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…because Sampo was born into a system where the weakest had to be killed off, so of course he never had the chance to settle down – settle in – into his own body, his own existence. You’re born by the will of others, your life is not your own, your body is not your own, even though you craft it, shape it, refine it – it’s not your own, nothing you own is your own, so what does it even matter?
Oh, pardon him, pardon him, he got ahead of himself again. Strayed a little off the script. What did the script even say? If Sampo can’t remember, then it’s probably not important. And if it is important, then he isn’t the one who assigned it importance, so it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, where does the day end? Each planet has satellites, and each planet is a satellite in its own right. Some planets drift, so their days aren’t numbered. Sampo’s days are numbered. Here, in Belobog, the satellites move. Now day, now night. In the Overworld, there are white stars reflecting off the blue glaciers, and then there are blues of the morning turning the glaciers white. He will miss Belobog. Oh, he will miss Belobog. Or maybe he won’t. He hasn’t decided yet.
Should he hide his head in the snow? Ass up, like an ostrich, he can cool in the snowy dunes until he reaches a solid conclusion. He doesn’t need conclusions, conclusive thoughts are so last light epoch! Even the things he hates he’s divided on. Savoury crisps are tasty overall but barbecue-flavoured are kind of detestable, shrimp cocktail ones settle like expired minerals on his tongue, and vinegar burns holes in his stomach. Freeze seasons are cold but in the Underworld they’re too warm. Silvermane Guards bad but Captain Landau good. Sampo is not going to miss Belobog’s detention centre. He’s going to miss giggling through the metal bars and then shouting, Catch me if you can, Captain! as he jumps out the window and into the
into the
into the
unknown. Ouchie! Better plan your landing next time, Koski!
Just kidding, just kidding. This Sampo Koski always has a portable teleportation device on hand. Who would’ve thought! Interstellar adventures come with their own perks. Stars collapse in on themselves, explode and turn into supernovae. Sometimes Sampo causes them to supernova. That stardust, it swirls like glitter in a bottle of glycerin, drifting through the endless, ever-expanding space. It’s a beautiful sight. A beautiful sight worth sharing. If only sharing beautiful sights didn’t involve also sharing Credit.
What was he even on about? Oh, right, a family system. He doesn’t have any. They just kind of poofed out of existence. Poof! No family, no relatives, no mama, no papa, no sister, no brother, at least leave him a puppy! But no puppies for bad boys. Between a stuffed toy and a rusty knife, he chose a knife, and he licked off the rust, and he heard thyroids crackle under the blade. Gush, gush, gush. What a bad boy you are. Bad and strong, and therefore better than those that get killed off, and, yeah, it gets a little lonely without the good and weak, but – eh – it’s their fault. Should’ve fought harder to survive.
Because, when you’re small and insignificant and weigh less than a nitrogen particle on the scale of the universe, you can only fight. Then – then, of course! – you discard the morality and acquire some wits. You’re fully a conscious being now. And that’s the path you chose. Abandon all hope, ye who enters this world sightless! And what is the world if not a hopeless strive for meaning? Hopeless. Hopeless…
Devoted to… It goes like this.
But now, there’s nowhere to hide
Since you pushed my love aside!
The song is not native to the pre-Freeze Jarilo-VI, but was imported here from another planet. Sampo broke into the relic storage once, and though he wasn’t particularly interested in the music records, he took them just for the sake of it. Turns out, ancient Jarilo music goes hard. No wonder the elder Landau is so passionate about it. She’s devoted her whole life to this passion.
I’m out of my head –
Hopelessly devoted to you.
I’m hopelessly devoted to you—and—fade. Nice one, Koski! He should’ve applied for a full-time synth position at the Mechanical Fever, but something tells him that neither Serval nor her adorable little eepy-meepy Silvermane threat of a brother would appreciate it. O woe! Landau thoughts again. Snow, snow, snow, he must hide his head in the snow. Sampo could take him. Could take Captain Landau with him to watch the stars explode. Bet he’s never thrown his head back to gaze up at an aurora weaving jade threads in the sky over the glacier of Belobog. No, Captain Landau has never seen an aurora. Or he’d tell Sampo that his eyes look like cosmic jades.
