Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Three: Water...place!]
10-15-2010, 02:35 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
Kath dove off the edge of her apartment balcony, shaking away her legs as she flew through the damp air. She hit the water fully in tail, reveling in the summer salt against her scalp. It was a good day to leave this place and never return.
The three bodies—fiancée, fiancée’s boss, fiancée’s boss’s secretary (it made a lot of sense under the circumstances)—were even now spilling their disgusting sticky blood through Kath’s sleeptank into the building’s recycling system. Within an hour the police would get alerted, and by then she’d be away somewhere in the ocean. Maybe she’d become a pirate.
The streets were nearly empty this early in the morning. She watched the edifices pass her by and saw the way they all fit together, how simple the geometry was despite how complex it had seemed from the inside. When you have nowhere to go to, you can’t get lost.
Then she was past the borders, skimming past the last grottos on the outskirts of Hydresther. As soon as the smell of smog and pepper began to fade, Kath smelled blood.
She tried very hard not to follow the smell of blood.
The grotto was vacant and sparsely furnished; probably it had been occupied by a squatter but abandoned over a year ago. The blood was flowing out the mouth and eyes of a large and angry-looking shark; the only wounds it manifested were some bruises where it had once been harnessed. Kath pushed the poor creature out over the surface of the grotto onto land, reverting to feet so she could scramble up to the hard stone and examine it with the benefit of atmospheric gravity. The shark seemed to deflate once out of the water, like a disgusting twice-used condom thrown over whatever was bloating its stomach. For the first time since the murders, Kath felt depressed.
She unlaced her sword, one of her only two possessions in the world, from her belt, the other one of her only two possessions in the world, and threw the belt over her shoulder carelessly. The sword was the one that mattered, a beautiful and functional family heirloom, and it also had all her credit coral in the hilt. She dug it into the belly of the shark.
Something resisted. Before Kath had time to worry, a blood-red lamprey-looking creature burst out of the shark’s stomach and slapped the sword out of her hand indignantly. The sword fell into a battered and drained sleeptank on the other side of the grotto.
Following right behind the lamprey was the maid it was attached to, a distressed-looking female about Kath’s age who, given the hair on her head and her ridiculous outfit, appeared to be of the pirate race. She wore those scratchy-looking trousers with a sleeve for each leg, and above it a top that cloaked so much of her torso it threatened to spill over onto her arms. Everything was dyed in a splotchy red and green. The hair, in contrast, was a muddled brown, broken only by a stripe of green and a stripe of red each running down the left side. Everything about her looked unhydrodynamic; Kath found it all a bit unseemly.
The maid stood up unsteadily and vomited a mix of water and what could have been either her own blood or the shark’s. She looked about for a moment uncertainly, then her gaze settled on Kath. “Where’s Maxwell?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kath. “Settle down for a bit, you’re not well. You’re all lungs, aren’t you?”
“Feels like it,” said the maid, still coughing intermittently. “I’m sorry, I got confused. I… I think my friend is dead and I think I might be dead too. I’m hungry. My brain is hungry, I think hungry but I don’t feel hungry, all I feel is sick.” She settled down against the wall, clearly struggling with the urge to sob.
Kath looked around for a bit at all the blood. “You’re not dead. But I can’t help you, I need to get away from the city.”
“No, I mean it. I might be dead. Everything’s working but only because she… she wants it to.” The lamprey seemed to pat the maid on her head, making her squirm.
“As for food,” said Kath, “There might be supplies enough in here for you to make something edible out of the shark.”
The maid looked over at the shark. “No,” she said. “You said city. What city?”
“Hydresther is less than a half league that way,” answered Kath, pointing. “I doubt you’ll be able to make the swim, what with your respiratory concerns, but it’s possible you’ll find help yet. Frankly you’re lucky I wasn’t in a mood to kill you.” Considering the matter settled, Kath turned around and went to fetch her sword.
This was an obvious mistake, but in fairness, she was in a hurry. The maid dealt her a blow in the back of the neck, knocking Kath on her stomach. She then grabbed one of Kath’s legs and attempted to wrench one of her feet into a brutally incorrect position; Kath screamed and instinctively went tail, which seemed to startle the maid into releasing. Kath flapped about gracelessly, groping for her sword, and was honestly unsurprised when the maid sprung over her defenses and planted a foot (also clothed in a torn strip of grey-and-white cloth) into the small of her back. Kath fell prone, reverting to legs.
