Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Psii,” Signless says, “you’ve been in here for hours. Come back to the ship?”

“I’ll be done soon.”

“Sunrise is just over the horizon. I don’t want you getting burned when you walk back.”

“Good thing I burn hotter than the sun. Ayy.”

“Psii.”

“It’s cloudy, isn’t it? I can smell lightning. You know, besides myself. Storm's coming.”

“That doesn’t mean daylight isn’t dangerous.”

“I told you I’ll be done soon.”

“Please.”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

You grimace and raise your head from the altar, giving him the most exasperated look you can manage, raised eyebrows and all. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Wasting time?”

The Signless is a fierce revolutionary whose strength comes from softness. He lowered his hood when he entered the cathedral, and now his mouth is curved with just the hint of a smile, his eyes bright. It’s a peace offering. He can joke about your devotion as easily as you can joke about the most faith-filled man you know having no traditional faith whatsoever. A fierce revolutionary and a staunch atheist, because he doesn't realize he's already divine.

You take his hand and kiss his knuckles over the altar. After all, if you’re going to practice blatant heresy on top of your convictions, you might as well sprinkle pale into the church.

“It just seems like a weird place to pray,” he adds.

“You’re judging me.”

“I would never!”

“I am being so judged right now.”

“...Okay, maybe a little.”

“You’re worried about me.” You get to your feet, wincing at the stiffness in your legs. Fuck, you really did lose track of time, and kneeling on a stone floor isn’t a great way to ease chronic pain. “That’s adorable.”

“Hey, screw off. I’m allowed to be curious about your reasoning behind… this. Curious! That’s all it is. Curiosity.”

“You could just say you think I’m mindlessly partaking in religious oppression. I know you’ve been standing there for at least five minutes formulating the speech. You’re so delighted by the sound of your own voice, who am I to keep you from it?”

Signless walks around the altar and takes both of your hands in his, gently squeezing your fingers. “I’m not going to keep you from prayer,” he says. “Relax. This isn’t an interrogation. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I just - I don’t want you to get caught in the sun.”

“Maybe I’ll stay here for the day.”

He winces. “Just because it’s a church doesn’t make it holy ground.”

“It’s a ruin,” you point out, “and I’m not here because it’s holy.”

“Then why?”

“I’ll show you.”

The cathedral hasn’t been used in at least a hundred sweeps, if the tangled weeds growing from between cracked stones are any indication. The ceiling is mostly clear glass - once upon a time it must have afforded a spectacular view of the stars, but what’s intact is cloudy with age. A few smashed gaps filter fresh air into the main room. Doors leading to twisted underground passages line the back wall, and you wouldn’t be surprised if some of the floor stones themselves housed secret entrances. It’s a labyrinth never intended to be accessed by common trolls (for any benign purpose, at least) - the altar is only easy to find because this is as far as lowbloods were meant to go.

You walk through the vast expanse of the room, your footfalls echoing against the walls, creating their own odd beat. The acoustics are good in here. Clowns, you suppose, appreciate good architecture insofar as it amplifies lowblood screams.

“Technically I’m gathering intel more than I’m praying,” you say. “You could call it meditating.”

“Have you had any visions?”

“Sort of.” You reach the entrance - a great gap in the wall that must once have housed beautiful doors, now letting in drafty breezes.

“How many trolls do you think died here?”

“Enough.”

“Up there? Where you were praying?”

“No. They’d have been bled for paint there, not killed. You can see remnants of the murals on the floor at the front, and under the dust on the walls.”

Sign’s throat clicks as you turn back to survey the room, bracing one hand against the jagged gap in the stones. Little pebbles dislodge from the rock, clattering toward your feet.

“No,” you murmur, sliding your thumb against a jagged edge, “this isn’t holy ground.”

“Psii.” Sign’s hand, warm against your cheek, snaps your attention back to him. “Are you all right?”

“This town has a lot of problems, doesn’t it?”

“Most towns have a lot of problems.”

“Tell me about this one’s.”

“A mostly lowblood population with a concerning concentration of daywalkers - not nearly enough trained medicullers, largely avoided by traders I assume because of the illness -”

“And yet they don’t impose a curfew? They haven’t been officially quarantined?”

“That’s not unusual - there’s not another port town for miles, there’d be no need for a full quarantine.”

“Mmm. So we have an ocean port with hardly any traders, populated only by lowbloods who have lived here for sweeps, riddled with a disease they ought to have been able to contain. Full of abandoned buildings because the population was once higher, which makes sense considering it’s the only coastal port for miles, like you just said. And in the center you have this goddamn monstrosity. No one would put this much effort into architecture and passageways if they didn’t intend to stay here a long time.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty fucked up,” Sign says. “Do you think everyone left during the first outbreak? The lowbloods here just couldn’t afford to go?”

“I’m working on a theory.”

“I mean, if you thought the area was too dangerous to stay in, you would have said something already.”

“That’s true.” You run your hand over the jagged edges again. “Whatever door was here didn’t disintegrate with time. It was torn off. You can’t even tell where the hinges were because the wall splintered.”

“You think a subjuggulator did that?”

You shake your head and step inside. “Look at that crack,” you say, pointing to a mossy fissure in the stones, an inch wide and stretching nearly to the glass ceiling panes. “A clown didn’t do that. Neither did the weather.”

“A psionic?”

“Most of the blood you can make out on the walls looks rust or bronze. The cultists here might have had an uneasy peace with seadweller captains - money makes for good allegiances. Waders bring in slave ships, clowns take the slaves for their games, sell back paints and whatever the living lowbloods harvest and manufacture for them…”

“Psii.”

“It’s economically sound enough. Then you get a perfect little isolation bubble where highbloods rule and can do whatever they want, and they’ve got this place as their capital. So what went wrong?”

“Psii.” Sign slips his fingers back into yours, his voice soft, the tone he practices for calming frightened children. “You’re too close to this.”

“I know.”

“Let’s go back to the ship.”

“I’m not finished yet.”

“I know where the story goes. A psionic breaks their chains, kills the clowns. The slaves take the town back. Maybe one of them was sick and that caused the outbreak, but people still live here because they can’t afford to go elsewhere, or because it’s their home - it doesn’t matter. You’re too close.”

“That isn’t what happened.”

“Why? It’s a viable theory. They’re isolated from other towns, might have scared away ships with illness - it’s the perfect place to get away with murder.”

“Then why aren’t there any traces of purple or blue on the walls? On the floors?”

“Maybe they were washed away in a rain? Maybe they didn’t stick since they were never used as official paint?”

“Maybe they weren’t killed.”

“All right, smart guy,” Sign says. “If that’s the case, why did they abandon this place?”

“Maybe they’re still here.”

“What the fuck.”

You nod at the closed doors against the back wall. “I bet there are tunnels running underneath the whole town.”

“And you think… a bunch of cultists are hiding out, never emerging to the surface, sustaining themselves on - what? The flesh of dead lowbloods?” A pause. “Gods above, tell me that’s not literally your theory.”

“Not quite.”

“Feel free to elaborate.”

You raise yourself a few inches into the air and cross the room by floating, partly because it’s quicker than walking and partly because the echo of your footsteps is starting to freak you out. Once you reach the doors, you pace between them, laying a hand against each.

“The first one will take you to sacred places,” you say. “That and meeting areas - areas people who weren’t worthy were never allowed to set foot. The second will take you to storage areas - if they stockpiled anything, it’ll be down there. The third was for blood hunting.”

“Blood hunting.”

Sign starts to cross the room, so you hold up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t they usually blood hunt in the open? I thought that was the point.”

“Not if there’s a lowblood you don’t want to give the kindness of a death in fresh air.” You sink down against the door, shutting your eyes. “Have people you need to kill, set them loose in the tunnels, give them a head start. If the labyrinth is twisted enough, they’ll get lost. You either find and kill them, or they starve to death. Either way it makes for good sport.”

“Come back to the ship.”

“This place is haunted as fuck.”

“Psii.”

“I’m not even a technical necropath and I can tell there are still people down there.”

“Psii. If you think I’m going to let you wander into an underground labyrinth literally designed to kill people, with no backup, and no plan, because you want to lay spirits to rest when you aren’t even a necropath -”

“I’m not completely stupid. I’ll keep track of where I am so I can find my way back.” You stand again and yank the door open. A wave of musty, dead air assaults your nostrils. If there’s a way back to the surface inside, it’s certainly not close to the door.

The steps down are steep, dirt-packed - not too far from an average cellar, except that they disappear into inky darkness and keep going. It’s impossible to tell how long the flight is, but if this place was used for blood hunting, you know some people emerged back into the cathedral. They just didn’t happen to have your blood color.

You’re on the second step when Sign’s fingers wrap around your upper arm and yank you back. You stumble and go sprawling across the main floor, leaving enough space for him to slam the door closed, bracing his body between you and the wall.

“Hey, what the fuck!”

“Did you even hear me coming?”

You sit up and reach for the door. Sign smacks your hand away.

“Look at me,” he snaps.

It’s about then that you realize how fuzzy the world has gone. You really didn’t hear him coming, too focused on the swallowing blackness and thrumming energy underneath. The red of his eyes, usually blazing fire when he glares, is curiously dull and washed out. Your fingers twitch toward the door again, and you curl your hand into a fist.

“I meant what I said about you being too close,” he says. “We need to leave. Now.”

“Sign, I don’t…”

“Best case scenario, those tunnels are full of confused ghosts who’ve latched onto you because you’ve spent the whole fucking night channeling them. Worst case, you’re right about the cultists still being alive, and they’re using chucklevoodoos to lure you down there because you’ve spent the whole fucking night channeling them. If you go down there, you are going to die. We’re going back to the ship.”

“I think the source of the outbreak is down there,” you say.

“Oh, great! That makes it an even better idea to wander with absolutely zero protection! You realize we have a member of our party who’s immune to the daywalker virus, right? Like you realize your plan is fucking stupid, right.”

“I don’t…” You scrub a hand over your face, trying to will the world into focus. “I didn’t… how did I…”

“You decided to open your psychic ass up to spiritual interference in a place where trolls violently died.” Sign hooks a hand under your knees and places the other at your back, hoisting you into his arms. Under the exasperation you can hear an edge of panic, which is more effective at grounding than any number of calm phrases. Gotta wake up. You’ve got a moirail to soothe.

“Hey.” You raise your hand, trace the curve of his cheek and jaw. “I’m okay. Just a little out of it.”

“Why are you like this.”

“I love you?”

“I am aware. I love you too.”

“You can’t be mad at me for wanting to help lowblood spirits?”

“I’m not mad at you for that, I’m mad at you for being a dumbass.”

You can pinpoint the exact moment the cathedral’s hold snaps, because fresh air rushes into your lungs like you’ve just broken the surface after drowning. It is the purest, clearest air you’ve ever tasted in your entire life, but when you raise your head you realize you’ve been outside for a while already. The taste of the tunnels had a hold on you long after you couldn't properly smell them anymore.

“I’m good now,” you say. “I can walk.”

It takes a moment to orient yourself when he sets your feet on the ground, but then you straighten up and start in the direction of the harbor.

“So, any new theories on why this town is borderline deserted?” Sign says.

You shrug. “I wonder how many trolls that place has straight-up consumed.”

“You’re going to go back there, aren’t you?”

“Well, I mean.” You kick a pebble out of your way. “Yeah. Obviously. Someone has to get to the bottom of this.”

He groans. “I hope you realize exactly how much ‘amateur exorcism’ was not on my ideal skill list.”

“I am expanding your horizons.” You pat his face. “You’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

this is a bad plan
TA: ok but IIn faIIrne22
TA: 2o II2 everythIIng we do
yes but this is a special flavor of asinine
TA: II2 that your way of tellIIng me we’re all gonna dIIe?
no
just my way of pointing out it’s a bad plan
i will never understand your clade’s general determination to rescue everyone you meet
appreciate it maybe
but don’t you get exhausted?
TA: don’t you get exhau2ted beIIng actual lIIteral death
more than you know
however i did not have a choice in the matter
TA: II know
TA: II 2tIIll thIInk you 2hould ju2t 2ay fuck IIt and peace the hell out
TA: II bet you could hIIde
hah
there is not a place in the universe i could go where i would not eventually be found
the best i can do is engage in minor acts of rebellion
as long as they don’t interfere with the timeline’s progression they are not punishable
speaking to you for instance
TA: hell yeah
TA: you 2hould talk to mortal2 more often
TA: II bet you’d 2traIIghten out your reputatIIon real fa2t
TA: attentIIon trollkIInd: everyone 2top pII22IIng your2elve2 over the demone22 2he’2 a huge nerd
and yet your clade doesn’t know you speak to me
TA: hey you’re actual lIIteral death
TA: that probably count2 a2 necropathy rIIght
TA: do you want to take a break from sowIIng fear and terror to come help u2 clear out the cathedral
TA: you can 2tay for dIInner
TA: dII caught a cholerbear
...i do not believe your people would appreciate my presence
TA: you could dII2guII2e your2elf a2 an average ru2tblood
TA: you know put a2IIde the aura of doom for a nIIght
i don’t believe i could
TA: that’2 fIIne too
TA: we’ve had wor2e company
is this a real offer?
TA: well yeah
TA: we don’t have a necropath wIIth u2 rIIght now and you’re my frIIend 2o
TA: ju2t cau2e ‘death hack2 my chat clIIent 2o we can meme at each other’ ha2n’t come up IIn conver2atIIon doe2n’t mean II’d be oppo2ed to you comIIng to dIInner
oh
that’s... sweet
but i can’t
when we meet face to face i’m afraid it will have to be under less pleasant circumstances
TA: yeah
TA: 2o II’ve 2een
TA: fIIgured IIt wa2 worth offerIIng anyway
i’ve been in the tunnels you’re going to investigate
guard yourself
the spiritual influence is powerful
TA: II wa2 2ort of plannIIng to do the oppo2IIte
right
why would you ever take practical advice
keep your moirail close then
TA: do you have any even more practIIcal advIIce
TA: for example map2 or cultII2t weakne22e2 or convenIIent hII2tory II can pull out of my a22
TA: are you 2tIIll there
TA: no of cour2e not
TA: why would death ever provIIde helpful fact2 2mfh

You approach the cathedral with your arms taped until no skin shows, the silver padding hidden under your suit and a thick pair of gloves. The Dolorosa walks on your left, taller and more self-assured than you could ever hope to be, her usual long skirt traded for a pair of breeches and sturdy workboots. The Disciple, prowling to your right, has taped her arms similarly to yours and braided her hair into a waist-length plait that couldn’t tangle if it tried.

Sign’s uneasiness is so palpable you can smell it. He trails behind the three of you, his steps lagging more and more the closer you get to the church. “I really feel like we shouldn’t be doing this without a necropath,” he says, which is fair.

“Maybe you ought to stay up here, love.” Di stretches her arms above her head, her joints cracking, not breaking stride.

“No,” you say. “Sign needs to come with.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“Because I might need him, and also we can’t just leave him up here on his own. With his luck some rogue lusus will wander in and kill him.”

“Wow, rude!” Sign’s steps quicken so he can catch up to you and defend his honor. “The fact that I’m not dead yet proves I’m luckier than any of you.”

“Or just surrounded by smart people.”

“Smart people who are about to explore a haunted death labyrinth.”

“For a man who spends so much time risking his life to preach heresy, you sure are hung up on ghosts.”

“I don’t have a problem with ghosts! In fact I have an inordinate amount of empathy for ghosts. My problem is with ghosts that lure trolls into haunted death labyrinths.”

“See, now you know how I feel when you try diplomacy on deranged highbloods. We can give each other ulcers.”

“They’ll be more afraid of you than you are of them,” Di says, the current voice of reason.

“And I’m here to eliminate any physical threats,” Rosa adds. “As long as we track our progress and tread carefully, our only potential enemy will be fear. We have nothing to fear to begin with so long as we stay together.”

“You didn’t see the hold it had on Psii,” Sign says.

“And you are right to worry about him, because he’s an idiot!” Di says.

“Hey!”

“Psii constantly thinks he can handle more than he actually can, but we will be with him, and if he gets possessed then we will give the spirit a firm talking-to. So stop worrying, you buttface.”

Sign lets out a longsuffering sigh, but he does go quiet as the church looms in front of you. From the outside it seems even more desolate, all crumbling infrastructure. A breeze prods against your back, and a smattering of rain begins to fall.

“Should we wait until the storm passes?” Di asks.

“You’ll still be able to track underground even if it’s raining, right?”

“I should be able to, yeah.”

You shrug. “Then we should do it now. Stormy weather is good for channeling spirits.”

“That,” Sign says, “sounds an awful lot like superstitious bullshit.”

“Your face sounds an awful lot like superstitious bullshit.”

“Could we please focus on the task at hand?” Rosa says, pulling a pair of elbow-length gloves from her pack and tugging them on. “We need to find the source of the daywalker infection. That’s the most important goal.”

“We’ll check out the meeting areas and stores first, then,” you say. “Unless any of you are worried you’ll get struck by lightning for treading on clown holy ground.”

Sign laughs out loud.

---

The stores yield nothing of interest, which is disappointing. Not that you were hoping to run into any zombies, but you’d crossed your fingers that maybe there’d be untouched preserves that could feed the town. Anything that might once have existed is picked over, leaving nothing but dusty shelves and cobwebs.

The sacred passages are similarly devoid of helpful resources, leading gently under the earth, like you’re being swallowed whole. Sign lays a hand against your shoulder when you realize your breathing is the heaviest of anyone’s - you have a hell of a lot of practice fighting claustrophobia, but that doesn’t mean the press of the tunnels is easy. You comfort yourself with the knowledge that you’re too damn stubborn to die down here.

With Rosa poised to dispatch any sudden threats, Di’s ears pricked for any signs of danger, and your mind wide open to spiritual danger, you’re pretty well covered. Even so, a prickle of unease slides down your spine as you step through a gap in the earthy walls and feel the world open up before you, like you’ve stepped into a field instead of another small room. Your psionics give you keener spatial awareness than most trolls, so you hold out an arm to stop your companions and brighten your eyes to illuminate the space.

You have to turn up the light more than you’re used to in order to hit the back wall (Di mutters something about the high beams on a scuttlebug, Sign swats her on the arm). It looms in front of you, a perfectly smooth stone wall the height of ten trolls - it must stretch almost all the way to the surface.

It’s completely covered in paint.

From here, you can’t make out any patches that haven’t been painted. And the mural is done in a startling array of rainbow, some hues too bright to have come from trolls. Whoever did this put a hell of a lot of effort into harvesting from trolls and animals and plants, more focused on the artistry than violence of their methods.

Sign shudders. “There’s something wrong with this place.”

Di, however, echoes your own thoughts. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s sick.”

“No, love, look.” She sniffs at the space, and then, apparently judging it safe enough, starts across the floor so she can inspect the wall up close. You tense, half-expecting some kind of booby trap to spring, but she reaches the stone without incident. “Oh - oh, wow. It’s even more beautiful up close. They must have used tiny brushes for all the detailing, I can’t imagine - whoever painted this must have taken sweeps.”

Rosa’s impatience needles at the back of your mind. She wants to go, you can tell; there’s nothing pertaining to your original mission in here. And you can empathize, considering Di’s likelihood to spend additional sweeps analyzing the artwork. Still, you move forward to investigate with her, because it’s not every night you find complex cultist murals whose quality is about on par with those in the Court of Miracles.

Immediately, you see that Di is right. Every inch of the stone is speckled with dozens of shades, roped together to make abstract shapes that pulse with life. The one exception is the void black bottom left corner, covered in solid paint so dark it swallows the light you throw at it. You have no fucking idea who mixed paint that dark - seems a job for scienterrorists, all things considering - but there it is.

“They painted creation,” you murmur.

“Is that what this is?” Sign’s still on the other side of the room, too disturbed by anything cultist to properly appreciate the beauty.

“Yeah. Look, the black mass is the elder gods - they’re spitting out Alternia, trollkind…” You trace the path of the image with a sweep of your arm, because the painting is too tall to point at properly. “The hues are all arranged according to hemospectrum. Fuchsia’s on top, the Empress and her rule… where the fuck did they get fuchsia paint?”

“Okay, I get that it’s showing the castes, but what about - the upper right corner. You stopped illuminating it, but it was all white.”

Fuck the police. You raise yourself into the air with your psionics, inspecting. The white paint is as reflective as the black was absorbent, and you have to dull your eyes before you can make out any of the details inside. Unlike the black mass, the white is a perfect circle, and other splashes of paint continue the story within.

“The Empress killing the Demoness, is what I think I’m seeing,” you say. “Metaphorical bullshit about the Empress being able to conquer everything including death - I don’t know what the white means, daylight maybe? Traditionally you’d use red and I don’t know of any sectors that worship the sun, I…”

You break off with a sharp gasp as outer details catch your eye. The circle is edged by fuchsia, a border that’s you suddenly realize is a tangle of helm wires. Thin, delicate threads of blue and red thrum around them, so fine they’d be impossible to notice were you not looking for them. And etched into the stone itself, underneath the blinding white, obviously done with the point of a knife - a tiny marking of the irons.

I’ve been in the tunnels you’re going to investigate.

“Psii?”

“We ought to go,” you say, dropping so heavily to the ground that you nearly turn your ankle. “We’re burning moonlight.”

---

It takes some wheedling to tear Di away from the mural, but that just leaves the blood hunting labyrinth. Without the same pull you felt earlier, the musty air sets off the instincts inside you that shy from things like “being buried alive” and “dying alone and forgotten.” Di only makes a face and announces that if anything is down there, it’s sure as hell not living. She spent enough time sheltering in underground burrows that the claustrophobia doesn’t bother her, and Rosa’s similarly adjusted from a first life spent in the caverns.

Sign, made of open skies and fields, drags his steps. “Psii, they can take care of the infestation themselves, if there is one.”

“You’ll need me to ash the bodies. Besides, the ghosts need help.”

“You aren’t a necropath!”

“Just because I can’t speak to them doesn’t mean I can’t help.”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” he mutters, but he follows you into the darkness as a roll of thunder rocks the outside walls. The door swings shut behind you. You illuminate your path with psionics, descending the stairs, moving moving moving - if you don’t pause, you won’t think about how many trolls died down here, and instinctive panic can't grab you.

“There’s most likely too much ground to cover in one night,” Rosa says.

“I’m guessing that if the source of the infection is down here, it’s poisoning the water.” Di inhales deeply, scenting the air. “So we should look for a river.”

“How can the aboveground water supply be poisoned by water down here? Water flows with gravity,” Sign says. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Suspicion tugs at your thoughts. You clear your mind, make it a blank slate, and ask, “How do you know there’s a bad daywalker infestation here? Have we seen any daywalkers yet?”

“All the recent imperial reports note it. They’ve issued travel advisories.”

“Leaving a self-governing town made only of lowbloods.”

“Do you think they faked the data?” Sign asks. “Like I was saying earlier - slaves took the town back, but there’s no illness at all?”

“You’d need to pay a bigger bribe than these people have to fake reports like that.”

“Just tell us what you’re thinking.”

“They wouldn’t stop killing us,” your mouth says.

Di’s cool hand instantly presses against your arm. “Psii?”

You shake your head a fraction of an inch from side to side, but other than that you stay perfectly still, your feet rooted to the earth. It takes effort to detach and unshield yourself so fully from your own body that ghosts can use it. You concentrate on that and let your mouth do what it will.

“They wouldn’t stop killing us, we only wanted to kill them back but that would start a war - a war - the drones razing our hives, it wasn’t planned. We killed so many of them in the revolt, when their drugs stopped working, when they didn’t watch carefully enough, but there were others kept penned - Derrik wanted them dead, said don’t risk the influence, they’ll have us ripping each other apart, but Shayna said - Shayna said - Shayna said -”

Di wraps her fingers gently around your arm and eases your body down against the wall. She squats, places her fingers under your chin and tilts your face up. “Shayna said what? I’m listening.”

“Sssaid don’t let them die yet we might need and we could use - Shayna - Shayna? I can’t find her, it’s so cold down here, I can’t…”

“It’s okay. We’re going to help you get out of here. You were still alive when the slaves rebelled against the cultists? Do you remember what happened after that?”

“They’re still hunting,” your mouth says. “It’s so cold and they won’t leave either, I can’t fight, why won’t we fight? It’s so cold. The bodies are so warm, I forgot how the breath feels and they want them, they know. They’re hunting. They’re coming, they can smell it, smell the blood, it’s so warm-”

You realize what, exactly, is coming at the same time Di does. Rosa draws her chainsaw out, mistakenly preparing for battle with a physical threat. But Di’s eyes widen and she places both hands on your cheeks and says, “Psii, cut the connection.”

The spirit’s hold is alarming. You can’t force your shields back up until it leaves, and it’s too glad to breathe real breath to pay attention to you mentally swatting at it. A too-strong pull has never been a problem with channeling before, because the spirits are always lowbloods who are more curious than malicious, and certainly not aiming to damage the person letting them experience a heartbeat, but -

The subjuggulator grabs hold of your body with the force of a hurricane, sweeping through heart and lungs and eyes and arms and legs, determined to wire itself into every system you’ve got instead of politely move just your mouth. Your back arches; you choke on a gasp, fighting it out, but it’s not easy to wrestle with a spirit you all but invited in for tea. Your fingers twitch and curl, hand almost lurching as you try to regain its use. The mouth - your mouth - stretches into a grin so wide it hurts. Your eyes flare alarmingly, energy building up in your chest and NONONONONONONO-

“Shouldn’t have come down here, pretty motherfucker.”

Di slams your head into the wall so hard that the psionics short out. The corridor goes pitch black, energy fizzling, pain splitting your skull. Said pain is offputting enough for you to wrestle your psionics back into your own control, but the spirit is still there, preparing for another strike -

She slams your head into the wall again, and that does you in. Your body slumps, eyes closing, and the last thing you hear above the ringing haze of pain are Sign’s shouts.

Chapter Text

You wake to a dull throbbing in the back of your skull, body cocooned in the cool embrace of sopor slime. One eye cracks open, surveying your surroundings. You’re in your cabin on the ship, the room illuminated by soft golden light from the lamp on your desk, and there is a strange rustblood woman in your desk chair.

It takes a few moments to remember what led you to this moment. The tunnels. The spirits. The clown ghost trying to burn your family to ash. You wiggle your fingers experimentally, and they move without resistance. Whatever the strength of the spirit, it’s gone now, and your surroundings keep you from panic. Someone must have been alive to carry you back here, and they wouldn’t have bothered getting you into your ‘coon if they were dealing with additional stress of everyone being fucking dead.

The rustblood, though. You don’t know her. You squint at her for a few moments just to be sure, and then you say, “Well, if you were here to kill me you wouldn’t wait for me to wake up.”

She tilts her head. “That’s true.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I’m a mediculler. Emphasis on the ‘medic’ part. You’re concussed.”

You brace your hands on the lip of the ‘coon and make to haul yourself out, but almost immediately decide that’s a bad idea. Even if the pain in your head hadn’t flared, your joints ache so badly you may as well be grinding the bones up for powder. Fuck, you need a painkiller. You need two painkillers and a long sleep, but - not yet.

You sink back into the slime and say, “Did anyone I was with die?”

“I doubt any of them have perished since I spoke to them twenty minutes ago, but I suppose fate might have other ideas.”

“How many did you talk to?”

“Three. Two greenblooded women and an off-spectrum mutant. Satisfied?”

You grunt. “Who undressed me?”

“Does that matter?”

“I… guess not.”

“You’re uncomfortable with strange hands on you,” she says. It’s not a question. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t me. One of your clade members must have done. You were overheating. You needed to cool off or risk pan damage.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the mutant told me when he was frantically trying to ascertain whether or not you had pan damage.”

You shut your eyes and force your muscles to relax, like that’ll help the dull aching radiating through your entire body. “Are you the Demoness wearing a clever disguise? I invited her to dinner.”

“You’re concussed,” she repeats, like you weren’t aware. She unfolds herself from the chair, taller than you expected, and moves over to gently pry one eyelid open with her thumb.

“I don’t know what you expect to learn with this,” you say as she shines a bright light in your eye. “I don’t have pupils.”

The corners of her mouth twitch. You’re reasonably sure she’s fighting a smile. “I’m not the Demoness. Unfortunately, we cannot all simply dispatch trolls who inconvenience us. You’ll find saving lives is a more difficult task than ending them.”

“What a philosopher.” You swat her hand away when it drifts up toward your horns. “D’you have a name? A title, at least?”

“Do you make a habit of learning the names of all the trolls you meet?”

"I... guess? Fuck forbid I try to be polite."

“Alionn. But you shouldn’t collect names like trophies. The first highblood to dig their fronds through your thoughts will drag them all out, pin ‘em like butterfly wings.”

You tamp down on the instinctive alarm and instead stand up, gritting your teeth as you do. Every one of your vertebrae protests, and your legs almost buckle at the strain of your weight. Slime drips down your chest, a painkiller in itself. You don’t look forward to how you’ll feel dry, but you force your feet to propel you out of the ‘coon regardless. Your bones creak.

“I’m not an enemy.” She says it offhandedly, looking about as alarmed by you as highbloods who view you like an overglorified pet.

“That’s good,” you say, “because I could kill you before you blinked.”

“You’d be far more frightening if you weren’t naked and moving like you’d just seen the business end of a clown’s club,” she says. “Get dressed.”

Your ears and the tops of your cheeks tinge yellow. You dig through the small chest of drawers in the opposite corner of the room for a fresh suit, trying to make your movements as fluid as possible, lest a mediculler gather that you’re in actual pain. She can see the scar tissue blanketing your hands and calves, the metal studding your spine and arms. It’s not like she hasn’t guessed being retrofitted causes its share of suffering, but hey, you’ve got a reputation to uphold.

“You shouldn’t be so worried about what your body looks like.”

“I’m not,” you say, which is only half a lie. You’ve got no problem with your appearance as long as you’re around your family or trolls bearing similar scars, but this woman hass no telltale markings of psionics or a slave tag. If she’s a free troll, she’s probably healthier than you.

“All lowbloods are ugly.”

“Thanks.”

“Aspiring to beauty is idiotic. Highbloods are beautiful. They created the beauty standards. You and I are ugly and will remain that way. The faster you accept that, the faster you stop wasting your time.”

You fish a suit out and try to put it on without toweling off. With any luck, the lingering sopor will keep the worst aching at bay for a while. But when you try to shove your foot through the pants, balancing awkwardly on one leg, pain flares so hard through your hip that you stifle a gasp.

“Let me…” Alionn starts.

You lean heavily against the drawers and shake your head. “With all the respect in the world,” you say, “don’t touch me. Get the mutant to help me dress. Please.”

---

Signless moves with the gentleness and grace of a dancer, easing you into the desk chair as he helps you, Alionn disappearing through your cabin's door. You brace a hand on his shoulder and groan.

“Stop trying to be helpful,” he says the third time you try to pull your pants up on your own. “Your joints are on fire, just - stop moving. Holy shit.”

“Sorry.” You curl your fingers into the fabric of his cloak to steady yourself. “How mad are you?”

“About you trying to get dressed on your own?” He blinks. “Zero percent? I’m not trying to take away your agency, I’m trying to keep you from being miserable for the next week.”

“Not that. Earlier. The tunnels.”

“Oh.” He pauses, and then returns to adjusting your suit, sliding your free arm through the sleeve. “We don’t have to talk about that right now.”

“Really mad, then.”

“Well, Mom’s upset but busy being worried sick, and Di normally would take over the whole righteous fury thing but she feels guilty about concussing you, so the job falls to me.”

“You can say I told you so if you want.”

“I told you so.”

“Feel better?”

“Actually, yeah. A little. I figured that would be too petty to be satisfying but I told you so.”

“I’m really sorry. I just wanted to…”

“You just wanted to help. I know.” He finishes fitting your limbs into your clothes and zips the suit up, leaning down to kiss your forehead. “I love you. Just let me be mad for a little while and then we’ll work it out, okay?”

“Okay.” You hesitantly lean up and loop your arms around his shoulders, half because you want him close and half to test your body. Your arms seem to be working fine - your fingers are stiff, but not so badly burning that you won’t be able to handle a keyboard. Your back is a different story; your spine screams when it bends.

“So,” you add, “how come when I’m mad at you we have to work it out immediately, but when you’re mad at me you get to stew in it?”

“Because when you’re mad you leak static everywhere.”

“I can’t believe I’m being discriminated against for my psionics. I thought this was a safe space.”

Sign grins. “You’re not being discriminated against for your psionics. You’re being discriminated against for being emotionally volatile.”

“Fuck, I miss when you got flustered by discrimination jokes.”

“A simpler time,” he says, mock-wistful. “Do you need help to get above deck? There’s some townspeople I think you’ll want to meet.”

“I can barely move.” It takes a lot for you to concede defeat, but struggling through social interaction on top of the pain really will put you out of commission for a week. “I’m gonna stay down here. Can I meet them later?”

“We found out what’s up with the town. By talking to them. Like we should have to begin with. Instead of wandering unprepared into a haunted death labyrinth.”

“Huh.”

“Plenty of them want to meet the idiot psion who got possessed by a subjuggulator and somehow lived to tell about it.”

“Later. What’s up with the town? What’s the history?”

“You should hear it from them - I promised I’d come up soon to keep talking equality. It’s really not a bad place if you ignore the cathedral. Turns out both of our theories were half right.”

“How so?”

“What do you think of the medic?”

You huff at the not-so-subtle distraction. “Uh.”

“Trick question. You have to get along with her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s making sure you don’t die of a concussion. Be civil.”

“I hate being civil. You’re the worst.” You draw your fingertips across his cheek, a featherlight touch. “Can you do me a favor before you go back to preaching?”

“Of course.”

“Can you get me a painkiller from the med stores? Something strong, just not strong enough to make me sleep.” Your breath shudders out, and you ignore the familiar pull of shame at the back of your neck, forging onward. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.”

Sign kisses your palm, no hesitation whatsoever. “Of course.”

---

You hate asking for painkillers, however often you fantasize about their merits. The ones strong enough to dull your aches are expensive, and you’d prefer to keep the stores up for when you’re housing injured trolls, and asking means admitting how much pain you’re in to begin with. Plus there’s the dependency potential. You’ve never been addicted to substances - your trainers always wanted you alert past the point of rational endurance - but you’re not hanging your continued existence on anything except your own damn self. Never again. If that means chronic pain, so be it.

Still, you swallow the pills and allow Sign to slip away with his non-explanation of the town’s mystery. Under ordinary circumstances you’d bother him until he gave you something concrete, but you have more on your mind than ghosts.

You wait for the drugs to kick in, easing the pain enough for you to hunch over your desk, and open your husktop.

TA: you 2aIId you couldn’t confIIrm
confirm what?
TA: you know what
oh
is this about the tunnels?
silly me
in a moment of crazed incoherence i must have helped paint the future
how could i have known that sweeps later a psion would just happen upon those same etchings?
i guess i can’t get in trouble for this
TA: 2o my vII2IIon2
TA: II wa2 rIIght
TA: about how he dIIe2
TA: about what happen2 to me
TA: what about dII and ro2a
TA: what happen2 to them II never 2aw anythIIng concrete enough
do you truly believe knowing every detail of the timeline will allow you to change it?
TA: well that’2 why we’re frIIend2 II2n’t IIt
TA: 2o you can help me change IIt
we’re friends because i’m an immortal slave and you’re an immortal slave
we have so much in common
wow
TA: you’re 2ayIIng there’2 nothIIng II can do
i’m not saying that
TA: the tIIme for fun phIIlo2ophIIcal debate2 II2 over
TA: do II have free wIIll or not
TA: why would II do any of the thIIng2 II’m goIIng to do
the timeline demands it of you
TA: rIIght
TA: we’re all 2lave2 to the future
TA: autonomy II2 an IIllu2IIon
for me yes
for you not quite
it is possible for predestination and free will to exist simultaneously
TA: 2o II fuck everythIIng up completely of my own free wIIll for 2ome rea2on
hmm
i promise i am not trying to be cryptic
i am just trying to decide how best to explain temporal mechanics
TA: II’ve got tIIme
TA: except that II really don’t
think of time as a maze
each potential path represents one timeline
each potential split is a place a decision is made
the “correct” decisions lead to the end of the maze
in this case the correct path involves his death and your enslavement
however it is possible to make decisions that deviate from this timeline and lead to an alternate path
that path will hit a wall eventually
the timeline will wither and die
but that won’t necessarily happen for thousands of sweeps
TA: lIIke the end of the world?
the end of the universe
TA: but not for thou2and2 of 2weep2
potentially
you need to decide if creating offshoot inevitably doomed timelines is better than sticking to the main timeline
TA: well
TA: yeah
TA: IIf what II’ve 2een II2 the maIIn tIImelIIne II want to opt the fuck out
TA: and II’m 2ure a lot of other troll2 would too
understandable
you need to know that dooming a timeline would not in itself guarantee an optimal outcome
just because events don’t follow a strictly laid progression doesn’t mean they will be pleasant
in fact you may create sequences that are even worse for your clade and this world in general than the main timeline’s
i will isolate moments where a choice could potentially leverage an ideal outcome and tell you about them
but i cannot make guarantees
i don’t play with doomed timelines
TA: 2o you wIIll help me
yes
you also need to understand that one version of you will make the decisions that lead to your visions
at which point you will claim i somehow manipulated and betrayed you
and i will remind you of this conversation
i am being quite candid
TA: yeah yeah okay
TA: but the more tIImelIIne2 II doom the le22 chance II have of beIIng poor true tIImelIIne 2ap?
that’s a reckless approach
but technically yes
TA: that’2 all II need
if you are going to try to cultivate potential winning scenarios
you need to expand your options
you know what you do
and now you know why
TA: thII2 2ound2 an awful lot lIIke you’re cleverly manIIpulatIIng me IInto true tIImelIIne crap
well it works
i suppose you could split right now but you’d be
what's the saying
up a freely flowing water channel without a propeller device
TA: poIInt
TA: fIIne

You take a few deep breaths, close out of the conversation. Scroll through all your running programs, examine the codes you’ve created to keep anyone from tracking your location or tapping into your husktop. You’re one step ahead of everyone in tech, at least. Highbloods would kill to get you back just for that.

Once you’ve ascertained that you’re not about to bring drones down on your heads, you sigh and open a new window.

TA: remember when II 2aIId you would never hear from me agaIIn
CC: and i said you were full of it? 38)
CC: nice to hear from you guppy
CC: reedy to come home?

