Chapter Text
The low light of her kitchen a shroud.
Last time here, he was here. Quiet, and alone. Could barely look him in the eye.
That singular touch after thirty four years, discarded to the counter in disgust.
The same counter now dug into his hip, sore against sharp bone, tattoos.
“You do this on purpose”, says Vanquish, rubbing the open wounds on his hands, knuckles, with the same cream she uses for her burns. Sometimes they just opened up, as if new, raw, bleeding her strange purple blood, aching and sore. Her self made concoction seemed to help for a time, before he gave in and sought out a ghustil. “Rip yourself open before you even try and open your mouth.”
Tries to pull away from her hold, but she just rubs the cream in harder, deeper.
“Yes well, you open your legs–”
Vanquish shrugs. “And? So do you.” Keeps rubbing. Gentler over a very swollen cut. “Never hear you complain either.”
Orpheus smiles, with a sigh. Leans heavier against the counter.
“Kill anyone this time?”
“Was just training.”
“Mhhmm.”
Vanquish holds his hand up. Leans closer against him, letting her weight sag into his body. Feels an arm sink around her back, bristled chin to her head.
“Just be careful,” she mutters, eyes closed.
“And you.” It’s quiet for a while. A siren wails outside, speeds past. Feet pound on the alleyway out back. “I don’t know what prison’s done to him.”
“Then ask.”
Quiet again, for so long.
Lets her hand go, but not her. Holds tighter, won’t let go. Inhales. Smells her cream –mint, and the raba flower. Sweet, sour when boiled. Sweat from his skin, cinnamon from her hair.
“And worry about your own people first.”
Orpheus presses his face onto the top of her head, sweet cinnamon. “You are my people.”
Tap, tap of her tail against the floor, his leg.
“Then remind us.”
Holds tighter.
“I need him.” It’s a whisper, lost between the strands of her hair. Against the dents of her horns he feels being to print on his face.
Sighs, heavy against his chest, her tail a slither around his leg. “What about the last thirty four years?”
Holds tighter. Don’t let go.
“Look,” says Klick, finger rapidly pressing on the blueprint spread on the table, held down by kitchen knives, a broken piece of someone’s cyberware. An istik romance novel. “I worked here in forced internship in my psi-storm ‘integration’ shit,” he says, sweeping his hand over the building marked with hovering arrows. “I think I know a thing or two about it–”
“That was what,” says Ka’zalii with a shrug, perched on the table’s edge, “a decade ago? Four?”
Klick bares his teeth, just a little. “I am not that old, thank you.”
Zetch’r’r stands in the corner, watching, scrawling Tir’su on a floating holoscreen, his purple eye independent, rapidly skimming around the corners of the room, from occupant to occupant. Several other githyanki are hauling a crate from upstairs, exchanging rapid words of Tir, common amongst each other, most notably ‘careful! Shkaketh.’
“Varrl’s asking can he come–” shouts a githyanki through a live screen holofeed.
“No.” Echoes at least four voices back.
Ka’zalii just stares down at the map. A detailed, recent layout of one of Vlaakith’s chip factories, located deep within the Crowns, and one of the only ways they’re going to get what they need to fully decipher the code in Varrl’s chip, then attempt a reprogram.
“Guys–” calls the voice from the screen again–
Zetch’r’r’s raven bristles, spreading its wings wide, its cybernetic eye flashing. A loud caw. Its master turns, hand poised mid write of rune–
Klick flexes his hand, that familiar ache in his suppressor bands make them contract–
“They’ll catch you easy if you go in that way,” says Orpheus, as he takes the last step down the narrow steps, nodding at the marked map. “Even in disguise.” Approaches the map, footsteps silent. Ka’zalii doesn’t move, rigid. Zetch’r’r watches. Listens. Both eyes fixed on their absent Prince. Klick stands to attention, unable to tuck away his smile.
“It exists beyond its cave,” sneers Ka’zalii, arms tight against his chest.
Klick slaps him on the arm with the tattered book that was holding down an edge of the map, Ka’zalii slamming it back down on the table, poignant. “As I was saying,” resumes Ka’zalii, “does esteemed Prince Imperial have any,” licks his lips, “suggestions?”