The maid picked up the sword and held it at Kath’s neck. “I’m lucky,” she whispered in Kath’s ear. “I! Am lucky! That you decided to play nice! Is that what you said?”
Kath felt it prudent not to reply. This earned her a kick to the diaphragm, but was still probably better than the alternative.
“I’ll tell you about luck,” intoned the maid. “You’re lucky, certainly not because I’m nice, definitely not because I’m not literally hungering for your flesh right now, but because you have a way to take me to that city. Say you have a way to take me to that city.”
“I’m not going back there,” gasped Kath. “I’d let you kill me first.”
The maid slid Kath’s sword a little closer to her neck, creating a single spark as she dragged it across the rock. “Of course you would. I… I understand what it’s like being a runaway. You’d die first. I understand that. Would you half-die first? Would you three-quarters die first? I bet your lower half being malleable as it is, there’s nothing down there you couldn’t afford to see sent through a strainer. Or, you know… eaten.” She shuddered as the lamprey bounced up and down on her shoulder in a disturbingly emotive fashion. "Basically the point I’m making is that I am perfectly willing to break my no-torture rule, because I am pissed and cold and hungry and I need to be surrounded by people to drown out the voices in my head.”
Kath groaned. Clearly she and the maid would not complement each other well. “Okay, very well, I probably wouldn’t have died first anyway. I have a way to take you to the city.”
“There’s a girl. There’s a girl, right? I’m a bit confused with the whole Michael Phelps thing your body is doing.”
“My name is Kath, thank you very much. I’m a maid, sorry I don’t have your obnoxious mammaries to serve as markers.”
“Obnoxious? You really think so? You’re sweet. I’m Jen. Get the fuck up before I cut you open.”
Kath rose unsteadily to her feet, trying to hide her fear. Jen looked at her like a slab of rotten meat. “Can’t you put some clothes on?”
“I don’t do clothes. If you’re going to spend any time in Hydresther, you’re going to have to get used to looking at us.”
“Well, we aren’t there yet,” said Jen. “Take my shirt, I don’t want to swim in it anyway.” She lifted off her top, beneath which she wore a painful-looking harness cupping her mammaries in the same splotchy red and green. She looked at the “shirt” and a disgusted awe came into her face.
“This shirt was purple,” she said. “This was my purple shirt.” Her eyes glazed over for a bit, as though she was deep in contemplation. Kath considered trying to take the sword from her, but instead just grabbed the shirt and threw it over herself. It managed to be baggy and graceless yet tight and suffocating at the same time. She sulked.
1
Jen snapped out of whatever she was doing. “Alright, what’s your way to get me into the city?”
“The mermaid’s breath is a hundred times as potent as normal surface air. If I fill your lungs with it, you can hold it in for hours. Touch your mouth to mine.”
Jen gagged. “Ugh, fetish-y. Suddenly I want my shirt back.”
“You could stay here.” Kath knew she was pushing her luck by being flippant, but the girl seemed to have calmed down a bit now. Getting eaten by a shark is pretty traumatic, she supposed.
“Shit. No alternatives?”
“None. First, hold your breath full of your normal air and empty it out all at once. The emptier your lungs are to begin with, the longer my breath will last.”
Trustingly, Jen did so. When she looked like she was about to pop some brain cells from the lack of air, she let out a breath. Before she could inhale, Kath grabbed her face, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and threw the two of them into the water.
“Idiot,” Kath sounded. “’Mermaid breath.’ Take a biology class.” Jen didn’t hear, both because she didn’t understand the sub-language and because she was already nearly unconscious from oxygen loss.
A couple punches to the lungs and Jen fell limp. The lamprey kept fighting, though, wrapping itself tightly about Kath’s arm. A rather ridiculous struggle ensued, made more difficult by the blood that begin spilling out of Jen’s mouth right into Kath’s eyes.
When the blood cleared, Kath saw that it wasn’t quite coming from out of Jen’s mouth; it was coming from her neck. Suddenly the maid had gills. Then, just as suddenly, her eyes were open again.