Chapter Text

TA: lol fuck you no
CC: naut boared with yoar vacaseaon yet?
CC: damn
CC: if i were you id be all shit gimme the pardon alreedy
CC: ya know you can have one
CC: just let me at the mutant
TA: WOW fuck you no
CC: then why the contact?
CC: perigrees of raydio silence and then a fuck you?
CC: makes a gal eel unwanted 38(
TA: II want to make a “deel”
TA: 2ea II’m fII2h punnIIng ju2t for you
CC: betta have a damn good offerin
CC: cuz if the fish puns are all youve got yoar fucked
CC: tickled as i am
TA: II want to bargaIIn for hII2 lIIfe
CC: lmao
CC: in exchange fo what?
CC: you gonna be all “isle sell the revolution to you foar one corn chip?”
CC: hahaha
CC: coldblooded dude
TA: nah II want to bargaIIn for the revolutIIon too
TA: 2ee 2IIgn’s gonna be a paIIn IIn your a22 and you know IIt
TA: you want 2omeone on the IIn2IIde
TA: more than that you want 2omeone wIIth the tech 2kIIll II’ve got
TA: II can “re2earch” pretty much anyone or anythIIng you throw at me
TA: get IInfo back on what the fuck ever your pompou2 blueblood fuck2 can’t manage
CC: teelin me youll hack anyfin -EXC-EPT the revolution?
CC: try again
TA: lol come on cn you’re runnIIng an entIIre EmpIIre
TA: 2IIgn’2 not the bIIgge2t threat you’re facIIng
TA: yet
CC: maybe naut
CC: but he will be
CC: and i got myshellf one hella grudge
CC: fucklord stole ma buoy
TA: roll2 my eye2 at you
CC: you dont have pupils
TA: ROLL2 MY EYE2
CC: aight lemme give you terms well both find agreeable
CC: you stay in contact wit me
CC: you do the ship i ask you to do
CC: and you keep ya boy under the raydar
CC: long as the anti-Empire bull fizzles i can let one mutant slip thru the cracks
CC: but if he keeps up the pacifist revolution ship
CC: there aint gonna be mercy
CC: naut fo him naut fo those with him naut fo his followers
CC: and defs naut fo you
TA: you know to keep hIIm under the “raydar” II gotta 2tay wIIth hIIm
CC: thought youd like that
TA: thought you wouldn’t
CC: mutants gotta have a lifespan a what
CC: two dozen sweeps?
CC: youll come home when he dies
TA: II dIIdn’t leave ju2t for hIIm
TA: II left becau2e you’re a 2everely fucked up per2on and II want to be free
CC: lemme rephrase
CC: youll come home when he dies
CC: oar dronesll be more n happy to peel the planet apart til they tear ya remaining clade membas n fronds to itty bitty pieces
TA: ah
TA: yeah that 2ound2 more lIIke you
CC: a few moar sweeps aint anyfin
CC: you dont stop bein mine just cuz a soft handed mutant got his hands around ya horns
CC: its good to hear from ya tuna
CC: i worry aboat you ya know 38)
TA: eat my entIIre a22 etc whatever II’m tIIred
CC: stay tuned for an assignment
CC: <3

TA: 2atII2fIIed?
no rest for the wicked
it only gets worse from here
TA: rad

You’re going to kill your moirail.

You shut your husktop and rest your head in your hands, eyes closed, listening to the thready beat of your pulse in your temples. You’re going to destroy your entire family, and the most you can hope for is that the outcome is a tiny fraction of a percentage of the timelines you create. The most you can hope for is that the timelines you create will somehow yield more good outcomes than bad even while the threads of fate are already stacked against you. For all you know, you’re just damning your loved ones to suffer and die with each new timeline you doom. A thousand torturous deaths, a thousand wasted lives.

You’re going to kill your moirail.

You take a deep breath and push away from the desk, because indulging this train of thought isn’t going to help anything. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t know, if you’d never been given the opportunity to make things right, but that’s the thinking that happens during downswings and turns to self-destruction. Gotta find something else to occupy your mind, so you stand up, gripping the back of the chair, and call for Alionn’s help.

She enters the room with a rod of polished wood, a little under waist height, a grip on the end. When she hands it to you, you give her a blank look.

“This is… some kind of scepter? Am I like, looking at a precious artifact, or…”

“It’s a cane,” she says. “To help you walk.”

“What the hell.”

“You’ve never seen a cane before?”

“Uh.”

She clicks her tongue. “So slave medical care really is useless. Here.”

She curls your fingers around the grip and shows you where to position the end, how to lean your weight to reduce pressure on your joints. It’s not a pain reliever by itself, but between it and the painkiller you took earlier, you can make it above deck without collapsing. The cane is such a weird, simple fix for your mobility issues that you can’t fathom how you’ve never seen one before.

“You’ve never met slaves?” you ask as you ascend the stairs, her hand hovering at your back just in case.

“Slavers don’t come here.”

“Must be one hell of a community.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “It is.”

She doesn’t seem keen on revealing more than that, which you guess is fair considering how weird she was about giving up her hatch name. You emerge onto the main deck, a salty sea breeze immediately whipping through the curls of your hair, stinging your eyes. You’ve been out long enough that the storm has passed over; you’re reasonably sure a full day has passed since the Concussion Incident, a theory supported by the unfamiliar trolls roaming on deck. This is the largest ship in the harbor, which is otherwise populated by small fishing boats and recreational vessels.

Di detaches herself from a tangle of rigging, dropping catlike to the deck and bounding over to you. “Hey, you made it! Let me see your head.”

“My head is fine.”

She prods the egg on the back of your skull with her fingertips, because she’s the worst. “Wow, ow.”

“Yeah, thanks for poking it.”

“Sorry. About concussing you.”

“You made the right call. I would have killed you.”

“No, Evil Clown Spirit Von Fuckwaffle would have killed us. Meanwhile, I could have killed you.”

“Nah. You’re forgetting I’m very hardheaded.”

She grins in a way that reminds you exactly how fast you’d throw yourself off a cliff for her. “Give me a hug, you jackass,” she says, so you do.

You nose into her ocean-tangled hair and keep your arms looped around her shoulders for as long as she lets you, which is probably longer than appropriate in strange company. Then she pulls back, her eyes sparkling as she’s hit by her next thought. “Right! You have to come meet the town’s leader.”

“Right now?”

“Why not? Sign’s talking to her. They’re just on the beach, you won’t have to walk far.” She gestures at the cane. “That’s really cool, by the way. I bet I could make you one out of a tree branch. Or, well, I could find the tree branch. Rosa could do the crafty bit, I suck at carving.”

“You’ve never seen a cane either?” Alionn asks.

“Guess I’ve just never met that many trolls who need help walking?” Di says, which is a blatant lie considering half the people you help are disabled.

The medic huffs and walks off, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, “What the fuck is the rest of the planet doing.”

“I can piggyback you to the beach if you want,” Di offers.

“Careful. I’ll actually take you up on that.”

She turns her back to you and crouches. “Hop on.”

You do, fully expecting her to sprawl head-over-heels and send both of you tumbling to the deck. But she keeps her footing perfectly, grabbing the cane to carry it for you, even though you are an overgrown sack of limbs and have no idea how to fit on her back. She’s so much shorter than you. Your whole half-starved physique thing must help.

“How are you doing this, what the hell.”

“You’re like half the size of the game I bring home. Although I do sling those sideways over my shoulders! Want me to wear you like a scarf?”

“Yeah, because that'll do great things for my back.”

“Normal piggybacking it is. Whoosh.” She starts off, and you note the care she’s taking not to bounce like she usually does, keeping your joint pain at bay.

“I’m swooning,” you tell her.

“I know. I’m purrrrrfect.”

Well, she’s purrfect until she dumps you unceremoniously in the sand, feet away from a carefully constructed fire pit with a merry blaze crackling away. Sign’s engaged in deep conversation on the other side of it, his eyes lit up even redder than usual by the flames, hands flying through the air the way they do when he gets excited about preaching. The woman with him is…

She’s a psion in worn, practical clothing, her horns spiraling from either side of her head. Her face tilts toward you, catching the light, illuminating filmy eyes that are gold all the way through like yours are red and blue. But stranger than her eyes are the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, the deep spots on her hands, the sagging skin and twisted fingers. She’s old, far older than any yellowblood you’ve ever seen.

You say as much when Sign pauses his conversation long enough to usher you closer. “Holy shit, you’re old.”

Sign groans. “Forgive him. He has no sense of politeness.”

Psionics crackle around you, tingling around your scalp and horns and down your spine, goosebumps rising in their wake. Your breath dies in your throat. The woman’s eyes are unfocused in your direction, and after a moment the searching feeling dies off.

“Forgive me as well,” she says. “I’m blind. My psionics function as my eyes now. So, you’re the man who wandered into the cathedral’s depths and lived to tell about it.”

“Sign did too,” you point out. “So did Di, and Rosa.”

“You’re the man who tangled with a subjuggulator ghost and lived to tell about it.”

“Uh. Yeah, okay, that’s me.”

“It’s good to meet you.” She shifts, tucking her feet under herself more fluidly than you can manage, and you feel a twinge of jealousy that this decrepit lady can move with less pain than you. “I’m Shayna, better known around here as the Defender.”

“Shayna? Like…”

“Yeah,” Di says. “The same Shayna.”

The same Shayna whose name your tongue spoke in the tunnels, held by a lost ghost. You repress a shiver that has nothing to do with psionics or the cold. No wonder she’s old if she’s been around since the cathedral fell, but how the fuck…?

“I hear you know a lot about history,” you say.

“I lived my chunk of history, yes.” She smiles. Her teeth are sharp. “I’m afraid the story dulls in the retelling, and I’ve already told it twice tonight. I tire more easily than I used to.”

“Give me the highlight reel.”

“The short version is that I got away with treason,” she says. “The long version is crueler. I get the sense your friend here isn’t happy about the ends justifying the means. I wonder if you’ll be the same?”

“I’ll get over it,” Sign says.

“He’s a gentle soul. He passes out when he watches animals die.” You wiggle your way close enough to Sign to pat his hand, and maybe to stay close in case something goes wrong. Shayna unsettles you more than an elderly lowblood should unsettle you, but you’re probably not being fair - you’re friends with the fucking Demoness, after all.

“There used to be a concentrated highblood presence here. That much is obvious. I was young when I came here, maybe even younger than you. Lowbloods were doomed to short, unhappy lives. Many psions in particular were kept for sacrifices rather than put to work, because it means more to sacrifice a troll with more physical value - a psychic troll.”

“Ew.”

“Agreed. They kept us drugged, but there were a few who learned to manipulate the dosages just enough to free us. We fought back. We killed most of the cultists holding the town - it’s hard to stand against a mob of angry psionics even when you can snare a few with chucklevoodoos. But that kind of riot would have been reported quickly, and then backup would have been sent, and everyone would have suffered for it.

“So I suggested… it was crude, maybe, but there were some cultists we’d kept alive, drugged with the same substance they’d been using on us. Two of the trolls in the latest slave shipment were sick with the daywalker virus. They were going to die anyway. We should have killed them and burned the bodies to avoid an outbreak, but…”

The pieces fit together. “You infected the cultists,” you say. “So you could put the other deaths down to an outbreak and keep new highbloods away from the town.”

“Yes.”

“And it - it worked. You’ve got this lowblood-run place where waders and cultists never come because they think they’re gonna get sick.”

“All freedom comes at a price.”

“I wasn’t judging you. That’s… brilliant.” You’ve certainly got no love lost for the infected cultists. “Have you just kept the clowns hidden all this time? Let them loose when surveyors come so that they think this place is still infested?”

“Essentially, yes. A troll’s psychic influence appears to erode with their pan, once the virus has taken its toll.”

“They must notice, though. The surveyors, I mean. When they come to record census results, they must notice that it’s the same slowly-rotting purplebloods every time.”

“Well, yes. That’s why we infect travelers as well.”

Your vision whites out for a moment as you lunge forward, the searing bolt of adrenaline keeping you from noticing the creaking of your joints. Your horns smack into a psionic shield, and then Sign’s fingers are digging into your hornbeds, and Di has her arms wrapped around your waist, dragging you back. You whine, only barely registering Sign’s little murmurs of shhhshshshhit’sokay against your ear, twisting against Di’s hold.

“Sorry,” Shayna says, not sounding even remotely disturbed by the outburst. “It was a joke. Admittedly one in poor taste. I wanted to see how you would react.”

“You can’t antagonize him like that,” Sign says, as agitated as he ever gets with people who indulge hemoequality discussions. “He’s paranoid.”

“Justifiably paranoid,” you snap.

“The same surveyor never comes here, and even if they did, they don’t get close enough to daywalkers to note identity or even caste.” Now that your vision is clearing, you can see that the shield is still up between you, distorting Shayna’s image like a shimmering heat wave. “You didn’t even hesitate.”

“I was trying to move before you could.”

“I haven’t gotten this old without anticipating wiggler tricks. You were weaponized, weren’t you?”

“I’m a free troll.”

“Mmm. That’s all I wanted to know.” The shield drops. “With all due respect,” she adds, addressing Sign now, “if you don’t keep him under control, we’ll have problems. I really like what you’ve told me about your movement, and I don’t want to have to make you leave.”

“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here.” You pull away from Di now that you’ve proven you’re not going to kill the next thing to cross your path. “I never hurt anyone who doesn’t threaten me first.”

“You threatened one of our medicullers earlier. Would she have been within her rights to kill you?”

“I didn’t threaten her, I politely reminded her that I can kill her - how did you even know about that?” you ask, ignoring Sign’s soft groan.

The corners of Shayna’s mouth twitch. “I’m psychic. Watch yourself.”

“You really fucking need to quit the posturing murderer thing,” Di says. “People don’t know you aren’t serious.”

“When was the last time you took a troll’s life?” Shayna asks, and her eyes are strangely focused, almost like she can see you. See through you.

“Not since I became a free troll.” Then, because you’re sure she’ll be able to smell the lie, “Not anyone who didn’t deserve to die, at least. You infected cultists for the good of your town. I defend my own too.”

“A fair answer. But control yourself around my people. We don’t house travelers often, and they’re skittish enough about the jade. We live in peace. It would be unfortunate if people claiming to work for peace shattered it.”

“We’ll respect your way of life,” Sign says. “We don’t intend to overstay our welcome. And Psii will apologize to the mediculler.”

God damn. You haven’t been awake two hours and you’re already in the barkbeast hive.

Chapter Text

You muster all the energy you have left and squash down your irritation, apologizing to the mediculler with as much grace as you can manage. It’s not because you feel guilty so much as because if you’re grumpy, Sign will find out about it somehow, and then you’ll have to apologize again and apologize for being insincere about the first apology.
Pacifist etiquette is the worst.

But Alionn just shrugs and says, “Somehow I’ll find a way to work through the trauma,” deadpan enough that you’re pretty sure she’s fine. Pretty sure.

By the time you’ve gotten through that, you’re tired enough to call Sign in to help you undress, slipping back into your ‘coon. You’re just gonna take a nap and then get up, wade your way through conversations online and offline, except you promptly sleep for seventeen hours. Whoops.

Whatever. When you wake for real, the lump on the back of your skull isn’t nearly as swollen, and the pain in the rest of your body is less pressing. It’s going to be a good night physically, so you take your ablutions and dress and even run a comb through your hair before you go outside, just because you can.

No urgent messages need your attention when you check your husktop - you’re a little surprised that the Empress hasn’t given you an ‘assignment’ yet. Either she’s trying to track you (which would be more concerning if you weren’t a hundred percent confident she can’t), or she forgot you’d messaged her five minutes after the conversation ended. Most likely the latter. Red affections aside, her attention span isn’t great when it comes to anything that isn’t slaughter or money.

The horizon is still stained with the last reaches of dusk when you emerge into the fresh air, soft breezes chasing away humidity. Any reasonable person is asleep now, which is why the figure on the beach gives you pause. There’s no other boats in the harbor, which means it must be a villager, wrapped in a thick day cloak pulled up over their horns.

It’s Shayna. You note the gold gleam of her eyes as you make your way to the beach, her face tilted toward you. You’re going to ask why she’s there, but she beats you to the punch. “I need to talk to you,” she calls before you’ve even bridged the gap between you.

Your brilliant thought progression:

Oh fuck, she knows about the Empress.

Well if she’s a mind reader and she didn’t, she definitely does now, idiot!

I’m not killing an old lady because she knows I’m an asshole.

No, you’re not killing anyone for any reason, what the fuck, you suck at this.

You manage to get through this in about three seconds, and then arrive at, “Uh, what about?”

“The cathedral.”

Never thought you’d be this relieved to discuss ghost cultists. “Oh,” you say, sinking into a seat on the sand before her. “Yeah, okay. What about it?”

“The ghost who said my name, before you were attacked. Did you…”

You know how that question ends, and you’re shaking your head before she can finish. “I don’t - hear their thoughts or anything. I’m not a necropath, I can’t speak to them like a necropath can. I can let them take control of my body so that they can say whatever it is they need to, but I didn’t hear any more than Di did. I don’t know who they were.”

Shayna nods. “That’s… an unusual skill.”

“It’s not, really. I just have to clear my mind, go somewhere else, and the spirits use the energy left behind. Any psion can do it. Most trolls in general probably could if they practiced. Di and I have used it sometimes to put people to rest when there’s no necropaths around - she’s good at helping ghosts find peace - but I probably shouldn’t have done it down there. Scratch that, I know I shouldn't have done it down there.”

“It’s unusual to be able to dissociate that completely on command.”

“Well, I’d really like to pretend it’s meditation.”

She settles down across from you, folding her hands. “I am a necropath.”

“What - seriously? There’s a ton of trolls down there who need to be laid to rest, you haven’t…”

It comes out more accusatory than you intend, and her answering smile is strained. “Others have tried to resolve the situation. None have returned.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“Yes, you did. It’s all right. You aren’t wrong. Cowardice is a powerful motivator.” Her fingers twist around themselves, and you notice she’s fiddling with a ring, brown glass hewn into a diamond shape. “The living need my attention more than the dead. These are my people. But I would also prefer never to step foot in the cathedral again.”

“I understand. Fuck, believe me, I understand. If you think you wouldn’t come back, there’s no point martyring yourself. But I can’t absolve you of the guilt.”

“I don’t expect you to absolve me.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“You’re an outsider in your group. A runaway like the jade, lonely like the olive, wanted like the mutant, but a creature of your own all the same. They embrace the world with open arms, trust until they’re given a reason not to. You don’t trust unless you’re given ample reason to, and yet you’re still risking yourself to try to help people.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Sign gossiped about my neuroses. I’ll kill him.”

“He didn’t need to.” Shayna sighs. “It’s easy to understand all of them from their willingness to talk. They want to be understood. You, on the other hand - you’d rather hide.”

“Look. I appreciate the analysis, really, and you’re probably not wrong, but this isn’t the kind of conversation I have with someone who isn’t my palemate.”

“You remind me of myself.”

“Yeah. I know. Former slave living with pacifists, willing to do anything to keep their own safe. That’s why I know not to trust you. I wouldn’t trust myself. From your point of view, we’re people from the outside talking about treason and pacifism. We know the true nature of this place. If we were to be caught and interrogated, this town’s name coming up would be a problem for you. So you need to keep us from leaving one way or another, and if you hurt the people who are important to me, I’ll level this place to ash.”

To your surprise, she laughs. “You really do have trust issues.”

“Only with people in power.”

“I’m a lowblood.”

“People with power only hold onto their power through cruelty, lowblood or not.”

“You already know what I did.”

“I know how you got this power. I don’t know how you held onto it all these sweeps.”

She pauses. “You think this town isn’t safe?”

“For the people who live here, sure. For us, no.”

“I have absolutely no intention of hurting you or your clade. I lead because the community needs a leader. When I die, they’ll choose a new leader. There’s no need for such bloodthirsty politics when the people work together. Isn’t that your palemate’s theory, too? That government is meant to serve the people rather than be a self-centered power grab?”

“Sign genuinely believes everything he says.”

“And you think I don’t.”

“I think it’s safer to assume everyone has a hidden agenda.”

“I want to teach you how to use your psionics defensively.”

You blink, taken aback for a few seconds at the abrupt change of topic. “I - what?”

“There’s no point in debating whether my intentions are good or not. I can argue they are until I fall over, and you’ll still be searching for some reason they aren’t. Let me teach you how to use your psionics defensively. I’m assuming you were never taught anything except offensive tactics.”

“Why?”

“It could mean the difference between life and death. And defensive applications are practical for pacifists. It may mean nothing to you, but I suspect your people would like to keep enemy casualties to a minimum. Let’s say you’re being chased down by an animal or troll you can’t see. You could waste your energy blasting in the direction you think it’s coming from, or you could shield yourself from attacks.” Her eyes narrow, and then the shield appears between you again. “Or you’re surrounded by too many enemies to fight at once. Cover yourself on all sides.” The shimmering wall curves over her head, becoming a translucent dome. Another moment, and the psionics dissolve like a soap bubble popping. “It takes practice, but it’ll mean everything when it saves you or your loved ones from a lethal blow.”

“Okay, yeah, it would be practical, but I can’t use my psionics like that. I’m pyrokinetic, telekinetic.”

“You’re a hell of a lot more than that.”

“No, I’m serious. I mean, I’m powerfully pyrokinetic and telekinetic, but I’m not more than that.”

“And when your masters used you as a battery, were they tapping into the pyrokinesis or the telekinesis?”

You gape.

“Your psionics are pure energy. Energy that can be converted into power for cities or starships, energy that can turn into heat, energy that can change the shape or position of objects. Energy that can become a solid wall by itself. The only reason you’ve never used your psionics that way is because you’ve never been taught. A psion who can defend himself is infinitely more dangerous than a weapon that can level an army with fire. How do they control you when they can’t hurt you?”

You curl your fingers into the sand, quiet as you consider it. The idea of being able to protect so completely has your heart thrumming faster - you’ve never taken pleasure in the destructive capabilities of your powers, even when manic itches beg you to let loose. They’ve been a curse since you hatched, since the slavers stole you from your hive, since you learned to fear touching other trolls when you’re running too hot. They’re dangerous and volatile and they make you dangerous and volatile, and the second you stop controlling yourself you’ll leave smoking craters in the earth.

But shields. Shields are something different entirely. They’re not the towering pillars of flame that turn everything in your path to ash, they’re not the mental claws hooked around boulders to toss them like pebbles, they’re not the frothing tide of repressed heat and nervous energy that constantly threatens to erupt. Shields. Walls. Smooth stone. Calm.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it,” you say.

“Try. You have the potential. The strength of your shield is proportional to the strength of your energy. I know your power level is unprecedented - that much your moirail told me.” Shayna opens her hands to you, the perfect illusion of a rose shimmering red in her palm before it dissolves. “It just takes finesse. With practice, I don’t doubt you could shield entire cities. That’s what makes you so dangerous.”

“And here I thought I was dangerous because I can kill people with a finger twitch.”

She grins like a shark. “Whoever you ran from must be desperate to get you back.”

“You’ve got no idea.” You hold your own hands out, mirroring her open posture. “Show me how to make a shield.”

“We’ll start small. Focus on the space between your hands. Imagine a flat plane there, and then imagine that plane is a solid wall of energy.”

You furrow your brow and glare at the space, making a valiant effort to will a shield into existence. Instead, a few feeble sparks flicker between your fingertips, and then a leaf on the sand beside you bursts into flame. You pull the power back as it crumbles into ash, rubbing your forehead.

“Fuck.”

“You’re thinking about it the way you think about pyrokinesis. This type of energy manipulation is different.”

“Well, if you could tell me how I’m supposed to be thinking about it, that would be awesome.”

“Hmm.” The ghost of a breeze ruffles your hair, a touch as featherlight as fingertips.

“That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Close your eyes.”

You do.

“You can still tell where I’m sitting, can’t you? You can tell where every branch on this beach is, where exactly the tide comes in, where there are any potential gaps in the sand. You could walk through the trees without tripping on any roots or hitting any branches.”

“Well. Yeah.”

“You don’t need your eyes when you have psionics,” she says. “Not the way other trolls do. You're still perfectly aware of your surroundings even without sight, even without sound, because your energy gives you a keen spatial awareness. You don’t consciously realize you’re using your energy to take in the space. No one around you consciously feels the energy either, because it’s so light.”

“Di says I smell like a thunderstorm.”

“She’s a huntress. It doesn’t surprise me that she can smell it. Some animals can smell it, too. But to the average troll, the energy is undetectable.”

You wait for her to go on, and when she doesn’t, ask, “So what exactly does this have to do with making shields?”

“You’re thinking of your psionics as a destructive force rather than an extension of yourself. You don’t aim a shield like a weapon. You keep it close to yourself to avoid blows. All you need to do is imagine the shield like a more solid form of the power you use to sense the world.”

That sounds like a crock of shit - how are you supposed to consciously use power you use unconsciously? - but you nod anyway. “Okay. I’ll try.”

Then you jerk backward as Shayna throws up her own shield between you to keep the accidental jet of fire from burning her face off. “Shit!” you say. “Shit, fuck, I didn’t mean to do that.”

You see someone much younger through her shaking laughter. “This is a good example of why defensive psionics are practical.”

---

Your head aches by the time you excuse yourself and return to the ship. You’re reasonably sure you could keep practicing, but Sign will get on your case if you push yourself into a full-blown migraine. Rather than subject yourself to skull-splitting pain and exasperated papping, you tuck yourself into your desk chair and fire up your husktop.

The first, most pressing communication is from the Empress, who has sent you a file.

TA: II’m not openIIng thII2
CC: its a case file
TA: 2o you 2ay
CC: i am NAUT copyin and pastin this whole fin
TA: then gIIve me the hIIghlIIght2
CC: fin
CC: got a colony called aldareth
CC: probubbly heard of it its one of oar biggest
CC: important trade ports and ship water the fuck ebber
CC: need you to look at the leader

You close your eyes and rub your temples. This is inconvenient at best - Aldareth is one of the colonies you’ve rehomed slaves to, giving them falsified identities and safe passage on ships to settle down. It’s big enough and busy enough for people to disappear, rough-hewn enough for lowbloods to make a living with minimal harassment. But she wouldn’t be asking you to look into it if she knew that, right? Not unless she’s trying to trap you.

TA: alrIIght hang on II’m prevIIewIIng the fIIle
TA: II’m not downloadIIng thII2 thIIng but II can look at IIt
TA: thII2 doe2n’t happen to have anythIIng to do wIIth the colony’2 leader beIIng a ru2tblood doe2 IIt
TA: how the fuck doe2 a ru2t end up leadIIng a major trade colony anyway
CC: globes a steel
TA: II bet
CC: jus look thru the census results foar me yeah?
CC: gotta sea if anyfins up
CC: population count resource input resource output taxes etc
TA: uh
TA: that’2 a 2hIItload of 2tuff to peel apart e2pecIIally for a colony that 2IIze
TA: what am II 2uppo2ed to be lookIIng for?
CC: discrepanseas
CC: anywhere
CC: dont matter where
CC: anyfin of note
CC: id share ma thoughts but you got the whole wanton traytor fin goin on 38(
TA: yeah II can’t IImagIIne how hard that II2 for you
TA: thII2 II2 goIIng to take a whIIle
CC: do ya best n i wont kill the mutant
TA: ye2 II do remember the deal’2 term2 thank2
TA: II’ll work on IIt
TA: ...thank2
CC: whalecome!

You close the window, open another blinking notification.

you can split here
TA: what
TA: how
stay
that’s all you need to do
stay in this place
you could stop contacting the Empress
you could be hidden here
grow old here
be safe
he’d be safe here too
TA: he’d be mII2erable
are you in this for the revolution or for his safety?
you can’t have both
TA: fuck
TA: okay
TA: thank2 for the head2 up
TA: II’ll thIInk about IIt

You shut the husktop.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Rosa? Can I talk to you?”

She nods, gesturing at the chair across from her. She’s seated herself at the rickety table in the middle of the galley, a swath of fabric laid before her, but rather than sewing she’s just squinting like she’s trying to decode hidden messages. A steaming mug of tea rests beside it.

“Is there any hot water left?” you ask.

“Kettle’s on the counter.”

You pour yourself your own tea, adding a liberal amount of sugar and honey, same way you take your coffee. Sweet enough to rot your teeth or it’s not worth drinking. Then you settle across from her, hands wrapped around the warmth.

“What’s on your mind?” she asks, carefully folding up the fabric and setting it aside.

“I don’t mean to… interrupt you.”

“I wasn’t in the middle of anything important.”

“What’s the cloth for?”

“I’m still deciding.” She smiles. She’s got a very practiced way of active listening, which Sign and Di have learned to mirror - all eye contact and patience - but you sometimes sort of wish she wouldn’t give you her full attention. You’ve been with the clade for a long time, long enough to trust all of them implicitly, and yet you still can’t help the instinctive little shiver when someone higher on the spectrum watches you.

“What are you thinking about using it for?”

“In all honesty? Silliness.”

“What sort of silliness?”

“I know you didn’t come here to ask what I want to sew,” she says, but you spread your arms with a shrug, and she shakes her head. “When Sign was much younger, I used to make doll clothes as a hobby. I’m trying to justify doing the same with this, but I can’t quite rationalize using a perfectly good yard of cloth for anything that isn’t practical.” She takes a sip of her tea. “Privileged dilemmas.”

“I dunno. More like a ‘being poor fucking sucks’ dilemma.”

“We both know what the right choice would be.”

“You could sell doll clothes to buy more cloth?”

“Or clothe an actual troll.”

“I dunno. Nothing wrong with a hobby that makes money. You’re talented enough to sell to highbloods.”

“Ah, but then it would be a profession, not a hobby.” She smiles again, shaking her head. “You don’t need to pretend every petty concern of mine is some great problem. What did you want to talk about?”

“I… think you might judge me.”

“I’m very good at keeping my judgments to myself.”

“Yeah, that makes me feel better.”

She snorts. “I’ll keep your confidence.”

“I… uh. Okay. I practiced this in my head, but I can’t remember what I was gonna say - just - do you like it here?”

“In this town? I’m a bit of an outlier, caste-wise.”

“Yeah, but you’re used to being an outlier. You deal with gutterbloods assuming the worst in you like a champ.” You wince as soon as the words are out of your mouth, especially when her eyes narrow - can you never get through a conversation without sounding like a callous bulgesore? “I mean - wow, fuck, that sure was nasty.”

“No offense taken. I know I’m privileged. I didn’t mean to imply my caste is a hindrance.”

“No, okay, fuck.” You run a hand through your hair. “Can we not - not do the whole political dance thing, we’re just gonna spend the whole conversation apologizing to each other and I won’t actually get to ask what I meant to. You didn’t answer me, anyway. Do you like it here? It’s a yes or no question.”

“It feels like a loaded yes or no question.”

“Loaded with what?”

“I’m not sure.” Another calm sip of tea. “Yes, I like it here.”

“Would you ever want to… live here? Shayna's not actually evil, I'm pretty sure, not like I thought she was at first, and besides the cathedral it's peaceful enough-”

“Aha. I think the relevant question is whether you want to live here.”

“Uh. Actually, I was more thinking about whether Sign would ever want to live here.”

“Have you had this conversation with him yet?”

“Uh.”

“Psii. Not every discussion needs to become an argument with a winner and a loser. It can just be a discussion. You don’t need to gather your resources.” Her tone is still level, calm - she has all of Di’s bluntness with an added coat of unshakable grace. “If your goal is to convince me we should settle here so that I’ll convince him in turn, that’s manipulative. Just talk to him.”

“I’m not trying to be manipulative!”

“Then why are you talking to me instead of him?”

“I… wanted your perspective.”

“My perspective as his mother, because I want to protect him as badly as you do.”

You sigh. “...Maybe.”

“Psii. Talk to him instead. I promise it won’t be as awful as you’re building it up to be.”

“Can you just - okay. You know him better than anyone. Do you think, if the four of us stayed here, that he could be happy?”

Rosa pauses for a long moment. You watch her as carefully as she watches you, searching for signs of irritation or defeat - the twitch of a jaw, bob of a throat, flick of an ear. But she’s stone, totally unruffled. Eventually she shakes her head and says, “No.”

You wince. “Not ever?”

“You aren’t the only person thinking about it. I presume that’s why you came to me first.” Her hands are curled so tight around her mug you think her knuckles must ache. “Prioritizing someone’s closeness to you over their agency is an act of selfishness.”

“I didn’t…”

“Shh. I’m talking about myself, not you.”

You quiet.

“As his mother, I’ve always known he’ll reach a point where he no longer needs me. Lusi let their charges go once they’re old enough to be independent. But I’ve also always known that he’ll be in danger. He’ll never be able to lead a normal life. That knowledge... makes me want to keep him close to me, even though I know I can't spend his whole life treating him like a child. I can’t protect him forever. He’s an adult. He makes his own decisions. He’s found greater purpose in his life than I could have ever dreamed, and for me to separate him from that because of my fears would be… unfathomably selfish.”

“But if it kept him safe.”

“Psii,” she says with a pitying gentleness you can’t stand. “As a mother, I want to stay here. I want the four of us to set up a hive and live peaceful lives until we’re as old as the Defender. But as myself, I can’t reconcile it. Agency matters too much. If he and Di decide they want to settle here, of course I’ll support them. But when so much of his life is dedicated to helping those in need, I can’t take that purpose from him. He has the power to make his own choices about how he wants to live. That’s why you need to have this conversation with him, not me. If I’d prioritized my own safety twelve sweeps ago, he’d be dead and I’d be passively tucked in the brooding caverns.”

You frown into your tea. “Can I just say that it’s really bullshit that both options are selfish? We stay here, people who need us fall by the wayside. We leave, we’re risking our lives and each other’s grief.”

“So you need to prioritize the selfishness you can live with. You’re not asking him because you already know what his choice would be. Taking advantage of my motherhood to further your own ends is unacceptable behavior, Psii.”

You flinch, but this at least is one of the things you like about Rosa. She’s always made your fuckups very clear, which means there’s no guessing games; if things are okay between you, there’s no hidden agenda, and if things aren’t, she lets you know.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“You’re forgiven. I know you aren’t trying to be malicious. You’re worried. Worry just makes trolls do ugly things.” She stands up, bringing her empty mug over to the sink, which you take as a signal that the conversation is over until she speaks again. “I found myself wishing that he and I had arrived at this place when he was a child. That we’d settled here instead of needing to run, that his visions could have been curious fantasies rather than a guideline for his work. I found myself thinking that maybe if I’d kept him completely hidden, if he hadn’t been exposed to the horrors of society, he wouldn’t feel the need to risk so much. But I also realized that if that had been the case, you’d still be a slave in the capital. Countless people we’ve helped would still be living in misery, or they’d be dead. I’m ashamed of wishing for that.”

“It’s not - it’s not wrong to want safety.”

“When it comes at the cost of so many other lives? I suppose it depends how you define your morality.” She laughs, but it’s hollow, and in the sound you hear the real cost of her decision. She knows almost as well as you do that there’s no happy ending in store for your family. “I’m actually surprised you’re giving it this much consideration. I assumed I was the only one with doubts.”

“What, because I somehow have an outstanding moral compass?”

“No. Because I thought you’d be miserable if you abandoned the movement when slaves are still suffering. You may not be as principled as Sign or Di, but you’re every bit as driven. Could you really live with yourself?”

Yes, you think, but that’s because I know how it ends, and I can’t tell you that.

“I fucking hate caring,” you mutter instead.

She moves around the little table and touches your cheek with all the softness in the world. Then she leans down, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the answer you wanted.”

“I’m… sorry for asking.” You reach up and hold her wrist, a gesture you’d never even think about making a sweep ago, a sign that you view her as an equal worth touching rather than a superior. “Are you angry?”

“No. But next time you want something from him, don’t go through me.”

“Okay,” you say, resisting the urge to apologize again, releasing her. “Okay.”

---

You don’t ask him. It’s not worth his concern or misplaced judgments about your faith. At best, he tells you he’d like to return to visit sometime, mistaking your worry for the future as worry he’ll miss the people here. At worst, hurt and betrayal that you doubt the strength of the movement. You think we’re going to fail?

Instead you find a secluded space on the beach to pray, tucked in the shadow of a gnarled tree. Prayer is functionally useless, you know - Death’s hands are bound and the elder gods care little about the world they breathed into existence and your messiahs are a pair of mortal trolls who don’t want to be worshiped - but it helps ease your mind. If you cling very, very hard to denial, you can still pretend a force greater than yourself is listening.

The problem with actually understanding the universe is that it makes everything painful. You don’t have the ease of Sign’s atheism or the inner peace of the faithful, you don't have the calm confidence that what you're doing is right. You’ve chosen your gods according to the truth rather than what feels good, and they’re all apathetic or doomed. The only person who can change what’s coming is you.

You could tell him. In theory, it would be easy. You could draw him into your pile and explain fixed outcomes and doomed timelines and malleable futures, you could tell him what you’ve seen and who you are and what you’re trying to do. You could tell him you love him more than anything. You could tell him he’s worth the end of the universe.

Tell him he’s doomed.

Except he might not agree with you. He might not think current success of the movement is worth an eventual collapse of the future. He might think the truth will prevail in the true timeline, that it’ll give way to a brighter world, even if that doesn’t happen for generations. He might unravel under the weight of the knowledge, the way he will during his last sermon, when the futility of it all drags him under. He might not forgive you the betrayal.

He might ask you to watch him die.

“You're troubled tonight,” a voice says, and you open your eyes to find Shayna leaning against a tree to your right.

“The hell - I didn’t even hear you.”

“I floated.”

“Didn’t feel you.”

“Psionic control.” She sits down on a thick root. “For a man so committed to doing good things, you’re surprisingly fervent about needing forgiveness.”

You groan. “It’s prayer. Prayer is inherently neurotic.”

“Mmm. Would you like to spend some more time practicing defensive psionics?”

“We’ll have to move on from this place soon,” you tell her.

“Ah.”

“I had a question for you, though. So I’m glad you found me.”

“And that question is?”

“I have a network of places and trolls who can house freed slaves. The more we travel, the farther that network branches. I was wondering if you’d let me send people here - not enough to upset your population growth, nothing that would endanger your peace. They’ll all have new identities and papers that can hold up to Imperial inspection.”

Shayna hums. “What sort of people would you be sending?”

A fair question. She wants to make sure you’re not about to flood her community with half-functional soldiers or sparking weapons. You twist your hands together and watch the sea.

“Children,” you say finally. “We get a lot of kids who really need the kind of peace here. It’s harder to rehome them than adults, because you have to find places they can blend in and survive. Somewhere like this, where they can have hives and real lives, would be… ideal. Plus it’s the start of another generation. More lowbloods who can carry on this town's legacy.”

“I’d be honored to shelter them,” she says, and you let out a relieved breath - you hadn’t realized how worried you were that she’d refuse. “It takes a certain kind of bravery to go back into that world. I wish you the best of luck.”

“Thank you.”

“I have a request of my own.”

You try not to tense. “Yeah?”

“I told you I wouldn’t try to keep you here, and I meant it. But it would be absurd not to have… reservations.” She twists her ring again, which you’ve gathered is an anxious habit. “I assume this community is a very small piece of the intelligence you’ve gathered. Were you to be captured and interrogated, it may not even come up. But the danger is still there.”

“If you’re asking us not to get caught, trust me, we’re already giving it our all.”

“Were you to be interrogated, you’d talk. Strength doesn’t matter. They’ll find a way.” She pauses. “If you’re captured, you and your clade need to die before an interrogation can take place.”

A sound strategy. You can’t fault her for it - you’ve had the same thought, considering what will happen otherwise. But the question is a knife in the ribs. Not because you’re unwilling to die, you've been prepared for death since before you even met Sign, so much as because you know you won’t.

We’re going to ruin this place. I’m so sorry.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to keep your secrets safe,” you say, because technically that’s true, and you can’t sell a lie when you feel this sick.

“Thank you,” she says. “That’s all I ask.”

