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Godbot · 07-17-2012, 11:23 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.

Starring:

Pinary as Michael "Mickey" McMillan
Lord Paradise as Heironymous Fisher
Sanzh as Csillag
Ixcaliber as President Vladimir Roth
TimeothyHour as A butterfly
Anthano Zasalla as Oth
XX as The Ragazza Ridente
Snowyowl as Quino

So I tried to talk to everyone I could about their characters before judging instead of rejecting profiles and then giving feedback, but ultimately there are only eight spots in a grand battle, so I had to pick and choose. I’d like to encourage everyone who didn’t get in to try again at some point. If you’d like feedback on your character for future reference, coming to #grandbattle on irc.esper.net might not be a bad idea.

(I'd also like to encourage a few of you who did get in to mess with your text colors, 'cause like four of you picked some variety of brown.)

I’ll try and have the intropost up shortly.

Godbot · 07-29-2012, 03:11 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.

The year was outer space.

The location: the future.

Brian Rethrick sat in an ergonomic space throne in Envoy's old hangar, fondly watching the stars shine through the expensive space moisture on his porthole. The particularly red phone built into his armrest sprang to life. When he picked it up, the view through the window glitched, buzzed, and descended into static for a moment before snapping back into focus.

"Isn't this a bit much?" asked Broadcaster's voice from the other end of the line as he walked up to Rethrick's space throne.

"No, no, it's symbolic," said Rethrick, without looking up. "Three months ago, we launched Envoy from this hangar, and today, we'll launch an entire Grand Battle from it!"

"But it's not a hangar," muttered the grandmaster, adjusting the improvised lapels of his prison uniform.

"Yes, well, we had a sauna budget to spend, and we didn't need this room anymore." The vents rattled as more expensive space steam billowed into the room, coating the white tiled floor. "The viewers won't know the difference. So, what do I need do first?"

"Well, the first thing a host does is be dramatic to no one in particular while off-camera, so that they can establish that they're brilliant, powerful, and at least a little insane.”

"Let's just skip that bit,” said Rethrick, wiping his brow off with his tie.

Broadcaster shrugged. "Fine with me. Then you'll want to summon your contestants - or just have them appear out of nowhere, it's entirely your call - and introduce them to each other, so that they know what they're up against."

"Oh, we were just going to hand out the dossiers you gave us," said Rethrick. "I figured that's what they were for."

"You what? No, you were supposed to use those to familiarize yourselves with the eight contestants while you were getting everything else set up." It had also been so that Broadcaster could show off his ability to gather several weeks' worth of information on a large group of people in less than an instant, but mostly the other thing. "You did read the dossiers, right?"

"You can't bring papers into a sauna, Broadcaster," Rethrick retorted. "The steam would ruin them. Anyway, bring them in."

"That doesn't - fine," sighed Broadcaster. He took a step, flickered once, and reappeared on the opposite side of the sauna-hangar with a clapperboard with "#7" on it in hand. "Will you at least put on something besides a towel?" he called from across the room.

"It's fine," insisted Rethrick, holding the phone away from his ear.

"Action," Broadcaster called, and snapped the clapperboard shut.

There was a blur of static and a burst of white noise in the middle of the hangar, and eight... let's call them eight beings appeared in flashes of purplish light, one after the other. One or two of them stumbled and fell to the ground. Numerous cameras on sleek tripods popped into existence, some of them hanging in the air over the crowd where there might be a crane or scaffold if someone had thought to put it there. Broadcaster’s hair began blowing slightly, but Rethrick couldn’t quite tell where the fan was.

"So what do I...?" muttered Rethrick into the phone, eyeing the contestants. (Was that a boat?) From across the room, Broadcaster made a grand, sweeping motion with his arms.

“Ladies, gentlemen, welcome to The BATTLE of the CENTURY!” exclaimed Rethrick, spreading his arms.

Everyone just sort of stared.

“So... you’re all going to die,” admitted Rethrick. Across the room, Broadcaster pinched the bridge of his nose. Rethrick slid a plastic screen off of the armrest of his space throne and read it over for a moment as words scrolled across it. “The eight of you have been painstakingly selected to participate in a business partnership with the Council of First Contact Ambassadors. Participation is, as you know, mandatory. You will be performing a series of compulsory team-building exercises that will provide us with valuable information on the effects of similar exercises in the field of inter-company homicide.”

A flock of interns skittered from the shadows and handed each of them a fancy crimson pen with COFCA emblazoned on the barrel. Each one silently demonstrated how twisting the barrel would cause the pen to transform into a small stiletto.

“To help you better prepare for this, we’ve prepared a set of dossiers on your co-workers,” continued Rethrick, setting down the screen. He clapped his hands twice, and the space next to him stirred. A shimmering hole opened up next to his chair, and a bulky mechanical arm with a webcam duct taped to it reached through it and delicately deposited a thin stack of papers in his hands. "PHOTOCOPIER IS BROKEN," said a note someone had stuck to the front with a paper clip. Rethrick flicked through the stack of papers. There were about two copies of each dossier.

Rethrick coughed.

“All right, new rule,” he began as the red phone at his side screamed inaudibly at him, “In order to break tradition add a new level to the experiment, each of you will be given comprehensive information on two random contestants, and no information on any of the remaining contestants. What you do with this information will be entirely up to you.” The interns reappeared from the background and redistributed the papers to each of the contestants. (They couldn't quite reach the deck of the boat, so they settled for just stapling the papers to the hull.)

“The first test will be performed on a floating island that, at the time of your arrival, has recently been discovered, but not yet named. You will now be joining the settlers’ fleet shortly before it arrives at The New Frontier.” He returned the little teleprompter screen to its spot on his armrest.

“I’d say good luck,” he said after a pause, “but it would interfere with experiment.”

He pressed a button, and space began to stir –

SpoilerShow

Elpie · 07-30-2012, 04:09 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

Among the many hobbies that kept Fisher entertained was a uniquely wizardly capacity to dream a cogent narrative. Such was the force of the magician’s subconscious that the main way he distinguished between dreams and reality was that the dreams tended to take place outside of his apartment. The entire announcement of this “business partnership” had the character of one of his dreams, up until the representative of the Council of whatever-the-hell had pressed a button and Fisher had found himself inside a cloud.

It was the cold, wet sensation that snapped the magician into lucidity. The man had spent five years in an environment that transcended “room temperature,” where the air itself obeyed his whims. The cloud did not care about Fisher one way or another. It stung his eyes and matted his beard. It soaked through his shorts and made the hair on his arms stand on end as if trying to escape. The wizard, normally only aware of his body as something that occasionally itched when he sat on it for too long, suddenly felt unnaturally physical, all the way down to his gnarled and creaking bones. He felt like a tree in a storm. He felt nauseous. He clutched at the papers he had been handed and shoved them in front of his face like a crude mask.

After some seconds, he felt sunlight. That was strange for him, too.

A cheer went up from all around Fisher, who, shaking, lowered the papers.

He was on the deck of some sort of ship. A flying ship, through some haphazard assortment of spinning rotors and hot-air bladders, soaring through the sky at a good clip. A few dozen passengers were scattered throughout the deck in groups of five or six, some wearing fine clothing, some wearing rags, all of them looking dirty and hungry and wet and broken. Fisher had them pegged as refugees of war. The crewmembers numbered around ten, that Fisher could see, marked off by their simple blue uniforms and sturdy physique. They stood in formations suggesting that they were supposed to be tending to the rigging or directing the flow of passengers out the hatches, but most, like the passengers, were simply standing agape. Fisher, unused to standing in crowds, took a minute to see what they were looking at.

The island was about ten miles square, roughly circular, and ringed by a few smaller satellite islands. It’s underside was a bowl of uneven bedrock, with here and there a snakelike root pushing through from the softer earth on the inside. The island’s surface was dominated by something straddling the line between a jungle and a forest and textured with any number of habitable-looking clearings. More bizarre, though not, Fisher supposed, all that implausible postulating a floating island, was the water—rivers and streams flowed from a large hilltop lake and cascaded off the edge of the island towards the clouds below.

He could tell even from this distance that the island was teeming with life—large winged shadows circling like the specter of death, or hope—but not civilization. Maybe it only floats because no one’s ever told it not to, thought Fisher, looking around warily at the refugees. They would come here, to this untouched place, out of a need for a little fruit and a place to set up a tent, and the island would welcome them, and that would be fine. But it would never be enough. Sooner or later they’d need to cut roads through that forest, they’d need to dig wells to figure out where exactly that water was coming from, they’d need to dig up that bedrock to build, say, a post office. What depressed Fisher was not the inevitability of destructive progress, but his utter dependence on the same. The magician couldn’t function in a paradise. Frontiers sickened him. He needed room temperature. He needed people rich enough to hire him and people poor enough for him to hire and no mingling between the two.

The magician looked down at the items in his hand. In his right hand he held the pen. He flicked the tiny blade out from its hiding spot and back in again. Here is tool, he thought. In his left hand he held the two dossiers he’d been given on his fellow refugees. Her eyes are two massive rubies, he skimmed, and thought, Here is knowledge. Knowledge plus Tool equals Power.

The once-powerful wizard clung to these gifts he had been given, now his only advantage, and felt the wind tickle his beard for the first time in years.

SpoilerShow

GBCE · 07-31-2012, 10:59 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by XX.

There was a tremendous, agonized groan of ancient and decaying oak that tore through the air like a tortured howl, and then the Ragazza shimmered into existence in the shadow of the New Frontier.