Alas! no jades have been acknowledged. Oh, how he’ll miss that handsome face. Sampo clears his throat. Koski, the Captain would say, you are up to something illegal again. Why would you say that, Captain! Sampo would reply, flinging his hand to his forehead in a dramatic swoon, I am just a lawful citizen of Belobog! I’ve lived here for five years!
Five forsaken fucking years.
Ah, bad Sampo, bad Sampo, smack your lips, smack your lips! No profanities on the show, or the rating will go up and we’ll have to change the target audience! He will not forget the children of the Underworld. They have never done a single wrong thing in their short starless lives. He will not forget the children and their little voices as they eerily sang:
In the bog, in the bog,
bodies hide under the bog of Belobog.
Walls of white, walls of white,
towers fall outside the walls of Belobog.
What a creepy nursery rhyme. Natasha sings it sometimes as she attends her patients. Unconsciously, her voice escapes her, latches onto the shabby wallpaper of the hospital and hides in the crevices with rats and cockroaches.
In the hearth, in the hearth,
ashes burn in the furnace of Belobog.
When Seele goes on patrols she sings quietly under her breath, soles of her boots thumping wetly over the pavement, frills of her dress billowing in the breeze that shouldn’t be able to reach down below.
In the bog, in the bog,
dig up my bones from the bog of Belobog.
Sampo has dug up plenty of bones. What can he say, they are profitable. And this one, sir, is mammoth ivory that has been left to us pre-Freeze! Why, yes, ice preserved it in perfect condition. No matter how much you bend it, it won't snap! What do you use it for? Well, let’s think. Why not decorate your home with a little prehistoric artifact? Fold your hands together and pray on it every time you’re in need of some good luck. Or you can boil it into a delicious broth!
He can always advertise a trendy wall decoration, but he can’t guarantee the broth will be devoid of human remains. Oopsie, said too much! Not to worry, though, as long as the bones you dug up belong to the bad-bad criminals that were taken into custody by the Silvermane Guards and then mysteriously disappeared mere days before their court hearing and their cases were immediately dropped without even putting a new bounty on their heads but you know this is the sort of petty business than only low-ranking officials bother with because the higher-ups are too busy with actually important things like writing law and overseeing order instead of actually acting in accordance with the constitu
“Koski,” comes a voice from the window of one of the private residential headquarters in Qlipoth Fort. “Why are you climbing up the wall?”
So. You might be wondering how I ended up in this situation.
Sampo stabs an ice pick into the cement layer between the yellow bricks of the building and, holding onto it with a left hand, lets himself hang off the harness hooked to the roof. He leans against the wall – still very much mid-air and without a firm platform under his feet – bends his right arm, and props his head on his hand.
“Captain Landau!” he exclaims, though mindful to keep his voice hushed. It’s wee hours of the morning. The sky is the kind of shade of grey that’s not very pleasant to look at, but there is a strip of yellow melting over the wall surrounding Belobog, somewhere over the horizon, where no souls dwell and no children sing. “Didn’t expect you to be awake so early. What are you doing up, silly?”
You might still be wondering how I ended up in this situation.
Captain Landau blinks at him, only once, and he does it very sternly. There is a fold between his angled eyebrows. He is wearing gloves but no armour. This is the third floor, which means it’s an office window, not a bedroom. Captain Landau was getting ready to get some paperwork done and face the day before the solar stars could peek over the icy peaks of the landscape. Pity. Pity, pity. Sampo was so looking forward to catching him off guard in his hard cold soldier bed.
He wasn’t going to catch him off guard. No, no, no, he was going to do it the dramatic protagonist way. Sneak through the window and gaze at his peaceful expression as he dozed off – for three hours, or maybe for four hours, if he was lucky. Something out of a supernatural teenage drama. And just as the Captain’s eyelids began to flutter, Sampo would disappear in a blink, leaving nothing but a light swaying of the tulle curtain – and maybe a knocked over flower pot. For the gags. Not like it had any chance at a second life. No, Captain Landau is a cruel, cruel man. Everything he touches, dies an excruciating death.
That’s why Sampo didn’t want to catch him awake to say his goodbyes. O woe! Death, I welcome you with open arms.