Orpheus takes a breath. A quick scan of the room which had gained some more observers, curious eyes, whispered words.
Orpheus just nods. Leans forward, palms spreading over map. “I know just the place,” pause, looks up, “if you’ll have me.”
Zetch’r’r scratches his raven’s neck. “Bhav.”
The light of Violet View stretched over the floor, a soft ripple in the shape of the letters. An hour to open. Back to routine.
Glasses and bottles clinked from the floors below. Voices swam up the cool, conditioned air as the staff busied themselves for opening. The place smelled so clean. New, all over again. Sometimes Dolls had a strange new smell to them once created, activated. At least that is what some of the lesser worth Warlocks told him after their first attempts at creation.
He had been nothing but pristine. Even down to hand-picked scent, strands of hair, of the way her lashes curled, just too much that they brushed her top lid when she looked up; when her eyes widened in that way they did at ‘abbil’ in a certain tone.
Wonders if her lashes are still long.
Have they been able to re-grow over her left eye, or did she have to replace them with false.
Adds that question to his list to find out. Idly flicks his finger over said list, watching the violet strings from his fingers wash over the runes only a Warlock of his stature could read – and admittedly, Dolls.
A glance over his shoulder to check. Onyx is busy helping downstairs he feels, but still, he checks. Their re-connection since his return had been…strange. Gaps where there shouldn’t be. Stutters. Risks of deactivation. She hadn’t said a word. Wondered if she’d even noticed.
Time would say.
Silence, would pay.
Turns back to the holo-runes quivering beneath his hand. To the screen hanging before him, translucent through to the wide, open window that would soon reflect a room full of faces. Warlocks and Dolls, rich and famous, any and all amalgam of those that resided above the Knuckle.
But now, all it reflected was his own.
Flicks the message on his screen he’d been reading. Past her old XM1 non-mastered Doll records, noticing the subtle differences in those that she’d forged. Wondered how –or who– she’d gotten the information he’d redacted to include. If that was even necessary for her to know.
Scratches at the lines of his tattoo on his wrist.
Questions. Too many questions unanswered, laying beyond his reach.
Re-crosses his legs, avoiding the shift in his reflection that doesn’t mirror the way he moves.
Opens another message. List of non-mastered and severed Dolls. Or what Warlocks sometimes liked to call Broken Dolls. Nezarr was more specific. He knew the distinction between a simple severed Doll and a broken one.
These Dolls were all either unregistered, or held forgeries. Nezarr didn’t care about their legality. He cared about leverage.
Scratches at the lines of his tattoo again. Three ovals like a crown, a single line following the pathway of his veins. The ink was blurry, not quite pristine. But despite where he’d gotten it done, more quality than expected. He’d thought about getting it touched up professionally once outside. But why bother. His incarceration had been no secret.
Looks up as he feels Onyx near; an echo of her. She always had been. Like seeing her in the corner of your eye, but then when you looked, gone. Or something else, not quite right.
Breathes in steady as he hears Onyx’s heels click over the floor.
Wrong rhythm. All wrong.
“What is it? I haven’t summoned you.”
A slow swish of her tail, and she holds her head high. “You have a visitor, Master.”
Nezarr flicks away all his screens, making a note to filter her memory again later. “Who?” he asks, rubbing his chin, eyes halfway to her.
“A githyanki.”
Rubs his tattoo again, fingers tracing the teardrop shapes that also sit on Onyx’s throat.
“Take me to them.” Then stands, readjusting his jacket as he stares at the window, his reflection, as it watches them walk away.
Vanquish had been deactivated once.
Briefly, as her Maker had been arrested, during his trial. Then just before he’d been thrown in prison, somehow, some reason, he’d woken her up.
Briefly, he’d stayed. A small request before the bars and walls and new home of the Rib Cage.
She had no clue how long she’d been down, the world moving on without her. Had desperately tried to read her bearings. Anything around her, around Nezarr as he’d smeared a sweet hand against her still raw burns. Couldn’t have been that long if she hadn’t healed much. But deactivation slowed that too. Disorientation.