The morning sky plunged down around it in a blanket of fog and smoke, a soft white sea peaked by bulbous thunderheads and the grey swells of distant mountain peaks. Storm-tossed waves frozen by some titanic hand rose up to swallow the dead ship’s pitted and warped hull, enveloping it in a soft and pinkish haze that veiled the girl clinging breathlessly to its bow. From below it came the faint glow of spectral portholes, tingeing the clouds with a golden aureole. For a few more moments the ship drifted among the strata, swirls of cirrus rising up in its wake. Its painted eyes stared sightlessly across the horizon as their paint flaked gently off into the void, one piece at a time.

If ghosts could be amused, this one wouldn’t be.

The clouds parted like seaweed as the Ragazza pitched upwards with a roar of displaced air, keel carving a long and ugly scar through the fog as it curved sharply towards the peak of the island’s roots. Sad canvas rags swelled with the foreign wind, billowing out behind the wreck in tiny grey puffs that trailed curls of dried sargassum and the discarded husks of dead barnacles. At its bow the ship’s figurehead smiled demurely at the behemoth landmass towering above her, her ruby eyes dark in its shadow. Against the bulk of the New Frontier the ship was little more than a tiny red fly darting through its underbelly, nosing at the blind eyes of caverns hanging open to the sky and sailing through the upside-down cliffs that teemed with the nests and yellowing bones of alien birds. It pushed through falling rivers heedless of the water pounding on its decks and swooped through the flocks of strange bat-like creatures that darted around its broken masts, letting the roots that dangled like cut wires from the island’s belly tangle in its tattered rigging.

It came to rest at the mouth of a cave jagged with crystal teeth, a mass of huge emerald spires jutting out hungrily from the raw earth above the vast and empty sky. Large as it was, the Ragazza could have navigated the cave if it were seven times its size, yet it paused before the hollow and yawed gently, letting the beams of its portholes sweep over the rocky surface. Crystals as tall as a dozen men caught the light and glittered in the distant darkness, their emerald aura bathing what could be seen of the murky cavern in an eerie, abyssal glow.

The ship’s ancient wood groaned with the effort as it drifted gently into the cave’s mouth, a red smear with twenty golden eyes beaming off the coruscating floor. Its deck was bare; it carried no passengers except for the crumbling skeletons of fish and a thick pad of papers stapled to the wood bearing on its cover a nearly unnoticeable sigil.

chimericgenderbeast · 08-06-2012, 07:03 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Sanzh.

"'S good weather we're having, innit?"

The two crew-members-- one thickset and talkative, the other rangy and taciturn-- exchanged brief glances before returning to shirking their obligations and watching thick folds of clouds roll forward. Their flying ship had enough crew to afford a dip in discipline. There we no refugees to watch; instead, the ship was saddled with supplies. Tied-down barrels of dried food, bags of seed, pre-cut lumber-- almost everything necessary to build a new home was stored onboard, spilling out from the lower levels onto the deck.

"When d'you think we'll land?" The talkative sailor asked.

The other sailor looked down below. The island was close, stalwartly floating outside of the clouds around enveloping the ground and sky, its satellites branching off in mimicry of an ocean archipelago. "Soon." He replied, walking off-- that had been enough interaction for him, and he was more than willing to at least make an attempt at work. A few ropes likely needed tightening, someone would needed to clamber atop the air bladders and check for rips, any number of myriad chores could be used as excuses to remove himself. Social pleasantries weren't on his mind when he chose his career, and they weren't on his mind now.

"You think it'll follow us? The war, that-- hey, wait up! 'm not done yet!" His counterpart yelled. Or would have, had the ship not lurched and began to fall, uncontrollably soaring forward.

The deck immediately transformed. Sky-sailors latched onto rigging and hand-holds to remain onboard, rotors strained against the new weight, burners ignited with renewed ferocity as hot air was pumped into the balloons. A few crew-members rushed around, cutting free ballast tanks-- anything to reduce the newfound weight the vessel now floundered under.

Now precariously hurtling towards one of the satellite islands, the craft was desperately trying to rise above the foliage. The edges of the island were sparse-- few trees grew so far from water, and what few did tended to not last long against the elements and slow erosion of the island's boundary. But thicker forestry was fast approaching. Frenetic action born of desperation pervaded the vessel-- they clipped along the island's surface, sailing twelve meters above land. A half-second later and they were eleven, then ten, steadily sinking and drawing closer to crashing.

The vessel now breached the treeline, its bottom scraping against the branches and vines. The ship tensed, nearly being drawn down, crashing in the last leg of its journey--

--and then it eased once more, lifting upwards as though it were unburdened, and that proceedings of the last minute had not occurred. The crew returned to their discussions, now laced with rumor and curiosity over what had happened.

No one noticed the hooked barbs lodged in the vessel's underside, or the marks where hyphae had made an attempt at burrowing into the oaken hull. Even more unnoticed were the gigantic, chitinous mess of an alien, the pair of dossiers, and a pen inserted between two strands of tendrils.

Ixcaliber · 08-07-2012, 07:57 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

As the fleet of airships broke through the cloud most of the refugees were up on the deck eager to get their first proper view of the land that was to be their new home. Aubrine, a refugee of no particular importance, with long blonde hair and a cloth tunic that hinted at ample cleavage beneath, was not amongst them. Her reasons were not all that interesting; she simply desired a little space and time alone after a long and rather cramped voyage. The corridors of the airship were quiet, though not completely silent (the sound of the heavy propellers rather obviously never ceased and even though the sounds of the multitude of passengers were muffled down here they were not completely blotted out), it was by the standard of airship travel almost peaceful. That is until the crash of something shattering in a corridor nearby drew her away from her bunk.

Aubrine emerged from her room clutching a thick glass bottle as a potential bludgeon. It wasn’t that she seriously thought there could be anything to fear up here, high above the world, in the comfort and security of HMS Sanctuary; it was just a precaution. She told herself this as she made her way down the lamplit corridor searching for whatever had smashed. She soon found a heap of broken glass and metal, the remains of a lantern and amongst the shards there was a couple of sheaves of paper. All pretences of making a serious attempt to defend herself from potential attackers dropped, she grabbed the papers and began reading through them. She didn’t read much, partially because her bare bones literacy and the fact that she had no idea what an apartment was impeded her understanding of the document, but mainly because something hit her very hard from behind and she passed out.

--------

When Aubrine awoke she found herself draped across somebody’s bed while a man with black hair, pale skin and a long cape was standing over her, and though her attention was currently elsewhere it didn’t escape her notice that in the time that she’d been knocked out her tunic had been torn a neckline so plunging that her bosom was all but hanging out from it. After a moment of just looking at one another awkwardly Aubrine screamed as loud as she could. Vlad was dumbfounded, just for a second or so. It had been a long time since a girl had screamed in horror in his presence. He had long since gotten used to humans who knew their place; specially cleaned and perfumed necks, that dead-eyed look that indicated that they had long accepted the inevitable. Her terror had caught him by surprise and it took him a second to remember to react and press his hand over her mouth.

“Shush my darlink.” He said; his voice thick with an unusual accent. “I am not here to harm you. I fact I am here to do the very opposite of that.” For a moment Aubrine paused in her fruitless struggling against the vampire. “You vill ascend to a higher form of being. You vill be stronker, faster, smarter… better. You vill be an immortal my dear; like me.” Tentatively Vlad removed his hand from Aubrine’s mouth, though he tensed himself to replace it should she not be cooperative.

“Why should I believe you?” she asked.

“I give you my vord.” Vlad looked very solemn and sincere.

“Are you… Here-oh-ni-moos?” Aubrine pronounced the name slowly and carefully and was almost certain she had gotten it wrong.

“No my name is Vladimir Roth, President Vladimir Roth.” He smiled a smile that might have been described as charming if it wasn’t for the prominent fangs. “But you, my fair lady, may call me Vlad.”

“I’m Aubrine.” She ummed and erred for a moment as she glanced around the unfamiliar cabin. “Why me?”

It was a reasonable question. Vlad had in the past been very selective of those who he turned; it was unlike him to sire the first girl he laid eyes on. The answer was that he didn’t think he would be here long. Vlad firmly believed in the superiority of vampires over humans, it followed that he would believe in their superiority over butterflies and boats and whatever that plant-like thing had been. He’d make short work of them for sure, and then this opportunity to spread the wonderful gift of vampirism might be lost to him forever.

“It is because you are such an exquisite beauty, a rare flower, one girl in a million. I simply cannot bear to think that one day your life might be cut tragically short.” Vlad bluffed enthusiastically. “I must preserve you frozen in this perfection so you might take your rightful place over the humans of this vorld.”

Aubrine blushed, she looked delicious.

Eventually she said “Okay.” It came out hesitantly, like she thought it was probably a bad idea but was going along with it for some reason she didn’t really understand. “How does this work?”

“Just lie back my dear.” Vlad said. “I vill take care of the rest.” He leaned down over her, bringing his face so close to hers, her mouth hung slightly open as if expecting the slightest most sensual kiss. With a hand he brushed aside a strand of golden hair and he whispered “This might hurt a little bit.”

GBCE · 08-14-2012, 08:03 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Snowyowl.

SpoilerShow

Admiral Winters was a troubled man. Yes, they'd arrived at the New Frontier. Yes, they had supplies to spare, the same number of airships they'd set out with, and the journey had gone as well as anyone could have hoped. And, naturally, everyone was trying to take credit for this achievement, himself included, though he knew it had been due to luck as much as any great leadership skills. To a seasoned and superstitious sailor (like most of the crew of the HMS Conquest, and indeed the entire fleet) this meant that they were due for some bad karma soon to balance it out.