“Why are you climbing up the wall of the Silvermane Guards private residence?” Captain Landau reiterates his initial question. He is properly leaning out of the window, arms folded across his chest, his chest concealed behind a layer of black thermowear.
“Thought I’d pay you a visit.” Sampo conjures up a red rose and holds the stem between his teeth.
I hope this answers your question about how I ended up in this situation.
The Captain doesn’t yield. “You are aware this area is restricted to civilians and convicts alike, not to mention it’s swarming with Guards. Also,” the Captain glances at the watch on his wrist, “it is five in the morning.”
Sampo holds the rose between his fingers. “Time is but a concept without a cosmic cause,” he says and flicks the arching curl of his fringe. “Besides, you’re one to talk, Captain. I was delighted just imagining how sweet your sleeping face must look! Why must you disappoint me?”
Captain sighs. “Why am I not surprised you know exactly where my room is?”
Sampo shrugs nonchalantly. “I must always keep the information on my clients up to date.”
“I am not your client.”
“More importantly, why are you residing in the headquarters again? Isn’t a captain more than liable to his own private property?” Sampo has been to that private property. But the Captain doesn’t need to know about that. Though it would’ve been nice to pay it one last visit, water the plants, rip some hairs off the comb, hide one sock of each pair under the bed, leave an apology letter on the desk.
The Captain takes a few moments to formulate his thoughts. “I feel safer staying with my division. It’s a tumultuous period. After the Stellaron…” he sighs, “why am I even telling you.”
The Captain sighs and the Captain asks rhetorical questions through which he hopes to achieve introspection, and who is Sampo to deny a man the pleasure of psychotherapy?
“Why, of course, because you enjoy a little heart-to-heart with yours truly.” Sampo twirls his hand in a mannerly wave, puts it over his heart and bows like a polite gentleman.
Below them – or, rather, directly below Sampo’s feet – entrance doors screech and low murmurs seep into the streets.
“Uh-oh, morning patrol,” Sampo says and tucks the rose behind his ear. He wrenches the ice pick out of the brick, safely sheathes the blades into the hip holsters, and, tightly grabbing the harness, props his feet against the wall and lightly bounces on his heels. “Captain, out of my way.”
It takes the Captain exactly three of Sampo’s bounces to realise what he is about to do, and when Sampo is doing it, he only manages to toss his body to the side and prostrate himself against the towering bookshelves to avoid total collision.
“Yahoo!”
Sampo flies into the office through the window and, gauging the approximate number of inches to the ground, unbuckles the harness and smoothly lands on his feet. He rubs his palms together as if wiping them off invisible dirt, and fixes his hair. What a beautiful spacious office. Only the infant morning hues paint the pale cream walls a tender shade of blue, and where there are no walls, there are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that encroach on them in a bizarre hexagonal box. So atmospheric. The last liminal pitstop before the leap into the
into the
into the unknown. If only there was a voice to call out to him!
“Koski, you are aware I can easily call the guards on you and get you arrested right this second?”
There Captain Landau slumps against the bookshelf and pinches the bridge of his nose. He shouldn’t frown so much. He is still youthful, still fresh, with his gorgeous eyes the colour of blue supergiants, and his blond hair that is soft like cotton, and his deep refined voice that scales off one charmless octave and doesn’t flow into any particular musical patterns.
Actually, retract that statement. Is Gepard Landau’s hair really soft like cotton? Is cotton truly soft? Is softness in the touch of the beholder, or is it a universal truth? What fallacy is Sampo committing by attributing something so sapient like hair to something so conditional like cotton? Lordy!
“Koski?”
They wouldn’t like him getting attached to that name. S a m p o K o s k i. How it rolls off the tongue. How the tongue yearns to steal those syllables off another man’s tongue. How laughable! Laugh-able. Lau-gha-bal. He is the one who gets the last laugh, and yet here he is, dreaming of romantic landscapes and pink skies and unremarkable pop music to accompany him into the escapade. Was that in the script? Nah, probably not.
