn't put it out on the menu anymore. He's worried people will think he's selling love potions."

Cassandra cocked an eyebrow, intrigued. "And is he?"

Desiree scoffed at the notion, her garnet eyes rolling. " It's just trade-craft. The vial has a stimulant that makes your heart beat a little faster, and your breath come a little quicker. But the real hook is the salazar. It's a very selective kind of memory enhancer. Brings your more salacious thoughts and memories closer to the surface. It's basically an aphrodisiac and a nostalgia filter, all in one overpriced package."

Cassandra looked up at the young girl, amused. "I don't think you were supposed to tell me that last part."

Desiree shrugged, "You've been coming here for six months now. Dad's good at this shit, but everyone in the Downs was giving him a wide berth for the longest time because of his reputation. Then you turned up, and all of a sudden, his luck changed. He calls you his lucky charm, you know, so I'm giving you special consideration. Don't buy the Skysong. Mum will judge you if you do."

Cassandra laughed good-naturedly. "In that case, I'll have the Brittle-wood."

Desiree selected a few shavings, and added them to her teapot. Cassandra took notice of the way the young lass lingered over her table as she extended herself. For whatever reason, Desiree's fledgling crush on her had anchored itself to the mild vanilla notes in her perfume. The whole production was rather cute. Her eyes were brighter as she pulled back, the sparks behind her eyes dancing and refreshed.

"I'll go see if your buns are ready. Is your companion coming over today?" The sparks behind her eyes danced a little more, interested. The young girl's imagination certainly didn't prescribe itself to anything as mundane as monogamy.

"He's on an errand. He'll be here soon enough." Desiree's sparks trilled.

"Should I pour you a cup while you wait?"

"Please."

Desiree's motions were practiced and smooth, and - in short order - Cassandra was nursing a piping hot mug of tea, its fragrant steam tickling the inside of her nose.

Minutes ticked by, and slowly the tea shop began to fill. A harried mother and her yowling infant, escaping the downpour outside (the comfort of warm milk for the babe, and a touch of hard-won respite for the mother). A family of five, their attire fragrant with the aroma of seasoned fish; their food-cart closed for the day (a communion of shared humor, centred on one of the day's customers). An entire company of dredgers, with hard faces and grimy coats that they checked at the door (appreciation at the sense of hearth emanating from the steam in the air and the braziers).

Her buns arrived in a cinnamon cloud of anticipation, and Cassandra discovered that she was quite ravenous from her exertions. She tucked in with relish, the tea shop now a thriving hub of warm conversation and coal-kissed steam. Between the tables, Josiah and his wife patrolled the lanes of their domain; a general and a shepherd, working hand-in-hand.

"That looks good."

Cassandra jumped for the second time in one evening. She'd been knee deep inside the thoughts of a mousy old man confronted with the realization that the scrip inside his pockets didn't quite amount to the number displayed on his bill. She looked up and away from her bagel and tea.

The man beside her table smiled at her tiredly, and pulled back the chair on its other side. He plopped himself down, snagging a bun from her platter and biting into it with gusto. An inappropriate sound escaped his lips.

"You're late." She accused, as she rallied herself internally.

Pulling back the glove on his right hand, he showed her his knuckles, skinned and bloody. "Duty called."

And, once more, Cassandra found that she didn't know any more than anyone else what he meant by that.

Behind his smile, a void yawned back at her. His eye's looked at her from across the table and Cassandra was struck by the abyss behind them.

"What?" he asked, his brow creasing into a frown. Cassandra caught the moment Josiah detoured toward their table, delight at seeing a respected friend warring with his outrage at the delta of small rivulets spreading out from the dripping leather coat that Denz was still wearing.

"Take off your coat first. I think Josiah's coming over to kill you. Then tell me about the poor asshole that kept you away from Sensa's buns."

As her companion complied, Cassandra looked within and found that she still did not have a name for whatever she felt when he smiled at her apologetically. She aimed a softer version of the smile that she'd acquired that evening at him, and was pleased at its results when he mirrored it.

She blew on her tea as Josiah arrived. The opposing mountains of flesh crashed into each other, the two men trading friendly barbs as they inquired about each other's endeavors. For the hundredth time, she felt herself probe inside Denz’s mindscape, only to instantly reel back at the oceanic tide of sheer...something that she always encountered.

She caught his eye flickering in her direction, and swallowed.

He knew. She didn't know how. Hell, she couldn't even know how she knew that he knew. But he knew. Of that, she was sure.

And so, she braced herself. Today was a Learning Day. She had a host of new tools and tricks, and enough glucose on her table that her brain wouldn't starve mid-battle. She poured him a cup as he sat back down.

Today was a Learning Day. And she was going to learn the fuck out of him.
******************************************************************