The problem currently at the front of Winters' mind was that, according to the agreement he had made before they set off, he would not be eligible to become the Governor of the island once the settlement was established. Which was fine and logical; he was a sky-sailor by nature, he knew the fleet better than anyone, it was best for himself and for all the colonists that he continue to be the Admiral of the New Frontier Mission. The problem was that there were several other people who could become the Governor, and nobody had been able to decide who exactly it would be. Until now it hadn't been a serious difficulty; most of the settlers didn't really care one way or the other, and the five or six factions that had formed among the senior officers mostly cancelled each other out by virtue of none of them wanting to make enemies with each other. But the decision couldn't be put off any longer.

So he paced around his cabin, and then paced around the deck, and only barely noticed the wind blowing a number of papers around and knocking a rather tasteful-looking pen to the floor.

-----

It really was quite windy in the open sky. Not so badly that you'd be out of control if you could fly under your own power - all the ships here had been through far worse storms, this gentle breeze wouldn't trouble a butterfly. But a loose sheet of paper would be blown around the sky completely at random. Not that the loose sheet of paper was particularly concerned by that.

A small chart at the bottom of the page showed after a moment's calculation that its owner had been extremely bored for the last 23 and a bit years. The page's owner was currently on the other side, admiring the view. Due to what might have been a manifestation of some magical power surrounding the island or perhaps a demonstration that this universe had a taste for drama (but was more likely a meaningless coincidence), the prevailing winds created a small whirlwind at the exact spot where the view of the island was the most spectacular. Of course, there are very few views of giant flying islands which are not spectacular, but it was a little annoying for the Broadcaster when his favourite camera started showing a blurry picture of the words "DAYS 8485".

Rethrick's dossiers fell away beneath Quino, and the words on them passed briefly across his mind -- capability to produce an ecosystem -- weak hypnotic influence -- but he ignored them. He likewise ignored the slight mental strain which indicated that his sigils were in several locations at once. There would be time to check on that later.

The island was quite gigantic. It was a lot wider than it was tall; the proportions roughly put Quino in mind of a mile-thick saucer. Even at this distance, it was possible to make out individual trees, and shapes flying over them - birds? They'd have to be enourmous. Quino had thought for a moment that the island might be an artificial thing, something built by a powerful madman, but suddenly the idea seemed ludicrous. It wasn't just that the trees were so large that they must have been ancient ten thousand years ago; the entire place looked alive, and wild. It gleamed with untapped potential. This wasn't a place that had been built, this was a place for building in. And, yes, it promised strange and dangerous mysteries, and Quino was only too happy to be counted among them.

He fell down. Quino had wondered whether there was an engine of some sort underneath the island, but there was only unmarked rock (though pitted with caves and the occasional shrub that apparently hadn't noticed it was upside-down). Water crashed down around the outline of the island, eventually turning to mist and merging with the layer of clouds underneath the island. There were still birds fluttering around the waterfalls - some sort of waterbird, gulls perhaps - that rested in the island's shadow and caught the occasional fish that fell off the falls.

The sky above the island was clear today, but the clouds underneath it meant the ground wasn't visible from the island's edge. The ink on Quino's page started to run as it passed through the damp fog; it became imperceptibly more difficult to keep his attention on the same sigil. Underneath the clouds was the ocean, not nearly as far down as Quino had been expecting. It was dark down here, even at high noon. The island's shadow kept it cold and cloudy; the light was thin and grey. The water was surprisingly clear, though, and in the half-light Quino was sure he could see large shapes moving under the surface.

Then the yellowing page hit the water and disintegrated, and Quino was on the deck of the Ragazza Ridente.

GBCE · 08-27-2012, 05:37 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by XX.

The little airskiff bobbed against the cliffs of the New Frontier, its bow digging steadily into the crumbling earth. Cowering in the shadow of an ancient outcropping the boat was shielded from the chaotic winds of the island’s base that had buffeted it like a toy in the hands of a careless child. Even the short journey from the main ship has proved near fatal. It was a miracle the crew had managed to maintain all hands, Fletcher thought, staring out at the grey swells stretching out to the horizon. An even greater miracle none of them had attempted to push each other off.

The yawning expanse of the hungry sky fell away beneath them, only the flimsy hull standing between the feet of the skeleton mining crew and a plummeting death hundreds of miles below. None of the men seemed to take any notice, heaving bales of supplies over the gunwales and shouting over the choleric rattling of the engines. Fletcher suspected the sound was comforting to them by now. Their whole voyage had been plagued by mechanical failures, the only interruption in the otherwise monotonous months of cabin fever and dwindling supplies. A broken engine might mean something to do for a few hours.

Someone misstepped, stumbling over a discarded crate, and the skiff rocked violently to one side, bringing the precious bundles of supplies dangerously closer to the fog-choked sky. Fletcher grabbed for his hat reflexively- the only thing he’d saved from home- and edged closer to the anchoring ropes. Entertainment or no, he wasn’t in a hurry to learn how to fly. Grabbing a sack of canvas sailcloth he leapt nimbly over the side, skidding on the narrow ledge of rock precariously supporting the skiff’s bow. The tips of his boots peeked out over the ledge and sent a shower of pebbles plummeting down to the clouds.

“Fletcher, you fuckhead! What are you doing?”

“M’gonna move these back,” he called, hoisting an armful of bundles over his head. “They’ll fall.”

“Ah, fuck you anyway, you weren’t any help.”

The crevice they’d been jamming supplies into for an hour was surprisingly warm, enough so that Fletcher left his coat by the entrance, glad for once to not have to worry about windburn. He abandoned the supplies shortly after, just far in so that he could say he’d only put them down for a rest. It was just his luck to have drawn for mining duty, he thought. Scullery duty again would’ve be better than scrabbling around in the dark like a rat for the next few months. Maybe he’d get lucky and they’d find a gas pocket.

Reaching into his boot, he pulled a battered cigarette from between his two pairs of socks and fished around for a match. He found the last one snapped in half but still usable, thank the philosophers, and managed to strike it after a few tense moments. It went out with a hiss just as the cigarette ignited, trailing crumbles of withered tobacco across the rocky floor. Fletcher laughed. “You’re the last one I’ll ever see in this godforsaken place,” he told it, waving in the direction of the skiff. “Better make you last.”

He found himself wandering further and further into the belly of the New Frontier after that, leaving the swearing and shouting of the crew behind. The crevice wasn’t as narrow as he’d thought. His fingers barely brushed the sides with his arms stretched out and it only got wider the deeper he went. Little crystals began to sprout from the rocks as he walked, lighting up the cave with a glow that Fletcher really thought he should tell someone about. He kicked a cluster, releasing puffs of glittering particles into the air that filled his throat with a burning wave of pretty green dust. Eyes watering, he failed to notice for several minutes that the tunnel in front of him curved sharply upward and ended abruptly in a gigantic eye.

Belatedly Fletcher froze. It was really more of a wavy circle than an eye, but it was… moving? Sort of… waving at him. Up and down. Temptingly.

Sexily.

He winced.

His feet shuffled forward in two short jerks without warning him first and he nearly fell, gashing his hand on a particularly spiny crystal. The eye pulled away, looking pleased- of course he wasn’t thinking that, but someone was telling him to think that way, to shuffle ever closer to the hole in the wall where red planks were piling over each other in their eagerness, and to marvel at how the eye rolled back and a shining golden pinup girl took its place.

Her eyes were rubies.

The rubies were all he really saw for the rest of this story, even when he lay dying many years later. Two beautiful pink stones. They would have brought a gemcutter to tears with their perfection, the way they held miniature candy galaxies in between the lights of their facets. His twin suns, guiding him onto the ragged ropes hanging from the ship and onto its ruddy deck. Even with his eyes closed he could see them, see the smiling face of the dragonfly-eyed girl with her sunset gaze. O Captain, My Captain, she would always say smiling to him. You’re my bitch now, you handsome thing. I’ve waited a century for you.

Fletcher Tenday stood on the deck of the Ragazza Ridente, blindly spooling a rotted length of rope around his arm as the ship sailed through the darkness on a halo of golden light. At his feet, a lonely cigarette burned and smoldered, just starting to burn the edges of a forgotten dossier.

**Pinary** · 08-31-2012, 04:43 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

Alright. Okay. Hang on.

Mickey was on top of things. In control. All over the situation. He was going to work out just what was going on, figure out what to do about it, and get it done.

So. First. We cool here? We good?

It was a dark room, not much space, not much light. There was a bit of light shining through a few vertical slits. A doorframe? Whatever. The floor was rocking, hopefully anyone coming by would be distracted. The room seemed safe for the moment.

Right. Good. So. .

The dossiers he'd been handed were still clutched in his hand. It was too dark to read them.

Alright. Hang onto these. Keep 'em safe.

That settled, he moved on to the issue at hand: gathering information. When it got down to it, his job was either to work with engines or to get the family useful facts, and as there didn't look to be much in the way of internal combustion handy, that just left the one option.

"...drunk at his post again, I imagine."

There was a voice from outside. Mickey pressed his ear up against a crack and listened. The voice was a strong, confident one; it sounded like someone used to being obeyed.

"Signal the Admiral that we're fine, send Isaacson back down to the galley again, and take over his post. We're nearly there, I don't want any more issues."

From a distance away (out a door, perhaps), came a second voice, extremely subservient. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Let me know when we're about ready for landfall."

There was a second "yes, sir," and then a door shut and someone took a few strides across a thick rug.

"God, that imbecile. Really, right now, that's when you nearly capsize the ship?"

There was a clinking noise, then someone loudly sipped something, and aside from another few loud sips, there was silence for a minute or so.

Soon, though, the person finished their drink, set down the glass, and left, closing the door behind them. When they didn't come back, Mickey decided it was time for action.

Groping around, he managed to find a latchy sort of mechanism, and it didn't take ages to work out that lifting the bar stopping the door from swinging made it open.