Tasked with the mission to stir chaos, all Sampo has achieved is disintegrate his own integrity into chaos. Lovers are such a silly concept. Sampo will miss plucking real fragrant roses off rich people’s gardens! And then sticking them together, stem to stem, and wrapping them up with a ribbon, and spraying them with some sleeping gas, and sending them over to the Guards headquarters, where the intended recipient is a bit too clever for both of their good and never falls into the Sleeping Beauty trap. Sampo promises he wasn’t going to do anything evil to the unconscious captain. He just wanted to nick a few passes to some secret doors in Qlipoth Fort to borrow some relics and other thingamabobs and pass them around for some Credit that he would then use to survive on this land of nobility and peerage and then convert the remaining funds into the proletariat revolution because common folks revolting against the aristocrats is the kind of beautiful tale as old as time that all planets should experience in 4K. It’s easily orchestrated. One only needs to offend both sides of the class spectrum and blame their misfortunes on the other party!
“Would you say something?”
“Pardon me, Captain, your morning glory seems to have rendered me speechless.”
“My morning—what?” the Captain echoes unenthusiastically after him, face scrunched up suspiciously. But then he clearly gives up racking his brains for Sampo’s motives and shakes his head, sighing wistfully like an old man lost at sea. Nah, bad metaphor. There are no seas on Jarilo. Just icebergs.
Imposingly, feet paced widely, Sampo approaches the Captain, and the Captain does not reproach him, and then Sampo cages the Captain against the bookshelf, and the Captain tries to flatten himself until he realises that his body mass is a cosmic body, too; that it is matter that cannot disintegrate with the snap of one’s fingers. On Jarilo, at least. Not quite how things work here, unfortunately.
Sampo leans over Gepard. Leans into Gepard. Tweaks a strand of indigo hair back into its place. His reflection is stark clear in Gepard’s eyes.
“Don’t call the Guards, Captain,” Sampo pleads with starry eyes and pursed lips.
“As it stands, you are currently incapacitating me from pressing the buzzer, so there is no way I can.”
Good. Good. Let us be alone for once, Captain.
The first and the last time. Wouldn’t it be sweet to touch him for the first and the last time? Come on, the lifeless glacier of Belobog, you have to let me go out with a bang. At least one pleasant memory – this is all I ask for. Sampo never touched Gepard Landau because he would miss him if he did. This is no laughing matter. It is hilarious to colics in his stomach, of course, but as a matter of fact, it is gravely serious and seriously grave. Sampo led a good life. Good in the joyful way – full of sin and gluttony and pride and wrath and sloth and lust and whatever the rest of those are – and now he is treading the path of goodness. Good in the chaste way – thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not kill your neighbour, thou shall not worship other gods but me – oh, nevermind, he did steal plenty from his neighbours. What stupid commandments.
Yet he felt commanded to not commit adultery when he stepped onto the icy soil of Jarilo-VI. And he is going to commend himself for that. Good lad, Koski! And now that he is going, he might as well go out with a bang. Or a boom. Boom! Laser beams, laser beams.
“I have been tormented by the thoughts of you, Captain. All night I couldn’t sleep.” Sampo curves his eyebrows. “Pity me?”
Gepard presses his head back against the books like he wants to become one with the pages, escape Sampo’s protruding, prodding gaze, but he is too physical to become intangible words. It’s a good thing that he takes his time before speaking. Because even in the silence of space, Sampo can never escape the onslaught of words in his head.
The Overworld is cold, but this office room is warm. Or it’s the negative space between them that preserves the heat. Sampo can hear it, the pulsing blood flow. It’s a sliver of pale skin just above the tall turtleneck of Gepard’s sweater, and yet he can hear it. Hooking one long finger over the collar, Sampo tugs it down, revealing even more pale skin, now stretched delicately over the ridges of his throat column. There is a rough pinkish patch just beneath his chin. A slim line of white fluff over his lip. A dark freckle on the side of his sculpted jaw.
Sampo cranes his neck and stops himself just before pressing his lips to Gepard’s jugular. It’s calling to him. Calling to lick, to bite, to nibble. Leave a stinging hickey. What a romantic parting gift. Sweeter than a box of heart-shaped chocolates, prettier than a bouquet of red roses. Oh, the rose! Suavely, in the way only he, Mister Blue Suave Shoes, can do, he slides the cut flower stem out of his own hair and tucks it nicely behind Gepard’s ear. And then lets his hand rest right there, on the side of his face, cupping his cheek that’s still only lukewarm because the window is open and the morning is cold and the frail Landau heart, though healthy and heavy, does not beat ardently enough to stave off the blizzard.