You force the misery into a tight bubble under your ribs. Resolve to deal with it later, remind yourself that some version of you will convince Sign to stay, that you'll live easy unfulfilling lives here and nobody else will suffer. Remind yourself that you still have a chance to fix your outcomes so you win, no matter how high the odds are stacked against you. Beg your voice not to betray you.

"If the offer's still open, I would like to practice some more," you say, and hate yourself all the more for the misleading lightness of your tone.

---

An hour after you set sail from the town, Di finds you working your way through a bottle of soporifics in the belly of the ship. You never come down here unless you really don’t want to be found - you’ve had enough of cargo holds and claustrophobic spaces to last a lifetime. But claustrophobia can’t get to you if you’re really, really drunk, and you plan to get really, really drunk.

You’re almost there when she takes the bottle out of your hands. She probably tracked your damn scent down here, which is how she found you even though you’re laying on your back underneath a jutting shelf of preservatives. You’re definitely drunk enough that your psionics are shot, almost drunk enough to fall asleep clutching a pickle jar like a pillow.

“You won’t take painkillers until your joints are so swollen up you can’t move, and yet you’ll do this,” she says impatiently.

“I’m.” You reach for the bottle, but you can’t find your own nose right now, let alone get your hand to go where you want it to. “Drunk.”

“So I can see.”

“You’re… mad.”

“No. If you made a habit of this, I’d be mad, but you don’t, so I’m just kind of worried.” She tugs you out from under the shelf, but instead of trying to haul you to your feet, she sits down and lays your head in her lap. “What’s got you upset enough to drink?”

“Y’re… bein’. Pale.”

“Limiting concern to the pale quadrant is stupid and you know it,” she says, working her fingers through your hair. “Just another way people are taught not to care about their neighbors. You don’t get out of telling me about your issues by making it about quadrants.”

You hiccup and nose into her stomach, vaguely worried you’ll accidentally puke on her shirt, but otherwise pretty content. “Shh. Nap.”

“Psii.”

“If y’re - you’re so pale for me, h’come-” You hiccup again. “How come you din’t save me?”

“Save you from what? Getting so wasted you don’t know which way is up?” Her words are all irritation, but her fingers still forge soothing paths against your scalp. “In fairness, I didn’t know you were going to.”

“A hundred sweeps, you din’t… din’t… didn’t try t’ find me. Did you know I…”

But that’s your tipping point. The dizziness and exhaustion come to a head, pulling downward on your bones. You forget about the peaceful town you'll eventually fuck over, forget about impending war, forget about casualties and betrayals and failures. You roll onto your back, your head resting against Di's cool knee, and you close your eyes and let sleep claim you.

Chapter Text

“Good place to nurse a hangover.”

You’d been sort of hoping to ignore her, but Di’s presence is hard to avoid. The sea is relatively calm tonight, and you’re splayed on your back in the middle of the deck, watching the stars. No clouds, no light - the open ocean is a good place to practice naming constellations, and naming constellations is a great way to take your mind off the incessant pounding in the base of your skull.

She sits beside you, tapping your shoulder. “I brought you hot chocolate, but you have to sit up if you want to drink it.”

“You are a blessing to this world,” you mumble, deciding that you can indulge her.

Warm drinks tend to be your clade’s way of ensuring peace. Rosa offers tea, Sign coffee, Di hot chocolate, all of which you’d die for. You tend to go the apple cider route when you’re making peace with them, since you gotta have some kind of trademark, and warm apple cider is fucking delicious.

You sit up and wrap your hands around the mug, balancing its gravity with your psi so the liquid won’t slosh. “I am so fucking sorry,” you tell her.

“You are a walking disaster.” She scoots closer, pressing her leg against yours and wrapping an arm around your waist. “What’s going on with you?”

“Well. It turns out being really drunk is not as fun as clowns make it look.”

“Besides the hangover, dummy.”

“Seeing how many constellations I remember.”

“Uh huh.” She leans her head against your shoulder, the tip of her horn prodding your jaw. “I know something’s wrong. You’ve been off lately. More off than usual.”

“Tired. Pain’s been flaring up.”

“‘Tired’ doesn’t get you that wasted,” she says with a huff. “I know something’s wrong. You haven’t been sleeping with us lately. Haven’t whined for Sign’s attention either. You’re not usually one to sleep alone.”

“Hard to fit three people into one ‘coon.”

“I swear to fuck.”

“Don’t take fuck’s name in vain.”

“Psii. I know you saw something,” she says, and you still. “We can’t fix it if we don’t know what it is.”

You take a sip of the hot chocolate. Then you turn your head and kiss the side of her horn, nosing against her hair, marveling at the way she can bring the scent of earth all the way out on the sea.

“I love you,” you murmur - soft, fervent, almost an apology.

It’s her turn to go still. Then her arm goes slack and she pulls away from you, a muscle in her cheek twitching, green eyes narrow. “That’s what this is about? You’re pining?”

Oh. Shit. She’s got no idea what you’re apologizing for, and you can feel the tips of your ears turning yellow, your voice far too flustered as you say, “What - no! No, nono! It’s not - I’m not - that’s not -”

“You’re jealous?”

“No!”

“Then what is the problem?”

“How is this conversation even happening, I don’t - holy fuck, okay. Loving you is not a problem. Jealousy is not a problem. It never has been. You don’t get jealous over me being pale for Sign, I don’t see why I’d get jealous over you two being… married? That’s the word, right.”

Alien words borrowed from alien culture, since you’ve got no convenient terms for panquadrant life partner. Husband, wife, spouse, marriage. You teased Sign about cultural appropriation once and he flushed red and muttered about linguistic vacuums for a solid five minutes before you finally took pity and told him you were joking.

“So then why are you sleeping alone?”

You stare into the mug, and then you drain the hot chocolate in a few quick gulps, wiping your mouth. Setting the cup aside, you get to your feet and walk to the edge of the deck, bracing your elbows on the wooden railing as you stare out at the ocean. Pink and green light shimmer over the water, dual moons locked in an eternal dance.

“Where’s Sign?” you ask.

She follows you, the breeze tugging on her hair as she leans over the sea. “Fussing over sermon edits below deck.”

“And mysteriously not fussing over me, even though he’s even better than you at meddling with anything that moves.”

“I didn’t tell him you were drunk last night. I carried you up to your cabin and put you in your ‘coon.”

“Why not tell him?”

“Wanted to get to the bottom of it myself.”

“Because?”

“Because it sounded like there was a problem with me. Something you saw with me. And I don’t know what it was and you won’t talk about it and it’s bothering me.” She flexes her fingers against the railing like she’s trying to sharpen her claws. “Did I do something wrong? Will I do something wrong?”

“No. No, it’s - it’s not you.”

“But you did see something.”

“Please.”

She tilts her body, reaching up and tucking a windswept curl back under your headband. “You see the future for a reason, so that we can change it. But I don’t know how we’re supposed to change it if we don’t know what it is. I don’t… expect you to always see good things, Psii. We live in a shitty world.”

“I see the future because I have fucked up mutant genes that give me fucked up mutant psychic powers.”

“How do you manage to be this furrustrating?”

“Okay, look. Let’s just… hypothetically, let’s say the future is fixed. What if me telling you what I saw just leads to the same bad things happening? What if trying to change them causes them to happen? Then it’s better not to involve you.”

“And what if not talking about it causes them to happen?”

“Then at least I’m the only one bearing responsibility.”

“The responsibility doesn’t matter! Whose fault it is doesn’t actually matter, Psii! If we know the future and we have a chance to change it, we should. If everything really is as inevitable as you think, it doesn’t matter what we do, so we might as well try.”

“Okay, another hypothetical then. Let’s say we can change the future, but changing something that’s temporally fixed would make the universe unstable. It wouldn’t fall apart immediately, but give it a couple thousand sweeps. Maybe more, maybe a couple hundred thousand sweeps. Do you change it then?”

“That’s an awfully specific hypothetical scenario.”

“Just thinking about theoretical physics.”

“Theoretical physics.”

“Yep.”

“Theoretical physics have a lot of hard rules about time travel, do they?”

“Well, I know more about them than you.”

“You are ridiculous.”

You wince as the ship dips into an unusually high wave, sending a spray of stinging foam into your face. Di just laughs and wipes droplets out of her eyes.

“You know what I think?” she says.

“Mmm?”

“I think the present matters more than the future does. I think the way we influence the present creates the future. I think obsessing over whether fate exists or not takes our ability to create fate out of our own hands. You see potential outcomes of the path we’re on. So what? They’re just warnings or guides. They’re not some looming, awful prophecy we’re hurtling toward no matter what we do.”

“The physics-”

“Oh, please. It’s a philosophical question, not a mechanical one.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s about the physics.”

“It is not!” She pushes herself away from the railing with another huff. Then she wraps her arms around you from behind, sighing against your shoulder. “...I don’t want to believe that what we do doesn’t matter.”

“Because you want to be able to change things.”

“You don’t?”

“I… think sometimes accepting what you can’t change is easier.”

“That is a load of defeatist crap.” She squeezes your middle and hops up on tiptoes, nipping your neck with her teeth. “You’re just scared that if what you do matters, you’re gonna screw up.”

You swallow.

“So what did you see?”

You turn back and cup her cheek, rubbing your thumb along her chin. She breaks into a soft purr, nudging her face into your hand.

“There’s going to be a war,” you say finally.

She stops nuzzling you, her brows drawing together. “We’re fighting with peace.”

“We’re not going to be the ones who start the war. It’s going to force our hand.”

“How bad’s it going to be?”

“Bad.”

“Who wins?”

You avert your gaze. “I don’t know.”

She rocks anxiously on the balls of her feet, the little flight response she gets when she’s worried, the urge to hide in a tree. You think she casts a sidelong glance at the sails, like she wants to try her luck climbing up the netting.

“Okay,” she says. “You’re the strategist. How do we stop it?”

“Stop the war?” You laugh - you can’t help it. “We stop the movement. Hunker down somewhere until it fizzles out, let everything continue happening like it has for millenniums, tell all the slaves and the impoverished free trolls and the miserable people to go fuck themselves.”

“War can’t be the only option. Maybe if we go to the highbloods first, talk to them-”

“They’ll see reason?” You sink down against the side of the boat and lean your head back, patting the spot beside you. “Sign’s naive enough to believe truth is the only thing that matters, I’m cynical enough to think all highbloods inherently suck. I figured you’d be neutral ground.”

She plops beside you. “There must be ways to stop a war before it starts.”

“Hypothetically, sure.”

“You have ideas?”

“Some.”

“I’m all ears.”

You hold out your hands, shaping an imaginary wall. “Let’s say the Empire is a fortress. Heavily armed, impenetrable from the outside, shitloads of guards who notice if anything is amiss. You can’t go lobbing projectiles at the walls even if you want to, because they’ll just shoot back and wipe you out. You can’t walk up to the door and demand a diplomatic audience because you’ll just get fucking stabbed.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily get stabbed.”

“The fortress doesn't get anything positive from catering to you. You’d probably get stabbed.”

Di pauses. “Okay,” she concedes. “You’d probably get stabbed.”

“So you have to take a different approach. Something more subtle. You have to get into the foundation of the fortress and start to break it up. For us that would be - making strategic allies, interrupting trade, freeing a shitload of slaves so the Empire loses its labor force. But you have to destabilize the foundation subtly enough and fast enough that by the time anyone notices, it’s too late to save the place from crumbling. And that means using a fuck ton of resources we don’t have in a tiny time window we don’t have.”

“And if you do it wrong, the guards just raise an alarm and come stab you.”

“Basically, yeah.”

She draws her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Okay. All of that makes enough sense. But how can you be so certain that a diplomatic engagement wouldn’t work? Sign might actually kill to be able to talk to the Empress - okay, he wouldn’t, but I would.”

“She’s not the kind of person who cares about truth.”

“Psii…”

“The - the thing is, power and truth can’t coexist. I’m pretty sure she already knows everything that Sign’s preaching. She just doesn’t care because she doesn’t want to give up the galaxy. She’d rather silence him than make things fair for people. You can’t hold power for this long without understanding you’re making people suffer, and she’s not using her power to help people because… she doesn’t want to. It’s as simple as that.”

“Sign has a way of wringing empathy out of people, though.”

“Not her.”

Di doesn’t challenge you. Instead she bites the inside of her cheek and says, “What about the Highblood?”

You laugh out loud.

“I’m serious! The military might not lay down their arms because they think killing is all that makes them worthwhile, but the Church - if you convince them that their faith can be placed in things that aren’t blood hunting-”

“The Grand Highblood is just as in love with power as the Empress.”

“He might at least be receptive to truth,” she says stubbornly. “He’s a man of faith, same as Sign. Same as you, same as me. She’s been lying to him all this time, pitting him and his own against the seadwellers, making everything about the violence. If he knows the truth, if he knows he can have faith outside of killing…”

“Oh, Di.” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “You can’t really be this big an idiot.”

“What! I know you’re cynical, I know the Church’s practices are awful, I know Sign would probably like to see every cathedral burn, but you can’t tell me you won’t even consider-”

“The military isn’t going to be our biggest problem.”

“You said there’s going to be a war.”

“Yeah.” This is going places you don’t want it to, dragging out truths you never wanted to voice aloud, but you have to make her understand before she and Sign hatch a strategy that’ll kill them even faster. “A holy war.”

“A - what?” It’s her turn to laugh, incredulous. “If there’s one thing Sign’s absolutely not, it’s religious. Faithful, but not religious. 'Holy war' sort of implies some religious bias on all sides.”

“The Grand Highblood is never going to accept that his messiahs come bringing peace. All the Church wants is for someone to come down and cleanse the world. Blood purges, hunting, genocide, all of it - they’re not gonna give up their rituals because we could hold hands around a campfire. They’ll get a shot at the truth and skewer it because they can’t get their horns out of their asses.”

Di’s silent for an alarmingly long time, her breathing almost too steady. It’s the demeanor she adopts just before pouncing on a hapless animal. You try not to squirm.

“Psii,” she says finally, “please tell me you didn’t just say what I think you just said.”

“I’m not crazy,” you say, though the desperate edge probably isn’t helping your case. “Haven’t you ever heard Rosa’s story of how she found him? An off-spectrum grub on top of a fucking meteor that crashed through the roof of the brooding caverns, nowhere near the other hatchlings? Even if he just happened to break away and crawl onto the fucking space rock like it’s a coincidence, what the hell do you think the visions are? You could make the argument he’s just delusional, but his delusions make sense, he’s rational - what do you think are the chances that a mutant grub with logical visions of peace happens to find the one jadeblood who’ll help him live long enough to spread it?”

“You think he’s…”

“You and him.” She opens her mouth to speak, and you hurry on. “Listen, just listen to me, I’m not fucking - you know I’m not stupid about faith, you know I put at least some rational thought into it. It’s no coincidence that there’s no troll word for what you and him have. You’ve got everything trolls are supposed to be. Your bond is - is the fucking purest manifestation of love and commitment and community. You’re an incredible artist, an incredible writer, an incredible hunter, you can think critically - you fill in all the gaps where he falters. You two are the revolution. You’re the messiahs.”

Your chest is heaving like you've run a goddamn marathon. Di stares at you, openmouthed, apparently at a loss for words. You touch her face again, the cool skin, the windswept hair, almost begging her to understand.

“The Church is going to kill you both,” you say.

She lets out a shaky breath. “I’m not a god. Neither is he.”

“I beg to differ.”

“You sound like a fanatic.”

“I’m right. Maybe you don’t want - of course you don’t want to be, you shy away from power, that’s the whole fucking point, you bring peace because you shy away from power and you - fuck, Di, I’m not wrong. Not about this.”

“All this time. All this time you’ve been with us, and us trying to keep you from seeing us like masters…” She looks vaguely queasy. “You’ve been worshiping us?”

“No. No, no, it’s not like that. I mean, it is, sort of, but it’s not…”

“If we’re the messiahs, what does that make you?”

You laugh again, but it’s gravel, a painful spasm in your chest. “Damned, probably.”

“I need - I need to go think.”

“Wait.” You catch her wrist as she goes to rise. “Don’t tell him.”

“I’m not going to break his heart. I need to think.”

“How mad are you?”

“I’m not mad, I - Psii. Please. You’re burning me.”

You snatch your hand back, eyes flaring with alarm at the thin imprints of your fingers on her skin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

“I know. You need to cool off. And I need to think.” She rubs her wrist with a small wince, then leans in and kisses your temple. “We’ll talk more later. I just - this is a lot. Go take a cool shower, calm down.”

You nod, but you stay right where you are as she disappears below deck, your breathing heavy. The stars swing lazily above you, the deck rolling with the gentleness of the waves, and you helplessly wonder if one idiot conversation is enough to split the timeline.

Chapter Text

TA: ok 2o II’ve been analyzIIng aldareth a2 per your reque2t
TA: you know on my down tIIme2 from commIIttIIng hIIgh trea2on
TA: II 2tIIll don’t know what you’re lookIIng for
TA: the advocate appear2 very capable
TA: populatIIon growth II2 2u2taIInable
TA: all of the trade bu2IIne22e2 look lIIke theIIr taxe2 are beIIng paIId but IIf you really want me to audIIt every 2IIngle one of them IIt’2 gonna take me a lIIttle longer than a damn week
TA: IIt’2 ju2t a colony??
TA: a bIIg well e2tablII2hed colony
TA: IIf you’ve got some kind of problem wIIth the advocate take IIt up wIIth her IIn2tead
CC: imports vs exports
CC: what we got there
TA: what are you lookIIng for?
CC: anyfin off
TA: II mean II’ll take a clo2er look
TA: but there’2 not a lot of IInfo on the re2earch & development 2ector2 IIn here
TA: that’2 where your money’2 gonna dII2appear
TA: trade’2 got a 2urplu2
CC: yes thanks i had no idea
CC: whole galaxseas economy is a dam mystery to me so glad i got you to set me straight
TA: 2omeone’2 te2ty tonIIght
TA: go take a nap
CC: look at the r&d info
CC: tell me if theres other info you need
TA: ok 2o II got a que2tIIon
TA: II know II’m a better hacker and programmer than any of the 2ad 2ack2 you got on your team
TA: 2o thII2 kIInd of re2earch feel2 a lIIttle beneath me
TA: better for blueblood lackeys wIIth na2ty fumblIIng meat fIInger2 lmao
TA: 2o why are you 2crewIIng wIIth me
TA: obvIIou2ly thII2 II2 all an elaborate te2t but II’ve got no IIdea what you actually want for an an2wer
CC: nah
CC: its a legit fin
CC: trust yo judgment
TA: LMAO
TA: holy 2hIIt II hope you’re not for real thII2 2tupIId
CC: nah
CC: but you got nofin to lose by doin this work
CC: and everyfin to gain
CC: i dunno what makes ya so keen to displace ya advantages
CC: i pike you
CC: i want you lookin into it
TA: ok 2o let’2 2ay thII2 II2 a real thIIng that really requIIre2 attentIIon
TA: why pa22 IIt off to the on the run pII22blood traIItor wIIth a 2low hu2ktop IIn2tead of grabbIIng a team of re2earcher2 and puttIIng them on a round the clock audIIt
CC: who says i didnt?
TA: ju2t a hunch
CC: i alreedy know yoar my enemy buoy
CC: youve made ya position clear as fuckin starlight
CC: i aint gonna pass important info to peeps if i dont know where they stand
TA: ...you don’t tru2t your own loyalII2t2?
CC: lmao please
CC: shits just smart politics
TA: you are
TA: hIIlarIIou2ly paranoIId
TA: you tru2t the guy who want2 you dead over people who kII22 your a22
CC: only cause its you 38)
CC: and i know you got somefin to lose 38)
TA: 2o doe2 everyone el2e
TA: you’ll fork anyone who 2tand2 up to you
CC: they all go behind my back cuz of it
CC: you on the otter frond
CC: you aint afraid to stand up for ya shit
CC: you and me got fuckin transparensea
TA: you are 2o fucked up II don’t know where to begIIn
TA: have fun wIIth the paranoIIa
TA: II hope one of your advII2er2 2tab2 you IIn the neck and II don’t actually have to fIInII2h you my2elf
CC: <3
TA: ttyl

It would almost be comforting if she misconstrued the death threats as black flirting, but she’s still stubbornly clinging to the red. You’re not black flirting - you genuinely want to get your hands around her throat, if not for what she’s done already then for what she’s going to do - but at least then you could pretend everything you say doesn’t go in one ear and out the other.

Whatever. She’s evil. Sign’s solution would be to talk mercy and pacifism at her until she relented from sheer boredom, but you don’t have the stamina to pretend pity for that long. It’s an interesting question - could you be red for her if she acquiesced to your demands? Cast off her crown? Ended slavery, forced the military to lay down their arms, put restrictions on the bloody actions of the Church?

Not a question worth considering for that long. She’ll never give up. She’d rather peel back your pan and splice in programming than let you love naturally. String you up and keep you from any affection except her own until you can’t help giving in.

Fuck her. Fuck her.

You haven’t had a chance to talk more to Di about your religious convictions, mostly because you’ve been avoiding her and you think she might be avoiding you too. True to her word, though, she hasn’t told Sign. You’d know if she had; he would have immediately insisted on a confrontation and discussion until you gave up your faith, which is stupid, because you’re about the only troll in the universe who knows the actual score.

Besides Death. Besides the Empress.

“You seem… agitated,” Sign says, jogging to catch up as you vault onto the deck and start for the docks.

You make a conscious effort to will power back in your body, suddenly aware of how heavy the static in the air has become, electric enough for even average trolls to sense. He noticed the burns on Di’s wrist, minor as they were, and it’s pretty easy to tell where they came from. You know he’s worried that you’re losing your grip. You don’t know if you have enough control to prove him wrong, especially after talking to the Empress.

She makes you angry enough that you wonder if it is a black itch, but that thought just makes the air heavier with your rage, so you shove it into your overflowing drawer of suppressed issues.

“Are you okay to go out tonight?” he asks, a little more gently.

What he’s really asking is whether you can walk the streets without slaughtering every pompous highblood you happen across. This city is a hell of a lot bigger than the little town you just left, which means it’s both more dangerous and has more trolls to reach out to. If there’s anywhere the revolution happens, it’ll be here, a port city with a huge harbor and bustling trade center and long line of factories tucked around the edges where their ugliness won’t disturb anyone. Rosa had to pull her imperious Emissary schtik and use your forged papers to gain harbor access, and you know the forgeries are damn good, but that doesn’t stop the anxiety about people asking questions.

“I’m fine,” you say, which is also what you said right before that one time you all but tore a slaver apart and Di had to pull you off his body and then Sign had to pap you to keep you from attacking her, but you know, whatever.

Sign knows you well enough to decide when being condescending is a good idea. You’re in a different mood than when he pulled you out of the cathedral, less numb, more likely to spark, which isn’t exactly a good thing, and he knows it.

“You’re either crashing and you’re about to have a massive downswing, or you’re climbing and you’re about to have a massive upswing.” He rests a hand on your shoulder. “You’re walking stiff.”

“Back hurts. I’ll float if I have to.”

“You’ll calm down before we go anywhere.”

“Yeah, better not go walking with an untagged psion, who knows what kind of trouble we could get in?” You wince, and then shake your head. “Fuck, sorry. I’m in a foul mood tonight.”

“I can tell.”

“I gotta get out of the harbor. All these highblood ships, I - can we please go walk for a bit? I swear I won’t lose it. I just need to get out of my own head.”

Sign nods and releases your shoulder, looping his fingers through yours instead. “There’s a park by the port. I wanted to see what sorts of people use it, how good the acoustics are. Seems like a nice place to preach, assuming it’s safe enough. We can circle around the trade hubs so we don’t run into any… unpleasantness.”

Slave auctions. You hold the map of the city in your head, figuring a hemoanonymous troll and untagged psion are probably safer going through the slums than trying to sneak through popular business areas. The ghosted outlines of the factories rise in the distance, too far to head to on foot tonight, but fuck if they aren’t a tempting destination.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?” Sign asks, his thumb rubbing circles on the back of your hand as you walk down the dock.

“Nothing you’ll like.”

“You don’t actually need to censor yourself for me, you know. I’d rather you talked.”

“I don’t need you to talk me down from anything. I promise. I’m still in my right mind, I know my various illogical temptations are in fact illogical.”

“Okay,” Sign says, “but by the time you aren’t in your right mind, you won’t want me to talk you down,” which would be insulting if it wasn’t absolutely true.

“Most of the time,” you say, keeping your voice low, looking up and down the dock to make sure no one’s about to pop out demanding identification, “it’s more satisfying to fantasize about burning certain places to the ground than about lifting lowbloods up.”

Sign nods, and when you steal a glance at his face, he’s more contemplative than worried. “I think that’s natural.”

“But it’s not how you feel.”

“I don’t have as much to be angry about as you do.”

“That… is fucking absurd,” you say, opting for the shadowy path to the poorer sections of the city rather than the brightly lit road to the trade center. You docked in the cheapest area of the harbor, and the slums are closer than anything else. “You’re cullbait. You’re literally in danger all the time, you asshole. Plus you remember living in a place that didn’t suck - if I remembered living in cuddly snuggle fun land and then got dumped on this planet, I’d be pissed as hell.”

“Mmm.” To your utter indignation, he’s holding back a laugh. “Are you just trying to be contrary about literally everything tonight?”

“No, I’m engaging in friendly debate while also being bitter and cranky.”

“That’s your whole personality condensed into one sentence.”

“Fight me, bulgeweed.”

You’re still anxiously listening for any sound of footsteps or the shape of another presence around you, but the more space you put between your bodies and the harbor, the more your muscles unknot. There’s a good chance any trolls desperate enough to mug someone out here aren’t quite desperate enough to mug a psion with uncertain power levels, especially since you and Sign aren’t exactly wearing finery.

“Anyway,” Sign says, and you sense an impending lecture, “I’ve been personally wronged by fewer trolls than you. I can get angry about risking my life and angry about the state of this world and angry about constantly needing to run, but it’s the systems I’m angry with. There are so many societal systems of oppression that need to be undone. I’m not going to be free of fear until we make more progress. You, on the other hand…”

“I hate people because people are mean. Incredibly profound theory.”

“I mean, basically?” Sign shrugs. “Slavery is the most oppressive institution we’ve got. You’ve been wronged by slavers and you’ve seen countless other people wronged by slavers. They’re the ones who uphold and benefit from the system. And undoing the system itself is hard. Hurting the people who uphold it is easy. So I think it’s natural to want to. Feels like an easy solution to a much more difficult problem.”

“I have violent urges because I secretly really care about people. Wow.”

“You do, though!”

“If I have violent urges it’s because I care about people, if I have pacifist urges it’s because I care about people. It’s impossible to convince you I suck, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“Oy, you two!”

You stiffen at the sound of the voice, turning to find a uniformed tealblood just outside your spatial range. Harbor security. Fuck almighty, this is the last thing you need tonight.

Sign’s hand, still in yours, tightens. You’re not sure whether it’s a reassuring squeeze or fear. The security troll comes closer, a woman with short horns who’s probably bored and overcompensating for something. She raises a flashlight, aiming it in your direction to see how it reflects in your eyes, and you hiss under your breath. If she goes for Sign’s eyes, she’s dead. She’s dead. All this concentration dedicated to not killing anyone tonight and -

Sign ducks his head in a gesture of respect, keeping the light from properly illuminating his face. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

“Where are you two headed?”

“Visiting friends.”

“In this part of town?”

“Well, it’s easier to visit people’s hives than search aimlessly in places they don’t live, you see,” Sign says, and you kick his leg.

“We’re not causing any trouble,” you mutter.

“You. Psion. What class are you?”

“Two.”

“Is that a tag scar on your ear?”

“I’m a free troll,” you snap. “Do you want to see my ID?”

Sign releases your hand and lays his fingers on your arm instead. “Peace,” he murmurs. “We’re new to the city,” he adds, louder, sheepish. “It’s possible we misread the map. Is this a restricted area?”

“Your friends are probably working right now,” she says. “You don’t want to be in this area of town.”

“I’m grateful that you’re doing your job. I think we have things covered, though.”

Her eyes narrow. “You aren’t wearing a sign.”

“I’m not?” Sign says, looking down at himself. “Shit. I wore the wrong cloak.”

“Easy sign identification is a requirement here.”

“Thank you for pointing it out. We’ll go back to our ship and I’ll change my clothes.”

“You’d better go do that.”

Sign tugs you back the way you came, past the security troll, ignoring the fact that you’re trembling. You should kill her before she follows you back, digs into the authenticity of your ship - what if she waits outside for Sign to show up again? Do you have any passable clothes for him to wear with a fake sign, you can’t even remember what his ID says his sign is -

“Shhh,” he mumbles. The woman is outside your spatial range now, which means she probably can’t hear him, but you also can’t tell if she’s following you without looking back. “Easy, easy, easy.”

He walks you all the way back to the ship without breaking stride, and once you’re on the deck, nudges you down against the mast. “You’re having an anxiety attack,” he says.

“We should - should go somewhere with shittier security, we shouldn’t - we should find another lowblood town, highblood cities are…”

“Shhhhhh,” he says, and pulls your head against his chest, running his fingers through your hair and rubbing insistently at your horns until the frantic pounding of your heart calms.

You slump against him, panting. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“If we always play things safe, we’re never going to spread the movement,” he says gently. “We’ll go the other way next time. I’m pretty sure that security troll was stationed at the dim edge of the harbor, she won’t see us if we go in the opposite direction.”

“Unless she followed us, or she contacts other people to be on the lookout-”

“We’re not that interesting.”

“Aren’t we?”

“We aren’t prisoners in the harbor.” Sign kisses your forehead. “If you want to stay on the ship, maybe go lay down, that’s okay. I can bring Di with me instead. I think she’s writing, but she’ll want to see the park, she’ll be itching to climb a tree.”

“Are you gonna change your clothes?”

“Nah. I just wanted to get her off my back.”

“Dude.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?”

“She’s not the only person who’s going to be looking for a sign on you!”

“We have a park to scout!”

“This is dangerous.”

“I’ll take Di.”

“No, fuck you, I’m coming.”

Sign helps you to your feet. “Well, there’s nothing like a small adrenaline rush to take the edge off your irritation. C’mon.”

Your luck holds - the woman has returned to her post, and you’re not stopped as you head down the much less roundabout path to the trade center. The park lays just beyond it, but to get there you’re gonna have to pass merchants selling their wares and fuck only knows what else. The factories are inevitably upheld by slaves, worked hard enough to burn out and be replaced within the turn of a sweep. A fair number of the ships in the harbor are definitely slave ships, supplementing the city with trolls they couldn’t snatch out of the slums.

Sign’s stride becomes tenser and tenser the more trolls you pass, a myriad of castes and colorful wares flashing by. For a while, you think that he’s just worried about being in the light, instinctively shying from highblood presences no matter how he tries to hide it - but then you realize he’s never been to a place like this. Rosa would never have let him within ten miles of a slave harbor when he was younger, and even now she tries to steer him from trade areas in the larger cities. On his own, Sign avoids them for your sake. He’s talked to countless slaves, listening to their stories of being abused and sold and torn from quadrantmates and exploited, he’s seen slavers and masters mistreating their charges in the streets, but he’s never -

There’s an auction in progress.

You recognize the sound of crowds calling out and the auctioneer raising the prices, palpable energy floating toward you. Grabbing a hold of Sign’s arm, you try to steer him in a different direction before he can figure out what’s going on, but it’s too late - he’s staring at the raised platform and the packed crowd around it, his head tilted quizzically.

“Sign, don’t,” you hiss, but he’s already moving closer, wanting to see what everyone else does.

Motherfuck. You can’t watch this, and you think he hasn’t figured out what’s going on yet or he’d be the one pulling you away - he’s curious about the platform’s acoustics at best, wondering if he could preach here. By the time you get your fingers around his arm again, he’s close enough to see the chained trolls standing beside the platform, the half-starved girl behind the auctioneer. Your stomach turns. She hasn’t even molted yet; she can’t be more than seven sweeps old.

It’s too bright here, artificial light sweeping the streets. You can’t free the people lined up, not unless you’re prepared to kill all of the buyers and the auctioneer and the sellers and any hapless witnesses besides, and that kind of body count would bring down military intervention and Imperial drones for sure, even if you got away before you were arrested, and -

“STOP!” Signless roars.

Oh, for the love of fuck.

Before you can grab him, he’s pushed forward into the crowd, losing himself in the press of bodies. You follow, desperately trying to snag the edge of his cloak, and he shouts again.

“Stop this!”

“What the fuck are you doing!” you hiss, but heads are swiveling toward you both, a hush spreading outward like you’re the epicenter of a disease. Sign’s good at nothing if not making an entrance.

The auctioneer, a blueblood with entirely too much jewelry, pauses at the disturbance. His eyes scan the crowd, sharp enough to set your teeth on edge, and his mouth curves into a knife-edged smile when Sign makes it to the front. “Gotta stop the proceedings to make a bid, kid? Whole point is to go fast. Don’t have all night.”

Raucous laughter greets the words, but the people closest to Sign, the ones able to see the tight set of his jaw and fury in his face - they shift with sudden nervousness. Undeterred, Sign vaults forward and climbs onto the stage itself, spreading his arms wide to show he’s unarmed.

You’re gonna kill him.

You’re gonna pray you’ve practiced your shields well enough to get both of you out of this alive, and then you’re gonna run, and then you’re gonna kill him. No one could blame you. All this talk about controlling yourself around slavers and he fucking - you’re gonna kill him.

“Get off the stage, kid.”

“Give me the microphone,” Sign snaps.

The blueblood does not give him the microphone. Rather than wrestling for it, Sign turns back to the crowd, his arms still spread. “What the fuck is wrong with you!” he shouts, and the sound carries over his audience. Your eyes are fixed on him, but your other senses are all fixed on the people. Some shift with discomfort, others snickering behind their hands like they’re privy to a great joke - what is this, performance art? A pan dead moron desperate to make a spectacle of his culling?

It’s not a performance. The sincerity is what keeps them rooted, gives even the blueblood pause, as Sign keeps talking.

“Have you all lived with your complacency for so long that this is something you can laugh at? How can any of you watch this? These are your people, your fucking flesh and blood - they could be your quadrantmates, they could be your colleagues, your friends, they’re people being sold off as property, how can you just stand there? Some of you share castes with them! This girl is a child!” His voice rises to a scream, almost cracking before he gets it back under control. “You’ll use slaves as the backbone of your economy but you won’t talk about the ways they’re mistreated, abused, tortured! You’ll treat your own siblings like livestock just to get ahead! How can any of you accept this? It needs to stop! You need to stand up!”

“Are you finished yet?” the blueblood asks, but he doesn't get the reaction he wants. Nothing more than a few nervous titters. It's Sign's show now.

“You need to stand up,” Sign snarls. “You’re so afraid for your own lives that you won’t look out for your neighbors. You’ll let your highblood colleagues’ abuses go unchecked because you’re frightened of speaking up. Silence doesn’t change anything! Mockery doesn’t change anything! Wake up, this is a child!”

Fed up with the display, the auctioneer moves his hand to his side, and you hear the ssssnck of a blade being drawn. You can’t get up there in time, and you can’t kill him, not without everything dissolving into chaos. Sign’s got the audience he wants, and even through the blazing rush of adrenaline you recognize that enemy bloodshed will destroy the message he’s sending. You fumble the shield you raise between them, the force too weak to hold the blueblood back, but it slows his arm enough that Sign ducks. What would have been a killing blow through the back only grazes his shoulder.

That’s enough. Sign grabs the wound with a hiss, his hand coming away sticky with scarlet, the red glittering like a scattering of rubies in the artificial light.

Someone in the crowd shouts in surprise. The auctioneer just stares, too surprised by the color to strike again. It’s too late - the moment is broken, the spectacle is over, the people dissolving into cries for blood and justice both. You lower your head and vault forward, damn the danger, damn the visibility, hurling yourself onto the stage with your psionics. You’ve grabbed Sign around the waist and launched both of you into the air, flying too high for a bullet to catch you, before anyone even has the chance to cock their weapon.

Chapter Text

A cloud hides you from sight easily enough, dousing both of you in freezing droplets. You inhale mist, ignoring Sign’s shouts of, “Put me back down, put me back down, we have to go save them,” and change your trajectory. Hopefully whoever’s searching for you will aim toward the factories where your initial blast would have taken you, and it’ll be a while before they check the slums.

You touch down in the middle of an ashy street, the hives on either side gutted from some long-ago fire. No one ever repaired them. It’s a perfect hiding place for trolls who don’t want to be found, but you don’t check any of the buildings themselves. If people in town need this place to disappear, you don’t want to upset their sanctuary by finding them.

“Take me back!” Sign yells. “Take me back, I’m barely scratched, I’m not about to bleed out!”

You swipe away a smear of blood underneath your nose, your body jerky with adrenaline, power still flooding your system so hard that your chest feels like it’s going to burst. Right now you’re too fired up for the pain of such a sudden psionic surge to reach you, but your body won’t be happy with you later - fuck if it matters. You bend over, bracing your hands on your knees, and pant.

“They were listening,” Sign says. “They were listening to me, I could have stopped the auction, I could have made a difference.”

You shake your head. “You bled.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not credible!”

“You lost them as soon as you started bleeding. You know the crowd was breaking up. Some of them might have sided with you, sure, but some of them would have started throwing shit and pulling weapons, and then at best you’d escape a riot. Had to get you out when I did. I wasn’t gonna sit there and watch you die.”

Sign clenches his fists, pacing in a tight, furious circle. “They were listening to me.”

“Yes. They were.” You straighten up, your breathing back under control, and reach out to touch his unhurt shoulder. “And I’m sure some of them really heard you. And after law enforcement swoops in and stops the fuss, and the auction finishes, and all of those people go home, they’re gonna settle down in their ‘coons and they’re gonna think about what you said and next time they’re gonna do something different.”

“Which is useless if the auction still happens! The whole point was…”

“What did you think was gonna happen, Sign?” you ask, surprised by the gentleness of your own voice, because you’re trying to be furious. “The auctioneer was going to burst into tears and hug you? The bidders would all suddenly empathize with the slaves? The slavers would unlock their chains? All the people would stand up and march through the city and free every captive troll, and some government officials in earshot would draft new laws overnight, and this place would suddenly be the one you grew up in?”

Sign lays his hand over his hurt shoulder again, staring down at the blood like he can’t quite comprehend it came from his body. His fingers curl, his eyes welling with furious tears as he spins to face you - he’s one of those people who cries when he’s angry, all cracking words and stuttered speech, though you’d never be able to tell for how viciously the sermon just poured out of him.

“I was right,” he says. “They were listening.”

You nod and touch his cheek this time, almost a pap, close enough to soothe without being condescending. “You were right,” you say. “But one man interrupting one slave auction to be right isn’t going to change an entire city in one night.”

“Maybe it would if you had let me speak.”

“I did let you speak! I let you speak a hell of a lot longer than I should have, do you have any idea how much danger you were in-” You take a steadying breath, because you’re still heated electricity and he’s injured and if you lose control now the results will be catastrophic. “We’re not going back that way,” you say more calmly. “We’re going to go back to the harbor and pray we make it onto the ship without being seen, and then we’re going to leave.”

“Leave?”

“They’re going to be looking for you. Me. Both of us. The city will be on high alert, it’ll be a fucking divine gift if that harbor patrol lady we saw doesn’t talk - you think she won’t put two and two together, if she hears about a signless mutant and an overclassed psion causing unrest? She knows which ship is ours. We need to get out of here or we’re going to be arrested. There are other cities. There are other places you can preach.”