It felt like her burns moved in melody, slithering beneath his conducting hand.
Why wouldn’t they? They were his composition, afterall.
“When is it?” she’d asked, greeted with a gentle shake of his head, soft white hair falling into his mouth.
“Doesn’t matter, abbil.”
Pulled away from his touch.
Felt it again, harder.
She’d scanned the room. Nondescript. Table. Chairs. All walls no window but on the door. Could hear voices outside. See a guard. The air, stifling.
Half a smile.
“I hope they throw away the key.”
His claws had dented her skin. Could feel a slough of burned skin wanting to peel off. “You don’t mean that,” barely a whisper.
Maybe she didn’t.
“I’ll be back out soon,” he’d said after a kiss she couldn’t resist. “And you’ll be awake the whole time, waiting,” pause, whispering lips to her good ear, “just that little too far from your Maker.” Another soft kiss. “I hear it can be a horrible thing, when still tethered.” Teeth dragged over lip.
Vanquish licked her lips. “Maybe you'll become someone’s little Doll in prison.” Had kissed his cheek. “What will you call your Master, Master?”
No-one cared when they heard a Doll’s cry. No-one ever really did.
Would you care?
She runs her hand over the edge of her burns, remembering the way they’d glowed that day at the cabin. Luminescent.
Remembers the starburst of burns on his chest after he’d teleported to find her.
Remembers kissing them soft as she’d pushed Voss back flat onto the furs, spreading her hands over every piece of him she could find. Counting spots with a kiss; whispers of breath skating over skin as she pretended to heal; an amethyst swathe above as she’d moved, moaned, ripples of her hair liquid, lost between the languid lash of his touch, a contain of the sweet, salacious sounds he swept past his lips–
–like a lover
lover
Touches the already healed bite mark re-wounded again again again. Presses where the faint bruise sits underneath the skin. Lets her claw pick the dents. Remembers how he bit like it was all he knew. Secrets spilling into the split of flesh, smear of blood.
Stares at her reflection, pressing hand to cold window.
It had never been more clear. Coherent. But most of all, maybe something she could bear to see stare back.
Reflections had been a strange beast in her Maker’s domain. A den of mirage, mistrust. A place to disorientate and decant you, if you looked that little too close.
Voss’ reflection–
–so steadfast. Sure. Remembers the first time she’d seen it that day they’d met. He’d had to bend down as he was too tall for her mirror as she needed to check something for his hearing augment. Had tried not to laugh at the tight lines of his brow, the narrow of his eyes. But, had just stared at his reflection, then looked back at the real, just to make sure.
Had touched the back of his neck, watching the motion of her hand in the mirror. Counting spots of his reflection, to the spots beneath her touch. The same. The same.
I have places to be, istik he’d said, curt. Impatient.
No you don’t, she’d said to the mirror.
So sure a smile back.
“Don’t you have places to be?” she says now to the mirror, at the crown of eyes above her head.
I am all places, even here.
Vanquish half smiles, still staring at her reflection. The eye gem on her wrist a black void in the window. Looks down at her wrist; still there.
“My old Master liked the reflection trick. You don’t have to copy him.”
Who mimics who, little constellation?
Vanquish watches her halo of eyes open and close.
“Do I have to answer?”
All eyes close; her halo, her own, the three beneath her eye, and the one bound to her wrist.
When she opens her eyes, alone.
Voss breathes in deep. The air lighter, warmer. A promise of spring, soon. But most of all, the anniversary of it all. The sky seemed to hum in anticipation. Every year louder the longer the Tear existed, the bell that tolls each year in reminder, ringing further. Wider. So this world doesn’t forget its new masters.
Checks his phone as it buzzes. Another message from his parole officer.
Need to see you. Tomorrow. Usual spot.
Voss replies ‘ok’ and flicks his phone shut, tucking it away, sticking it on do not disturb, silent. Forgoes that, and just turns the fucking thing off, closing his eyes as a snap of the sun’s rays appear behind a building. It always shined that little brighter after a sever. Or so it felt.