Kath dove off the edge of her apartment balcony, shaking away her legs as she flew through the damp air. She hit the water fully in tail, reveling in the summer salt against her scalp. It was a good day to leave this place and never return.
The three bodies—fiancée, fiancée’s boss, fiancée’s boss’s secretary (it made a lot of sense under the circumstances)—were even now spilling their disgusting sticky blood through Kath’s sleeptank into the building’s recycling system. Within an hour the police would get alerted, and by then she’d be away somewhere in the ocean. Maybe she’d become a pirate.
The streets were nearly empty this early in the morning. She watched the edifices pass her by and saw the way they all fit together, how simple the geometry was despite how complex it had seemed from the inside. When you have nowhere to go to, you can’t get lost.
Then she was past the borders, skimming past the last grottos on the outskirts of Hydresther. As soon as the smell of smog and pepper began to fade, Kath smelled blood.
She tried very hard not to follow the smell of blood.
The grotto was vacant and sparsely furnished; probably it had been occupied by a squatter but abandoned over a year ago. The blood was flowing out the mouth and eyes of a large and angry-looking shark; the only wounds it manifested were some bruises where it had once been harnessed. Kath pushed the poor creature out over the surface of the grotto onto land, reverting to feet so she could scramble up to the hard stone and examine it with the benefit of atmospheric gravity. The shark seemed to deflate once out of the water, like a disgusting twice-used condom thrown over whatever was bloating its stomach. For the first time since the murders, Kath felt depressed.
She unlaced her sword, one of her only two possessions in the world, from her belt, the other one of her only two possessions in the world, and threw the belt over her shoulder carelessly. The sword was the one that mattered, a beautiful and functional family heirloom, and it also had all her credit coral in the hilt. She dug it into the belly of the shark.
Something resisted. Before Kath had time to worry, a blood-red lamprey-looking creature burst out of the shark’s stomach and slapped the sword out of her hand indignantly. The sword fell into a battered and drained sleeptank on the other side of the grotto.
Following right behind the lamprey was the maid it was attached to, a distressed-looking female about Kath’s age who, given the hair on her head and her ridiculous outfit, appeared to be of the pirate race. She wore those scratchy-looking trousers with a sleeve for each leg, and above it a top that cloaked so much of her torso it threatened to spill over onto her arms. Everything was dyed in a splotchy red and green. The hair, in contrast, was a muddled brown, broken only by a stripe of green and a stripe of red each running down the left side. Everything about her looked unhydrodynamic; Kath found it all a bit unseemly.
The maid stood up unsteadily and vomited a mix of water and what could have been either her own blood or the shark’s. She looked about for a moment uncertainly, then her gaze settled on Kath. “Where’s Maxwell?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kath. “Settle down for a bit, you’re not well. You’re all lungs, aren’t you?”
“Feels like it,” said the maid, still coughing intermittently. “I’m sorry, I got confused. I… I think my friend is dead and I think I might be dead too. I’m hungry. My brain is hungry, I think hungry but I don’t feel hungry, all I feel is sick.” She settled down against the wall, clearly struggling with the urge to sob.
Kath looked around for a bit at all the blood. “You’re not dead. But I can’t help you, I need to get away from the city.”
“No, I mean it. I might be dead. Everything’s working but only because she… she wants it to.” The lamprey seemed to pat the maid on her head, making her squirm.
“As for food,” said Kath, “There might be supplies enough in here for you to make something edible out of the shark.”
The maid looked over at the shark. “No,” she said. “You said city. What city?”
“Hydresther is less than a half league that way,” answered Kath, pointing. “I doubt you’ll be able to make the swim, what with your respiratory concerns, but it’s possible you’ll find help yet. Frankly you’re lucky I wasn’t in a mood to kill you.” Considering the matter settled, Kath turned around and went to fetch her sword.
This was an obvious mistake, but in fairness, she was in a hurry. The maid dealt her a blow in the back of the neck, knocking Kath on her stomach. She then grabbed one of Kath’s legs and attempted to wrench one of her feet into a brutally incorrect position; Kath screamed and instinctively went tail, which seemed to startle the maid into releasing. Kath flapped about gracelessly, groping for her sword, and was honestly unsurprised when the maid sprung over her defenses and planted a foot (also clothed in a torn strip of grey-and-white cloth) into the small of her back. Kath fell prone, reverting to legs.