Sign frowns, his jaw set in a way you really don’t like. “We’ll go back to the ship,” he says. “I need to fix my shoulder. I don’t think the cut is deep, but it’s not closing on its own and I don’t know if the blade was clean. We aren’t leaving tonight.”

“If it had been me who’d interrupted that auction, you’d be falling over yourself trying to get out of the harbor.”

“Because if it had been you…” Sign bites his tongue and trails off.

“Because if it had been me, what?”

“If it had been you, you’d be in more danger, so leaving would make sense,” he says, which is definitely not what he’d been about to say, but you do him the courtesy of pretending he hadn’t been about to severely fuck up your moirallegiance.

“I’m in danger anyway,” you point out. “Everyone saw me pull the one man rocketship thing. A class two wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Sign rakes a hand through his hair, smearing blood over his forehead in the process. You let out an exasperated little huff and wipe it away - bad enough trying to hide the trickles over his shoulder and the stains on his hands without broadcasting cullbait on his face.

“Do you think anyone is going to realize who you are?”

“If I say yes, can we leave tonight?”

His face is an agony of indecision, the same sort of quandaries you and Rosa struggled with in the last town. Leave and keep the clade safe, stay and risk everything? He swallows. You know him, and you know who he is, and you know what matters to him, maybe better than he even knows himself. So you know the conclusion he’ll reach before the reasoning has a chance to smooth his brow.

“They listened to me,” he whispers, ever-so-soft, and you know without a doubt that you’ve been defeated.

---

That doesn’t stop you from arguing your case, though.

Unfortunately, Sign has the entire walk back to formulate his own arguments, and he’s a better debater than you’ll ever be. In another life, with another caste, he might have had one hell of a career as a legislacerator. In this life, he’s spent sweeps learning to wheedle Rosa into acting against her better judgment, and Di’s always on his side eventually. You, on the other hand - naturally as complaining and pessimism both come, arguments are still relatively new. You always hit a point where you’re either confused by your own standing or worried that winning will lose you your relationships.

You rock on the balls of your feet in the galley, too keyed-up to sit down even as the usual pain filters back in, wanting to pace without enough room. The four of you are no stranger to eating meals in here, but the crackling tension seems to crowd the area until it’s too small to bear. You can’t have this conversation on the deck, because you can’t go onto the deck, because you were lucky enough not to be stopped by security on the way back, and you can’t press that luck by going into the open, which alone should be enough reason to leave, and yet here you are.

“You did what?” Rosa says, glowing brighter in her fury as Sign finishes his recount of the evening’s events. At least you have her on your side.

“They were selling a little girl,” Sign says fiercely.

“And yet rather than watching the auction and searching for an opportunity to secretly free those trolls, you found it more prudent to make a spectacle of yourself?” She rubs her temples. “By the Allmother’s grace - we’ve worked in the shadows so many times before. It wouldn’t have surprised me if you came home with a handful of liberated slaves in tow. Goodness knows that’s happened enough times. But instead you stagger back here with a wounded shoulder, an exhausted moirail, and nothing to show for your efforts but a few moments feeling important. You could have died. Was it worth it?”

They’re cutting words, cruel, and you’re forcibly reminded of how you never want to be on Rosa’s bad side. Somehow you thought that even if she was upset, it would be the irritation of a lusus tending to a wiggler with a scraped knee, fond and forgiving. This is… different. She’s angry, truly angry, in a way that makes you quail. She knows the stakes. She knows Sign’s stubbornness. She's fucking fearful and furious.

Sign doesn’t quail, but he bows his head and stares at the table, at least having the decency to look ashamed. Di presses her lips together and swipes antiseptic over his wound, curiously quiet. Maybe she’ll be on your side too?

“It was impulsive,” he says. “And massively hypocritical to Psii in particular. But if I could go back and do it over, I’d do it the same way.”

Rosa presses her hands against the counter and leans her head against one of the cupboards, her back to you, the light radiating from her skin making her near-painful to watch. This might be the angriest you’ve ever seen her. All of your instincts scream to escape the wrath of the furious rainbowdrinker, and somehow Sign still speaks, immune to the danger around him.

“It can be worth it if we don’t leave yet.” He raises his head, imploring, but Rosa isn’t looking at him. You think she might be praying. “It’s important, Mom. If we leave, nothing will change. They’ll look for us for a few nights, and then they’ll forget all about it. But if I stay - if I can just talk to them - the people were listening. I don’t know how many of them were really feeling it, but they were listening. All these people who you’d normally write off as being too dangerous, too stuck in the systems, all these people who’d never show up at a typical sermon - all of them, listening. Others will listen too. And they’ll pick up the movement themselves, and they’ll talk to their neighbors, and those neighbors will talk. And maybe some of them own slaves, and maybe some of them realize it’s wrong and free those slaves. Or the slaves themselves hear, and there are trolls who can help them because they know the truth now, and they run like Psii did. Going up there was a stupid, impulsive move, but we can do good things with it. And then it’ll be different from freeing five, six, maybe seven stray trolls. It’ll be an awakening. An enlightenment. The truth will matter. But I can only manage to do that much if we stay.”

Di presses a bandage over his wound and sinks into the chair beside him, taking his hand. Rosa doesn’t move for a long few seconds, but her glow dims back down to its usual soft luminescence. Her fingers slip from the countertop, her shoulders shaking as she makes a raspy little noise - your pan refuses to turn the picture into something coherent, and then you realize she’s sobbing.

“No, oh - oh, no, nonono, no, don’t cry,” Sign says, stricken by this more than any level of wrath. He scrapes back his seat and stands up, scrambling over to her. “No, Mom, please don’t cry.”

“You cannot do this,” Rosa says, turning back to the table and swiping at her eyes like she’s angry with herself for crying in the first place. It’s the exact same way Sign scrubs at his own tears, you realize with a pang - he has more of her in him than he realizes.

“I have to. I have to, I have a chance to do something great here, don’t you understand that?”

“You made a mistake tonight,” she says fiercely. “You made a mistake that could have gotten you killed, and you sacrificed an opportunity. You’re trying to rectify that mistake by turning it into something that wasn’t a mistake. You know that I’ve always believed in you, and that I’ve always believed you are the best thing in this world. You know I believe you do good. But you also know that your survival hinges on knowing when it’s time to run. Law enforcement will be looking for you. Psii will be identified. People saw you bleed. It is time to run.”

“I don’t want to run.”

“You run now, and you live to do good in other places. You stay, and you risk not only your life, but all the opportunities you would have had to do good if you hadn’t thrown that life away.”

“This is an opportunity to do good. Maybe more good than we’ve done this whole time put together.”

“This is foolishness!” She grips his arms, just below the shoulder, all but shaking him. “You’re talking about impossible odds! You want me to tell you it’s alright to preach heresy in a place you’re being actively hunted. You think the Empire is going to change faster than the words can come out of your mouth? You’re not this stupid! You know what you’re risking, you know when it’s time to run!”

Sign just watches her, passive and limp in the same way he endures highblood scrutiny, until she spends the energy. When her hands fall, he draws her into his arms, his fingers moving to her hair like he’s done for you a thousand times. Soothing. Gentle.

“I’m going to die either way, Mom,” he says softly. “We both know it.”

You have the sudden, awful sense of intruding on something very private, even with as few boundaries as your family has. You back toward the door of the galley, unsure where you’re going - you need fresh air, but your cabin’s a better destination than the decks, less chance of being seen -

Di catches your wrist before you can escape, her sleeve slipping down to show the mostly-healed burns. The look in her eyes is stricken, but the flare of her nostrils and set of her jaw tells a different story. Oh no, mister. You are not leaving me to deal with this by myself.

God dammit. You sink into the recently-vacated chair beside her instead.

Sign and Rosa take no notice of the exchange, lost in their own focus. “You are not-” Rosa starts, vehement, but Sign cuts her off.

“I molted before most trolls do,” he says, somehow managing to be both firm and gentle. “You don’t know how my mutation affects my lifespan. Rusts don’t live very long, even when they’re living in healthy environments. I might have even less time than them. I don’t… feel old, but I don’t know how aging is supposed to feel. For all either of us know, I could go to sleep perfectly fine, and my pusher could give out while I rested. If my lifespan isn’t long, I don’t have a lot of time left.”

“You don’t know anything about your lifespan,” Rosa says, her mouth trembling. “The color doesn’t matter. You don’t fit into any established castes, we don’t have data - for all we know, you could age as slowly as the Empress.”

“But you don’t believe that,” Sign says. “And I - I want to believe I have all the time in the world. But I probably don’t, and there’s no way around that. Even if my lifespan isn’t short, there’s always the chance that the wrong person will see a papercut and that’ll kill me. I don’t want to live my life without taking risks. I’m here for a reason. Anybody can speak to trolls who already want to hear - it’s safe. The real progress comes from reaching out to thepeople who don’t know if they’re ready to listen. Oppression can’t be stopped only by educating the oppressed. You have to reach out to the oppressors, too. They’re the ones who have the power to stop the systems. They’re the ones who can make a massive impact.”

“They’re the ones who will kill you.”

“Maybe. But how can I live with myself if I don’t try?” Sign’s arms wrap tighter around her, her head resting on his shoulder.

“We should wait,” you say. “Wait until there’s more people behind us.”

Rosa pulls back as you speak, the spell broken by the reminder that two other trolls are in the room. She nods in your direction and wipes her eyes again. “We should wait,” she repeats. “Save this type of outreach for when the tides have turned.”

Sign grunts with frustration. “There is no waiting. I’ve been waiting my entire life. Always running, always hiding, always moving from places before I can plant any real roots because it’s dangerous. The tides won’t turn without this type of outreach. We can’t keep preaching to people who are already on our side and hope somehow that fixes everything. We need a louder voice.”

“We do good work already,” you say. “Whether you’re winning over oppressors or not, it’s good work. I’ve lost track of how many slaves we’ve helped, impoverished free trolls we’ve clothed. We’re righting wrongs in the world one troll at a time. That’s how you’ve always talked about doing it. You spread kindness to people, and they show kindness to others in turn, and slowly things fix themselves. That’s your philosophy - all Rosa and I are asking is that we work with that philosophy a little longer. We let the results be felt more widely, we keep working with people who are open to us, and we wait until we’ve cared for them to turn to people who aren’t.”

Sign swallows. “It’s not fast enough.”

“It’s good work! If you’ve got people lined up to listen to you, you don’t shun them so you can go shout down the people who don’t want to.”

“And if you’re trying to convert people to a religion, you don’t preach to the ones who are already faithful.”

You blink. “This is religious now?”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“We’re doing good work,” you say stubbornly.

“It’s good work,” Sign says with a quiet sigh. “It’s not revolution.”

Silence settles over the room, and he takes a seat at the table. You sit there, the three of you, Rosa standing frozen with her back against the counter, and you know he’s won. Not because you’re any less right, but because he’s too damn stubborn to let it go. He never would have been happy if you’d stayed in the little free troll town. And he won’t be happy with working little miracles. Sign is an event unto himself, a natural hatched leader, and he won’t be happy until he sets this world on fire.

You are desperately, helplessly in love with him. You also want to punch him in the jaw.

“I am going to go lay down,” Rosa says finally. “Do not go anywhere without me. If you intend to proceed with this idiotic plan, you’ll at least do it with my protection.”

Sign stands, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I love you, Mom.”

“And I love you,” she says, defeated.

Though some of the tension eases when she leaves, the mood in the galley remains sober. “You just broke your mom’s heart,” you say as her steps recede. “You’re kind of an asshole.”

Sign sinks back down, folding his arms atop the table and laying his head on them. “I know.”

“You’re kind of a huge asshole.”

“I know.”

“Then go tell her we’ll leave!”

“This is the right thing to do. I can feel it.”

Di props her chin up on her hand. “Something to do with the visions?”

“No, I just…”

“He just thinks he’s right about everything, all the time,” you supply.

“I am right about this. None of you are arguing about the effects it could have on the community. You’re all focusing on the danger to me - which is admittedly greater than it usually is, but honestly. Ripple effects are well documented, they matter - even if we don’t see the exact changes personally, we’ll be paving the way for people to change on a greater level than we usually do.”

“If you don’t die.”

“If I don’t die. And anyway, I don’t think I’m going to die here.”

“The visions tell you that, too?” you ask.

“No,” Sign says, mistaking the caustic sarcasm for a genuine question. “I just… I don’t think I’m meant to die here. And even if I am, I can be at peace with that knowing that the three of you will carry on my work.”

“You’re an atheist,” you say. “You can’t believe in destiny and be an atheist.”

“I don’t see what one has to do with the other.”

“Either the universe is chaotic and uncaring, and the gods don’t exist or have zero power, and no one has a set destiny that they’re meant to fulfill and therefore could die at any moment; or the universe serves a purpose, divine intervention and fate are real, and you have a written destiny that’ll protect you here.” You prop your chair up on its back legs, triumphant. “You can’t have it both ways. You can believe you’re a revolutionary, and you can believe you’re destined to change Alternia, and you can even believe that destiny will keep you from dying against all odds, but only if you also believe there’s something bigger at work.”

“There’s always been something bigger at work. I just don’t think it has to do with religion.”

“Then what is it? What is the bigger thing?”

“The movement.”

You snort derisively.

“I don’t judge your faith, Psii,” Sign says, which is a blatant lie. “You don’t need to pick apart everything about my lack of religion. My faith is in the people. I believe that truth will prevail. I believe that people are inherently good. I believe that they’ll listen if they’re given the chance. There’s too much left to do for me to die here - if anything, I believe in my own stubbornness. I have the visions for a reason.”

“Who gave you the visions, then? Who gave you these all-guiding visions if there’s no such thing as divinity?”

“Psii,” Di says, a clear warning, and you don’t even know how you got here when this is an argument you’ve been trying to avoid. What did you expect, exactly? That arguing him out of his perceived infallibility would make him change his mind? You know him better than that.

“I’ve been trying to unravel the visions for my entire life,” Sign says, acerbic. “Once I solve the mystery, trust me, you’ll be the first to know.”

Digging at him isn’t fair. The unsolved pieces of the visions nag him with an insistence that borders on obsession - he’s convinced that if he can find out the way the other world worked, he can find out where this one went wrong. He wants it to be a structural problem rather than a glitch in the coding of the universe. Structural problems can be fixed. Gods wreaking havoc on a planet for fun, no, no, he’ll never accept an answer so completely out of his power.

“Tell him, Psii,” Di says.

Sign frowns. “Tell me what?”

You shake your head. “Nothing.”

“Did you see something?”

Fucking hell, this again. Another shake of the head. “No, it’s nothing. We’re getting severely off topic here. The point was that you’re a bag of bulges and you don’t care enough about your own safety.”

“Yeah, I think we already established everything we’re going to on that front,” Sign says. “What are you not telling me?”

You stand up. “This is so not the time. I’m going to see if I can help Rosa.”

“He thinks we’re the messiahs,” Di says, picking at a loose thread in her sleeve.

Traitor.

Sign’s head snaps up, eyes widening. “What?”

Chapter Text

God dammit.

This is going to turn into a fight, and it’s going to be a bad fight, and even if Di auspisticizes it won’t end the way you want since she also thinks you’re full of shit. But - as long conversations go, this is a good time for one. The more seconds that tick by, the less chance Sign has of barging back into the heart of the city. Even if he preaches here, he’s sure as hell not doing it tonight, when law enforcement will be crawling all over the port and the harbor searching for him. If building on people’s memories is as important as he thinks, he ought to give them time to gossip first.

Still. You probably could have laid that all out logically enough for him to agree without getting into a fight.

“Is this… true?” Sign asks slowly, carefully. “Or has something gotten lost in translation?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“And normally I - okay, under normal circumstances I’d back off and applaud you for asserting boundaries, you know I would, but this is not a normal circumstance.”

“Look, it’s not - not how you think it is, okay? However you’re thinking it is. It’s not that bad.”

“There is literally no way this isn’t bad.”

You swallow. “I don’t want to talk about this here. Can we at least go back to my cabin? Do it in my pile?”

Sign pauses and then nods. You haven’t piled properly in ages, distracted by your own projects and general business, and you haven’t been sleeping with him. Even though he doesn’t sleep alone regardless, he must have noticed. If Di noticed, Sign definitely has - he’s not as oblivious as you’d sometimes like him to be.

“Can Di come with?” You turn to her. “Can you come with?”

“Of course.” She pats your hand. “I am all about quadrant blurry threesomes.”

It doesn’t take long for the three of you to settle down in your pile, which is mostly made of pillows and blankets with a side helping of unused linens and clean laundry. It’s basically your ‘anything soft’ dump, with no particular finesse or organization, and it’s grown substantially larger the more time you spend with your family. Let no one say you aren’t a sucker for softness.

The delay lets you organize your thoughts well enough to know you have no fucking idea what you’re doing. Plenty of potential arguments make logical sense, but the only ones you could win with involve giving everything up, and that - you’re not going there. Not tonight. Hopefully not ever.

Sign is almost unbearably gentle as he curls around you, his arm slung over your waist, his face pillowed across from yours so you can watch each other’s expressions. It’s the same gentleness he used telling Rosa he was going to die. I love you more than anything, and I want you to be happy, but this is going to hurt.

Di, at least, acts a little less like she’s breaking terminal news. She snuggles in on your other side, nuzzling into your hair. “Psii sandwich.”

“This is so stupid.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come in here,” Sign points out.

“Not being in here, this - this whole fucking thing. Having to make such a big deal out of all of this. It’s stupid.”

“Well, we might not make such a big deal of it if it wasn’t kind of a big deal,” Di says.

“Can you just…” Sign squeezes your waist, his eyes worry-bright under a thundercloud brow. “What… exactly… do you believe?”

A safe enough question. He’s trying to get a starting point to gauge how deep in the mire you really are. The question is how honest to be. He knows you’re religious to a point, though for obvious reasons you don’t often discuss it with him, and he doesn’t press. He knows you believe in the elder gods because you hear their eldritch whispers underneath the pain of people dying. He knows you believe the Empress’ lusus communes with them. He knows you’re at least partially versed in Church mythos. For someone so young, you’ve lived a lot of lives, pushed from business to business and master to master when they discovered they could get a better price for you elsewhere or just couldn’t deal with you. Weapon, pilot, computer, battery, gift, science experiment, sacrifice - it doesn’t matter. You picked up little puzzle pieces of the world wherever you were and fit them together once you had a real home.

“I believe you matter to me,” you whisper.

The corner of Sign’s mouth quirks upward. “I already know that.”

“That’s all that matters. Belief-wise.”

“I do not even remotely think that’s true.”

You draw the blankets tighter around all three of you, because you’re starting to shiver. “You’ve always said you don’t begrudge me my beliefs. This shouldn’t be any different.”

“It is different. I’m not a god, Psii. Neither is Di.”

“Okay,” you say.

“Okay?”

“Okay. You aren’t gods. Conversation over.”

Di sighs, wiggling closer to you. “That sure is not what you told me.”

“I was hungover and being an idiot.”

“Hungover? When?”

You wince. Right. Sign still doesn’t know about your drunken soporifics extravaganza. “It doesn’t matter,” you say. “Look, I really, really, really don’t want to talk about this.”

“You never actually answered the question,” Sign says, undeterred. “About what you believe.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“It is a fair question,” Di says.

“Just - let me think for a second, okay?”

They both back off verbally, though they also both snuggle physically closer, sensing your shivers at the same time. You can’t help but relax. It’s not a fight yet, and maybe if you hold your temper it won’t become one, determined as Di is to mediate and Sign to stay calm.

“I believe that our world was created by the elder gods,” you say slowly. “And that they still exist, but they don’t care enough about our species to interfere. There is a fair amount of evidence that points to their existence. Hearing them, for one thing. Some other psionics hearing them. The Empress’ lusus. The fact that we have no idea where the fuck the universe came from otherwise.”

“Okay,” Sign says, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to throw up yet, which is a good enough sign. “Keep going?”

“I… believe mythology doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When so many people hear gods or see the future or speak to the dead or have visions of a better world, it’s like - it’s like - it’s like the universe is a puzzle and everyone has one of the pieces. And I think it’s disingenuous to pretend that everything unexplainable is inexplicable, but it’s equally disingenuous to pretend we’ll ever have all the answers. Religions take shape over time with everyone trying to make sense out of their puzzle pieces. Granted, I’m not saying those pieces can’t be put together wrong, but…

“The messiahs are a core part of the Church. Two gods twined around on themselves, wrath and harmony, beginning and end, existing for the sake of deliverance. The Church itself is fucked up and corrupt, okay, I’m not contesting that. The Grand Highblood is a power hungry fanatic who interprets scripture as violently as he can because genocide is a punchline to him. But the scripture itself, the prophecies - if they were true…”

“They’d fit me and Di? How?” The frown and concern are both still there, but they haven’t deepened yet. You breathe a silent prayer not to fuck this up and plow onward.

“If the messiahs were trolls instead of gods, if they were meant to deliver people not to an entirely new world, not to the Dark Carnival, but to freedom from oppression. Your visions would - everything about you would fit the narrative. You are singlemindedly determined to save people no matter what resources you lack or the personal cost. Di’s been with you the whole time, helping to interpret and refine and spread your teachings. No one is more equipped or more obviously destined to save trollkind. All these things that you can’t add up - your survival this long, the visions, the way people respond to you - they all make sense if you’re one of the messiahs. Of course you wouldn’t know it, because you don’t actually want to be a god, you don’t want that kind of power, so the revolution would come naturally to you.”

Sign slides his hand up your side and then rests his palm on your cheek, rubbing little circles, all warmth and kindness. “Have you had this, uh… theory… since you first came with us?”

“No. No, I - at first I came with you because I wanted to be free. And then I stayed instead of finding a permanent home because this is my permanent home. I love you, and I love the work we do. The religion part is just… private conjecture.”

“Private conjecture.” Sign plays with a curl of your hair. “Awful lot of thought put into private conjecture.”

“I’ve got a lot of free time to think about shit like this.”

“I’m not a messiah, Psii. Neither is Di.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

He sighs. “I don’t - that’s not what I want to be known as, okay? I don’t want people following me because they think I’m the recipient of some religious prophecy. Atheism and pacifism are both heresy enough, I don’t want to add ‘creating an entirely new bullshit cult’ to the mix.”

“Okay, but for the sake of argument here, if you were the messiah - what would it hurt to own it?”

“I’m not a messiah! The movement isn’t about me - I may have started it in places, but it builds on work trolls have already done, and it draws on visions I can’t control, and the trolls in those visions are the ones that made that world possible. It’s about the people. It’s about freeing the people, it’s about fixing… fuck, Psii. Making this about religion is asking them to put their faith in something I don’t even believe in. I know it’s real to you, but it would be beyond irresponsible to just lie down and accept that. Prophecy doesn’t matter, not when we already have the truth.”

You lay your hands on his chest. “I just…”

“I’m only a man, Psii. Arrogant, sure, smart, sure, determined, sure. I want to be important. I want to be remembered. But not like this. Never like this.” He brings your hand to his mouth, kissing your knuckles. “Don’t worship me.”

You rest against him, the fight taken out of you. “Okay.”

“And don’t tell other people to worship me.”

“I wasn’t going to!”

You consider telling him the rest of what you told Di, about the war brewing on the horizon. You’ll have to tell him sooner rather than later at this rate, considering his determination to make the movement spin faster than you can control it. But Di doesn’t bring it up, and you’ve had a long fucking night. There’s only so many near-death experiences and arguments and unhappy compromises you can endure before the pain catches up to you.

The three of you are quiet for a long time, reveling in each other’s closeness, your body slowly remembering to protest everything you've put it through. You doze off and on, never fully slipping into sleep. The fact that Sign’s shut up for once means there’s no bad blood between you, and Di’s throat rumbles with a low purr of contentment, and... it’s good. It’s so, so good.

“I’m wrung-out,” you tell them finally, when enough hours have slipped by for dawn to crack over the deck. “I bet you both are too. Tonight was… intense. Can I sleep with you guys?”

Sign smiles. “Of course.”

TA: can II 2plIIt here
i would have told you if you could
TA: all thII2 bull2hIIt and 2omehow IIt’2 2tIIll true tIImelIIne
TA: con2IIderIIng the number of thIIng2 everyone II2 2crewIIng up II gue22 that’2 typIIcal but
TA: IIt feel2 2o natural
what do you want to do now?
TA: run the fuck away
TA: but II don’t
TA: do II
no
you don’t
TA: 2o IIf II dIId
TA: IIf II ju2t lIIke 2traIIght up 2aIIled thII2 thIIng IInto the fuckIIgn garbage
TA: II could 2plIIt
technically yes
but i do not believe it would provide an ideal outcome
TA: thII2 II2 a turnIIng poIInt though II2n’t IIt
TA: thII2 place
TA: 2IIgn’2 preachIIng
TA: hII2 whole thIIng about reachIIng out to people who don’t want to hear IIt
yes
but if you left now there would be other turning points instead
the war would still happen
the planet would still be torn apart
you would just be fumbling through it without my guidance
TA: unle22 II kept hIIm from doIIng hII2 2tupIId hIIghblood outreach 2hIIt
if you have total confidence that you could stop him
then by all means split here
but otherwise i think it’s a stupid decision
TA: how much tIIme do we have
i can’t tell you that
TA: doe2 IIt happen here?
have you ever seen anything happen here?
TA: all cIItIIe2 look the 2ame after a whIIle
if you were to be arrested here obviously i would advocate for you to split the timeline at all costs
you have an entire war to lose first
this is barely the beginning
TA: 2omehow that II2n’t comfortIIng at all
go back to sleep
be safe

You set your palmhusk aside and blearily climb back into the ‘coon with Sign and Di, and they shift to accommodate you without ever waking, and you’re asleep before the sopor even sinks in.

---

With Sign still adamant that being an actively wanted man somehow makes a better environment for preaching, you put out little feelers through your husktop, seeking potentially interested trolls and encoding the meeting place. There’s grainy video of the auction interruption plastered across a few sharing sites, though all the ones with discernible audio are quickly pulled. More often it’s CRXZY CULLBXIT MUTXNT TXCKLED BY CRXZY PSION - CRXZY!!!! CXLL COPS IF U HAVE DEETS

It would be great publicity if the audio was left in, but the Empire obviously knows that. You brush off the offense as proof Sign’s effectiveness and debate on how best to disguise yourself. (Sign suggested you stay on the ship in case anyone had identified you from the footage. You threatened to drown him.)

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter much how you dress or hide your faces. Rosa and Di make for excellent camouflage - plenty of people won’t look twice at a group of four trolls. Even so, you’ve barely cleared the dock when a voice says, “Oy! Put your hands where I can see ‘em!”

You knew you should have killed her.

The four of you raise your hands into the air, turning toward the security troll as one. She’s pointing a handgun squarely at Sign’s chest, and while her stance is trained, the barrel shakes. Pointing at him because he’s cullbait, easiest to kill - can’t shoot a potentially valuable psion and there’s no telling what crimes the women have committed.

Inadvertently, she’s also saving her own life. Rosa won’t lunge, Di won’t maim, and you won’t snap any necks if there’s the chance she could pull the trigger faster.

“We met the other night,” Sign says, unperturbed, like he’s greeting an old friend.

“You’re a wanted man,” she says. “You weren’t wearing a sign because you don’t have one.”

“I did lie to you. I’m sorry.” His hands are still held aloft, and you stare between him and the teal, trying to decide whether you can wrench her neck all the way around before she’s aware enough to act. “I’ve found that being honest about my blood color doesn’t always go over well with law enforcement.”

Her lip curls. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

“And yet here I am. I promise you I haven’t done anything deserving of an execution, unless you truly believe my blood makes me an abomination. It’s hard to ascribe to that theory when you’re actually talking to the person in question, though. I have a personality and everything.”

She’s going to shoot him. You see the flare in her eyes and you're about to act, damn the consequences, damn pacifism, but then she hesitates. “I got a job to do.”

“You’re a tealblood working in the cheapest, dirtiest section of the city harbor,” Sign says, not unkindly. “Obviously you’re very alert and you care about doing a good job. Even if harbor security was your dream job, your caste alone should have gotten you a better placement. I think you’ve been passed over because you don’t have the stomach for killing.”

“Sign,” you hiss.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he continues, conversational. “In fact, I find it admirable. There’s nothing cowardly about hesitating to take another person’s life. Your hands are shaking. You don’t want to kill me, not really.”

Her jaw works. “You’re wanted by the law. You’ll rush me as soon as I holster the weapon.”

“I’m wanted because I crashed a slave auction to yell about the evils of slavery. Does that sound like the mark of someone who’s a callous killer?” He tilts his head. “You’re frightened, and you’re outnumbered, but you haven’t called for backup yet. Part of you wants to let us go.”

Great, now she’s going to remember to call for backup - you’re pretty sure she’s just incompetent at her job and has a shitty personality, you don’t share all of Sign’s optimistic extrapolation, why for the love of fuck does he always insist on taking the most positive view of the worst people -

“I’ll fuckin' kill you, I'll fuckin' do it,” she says. “Shut up.”

“I would very much like to talk to you,” Sign says softly. “You don’t need to be frightened of me, or of my companions. If you put your weapon down, they won’t harm you. There’s no reason to harm a troll who isn’t a threat.” That’s stern, a reminder to all three of you as much as reassurance for the teal’s benefit. “We spend so much of our lives being afraid of one another. If I can trust you not to hurt me when you have a gun to my chest, can you trust me not to hurt you in turn?”

If Sign had an ounce of coldness in him - if Sign were more like you - all of this would be carefully calculated manipulation. Confuse the aggressor into putting down their weapon, lure them closer, and bam. They’d never know what hit them. Quick, easy, justifiable. After all, how can anyone truly trust someone who threatens their life?

But Sign isn’t a callous manipulator. He’s all earnestness, and the woman feels it, her resolve faltering. Sign probably pegged her right about not wanting to shoot anyone, which is a goddamn mystery, considering you’ve never known a highblood to pass up coldblooded promotional murder. Maybe teal’s just middling enough to slip by.

You can’t hurt her. You’ve got no love lost for her yourself, but she’s real to Sign now, another hurting troll trapped in the systems. He’ll never forgive you if you kill someone he could convert, literal gun to his chest or not.

Her hands shake harder, teeth nearly chattering. A wild second passes where you think she'll do it anyway, and you brace yourself, about to dive between them. Then she swears softly under her breath, flicks the safety on, and holsters the gun.

The relief on Sign’s face is unbearable purely because you know it has nothing to do with not being shot. He was worried for this woman, worried about what would happen to her if she pulled the trigger, worried about any of his family having more blood on their hands. For a moment, Rosa’s muscles are coiled so tightly that you think she’s going to spring regardless, and then she lets out a long breath and settles forcibly into a defensive position.

Sign takes a step forward, all slowness and caution, his hands still outstretched so he doesn’t startle her. “I’m called the Signless,” he says. “Could we talk for a bit about Alternia’s future?”

Chapter Text

To your disbelief (and slight indignation), none of the apocalyptic scenarios you expect happen. You regard the teal with a hearty amount of distrust, but she doesn’t whip the gun back out, and she doesn’t pull another weapon from an unassuming part of her person, and a secretly-called flashing squadron of backup doesn’t drop out of the sky. Instead Sign accompanies her back to her post, Di by his side, you and Rosa flanking like a menacing entourage. Then he sits down and they have a candid conversation.

This is another extreme stroke of luck, but Sign’s going to take it as further proof that trolls are inherently good. For the love of fuck.

The teal wants a better job than harbor security, but all of the positions in law enforcement require more bloodshed than she can stomach. Threshies, lacerators, laughsassins - she’s not the hunting type, even if she’s hardworking. She’s not good enough with letters to pick up something to do with bookkeeping, apparently they all swim around and confuse her pan, and her math’s better than average but not the best. So here she is, too highblooded to be culled for incompetence but making too many mistakes for a promotion, mumbling under her breath about how this is probably the biggest mistake she’s made yet. And Sign, impossibly forgiving in his kindness, tells her she’s strong and hardworking and observant, and that the only thing holding her back are circumstances.

Which he then manages to tie into a discussion about hemoequality, and lowblood suffering, and the future of the movement, while Di scribbles furiously at his side.

You and Rosa exchange your fair share of longsuffering and disbelieving looks over the course of the conversation, all arched eyebrows and tilted chins and are you seeing this? you’re seeing this too, right. But you don’t interrupt, and you don’t kill her. Eventually Sign comes back to himself long enough to remember the time, and he pats the teal’s hand and asks if she’d like to accompany them to a sermon. When she says no, he asks if she’d like to help the movement, and her wariness is answer enough. Plenty of people are willing to listen, especially when Sign and Di in turn listen to them. Action is another beast entirely.

There’s disappointment in Sign’s eyes, but he smiles at her all the same. “Could I ask you for something smaller, then? You know I’ve told you nothing but the truth, and you know there’s injustice in this world. When you see little opportunities to make a difference, could you take them? It might be something as simple as speaking up when a coworker makes a casteist joke, or stepping in to stop the harassment of a lowblood in the street. Your voice matters very much. It can be nervewracking, but it’s infinitely less dangerous than violence and infinitely more satisfying than hunting.”

She swallows. “I won’t say nothin’ about knowing you,” she says. “Bad or good. And if people start saying nasty shit about lowbloods, I can try to make ‘em stop. But I can’t vouch for you personally, and if anyone asks me about you personally I’m gonna tell the truth. ‘Snot worth getting culled over.”

A few seconds pass as Sign weighs whether or not the debate can go on. But he seems to decide that’s all he’s going to get from her, and he nods. “Thank you very much for your discretion, and for sparing us. You’ve been unspeakably kind.”

She snorts. “No point in turning you in. You haven’t done anything bad and I’m not gonna get a promotion outta doing one thing right.”

You leave her at her post, and you’re still braced for a backup team to show up. You’ll return to the dock to find the ship aflame, ten threshies lined up to arrest you. Or maybe she’ll make a deal with one of the slavers in the harbor to sell you, turn Sign in afterward, get Di and Rosa arrested for aiding a fugitive on top of that -

“That went very well,” Di says.

“I wish she would have pledged to do more,” Sign says, blowing a strand of hair out of his face. “People are so afraid to stand up for what’s right. But yes. It did go well. She saved our lives.”

“No,” you say, your hands shoved in your pockets, wary eyes fixed on the road in front of you, “you saved hers.”

Sign twines his fingers through yours. “Even if she had shot me, you could have taken her down without killing her. You might even have been able to shield me from the bullet.”

“I don’t think my shields are strong enough to stop a speeding bullet yet,” you say. “And I wouldn’t have taken her down without killing her.”

He tenses slightly, looking from you to Rosa, who isn’t contributing to the conversation but whose jaw is set in a way that indicates she agrees with you. She’s coming to protect him, but the sting of her fight with Sign hasn’t yet abated, and you don’t know how they’re going to reconcile. He’s all but asked her to watch him kill himself when she’s spent sweeps running to protect him - you don’t think he fully recognizes the sacrifices she’s making, focused as he is on his own future.

“It’s easy to show kindness to people who aren’t hurting us,” he says, slow, like he’s measuring out his words so he won’t start another fight. “It’s harder to show mercy to people who are.”

This is the kind of rhetoric that’s liable to start a shouting match, but here isn’t the place, not when you’re traversing the slums with your heads down in the hopes that you won’t be stopped. That doesn’t mean you can’t respond - it doesn’t hurt to get him in a debating mood right before a sermon. If he can think critically enough to answer you, he’ll be able to answer more hostile people who ask the same questions.

“If pacifism makes us so passive that we let people walk all over us, we’re never going to get anywhere,” you say.

“If we need to be feared in order to be heard, how do we know we’re telling the truth?” he counters. “There’s - there’s a difference between a slave defying their master and a troll killing someone they don’t need to. You can stand your ground without lashing out. You could have taken her down without killing her - if you’d killed her, it would have been out of fear and the desire for revenge, not because it needed to happen.”

“If you were shot, bleeding out, and she was rushing to arrest the rest of us, killing her would be warranted,” you shoot back. “If we let her go, she’d just call in backup or report to her superiors, and we’d be a little distracted by you bleeding out."

“If I was shot, that would mean I was wrong about this place being safe enough to preach in,” Sign says calmly. “And I’d be in no condition to preach anyway. You could have knocked her out and brought her back to her post, and then taken me back onto the ship, and then sailed off before she woke. It wouldn’t matter what she knew then.”

“It would matter when she contacted all the nearby harbors to tell them to be on the lookout for our ship! We’d have to stop for med supplies if you didn’t die, and that’s a big if -”

“She’s not evil, Psii.” Sign squeezes your hand. “And she wouldn’t be evil if she’d pulled the trigger, and she wouldn’t deserve to die. People are the sum of their choices, whether they’re good or bad choices, and they should always have the opportunity to make better choices than they have. They don’t get that opportunity if they’re dead.”

“If you take away that opportunity, they can’t make any more bad choices, either.”

“It’s not up to us to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die. No one should have that power. It’s - it’s arrogant, and cruel, and the opposite of everything we stand for. Usually when we kill people, even in self defense, there was another course of action we could have taken. Sometimes we don’t see it at the time because of the adrenaline or the fear or the anger, and sometimes we do but we don’t take it because the killing is more satisfying.” Sign’s still speaking slowly, but with more confidence, like he’s regained his footing after an unexpected wave displaced it. “We need to practice looking for the places where we can show mercy to people we may not think deserve it. If anything, mercy can be more painful than destruction, especially to people who’ve never felt it before.”

“So killing is always wrong. Even if - even if you’re being tortured, or the person has ruined your entire life, or they’ve killed all of your loved ones and they don’t care at all - you think it’s always wrong, even if letting them live means they’ll hurt more people?”

“In an ideal world, people could be tried for their crimes and given sentences that would allow them to pay restitution. If they were truly unrepentant, they could be imprisoned or otherwise kept from opportunities to commit more crimes. And in that case, letting them live would not mean they’d kill more people.” Sign’s face is thoughtful, Di’s interested, Rosa’s remote. This discussion is as good a way as any to pass the time until you reach your destination, you suppose. “In this world, we can’t count on the justice system to provide fairness or nonviolence. We don’t have established means of rehabilitation for violent criminals. But even so, I think killing should be a last resort rather than a first resource. Deaths are always a tragedy, even if they’re deaths of people who sowed misery in their lives.”

“So you think…” You take a deep breath. “You think that me killing slavers, Rosa killing people to protect your identity - you think all of that makes us… wrong?”

It’s a few seconds before Sign replies, and you know he’s choosing his words again, trying to formulate his thoughts so this can be a discussion rather than a moirallegiance-threatening fight. You argue constantly, but that’s because you’re so close to all of the questions - they aren’t idle philosophical debates, they’re your life.

“I think they were bad choices,” he says finally. “I think there were other decisions that would have been better. But if you’re asking me if I secretly judge or resent either of you - no. No, of course not. If I can care about and empathize with people who dedicate their lives to hurting others, how irrational would it be not to do the same for my moirail and my mother? Making bad choices doesn’t measure your character. I don’t have any ill feelings toward either of you.”