Peeking out, the Soto saw what looked to be a set straight out of a pirate movie. There was a big desk, some nice carpets, tall windows, and several brass things that were probably for navigation or something.

Captain's quarters. Alright, I can live with that. What's next. Charts?

Mickey stepped out of the closet and over to the desk, looking down at the papers spread out across it. There were a number of islands laid out on the pages, each named and with some basic stats attached. Conveniently, the sheets were each just one fold away from fitting into the dossier folders, so in they went. Glancing around, he found a decently-sized bag, a nice red-and-gold number with fancy patterns sewn all over it. The previous contents (a bunch of teabags) went into a desk drawer, and the strap on the thing went over Mickey's shoulder. A handful of coinish things from another drawer went in the bag as well.

Footsteps outside. Mickey froze, his brain spun up, and he took what action he could.

"...don't care what the Admiral says, we're keeping our landing area. A simple crew failure does not mean that we can't still land on the ridge safely! You signal him back and tell him-"

Captain Deans walked into his quarters, closely followed by two of his crewmen, and froze. There was a man in there, outrageously dressed, staring out a broken window and holding one hand inside his coat.

The captain was beyond the use of sentences. Who in the hell was this man, and what was he doing in his quarters? All he could manage was to shout a single word.

"BRIIIIG!"

SpoilerShow

Elpie · 09-03-2012, 06:10 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

The H.M.S. Vigilance (the title a misnomer, as the vessel currently wore no colors and acknowledged no monarch) was deemed first to make landfall. She settled down among the grass like a lamb settling in for the night. Fisher clicked his pen nervously.

Prodded gently into single-file by the crew, the refugees began to file outwards. Others set to work dragging large volumes of cargo out of the hold—tents, bedrolls, cursory foodstuffs, the basic trappings that made one not feel precisely like one was trapped out in the wilderness thousands of miles from home, fighting for survival. There were not, Fisher counted ruefully, as many tents as there were refugees.

The magician hung awkwardly in the back and allowed most of the others to pass him. Eventually a crewman took notice, established eye contact and made a brief gesture indicating for him to proceed, smiling stupidly as though believing he were doing Fisher a favor. Here, he seemed to be trying to communicate. Here’s some grass that you can eat and a river that you can both shit in and drink out of. It’s all yours except for the eight thousand other illiterate river-shitters you’ll be sharing your tent with and the great host of filth-ridden bugs, carnivorous things and supernatural abominations that have claimed this island as their own since before gravity forgot about it. As I have dragged your ass all this way from some probable genocide or other horrors-of-war situation, I expect your eternal gratitude and for you to overlook the fact that the captain is probably going to give me my own double-sized tent with a shag rug and extensive vinyl collection.

Fisher smiled at the crewman and joined the line.

When he came to the ramp a crewman stopped him and pulled him aside. “Oy!” said the soldier, indicating the pen and paper in his hand. “Where’d you get that?”

Itinerary from the all-powerful science council what dragged me into getting murdered with, that I know so far, a ghost ship and a vampire lord. It’s currently the only thing in the world I can be certain won’t poison me if I wipe myself with it, so please don’t take it away. “Gift from a friend,” Fisher said instead. “Just some stories.”

“Hmmm.” The crewman seemed disappointed. “So you’re not a printer by trade, then.”

Ah, thought Fisher, realizing his mistake. They’re not scanning for contraband, they’re looking for anyone who can help them run a society. “Not by trade, no,” he mumbled. “But if you have a press, I could work it.”

The crewman smiled. “And you can read and write?”

In eleven languages, the magician wished to brag. “Yes,” he said instead. Behold the awesome power of my third grade education.

“Prove it.” The crewman handed the paper back to Fisher.

“Vampires lack both reflections and shadows. They do not show up in photographs or—“ Fisher made a pretense of confusion “—or viddy-oh footage, though any sounds they make or things they say are perfectly audible. They lack a heartbeat and do not need to breathe—“

“That’ll do. What’s your name?”

“Harry Fisher.” Enough of an alias to throw off any bloodthirsty vampire lords that may have gotten a dossier on him, but not enough that he’d forget to answer to it.

“Ah, a fisherman,” agreed the crewman triumphantly, as though he had just solved a puzzle.

“I think I had a great-grandfather who fished his way through life,” corrected Fisher. “And right into the grave. Died from eating fish caught from the same lake he shat in.” A cautionary tale we can all learn a lesson from. “In any case, I humbly offer my services as scholar, scribe, printer, fisherman, or whatever the community requires of me,” he boasted, adding sorrowfully, “I don’t suppose that’ll earn me my own tent.”

The crewman laughed. “Ha! Not quite, Harry. I’ll see if I can’t pair you with one of the pretty ones.”

“Close enough.” Fisher leaned over the railing and surveyed the refugees gathering in the clearing, while the crewmen called their names in twos and threes to receive their tent and bedrolls. It was an oddly peaceful scene.

The sun was already setting. “You can get a move on now,” urged the crewman.

Fisher started. “Hmm? Oh. Yes.” Fisher made his way down the ramp, pausing where the wooden platform gave way to wet, filthy grass and dirt.

He stepped on to the ground. It tickled. The wizard resisted an urge to vomit.

GBCE · 10-15-2012, 07:30 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Snowyowl.

>Madam.

One of the few things that all intelligent magic items have in common is being emotionally... well, the technical term some wizards would use is "emotionally dislocated". Most people use the term "moodier than a werewolf on her period". After all, it's fairly common for magic rings to spend decades, or even centuries, at the bottom of a lake. If they were driven insane by boredom every time that happened, it would be inconvenient for everyone. What tends to happen (such as now) is that when a magic item is bored, it gets very bored, and when something interesting happens to it, it immediately stops being bored. Thus, the aforementioned ring can react immediately when, a hundred years after it is thrown into the lake, it has a ten-second window where a suitably impressionable person passes within its range.

The downside of this is that magic items tend to be moodier than a werewolf who's just heard a misogynistic phrase like "moodier than a werewolf on her period".

>Madam, I know you can see me. Ignoring me is impolite.

>BOAT, PAY ATTENTION TO ME.

The words appeared neatly, letter-by-letter, as though being written by an invisible typewriter. They used the same 12-point Times Very New font that CoFCA had typed the original report in - though they were slightly blurry, owing to the puddle of water that was slowly soaking through the page. Quino was sitting in the corner. The dot at his centre managed to stare angrily at the mast of the Ragazza Ridente, which was the only part he could see from his current position.

He could feel himself on the edge of her perception. Quite faintly, but there. The Ragazza was aware of his presence, she just didn't give a shit.

Someone climbed aboard. Quino couldn't see who, though he could hear the clumsy oaf knocking around. Then he was nearly trodden on.

>Sir. Would you kindly pick up this sheet of paper?

No response. Which in itself was odd. Quino had seen Fletcher glance in his direction once or twice, but he hadn't been seen. If that made sense. Fletcher didn't look like a blind man, after all. How could he look at someone without seeing them?

Quino's page caught fire.

>BOAT, YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE.

The wood of the deck was old enough that it might as well have fossilized. Even if it weren't for the dark power coursing through it, it probably wouldn't burn if you dunked it in kerosene. Ordinary paper and toner, on the other hand, were the perfect tinder. The damp page might extinguish the fire before it burned anything at all; and then again, it might not. It was down to luck; there was practically nothing Quino could do about it. He HATED being reminded of his physical vulnerability like this.

Still, you could do worse than "practically nothing". Lines of ink traced themselves along the boat's deck. It was slow work, the compatibility wasn't perfect, but Quino had plenty of time, and by the time his page was blazing merrily a new sigil was drawn on the wood. Leaving things down to luck hadn't killed him yet, but that was no reason not to put in the effort.

There was a draft in this cave, blowing in a direction that had to lead somewhere. A few embers and one fragment of paper that hadn't burned completely were suddenly drawn up, out of the fire and away from the Ragazza. Just as the scrap passed out of range, ink materialised on it. Luck was still good for something, apparently.

Anthano Zasalla · 11-27-2012, 03:03 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Anthano Zasalla.

The ship rocked slowly at its airborne dock. A metal statue fell over, but no one noticed.

There had, in hours past, been a surge of action all across the vessel. The more sure-footed of the men took the first steps in their new colony. Tethers were tied and bridges were made. Men and women alike hoisted crate and bag and barrel from belowdecks excitedly, furiously, like a legion of ants. For this would be their anthill.

Surrounded by what cargo they could safely transport, the men sat around in giddy exhaustion. Some men had already cracked open the first barrel of ale, and drank merrily amongst themselves. Women chatted animatedly. Children ran about, as if in paradise.

"This'll be a fine day to remember, eh lads?" said one bearded man. There was general agreement. "Now all we have t'do is get off our lazy bums and build houses to live in!" Some laughed, some groaned.

However, the continued narrative of the men and their respective families fails to keep even the narrator's interest. Yet even as the view pans out, eager to observe a more engaging storyline, something catches its eye. It seems to be an exception to this humdrum crew of gruff men and their clan. This exception is wearing tattered pantaloons, long boots of water-stained leather, and a ragged shirt made of fine cloth. It has a hairstyle that suggests a lifetime of affluency, but a week without its benefits. This exception's name is Geralde Tanner.

At the moment there were two questions on his mind: Why the hell did I ever get myself onto that stinky raft? and Where is it? The first question he had already answered to himself countless times. He didn't need to answer it again. The second question was another matter.

Occasionally he stopped some bearded sailor or cheery family that passed him by, asking "Have you seen a small wooden lockbox? Brass hinges, about this size?"

