Chapter Text
Mizi’s first dreams after a long bout of sleepless nights are of dreamy blue. Tanks of water in translucent shells, in bubbles drifting over cities, planets, skies. She would grope along clear walls for a handle, and when she eventually clicked it open, there would be a golden room. Someone will ask her what she wants. In the golden room. It’s always the golden room. It’s always what she wants, never why. Why don’t you want your love. Who are you giving it to now there’s no one in the room. In the shell. In the bubble with the see-through walls. Why didn’t you fight. And she says, the dream peeling away fast: I fought
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Mizi used to watch Alien Stage a lot when she was younger. Seasons one through forty-eight, then back to one, and to forty-eight again. She knows the names of the first couple winners by heart: The cheerful ones, the desperate ones, the ones who look like something in them cracks when they win.
Why would you do that, she thinks when one cries, why don’t you want to win. She doesn’t know her name, just thinks she’s so messed up.
She asks Shine, and her owner says She’s that champion! I don’t know her name, Mizi. There are too many seasons for that.
She makes it a goal to know all their names after that. Especially the ones that cry. She thinks she’d rather get shot than cry on Alien Stage.
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Shine had a phase where she’d bring back bowls after bowls of fish, squids, even once piranhas. They chewed a bit of Mizi’s hair off by accident, but Shine managed to tug them off in time. She had wanted something to soothe the pain. Oh, I think l pulled too hard. After all, Shine was kind. Shine cared for her the way more gentle segyein tended to when there was something in their hands, something fragile, something with a tiny heartbeat thrashing and flailing and gasping for life. Mizi knew this. She had known since the day she fumbled to circle her hands around her neck, feeling her weak pulse and squeezing to make it come faster. She thought Shine would take pity on her red face.
Is she throwing a tantrum? How cute!
Do you even know what that place is?
Mizi wants to so badly, look, she’s struggling to breathe. Just let her go.
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She goes. ANAKT Garden is so far from home; she doesn’t think she’ll ever make it. But if she does, if she gets there, she thinks she’ll be happy.
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There are many more names for her to remember. Beautiful names. Ugly names. Funny names. Sua, Sua, Sua. She’d memorise it a hundred times over if she could.
She hears Sua sing on her first day at ANAKT Garden, and she thinks the girl might win someday. She wants to see her win. Sua would look good up on stage, all dolled up and pretty. Sua would look good even if she cried. She doesn’t really care if Sua cries, she’ll still watch.
Why would you do that, someone says, but Mizi is too busy listening.
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Mizi really likes the swings in ANAKT Garden. Sometimes she sits on them and twists till the chains get tangled and the Segyein have to pry her off the seat. The chains get shorter as you turn: the more you twist, the higher you go. Sometimes she gets Ivan and his slight friend—Till?— to twist her up, so high she can almost touch the flat expanse of sky. Then she tricks them into letting go, letting her spin till she’s dizzy.
More often than not, Sua will come running and grab the chains. They always slip from her grasp, and she always looks so worried; especially because she thinks Mizi can’t see from where she is. Mizi can always see, though. Her glasses are pretty thick but she can see.
Later, when Mizi finally touches down, she’ll make sure to stumble a little. And Sua will catch her, like she tends to.
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Sua praises her dancing often, and yet Mizi still floats like a leaf in a stream when she mentions something about it. Her arms feel too large for her body, stretching and growing till they touch the treetops. I LOVE DANCING. I’LL DANCE FOR YOU EVERYDAY WE’RE TOGETHER AND YOU CAN WATCH; PLEASE WATCH, she says, but nothing seems to come out.
She goes to Ivan and she rehearses one-hundred times under the bruising sky. She asks him how he does it, and he says does what. She says, stop lying, but nothing seems to come out. Show me, she tries, but he falls asleep.
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She recalls fighting with Sua over lines. How silly, now that she thinks about it.
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Sua wants just the second verse and a small fraction of the chorus. Stupid. You’re so stupid. No one ever listens to the second verse. I’ll be dancing during the second verse. No one will look at you. Why won’t they look at you?