That takes the wind out of your argument, because all that’s left is to convince him that you didn’t make any bad choices, and you can’t manage that with his morality. You didn’t have to kill any slavers. Anger was your chief motivation, rather than any real desire to protect anyone. Sign’s seen you violent and out-of-control; he knows the choices you made weren’t rational, weren’t based in deep moral balance. He understands them and empathizes with them the same way he understands and empathizes with highbloods socialized only to hurt, but he’ll never agree with them.

You turn to Rosa instead. “You’re not gonna defend yourself?”

“I know better than to try to justify my actions,” she says coolly.

You glance between them. “You guys have fought about this before.”

“We can never quite seem to reach an agreement,” Sign says, false lightness in his tone; you guess Rosa’s adamance hurts him more than he’ll ever admit out loud. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. The past is the past.”

“That lady listened to what you had to say,” Di says, patting Sign’s arm. “I think that’s more important than worrying about what might have happened.”

“People listen when they’re given a chance.”

“She could just as easily have pulled the trigger,” you mutter.

“But she didn’t.”

“She might change her mind. There might be people waiting to arrest us when we get back, you never know.”

“We’re going to be okay,” Sign says.

“The visions tell you that?”

“No. I trust her.” You let out a derisive snort, and he shakes his head. “I don’t think she’s a very skilled liar.”

“She wouldn’t have to be. You’ll believe anything.”

“But you won’t. Did you think she was lying?”

You bite the inside of your cheek. “No.”

“Then I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

That’s assuming you get through the sermon and back to the harbor without him being killed. You circle through the slums without any more confrontations, which is a relief - any trolls who’d seek to hurt you probably don’t want to take on four people in a group. You’ve reached the edge of the park before the moons are halfway across the sky, and you reach out with your psi to seek other trolls here. A few linger behind the trees or perched on rocks, scattered so as not to attract the attention of law enforcement, but they shift at your arrival.

Open as it is, the park is the best place for you to preach. You don’t know the business owners here well enough to search out a space in a hive or tavern, and room to move means room to run if things go badly. It also means you’re more likely to be noticed, and you have less control over the crowd, but if your luck holds, you picked an area secluded enough for typical patrols to overlook.

You tread deeper into the park, heading toward the ocean, until the trees give way to smaller shrubs that grow in less fertile soil. You don’t go all the way to the beach, but there’ll be less trolls here, where worry about seadwellers and vicious captains abounds. Again, if your luck holds, you won’t run into any actual seadwellers or vicious captains. You’re hinging a lot on luck, but you don’t have many other options - there’s no way to guarantee security, and you’d be safest leaving this place, but Sign remains adamant that you stay, so here you are.

The trolls detach from their hiding places and follow you like a shadowed pack of curious barkbeasts, but if any of them were here to arrest you, they would have acted already. Everyone either heard Sign speak and wants to hear more, or they’re curious about how a cullbait heretic managed to survive this long. You rip a wide stump out of the ground with your psi and float it before you, trailing clumps of dirt and ragged roots, until you reach a spot flat enough to set it down as a stage.

Sign hops up, testing his weight and giving a nod of approval when the stump doesn’t wobble. Di stands up beside him. Now that you’ve chosen a place to stop, the trolls following creep out of hiding. The crowd has grown as you picked your way through the park, like a ball of mud picking up debris as it rolls, but you’re surprised by the number. You count at least a hundred heads, and a prickle of unease rolls down your spine. Most of them will be armed, and all it would take is one pulled weapon for this to fall apart -

Rosa meets your eyes, your worries reflected in her gaze. But your combined senses are keen, and hopefully you’ll be able to diffuse potential tension. Sign waves people closer, calling out to them.

“Come over here, come over, there’s no need to stand back so far. I don’t have a microphone, I’ll get hoarse if I yell.”

That, at least, brings a slight smile to your face. You sit on the edge of the stump where you can watch the trolls, and Rosa edges around to the back. No one’s in obvious law enforcement uniforms, and the vast majority of people wear lowblood colors, a few speckles of green scattered throughout. Moonlight glints off the occasional slave tag, but the majority look like free trolls.

Another piece of metal flickers in the moonlight, and you hop to your feet, alarmed, but it’s the blink of a recording device rather than a weapon. Whether the person is recording as a joke or for police proof or because they genuinely want to share, you take it as a good sign.

“Thank you for coming out tonight,” Sign says, lowering his hood and opening his arms to them. Haloed in the light, the picture of open benevolence, he looks as divine as he ever has, but you banish that thought like he’ll hear it. “I recognize that everyone has different reasons for coming. I also recognize that you probably know I interrupted a slave auction recently and haven’t been arrested yet. I’d really appreciate it if you could help me continue not being arrested.”

A little ripple of laughter moves through the gathered crowd, and the worry on a few faces eases. Starting with a joke always helps.

“Since I’ve already been exposed, there’s no danger in admitting that I’m a blood mutant. I fit into no predetermined caste, which gives me no predetermined fate except death. To blood purists, I’m an abomination who should be culled in order to preserve the species. I’ve spent my entire life running and hiding in order to stay alive.

“But I don’t want to do nothing more than survive. I’ve traveled to many different places and spoken to many people because of my need to run. I’ve never been able to settle in one place. And I’ve seen both what it means to suffer, and what it means to be kind. I’ve seen the ways people are victimized by the systems entrapping them, whether they’re mutants or not, whether they’re lowbloods or not. I’ve seen the harm the caste system does to everyone, regardless of their place within it. I’ve discovered that suffering is the same no matter which part of the planet you’re on. Regardless of the colors in our veins, we bleed and feel the same. None of us are strangers to pain or fear or anger, and we deserve a chance to have our voices heard.”

He lowers his arms. He hasn’t lost their attention yet, but a few people shift restlessly - looking for a funny display of craziness, you assume, or for rage they can use to further their own ends. Sign takes a deep breath and continues, more earnestly.

“I have so much to say that it makes me dizzy, and sometimes I don’t know where to begin. There are so many problems to discuss, so many angles to consider - but I know the main questions on your minds. You want to know what kind of man would be foolish enough to stop an auction, or you want to know more about what I said then. Fortunately, my point can be easily summarized: Slavery is wrong."

He pauses, waits. The ripple of reaction is there, more uneasy than outraged, people unsure whether they should keep listening because he’ll give them what they don’t dare to hope for. You remember that unease from the first time you heard him speak, and his words as he continues are familiar - this is a speech he’s given a thousand times to a thousand different faces.

“You should not live in constant fear of having your freedom stripped from you. And if you’ve lost your freedom, you should not live in constant fear of what that means. We are all one people. We live the same, breathe the same, die the same. Blood color and lifespan and physical strength are all arbitrary determiners of power, social constructs meant to separate us. The color you bleed should not determine the course of your life, and nowhere is that more important than your freedom.

“No troll should have the right to hold another as property, regardless of the way they’re treated. People should be free to pursue their own livelihoods and exist without the fear of slavers or masters. People should not be forced into backbreaking labor or killed because they resist their oppressors. People should have access to shelter and food and clean water without needing to sell their souls. People should not exist at someone else’s whim.

“You don’t realize - you have to take a step back, realize how wrong this is on a fundamental level. If we condone the buying and selling of our siblings like livestock, if we accept ownership of people like animals as natural, then we as a species are lost. There’s no excuse for it. There’s no reasoning. There’s no rationality. Just changing the system isn’t enough. The system needs to be ended entirely.

“How many of you who’ve been tagged live your lives terrified for your safety? Terrified for the safety of your quadrantmates, your friends? Terrified you’ll be ripped away from them at the whim of your master? How many of you do your best work out of fear of your master rather than respect for them? How many of you have been forced into situations you didn’t want to be in because you were robbed of your ability to say no? And how many free trolls here have considered selling your freedom just for a guarantee of food? How many free trolls live in terror that you’ll be snatched from your lives and tagged and branded? People are not animals - people are not objects, but we passively accept that they are because we’re too afraid to stand up!”

He runs his fingers through his hair, agitated. Even in a thousand repetitions, he’s never stopped feeling the words, and the memory of the auction is still fresh in his mind, lending him an edge of desperation.

“Please,” Sign says. “This is a systemic failing, and it’s one we need to change. You deserve to live without fear. We weren’t - our people were not meant to live like this. I’ve seen another world, one that’s both very different and very similar to our own, where trolls exist in peace. The caste system doesn’t matter. Violence is abhorred, rejected, and those who engage in it are outliers rather than the default. I have seen a place where our people are united rather than divided and all the stronger for it. And I have seen immeasurable kindness from the most unexpected places in my travels. We are not meant to be violent and hateful by default. These ideals are impressed upon us as children, when we’re vulnerable and taught that we can rely on no one but ourselves, that we need to lash out at others to survive. It’s a lie. It’s a lie that allows the systems of power to continue unchecked. While you were looking over your shoulder to be sure your neighbor wouldn’t stab you in the back, that same neighbor was looking over their own shoulder. Everyone is angry and everyone is frightened all the time. Free trolls resent slaves because of the protection of their highblood masters. Slaves resent free trolls because of their ability to exist outside the whim of another. They’re more petty divides that keep us from reaching out to each other.”

He clenches his fists, swallows. “The strength you have been sold since you hatched is a lie. There is no strength in fear and violence. There is no honor in betrayal and backstabbing. There is no bravery in hurting those weaker than yourself. Bravery comes from standing up for what’s right, from acknowledging the truth, from being willing to listen and help where you can. Kindness is a more radical doctrine than calls to arms. If you could trust the people around you to care for you when you were in need, and they could expect the same from you - how much better would your lives be? How much more satisfactory? Imagine if you didn’t have to fight for your own survival. Imagine if you could reach out for help rather than needing to hide any signs of ‘weakness’. Imagine if you could devote your time to things you wanted to do rather than just to staying alive. How much more do you think you’d be able to accomplish? How much happier do you think you’d be?”

A voice rises from somewhere in the crowd, but you can’t pinpoint who’s spoken. “That’s not how things are, though,” the troll calls. “And if you think I’m gonna start papping people in this city, you’re fucked in the pan.”

It’s not a new interruption. Sign smiles kindly at the troll, able to see them clearly over the crowd. “You’re right, that’s not how things are,” he says. “But it’s how they will be. If we unite, rust through royal purple - if we stand together, there’s nothing we can accomplish. There’s no world that’s impossible. There’s no oppressive system we can’t dismantle. I’m not calling for you to risk yourselves for a fanciful dream. I’m calling for an enlightenment. I’m calling for revolution.”

Chapter Text

The sermon becomes less a sermon and more question-and-answer after that, the usual structure. Sign theorizes that a revolution by the people and for the people should invite their participation. Di points out that if he talks at them for hours and demands no interruptions, he’ll lose their interest, which is a way bigger motivator. Without planning and self-checks, Sign’s liable to keep rambling until the sun comes up.

Question sessions also help to gauge the mood of crowds. Sometimes people pick up on Sign’s general message easily enough, sometimes the idea of abolishing casteism takes more work, and sometimes they’re downright hostile. This crowd, though it’s made of people looking more for performance than a life change, is surprisingly open. You privately put that down to it being made up mostly of lowbloods.

Sign encourages them to sit down, since the ground here is drier than the earthy soil that the larger trees grow in. Most of the unease has dissipated, boldness and relaxation encouraged by Sign and Di’s unruffled exteriors, so one by one the trolls settle. No reason to stay on your feet when you don’t need to, and you suspect more than a few appreciate the respite. Lowbloods live hard lives, and any chance to rest an aching body and let go of the fear of being hunted is a chance worth taking.

Sign and Di both sink down as well, kicking their legs over the edge of the stump. The questions posed are questions he’s been asked before. How do you take care of your neighbors when you can’t take care of yourself? How do you decide which trolls are worthy of kindness? How can you survive if you’re not fighting for your freedom? Isn’t highblood protection a worthy payment for servitude? How can lowbloods and highbloods be the same when highbloods are so much bigger and stronger?

You have half a mind on the conversation to make sure it doesn’t turn contentious, the rest of your attention on the crowd, Rosa an attentive shadow in the back. Between the two of you, you should be able to stop any trouble before it arises - her gaze scans the surrounding area and you focus on the area behind her, ready for a potential ambush. You aren’t even remotely engaged in the discussion until someone asks, “So what’s the deal with your psion?”

You tense.

“He doesn’t belong to me,” Sign says, with the patient air he reserves for especially frustrating queries. “He’s part of my clade.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. So what’s the deal?”

“He travels with us to spread the movement,” Di says.

“What class is he?”

“You’re more than welcome to ask him your questions when we take a break,” Sign says.

“Does he talk?”

You look up. “No,” you say, rewarded by a few snickers.

“Where’d he come from?”

“Your lusus’ nook,” you snap.

“Peace,” Sign tells you, and then returns his attention to the crowd. “I’d prefer to keep questions about my clade to a minimum. We have limited time to talk about the movement, and important questions will be lost if we devote that time to gossip. I understand the curiosity, but these sorts of questions can be borderline invasive, and I’d rather you asked my clade themselves than asked me to speak about them in the third person.”

“Must be a hell of a psion if he can fly like the vid showed,” the troll presses.

You groan. They’re probably not going to be deterred if you don’t speak, and you hate speaking at sermons - hate the eyes on you, hate weighing your words, hate the itchy feeling under your skin. But it’s the only way to get them back on task, so you raise a hand and grunt. “I’ll tell my story to people who are curious once the Signless is finished. But right now revolution is a hell of a lot more interesting, so.”

That’s enough to settle them. Sign manages to keep them engaged for another twenty minutes, until the restlessness spreads through the crowd. They’ve got chores to do and hives to get back to - free trolls and slaves alike work, can’t spare hours to indulge a heretic in a park. He dismisses them with a promise to be here again tomorrow (you wince - that’ll bring an even bigger crowd and more danger, which is the point, but he’s stretching your security abilities thin) and an offer to stay for trolls who didn’t get their questions answered.

Most stretch and meander back toward the port, moving in groups of two and three so that their dispersing isn’t suspicious. Maybe ten stay, creeping cautiously forward. Three have slave tags. One, untagged, is the troll who asked about you.

Rosa rejoins the group, seating herself on the stump behind you, but she doesn’t engage with the trolls. Too often lowbloods scamper off at the sight of her, since she’s a sort of terrifying rainbowdrinker, and she can’t hide that no matter how much she dims her glow. The remaining trolls don’t seem frightened, though - just nervous. There’s no established etiquette for one-on-one conversation with cullbait revolutionaries.

A tagged psionic woman kneels and takes Sign’s hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it, eyes lowered. He exchanges a stricken look with Di, but rather than snapping, he reaches out and touches her cheek.

“There’s no need for that, my friend,” he says, nudging her face up, encouraging her to meet his eyes. “We’re all equals here.”

“‘Srespectful,” she mumbles, averting her gaze so she doesn’t have to look at him, her cheeks tinged with bronze blood.

“It’s respectful to a superior,” he says. “I don’t want to be recognized as a superior.”

“‘Syour movement.”

“It’s the people’s movement.”

She draws back. “‘Msorry.”

“No need for apologies either,” he says with a smile. “How can I help you?”

“My master,” she says, still refusing to look at him, like the eye contact frightens her. You recognize the skittishness, and your heart clenches. “I was wonderin’ - wondered - if you knew - if you thought…” She chokes on air, fumbles for words. “I can’t disobey him. Wouldn’t work. I was wonderin’ if you knew how to make him - if you had any ideas for…”

“He mistreats you?” Sign asks.

She nods, her throat clicking.

He smiles again, pained. “I think you’d have an easier time talking to Psii about that. Psii, would that be okay with you?”

You kind of want to give the woman a blanket - you’re not as good with words or comfort as Sign. But you nod anyway. What you lack in finesse you make up for in experience, and she might be less anxious around someone who’s actually been a slave.

“Anyone with questions about slavery should probably speak to Psii. Questions about the movement can be directed to me and Di.”

The group splits down the middle, the three tagged trolls and the questioning one and a fifth you don’t know drifting in front of you, the other half pressing in to chatter with Sign and Di. Five is a much more bearable audience than hundreds. You rub the back of your neck.

“So I think I owe you guys a story.”

You tell them the abridged version, the version that makes you unassuming and sympathetic. The slavers killed your lusus and stole you from your hive when you were little more than two sweeps old. You were passed from master to master because you’re too useful to cull but your illnesses make you high maintenance, until you ended up serving in the capital. You were retrofitted as a helmsman, though you jacked into computer terminals more often than starships, which is where you picked up your programming prowess. You left when Sign promised you a better life, and you never looked back.

You do not tell them that the slavers who stole you had to use military-grade dampeners rather than civilian because your power levels were so high. You do not tell them that you tested so far off the class five charts that they had to invent class six just for you. You do not tell them about the woman who held you until you were six sweeps old because she suspected your power was on a scale that could earn her a huge profit, rather than because she cared about you. You do not tell them about the gleeful military commanders who paired you up with law enforcement to hunt down fugitives, about the drunk threshies who took their aggression out on you when they were bored, about the legislacerators who seemed indifferent until they were pushing you to complete a kill, about the laughsassin who opened your arm and told you that you have the blood of angels. You do not tell them about the terror of the trolls you killed, or the worse terror of the trolls you tortured.

You do not tell them about how after your adult molt, those same military commanders practically gift wrapped you for the Empress, since you were the right age to helm a ship. You do not tell them about the screaming agony of your retrofitting, or the unending pain of training, or the fearful helplessness as teams of scienterrorists peeled your body apart to figure out why your mutations were such an asset. You do not tell them you’re dangerous, and you do not tell them you’re important, and you do not tell them the Empress fancies herself red for you. Sign may be out as a mutant, but you’re not feeling that honest.

What you do give them is enough. “So,” you conclude, “if you need help with slavery-related issues, I’m usually qualified.”

The woman who spoke to Sign curls her arms around herself, hunching her shoulders. “Can you help me?”

“Would you like to come with us?” you ask. Then you look at the other two tagged trolls, drawing them into the conversation. “Any of you?”

“You tore your tag off,” one of them, a rustblood man who can’t be much older than you, says. He points at the scar tissue on your ear. “Looks like it hurt.”

“I was being dramatic,” you say. “You can get them off just as easily with pliers. More easily, actually. And with a hell of a lot less bleeding.”

“I can’t leave my master,” the woman whispers.

“Do you love him?”

“He - he cares for me. I just want - if you know how to keep his moods -”

“It’s not your job to be his moirail,” you say, holding out your hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she takes it. “He holds all the power, and he’s mistreating you. I can’t give you a cure for highblood cruelty. But I can take you away from this place. All three of you, if you want. I can get you new identities, new lives, a chance to start over. You wouldn’t need to travel with us all the time, though you’d be welcome to if you wanted. Most people prefer to live less dangerous lives, though.”

“He’d be so upset.”

“But do you really want to condemn yourself to misery just so he won’t be upset? If he wanted to keep you, he should have treated you with respect. Trolls who make you scared of them instead of earning your love are… not worth your loyalty.”

“Sounds like you’re censoring yourself a little there, bud,” says the free troll who asked about your history, snorting.

“I don’t have much respect for people who think they can get away with owning other people,” you say with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean leaving them isn’t hard, when your whole life is all about them.”

She curls her fingers into the thin fabric of her shirt. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course. We’ll need to get you out of the city, and we’re not leaving tonight. It would actually be best if we waited a bit, but I understand if you can’t.” You beckon the other two closer. “Do you want to come too?”

A pause, and then they both hesitantly nod, like they’re worried admitting it aloud will bring a sudden gang of lacerators down on their heads.

“Can you be here tomorrow?”

Two more nods, but the woman shrugs, a jerky motion. “I dunno if I’ll be able to get out.”

“We can bring you back to our ship tonight if you’d prefer,” you say, “but you’d have to stay hidden. You’d have a cabin and free run of the decks, you wouldn’t be a prisoner, but you’d have to be very careful.”

She hesitates. “I’ll…” A deep breath. “I’ll try to get out. Tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

A nod, just as jerky as her shrug.

You squeeze her hand. “We can protect you,” you say. “You don’t need to worry about your master if you come with us. We won’t let any harm come to you. You just need to be brave enough to take the chance.”

Another nod, but she pulls away from you and darts off without saying goodbye. As she vanishes into the shadows of the distant trees, you think you see her swipe at her eyes. Your pusher clenches again - you hope against all hopes that she comes back, wondering if you should follow, but her freedom is her choice and you’ve still got four trolls seeking your attention.

“The offer is open to both of you as well,” you say. “If you need to leave tonight, we’ll take you back to our ship. You’ll just need to stay hidden until we set off.”

They both mutter something about scheduling and being able to show up tomorrow, and then they peel away almost as fast as she did. Freedom is a daunting concept. Better for mulling over alone rather than discussing in the open, or so you hope, since the other possibility is that the idea of running was too much and they’re trying to forget this conversation ever happened.

That leaves you with the curious troll and a greenblooded man. You arch your eyebrows at Sir Curiosity and say, “I think you got the story you wanted?”

“How are you powerful enough to rocket like that?”

“Adrenaline,” you say dismissively, and he huffs, but he seems to realize he’s not going to get more than that, because he turns to go.

“And you? What can I do for you?” you ask the greenblood. It’ll be just your luck if this guy’s collecting intelligence and about to stab you, but the paranoia proves unfounded.

“My matesprit,” he says, rocking anxiously back and forth on his heels. “He’s indentured to a factory, barely gets time on the surface, he…”

You tilt your head. “How’d you end up matesprits with a factory worker?”

“We’ve known each other a long time, longer than he’s been a slave, we… Please. Can you help him?”

You draw one knee to your chest, propping your chin up. “Did you sell him?”

“What? No!”

Di glances over at the outburst. “Is Psii being a shriveled bulge?”

“I never - I’d never-”

“Sorry,” you say. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair. Quadrant guilt is powerful and I’m a cynic. Can you get him here tomorrow?”

“I can try.”

You swipe your tongue over your lips. “...He’ll have to leave the city,” you say, because honesty matters as far as keeping vengeful quads off your trail goes. “Need a new identity. He might not be able to contact you again.”

“Don’t matter. Either way I’m not gonna - they’re working him to death.”

You wince. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Bring him tomorrow, and I’ll make sure to get him somewhere safe.”

“Thank you. I - thank you.”

He nearly trips over his own feet in his clumsy attempt to both bow and back up. By the time he disappears into the trees, Sign and Di have finished with their own conversations, and Sign stands with a smile.

“I told you it would be okay,” he says.

“Tomorrow’s going to be a disaster,” you grumble, but you don’t otherwise protest as the four of you pick your way back toward the slums.

It almost looks like you’ll get back to the ship without incident, like one near-shooting is enough to earn a seamless sermon and safe journey home. The harbor’s less than ten minutes away, your conversation limited since you’re all spent from the sermon, when you hear the shouting.

“-off, get off, get OFF ME, LET GO, HELP, HELP ME-”

You take off at a run, Rosa and Di hot on your heels, not so much as looking back to make sure Sign’s keeping pace. It could be a trap, but so what if it is? You’re the most powerful psion alive, Di’s a hunter, Rosa’s a rainbowdrinker, you can risk -

You round the corner to a dingy sidestreet, but you can’t see anyone. The screaming drops off, muffled, and then picks up again. “Help me!”

It’s coming from an alley ahead. You lift yourself a few inches into the air and speed forward faster than the rest of your clade can keep up, your heart thudding in your ears, and find -

At first the scene confuses you, because what is a blueblood doing all the way out here, and why would he mug a rustblood instead of the other way around? But the rustblood is an unmolted child, just old enough to be worth selling to the factories, and there must be reasons these neighborhoods seem abandoned even when hives and hivestems line the streets. You knew it was happening, didn’t you? The slums are easy pickings for slavers to snatch up free trolls, sell them and tag them in the harbor. The only mystery is why the blue hasn’t come with backup in case he runs into lowblood gangs or unexpectedly powerful psions.

Hey, at least the lack of backup is a lucky break for you. You lock him in immobilizing psionic restraints with the practiced ease of sweeps of bounty hunting, slamming him back against the wall, heedless of the unpleasant cracking sound his skull makes or the burns blossoming up his unprotected arms. If he didn’t want to end up injured, maybe he shouldn’t have made a career out of terrorizing psions.

The rustblood takes one look at you and pelts in the opposite direction, deciding empty streets beat a group headed by a potentially crazy psion. That’s probably fair. Sign’s morality dictates you hold the blueblood until the kid gets far enough to be safe, then release him, maybe with a slap on the wrist and a few platitudes about hemoequality. Sign’s morality dictates that you’ve already done too much by letting his skin burn.

You walk into the alley.

The whole exchange takes only a few seconds, just long enough for three pairs of footsteps to catch up to you. Di calls, “Psii, don't!” and you know they’re going to follow you, stop you, and the shield bursts out of you like you were hatched making them, stretching impenetrably across the mouth of the alley. Hours of focus weren’t enough. The panicky adrenaline of a swooping knife wasn’t enough. No, it comes from this, this cold clarity - build me a wall, leave us untouched, protect me, allow me this alone.

The blueblood’s nostrils flare, his eyes wide. He’s frightened, and pained, though trying not to show it even as his skin blisters under the weight of your rage. His lips pull back from his teeth, a grotesque caricature of a snarl.

“Kid mugged me,” he says.

“You wouldn’t be walking this way unless you were looking for trouble,” you reply. Your eyes are so bright you can see their light reflected in his own, painfully full of red-blue energy. “You were trying to tag him.”

He grunts with pain, his muscles straining in his attempt to thrash out of the psionic hold. “Business is business - th’fuck - let go of me -”

You punch him in the jaw, which hurts your wrist more than it probably hurts him, but there’s a satisfying clack as his teeth crash together. He spits out a mouthful of blood from a bitten tongue.

You could set his pan on fire. You could needle the pain receptors in his nervous system until he begged you to kill him. You could hold him aloft and watch him burn alive, leave him to die with hardly any skin left. You could melt the armor underneath his shirt to his chest. The shield hovers beside you, effortless - you could do anything and no one in the fucking world would be able to stop you.

Instead you take a step back, your hands shaking, his body still cocooned in your power. “You don’t deserve to live,” you say, and this you know without a doubt, damn every debate you’ve had about the intrinsic value of troll life.

His eyes are so wide you can see the entire iris, the snarl contorting into a pained grimace, fear making his throat bob. The fear never seems constrained by caste, when trolls are facing death. You ready yourself for the kill and he says, “Wait, wait, waitwaitwait! Wait! We can make a deal!”

You pause. “A deal?”

He nods the tiny bit he’s able, frantic jerks of his head. “Fucking hell, you want - money? I can get you cash, name your price, I can…”

“I’ve got a better idea.” You wrench one of his arms, stretching it out against the wall, making a show of how easily you could tear the shoulder from its socket.

He sobs, sweat beading on his upper lip. “Please, please, I’ll do anything, I-”

“Free your slaves.” Your tone is icy, almost unrecognizable, and the still-rational part of your mind recognizes that Sign is watching you, and you’ll have to pay, but the rest of you feels too good to care. “You are going to free every one of your slaves and pay them back for their labor, and you are going to leave this business, and you are never going to so much as touch a lowblood again. And if you do, I will find you. And I will pry your joints apart one by one, starting with your fingers and toes, until you fucking beg for death. Do you know how many bones are in your wrists? They’re so inconsequential. I can break them piece by piece.”

“Okay - okay, okay, okay! Okay! I’ll do it! Fuck, just let go!”

“I’ll know if you don’t. I am a fucking angel, old man. You don’t want to piss me off.”

“I know! I know, I’ll do anything, please…”

He’s almost blubbering. Sign’s too soft for this, would have relented by now, would never have issued the ultimatum in the first place. You can’t feel anything except the hatred and the pleasure and one pulsing thought, so startling it nearly snaps you out of the trance. Maybe you and the Empress really do belong together.

“I am giving you a chance to remake your life as something other than the scum of the fucking earth,” you say, breathing hard. “This is my fucking mercy. Use it wisely.”

You slam his skull into the wall behind him, hard enough for him to drop like a stone, not hard enough to kill. Then you stagger, exhausted, and let the shield fall.

Chapter Text

Signless has seen you out of control before. He’s seen you kill people, he’s seen you lunge at Di in the heat of the moment, he’s seen you release blasts of power that would destroy anything that so much as grazed them. Sign is no stranger to your volatility. But this cold, calculated creature - that’s new to him, because it’s also new to you.

You’re running too hot to touch when you exit the alley, the temperature radiating off your skin in waves. This means that Sign can’t carry you despite the way you’re staggering. You walk in the middle of your family, a fair amount of space between all four of you, and slowly your body comes back to itself. Pain creeps in, but with it comes balance, and you tread with the stiffness of an old troll rather than a drunken weave.

The world is silent save the pad of your steps and the rustle of gravel under your feet. Your breath is easy, calm. The others don’t dare breathe loudly enough to be noticed. You still exist somewhere outside yourself, where emotions can’t quite touch, and you know you’re going to be horrified once the full impact of what happened sets in, but for now you can’t care. You just don’t give a damn. You saved a boy’s life tonight and you put a slaver in his place. No one can fault you.

“You tortured him,” Sign says, his voice raw, once you’ve finally cooled off and made it onto the deck of the ship without setting the wood aflame.

Alright, so one person can fault you.

“I was making a point.”

“You tortured him, you can’t - you can’t make change through fear, if you terrorize people into making a difference that’s no better than-”

“I was a little pressed for time,” you say. “I promise you, next time I see a slaver trying to kidnap a child, I’ll invite him over for tea so that you can explain that his profession is rude. You don’t get to stop a slave auction because you’re appalled and then judge me for this.”

“I wasn’t violent!”

“I left him alive. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. I am believing more in my ability to make grown-ass highbloods piss themselves than in his probable return to his profession. I think that’s beautiful.”

“Psii-”

“The two of you, go back to your cabins,” Rosa says, touching both Sign and Di’s wrists. “You should prepare for tomorrow night’s sermon. Keep in mind that the crowd will be larger and likely more rowdy. You’ll have more midbloods and possibly even highbloods. You'll need a more generalized message. Psii, come to the galley with me.”

Oh. Shit. You’re in trouble.

Sign you can snark at until your face turns yellow, but Rosa scares the shit out of even this fun new side of you. A little of the normal Psii returns, enough for you to quail and slink below deck. Di shakes her head as she passes you and tweaks your ear, but does not seem anywhere near inclined to save you. Sign’s too upset to argue, either with you or with Rosa, and finally guilt makes an appearance. You’re not sorry for what you did to the slaver. But you are sorry that Sign watched.

You sit down at the table and try to look appropriately chastened. Rather than sitting with you, Rosa moves over to the stove and sets a kettle on to boil.

“I…” you start, but she cuts you off.

“You’re in timeout until I’m done brewing this tea. Sit. Ruminate quietly. Think very hard about what you want to say out loud.”

She… doesn’t look as agitated as you expected. Her glow isn’t any brighter than normal, at least, which is a sign that she’s not so angry she’s losing control. Her movements are almost too graceful, which is a sign that she’s angry enough regardless, controlling it for the sake of not letting her hands shake.

You swallow and stare at the table, doing the deep breathing exercises you’ve learned to calm anxiety. Surprisingly, they seem to work for bizarre emotional absences too. You ground yourself by running your hands over the wood grains and focusing on the scents of the galley, and then you reach behind you and bump your fingers along the rims of your spinal ports, and then you feel a hell of a lot more like yourself. Still not sorry, but hey. Progress.

The time that takes is long enough for Rosa to finish boiling the water and pour two mugs of tea, sliding one in front of you. “Explain yourself,” she says, sitting down.

You huff through your nose. “I was angry.”

“Were you really.”

“I wanted him to die.” You wrap your fingers around the mug, heedless of the scorching temperature. “I wanted him to be afraid of me.”

“Because?”

“Because he’s evil!”

“And why would you want evil people to be afraid of you?”

“Because…” The acceptable answer is so they can’t hurt me, but that’s not quite true. You weren’t afraid for your own safety. You weren’t even afraid for the safety of the little rustblood boy. You knew you could help him escape, you knew that the slaver wasn’t a match for you, you knew that you could have held him until the kid was far away. You knew all that even before you reached the alley. The thing about having nigh-unlimited psionic power is that it’s pretty hard to overestimate yourself.

“When people are afraid of you, you can control them,” you say finally.

Rosa hums. “And if you can control evil people?”

“They can’t do evil things.”

“And they also aren’t free.”

You frown hard into your tea. “I’m not acting like them. There’s - there’s a difference between enslaving people for no reason and hurting people who deserve to be hurt. It’s not - they’re not going to change if you don’t, it’s not…”

“Please, keep talking,” Rosa says, taking a calm sip from her mug. “I’m waiting to see if you stumble upon a point that doesn’t dig yourself a deeper hole.”

“Sign stopped the slave auction because he knew it was wrong,” you say. “He wasn’t violent, but he stopped it anyway. He couldn’t stand watching people be bought and sold. I stopped the slaver because he was wrong. I saved that boy.”

“And you needed to be violent to keep him from repeating his behavior.”

“Well, pardon me for thinking Sign’s philosophy of touchyfeely discussion wasn’t gonna have an impact on a guy who spends his entire life-”

“Curiously enough, a very pervasive rationalization for abusing slaves is the notion that there’s no other way for them to learn.”

Your mouth opens. You wrestle with words for a good few seconds, but the sudden flare of anger makes it impossible to string anything eloquent together. After a few false-start sputters, you push the chair back and stand up.

“Fuck you, Rosa,” you say. “Go to hell.”

“Sit down.”

“No, fuck you. I’m going to sleep. I hurt.”

“You could do that,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Of course, that’s assuming neither of my other children are waiting to accost you and start a similar argument. And even if you do go to sleep now, you’ll still need to speak to us come tomorrow evening. You can’t go back into the city if you’re violently unstable.”

You brace your palms against the table and lean across it, your lips pulling back in a snarl. “You can’t keep me prisoner on this ship. I have to secure the sermon tomorrow, and besides there’s going to be slaves there looking for me.”

Rosa stares back at you, unfazed, the light on her skin not even shifting. “Perhaps you should stop violently posturing, then, and we should talk properly.”

“Yeah, that ship sailed when you pulled the ‘you’re just the same as a slaver’ card. Go to hell.”

“That is not what I said.”

“That’s exactly what you said.”

“I said that the methods you’re employing to intimidate slavers are similar to the methods slavers use to intimidate slaves. Is that incorrect?”

“It’s not - not the same thing, it’s -”

“Why?”

“Because slavery is - is systemic, and because these people are hurting lowbloods - this isn’t oh, you didn’t fill your labor quota for the night so I have to rip all the skin off your back! This is doing something about oppressors because we don’t have any other recourse!”

“You did have another recourse,” she says. “You could have held him still while Sign spoke to him. You could have knocked him out without burning him.”

“And once he woke up he’d just go back to his profession and I’d have saved one kid instead of, what, dozens? If I scared the piss out of him bad enough for him to turn his life around, you think any of the kids who aren’t enslaved will care what means I used to get there?”

“With the beliefs we uphold, violence is meant to be a last resort. You used it as a first option.”

“Because it works!” you yell, slamming your hands so hard against the table that the mugs jump, and slowly you realize what you just said.

Rosa lifts her own cup back up, still unfazed, and takes a slow sip, her eyes locked on yours the entire time. Her lack of anger would be even more infuriating if it wasn’t unnerving, but then her face softens.

“Ah,” she says. “I believe we’ve found a chink in your defense.”

You sink heavily back into your seat. “You goaded me into saying that.”

“Yes, I put the words directly in your mouth.” She raises the mug to you like she’s making a toast. “Violence toward slavers and violence toward slaves is different because of the power dynamics at play. Slaves have a system stacked against them from the beginning. For a slaver to engage in violence, regardless of the actions of the slave in question, is to show an unnecessary display of dominance, while the slave has no means of retaliating or seeking justice. To engage in violence towards those of a higher caste than you is already illegal, and there are no social systems in place to check the behavior of slavers, so vigilante justice puts more risk on you than on the slaver. It's also the only means many trolls have of enacting change. That’s the argument I believe you were looking for.”

You just stare at her. “If you agree with what I did, then why-?”

“We are faced with impossible situations every night. Questions about the level to which we can engage in those situations aren’t hypotheticals. Signless believes there is always a peaceful solution, and if it isn’t readily apparent, we just need to keep looking until it is. Di agrees with him. I… tend to take a more callous approach, though other trolls might just say it’s realistic. I can’t place equal value on the lives of the downtrodden and the lives of those who hurt them, regardless of the systemic issues at play.”

“So you agree with what I did. I don’t know why we’re arguing if you agree with what I did.”

“I don’t care about the slaver you hurt. I hope you put the fear of the messiahs into him. I hope he sells all his assets and lives the rest of his sweeps hiding in the wilderness. Or that his boat sinks and a ravenous seadweller just happens to have a taste for obnoxious flesh.” She tilts her head. “But I am worried about you.”

“You just said I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“The only wrong thing in this situation was not to intervene at all, to let that child be taken. But I don’t necessarily think you did the right thing either.”

“Because it’s an impossible situation. There’s no right answers. So we can just assume my solution is as good as things are gonna get - actually, can you repeat this whole conversation for Sign and Di? I like having you on my side.”

“I was trying to give you a chance to use a logical explanation for why you acted as you did,” she says. “But you couldn’t. Even as practical as you’re rationalizing the decision to be in hindsight, you weren’t thinking in logical terms when you made it. You were just angry.”

You feel sort of cold, but it’s not the same sharp coldness that propelled you earlier. This is an anxious cold that spreads from the pit of your gut through your arms and legs, making goosebumps rise on your skin. You take a few gulps of the tea in the hopes of dispelling it.

“I didn’t feel angry,” you say. “I actually felt really, really calm. I never feel calm when I face slavers.”

“Were you dissociating?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I didn’t feel like I was reliving trauma, or like I was outside my body. Usually when I dissociate I can’t feel anything at all, emotionally or physically - and emotionally I was calm but physically I could feel everything fine, I - it didn’t feel like the way I normally dissociate. I didn’t feel like me at all. It was like being someone else.”

“And you’ve never felt like that before?”

“No.”

“Mmm.” She reaches across the table and takes your hands in hers, gently squeezing them. “Our explorations of mental health issues are far from complete. But I don’t think it’s a hugely illogical leap to view that as cause for concern.”

“I felt…” You watch your hands where they’re twined in hers, unable to look her in the eyes even as you feel her continued gaze on your face. “I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t out of control. I could have stopped if I wanted to, any time I wanted to. But I wanted him to be afraid. I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

“I could hear what was happening through the shield. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you quite like that. You certainly sounded angry.”

“That’s another thing that was weird - the shield. It was easy. It’s never been easy before.”

“That is curious.” Rosa pulls her hands back. “You’d think that violent impulses would make a shield more difficult to procure.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again. It just felt like… like putting up a curtain between me and the rest of the world. Like I wanted to be on my own so that no one could stop me. Like it was another way of being in control.”

“You looked hungry.”

“I - what?” You blink. “Like I was in a bad mood because I skipped out on a burger? I promise I wasn’t gonna resort to cannibalism. That wasn’t one of the many impulses I was resisting. I don’t think he’d have tasted very good.”