Their last sever had lasted for almost fifteen days. Shattering the city to pieces, barely anyone able to leave their residences, some had even become stuck at their places of work for days at the worst hit areas. But usually people were prepared for such. Workplaces, shops, turning to temporary residences in desperation.
Most of the Downs had fled underground to the Tunnels. Even more crowded and cramped than usual, but alive.
Voss had stayed in his small flat the whole time. If there was one thing he was good at now, it was solitude in small, nothing much else but four walls and your own mind. He’d served periods of solitary confinement during his incarceration. Once when a new warden had tried to shake up the whole Rib Cage’s system, confining all the jalaz to reinstate ‘proper prison order again’. That hadn’t lasted.
Another, he’d been thrown in solitude with the flesh, the bitter blood of his victim still stuck between his teeth, rancid after days alone with nothing but silence and a floor.
But he hadn’t really felt alone this time.
Message from Vanquish–
Image from Vanquish–
Video Call from Vanquish–
She’d stayed at her workshop with Lae’zel. Had explained sometimes she had people stumbling to her shop during a sever who’d been caught up in it, often with no choice, being forced to work or had to get home, or were just fucking stupid, and needed help. ‘Who else is there?’ she’d said when he asked why she wasn’t in the Tunnels, safe.
Several times he’d opened his flat door, hearing music, chatter down the corridor. Often the Dolls that lived here congregated together at one of their flats for meals, or a night together. Community.
Several times he’d opened that door, the way to her workshop already mapped out in his head a hundred times over. On bike, but also foot. He wouldn’t risk his bike in a sever. Had worked out the safest way to hers, with plenty of places to take immediate safety should the sever peak at any moment and throw any manner of its destruction and chaos his way.
But several times more, he’d closed the door. Walked away, sat back down to the drone of his TV. Sometimes picked up his guitar and played until he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore.
Now, in the shade of Jez Lane, under the tattoo shop SPELLJAM AND POKE’s awning as he finished off his cigarette, stubbing it into the small fag big by the door, beneath the large GITHYANKI ONLY sign. Another one on the door that was propped open with an old chair leg.
The sign was mostly unnecessary. This whole area of the Downs was githyanki only. Rare was it to see an istik on these streets, unless accompanied by a githyanki; even then, held tight by the arm, hand.
“Ready Voss?” asks an old githyanki, the wisps of her hair pulled back into a ponytail as she rolls back on her stool, making room for him as he slips off his leather jacket, top. Wafts the scent of ink, of incense that drifts from the back, near the small shrine to Gith, to the Wars, the Astral Sea.
Voss just nods as he gets comfortable. As he lets her clean the skin over his chest, clavicle. Over old spots and scars raised, cut deep.
There’s a young githyanki nearby getting a back piece done, catches her staring at him every so often, eyes wide, curious.
But he just stares at the walls, covered in old photographs, new. Some faces he recognises from prison, from his time in the war, immortalised in the photos, artwork, in the rolling short videos on the holo screens that rotate every few minutes, silent.
Sees old, defunct weapons from the war hanging from the walls. Silver vein rifle. Psi-pistol. A cracked silver sword, dagger. Handle of a polearm. Chains hang from the stairs. Deactivated suppressor bands, cut in half, hang from another wall.
There’s so much art in different styles. Imagery of the Astral Sea. Of spelljammers of all types. Of their old cities, left behind. Of old armour and colonies of their slavery. And a pennant.
It’s so long it hangs above from one side of the wall, to the other, and back again. Like a loop, the end hanging to the floor, full of wheels of Tir’su.
This whole place a museum. Memorial.
Comfort.
“Haven’t seen this wheel for a while,” she says, pressing the stencil to his skin, then peeling back to a wheel of Tir’su that reads ‘kith’rak’. “Didn’t think there’s many of yous left.”
Voss glances at the reflection of the placement. Sits back down. “A handful, maybe.” Gets comfortable.
“Not that it means what it used to.”
“It means whatever I want it to.”
Voss closes his eyes at the first feel of needle to skin.
Somehow, she’s still there behind his eyes, incandescent.
Gith'ka tavkim krash'ht.