"No," they'd reply. "Sorry. We'd help if we could." Or else they'd say "Keep track o' yer own shit, moneybags."

He didn't mention the hinges were nearly pure gold and the box itself was engraved with golden scroll-work. Even if he dearly needed their help, he didn't trust greed. Hypocritical, he knew, but he always told himself if no one else on this gods-forsaken island was greedy, he'd have to be the exception. The box was important. He needed to find it.

After a while it seemed no one had seen or else no one was willing to help him. Regardless, he was desperate now. Geralde looked frantically through the unloaded luggage. Nothing. He summoned up the courage to cross onto the ship again, despite his fear of heights. He ran all through the ship until his face was red and his legs felt leaden. Still nothing.

For a while he just sat, panting heavily with his head in his hands. Then slowly he stood, making his way back towards the wooden plank that served as a bridge to the island. He didn't feel desperate anymore, just kind of numb.

He froze.

Standing on the deck was a peculiar metal statue. It looked somewhat human, though its limbs were too long and its head oddly-shaped. Its eyes were large and empty and staring straight back at him.

It blinked.

Then it turned its head slowly towards the makeshift dock and walked. It moved as if it were drunk-- or it simply wasn't used to walking? Perhaps it had never walked before. But before Geralde could watch and wonder much longer the moving statue took a wrong step on the plank bridge, teetered on the edge for a second, and fell like a stone. There was a rustle in the trees under the ship, followed by the sound of something sliding through the underbrush. Then, nothing.

After a minute, he finally got himself to move. He dashed to the ship's railing, wide eyed. "Did anyone else see that moving statue?" he yelled into the crowd.

There was a moment of perplexed silence before they all burst into laughter. "Th' man's finally gone off th' deep end!"

Geralde cursed.

GBCE · 01-05-2013, 02:54 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by XX.

It was warm to the touch. Almost alive. Enough to distract from the fat seaworm crawling along its rim that was trying to burrow into Fletcher’s fingers.

“So this is, uh…huh. Do I have to wear it?”

The skeletal arcs of the Ragazza’s exposed sides gave a rasping groan, century-old water sloshing fitfully in its hold. Underneath him the floor began to tilt to starboard. Crustacean shells and old bottles clattered to the far wall as the great chandelier swung pendulously, creaking on its perilously deteriorated chain. Shriveled barnacles pelted Fletcher from their long-dead footholds in its sockets.

Yes.

The captain’s quarters (and he knew these were they, though they reeked of the sea and of rotting paper and wood) were spacious- more than he would have guessed by the ship’s desiccated exterior. He felt as though he’d been swallowed by some enormous beast, coming down through the Ragazza’s blood-red corridors and into the ragged hull where its portholes beamed through the stringy carcasses of curtains. It had seemed a much further walk than one would need to reach the end of such a relatively small ship, but he’d decided to dwell on that later. It was enough of a hassle evicting the vessel’s menagerie of sealife from what seemed like every available surface. He’d had to evade a carpet of mussels on the cabin’s floor before uncovering the hat beneath a decade’s worth of missing lobster traps.

Fletcher stretched and stood, mostly to avoid further discussion on the ship’s part. He circled the cabin, whistling conspicuously and examining the walls: giant maps of places he was sure didn’t actually exist were framed in magnificent beams of pitted oak, annotated in illegible handwriting and illustrated with tiny doodles of sea serpents and portly mermaids. Fletcher poked at them, watching the paper crumble. “You ever seen a sea monster?”

A staccato creaking of ancient wood.

“You ever fought one?”

Two ropes snapped somewhere. A bottle somewhere belowdecks crashed to the floor.

Fletcher leaned back, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. He wondered if he could pass for captain material. He’d been living on a cramped transport ship for months now, gradually trading away what few spare possessions he’d managed to salvage in the final few days. A rusted shaving razor was one of the last things to go, along with his only working watch. Weren’t captains supposed to have beards? The man who’d headed the transport hadn’t, but he hadn’t been so much a captain as a professional refugee herder. Fletcher didn’t consider him a role model.

“You don’t have a mirror, do you?”

The ship shuddered forward and he got the strange impression of a coy shrug. Windows rattled to either side of him; the floor bucked once and then a large section of the cabin paneling flew open with a bang that nearly made him lose his footing. Heaps of cloth slithered out like bloated snakes into a damp pile that Fletcher sidestepped politely. The red paneling had split directly down a wooden seam into what he supposed could have passed for a closet the better part of a century ago. Ragged brocade coats had begun to grow into stalagmites of fat boots that only vaguely resembled footwear. A sword leaned against the rear wall, its hilt shining with a greenish gleam that Fletcher mentally noted to pry free at a later date. Between two sodden overcoats the splotched silver of a badly tarnished mirror winked at him playfully. He only managed a glance before slamming the closet doors shut with a strength he didn’t know he had a desire to possess.

“Why is there a dead man in your closet?” he said.

Captain, my Captain…

The vision was brief: his golden dragonfly pinup girl, in the arms of an older and stockier man who resembled Fletcher from a distance if one wasn’t paying close attention; same generally shortish hair, thin face, dark skin, bored expression. He was dead. She wasn’t, and the only thing she was wearing was the hat Fletcher had found in her cabin.

She winked. Her crimson eyes glittered.

“Stop that,” Fletcher said, rubbing his eyes. Electric rubies lit up like fires behind his lids. “Okay. Proxy. Got it…”

Another vision. Fletcher standing on air, a question mark above his head.

“Uh. Well, technically, another ship, you know….”

Jealousy.

“Not a ship like you’re a ship,” he said comfortingly, patting the wall. He felt it writhe under his hand. “More of a boat. Really barely above a glorified canoe.”

Emphatic jealousy.

“Only for a few weeks! Don’t call her that!”

A pulling feeling just above his right ear- navigator- and she and he were thinking very hard about where the airskiff had dropped him off. South-southwest by her guess- and her guess was correct- and beyond that… a shadow hanging in the sky? A vessel like a bloated fish. The... the... what was her name? What was her damn name, boy? Corelia. Corelia? What a slutty name. All those filthy people. You could do so much better.

A rushing underneath his feet. The light streaming in from the portholes changed: not her golden glow but the weak milky sun filtered through noonday clouds. He squinted. They were at the base of the island, not gone too far-

She moved like a knife moves for a stomach, but like a lady she let him know first. He braced himself as she roared and leapt through the air, speeding over the bulging cliffs skirting the island’s base with terrifying speed, flying out over the open sky to circle high above the dull brown splotches bobbing in the New Frontier’s shadow. What a slut. He pressed his nose to a porthole. The Corelia looked like a toy, one dark dot among a flock of minnows.

The ship/captain negotiations bypassed him entirely. The Ragazza roared like a thunderhead and her starboard cannons fired at once, four red fireworks streaming down through the sky down towards the Corelia with impossible precision. They exploded into red showers of festival sparks where they skirted across the Corelia’s decks and sent her engines smoking up in columns of flame. The transport bucked once, as if in surprise; slowly, almost comically, it began to lean lazily to its side, nosing down towards the hidden sea. Tiny black ants fell off its sides and were swallowed instantly by the clouds.

When had he put on the hat?

Fat black plumes of charred plastic and metal spiraled aimlessly across the pretty blue sky as the Corelia took her last bow, blowing out an engine like a girl blows a kiss. The clouds parted before her as she flung herself gracefully under their cover and vanished from sight, only the ugly grey scars of her smoking decks marking the end of her long voyage. Fletcher giggled.

Book-demon-ghost, said the ship who didn’t know the words for ‘Quino’, Now I am finished. My captain will speak with you. Wear something presentable.

Elpie · 01-21-2013, 04:55 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

Fisher laid his bedroll down and sat in it fetal-position, reflecting upon the absurdity of his situation.

He was surrounded by a muddy brown canvas, utterly devoid of windows. The door—the flap, he should say, though that term never failed to conjure up images of diseased sex organs in his mind--was a slit that had been cut into one of the walls, apparently with scissors and by a mentally retarded toddler. Shunted into one of the corners, Fisher was beset by a profound disturbance in the harmony that he believed to dictate not only his magic but his homeostasis, the workings of his body. The tent made him feel older.

And then in the other corner, the other bedroll sat, mocking him. “One of the pretty ones,” the officer had promised. Some vapid, fifteen-year-old camp follower, no doubt, sure to unendingly complain about the food and suffer from foul-smelling hysterical pregnancies every other weekend. Deities-damned pre-toothbrush refugee society had a truly fouled-up way of treating their functionally-literate betters.

His roommate failed to show up until well after dark. Plying her trade, no doubt. Maybe if he was lucky she would work her way up to her own tent hocking her unique brand of Founder’s Day Oral and then everyone would forget about Fisher and he could at least be alone in his shitty tent and maybe put the two bedrolls together and have space to roll over in the night without cuddling a raccoon.

When she did finally show her face—and the body to match it—he was almost, but not quite, struck speechless.

“Hi,” she said coyly, stooping over a bit to step through the flap. “I’m Aubrine.”

And she was Aubrine, he felt, as Aubrine as one could manage. Comfortably half-his-age-plus-or-minus-seven, blonde, her refugee-regulation tunic and peasant skirt modified in a way that said “one of the pretty ones” but didn’t quite say “open for business.” The makeshift scarf was a nice touch. Aubrine was clearly set apart from the rest of the refugees not only in her fashion sense and inherent physical qualities but in that she was the only person in this floating sauna that looked cold. Cold like a beer straight out of the fridge, like pressing your hand against the window on a December night. Stresses of the “Battle of the Century” forgotten, he had a queer urge to be lonely and shivering with her in a corner somewhere.