“Not that kind of hunger. You looked… like you were hungry for his pain. That’s why I’m worried about you. There is a difference between lashing out at an oppressor because you’re traumatized and vulnerable, and lashing out at an oppressor because they’re an acceptable target for your bloodlust.”

“That’s - I wasn’t - you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, yes.” The sarcasm could cut diamond, but even so she’s holding back a laugh. “Truly. Why would I think I have any experience where bloodlust is concerned?”

Oh. “Uh,” you say. “Okay. Yeah. Point to you. But I’m not a rainbowdrinker, it isn’t the same thing.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that the feelings are similar. Power is a heady feeling, hunting even moreso, because you’re able to put that power into practice. It is not a feeling to indulge. Sign’s philosophies are to protect the oppressed just as much as the oppressors because of the inherent value of troll life. You lose yourself when you succumb to mindless instincts, no matter how good they feel in the moment. Be careful, Psii. You might throw yourself into violent conflicts truly believing you’re doing it for the right reasons, and still wake up a few sweeps down the road to find you’ve become a predator.”

“I’d never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“Signless would argue that you can’t draw lines about who does and doesn’t deserve to be harmed. I think that’s a tired argument, and too easy to ignore. A better argument is that you deserve better than the same tactics your oppressors use. And you are better than your instincts.”

You stand up slowly, and when she doesn’t rebuke you, bring your now-empty mug over to the sink. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

“Well, I’m not quite ashamed enough to hunt down the slaver and buy him an apology drink.”

“I meant you ought to be apologizing to yourself.”

“...Right.” You run a hand through your hair. “Okay. Uh. Thanks for talking to me. Can I go back to my cabin now?”

She waves you off. “Sleep well. Take some migraine medication before you do or you’ll be miserable tomorrow.”

You start down the steps to your cabin, but pause part of the way there and knock on a different door. Sign answers just like you expect, Di behind him, because they’re prone to cuddling when they're worried. Di’s book of sermons is open on his desk, and from this angle you can see the number of scratch marks and edits made to the page, more harsh than they need to be - a definite sign of stress.

“Hey,” you say.

Sign eyes you warily. “Hi. What did Mom say to you?”

“A lot of things.”

“Are you grounded?”

“I don’t think so. Although I think I would be if I didn’t need to be at the sermon tomorrow. I was, uh. Hoping I could talk to you. Both of you, actually.”

Sign nods and beckons you in, closing the door softly behind you once you step inside. You chew on the inside of your cheek, swallow your pride.

“I don’t… think I like the person I’m becoming,” you say. “Or maybe it’s the person I’ve always been, I don’t know. I feel - I feel like I’m slipping, and it scares the shit out of me. Can you help me?”

You think they’d both been tensed for a fight. A silent breath of relief goes through the room, and Di takes your hand to draw you further inside. “We’re here for you, idiot,” she says. “We’ve always been here for you.”

“Okay. Okay.” You fold yourself against both of them, closing your eyes. “Thank you.”

---

You sleep with them again, surprised by your lack of disturbing dreams. But your waking is just as painful as you expect it to be. You swallow your pride again, enough to down a few painkillers, and Di gives you a sturdy cane that Alionn apparently gifted her before you left the last town.

For once, you don’t run into trouble on the docks or on the way to the sermon, which in itself bodes ill for you. The luck you’ve been having here is fucking ridiculous, and you’re certain it’s going to turn, but the Demoness’ warning about a split timeline keeps you from insisting you leave. Plus there are the slaves who’ll be counting on you - you can’t rob them of what might be the only opportunity they’ll ever have to escape.

You hear the murmuring before you’ve even stepped into the park, your ears pricking. It’s a dull hum that tickles your eardrums, not the pan-sequestered moans of the dying. It sounds like… a crowd, but to hear it from all the way back here means that -

You catch your breath as you draw closer. The trolls aren’t hiding behind trees and ambling along like they’re having a nighttime stroll. They’re packed conspicuously together, anticipating your arrival, and you can’t tell if they’re acting more like pilgrims seeking their leader or an intercepting army. Either way, there’s more than a hundred. There’s more than two hundred. The park is filled with trolls, jammed shoulder to shoulder and hanging by their knees from the boughs of tree branches, little kids chasing each other across outcropping rocks, older people conversing softly among themselves or sitting with their arms wrapped around their knees. It certainly doesn’t look like a crowd of angry militia, but there have to be at least a thousand people here - far too many to blend into the background, far too many not to be noticed, far too many for you to keep the area secure -

You reach out and bar Sign’s steps with your arm, your heart drumming frantically against your ribs.

“Are these…” Sign’s voice is strangled with suppressed excitement rather than the anxiety you’re wrestling. “Is there some kind of parade we didn’t hear about, or…?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re here for you,” you say. “Fuck. I figured some people might bring a few friends, I didn’t expect… this.”

“All the more reason not to waste time!” Sign shrugs you off and starts forward. “We ought to get to know them, get everyone settled down - I never get to talk to this many people, who knows how much we could learn-”

You won’t be able to deter him. If he wasn’t afraid enough for his own safety to leave a slave auction alone, he certainly won’t disappoint a crowd this size out of a few petty security concerns. You let him go, Di hot on his heels, and cross your fingers.

Chapter Text

Sign hops up on the makeshift ‘stage’ from earlier, encouraging the people milling around to sit, sit, sit. It’s partially so he can see the faces, partially for the sake of any physically disabled trolls in the crowd, and partially because people at rest are less likely to start riots than people on their feet. The heads are like a sea - far more slave tags glinting than you saw last night, which makes your head spin. We don’t have enough room on the ship for all of them, you think wildly. If they all want to run, you’re going to have to come up with a plan, and fast. And that’s if you can even get through the sermon without things devolving into chaos first.

The time it takes to get everyone gathered around and settled is ridiculous. Wigglers climb into the boughs of trees to get a better vantage point, a few people splayed out in a quadrantmate’s lap to save space, and the energy in the air isn’t nearly as tense as you’d expect. Most people actually seem relaxed, a few excited - the crowd might be helping them feel at ease. Hard for law enforcement to descend if there’s a thousand other trolls they could arrest instead. That doesn’t calm your fears, considering you’re more worried about a vigilante with a well-aimed arrow than the cops, but whatever.

Speaking of the cops…

Three blues in security uniforms haven’t taken a seat. They hover in a group on the edge of the crowd, two of them watching the stump where Sign sits, one scanning the heads like you are. You tap Sign’s wrist, hiss, “Don’t start yet,” and move over to them.

Rosa sees them at the same time you do, but you signal her to stand down and watch for now. You can’t start a sermon with an obvious threat display, no matter how high your own hackles are raised. You choke down the energy crackling under your skin so that visible sparks won’t flicker between your horns, facing them like an equal.

“Any particular reason you’re here, Officers?” you ask, tasting loathing in your mouth. “It’s not breaking laws for people to gather. This isn't private property.”

The middle one, a cerulean lady twice your size with a beetle tattooed across her right cheekbone, snorts. “Keeping the peace.”

“We’re managing that just fine without law enforcement intervention, thanks.”

“No, kid. We’re keeping the peace.”

You pause, realize what she’s just said. The purest moral any law enforcement system can claim to be formed on is justice, and even that’s debatable. Corruption is just part of the career. So is the caste system. Highblood peace always comes at lowblood expense - highbloods who calm the waters enough to play their political games and run exploitative businesses do it with warm blood on their hands. ‘Peace’ to a highblood means stripping those beneath them of agency, of identity, of freedom. The only way to keep the masses in line. Protecting them from themselves. It’s for their own good and everything.

Blueblood peace would mean raiding the whole fucking sermon and arresting everyone they got their hands on, shooting everyone who ran, stepping over the bodies without waiting to see if any survivors need medical attention. Tagging free prisoners, getting pay bonuses for exceeding quotas. They’ve got everything they need to move - Sign’s location, enough transgressors to bump them up three ranks in a night, an unfolding heretic conspiracy - but they aren’t moving.

Because they’re keeping Sign’s peace. Not a highblood’s.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“You gonna interrogate any of the lowbloods around here?”

“It’s not your castes.” Okay, it is a little. “It’s the uniforms.”

“We’re not even cops.” The woman laughs. “Real cops aren’t gonna come in here if they think other people have it handled.”

“They will if they want a piece of the reward.”

“Nah, kid, trust me. They don’t want to fuck up someone else’s sting, even if it’s huge. Call it etiquette, call it not wanting your coworker to break into your hive and stab you in the throat to get back what they earned. We got you covered.”

You squint. That’s just asinine enough and just violent enough to sound real. You’ll never understand highbloods. Still, you’d be an idiot not to follow up. “Why?”

“You think somehow no one’s gonna notice the number of people here? Motherfucker, please. You want someone claiming the territory so no one else does. And who’s gonna question a couple blues in uniform unless they’re purple? If a seadweller or subjuggulator gets it in their mind to interrupt, no amount of security in the world can save you, so. Let us help out.”

“I mean, why protect the sermon at all?”

“Thrill seeking behavior.” She grins with all her teeth. “I’m Pieridae. That” - jerking her thumb to the left - “is Stitches, and that” - jerking her thumb to the right - “is Nookrot.”

Nookrot scowls. “Chloride.”

“That’s not what the last troll you brought home said,” Pieridae says, and bumps knuckles with Stitches.

You decide you’re not drunk enough to deal with this. “Just be respectful,” you say, and edge back, staying in close enough range to hit them with your psionics if something goes wrong. Then you signal Sign the okay to start.

If Sign’s concerned about the presence of apparent cops, it doesn’t reflect in the sermon, which is just as packed with heresy and oppression dismantling rhetoric as it’s ever been. You note that he broadens the terms more than he usually does - starts from the assumption that everyone’s heard of hemoequality rather than spending ten minutes introducing it as a concept, expands on specific things people of all castes can do to help. It’s pointed, practical, and passionate all at once. You keep your spatial awareness focused on the bluebloods, your eyes trained on Sign, ears listening to the rustles of the crowd to detect any drawn weapons. But he gets through the speech without fatal injury, voice projecting over the crowd, ringing more loudly than you’d ever expect a troll his size to manage. He laughs a little when he’s finished, shaking his head.

“I usually do questions and answers once I’m done, and I will tonight too, but I beg your patience. There are very many of you and very few of me. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get around to all of you. If you need urgent attention, please come speak to me or one of my family members after the sermon is over - we’ll be here for a while, but I promise not to keep you here all night.”

Someone calls out. “How are you gonna get anywhere if you don’t fight?”

Sign smiles. “If you have a question, please raise your hand. Otherwise everyone will talk at once and we won’t get anything done. But to answer, by telling the truth. I don’t need to lie, and I don’t need to use violence to get my point across. Peace is as much a way of life as an end goal. I believe that education and discussion should be enough to spread ideas. When you need violence and fear to spread your point of view, that means that point of view isn’t strong enough to stand on its own.”

A few hands shoot up. He gestures toward someone. “You - you with the face. Fuck, uh. Twisty horns, in the front.”

“If you get arrested, are you gonna kill the cops?”

“What - no. I just explained that.”

“How are you gonna not die if you don’t kill the people trying to kill you?”

“By giving those people the benefit of the doubt long enough to allow them to change.”

“But what if they don’t change?”

“Then they need more time.”

He calls on another troll, an adolescent who has yet to molt. She stands up to be seen. “So we should tell our masters hurting us is wrong?” It doesn’t sound sarcastic.

Sign pauses, struggle crossing his face for about three seconds, trying to figure out how to advocate pacifism without luring people into situations they aren’t prepared for. “I think you should always be cautious when there’s an imbalanced power dynamic at play. If you think you could have a rational and productive conversation with your master about your treatment, then by all means do so. But you should also consider the possibility that people may react unfavorably to the notion that they’re doing something wrong, even if it’s true. You may want to focus on helping your fellow slaves before you debate with your master. For the cooler castes in the audience, this is actually a great example of where allyship is helpful! It’s safer to speak up about injustice when there’s not a power imbalance. If you hear your clade members or coworkers talking about their ill treatment of lowbloods, that’s a great time to speak to them about their behavior. You’re on equal social footing, so the same danger that may be present for a slave isn’t present for you.”

“So we should kill our masters instead?” the girl asks.

“No. Holy fuck. I… recognize that violent mindsets are hard to break, and it’s hard not to see violence as a solution to a problem when it’s all you’ve been taught. But it’s a bad solution - if not for your master’s sake then at least for yours. With the way the systems are stacked, engaging in violence against a superior is more dangerous than speaking to them would be.”

“So other highbloods should kill our masters for us!”

“No!” Sign drags a hand down his face. “Oh my god.”

You can’t help it - you stifle a snicker, wheezing harder at the helpless look he flashes you.

“Look,” he says, trying to redirect the conversation, “the whole point of a pacifist revolution is that it happens without bloodshed. That’s what gives it the potential of working. Instead of fighting and killing and building power structures out of the ashes, everyone works together. The world I’m trying to create is one that has room for everyone, one where everyone gets a second chance to define themselves. That’s why you talk before you fight. That’s why highblood allies are so important! Each and every one of you is in a position where you can make a difference, no matter how small that difference may seem. It could be as small as giving a hug to an acquaintance in distress or as big as using your resources to buy slave contracts and legally free those trolls. It could be giving a disabled troll a place to hide and a meal. It could be listening to someone else’s story and promising to pass it on. It could be bandaging someone wounded. All of these acts change the world we live in, change our society, without harming anyone. Instead of trying to quantify who you can morally fight, focus on the peaceful acts of anarchy you can commit.”

The girl sits down, apparently satisfied, but the next troll Sign calls on isn’t off the line of questioning yet. “So what if we’re getting beat?”

“Run.”

“What if we can’t?”

Sign sighs, the edges of his frustration melting into sadness. “I don’t have a cure-all for violence,” he says. “If I had a manifesto that detailed how to protect yourself from every single violent situation you might find yourself in, I promise I’d be handing them out on every street corner. Here’s what I know: Violence breeds more violence. It’s a vicious cycle that takes and takes until someone has the strength to stop it. The systems in place already keep you from acting violently toward your masters. Just changing up those rules with no further examination - just deciding to hit back when you get hit - won’t help you in the long run. Instead of trying to even systemic violence by adding to it, we subtract. We put our own pacifist systems in place and operate by them. Psions learn to shield themselves and the people around them. Highblood allies step in when they see injustices being committed. Police work to protect their communities, not terrorize them. Networks of willing trolls help smuggle runaway slaves to freedom. Anyone with political power works on reforms to shield lowbloods. We use the resources available to us, and when enough of us stand against the established systems, the government itself has to listen.”

“Doesn’t sound much like action.”

“What action are you looking for? Pacifism is more practical than violence. Where is violence going to get you, my friend? You kill the troll who hurts you. You experience momentary satisfaction. Then you’re either executed or you spend the rest of your life on the run. Any other trolls your master owned are split and resold, uprooted, some to better living situations, others to worse. Propaganda spins the story as another reason why oppressive regulations are for the good of everyone, because lowbloods are uncontrolled animals who need a strong highblood hand or society falls apart. What if all of the lowbloods in an area violently riot? The Empire hears about it and brings in the military and Imperial drones to quell the violence. All turns to ash. There are no winners in a war. The Empire can persecute you for nonviolent actions, especially if those actions are illegal. But the Empire can’t silence the truth. Even if I die tonight, you’ll carry it with you. You’ll think about it. You’ll share it with others. You’ll realize there is a better way to live than this, no matter your caste. And once your eyes are opened to that, there’s no way to go back. Civil war won’t help us. The truth will, and the truth exists independently of violence. Pacifism is our only fucking option.”

This is a place you could speak. Tell your story, explain the work you do to help other slaves. But if you’re not about to stutter your way through a speech in front of a hundred people, you sure as fuck won’t for a thousand. Sign has the conversation under control - his answers are getting away from him, rambling off into uncharted territory, but the images he evokes are powerful enough to keep their attention. Pacifism as the only option, drawing on the fear of violent military retaliation for proof. From that point of view, he’s absolutely right, but it’s almost… cynical. Signless the cynic doesn’t sit right with you. He’s framing his philosophy in terms of practicality rather than morality, a smart move considering sweeps of anguish and violent impulses won’t melt away just because he claims they’re wrong. He’s also admitting he can’t fix the whole world in the same breath.

“We need to work together,” he says. “This isn’t a fanciful dream. This is the only way we win. We are all one people. We need to show it. When everyone from the youngest rustblood to the most jaded seadweller demands something better from the world, those in power have to answer. The Empress, the Church, and the military can threaten to wipe out a small swath of rebellion. But they cannot destroy an entire people. When we stand together, we can accomplish anything. If you believe nothing else I’ve said to you tonight, believe that.”

He brings his hands together. “I’ve kept you all a long time, and I know many of you have places you need to be. Let’s break off the group discussion for the night. But think over the things you’ve heard and what you can do to change your lives. If anyone has specific questions about what they can do to help, or wants to request our help, please stay and I’ll talk to you.”

By the time the shuffling of trolls exiting the park has quieted, there’s still at least two hundred people pressing closer, including the three fake cops. Rosa eyes them, then gives you a look that pretty clearly says do we have a problem? You just shake your head. Sign’s look is more urgent. Holy fuck, there’s so many, we’re going to be here all night.

Yeah, okay. You put logistics to good use and clap your hands together. “Okay. Anyone with questions about food or clothing or other poverty survival practicalities, go talk to Rosa, she’s the friendly jadeblood over there. Anyone with questions about the merits of hemoequality, go talk to Sign. Anyone looking for help with slavery, come over with me.” You consider for a moment. “Anyone teal or up looking to help out, come over with me too. Anyone who’s just hanging out to chat, keep hanging out and we’ll get to you when we get to you.”

“What about me?” Di calls.

“Anyone who wants a hug, Di’s your woman.”

“I can answer questions too!”

“She can answer questions too,” you affirm. “Hemoequality and hunting queries can go to her.”

Your group isn’t quite as big as you were expecting when all’s said and done, but it’s still bigger than you were prepared for. There’s about forty tagged trolls, more than you’ve ever personally moved at once, and ten highbloods, which is definitely more than you were expecting. The not-cop gang is among them. You’re still wary, but they didn’t start shit at the sermon, and they’ve yet to do anything nasty - assuming the uniforms really were to keep other police at bay rather than an intimidation tactic. With a rush of warmth, you recognize all three tagged trolls from last night among the faces, and the greenblood with his arms around a pale brownblood, presumably the matesprit he wanted to save.

“Okay,” you say. “I’m assuming every tagged troll is here because they’re opting in to freedom. Anyone not here to opt in to freedom?”

No one moves.

“Alright, cool.” You turn your attention to the highbloods. “I’m breaking in your allyship by asking you to do some highly illegal shit. Anyone got a problem with that?”

A teal raises his hand. “How much trouble could we get in?”

“Enough.”

He ponders this. “Cool,” he says.

You motion Di over to join you. “All these bluebloods want to help the movement. Can you get their contact info for me? Names, professions, Trollian handles.”

The teal grunts. “I thought you were gonna ask us to help with the slaves.”

“I’m going to ask you for all kinds of things once I’ve vetted you. But these particular slaves? Not on your life. Giving people the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean throwing out all caution. Once I know more about you, I’ll contact you to tell you how you can help.”

About half of them look indignant, unused to not being entrusted with important things immediately. You’d go on about how you know they’re all wonderful and you just need to be careful, but you’re not big on handholding. Di rolls her eyes and kisses your cheek.

“We’re grateful for your help,” she says, waving them into a circle around her.

You wait until they’re distracted, separated from the conversation. Then you lean on your cane. “So, I need to figure out the logistics of helping the rest of you.”

An unfamiliar brownblood, a different one from the green's matesprit, raises his hand. “If you weren’t going to ask them to help, why’d you call them over here to begin with?”

“A test.” You shrug. “The ones genuinely happy to leave their contact info are the ones I want around. The ones who just want to get their hands on running slaves at the end of a sermon are the ones I watch out for. More often than not, they’re pretending to be allies to cash in on fugitive reward money as soon as we leave town.”

“Huh. Why don’t any of them turn you in instead?”

“I’m quick on my feet,” you say, casting an ironic look at the cane. “Here’s the main problem. I don’t have a vetted network of trolls in this city. If these are the numbers we’re looking at for the future, I’ll have to start creating networks before I arrive in places - but that didn’t happen here, and I’m sorry. We have a ship with fifteen cabins. Of those, four are currently occupied, so there’s eleven cabins left. Of those, only one has a proper ablution block; the others share one ablution block at the end of the hallway, and they’re very small. Six of the free cabins have recuperacoons. The others don’t. So obviously, we don’t have ideal supplies for a crowd this size.”

The brownblood stands up, his jaw clenched. “So, what? All that talk about helping us and we have to - what, draw straws for who goes? Compare living situations to see whose life sucks the most?”

“No.” You shake your head. “I’m bringing you all with us. But the living space is going to be cramped, and it’ll take me longer to rehome you than it usually does since there are so many of you. It’s not going to be comfortable. And you’ll have to help out with running the ship, as well as you’re able - as free crew, not subordinates. We all chip in.”

“That doesn’t sound too complicated.”

“Smuggling you all into the harbor will be. So will supply runs before we leave.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “Oh. Yeah, okay.”

“Ordinarily I’d talk to each of you to figure out who sleeps where and who does what job before we leave, but that’s going to take a while and we’re pressed for time. I don’t want any of your masters to come looking for you before we’re ready. So we’ll have to do that below deck, which… will involve a lot of elbow rubbing. All I need to know right now is whether any of you are disabled or sick.” You look at the cane again. “Hopefully it’s obvious you won’t be culled for that. You can talk to me one-on-one if you want.”

The shaky woman from last night raises her hand. “I can sleep in your cargo hold.”

You blanch. “No.”

“It’s not a problem,” she presses. “I bet some others could too, to free up space on the real decks. I think I’d rather be in the cargo hold on your ship than have a whole suite on someone else’s.”

“That’s…” You suddenly empathize with the nausea Sign experiences whenever anyone treats him like an authority figure. “...Flattering,” you finally manage. “But no one’s sleeping in the cargo hold. You aren’t cargo. I’m not about to treat you like you are.”

She swallows and ducks her head. “Okay.”

You rake your fingers through your hair, painfully aware of how underprepared you are. You don’t have the room or the resources to move all these people - offering is a Signless-esque overlooking of practicality. But you’ve got an unhealed wound where any slaves are concerned, the same wound he feels for literally every troll alive, so you straighten your back and smile.

“Right, okay,” you say. As Sign and Di and Rosa finish their respective tasks and conversations, the park empties further, until just a few people remain besides your little crowd. “So, here’s how we pull this off.”

Chapter Text

Getting people onto the ship unseen is going to suck - you might have more of a chance if the sympathetic tealblood is on shift, but you’re not sure she’ll put up with stealing forty slaves regardless of whether she has the stomach for violence. The green with the brownblood matesprit doesn't want to say goodbye until the last possible second; you empathize, but it's just one more troll to account for, because he's not coming on the ship but he interrupts the logistics of getting there. And it’s tough enough dragging an army of forty trolls without the not-cop-maybe-cop bluebloods unsubtly tagging along.

Sign loses patience before you do - as you edge out of the park, grouped in smaller bunches so you can make the journey through the slums without being so noticeable, he waves them over.

“You gave us your contact information, right?” he says.

Pieridae nods. “Sure did.”

“Then I promise we’ll be in contact with you soon. I really appreciate the work you’re doing and the help you’re offering, but we need to move now, and I’m sure you all have lives to get back to. If you’re real police officers looking to make an arrest, I’d prefer you did it now rather than wasting your own time. And if you’re not, you’ve done everything you can for the night.”

She cracks her knuckles. “We can help you out at the harbor.”

“I… am not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Hey, hey, not killing anyone or anything. Just gonna stand there looking coplike to keep other people off your back. Like we did at the sermon.”

Sign might believe the good in everyone and be unbearably naive at times, but at least he’s got a tiny modicum of suspicion. “That’s a very kind offer,” he says. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you so interested in helping?”

“Fight the power, man.”

“I’m a pacifist.”

“I know. Peace fight.” She grins, her teeth gleaming in the light - either it’s a threat gesture or she literally doesn’t realize it comes off threateningly. “All these stupid blueblood stereotypes, you know? Like we’re all kneeling and going subservient for the first purple we see. Gotta go against the grain.”

Sign blinks. “So you’re rebelling for the sake of rebelling?”

“Fight the system, dude. Stereotypes exist as long as the system.”

Stitches speaks up. “The whole peace thing is our jam. Stupid to go against the grain and just fit the stereotype of bluebloods beating people up, right?”

“...Right,” Sign says, nonplussed. “Well, you’re right that plenty aspects of Empire life don’t benefit you.”

“Right! So we gotta fuck it up.”

Chloride blocks Sign’s path, peering at him. “So like, if I punched you right now, what would you do?”

You tense, your lips drawing back, but Sign just lays his hand on your arm. “Duck,” he says dryly.

“And then?”

“Politely ask you to leave.”

“Not punch back?”

“I think I’d break my hand.”

“Not even try, though?”

“No.”

He grins. “Hardcore.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. It’s hard not to believe them, considering the easygoing ways they interact with each other - they have none of the seriousness or arrogance of a cop about to claim a reward, and none of the edgy fear of the slaves putting their lives on the line. They all probably have fifty sweeps on you, but all you can see is a band of privileged kids playing rebellion because they’re bored. Better to have misguided highbloods trying to have fun than malicious ones with hidden agendas, but you can’t help your overwhelming disdain.

“Alright, I’ve got something you can do for me,” you say.

Pieridae perks up. “Yeah?”

“Head down to the lowblood section of the harbor and fake a brawl. The three of you, just go the fuck to town on each other. Distract security long enough for us to sneak off.”

She looks just as excited by this prospect as you expected. “Gotcha, boss.”

“You’re gonna want to go through the trade area, make sure you get there before we do so you’ve got everything set.”

All three of them salute you as they head off, which is just as disturbing as lowbloods kissing Sign’s hand like a master. You watch them go, waiting until they’ve turned a corner before shaking your head and starting off again.

Di snorts. “You really think they’ll distract all the harbor security?”

“I just wanted to get them out of the way. But I mean, any distraction is a good distraction.”

Sign huffs. “I don’t think we should write them off.”

“They’re idiots,” you say.

“They’re privileged. They’re willing to listen and learn, which is something. We just… need to work on getting people to believe in the movement for the movement’s sake, not because it’s illegal.”

“And here I was thinking you have the whole sexy bad boy vibe going for you,” Di says, snickering as Sign splutters.

“I’m not-”

“Hardcore,” you mock, barely stifling a snicker of your own. “I mean, if that’s what they want to call it...”

---

Each of the slave groups has at least one psion for safety’s sake, and you made sure everyone recognizes the people they're traveling with so no one is accidentally left behind. Five wigglers are spread among them, the youngest barely more than three sweeps, the oldest nearly seven. Had you been prepared for the turnout tonight, you’d have brought whistles for the group leaders to blow in case of distress, but as it is you just have to trust them not to take care of each other.

The sea breeze tousles your hair as you complete the wide circuit around the trade hub and near the harbor, but underneath the usual seaweed-salt scent you detect a hint of smoke. Your immediate thought - the ship, is the ship safe - you bolt forward with the full intention of breaking into a sprint, except your leg folds on the second step. You’ve been walking and standing entirely too much for a bad pain night, and that’s following all the excitements of last night's slaver encounter. Adrenaline rush or not, your body’s given the fuck up on running.

You catch yourself on the cane, straightening up. The next best option is to float, or it would be if you hadn’t already overdone your psionics a million different ways this week. You take option number three, which is to hitch a ride on Di’s back as the four of you move forward to find the source of the smoke.

The scent grows sharper and sharper as you draw closer, dashing your hopes that it was a small flame in someone’s back lawnring. Your eyes begin to water from the sting, and you finally round into sight of the harbor to find -

...Well, none of the ships are on fire. But the last sagging hive between the harbor and the slums sure is. You’re pretty sure no one lives in it anymore - before it was engulfed in flames, it looked like it had sustained some structural damage. You think. Fuck, you hope. You weren’t really paying attention to the strength of the building architecture you passed.

Rosa mutters something under her breath that sounds an awful lot like, “Bluebloods."

“I told them to fake a fistfight!” you say, exasperated. “Not commit arson!”

Arson’s not a bad distraction, you have to admit. But it’s also not an image super in line with the pacifism Sign’s trying to encourage, and you really hope no one lived in that hive, and more importantly you’re worried the smell of smoke will frighten the slaves away. The original plan was for the four of you to help sneak the groups over the docks one by one as they arrived, but you slide off Di’s back and stand your ground.

“You three show them the way,” you say. “We’ll have to go around the fire so we aren’t seen, change the course. I’ll stay here to direct them and do a headcount. Wow, they picked a really inconvenient hive to torch.”

Rosa’s mutter this time sounds more like, “Allies," but she nods in response to the plan.

“You’re technically an ally,” you point out.

“I only set things on fire when it’s a good idea.”

“Fair.”

To your intense relief, no one is missing. The groups straggle out of hiding one by one over the next half hour, your three other clade members ushering them along. The green parts with his matesprit with a kiss that's indecent for public company, which annoys you, and then hugs him so close you're surprised his spine doesn't snap, which makes your chest ache. You keep an eye on the burning building to be sure none of the sparks catch on other hives, and to ascertain just how many trolls are crowded around it. A slum hive fire doesn’t attract as much attention as a torched ship would, but the danger of sparks scattering onto the docks is real enough to bring harbor security with seawater hoses. You worry they’ll put out the flames and return to their posts before you’re ready, running into one of the groups on the way, but when the roof collapses and sends a towering shower of sparks into the air, you think they’re going to be there for a while. A dry tree hanging near the docks bursts into flame. Even from here, you can hear the panicked shouts.

Okay. You want to get out of this without setting the whole city on fire, you really do, but the chaos is entertaining.

Well, it’s entertaining until the last group starts off with Di. You stay behind to do one final scope of the surroundings and be sure you aren’t being followed by any ill-intentioned people. You cast out with your psionics to seek anyone trying to conceal themselves between the buildings, and you’re almost ready to follow after them when a voice says, “Hey!”

A body just on the edge of your awareness. You snap your attention back to the harbor to find a security troll who’s definitely not the sympathetic tealblood aiming a tranq gun at your chest.

Shit. Things were going so well, too.

Their aim might be off. If you run, you can probably make it, except you can’t run because you’ve overtaxed yourself so badly this week that you can feel your body starting to shut down. A million little energy deficits and stubborn refusals to rest rolling into a massive ball, and holy fuck, this is such a bad time to hit the wall.

You raise one hand slowly into the air, the other still curled around the grip of your cane.

“Don’t move!”

“I’m not moving. What seems to be the problem?”

“There’s a warrant out for your arrest.”

“Are you profiling me because I’m a psion? You’ll never get anything done that way,” you say, letting your mouth run while you narrow your concentration. Anything to keep the guy from pulling the trigger.

Can’t kill him, you think, startlingly clear considering the way your blood pusher threatens to rip out of your chest. Made too many violent calls here already, trying to turn over a new leaf, won’t be able to get away with harbor security murder without an entire fleet of ships following you. Can’t call for help, Di will be out of range by now anyway and there’s too much riding on this guy thinking you’re alone, thinking you’re helpless, not calling backup -

You feel out the shape of the gun in the space between you. He’s too far away to get an accurate reading, another point in favor of his aim being off. If you can just…

“On your knees!”

Now or never. Thank fuck they aren’t whipping out the lethal weapons for valuable prisoners. You hook psionic claws around the gun and wrench it out of his grip - he squeezes the trigger, and the dart sails so close to your ear you feel the whistling breeze. “I need backup!” he shouts into the comm clipped to his neck. “Rogue psion attacking near the fire site-”

Praying he loaded more than one dart, you wrench the weapon around in midair so that the barrel points at his chest, and then you yank the trigger again.

He drops like a stone.

If you fly to the ship, you’re sure to attract the attention of everyone still dousing the smoldering hive. You raise yourself a few inches into the air and speed down the route your family’s been taking, the buzzing adrenaline making your movements shaky. Di’s just helping the last person onto the deck when you skid over the slippery docks and hurl yourself up the gangplank.

“Psii, what-”

You lean over the side of the ship and shear through the ropes tethering you to the docks with your psionics rather than untying them. “Go go go fucking go,” you say.

“They’ll notice if we don’t announce the departure-”

“Fucking go, we don’t have time!” you yell, and she responds to the urgency in your voice, scrambling up the mast to unfurl the sails.

You sink onto the deck as a wave of nausea ripples through you, breathing hard. There’s no blood on your hand when you wipe it over your nose and mouth, but your attempt to stand ends with dizziness that makes you dry heave, and you have to get out of here before the backup the security troll called for shows up, or else they'll come search the ship and you have too many people here who can't be found -

You gesture at one of the passengers. “I need all the psions on the ship up here now,” you bark, your breathing ragged, and they disappear below deck.

Not now not now not now, you think, discarding the cane on the deck when your second attempt to pull yourself up goes just as badly as the first. A ship leaving without an official announcement from the captain will draw attention, and that combined with the fire and the call of a rogue psion attacking -

You manage to pull yourself up by the waist-high deck wall, watching the harbor. The smoldering wreckage of the hive is the brightest thing in this area, but the blaze looks like it’s been contained - the tree has burned itself out and the docks have yet to go up in flames. The ship peels away from the docks slowly, too slowly, moving in inches rather than the quick feet you need.

“Stop! This vessel isn’t cleared to leave!”

Your hand shakes when you reach it over the water, intending to snag the troll on the docks and drop them into the ocean. Not killing them, just distracting them, because who ever heard of harbor security who doesn’t know how to swim? You can’t get a grip - your spatial awareness is shrinking, you can’t cast your energy far enough. You only realize how dangerously you’re leaning when Sign’s warm fingers catch the back of your suit and haul you onto the deck before you can topple into the brine yourself.

“I can’t,” you say breathlessly. “My energy, I can’t - I spent -”

Ten psions, eight of them from the factories, where they’ll have been taught to use their powers as pure energy rather than with any skilled prowess. Ten psions will have to be enough, and you turn as they climb into the night air.

“I need five of you pushing air through the sails!” you shout. “The other five I need working on the water surface. Change the currents around the boat to cast us out - we need to get away from the shore, aim toward the open ocean. Don’t worry about the navigation, just get us the fuck out of here.”

“The tide’s coming in-”

“If it was easy, I wouldn’t need all ten of you,” you say, and they scurry to work.

Sign touches your face, and when you don’t respond, paps you more firmly. “What’s going on? We were supposed to do a major supply run before we cast off, we don’t…”

Don’t have the resources to feed forty-four people. You moan softly, but you’ll worry about that when the imminent danger of having a hole blown in the hull passes. “Security troll recognized me,” you say. “Called - called for backup -”

Sign’s eyes widen with understanding. “You ran?”

“Shot him with his tranq gun - and ran. Tranq gun, not real gun, I didn’t…”

“Okay. Okay, you need to sit down.”

“Not yet, we need to get out of here-”

“You can barely breathe-”

You wave impatiently at him. With the psions starting a rhythm in the sails and current, you’re gaining speed much faster, the docks shrinking. But the number of trolls coming to see the commotion has also increased. The ship’s built well enough that a few average bullets won’t sink her, but fuck if you aren’t worried they’ll open fire and hit the people you’re trying to save.

You picture a shield in your mind, trying to pull upon the same calm clarity that allowed you to create one last night. Don’t come near us, don’t come near us, don’t come near us. A shimmering curtain of red and blue opens a few feet in front of you, but then pain flares behind your eyes and it dissolves.

“Fuck, fuck, not now-”

“Psii, sit down!” Sign shouts.

You just wave him off a second time, your body shuddering in open rebellion when you try to call upon the shield. You retch again, and this time the metallic tang of blood fills your mouth, more leaking from your nose. You may as well be a mechanical engine spluttering out false starts before its untimely death for all the good the attempts to use your psionics are doing, and even so you’d keep trying if Sign didn’t literally wrestle you onto your back.

You paw at his shoulders as he pins you. “Gotta - they’re g’nna, g’tta…”

“I don’t see any ships following us yet,” he says. “We’re moving fast enough to lose anyone who starts now.”

“We don’t have weapons, w’happens when they sink a cannonball through-”

“We will deal with that scenario if it happens. It’s not happening now.”

“I can shield-”

“Not right now you can’t.” Sign’s hands are oddly cold where just a minute ago they felt warm. “Right now you’re coming below deck and cooling off.”

“Have to -”

He shares an anxious glance with Rosa, and you don’t miss the stony expression on her face. “Everything’s fine,” he says, except Rosa looking like that is an indication nothing is fine. You try to sit up, to catch a glimpse of the harbor over the walls, but Sign’s still determinedly pinning you.

“Sign-”

He rolls off you, but before you can move, he’s lifted you in his arms with a low grunt. The sudden swinging of the sky above you brings the nausea back full force, so you close your eyes rather than focus on the harbor from your new vantage point, biting down on a whine of pain.

You have just enough strength left to wrap your fingers in his cloak. “If you let this fucking boat sink,” you tell him, “I will kill you.”

Then, exhausted and sick with pain, you let the world fall away.

Chapter Text

When you wake up, you can’t move.

Awareness comes in sluggy stages. Your body is cocooned in the embrace of sopor, floating, the slime cool against your burning skin. The boat is gently rocking beneath you. You’re still on the ship, safe - you crack an eye open just to double check, taking in the dim light from your desk and the peeling wooden walls, but then pain flares in your head. Keeping sensory engagement to a minimum sounds like a good idea, so you close your eyes again and focus on wiggling your fingers and toes, one by one. You’re not paralyzed, but your muscles aren’t cooperating with you in the slightest, and more vigorous attempts to hoist yourself up just end in supernova pain flares.

Warm fingers brush your cheek, warm, warm, and at least you’ve cooled down enough that temperatures are back in balance. You open your eyes again, very slowly, filtering in bare flecks of light, and take in Sign’s fuzzy shape before you.

“You,” he says, measured and calm, “are going to be the death of me.”

Well, he’s not wrong, but you’re pretty sure he’s just using it as an expression. When you unglue your lips to talk, your mouth is so dry you feel like you’ve guzzled two full bottles of soporifics and chased them down with a meal of cotton. “How bad?”

“You are not moving from this ‘coon for three more nights. Mom’s orders.”

You grunt. “Sopor’s gonna get gnarly when I have to piss.”

“You are not moving from this ‘coon except to use the load gaper, and then you’re moving right back, for three more nights,” he amends.

“Tell me what happened.”

“We got away from the harbor safe. One boat ended up following, but one of the psions managed to put a hole in the side before they could sink us. We’re sailing off normal routes so they won’t be able to so easily track us. Seadwellers are a concern, but they’ve always been a concern. There’s enough people here to keep a constant watch on the waters. We’re going to be fine.”

“The supplies?”

Sign pauses. “We broke out our long term supplies and we’re rationing them. We need to get away from the city and the harbor towns around it because they’ll be looking for us, so we’ll stay on the sea a few nights. We don’t have enough for everyone to be comfortable, but we’re prioritizing the weak. Things are going to be tough while we replenish the stocks, but they’re there for emergencies, and this is an emergency. Everyone’s going to survive this just fine.”