Gepard Landau is, after all, a mere man, and he, too, relies on the numbers on the thermometre. The concept of sharing warmth is a dubious one. Stars are the only material things that are truly warm, and their bodies are celestial, not earthly. Gepard’s eyes are blue like the blue supergiants, but inside they are blue like the morning hues. What do you dream about, Gepard Landau? Do you gaze beyond the line of the icy horizon? Do you wish to see an aurora polaris? Do you know what it is? Gaze at me, then. Gaze into me. And fall deep, and deeper, and deeper, into the
into the
yeah-yeah, into the unknown. Because he doesn’t know what Sampo Koski is beyond that wonderfully charming smile and long nimble fingers. I’ll put them to use, then, I’ll force you to drop your guard, I’ll disarm you, and what is a soldier without his weapon?
Sampo is yet again on the level with Gepard’s face. “Could I ask you for a favour, Captain?” he exhales into the now positive space between them.
“I don’t trust you, Koski.”
Sampo steps back. Never lose a smile. Your smile is your business card. Extend that business card, make him take it. A polite exchange of contact details. A less polite exchange of intimate touches. Sampo offers his hand, palm up. “May I ask you for a dance?”
Gepard eyes it warily. In the wee hours of the morning, there is really nothing he can do but take it. And Sampo takes everything else – and everything else is his waist, for once unconcealed by the steel and fur of his armour, and all his attention, now truly on him, and all his trust that he doesn’t expose even as he lays a hand on Sampo’s shoulder and unglues his body from the bookshelf.
Sampo leads him into an easy, slow-paced waltz. Gepard Landau is not an elegant dancer. And Sampo, Sampo likes samba and rumba and tango and jigga-jigga. So, like teens at a high school disco, they lightly spin in one place, in the middle of the office, where geometrical lines of the carpet come together in a never-ending hypnotic pattern.
“You’re not quite like yourself today, Koski.”
“Mm,” Sampo smiles and practically purrs. “How do you usually see me, Captain?”
As usual, he takes his time. “Avoiding Qlipoth Fort like fire. Running away seconds before I appear in your line of vision. Shooting down all of my attempts to speak up before I even open my mouth.” So curt with words. Never missing a point.
In the bog, in the bog,
bodies lay under the bog of Belobog.
And now, the waltz form. One-two-three, one-two-three, in the-bog, in the-bog,
dig-up my-bones from-the-bog, from-the-bog, of Be-lo-bog, Be-lo-bog.
One, two, three; one, two, three. One
“The Silvermane Guards residence is a totally different establishment from the Guardian’s throne in my books,” Sampo says. “And it’s a bit of a walk from the detention centre.” A shiver runs down his spine. “Yuck, the detention centre. Can’t even bear thinking about it.”
“We’ve been steadily maximising security at the station, and yet you always find a new way to escape.”
Two
“I’m not without my talents. I’m practically a magician. Sampo Magicoski at your service.”
Gepard lowers his gaze and scoffs. “Stop saying ridiculous things.”
Sampo raises the hand that was previously resting on Gepard’s waist and places it under his chin. Gepard looks him in the eyes again. He should frown less. He should sleep more. When Sampo is gone, he will be frowning less and sleeping more, or maybe he won’t, because just because Sampo is gone, doesn’t mean that all troubles will suddenly come to an end.
“Who, if not me, will entertain you at your job post?”
Gepard clearly doesn’t like the syntactic formation of the question. “There’s a strange fatality to your words that I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“Shh,” Sampo places a finger to Gepard’s lips instead. Like a good boy, Gepard goes quiet. One-two-three, one-two-three, and pause. He is so good, that captain. Good and strong, but that goodness might get him killed in the future that’s yet to come. Oh, is there a future that has already come? Yes, there is. Sampo had seen it. He didn’t like it. And what's a better way to destroy the one thing you dislike than by messing up the pre-ordained order of ordeal?
Throw all your worries to the wind while you’re still on earth – remember, there is no air in space!
“Would you grant me one wish, Captain?” Sampo asks. He won’t say ‘last’. Because Gepard will think Sampo is going to commit disgraceful acts to himself as an act of repentance. Fatal, huh? The only thing fatal here is the femme fatale Gepard doesn’t realise he is dancing with.