The maid picked up the sword and held it at Kath’s neck. “I’m lucky,” she whispered in Kath’s ear. “I! Am lucky! That you decided to play nice! Is that what you said?”
Kath felt it prudent not to reply. This earned her a kick to the diaphragm, but was still probably better than the alternative.
“I’ll tell you about luck,” intoned the maid. “You’re lucky, certainly not because I’m nice, definitely not because I’m not literally hungering for your flesh right now, but because you have a way to take me to that city. Say you have a way to take me to that city.”
“I’m not going back there,” gasped Kath. “I’d let you kill me first.”
The maid slid Kath’s sword a little closer to her neck, creating a single spark as she dragged it across the rock. “Of course you would. I… I understand what it’s like being a runaway. You’d die first. I understand that. Would you half-die first? Would you three-quarters die first? I bet your lower half being malleable as it is, there’s nothing down there you couldn’t afford to see sent through a strainer. Or, you know… eaten.” She shuddered as the lamprey bounced up and down on her shoulder in a disturbingly emotive fashion. "Basically the point I’m making is that I am perfectly willing to break my no-torture rule, because I am pissed and cold and hungry and I need to be surrounded by people to drown out the voices in my head.”
Kath groaned. Clearly she and the maid would not complement each other well. “Okay, very well, I probably wouldn’t have died first anyway. I have a way to take you to the city.”
“There’s a girl. There’s a girl, right? I’m a bit confused with the whole Michael Phelps thing your body is doing.”
“My name is Kath, thank you very much. I’m a maid, sorry I don’t have your obnoxious mammaries to serve as markers.”
“Obnoxious? You really think so? You’re sweet. I’m Jen. Get the fuck up before I cut you open.”
Kath rose unsteadily to her feet, trying to hide her fear. Jen looked at her like a slab of rotten meat. “Can’t you put some clothes on?”
“I don’t do clothes. If you’re going to spend any time in Hydresther, you’re going to have to get used to looking at us.”
“Well, we aren’t there yet,” said Jen. “Take my shirt, I don’t want to swim in it anyway.” She lifted off her top, beneath which she wore a painful-looking harness cupping her mammaries in the same splotchy red and green. She looked at the “shirt” and a disgusted awe came into her face.
“This shirt was purple,” she said. “This was my purple shirt.” Her eyes glazed over for a bit, as though she was deep in contemplation. Kath considered trying to take the sword from her, but instead just grabbed the shirt and threw it over herself. It managed to be baggy and graceless yet tight and suffocating at the same time. She sulked.
1
Jen snapped out of whatever she was doing. “Alright, what’s your way to get me into the city?”
“The mermaid’s breath is a hundred times as potent as normal surface air. If I fill your lungs with it, you can hold it in for hours. Touch your mouth to mine.”
Jen gagged. “Ugh, fetish-y. Suddenly I want my shirt back.”
“You could stay here.” Kath knew she was pushing her luck by being flippant, but the girl seemed to have calmed down a bit now. Getting eaten by a shark is pretty traumatic, she supposed.
“Shit. No alternatives?”
“None. First, hold your breath full of your normal air and empty it out all at once. The emptier your lungs are to begin with, the longer my breath will last.”
Trustingly, Jen did so. When she looked like she was about to pop some brain cells from the lack of air, she let out a breath. Before she could inhale, Kath grabbed her face, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and threw the two of them into the water.
“Idiot,” Kath sounded. “’Mermaid breath.’ Take a biology class.” Jen didn’t hear, both because she didn’t understand the sub-language and because she was already nearly unconscious from oxygen loss.
A couple punches to the lungs and Jen fell limp. The lamprey kept fighting, though, wrapping itself tightly about Kath’s arm. A rather ridiculous struggle ensued, made more difficult by the blood that begin spilling out of Jen’s mouth right into Kath’s eyes.
When the blood cleared, Kath saw that it wasn’t quite coming from out of Jen’s mouth; it was coming from her neck. Suddenly the maid had gills. Then, just as suddenly, her eyes were open again.