He strokes your hair, his voice taking on the soothing quality he uses when he’s talking to hurt or frightened trolls, though you know him well enough to hear the edge underneath. Curled under his chest, bubbling but choked down, there’s anger.

“We should…” You swipe your tongue over your lips, but it doesn’t help the dryness, because your whole mouth is a sun baked desert. “Go back to the last town. The lowblood one. Get Shayna’s help. Might piss her off, but they allied with us, we’ll be safe.”

“We can’t go back the way we came without running into other ships,” Sign says. “We need to keep moving forward.”

“It’s the safest place we know.”

“And it won’t be safe anymore if we’re followed back there.”

You swallow, painfully. “I need water.”

“Oh - of course. Hold on.”

He vanishes for a moment, returning with a flask. Half out of spite and half out of pride, you try to take it yourself, but you can’t even raise your arms above the rim of the ‘coon. Holding you to three nights of rest won’t be hard at this rate, with your body screaming such protest that Sign has to hold the cap to your lips so you can drink, but even so you huff with exasperation.

“This is ridiculous,” you tell him. “I have things to do. People to contact. Gotta find us a safe place to dock, plan how to replenish the supplies, start working on the slaves’ new identities - don’t have time to lay around-”

“Psii,” he says, raising the flask again, letting you take a few more long gulps, “you’re staying still, or so help me, I will personally call down the wrath of every single nonexistent god to intervene.”

“I have stuff to do.”

“I literally do not care.”

“I don’t stop needing to do stuff just because my joints hurt. Let me-”

“Psii.” Sign sets the flask aside once you’ve emptied it and braces his hands on your shoulders, pushing you deeper into the slime, your head flopping idly against the rim of the ‘coon. “I have never been more serious about anything. You need to rest.”

“You can’t make me rest. ‘Sa fuckin’. Free boat. A wooden oasis free from oppression. Anarchy. Ayy.” You manage to crane your neck just enough to nuzzle against his arm. “Can’t tell me what to do. In my mind I’m giving you an anarchy fist bump.”

Sign breathes out slowly through his nose, and the edge in his voice is more pronounced when he speaks again, strings stretched too tight over an instrument. “I am trying very hard not to start a fight with you, so please, for once, listen to me.”

“No, you listen to me. Half this revolution only functions because of me, I can’t just-”

“Psii.” Now his voice is shaking with the repressed anger. “You cannot go on like this.”

“Grab me the cane, it’s fine. It’s not like I’m gonna do laps around the deck, I just-”

“Shoosh.” He presses his hand to your face, and the harshness of the word makes it sound a lot more like shut up, and you are so genuinely surprised by the aggression that you do.

Once he’s certain you’re not going to start protesting, he speaks again. “You have limitations.”

“I slept, I cooled off, I’m good now.”

“I am going to scream.”

“That’s not going to help my headache.”

“I am about to lose my fucking shit in every way imaginable, Psii. Look at me. Are you hearing me? I am about to spray molten feces all over your cabin. I am about to erupt a volcano of diarrhea so intense it burns a hole through the floor. I am going to sink this ship by sheer force of exasperated bowel movement. Do you understand what I am saying to you? Do you understand. I am going to explode and all that will be left is a smear of mutant blood and a pile of acidic crap, which you will have to clean up yourself, which you can’t do because you’re so worn out you can’t fucking move.”

You nuzzle his hand. “Why don’t you write all your sermons this poetically?”

He sits back on his heels. “I’m starting to believe in the power of prayer. Some sweet, blessed, holy divine force from above, keep me from putting my fist through Psii’s wall.”

“You would never. You pap highbloods.”

“And yet. Somehow I have never felt quite this tested.”

You sigh and relent, because poking Sign with a stick is fun, but you don’t want to accidentally go too far. “There’s too much to do,” you tell him, softer, beseeching. “I’ll rest once there’s less to do.”

“Listen to me. Just listen to me for a second, okay?”

“Ugh. Fine.”

“We’ve got everyone sorted into cabins. Yours is the only single one because you need the rest. The wigglers are in with my mom, everyone else grouped up according to their comfort. It’s cramped, but it’s manageable. We’re going to be on the ocean for a few more nights no matter what you do. We have a team of psions who can watch the water for seadwellers and monsters. We have more capable people running the ship right now than we’ve ever had before. They don’t need their new IDs immediately. We are in stasis right now. There has literally never been a better time for you to rest.”

“Right. Forty unfamiliar trolls on our boat, some of whom are injured, all of whom need to know about their futures, harbor patrols sending out scouts to find us, emergency networking to do - yeah, there’s never been a better time for me to take a fucking vacation.”

“You are sick.”

“I can do just as much as…”

“Psii.” His voice cracks, and with a sudden swoop of horror you realize he’s on the verge of tears, translucent red droplets trembling on his bottom lashes.

“Wait, no, don’t cry,” you say. “Shit, don’t cry, I can’t pap you right now.”

“I’m trying not to!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t - I wasn’t - damn it to hell. Get in here with me, you jackass, we’re snuggling.”

He opens his mouth, looking like he’s going to reject the demand, then shuts it. Pauses. Nods. “Okay,” he says, stripping off his cloak and leggings and sliding in beside you.

He is exceedingly careful as he aligns his limbs with yours, trying to move your body as little as possible, which results in him being sort of awkwardly curled around you like an affectionate but uncoordinated centipede. You manage to angle yourself onto his lap and rest your head against his shoulder, and that movement alone takes so much out of you that you nearly pass out again, so. Maybe he has a point.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” you whisper. “Not real upset, I mean.”

“You are.” Sign stops short and laughs, a little hysterically. “The most absurd troll. I have ever met.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please listen to me.” He rests his fingers in your hair. “You - I don’t think you realize - fuck, I don’t know how to say this in a way that doesn’t sound condescending. I’m afraid you’re going to kill yourself if you go on like this.”

“Sign…”

“Please. Hush. How much do you even remember about what happened?”

You shudder slightly, your eyes closed again, bringing up mental images of the frantic flight from the harbor. “I couldn’t get the shields to stick.”

“That’s what you’re taking away from this? You couldn’t get the shields to work?”

Misery snags a thorny tendril around your ribcage, makes you shiver, threatening to tug you into a downswing. You try to shove it away, focusing on the warmth of Sign’s skin against your body. “I don’t feel well,” you tell him, soft.

“I know.”

“I messed up.”

“A little.” Sign circles his arms tighter around you when your shivers become more pronounced, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You have put yourself through so much over the past perigree or so. You’ve barely stopped to breathe. You were possessed by a fucking subjuggulator, and then you ended up with head trauma, and then you were doing the work with the shields, and then all the work on your husktop - and what happened with the slaver, and protecting the sermons, and saving me from that auctioneer-”

Your mouth crumples at the corners. “I had to do all of those things. Well. Most of those things.”

“And now you need to rest. You’re not equipped to take on that much strain at once. You were coughing up blood when you passed out. I thought you’d ruptured something, I thought - I thought - you can’t fucking do that to me, Psii. You can’t work at full capacity all the time or you’re going to die. Do you understand that? I know how stressed you are, love, I know how hard you work, I know how much responsibility you take on. I’m not lessening the importance of any of that. I’m saying that you need to take care of yourself too.”

“I really. Really don’t feel good.”

“I know.”

The misery tightens, laced with snares of frustration. It’s different from the fear of the future or the helplessness you feel talking to the Demoness. This has very little to do with what might happen or what has happened and everything to do with your present. You breathe deep and remind yourself - you’re resting with your moirail, who you love, and who loves you, and everything is okay right now, except it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a reminder that you’ll always have to wind yourself up to get through the night, that no matter how hard you push the world will push back harder, that you can’t do everything you need to do because of stupid physical limitations.

“I would be better if I was healthy,” you say quietly.

“That is not even remotely what I’m saying.”

“I know. But it is true.”

“Psii.” He holds you closer than ever, pressing a kiss to your temple. “It’s a few nights to rest. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I wouldn’t have hit the wall like I did if I was healthy.” You’re falling now, downswinging too fast to stop, and you hate the childlike petulance in your voice, and you hate that somehow you always come back to this. “I would have been able to keep going.”

“Hey. Look at me. Even trolls who aren’t disabled have limitations. I don’t spend literally all of my time preaching or helping people. Di doesn’t spend literally all of her time writing and hunting. My mother doesn’t spend all of her time sewing and cooking and baking and planning. We take breaks, too. We take time to breathe. You need to give yourself that right now. You’re - you feel like garbage right now because you’re bipolar, you ass. You take on too much at once and then you expend all your energy. You have given a hundred and ten percent, and now you need to give less than that. Three nights of rest to recharge. That’s all, and then you can pick up what you need to do where you left off.”

“I don’t like feeling helpless.”

“I don’t like worrying you’re going to burn out.”

“If we hadn’t stayed in town - if we’d just left after what happened at the auction - this wouldn’t have happened.”

Sign takes a sharp breath.

You don’t know what else to say, because you can at least admit you’re not well enough to get up, which makes arguing about the present useless. And you’re not feeling generous enough about the past to reassure him this isn’t his fault, even though you know it’s your own damn fault more than it’ll ever be his, and you’re downswinging too hard to pick a proper fight - when you get like this, you can’t call up sparks of anger any more than you can call up sparks of joy.

Sign is silent himself for a few seconds, and you brace yourself, fishing through your mind for some kind of regret or rebuttal to any of the things he might say. But then he kisses the side of one of your larger horns and says, “I know. I’m sorry.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. “What?”

“I was the one who made us stay here. I was the one who made the situation dangerous for all of us. I was thinking about the risks I was taking, but I didn’t think enough about the risk and the strain I was putting on the rest of you. For that, I’m really really fucking sorry. I should have given more thought to the rest you needed.”

You close your eyes. “Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

He goes quiet again, but he doesn’t quite settle, which makes you think there’s more coming. You’re not wrong; say what you will about your relationship, but you’re pretty damn good at reading him.

“It was wrong of me to put you in harm’s way and force you to take on more than you can handle,” he says softly. “But I’m still glad for the way things turned out. I wish we hadn’t had to leave in such a hurry, that we’d been more prepared - but I’m glad for the crowds we attracted and I’m glad for the people we met. I’m glad we didn’t leave. I’m glad to have all these people with us, regardless of how complicated it makes our current lives. I would rather cope with a million temporary setbacks and inconveniences than know I’m leaving people to suffer when I could have helped them.”

“Okay. That’s… fair.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m not gonna get mad at you for being proud of the movement. Once I feel less like shit, I’ll be excited too. And probably throw up from anxiety, but I’ll be excited. I wouldn’t want to have left these people behind.”

As you say the words, you know they’re the truth. You can be as callous and cold as you want, but you do have faith in the movement. You have faith in him, and in Di, and in Rosa, and in their combined vision for Alternia. You don’t have the pacifist drive he does, but your blood sings with the call for revolution; it’s in all your anger and viciousness and upset and struggle. These people are yours as much as they’re his, maybe more, and the pain of your uphill battles is always soothed by the people whose lives you can give back. A split timeline, the four of you growing old in peace and letting slavery and violence continue to ravage the galaxy… Sign would never be truly happy, and neither would you. You care too damn much.

That doesn’t mean you’re accepting the true timeline as the only possible outcome, though.

“Sign,” you tell him, once he’s fully relaxed against you, “we are gonna have to talk about it.”

“About what?”

“The future of the revolution.” You slide your hand up and down his side, gentle, a movement you can manage as long as you don’t bend your elbow too far or curl your fingers. “We don’t need to talk about it right now, not if you don’t want to. Not if it’s gonna end up a fight. I don’t think either of us has the capacity to fight right now. I mean, I definitely don’t.”

He mock gasps. “Is that - gods above, did I just hear - did you just admit a limitation?”

“I’m still capable of biting you, asshat.”

Sign kisses your horn again, then lowers his head to press a kiss to your temple, smiling against your skin. “We can talk about it now. If either of us gets too worked up, we’ll table it to talk about after you’re done resting. But as long as we can keep things calm, I don’t see any reason why not. Might even help you feel better, yeah? Getting to talk strategy?”

“Yeah.” You keep rubbing his side, as relaxed as you can make yourself. “I gotta tell you some things. Some I’ve sort of talked with Di about before. Just promise to hear me out and process before you get upset, okay?”

“I will do my best.”

You gather your thoughts in your head, staying quiet as you do, because this is too important for you to screw up. Best not to start telling him about the war, because he responds less to fear than he does to logic, he’s got his whole stupid thing about courage in the face of impossible odds.

“Okay,” you say finally. “What happened in the city, with you interrupting the auction - I don’t know if anything like that is going to happen again. You’re an impulsive asshole but occasionally don’t repeat your past mistakes, so really it’s a tossup.”

“Wow.”

“The point is, though,” you add, “it doesn’t matter whether you’re gonna do anything as dangerous as interrupting a slave auction. What happened with the sermon - the amount of people who showed, the amount of people who were interested - that’s gonna keep happening. You’ve been predicting that from the beginning, right? People are responsive to truth and they’re responsive to the thought of a better life, so they’re going to keep spreading the word and wanting to see you.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

“So in the city we just left. A thousand trolls just heard you speak, and they’re gonna talk to their neighbors, and it’s possible law enforcement will be receptive too. Even if they aren’t, people are gonna start setting up their own networks to help each other, free slaves, whatever. That’s how the movement goes. It branches out like ripples.”

“Right.”

“Okay. So, here’s the thing. As fast as the movement is going right now, and will continue to go, we either need it to be a lot faster or a lot slower. I’m assuming you lean toward the former because fast change is better than slow change. We’re at - at this point where… hmm, okay. We’re kind of caught in the middle of two extremes now. We have a lot of people listening to us and spreading the news about us, which will keep happening, which is good. But we also don’t have the resources to sustain that kind of growth. If we don’t put resources in place and restructure our approach, all of this is going to spiral out of control. Even if the Empire doesn’t move against us, it’ll spiral out of our control. And we definitely want this to be a movement by the people, we want to enable them to keep spreading the word and doing what they can to help, but when you start a brush fire you always want it to be controlled. Because when it gets out of control, you end up doing more damage than good.”

You pause, let him digest. He’s not tense yet, which is a good sign. Instead, when you open your eyes and lift your head the barest bit so you can watch him, his face is pensive. “I think I’m with you so far,” he says. “We can’t afford to have things end like this again without doing something different. The ship’s not big enough to hold this many people. We don’t have the resources stockpiled. The more people that look for our help, the bigger your networks have to be and the more work you have to do, and you’re already overtaxing yourself. We… can’t keep doing things like this without you getting hurt.”

“I mean, all of us getting hurt, but if it makes you feel better to make it about me specifically, then. Yeah. Obviously I can’t handle this kind of strain all the time, and it’ll only get worse if I’m doing everything myself as the movement gets bigger. The four of us can’t be the only stable core. We need stronger allies.”

“Allies. Okay. I’m with you. I am very aware of how important allies are.”

“The way we’re running things now…” You chew on your bottom lip. “Okay. We’re doing things on a sort of… individualistic basis, you know? One town at a time. One city at a time. One group of slaves at a time. And that means we can see a lot of tangible progress in those towns, but it means a lot of Alternia goes without our help. And we’re pressed for time. And I think if we want this to be a planetwide revolution, something that’s big enough that it has to change the Empire before the Empire can squash it down, we need to change our approach to be less individualistic.”

“Less individualistic how?”

“Okay, let’s say we focused less on getting individual highbloods to ally with the cause and instead… institutions. Institutions of power, and the people in them. Got them to turn away from Empire ideals and adopt the movement’s.”

Sign sits up now, frowning at you, but he looks more confused than tense. “That’s the kind of thing you always say is impossible. That you have to start with the common people before you can dismantle the institutions.”

“I’m just musing about strategy.”

“So, what institutions are you thinking about?” He swallows. “The Church?”

You laugh. “No. Fuck no.” You’re not going to have this talk all over again. “I was thinking more about the outer colonies, their governments. We already know we have some allies in some of them even if they aren’t government-affiliated. If we went into space, we’d be harder to track if the Empire decided to send people after us. And the colonies are set apart from all the planetside violence. They’re like little worlds unto themselves. If their governments are responsive to us, and stop trade with the Empire, and create safe spaces for the trolls we’re rescuing, we gain a huge advantage.”

“That…” Sign’s voice is careful. “That sounds more like military strategy than movement strategy.”

You try to shake your head, but your neck is too stiff. “I’m not talking about starting a war with the Empire. All I’m talking about is network expansion, because if the movement keeps growing exponentially then we’re going to need it. I’m talking about passive resistance. Stopping trade is passive. Demanding better government is passive. If the Empire loses its colonies, it has to listen, it can’t wipe out its biggest centers of trade. Our planet isn’t sustainable without those colonies, and the Empress knows it. That’s a place she can see reason. And - and if we do have the colonies on our side, it would help us if the Empire decided to violently strike first. The fewer resources they have, the better things are for us.”

Sign curls his fingers around yours under the slime. “Everything you’re saying… makes sense. But you know I don’t want to raise an army. I’m worried that if we unite the colonies against the Empire, they’ll prioritize violent strikes against passive resistance.”

“That’s why we have you with us. You know how to talk to people, to lay down logic. I can too. When your reasons for passivity don’t make an impact, I can lay out my own case. Shift the dialogue.”

“And you really think we’d have a chance at forging allies with them?”

“I think… it’ll probably vary place to place. But there’s a good chance people living outside the violence on planet will be receptive to a peaceful movement.”

“But we’d need to leave the planet to talk to them.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like that part.”

“I figured you wouldn’t.”

Sign’s jaw works for a moment, and he leans against the rim of the coon again, but there’s tension in his face and shoulders that wasn’t there before. “I don’t want to stop helping people here. People on the planet are the ones who need help most.”

“I’m not saying we’ll stop helping people here. I’m saying we’ll build networks through the cities here, leave it in other trolls’ hands, and handle bigger politics ourselves for now.”

He doesn’t look convinced, so you press on. “Look at it this way, okay? There’s people who we might have reached in the moment, and in this moment they’re still gonna be suffering. That fucking sucks. I don’t like it either. But you have to broaden your perspective. It’s about more than just the one town we’re in at the time. It’s about the whole future of the planet. If we go off planet and we make enough allies to enact fundamental change in the Empire, there are millions of trolls who’ll be directly affected. The only difference is that you don’t see the changes as immediately, so it’s more like a long term gamble than instant gratification.”

“I am a big fan of instant gratification.”

“I know. But right now pulling back, going big picture instead of individualistic, makes more sense. Do you understand that?”

“I… do. I don’t like it, but I do. Granted, before I agree to fuck off into space, we need to lay a lot more groundwork here. I’m not abandoning the planet without having every confidence that the movement will keep growing here without me.”

“Okay. That’s fair, I can understand that.”

“Did you - I mean, obviously you’ve been thinking about this for a while. Probably since before we hit the city. You’ve just been waiting for the movement to get big enough that these thoughts are relevant.”

“Is that an observation or an accusation?”

“Observation, I think. I couldn’t get mad at you for thinking strategy any more than I could get mad at myself for having really long imaginary arguments with strangers in my head. But did you have anywhere in particular in mind? Any colony you wanted to start with?”

You bite the inside of your cheek, hazy idea taking shape in your mind like a camera sliding into focus.

“Let’s go to Aldareth.”

Chapter Text

You do rest. After a short argument, Sign and Di agree to share your cabin while the ship is crowded so that the slaves can borrow their recuperacoons. (“You’re not going to get as much rest if you have us bustling around in here all night.” “You really think I’m gonna get the blissful slumber of the messiahs if I’m alone with my thoughts for nights on end?” It really was a short argument.)

You’re technically banned from your husktop save fifteen minutes each night to check on your existing communications and make sure everything’s okay, and you haven’t been out of your cabin to speak to the slaves, because Sign and Rosa both say it’s just going to exhaust you, and they’re probably right. Sign is an endless wellspring of energy when it comes to helping people - if anything, interacting with them makes him more energetic - but too much pain at once is still too much for you. You’re built for background networking, not front lines assistance.

Sign assures you everyone’s doing okay even despite the cramped quarters; no fights have broken out, which is surprising with the amount of strangers living under stress, and you figure maybe a lifetime of servitude has made them averse to starting conflict. Rosa has her hands full with the wigglers, and you really do need to figure out where you’re going to dock, and you need to get started on their identities sooner or later, but every time you bring it up Di shushes you and says she’s got the sailing well in hand.

Since you’re not allowed to fret about resources or the immediate future or networking or anything else you’d normally be fretting about, you talk long term future instead. Dozing in your ‘coon, Di splayed across your pile, Sign sitting backward in your desk chair, you discuss your colony thoughts with them. You may be on ordered coonrest, but they know you’ll go batshit if you’re not allowed to do something productive with your time, even if that productivity is just shooting the shit about hypothetical scenarios.

You’re doing really well with the plan - describing how you can get in contact with trolls you haven’t met in person yet, start delegating the task of identity creation to other hackers, fortify the escape networks, pondering how to choose which trolls will need to vet the other trolls since you can’t handle a planetwide resistance all on your own - except then Di asks, “And how exactly are we getting into space?”

Sign props his chin up on his hands. “Stowing away, I figured. We need to redo our identities anyway since the harbor fiasco. Might as well use the new ones to book passage on a starship.”

You’ve at least recuperated enough to move, so you twist around in the ‘coon until you can rest your chin on the rim and watch them both like you’re splayed on your stomach in a moonlit lawnring. “I was actually thinking we should get our own starship.”

Sign scoffs. “I’ll just check my pile for a loose million caegars.”

“I was thinking we should steal our own starship,” you amend.

Di squints. “Who are you and what have you done with Psii.”

“What?!”

“‘No, no, you can’t stand on that rock to preach until I get specific intel about every person who’s ever passed that rock or stepped on that rock and that rock’s feelings about hemoequality.’ You’re gonna go from that to starship jacking?”

“Go big or go home.”

Sign mirrors Di’s expression exactly. “This sounds like a really bad idea.” A pause. “And I’m me."

“Look,” you say, “we’re risking a lot still being on this ship, even if we rename and repaint the damn thing. A few more close calls in any harbors and we’ll have to trade it in for something else. We might as well take a starship instead of an ocean faring ship.”

“You can’t trade in a small ocean faring ship for a starship,” Sign says.

“You can if you’re doing it illegally. And if the starship is decommissioned. And you’re getting it from pirates.”

“Right. Not only do you want to steal a starship, but you want to steal it from outlaws, who are probably slave smugglers.” Di sticks her tongue out at you.

“I haven’t made a concrete plan yet, okay? I just know there’s a lot of perfectly good ships in scrapyards because their captains turn them in for a new model at the earliest convenience. And they’d be easiest to nick since they won’t be reported missing as quickly.”

“Why throw away a good starship?” Di asks.

You avert your gaze. “Helmsman burnout, usually. Less powerful ones, permanently grafted ones. They melt down and then the captain swaps out for a newer ship model instead of replacing the broken part. Like upgrading a palmhusk instead of repairing it. Military trolls are weird about resource waste.”

“So it would be a military ship.” Sign presses his lips together.

“I’m not saying we nick a ship just because it’s military. But the military ones do have better shields. If we could grab something designed for a flaysquadron, something small enough to be operated by a tight-knit crew…”

“And the pilot? You’re just going to conveniently skim over that?”

You shrug as well as you’re able, letting your body sink deeper into the slime, feigning nonchalance. “I mean, you’ve got a perfectly good pilot already.”

There’s a small pause, and then Sign swings his leg over the chair, getting to his feet. “Well,” he says, “that was a fun hypothetical while it lasted.”

“I’m a good pilot!”

“We’re not even going to indulge this discussion.”

“I’m a good fucking pilot.”

Di unfolds herself from your pile, drawing herself to her feet, though she crosses the room to angle herself between you and Sign rather than physically taking his side. “You’re still on coonrest,” she says, turning to you. “We shouldn’t talk about things that’ll get any of us worked up. We can table this for later.”

“He’s on coonrest because he half burned himself out already!” Sign says, throwing his hands up with exasperation. “We just got through how he needs to stop overtaxing himself! This is not going to help that!”

“I-” you start, but Di raises both of her hands to silence you.

“We talk about it later,” she says firmly. “You” - pointing at you - “aren’t going to let this go unless we agree to discuss it, and you” - pointing at Sign - “aren’t doing anyone any favors by starting a fight right now. Let’s talk about other things. Psii, let’s say we stow away on a ship instead of stealing one. How do you propose we safely get an audience with Aldareth’s government?”

And with that, you ease back into less tense conversation.

don’t go to aldareth
TA: what
TA: ok II came to the conclu2IIon that II 2hould go of my own accord 2o
TA: that mean2 goIIng wIIll be true tIImelIIne rIIght
TA: and you’re tellIIng me not to 2o II can 2plIIt
i am telling you going is a bad idea
TA: rIIght
TA: unle22 me not goIIng II2 the actual true tIImelIIne
TA: and your IInterventIIon II2 what cau2e2 that to happen
this is a case where i can’t tell you which choice creates the true timeline and which doesn’t
i need to withhold information due to the nature of who i am
and the nature of my job
but i do not think you should go to aldareth
TA: 2o there’2 two optIIon2 here
TA: one: goIIng to aldareth cau2e2 the true tIImelIIne to happen and you’re advII2IIng me to 2plIIt
TA: two: not goIIng cau2e2 the true tIImelIIne to happen and you’re tellIIng me not to go becau2e you need to pre2erve the true tIImelIIne more than you want to protect me
TA: that’2 what all the 2hIIt about you manIIpulatIIng and betrayIIng me II2
you have a remarkably astute grasp on the subject
TA: you’ve alway2 been clear about whIIch path cau2e2 2plIIt2 and whIIch doe2n’t before
TA: why 2tart beIIng cagey now?
TA: are we clo2er to the end than II thought?
we all have our roles to play
i am your friend
and i want you to succeed very badly
but it is the nature of my job to make things happen as they are meant to
every conversation we have is carefully calculated according to what can best preserve my ends without interfering with my master’s orders
TA: that tell2 me ab2olutely nothIIng
it tells you why i can’t tell you more
TA: are you doIIng thII2 to advocate a tIImelIIne 2plIIt or to pre2erve the true tIImelIIne?
both
one version of you will choose one path
the other will choose the other
TA: you’ve told me before that we can’t IInteract IIf II’m IIn a doomed tIImelIIne
TA: and you won’t tell me whIIch choIIce II2 true tIImelIIne
TA: but II’d know IIf II made the true tIImelIIne choIIce a2 2oon a2 you me22aged me agaIIn
TA: makIIng thII2 exercII2e poIIntle22
TA: unle22 thII2 II2 the la2t place II can 2plIIt
we are going to meet soon
when we do it will be too late to forge an optimum outcome
this is the last place i can help you
TA: where am II 2uppo2ed to go IIf we don’t go to aldareth
wherever your instincts lead you
TA: tell me whIIch choIIce II2 true tIImelIIne
if i did that
how could i ever convince you to make it?
TA: maII
TA: plea2e
TA: what’2 the poIInt of thII2 conver2atIIon IIf you can’t help me
the point is that it causes a split
one version of you will make the true timeline decision and one will not
you just don’t currently have the power to know which version you are
i’m increasing your opportunity for success one more time
TA: there’2 no way thII2 II2 the la2t place we can 2plIIt off
TA: there’2 2tIIll a 2hIItload more that need2 to happen
this is the last place a timeline split is most likely to benefit you
pre-war
as soon as the war starts you’ll be at a disadvantage
TA: then how do II delay the fuckIIng war
i have given you all i can right now
i am sorry for bringing you stress
it is necessary at the current moment
for what it’s worth
when you lose your family
i will still be with you
you will be very angry with me for a long time
but i am your friend and i will remain your friend
i am truly sorry for the role i play in all of this
TA: you dIIdn’t a2k for thII2 lIIfe
TA: IIt’2 not your fault
psii
TA: yeah?
this is
an indulgence i should not allow myself
especially on account of you having much bigger concerns
but i don’t think i’ll ever get a less painful place to say it
i care very much for you
and if i could ease your pain completely i would
you will not be completely alone in the true timeline
you will be very unhappy and you’ll wish to die
and i’ll be unhappy and wish to die
but we will be able to commiserate together
TA: wow romantIIc
i am not presumptuous enough to lay any sort of claim to you
you already have your true moirail
but
i am glad for the chance not to spend this eternity alone
and for that relief i’m also sorry
TA: you… want me to become the helm2man?
no
but i sought your friendship because you are the only troll who will ever know the kind of unending hardship and despair i have
and i don’t want to be alone in this
and you won’t either
as i am powerless to change your true timeline fate the best i can do is make the most of it
i am not the Empress
i do not seek to conquer people or force their affections
but i sought friendship with you for reasons more selfish than callous timeline manipulation
if we are both doomed to be miserable we may as well be miserable together
TA: fuck
TA: maII
as i said this is an indulgence
there is no opportune place to say these things and saying them has very little bearing on timeline progressions
i just wanted you to know
i won’t let you be alone
TA: ...thank you
i’ll leave you be now
i recognize most of that was probably inappropriate to say considering you have a palemate
i am not always great at embracing social constructs on account of being death
you have a lot of work to do
TA: waIIt don’t go yet
TA: fuck
TA: are you gone?
no
TA: II don’t want you to be unhappy
thank you
TA: II don’t want you to be alone eIIther
thank you
TA: thII2 whole 2IItuatIIon II2 way fucked up
TA: II’m not bothered by the pale IImplIIcatIIon2
TA: are you ab2olutely 2ure the true tIImelIIne ha2 to go lIIke IIt doe2
it can’t be altered
TA: you can’t lIIke
TA: 2ort of redraw the path2
TA: punch a hole out of the maze
it doesn’t work like that
TA: worth a 2hot
the true timeline both will happen and has already happened
time is much less linear than you think
i have been at the beginning and the end
there’s no changing it except through doomed timelines
TA: IIf II 2plIIt off II won’t ever get to talk to you agaIIn
that’s true
but you needn’t fret
if you win there’ll be no need for me
TA: II’ll mII22 you
the lost friendship is worth a favorable outcome
TA: obvIIou2ly
TA: but II’ll 2tIIll mII22 you
tread lightly
if you end up helmed regardless in a doomed timeline
i won’t be there to ease your pain
TA: maII
yes?
TA: are you ever not mII2erable?
when i talk to you
you’re the first real friend i ever had
TA: okay
TA: then we 2hould keep beIIng frIIend2
TA: when all the crap goe2 down
you will be angry with me
TA: that’2 2tupIId why would II be mad over 2hIIt you can’t help
you already have been it’s inevitable
TA: tIImelIIne fuckery II2 2tupIId
TA: but you 2hould tell me whIIch choIIce make2 thIIng2 true tIImelIIne
TA: one of me wIIll choo2e the path that 2plIIt2 2ure but
TA: one of me wIIll choo2e to 2tay wIIth you
oh psii
no you won’t
but nice try
TA: c’mon
TA: maII?
TA: you 2tIIll there?
TA: god dammIIt

She doesn’t reply again, not even when you reiterate or rephrase your questions in the hopes of getting some vague hint. Freed from coonrest, you’ve been catching up on your communications, of which there about a million to keep track of. Your body is still recuperating even if you are allowed to get up and around now, and this conversation is not helping your ever-present headache at all.

You table the other conversation you need to respond to, opening up a strategy program instead. You yanked the source coding from some of the tools you used when you were jacked into Imperial networks, but you’ve made it your own. It’s an organizational tool meant to keep information straight and simulate battle outcomes based on variables, though you haven’t fortified it with enough variable information to make the simulations reliable. Mostly you use it to trace potential outcomes and keep track of your contacts, branching webs of complexity that no troll can keep in their mind all at once.

All of your notes are password protected and buried among the archives of your husktop. You’ve backed them up to a few flash drives tucked in your desk, but you’ve never uploaded them to the Internet for fear of making them vulnerable to hackers. You may be the best of the best, and confident in your ability to hide remote servers, but it never hurts to be cautious. Best not to put all of your information in one place.

You open your timeline notes, which are by far the messiest, reminiscent of the protagonist legislacerator in an old flick stringing together newspaper articles on a corkboard. Keeping everything electronic is less visually appealing, but it also keeps your shit from being immediately accessible to everyone who walks into your cabin.

You’ve been keeping the notes since long before the Demoness agreed to help you. They’re a strange combination of strategy and desperation, and not nearly as complete as you’d like. If your visions could be more concrete, if she could give you more solid answers, if you knew exactly when Sign’s execution happens, maybe you could fathom the future into something penetrable. But it’s branches of potential plans, bright notes on old splits and deviations, the future nothing but blank space with vague omens. Nothing in here and nothing in your head tells you whether going to Aldareth is a good idea or not - this just looks like the half-mad scrawlings you make when you’re too manic to think straight, even though you’ve been lucid every time you thumbed through this file.

You pinch the bridge of your nose and close out of it, forcing yourself to think straight. It’s a bad idea to go to Aldareth because you’ve been tasked with spying on their government. If said government finds out, it’ll fuck up your potential for allyship. If the Empress finds out you’re there, the potential for all of you to be captured flies through the roof. You’ll be keeping even more secrets than usual, tugging on a million political threads, and one wrong move will collapse them all. It’s a bad idea to go because you should start somewhere with less weight, except you don’t have time to do that, not if what the Demoness says is true. It’s a bad idea to go because you’re overcomplicating things, biting off more than you can chew, and that’s the kind of reckless arrogance that can bring a revolution crashing down.

It’s a good idea to go because the Empress has problems with the government, which means they may be receptive to you. It’s a good idea because you already understand the ins and outs of the colony. It’s a good idea because it’s a safe enough place to rehome slaves to, and because the government’s leader is a rustblood. It’s a good idea because they’ve got both strong trade hooks and a research & development sector the Empire is sinking funds into. It’s a good idea because knowing the Empress is looking into the Advocate can give you leverage if you don’t fuck up.

What was it Mai said, when she was explaining why you’d go behind your family’s back to assist the Empress? Keep your options open. Multiple different potential paths are better than one. If you divert your course to a different colony, you’re playing safe, and you might not have time to play safe. You have to get in front of the war before it starts. Going to Aldareth leaves you multiple choices, multiple potential outcomes, and not all of them are disastrous. Even if that option is the true timeline one, and things fall apart because of your own stupidity, there will be split paths that afford better outcomes.

Which makes it less likely to be the true timeline path, right? If Mai wasn’t going to help you split again, that would mean you were taking a route with fewer options, less room for deviations.

You shake your head to clear it. She hasn’t given you enough hints to figure out what the correct decision is, because she’s half friend and half enemy, and you never know which purpose she’s serving. If you keep torturing yourself trying to figure it out, you’ll just go in circles and rear your migraine back to fullness. You’ll continue your planned course, go with your instincts, keep your eyes open for signs of impending danger.

“Caegar for your thoughts?”

You jump and almost slam your husktop shut as you look up at Di, scanning your open windows. Nothing incriminating there. She can’t see your screen, and she just smiles; she’s had similar reactions when you’ve walked in on her writing embarrassing poetry.

“Getting back to work,” you say.

You’re situated in your pile rather than sitting at your desk, since the blankets and pillows are better for your back. She plops down next to you and breaks into a pleased purr, kissing your cheek.

“Stupidly overworking yourself?” she asks.

You shake your head. “I’m trying not to. I’ve got a shitload of stuff to do. I wrote out a list. I’m taking it in chunks, with breaks, since Sign will have an aneurysm if I don’t.”

“I will also have an aneurysm,” she says, patting your hand where it rests on your keyboard. “You really scared us.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” She leans against you, your arms pressed together, her hair tickling your cheek where it fluffs in all directions. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Are you literally trying to pile me? I mean, we’re sitting in my pile, but.”

“I am just trying to get a handle on your feelings!”

“Sounds like you are trying to pile me.”

“Semantics.”

“Everyone’s pale for me these nights,” you mutter, shutting your husktop and turning your attention to her. “I’m doing okay, honest. Feeling a lot better physically. Not quite a hundred percent, but I’m never feeling a hundred percent.”

“And the stuff we were talking about, with delegating your work. Have you started that yet?”

“It’s on my list for tonight. Some of it, anyway.” You shake your head. “There’s a lot to do. Networking is boring, though. How are the slaves? No one’s dead? No one’s tried to kill each other?”

“We haven’t run out of supplies yet. The sick are mending. No one who came was beyond help - they’re all doing better with food and a chance to rest. Still too cramped here, illness might be catching, but since there’s nothing as serious as the daywalker virus onboard I’m not too fussed. You’d know already if anything had gone horribly wrong.” She takes your hand in both of hers, examining it like a curious docterrorist rather than patting it again.

“Uh. Di. What are you doing?”

“Looking at your scars.”

“Uh.”

“You’re a very strange troll, Psii,” she say, matter-of-fact. “I don’t pity you in all the same ways that my husband does. But you are my closest friend, and I am almost pale for you if you squint, so I have decided you get to put up with my opinions. If Sign gets to talk at you about his opinions all the time, I do too.”

“I mean. You can tell me your opinions. I can’t guarantee I’ll listen to all of them.”

“I…” She clicks her tongue, her brows drawn together, her low purr dying off. She looks so strange for a moment, like the court highbloods you’ve watched play political games, stumbling over formalities. Then her expression smooths, and she’s all Di again, smiling at you. “I know Sign’s already yelled at you for worrying us. I doubt I can say anything there that he hasn’t. Plus you probably don’t need to hear all that again, anyway.”

“Probably not, no.”

“You and I…” The frown reappears, and she drops your hand, reaching up to touch your cheek instead. “Sometimes I think we understand each other better than Sign understands either of us. Better than Rosa understands either of us, too. We’re both outsiders. We understand the need to lay the dead to rest. We see beauty in certain kinds of violence where Sign doesn’t. We’re more likely to put aside our own thoughts and mediate than cause conflict.”

“I cause a lot of conflict,” you point out.

“And yet I don’t think you cause nearly as much as you could.” She wraps her arms around her knees. “You think we need an army, don’t you?”

“Uh.”

“I’m not going to tattle.”

“I…” You swallow. “Having an army would be practical. But given that it would be made up mostly of freed slaves and other lowbloods who feel they owe us blood debts - there are a lot of people we could call to arms if we needed to. But I don’t want to. It feels manipulative. I don’t agree with Sign about a lot of finer strategic points, but this - asking people to fight for us because they owe us - wouldn’t make us any better than the Empire’s military. I won’t force that from them.”

“So we go to the colonies to do things passively. And then, if things do get violent, trolls fight for their colony and its allegiance rather than for the Empire. You don’t have to call trolls to arms. You just have to hope people’s loyalties are what you want them to be.”

You shrug. “I’m not thinking much about the mechanics of an army.”

“Bullshit you’re not. You told me there’s going to be a war. If I started thinking about armies, you definitely did.”

“I’m not going to betray what we’re working for.” Your mouth twists as you say it, and you’re certain your expression gives away every awful thought in your head, and you can’t school it back into nonchalance. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t understand why pacifism is important. I want to have backup plans in case things go wrong. But I swear to you, Di - I swear to you - every time I face a problem, I’m looking for ways to control potential damage, not maximize it. When I make ‘just in case’ plans, they really are for just in case. They’re not my first option.”

She watches you for a moment, and you’re sure she’s going to demand an explanation for the awful hollowness in your eyes. But instead she nods. “I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s fucking you up, though.”