Gepard can’t reply because Sampo’s finger is still keeping his lips sealed. “One kiss,” Sampo answers the unsaid question. Then replaces the tip of his finger with his mouth.
Is this going to confuse Gepard Landau? Of course. What does it matter? Who’s going to riot? Poor citizens of Belobog and their tiny puny minuscule lives. Nothing they do here will impact the flow of the universe.
Gepard’s hands press to the back of Sampo’s head, undecided at first – is he going to pull or is he going to push? Always a crazy roulette with this guy! Will he pierce his skull with an ice-tipped arrow as if performing a lobotomy, or will he freeze his eyes and shrink his brain from inside out? He’s not actually capable of that. Morally, that is. Physically, he could probably slamdunk Sampo into the very core of the frozen Jarilo soil.
Instead, there are fingers tightening in his hair, and lips opening up to let him in.
Sampo kisses Gepard with tongue, and tastes the cool blues of the morning and the greens of fresh mint. Gepard’s tongue is shy, even shying away from the incidental sloppy sounds they pass on to each other, but he is earnest. It’s important to be earnest. How else would you escape the burdensome social obligation of the upper-class which prohibits you from homoerotically making out with your enemy in the very upper-class establishment while on your upper-class duty? Ask Sampo Koski, he’ll tell you all about it.
Oh, it feels so good. In some other universe, Sampo does not deny himself the pleasure of holding Gepard’s hand, of playing with his mouth, of listening to his blood flow. But the point of pleasure is having no repercussions. And even though the stars won’t explode just because he feels this nagging, tugging heaviness in his stomach, there is, after all, a universe in its own right within each one of us living things. Neurons tightening around each other, electrified, ecstatic, performing an orgy of feelings that thrums an anxious beat that screams WARNING! WARNING! SYSTEM FAILURE! Heartbreak approaching, I repeat, heartbreak approaching! DANGER! DANGER!
Stupid Belobog and its stupid robots.
Sampo grew up without possessions, so he really likes possessing things. Even if in the end they are meaningless, perishable scraps. And though Gepard Landau is strong, he’s too good not to die a hero in his last pivotal battle for the preservation of the last battalion of humanity on an Aeon-forgotten planet in the middle of nowhere in the ever-expanding never-ending cosmic void. He is just good like that. If Sampo met him at the genesis, he might not have survived to this point.
And so, he can’t have the Captain all to himself. Sampo can survive. But Belobog can’t. In the grand scheme of things, one kiss is not all it takes. In the microscheme of this poor planet’s miserable existence, one kiss is more than enough to take it all. Sampo is going to miss the kids of the Underworld.
In the bog, in the bog,
machine guns raid the fortress of Belobog.
Gepard pulls away just enough to speak but doesn’t open his eyes. “This is considered an offence, just so you’re aware,” he says, voice low and a little strained, and Sampo looks at his pinkish cheeks and that immortal frown, carved between his eyebrows as if on marble.
“I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling,” Sampo replies, upping the raspiness factor of his voice to sound most seductive.
Gepard opens his eyes. Wonderfully puzzled. Gears squeaking in the engine of his brain. The rose behind his ear tilting to the side with heavy question marks. This is how he’s going to remember Gepard Landau. He is fine with it.
“Gotta make you understand.”
In a snap, Sampo conjures up a mini vapour bomb and cracks it in front of Gepard’s face, stunning him with a pink glittery cloud. Always does the trick! And with a flair like that, this is surely a banging resignation from the job. As naive Gepard Landau coughs and waves his hand to clear out the smoke, Sampo beelines to the window and sits on the sill, holding himself up by the frame, legs hanging out.
“And remember, Captain!” Sampo exclaims. He gives Gepard Landau one final bow. No, this is not enough. He gives Gepard Landau a mannerly twirl of his hand and a wink. “This Sampo Koski is never gonna give you up!”
And before the scrunched over Captain can run after him, Sampo grabs the harness and jumps out of the window. Ah, he really did manage to preserve the rating.
“And he’s never
gonna
let
you
down!”
From down below, you zoom in on Gepard’s head sticking out of the window. Looking down from the window, you see nothing but printless pavement.