Sua still stays calm, serene, smoothing a blue stylus over her lyrics. Blue for her, pink for Mizi. Blue and pink, pink and blue. Pink over blue. Sua doesn’t want to win. It is plain as false-day. What an idiot, Mizi thinks, why don’t you want to. I want us to. There’s no point if you don’t want it.
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They keep at it, just arguing over smaller and smaller things. They never want to talk about their dreams now. Everything seems to be clawing in. It's always: what do you want. I want you to live. I want you to win. I can’t win. I’ll let you win. That’s not what you want. What do you want. I want you to live. And so on.
Sua is scared of pain - Mizi knows. She isn’t scared of death. It‘s infuriating, her carelessness.
(How does it feel she asks, and tightens her hold on Sua’s neck. Good or bad. The little jump she feels under her palms is there, and then it isn’t, and Sua closes her eyes. She’s going to make Mizi rip all her hair out. The water creeps higher. Good, she says, and she goes under.)
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She is radiant as pure light on Round 5. So is Luka; he is always radiant. Like a glowing parasite. Like a god. Like, like he knows everything.
Music. Verse, chorus, verse. They dance.
The god reaches his hand out to Mizi and he tilts his head. He twirls and dives and steps just-so. He smiles and she wants to gouge it out of his face. Mizi knows what he’s trying to bait her into; she would know that face anywhere. Luka smiles, and she wants to carve him into quarters, but everything is dammed up inside her. Everything cuts off below her jaw, and she wants to scream, but screaming is not singing. Screaming would be vile. She’d rather get shot than scream on Alien Stage.
Luka leans in so close she can count his pale lashes. He says, you are going to die for love. He takes her wrist; kisses her pulse point. The crowd goes wild for it. Every light is on them.
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Everything is beautiful, and everything hurts. Everything is whetting her knuckles. Mizi takes Luka’s face and she shucks her gloves off and hits him. The music is slowing down, something soft, sweet. She screws her eyes shut and imagines the press of fingers, ever-so-lightly on keys. She thinks of the electronic drumset Till sometimes played: it was hooked up to a speaker and could never seem to get the beats right. She thinks of Ivan on Round 4, his dark eyes. She thinks of Sua and her pure, rich voice.
She thinks, very briefly, of her own hands. She always had smooth hands, especially since she never really had to play guitar or keyboard much. It was all Shine’s doing; she had made Mizi dance almost exclusively since the day she was enrolled in ANAKT Garden.
Will I win if I dance, she used to ask, and Shine would smile very gently. No, I just always thought the dancers were very pretty to look at. That is all.
Mizi screws her eyes shut and imagines a stage strewn with broken glass, how she could pirouette and jump and land on winged feet. How the air would melt for her, and her hair would become sharp at the very tips. Make me your god, Sua would be singing, show me proof. There would be no drums, no rasping synthesizer. She would brush the glass carelessly aside and play the sole piano; and her fingers would stop, stutter, start again. She might learn to love her hands.
As it is, Mizi opens her eyes and she relishes the crack of bone, the bloom of red. Luka is shaking. Luka is Sua. Sua is here. Sua is back in the tub with her neck bared. Sua has her by the teeth, dragging everything unblemished and soft out of her skin.
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She dreams once, just once, of Ivan. He’s on TV. The rain plasters his hair to his scalp, and he has that big smile. She bets he practised, too, stayed up late into the night to stretch the corners of his lips like a mutt. He looks a little like Sua in certain lights.
You, Mizi screams, how dare you. What are you dying for.
She imagines she gets her hands on him through the holo-screen, gets a good feel of that throat. It feels different - thicker, his heartbeat louder. Maybe he wants this more. He isn’t looking at her, even in the dream. He’s still looking, and pointing, and singing. Till seems so lost, like he can’t hear the words. Sweet fool.
But it sounds so familiar to Mizi. Like; here you are, here you always are.
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Ivan is gone by the time she’s finished committing every stroke and uptick to memory. WHY DID YOU LEAVE, Mizi says, but nothing seems to come out. Mizi opens her mouth and swallows, swallows, swallows all the letters down to store like a velvet box.