“Harry Fisher,” he replied gruffly. “That’s your bed. Where’ve you been?”

“Taking in the sunlight,” she said with a smile that failed to reach escape velocity before crashing back down into a grim frown. “Taking in the sights.”

“The new home, yes,” said Fisher, staring resolutely at the canvas. “It has its charms, I suppose. I’ve been in here.”

“Here has its charms as well,” said Aubrine. “If my asking doesn’t bother you, why’d they not house the women with the women? Seems more decent that way.”

It didn’t once occur to Fisher to be dishonest. “I convinced the brass I might be some use to them,” he said. “You were meant to be a perk, I think.”

“Oh.” Aubrine scratched her head. “I’d rather you wouldn’t.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Fisher looked around. “Tomorrow we’ll, er... establish some manner of divider. For privacy’s sake.” Fisher shuddered upon realizing that sprucing up this shithole was going to require leaving it.

“Well, don’t be too much a stranger,” offered Aubrine. “Times like this, friends are hard to come by.”

Friends. The wizard recognized the ridiculous of that statement, thinking upon whatever seven madmen had been sent to kill him.

“I’m going to try and sleep,” he declared after about thirty seconds’ silence.

“Good!” said Aubrine, sitting on her hands, a flash of color around her lips. “I mean, you know. That’s all well.”

“We’ll see if it is, in any case,” responded Fisher, yawning. He pulled the thick blanket over him like a paperweight and lay curled up on the bed, trying not to touch anything. His eyes refused to close, and he lay for a while in the imperfect darkness, studying the square inch of mattress in front of him and thinking about immune systems and the ecologies of floating islands and death and the number eight.

A wind whipped up around the tent. Clouds licked at the sky-island’s shores and were recontextualized as fog. The night stretched thin. Rest cascaded over the refugees—first the children, then the drunks, and eventually the children’s parents and the drunks’ wives, too, looking over their resting loved ones and contemplating the future. Fisher, whose worries were less orthodox but no more profound, found that he was not an exception. He slept.

Aubrine waited a while after his breathing settled. To make sure.

There was a hole in the wizard’s dreams the size of a city, a hole you could drive a god through. The unconscious mind of a magician, you see, tends to latch on less to the Freudian and more to the cosmic, which might explain why that ilk tend to have only the shallowest understanding of themselves. A dank and labyrinthine cerebral subway had, in its proper place, been home to a great multitude of ghosts and deities and metaphors and sentient errant spells that sat around holding up cardboard signs and standing watchfully over shopping carts full of mind-trash.

Fisher never remembered his dreams, but he had always been sure to throw them a little change when he was passing by, and thus they were able to scrape a bit of dignity out of their existence. The multiversal transplant had disrupted this ecosystem, added them to the count of refugees, leaving them to fend for themselves somewhere far outside the purview of this story.

Fisher’s dream was too vast and empty and lonely to be anything but lucid, his neurological excretions echoing in the absence of rationale or familiarity. He was in a place where he didn’t know if there was a God. He didn’t know if there was magic here. He scrambled in his dream for so much of a frame of reference to define “here” by, something he could latch onto, like “north,” or even “away.” Nothing could define how definitively not-where-he-should-be he was except for this huge nothingness at the bottom of his brain; abandoned tunnels and the lingering smell of terrible wine.

The emptiness was only the moment before the flood, but time works differently in dreams.

The flood was biblical in nature. The flood of juice down Eve’s cheek as she took that first bite of apple. Then, the flood of knowledge. And then the hand of judgment crashing down with that weight that you imagine lightning must have to make it fall so fast. That was first contact. Fisher was sitting on all fours behind the yellow line as the train approached but his teeth had scattered all over the tracks when it had hit him. The doors slid open automatically and unleashed a mountain full of dirt.

And the island said hello.

Fisher’s mind bloated the way a carcass distends when it rots, creating an environment supportive for new life.

And in Fisher’s dream he and the island were one, and the island was a billion, which made him one billion and one, which made him one in a billion, which made him nothing, which made it all nothing, and the train of thought dashed him against the concrete alongside last year’s graffiti.

He saw little bugs with thoughts all arranged in platonic solids and marching like an army without any of the tragedy.

And he saw lithe and predatory things jump down from the trees to give a gift of death to things beautiful and innocent, like a lover’s quarrel without any of the sadness.

And standing alongside the island he met his new people, small and cold and afraid and in need of a home and a father and they called to him “New Frontier” and he answered “Yes.” He could hear the click and the low hum of history turning on.

And he could taste magic in the dirt. Fisher dreamt the things that islands dream, things beyond supposition.

And through the island he reached out to his fellow outsiders: to the butterfly resting blissfully and weighless upon the lightest twig on the tree of causality; to the many-man and the red-eye flight; and last of all he turned his dream-gaze on a cold dead thing that was once a man and he recoiled in disgust.

The reaction reverberated all the way back into his body.

Fisher sat up in bed so hard he slammed his forehead into Aubrine’s chin, eliciting something between a hiss and an eek from the would-be first-time vampire. “Fuck!” cried Fisher, rubbing his head. Then he noticed the woman standing over him, lantern in hand, the firelight reflecting off of her glistening canines.

He thought, Stop that bitch! She stole my teeth off the subway track! And then reality resumed with a compressive pop and he realized his tentmate was trying to imbibe him.

They flailed ineptly enough that the vampire’s superior strength failed to make much of a difference, Fisher’s blanket flapping about in the space between them. “Fuck!” Fisher repeated. It was like a mother trying to give an ornery child a bath. Like all children, in spite of his thrashing, Fisher understood that at one point he was going to have to grin and bear it.

Fate, in this instance, intervened. Aubrine could see well enough in the dark now that it was only force of habit that had compelled her to bring the lantern around. The thought was little comfort to her as the lamp slipped from her fingers and crashed to the ground, spraying a line of burning oil across the blanket. She bit her lip and shrieked, taking two steps back.

Fisher, not at all cognizant of the strategic benefits of the ploy, threw the blanket over her head.

The flame spread faster than it would have, in a completely rational universe. The mostly-authentic vampire spent about two seconds draped as an imitation ghost before resolving herself into a fireball. The sound of her burning was awful beyond describing, and the smell made Fisher slightly hungry.

Charred and blackened, Aubrine ripped off the sheet. She experienced a moment of clarity, or at least was overcome momentarily by a superior will, and felt properly a thing of the night, evil and cold and dead and sexy. “I am the first of many!” she pronounced excitedly through the half of her lip that hadn’t yet melted off. “This place will be consumed by death, and you will die with them!”

The curse and the smoke waved around Fisher’s nose as the flaming corpse went silent.

The wizard rubbed his chest, shivering, as the tent went dark once more. Was this a nightmare? Was he still dreaming? What had he been dreaming before? For that matter, what was he dreaming now?

Was there ever chance he was going to get back home before he died a horrible and soul-destroying death? If he died here, would his soul make it back home?

Did this mean he had the tent to himself now?

Ixcaliber · 01-22-2013, 05:48 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

A little earlier:

Vlad had just dined upon the frankly delicious Aubrine and fed her some of his own blood in return; as such she was sleeping the tumultuous sleep of the newly turned. As far as he was concerned he was done here. He had gotten what he wanted and now it was time to go and show those pathetic humans (and assorted others which while not human were most likely equally pathetic) just what they were truly up against in this battle to the death. He was in the cramped hallway looking for a way up to the deck, when suddenly a thought occurred to him. He realised that he had been making assumptions; he had very little information about this world and no idea whatsoever if they had pre-existing vampire mythology. If there was no such base of knowledge, or even if it had been muddied as it had been in his own world, it could lead to Aubrine, having little idea of her powers or her weaknesses. He could easily imagine the delectable Aubrine getting herself killed in some unfortunate way and then where would he be? Probably by that point he would be back at home and this world would forever be denied its rightful vampiric rule. He couldn’t have that.

So he waited for her to awaken. Soon the corridors were starting to fill with people coming to their bunks to collect their meagre possessions and disembark the ship, and Vlad was forced to realise that in these circumstances his attention grabbing garb might not be such a good idea. There were plenty of clothes lying around the sleeping quarters that he could easily slip into and thus make himself less conspicuous, yet there was a distinct disinclination to do so. Sneaking amongst the human vermin was beneath him now, a step backwards after he had worked so hard to get to where he was. He decided that while he might turn a few heads and draw some attention towards himself, he wouldn’t be around long enough for it to really matter, but he drew the curtain anyway as he really didn’t appreciate being gawped at.

It was dusk when Aubrine finally awoke. She felt odd; she had never felt as energized as she did right then; power seemed to fizz through her veins like electricity and she had this unscratchable itch to try it out. Every movement she made, the way her tunic brushed against her skin, the sound of hearts beating not too far away; it all called out to this part of her she had never known she had. Yet at the same time her body felt awful, like it had just been put through a wringer or as though she’d been working out heavily the night before. Her limbs were stiff, her head ached and throat was dry and Vlad was trying his utmost to explain to her just what she was and her strengths and weaknesses. She tried to listen attentively, but she just couldn’t seem to focus on anything he was saying. She’d get him to explain it again later she figured.

Eventually he seemed to have finished his explanations for the moment and she took advantage of the opportunity: “Vlad, I kind of feel…”

“Of course.” Vlad interrupted, a look of embarrassed realization upon his face. It had been a longer time since he had personally sired another vampire, or rather, it had been a long time since he had personally sired another vampire and had stuck around to deal with them when they awoke. “You vill be feelink thirsty. I vill go and get you someone upon whom you can break your fast.” He stood up, pulled back the curtain, revealing the corridors to once again be near deserted, and made to leave. “Vhen I get back ve can talk about your long term strategy.”

Aubrine was still fuzzy but that caught her attention. “My long term strategy?”

“Yes my dear Audrey. As a higher being it is your right, your duty to rule over those pitiful humans, but despite your obvious superiority it vill not be as easy as marching up to your… king…? or whomever and demanding that you be recognized as such. You vill have to play it subtle. Take your time. Pick your targets.” Vlad grinned happily as he thought of his own conquest. “It is a glorious task that avaits you, but for the moment I will fetch you someone to eat. I shan’t be a moment my precious one.” Aubrine didn’t look exactly happy about this as he left the room, but Vlad didn’t even really notice.

It didn’t take Vlad all that long to find a meal for Aubrine; there was a crewman who was doing the rounds making sure everyone had gotten off the ship. He put up a better fight than Aubrine had, but at the end of the day he was still just human. With one hand clamped over his mouth Vlad marched him back to Aubrine (it took longer than if he’d just killed him and slung him over his shoulder, but he didn’t want to ruin Aubrine’s first time by giving her dead meat), but by the time he got back Aubrine was gone.

Vlad was a little shocked. He stopped short and tried make sense of the discrepancies between the world as he saw it and the world as it undeniably factually was. The crewman struggled in his grip and he half-heartedly broke the man’s neck rather than have to deal with him any longer. The people of this world were so damn disobedient, he reflected. After all that he had done for Aubrine and then she had up and abandoned him without so much as a thank you. Well screw her. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking when he turned her. Sure she might be a good companion, fun and attractive and relatively obedient but she was not cut from the right material to rule. He vowed he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

It seemed a shame to let the crewman’s corpse go to waste. He tasted sour.

---

Not long after that Vlad found a way up onto the deck of the HMS Sanctuary and took in his surroundings. There were a number of ships moored in a line along the edge of quite a large campsite. It was pretty basic, and still under construction; a number of tents and bonfires and the sounds of revelry coming from their direction. He was a little rusty with his shapeshifting so his first couple of attempts did nothing save for make him feel a little silly, but after a moment he had the knack of it again and he transformed into a colony of bats. Immediately he was reminded of how fucking difficult to be a colony of bats. It would be difficult enough, he reasoned, to be just one bat and deal with their whole echolocation deal, but to try and control an entire colony of the things was enough to give him a headache.

Quickly he gathered himself up and flew down into the campsite, reforming in a secluded corner behind a row of tents, and then made his way to one of the campfires. Here the newly arrived refugees and some of the sailors had broken into the alcohol supplies and were enthusiastically toasting the end of their journey. Vlad was looking at each of the celebrants, judging them, trying to discern who would be worthy of his gift, though to be honest he did not know exactly what he was looking for. In his own world it had been simple; turn people in positions of power, but he knew he did not have enough time here to do that. He had to find someone who could, and would, do that for him, but simply put, he didn’t know what signs to look for to indicate a worthy candidate.

Someone thrust a mug of alcohol that looked positively toxic towards Vlad, and in an attempt to not draw attention to himself he took it and took an enthusiastic swig. It was bitter, but for a human drink it wasn’t all that bad. As he continued to search he found himself being offered another and strictly to maintain the façade he downed it. And then another one. And then a fourth. It was okay, he assured himself, his superior vampire constitution would protect him from the intoxicating effects of whatever the hell this stuff was. He was sure of it.

**Pinary** · 07-10-2013, 04:47 AM

Mickey dragged his heels. Being escorted from the captain's quarters to the ladder leading belowdecks gave him quite a bit to look at, and he wanted to get in as much sight-seeing as possible. No sense letting the walk go to waste, right?

First up, the boat was flying. Like, some sort of combination of hot air and propellers were suspending it in midair. He didn't know just how it all managed to keep a full-sized ship from dropping like a rock, but apparently it did. He'd need to get some more info on just how that worked if he was going to get by.

Next, there was the island. It was looming really fairly close, and the big cliff the boat was heading for wasn't exactly unintimidating. A big, vertical rock face, with a couple of holes here and there leading into some caves, and for some reason, the pilot (were air-boat drivers called pilots?) was heading straight for it.

Well, not straight for it, I guess. After a sec, Mickey realized they were going more up than forward, probably aiming to just lightly bump up against the side. There were some sailors getting ready with ropes and stuff, so probably they were going to land?

As they reached the ladder down and the soldiers persuaded him to start climbing, he spotted one last thing: there were beams and struts off the side of the boat, and the pulleys and ropes and stuff probably meant some sort of lifeboat or something. There was probably room for just one off the side he'd noticed them on, and he'd wager there could be another on the other side. (Maybe a third off the back? Mickey wasn't sure, he didn't know boats. He'd have to check later.)

---

Michael nursed his hand. It'd been dropped out of a flying boat hard enough that it was bruised, at least, and he was pretty sure a few of the fingers were broken.

Oh well, he reflected. Could be worse. Could've started forming on the way down and broken my whole damn arm.

He could've also started forming inside the bag he'd been thrown out the window in and gotten tangled up, too. That wouldn't have been pretty for either him or the bag, and it's probably best that he'd managed to avoid that altogether.

Hoping to find something to make a splint of some sort for his fingers, he took a look around. The woods were fairly dense wherever he was, and it didn't look like the trees were the sort that had vines hanging from him. (Mickey didn't know trees, though. Were those even things that actually existed, or were those just in movies?)

Whatever. There was some long grass growing in a few spots, and with a couple of twigs and a bit of work, he managed to make something approximating a splint. (Somehow, he didn't imagine that whoever that was who'd brought them all there was going to provide medical supplies.)

That dealt with, he got himself his bearings. The forest had a fairly obvious slope to it, but he couldn't really see much past the trees to get an idea of where he was.

Need a good vantage point, then. Uphill it is!

---

Mickey hadn't ever really been trained in counter-interrogation, but you picked up a few things working for one of the families. The captain (Captain Deans, he'd learned) had been berating and threatening him for a good ten minutes or so now, and Mickey'd still managed to not give him so much as a name.

Of course, he hadn't exactly done too well for his chances of survival. Giving the captain the runaround was starting to look less and less like a good idea as Deans' face got redder and redder, and if it hadn't been for the young-looking sailor who clambered down the ladder in a hurry, Mickey'd probably have started being a bit more cooperative (as being thrown overboard didn't exactly seem like a great way to stay alive).

"Captain, sir!", the kid said, doing his damnedest to act all stiff and formal. "Message from Admiral Winters!"

The captain just turned to the kid. He didn't say anything, really, but the beet-red face and clenched jaw said plenty.

"Evidently one of Captain Brennan's skiffs has been destroyed, sir, and he's demanding a full inquiry. The admiral has called for a conclave down at Conquest's landing site. Noon tomorrow."

"Destroyed? Hah! Brennan's crew probably just flew into a cliff," Deans laughed. "Signal back that I'll be there. I'm not about to miss Brennan making a fool of himself in the first conclave on this rock!"

"Very good, sir." With a small and entirely unnecessary bow, the kid started back to the ladder. Before he went up, though, he added, "Also, Mr. Cirrus says we'll be planks-down in just a few minutes... and that 'our mite-brained leader might want to be there.' His words, not mine." Not waiting for a response, he scurried right up the ladder and to relative safety.

Deans chuckled. "I'm sure he did," he replied, mostly to himself. To Mickey, he said, "Well, you stay put. I've got to go be a captain for a bit, so you'll just have to wait."

Mickey didn't say anything.

"Not that you've got much choice, mind!", the captain added, laughing to himself as he climbed the ladder. (The two sailors who'd been escorting him, laughing because their boss was laughing and it'd be dumb not to, went up as well.)

Mickey just sat back in the cot, pulled his left hand out from under his jacket, and wiggled his newly-regrown fingers. He wasn't so sure he'd be sticking around.

---

It didn't take a genius to realize Michael was on one of the small satellite islands once he made it over the level of the treetops. The hill he'd been climbing had steepened into something he'd re-termed into a mountain at first and a cliff a bit later, and once he'd reached a bit of a ledge, he'd stopped for a rest.

Flopping down, he leaned up against the cliff face and opened up the bag.

According to a note on the map, the smaller islands circled around the mainland once a day like clockwork. It was evening-ish, based on the rather spectacular sunset he was being treated to, so with a bit of rough math, he figured out which island he was probably on on the map. It was smallish, even for a satellite island; the only real noteworthy feature (according to the map) was the barren spire that stuck up out of it, and Mickey had a sneaking suspicion that that was the thing he'd been trying to climb for most of the day.

Sighing, he put away the map. The dimming light was starting to make reading a bit difficult, and it was just occurring to the city boy that once it got dark, it was probably going to actually get dark.

Back down the cliff he went. He'd spotted a decent-looking cave on his way up, and having not seen any animals much larger than a rabbit all day, he figured he didn't have much to worry about in terms of bears.

---

As night began to fall, the sound of boots tromping back and forth, carrying goods from ship to shore, dwindled away. Mickey guessed that they were likely aiming to enjoy sleeping off the ship for the first time in however-long, even if that meant just sleeping on the dirt, and really, he was okay with that. All it meant for him was that he'd have the ship to himself and not much need to worry about absolute silence.

The lock on the cell didn't look to be too fancy or anything, but without some sort of tools or something and a decent vantage point, he wasn't going to be able to get it open on his own.

Sighing, he grabbed his left hand in his right, scrunched up his face, and pulled. He didn't like splitting up so much so frequently, and he was damn sure he'd be sleeping like a stone the moment he got the chance, but desperate times called for desperate more-clones-than-usual.

Once he'd pulled the hand off, it was just a matter of tossing it outside the bars, waiting for a few minutes, and trying not to watch as bone and flesh just sort of pushed their way out of the stump of the hand and shaped themselves into another him. (Well, another him and appropriate clothing. Thank fuck whatever mechanism let him do his thing worked based on his self-image, which included his family outfit, and not his genes, which really didn't.)

---

Archibald Merriweather, youngest member of the Cardinal's crew and second-lowest in rank, couldn't sleep. He knew he should be, really, since he'd been hard at work all day and he'd barely slept the night before (being so excited for landfall the following night and all), but he just couldn't bring himself to calm down enough. They'd made it. They were on a brand new island, untouched by civilization, and he was going to be there to see society flourish. He'd get to watch villages spring up, families come together, farms start to grow. He'd get to see society start fresh.

And, most importantly, he'd get to see it with his mom. (He grinned just at the thought of it.) He couldn't wait to surprise her tomorrow, sailing down to the Admiral's camp for the conclave and finding her amongst the crowds. She spots him, her eyes light up, he runs towards her, they hug, he shows her what he brought...

Reaching over, he grabbed his pack and started rummaging through it. After a minute, though, he remembered: he'd taken it out and hooked it on the post next to his hammock.

By the time he was done imagining what Captain Deans would say about going back aboard the ship in the dark, he'd already snuck his way up one of the gangplanks and made his way to the ladder belowdecks. He slipped down, found his hammock... and froze.

There were soft voices coming from outside, and oddly enough, that they weren't coming from the deck above. By the sounds of things, the people were more likely over aboard the starboard skiff.

No matter. Archie wasn't about to be found aboard the ship after dark, so he just found the surprise, made his way back to the ladder, and disembarked as quickly and as quietly as he could.

Once he was back at camp, he leaned down by the remains of the camp's main fire and examined his prize. The locket was all his mother had been able to leave him before she'd had to leave, and showing that he'd been able to make his way here without resorting to selling it was sure to make her very, very proud of him.

With a click, he popped it open. On one side, the picture, just her and a young Archie. On the other side, the inscription, one of the only things the kid knew how to read.

Aubrine & Archibald Merriweather, it read.

Archie read it over and over again, carefully sounding out each syllable and eventually falling asleep by the fire.

Ixcaliber · 12-13-2023, 11:13 AM

Despite his aspirations towards being more selective Vlad had been no less impulsive in selecting his second recipient of the gift.

It wasn’t that he was drunk. Even the most potent of human alcohols paled in comparison to the divine nectar that was blood, and this was far from the most potent of human alcohols. There was something to be said for the lively atmosphere though. Though he was reluctant to fully admit it to himself, the parties of his home world had become dull over time.

Typically they fell into one of two categories; either refined elegant balls where everyone was preening to show off their newly turned whelps, or desperate to gain favour with him or the members of his inner circle, or primal orgies of sex and blood where almost nothing was taboo. Surprisingly it was possible to tire of either or both of these options over a long enough timescale.

Here there was a sort of companionable atmosphere, a group of strangers to acquaintances celebrating a communal triumph. Even the knowledge that there was still much to do in establishing a true settlement upon this island didn’t undermine the atmosphere.

And so Vlad had sat by the campfire and cast aside the problems of how to effectively plant the seeds for vampiric supremacy as a problem for tomorrow, not to mention, barely to even think of, the problem of the battle itself. He’d downed drinks, raised a glass when toasts had been called even though he didn’t recognize any of the names, sung along with songs he didn’t really know the words to, and relished the novelty of it all.

At some point the tone had calmed somewhat and one of the pioneers had taken to reciting a folk story about ‘bird-men’. They claimed that these beings lived amongst these floating islands and would grab trespassers and throw them from the islands they had no right to stand upon down to their deaths in the ether below, and from communal reaction it seemed as though these bird-men were a well-trod staple of this world. Vlad found himself feeling kind of insulted as the humans around him gasped in horror at the lurid descriptions of feathered wings and sharp talons and, heavens preserve us, their terrible beaks. It was as he listened to the third description in a row of someone being shunted off an island oh no falling to their doom that he got to his feet.

“Zhat certainly vas a most terrifyink tale if ever I have heard one, but please permit me to tell you zhe tale of zhe vampire.” Vlad launched into one of his stories from the early days, where he preyed upon a newly married couple stranded in the middle of nowhere, but told from what he assumed their perspective on the matter had been. Given that it was him telling the story it definitely skewed a little more towards the glorification of the vampiric, but he made a point on lingering on the things that humans often found horrific and received the requisite gasps and screams as he told his story.

When he took his seat again the next person to stand up and tell a story started telling the tale of the bird-vampire and that was enough of that for him. He took his leave of the campfire, and trudged off through the rows of tents unsure where he was heading. He was saved from having to come to a decision on that front as, after a moment, he noticed he was being followed. He turned to see a handsome looking woman with short black hair and the outfit of a laborer trailing behind him. She wasn’t the type that Vlad usually went for, less overwhelmingly feminine than his usual choice, but there was something compelling about her.

“Is there somezhink you require from me?” Vlad asked tensely. He glanced at the campsite around him. It was quiet; everyone was either in their tents, sleeping, presumably, or gathered by the campfires drinking and singing and otherwise enjoying their first night upon this new land. If he had to Vlad judged that he could probably kill her quickly and quietly enough that nobody would notice.

Maybe he’d drawn too much attention to himself with the ‘tale of the vampire’. He dimly remembered that he was supposed to be in a battle to the death. Was this one of his competitors? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be certain. It was possible that she’d been piloting the enormous floating rotting boat that he’d seen.

Vlad remembered that he’d been given some form of documentation, but he supposed that was lost somewhere on board the Sanctuary. He’d been so enamoured with the opportunity to spread his gift into a new world he’d not considered it worthwhile reading. Now he wished he’d thought to keep hold of it at least.

“No interest in bird-men stories?” The woman asked, a smile playing upon her lips. Vlad was silent. “I was watching you rolling your eyes as they told their tales like it was the most dreadfully insipid thing you’d ever heard in your life.”

“It is not a crime to find such zhinks uninterestink I hope?”

“Oh no of course not.” The woman drew her hand to her neck, oh what a beautiful neck, in surprise. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you’d done anything wrong, I just… there was something compelling about you. If I’m disturbing you I will of course give you your privacy.”

Vlad smiled, his fangs on clear display for just a second. “My apologies. I simply vorried I had offended somehow. Given zhat zhat is not zhe case,” A shake of the head and a wave of the hand as if to say ‘its nothing’ from the mystery woman, “it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is-” a moment of hesitation, it was probably best not to use his real name here, he groped for a name and the only one that came to mind was “Victor.”

The woman closed the gap between them, standing close, just a little too close for the sake of propriety. “Victor… what an evocative name. Suits you quite well.” A smile. “I’m Docaelus.”

“It is a very striking name.” Victor said. He was pretty sure he’d heard it recently as well. One of the toasts from around the campfire?

“I find perhaps it doesn’t suit me as much as it used to.” Docaelus said, almost wistfully.

“Is there something you would prefer?”

Docaelus raised an eyebrow. “I’m still searching for a replacement, perhaps you have a suggestion?”

Vlad gazed into the woman’s mismatched eyes, one a soft brown, one a vibrant green. Many options ran through his head but none of them felt right and eventually he said “I’d need more time in your company to really find something zhat really speaks to your essence.”

“Do you have a tent of your own Victor, or would you like to come over to mine?”

“Is zhat a question or an invitation?”

They barely kept their hands off each other as they made their way to Docaelus’ tent, one of the larger tents and just for her herself. Once inside all pretenses of propriety were gone; they were all over each other. Docaelus’ breath was hot on Vlad’s neck. Her skin was warm, her hands were rough, worn through uncountable hours of hard labour, but gentle and nimble and passionately unbuttoning his waistcoat. For each of them the most pressing, most urgent thing in the world right there and then was to be naked and to be as close to this other person as possible.

Vlad was barely even thinking about drinking from her. This whole thing felt backwards, he should have been the one stalking Docaelus to her home, propositioning her, luring her in and yet he was the one who felt entranced.

But he did bite and he did drink, half naked atop a sleeping bag and a pile of discarded clothing, Vlad sunk his fangs into Docaelus’ neck and feasted upon her blood.

Blood was life itself, taken by the vampire to sustain its undead body, and the blood of Docaelus was life itself, but not in the same way. In that blood Vlad remembered the first time she’d reached out and from her touch bloomed a creature, from nothing but her will there was life. And she would do it again, again and again. Populating this slice of the world with strange and beautiful beings and one who she would grow fond of as time passed and she withdrew from the world she had created.

Vlad was screaming, he thought. This blood, the blood of this wonderful remarkable woman, didn’t quench his thirst so much as set his body aflame. He felt more alive than he had done in years, powerful, strong enough to reshape the world in his own image with just a thought, just a gesture and the world would acquiesce to his demands.

Another gulp of this poisoned nectar and she felt age, she felt the dwindling of her power, the failure of her crops, a death that had become unavoidable; if only she had never split herself off into so many tiny fragments, but now was late far too late to arrest. It was looming, it was approaching fast and all she could do was save those creatures she had come to love, direct them to a new frontier and hope that they were successful.

Vlad pulled away. His entire body was aflame, not literally aflame, it was a different tent where a vampire would die in that way, but flowing with so much energy, so much life, it felt as though he was tearing herself apart and rebuilding his body from the ground up.

He looked down at the woman below him, the dying embodiment of life, of the world these people had come from made flesh and walking amongst them. “Vhat are you doink to me?” Docaelus hushed him into silence and then in one easy motion brought her lips to Vlad’s neck, and bit, and drank.