“What?”

“All of this. Trying to handle all of this. Trying to do the right thing, trying to minimize violence. It’s fucking you up. Not just the burnout, or what happened with the slaver - I can feel you pulling away from us, Psii. When you came to us after the slaver incident, I was surprised, because I figured you were just going to shut down and pretend things were fine. And I don’t want to feel like that. I don’t like feeling like I’m losing you. It scares me.”

“Sign doesn’t trust me,” you tell her, the words out before you even realize what you’re about to say. You want to take them back. You can already imagine her response. Well, you haven’t exactly been very trustworthy lately.

She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Sign isn’t good at preparing for the worst,” she says finally. “He has… trouble, I think, differentiating between being prepared and expecting the worst. It’s not that he doesn’t trust you. You know he trusts you, he’s your palemate. I think he sometimes just - he has such a black-and-white view of the world that he can’t deal with greys. And most of what you do for us is dealing with greys. He doesn’t like acknowledging that even the most ideologically pure revolution is still going to involve some grey decisions.”

“So he thinks I’m morally reprehensible. Awesome.”

“No. He’s stressed, and he doesn’t handle it well. That’s an explanation, not an excuse. You’re the one taking on all of the responsibility. You have more reason to be stressed about all of it than he does, but you don’t talk about it because you’re trying to spare him.”

You shrug again. “I don’t need to talk about it.”

“It’s fucking you up, Psii!” She bares her teeth, frustration rolling off her so strongly you can scent it. “And if you think I don’t know you haven’t told me everything, you’re dreaming. I know there are things you don’t want to say to him, but I at least thought you’d be able to say them to me.”

“You told him I thought you were the messiahs when I asked you not to,” you tell her, surprised by your own bitterness. “So I really don’t think I can tell you things that would fuck up my relationship with him, no.”

She flinches back, minutely, like you’d threatened a smack without quite letting the blow land. Then she swallows. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t just - just sit there and listen to you argue without saying what you actually meant. I hate it when people do that.”

“That’s exactly why I can’t tell you everything I know.”

“Psii…” She drags a hand down her face. “I hate it. I hate it when you do this, I hate it when you act like you have to keep everything secret, I hate it when you won’t let me in. You’re not helping anyone like this. You’re just making yourself sicker and making all of us worry.”

“If they were things that would be helpful to tell you, I would. If they were things you could work out with me, I would. But there’s no point in us all being worried sick.”

“There’s a point in leaning on each other for support.” She hesitates, opens her mouth, shuts it. Then, faster, like she’s trying to get the words out before she changes her mind, “We’re going to lose, aren’t we?”

You can’t answer. The look on your face says enough.

“And you’re trying to fix things so we don’t lose. That’s why you look so sick all the time. You’re trying to fix your visions.”

“Please don’t.”

“You must believe fate can be changed like I do, or you wouldn’t be trying so hard. But your visions haven’t changed yet, right? That’s what all the stuff about new strategies is. You’re trying to fix what you’ve seen.”

You just nod.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, see? That’s not so bad. You’re changing the path we’re on to keep things from spiraling out of control. You’re making smart decisions. You’re using your visions as tools to make things different. They’re scary, Psii, but they’re only visions. They aren’t real yet.”

You nod again.

“You do not look reassured at all.” She huffs softly, but her face is still soft, concerned. “Tell me what I should say. What can I say to make you less afraid?”

“Nothing, I don’t think.”

“But you’re doing everything you can. If what we’re doing now doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. You can find peace in that.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

You laugh, sharp and awful. If we’re the messiahs, what does that make you?

Damned, probably.

“Because it’s me, Di,” you say. “When this whole fucking revolution falls apart, when we’re all burned and worse, when the planet falls to pieces. It’s me. I’m the one who betrays you.”

Chapter Text

You want to take back the words as soon as they’re out of your mouth, but you can’t rewind time, and a more vicious part of you raises its fist into the air. Let this be enough to split the timeline. Let her help me. Let me not be alone. Please, please let me not be alone.

Di goes quiet as the grave, like she’s not even daring to breathe for fear of making a mistake. You don’t blame her, but once the initial desperation dies off, the usual anxious thoughts crowd back in. I fucked up. I fucked up. I fucked up. She’s going to want me to leave.

“You saw yourself betraying us,” she says slowly.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why? I mean, were you… yourself?”

“I wasn’t being mind controlled. At least, I don’t think I was. Maybe I wouldn’t know.”

“Was it tortured out of you?”

“No.”

“But you don’t want to betray us.”

“No. I don’t want - if I’d been - if I’d had malicious intentions from the beginning, Rosa would definitely know. I might be able to fool you and Sign since you believe the best in people, but I’d never be able to fool her. I don’t want any of you hurt.”

“Okay,” she says, much calmer than you expected her to be. “It doesn’t make sense that you’d betray us, then. There’s some piece that’s missing. Some context you don’t have. You’d never hurt us on purpose. You’d never hurt the movement on purpose.”

“I make a mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“I don’t know. If I knew specifically, it would be easier, wouldn’t it? All I’d need to do is avoid doing whatever I’ve seen.”

“So what did you see?”

“I saw…” Your mouth is dry. You try to swallow, but the motion is painful.

And then your cabin door swings open and Sign steps inside, his arms piled with clean towels. He pauses at the sight of you and Di leaning against each other in the pile, his foot nudging the door closed behind him. “I’m interrupting something?”

You start, “No,” but Di says, “Yeah, a little.”

You shake your head at her, just a fraction of an inch. Sign sets the towels down on your desk rather than heading all the way into the ablution block, and then he turns, resting his back against the edge of the wood as he watches you. It’s not jealousy causing the wariness in his movements; he doesn’t get possessive about the pale quadrant, considering how fucking hypocritical that would be. It’s worry you can taste in the air between you, worry about the expression on your face, worry - what can you tell her that you can’t tell me?

“What are you talking about?” he asks, carefully.

“Helming,” Di replies without missing a beat.

You blink.

That doesn’t ease Sign’s tension. “We said we were going to talk about that together,” he says, just as careful.

“We did,” Di replies. “And we’re going to. But Psii needs to figure out what he’s feeling, and you’re not exactly a neutral wall to bounce thoughts off of. That’s not a judgment, just a statement of fact. I’m a better person for him to talk to right now.”

She sounds so calm, so self-assured, that you believe her. Everything she’s saying is a crock of shit, but Sign’s face betrays no distrust, only a small glimmer of hurt.

“I don’t want to be unavailable when Psii needs me,” he says.

Di tilts her head. “Well, are you going to be able to talk about this without getting emotionally involved?”

Sign opens his mouth, and then pauses, his brows drawing together. “No.”

“Then you should let us talk it out instead. I won’t steal all his snuggles for myself, I promise. You can come join the cuddle puddle when we’re done. But for now, it’s better if you go take some more time with the slaves, okay?”

He hesitates.

“Give me a little trust, love.”

The struggle shows on his face, but then he nods. “Do you want me to go?” he asks, directing the question to you.

Here, at least, you can be truthful. “I can’t have this conversation with you without worrying about your feelings,” you say. “And I can’t get through it at all if I’m thinking more about your feelings than mine. I’m sorry. Di will come get you, when I’m ready to see you?”

He does a good job of masking the sting of rejection for your sake; it’s a quick flash, and then it melts away, and he gives you a soft smile. “Okay,” he says, crossing to the pile and holding two fingers toward you in a V. “We’re okay, though?”

“Yeah.” You answer his smile as well as you can, touching his fingertips with your own to form a diamond. “We’re okay. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he murmurs. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to sink into the pile regardless, like he’s struggling hard to resist the urge to fold himself up between you and Di, but then he turns and leaves. Stepping away doesn’t come naturally to him, but he’ll do it for your sake, and the warm glow of that takes away a little of the coldness from your earlier conversation.

“You just lied to him,” you say, once the door is shut and you’re sure he’s out of earshot.

Di shrugs. “I didn’t lie that much. I did originally come in here to talk to you about helming, and this isn’t something you can talk about with him. I would very much like it if you didn’t use that interruption as an excuse to shut back down, though. You were going to tell me what you saw.”

“Swear on your life you’re not going to repeat any of this to him. It’s not - he needs to have a clear head for the sake of the revolution. He can’t do that if he’s worrying about stopping wars or changing fate. That’s why I’ve been working alone.”

“I won’t repeat any of this to him,” she says, “unless I absolutely have to.”

“What constitutes an ‘absolutely have to’ situation?”

“One where it does more damage not to tell than to tell.”

“How are you ever going to know? You don’t see the future.”

“Psii.” She takes both of your hands in hers, shifting to face you, squeezing your fingers. “I don’t want any of this to touch him, for his sake. I know it’s dishonest. I know it’s manipulative. I know that we - you, me, and Rosa - we spend a lot of time shielding him from reality. He is my love. He is my one and only, first, last, always. I am not going to tell him things that cause him pain. You’re more likely to start conflicts and force him to adapt his worldview than I am, and if you don’t want him knowing these things, I will accept that wisdom. Okay?”

“I know he’d forgive me what I’m going to do if he knew,” you say. “But I don’t want to shake his faith. I keep trying - I’m trying so hard to find a way out of this without shaking his faith.”

“I believe you. Tell me what you saw.”

“I saw… I see…” You brace yourself against the pain, calling up the memory of the vision. Speaking the words out loud is equal parts cathartic and panic-inducing, like painting the verbal picture makes the situation both more real and easier to fight. “I see him strung up in red-hot irons. I see the highbloods torturing him into recanting, I see him giving up his faith, I see him cursing the world and dying. I see him damn us. And then I don’t know what happens after that, I don’t know what happens to you or Rosa, I’ve never seen…”

“Easy, easy.” She squeezes your hands again. “What makes you think you were the one to betray us? Something in that vision, or something else?”

“I see myself…” You want to tell her about the helm, about the tangle of ship senses open in your mind, about the neurals scrawling warning flashes about your pulse and oxygen intake and stress levels, but you don’t know how. And talking about what becomes of you isn’t helpful. “I see the Empress with me,” you say. “I see her thanking me for helping her. I see her telling me she couldn’t have done any of this without me. I see her kissing me. It’s not black.”

“That doesn’t tell you anything at all,” Di says, more quickly than you expect. She’s taking all of this a lot better than you thought she would. “It sounds like she’s mocking you. Like you gave something up under torture or mind control. Or you were tricked into doing something you didn’t want to. You can’t feel guilty about that. You can’t feel guilty about things that are her fault.”

“It doesn’t matter whether I intended to betray you or not. What matters is that I do. Somewhere along the line I fuck up, I make the wrong decision, I take the wrong turn - it’s me. I’m the one who fucks everything up.”

“It’s not your responsibility!”

“But it is.” This, this is why you’ve never had this conversation with her, because she has such a fundamentally different worldview from your own, and you don’t know how to make her see. You turn your hollow face to hers and cling to her hands, more like a lifeline than anything. “What if - if we’re destined to fall apart, if the movement is destined to die, what if it’s my purpose to kill it? What if that’s what I was hatched for?”

Finally, finally, there’s a glimmer of the horror you expected all along in her eyes. But she pulls one hand from yours and presses her palm firmly against your cheek and says, “Why would that be our destiny?”

“What if it’s what the universe needs? Temporally?”

“Temporal mechanics again.” She scoffs. “What do the people need right now, Psii? All the slaves, all the impoverished free trolls, all the miserable military and Church members who want something better than slaughter?”

You swallow. “The movement.”

“And you of all people know that. You’re making yourself sick with the fear you’ll betray us even though you’ve never done anything to warrant that fear. What, you’re going to wake up one night and decide tonight’s the night you bring the Empire down on us? Please. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake. Even mistakes with disastrous consequences are just mistakes. If anyone’s going to make the mistake that leads to our capture, it’ll be you, or it'll be Sign. That’s obvious. You’re the one handling all our networks and security and strategy. Sign's principles make him more vulnerable than defaulting to violence would. I could have told you that your mistakes will have bigger consequences than mine, and I don’t have future vision.”

“You…” You let out a frustrated breath. “How can you not be - not be bothered by this? How can you not be scared? Scared for Sign, scared for you, scared for me, scared for the movement? Scared of me?”

“I’ve told you already. I think the present matters more than the future. You can make yourself sick obsessing about the future, but I need to keep my worries here. You might make a mistake that causes Sign’s death. That has always been a possibility. He might also trust the wrong person and end up stabbed. Or I might misread someone’s signal and accidentally bring a hostile troll onto the ship. There are a million different things that any of us might do wrong.”

“But me having seen this one. That makes it more likely.”

“But not an absolute.”

Your headache is flaring up again, and you are absolutely not in the mood to try to explain stable versus doomed timelines to her. You draw away from her and wrap your arms around your knees and say, “Maybe.”

“Okay. So I am going to tell you my opinions. Not about the future - I trust your instincts when it comes to the future, and I’m not going to give myself a headache trying to pick apart all your strategy. But I am going to tell you my opinions about the present.”

“Do I have a choice about hearing them?”

“Nope!” She boops your nose. “I am worried sick about you.”

“Don’t be.”

“Too late. I was worried sick about you before we talked about any of this, too, so don’t start beating yourself up about opening your mouth. I’m really glad you told me. I can’t imagine what it’s been like trying to carry all this weight alone.”

“Hard.”

“Yeah.” She frowns, and even through her concern you get the feeling you’re being watched like a predator scrutinizing prey. “What would you do to keep Sign alive?”

“Anything.”

That answer is easy, pulled from you without hesitation. She nods - you doubt she really expected anything different. “That’s what scares the shit out of me.”

“Not quite anything,” you amend. “I wouldn’t sacrifice you or Rosa. I’d try - I am trying - not to damage the movement. I would if it meant we won, but I am seeking other options.”

“That’s not what scares me. I know you wouldn’t sacrifice my life to save his. I’m not afraid for myself.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You would sacrifice yourself, wouldn’t you?”

Shit. You discover you can’t look her in the face, so you stare over her shoulder instead, studying the patterns of knotwork in the wall like they’re particularly fascinating. “If there was a way that sacrificing myself guaranteed his safety, your safety, the continuation of the movement… that would be the right decision to make. Strategically speaking.”

“You can’t do that.”

“It’s my life. My choices.”

“I don’t care. Listen to me. At least look at it from my perspective for a second.” Di hasn’t removed her hand from your face, and she nudges your cheek in her direction, forcing your gaze back to hers. “You’re getting sicker and sicker by the night. You’ve already overextended yourself trying to protect us. You’re going to do it again. You’re working yourself to exhaustion trying to change what you’ve seen in your visions. You don’t have enough concern for yourself - that’s nothing new, you never have. And you think that you’re going to make a mistake that ends this movement. A mistake that brings you back to the Empress. If you were me, watching you right now, couldn’t you understand why I’d be scared of the sacrifices you might make?”

Oh. You suddenly really, really don’t want to be having this talk, but you can’t exactly get up and walk away now. It’ll just confirm her worst fears. “I’m not going to hurt myself on purpose,” you say, bringing your own hand up to touch her cheek. “Fuck, I know how a lot of my actions must look to you in retrospect. I haven’t been trying to hurt myself for the sake of hurting myself. I’ve just been a little overemotional. I wouldn’t - me being hurt isn’t practical, not with everything I do for this movement.”

She presses her lips together, not looking reassured in the slightest. “And once you’ve delegated your work? Built bigger networks? Made something that’s sustainable outside yourself?”

“I’m still going to have a shitload of responsibilities. It still wouldn’t be practical.”

“Look at me, Psii.” She slides her fingers back, through your hair, and then snags them on one of your horns. “I need you to promise you aren’t going to die, purposefully or not.”

“Well, I can’t really promise against every accidental death scenario that could possibly-”

“Promise me,” she hisses, fierce.

You close your eyes. “I can’t.”

“I need you to.”

“I can’t. If we’re ever in a position where I…”

“Promise me or I’m telling Sign everything.”

You pale. “Di.”

“You don’t care about yourself. If I need to pick up that slack, fine, I will. You’re already - you’ve already gotten too close to self destruction because you don’t care about yourself, and he doesn’t understand why. I understand a little better, now. But you matter. All of this, all this extra work, all the ways you’re pushing yourself, it’s like you’re trying to prove you’re not going to betray us. I already know that. If you die, that’s betraying me. This family matters more than anything to me. This family, unbroken, you included.”

“What if I don’t have another choice?”

“You’ll just have to make one.” Her fingers are still around your horn, holding your head steady. “I know you. As long as you think the option is available, you’ll use it as a fallback. And I’m not fucking here for that. You need to find ways to save us that save you too, because I’m not going to accept your self sacrifice. I don’t care if it limits your options. I don’t care if it makes your plans more complicated. You are not going to die. Promise me.”

You can’t deny her when she’s like this, fierceness and desperation and pain all rolled into one. If things fall apart, if her present becomes anything like the future you’ve seen, then she might understand the meaning of doing what you have to do. But right now she’s scared of losing you, and there’s no point arguing when arguments will make her think you have intentions you don’t.

“I promise,” you tell her, soft.

She relaxes the tiniest bit, but the fierceness doesn’t leave her voice. “Swear it to me. Swear it on my life.”

“I swear on my life.”

“No. My life.”

“Di.”

“You swearing on your life doesn’t mean anything. Swearing on mine does.”

You grind your teeth together, breathing out slowly through your nose. “I swear on your life,” you say. “I’m not going to die. Or at least, I won’t do anything that’ll kill me.”

“Okay.” She releases your horn, settling back, her breathing faster than usual. “Okay. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Helming, though.”

You groan. “Must we actually have that conversation?”

“No, I’ll keep it short. Helming is a bad idea and I don’t want you to do it.”

“Strategically-”

“Strategically, you have a revolution leader who will never be comfortable with it, and if you are helming his starship, he’ll be spending all his time worrying about you when he should be worrying about his revolution. Strategically, you have a bad history with helming and its connotations that neither he nor I can forget. Strategically, neither of us is going to make a slave of you again.”

“It’s different if I consent.”

“Maybe. But in light of what we just talked about…” She runs her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know if you’re consenting because you want to fly the ship or because it’s another sacrifice you’re making to prove yourself. And I am sick to fucking death of you making sacrifices for us. I know you’ve laid out a long argument about how helming makes sense and strengthens our chances, but I don’t care. I’m sick of your sacrifices. Give me one less reason to worry about you. Just one.”

You curl your hands into loose fists, staring down at your lap, both of you too wrung-out for you to believe arguing has any chance of success. “We need a starship of your own,” you say slowly, poking at the prepared arguments you can still use. “In the long run, that’ll be safer than constantly stowing away. Plus it makes planning travel easier, and potential escapes easier, and we’ll have a home. If we’re going to give up the First Ship, we need another place to be our home. But starships have auxiliary power systems created as backups, in case they’re without psionic power for some reason. Some ships, the ones that only stay within one solar system, don’t have troll helmsmen at all. We’ll want a ship that’s outfitted for a helmsman since those are the ones with the capacity for long travel, but we could use the auxiliary power systems instead of a pilot. It’ll mean more work for the bridge crew, and we’d be going a hell of a lot slower, but…”

“But you wouldn’t be helming. Trolls wouldn’t be helming.” She nods. “I like that plan.”

“It makes things harder. Me piloting is the easiest solution. The most practical solution.”

“To hell with practical solutions.” She snorts, looking a little more like her old self, and some of the tightness in your chest eases. “If you can put aside helming, if we can get a starship without a pilot, if we can get into space without getting blown to smithereens, I’m all for it. Let’s steal ourselves a starship.”

Chapter Text

CH: We got $omething.
TA: II’ve 2aIId IIt once and II’ll 2ay IIt agaIIn
TA: holy fuck your quIIrk II2 obnoxIIou2
CH: Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me.
CH: Do you want the info or not.
TA: obvIIou2ly II want the IInfo
CH: Then quit bitching.
CH: Here.
--cementedHoldings [CH] has sent the file map.jpg--
TA: one jpg
TA: of… what
CH: A $crapyard.
CH: X mark$ the $pot.
CH: It’$ the model you want and everything.
TA: on the edge of the 2crapyard
TA: not 2trIIpped for part2 yet?
TA: what kept IIt from beIIng re2old?
CH: Fuck if I know.
TA: well fIInd out
CH: Do I look like your fucking errand boy?
TA: II mean IIf you thIInk PD can do IIt better
CH: Whoa, no.
CH: That is not what I $aid.
TA: call the 2crapyard
TA: or break IInto IIt IIf you’d rather II gue22
TA: pullIIng rank on the phone II2 ea2IIe2t but 2IInce you guy2 enjoy beIIng IIdIIot2
TA: get me the 2hIIp’s IID
TA: II can fIInd IIt2 hII2tory from there
TA: and thank2
CH: No prob.
CH: I’ll let you know what I find out.

TA: II’m 2endIIng you a couple kIId2
TA: a22umIIng you can take them anyway
TA: II know IIt’2 really early and you may not be prepared
TA: IIf you’d prefer II can fIInd another place for them
TA: they’re all lowblood2 all ex-2lave2
DF: how many?
TA: fIIve
DF: how old?
TA: all between three and 2even
DF: we can take them.
DF: how soon will they be here?
TA: gIIve IIt two week2 or 2o
TA: II’m goIIng to 2end them wIIth an adult lowblood guardIIan
TA: 2he mIIght do well IIn your place too
TA: but IIf you don’t want adult2 dII2ruptIIng your populatIIon II’ll get her a dIIfferent place to 2tay
DF: not one of your clade?
TA: no
TA: another ex-2lave
TA: runnIIng from an abu2IIve ma2ter
TA: emotIIonally fragIIle but 2trong enough to hold her own
TA: II’m goIIng to work on gettIIng them pa22age to a harbor nearby yours
TA: from there they’ll hIIke to your town
TA: 2o plea2e don’t 2IIc any daywalker2 on them
DF: why not bring your ship directly to our harbor?
TA: thIIng2 are a lIIttle complIIcated for u2 concrete locatIIon wII2e rIIght now
DF: will they be safe on another ship?
TA: II’ve got 2ome captaIIn2 II tru2t
TA: II’ll make 2ure they end up on a 2afe 2hIIp
DF: the children can stay. i will interview the adult and decide whether she can when i meet her. make sure she has an alternative plan just in case. i will not make any guarantees.
TA: gotcha
TA: hey btw how are you gettIIng all of thII2 when you can’t 2ee
DF: text to speech program.
TA: what cool
TA: waIIt can IIt read my quIIrk
DF: it is fairly good at deciphering your quirk yes. i input some key changes for clarity.
TA: oh
TA: well now i feel like an asshole you should’ve told me i was fucking up your speech program
TA: sorry
DF: no need for apologies. please let me know more about the identities and needs of the children when you get a chance. i will find trolls equipped to care for them.
DF: i saw a video of a troll who looked suspiciously like you and a troll who looked suspiciously like your mutant interrupting a slave auction.
DF: it was idiotic. but impressive.
DF: be safe.
TA: you saw that?
DF: alionn saw first. i am not so down with the cool kid social media, or whatever your generation calls it. but yes.
DF: if an old woman like me can see a video like that, who else might?
DF: food for thought. be safe.

CC: y’know i aint appreciatfin the raydio silence
TA: 2orry II almo2t dIIed and that dII2tracted me for a bIIt
TA: and now II’ve got a bunch of traIItor 2hIIt to do 2pecIIfIIcally to annoy you
CC: almost died?
CC: lol
CC: fo real
TA: II mean not THAT clo2e to dyIIng
TA: but pacIIfII2t2 get 2o wIIldly uppIIty about mIInor burnout2 IIt II2 IIncredIIble
CC: burnouts
CC: ya psionics betta still fuckin work
TA: yeah don’t worry II’m IIn awe2ome condIItIIon to be an engIIne
TA: II don’t have any new IInfo on aldareth yet
TA: 2erIIou2ly II’m runnIIng number2 and they all come up fIIne 2o IIf there’2 2ome kIInd of money launderIIng tax 2cheme goIIng on IIt’2 aIIrtIIght
CC: the r&d tho
CC: whats happenin there
TA: II don’t know 2hIIt about what they’re workIIng on
TA: r&d II2 alway2 a money 2IInk
TA: you or 2omeone hIIgh up IIn government hIIerarchy ha2 to approve money 2IInk project2 anyway though 2o don’t you already know what they’re workIIng on
CC: in theory shore
TA: you thIInk they’re lyIIng about theIIr re2earch?
CC: somefin like that
TA: why do that though
TA: all re2earch II2 EmpIIre re2earch
TA: ju2t a2k the advocate about your 2u2pIIcIIon2
CC: bruh
CC: u think she got in her position wit her blood by befin some kinda blueblood-esque belly baring barkbeast
TA: that wa2 2ome mad allIIteratIIon
CC: i dont trust her
TA: ok
TA: why the fuck
TA: would you put a ru2t you don’t tru2t IIn charge of a major trade colony
CC: cause i trust her to run shit ship shape
CC: just naut N-EC--ES------EARILY to be super honest
TA: ...you had an affaIIr wIIth her
CC: i neva said that
TA: you had a black affaIIr wIIth thII2 chIIck and then you were 2o IImpre22ed 2he dIIdn’t dIIe you gave her a colony
CC: i neva said that!!
CC: but yeah thats what happened
TA: holy fuck
TA: IIn what unIIver2e II2 thII2 a 2mart polIItIIcal move
CC: she impressed me!
TA: II don’t even know what to 2ay IIn all hone2ty
CC: well FORGIV----E me for not fallin in pale with every fuckin troll who walks across my periphery
TA: IIf you were 2IIgn we wouldn’t have nearly 2o many problem2
CC: speakin of
CC: yoar fuckin up
CC: you think i didnt sea that vid
CC: spoiler alert: i did
CC: whats the point of havin you rein him in if ya failing
TA: 2o what are you goIIng to do about IIt
CC: is that a challenge
TA: no II’m not a2 2tupIId a2 the advocate
TA: II’m not gonna challenge you when II can’t wIIn
TA: IIt’2 a legIIt que2tIIon
TA: gotta know how you’re gonna move 2o II can plan
CC: why would i tell you that
TA: becau2e you make 2o many pII22 poor decII2IIon2 already what’2 one more
CC: aint gonna give this personal attention yet
CC: naut enough ppl know to warrant it
CC: i call for his capture all personal and suddenly everyones lookin up who he is and what he stands for
TA: whIIch 2care2 you
TA: becau2e he’2 rIIght
CC: aint about right or wrong
CC: hes fuckin hypnotic
CC: and i dont need my population fallin out from under me to follow some fuckin heretic who aint even got a hatchright to live much less lead
TA: you’re
TA: you’re jealou2 of 2IIgn
TA: II mean II knew you were jealou2 for my 2ake but you’re lIIke actually jealou2 of hIIm IIn general
TA: becau2e he’d make a better emperor than you do empre22
CC: i aint J--EALOUS
CC: got nofin to be jealous of
CC: shore as shell wont when hes ash on the wind
CC: so shut him the fuck up
CC: or i will

TA: hey II know II’m eIIther IIn a doomed tIImelIIne and you aren’t 2eeIIng thII2 or II’m not but you’re not gonna tell me 2o you can’t reply
TA: but anyway
TA: II mII22 you

PD: Ayyyyyyy
PD: I got your shiP ID
PD: And also its Previous caPtain ID
PD: And also a caPtain for the future
TA: 1) 2end me the 2hIIp IID 2) prevIIou2 captaIIn II2n’t that relevant but 2ure 2end IIt anyway 3) II’ll fIInd the captaIIn but thank2 for the help
PD: It’s me I’m the future caPtain
TA: why
TA: why thII2
PD: Because I’m great
PD: Also I set another fire
TA: you dIId WHAT
PD: I’m kidding I didn’t set another fire
PD: Come on this is a good idea
PD: Me nookrot and stitches all get to tag along but we’ll Play by your rules and everything and the rest of the crew is uP to you
PD: We can use our castes to get air clearance
PD: AllyshiP
TA: drag2 my hand2 down my face
TA: look
TA: you three have been helpful but you drIIve me fuckIIng crazy
TA: IIf II have to 2hare 2hIIp 2pace wIIth you II am goIIng to do 2ome kIInd of acrobatIIc fuckIIng pIIrouette off the handle
PD: Do you have someone better to own the shiP
PD: Because if you don’t already have someone in mind I am doing a shitload of work for you
PD: You’re welcome
TA: you realIIze that lIIke
TA: thII2 II2 a real revolutIIon rIIght
TA: lIIke you are engagIIng IIn hIIgh trea2on you mIIght dIIe
TA: thII2 II2n’t bu2IIne22 for kIId2 who want to play at anarchy
TA: IIf you don’t belIIeve IIn what we’re doIIng hook lIIne and 2IInker you don’t want to come wIIth
TA: you’re throwIIng the re2t of your lIIfe away
PD: What life lol
PD: Like I was doing anything to be Proud of
TA: when II a2ked you to fake a fIIght you opted to 2et 2omethIIng on fIIre IIn2tead
PD: I was free thinking!
PD: Plus it worked didn’t it
PD: Also it wasn’t like anyone lived in that hive
TA: DRAG2 MY HAND2 DOWN MY FACE
TA: II2 thII2 ju2t like you guy2’ thIIng
TA: you fake beIIng cop2 now you fake beIIng captaIIn2
PD: Pretty much!
PD: Gives us something to do
PD: And if this thing is gonna be big we want to be on the front lines
TA: none of thII2 II2 what you thIInk IIt II2
TA: IIt’2 not 2ome kIInd of long anarchII2t party there’2 a poIInt to what we’re doIIng and a lot of IIt II2 very borIIng work
TA: the IInformatIIon you’ve been gIIvIIng u2 II2 good and lIIke II 2aIId you’ve been helpful but jumpIIng from that to helpIIng jack an IImperIIal 2tar2hIIp II2 a bIIg leap
PD: Ok you think I can’t connect to the revolution because I’m a blueblood
PD: So here’s a question
PD: Where are you gonna find another trustworthy blueblood to fly a shiP for you in the time you’ve got
PD: All my cards are already on the table
PD: I bet you’d rather have an anarchist blueblood on your side than an imPerial sPy
TA: . . .

TA: hey 2o II know you’re not a bIIg talker
TA: but you know what PD’s up to rIIght
ST: xxx - she’s my moirail most of the time, yeah - xxx
TA: what about the re2t of the tIIme
ST: xxx - kismesis - xxx
TA: great
TA: ju2t what II need
TA: black pale vacIIllatIIon
ST: xxx - what do you want to know - xxx
TA: thII2 thIIng wIIth the 2tar2hIIp
TA: 2he tell you about that?
ST: xxx - she wants to captain yeah - xxx
ST: xxx - are you gonna let her? - xxx
TA: ok look here’2 what II know about you guy2
TA: you’ve got thII2 IInterclade thIIng goIIng on
TA: apparently you’ve all been 2tably together for the better part of ten 2weep2
TA: whIIch tell2 me you’ve ma2tered hIIghblood volatIIlIIty and the blueblood 2tereotype about con2tant revenge 2eekIIng
TA: 2he and you are both ex-mIIlIItary wIIth flIIght experIIence
TA: well not ex-mIIlIItary no one ever leave2 the mIIlIItary for real but you haven’t had an a22IIgnment IIn a2 long a2 you’ve known chlorIIde
TA: who you met toward the end of your la2t deployment becau2e he worked IIn IImperIIal weapon2 development
TA: you guy2 are obnoxIIou2 but you’ve made genuIIne effort to break your blood 2tereotype2 IIn2tead of ju2t talkIIng peace
TA: whIIch II2 why II’ve tru2ted you wIIth anythIIng IIn the fIIr2t place
TA: II need to know what your endgame2 are
TA: helpIIng out wIIth a revolutIIon II2 fun but throwIIng your lIIfe away for IIt II2 2omethIIng only de2perate people do
TA: and II need to know what’2 made you or her or chlorIIde de2perate
ST: xxx - you know all that? - xxx
TA: and more
TA: II’ve got your mIIlIItary fIIle2
TA: II’ve got at lea2t 2ome IInfo on the project2 chlorIIde wa2 a22IIgned to
TA: II’ve got every 2ocIIal medIIa po2t you’ve ever made IIncludIIng deleted one2 IIn deep archIIve2
TA: II’m thorough about vettIIng people
ST: xxx - all of that and you still trusted us? - xxx
TA: II dIIdn’t 2ee actIIve rea2on not to
TA: 2o maybe II mII22ed 2omethIIng bIIg
TA: and IIf II dIId
TA: tell me now
ST: xxx - PD and i washed out of the military - xxx
ST: xxx - probably cullable if we were lower - xxx
ST: xxx - it wasn’t some deep moral standing - xxx
ST: xxx - neither of us is very squeamish - xxx
ST: xxx - but we don't make good soldiers - xxx
ST: xxx - we aren’t smart like chloride and we’re not subordinate enough to work for purples - xxx
ST: xxx - and we aren’t religious enough to take up arms for the church - xxx
ST: xxx - she likes to live for the present - xxx
ST: xxx - but we both still want something we do to matter - xxx
ST: xxx - maybe someday hatch descendants with better legacies to follow than nameless soldiers slain in battle - xxx
ST: xxx - it is all so fucking futile - xxx
ST: xxx - and you guys are radicals - xxx
ST: xxx - but you have evidence to back up the shit you say - xxx
ST: xxx - you’re not just pretty faces trying to flip the spectrum - xxx
ST: xxx - pacifism is fucking hardcore - xxx
ST: xxx - i don’t feel it naturally and i don’t know if i can learn it naturally but for people who’ve spent our whole lives looking for a way to stand out - xxx
ST: xxx - what better way to do that than by not being violent - xxx
ST: xxx - chloride is too soft for the battlefield but he got by because he’s smart as hell - xxx
ST: xxx - he talks a big game but he can’t work on live trolls and he’s apt to pass out around injured people - xxx
ST: xxx - he’s an empath - xxx
TA: an empath?
ST: xxx - other troll emotions - xxx
ST: xxx - he senses them - xxx
ST: xxx - he can’t even manipulate them so it’s basically useless - xxx
TA: that dIIdn’t 2how up IIn my vettIIng
ST: xxx - obviously - xxx
ST: xxx - he’s not exactly going to advertise his own weakness - xxx
ST: xxx - PD needles him and sometimes i gotta auspistice them but that’s the selfish reason for liking pacifism - xxx
ST: xxx - we may not have been hurt the same way as most of your friends - xxx
ST: xxx - but that doesn’t mean we’ve never gotten hurt at all - xxx
TA: okay
TA: all of that actually fIIt2 wIIth what II know about you
TA: IIf - and II mean IIF II’m not makIIng any guarantee2 rIIght now - you three end up comIIng onboard you gotta under2tand a couple thIIng2
TA: ab2olutely no vIIolence what2oever no matter how funny 2omeone look2 at you or what they 2ay
TA: IIf you have a problem wIIth 2omeone el2e on the 2hIIp you take IIt to me or 2IIgn or ro2a
ST: xxx - rosa? - xxx
TA: our jadeblood
TA: IIf you do engage IIn vIIolence II wIIll ab2olutely make a detour to boot your a22 out on the neare2t colony and you’ll be on your own to get pa22age back planet2IIde
TA: you al2o need to know that even though we’re pacIIfII2t2 not everyone we engage wIIth II2
TA: the lIIkelIIhood of thIIng2 turnIIng vIIolent II2 hIIgh
TA: the lIIkelIIhood of you beIIng IIn danger or gettIIng kIIlled or beIIng around 2hIItty troll emotIIon2 II2 hIIgh
TA: mo2t of the tIIme what we do II2n’t bada22 or excIItIIng or happy IIt’2 tedIIou2 and tough and hopele22
TA: chlorIIde mIIght feel lIIke 2hIIt and 2o mIIght you
TA: al2o ab2olutely no ca2teII2t comment2
TA: you wIIll follow order2 IIf they come from me or 2IIgn or ro2a or dII
TA: the four of u2 that make up the movement’2 core
TA: we don’t gIIve order2 often but when we do IIt’2 alway2 for a damn good rea2on
TA: PD wIIll be captaIIn IIn paperwork only
TA: the four of u2 wIIll be runnIIng the actual 2how
TA: and II’ll keep eye2 on you to make 2ure you’re not gonna 2et anythIIng on fIIre
ST: xxx - fair enough - xxx
ST: xxx - pieridae sucks at leading anyway - xxx
TA: IIf IIt’2 a peaceful lIIfe you guy2 are lookIIng for
TA: II can 2et you up on a chIIll colony
TA: you can take 2ome tIIme to thIInk about what you want
TA: PD can be a temporary captaIIn IIf that appeal2 to you
ST: xxx - i’ll talk to them about it - xxx
ST: xxx - but you’ll let us come? - xxx
TA: II’m thIInkIIng about IIt
TA: lIIke II 2aIId no guarantee2

??: hey thII2 II2 a throwaway account and II know IIt’2 rude to hack your offIIcIIal feed but IIf you have a prIIvate trollIIan for conductIIng prIIvate bu2IIne22 II haven’t found IIt
AV: Who is this?
??: II don’t mean you any harm
??: II realIIze that’2 hard to belIIeve when II’m IIn your network but II’ve got my hand over my pu2her and everythIIng
??: II al2o realIIze that you’re a very bu2y troll that’2 why II’m me22agIIng you lIIke thII2 IIn2tead of 2endIIng an emaIIl that’ll get burIIed under a mountaIIn of other IInfo
??: II know you’re the advocate
??: II know you don’t lIIke the EmpIIre
??: that’2 not blackmaIIl II don’t lIIke the EmpIIre eIIther
??: II thIInk we 2hould talk
AV: Mituna Captor.
??: uh
??: ok II lIIterally don’t u2e that name at all
AV: You aren’t the only one with foresight.
AV: Don’t worry. You’re correct to assume we have common goals.
AV: I’ve been looking forward to this, actually.
AV: Let’s talk.

Chapter Text

Three perigrees.

Three perigrees, comparatively speaking, is a very short amount of time to get together a starship crew, find a viable starship, and plan how to get it into space. But when you’re working nonstop save the occasional breaks you take to keep from burning yourself out, it’s torture. A fair number of trolls from the city are not only willing but also excited to head into space, so they make up the bulk of your supplementary crew. But that means three perigrees with an overpopulated ship and the need to make risky shore supply runs. It means three perigrees all but trapped on the ship itself because you can’t risk showing your faces in any harbor towns until the ruckus surrounding the last city has subsided. It means strategic headache that you’d prefer to do without, even if you are trying to funnel all of the complications into positive movement.

Rosa does most of the supply runs, sometimes with Di in tow, since they’re the highest castes around and they’ve both managed to keep themselves out of the public eye. You create a new identity for the boat and Rosa as its captain, stealing the ID of another similarly-sized ship that hasn’t been seen for two sweeps, probably sunk by seadwellers or ocean dwelling monsters or pirates. That’s the easiest way to fashion identifications - rather than trying to input new ones into the system, which would take weeks of work for each individual and set off all kinds of alarm pings, you swipe the identities of likely-dead trolls. You know your way around the Imperial census database well enough to replace photographs and fudge details where need be, and lowbloods are numerous enough and killed often enough that you rarely have trouble finding shoes to fill. Arguably it’s immoral, but you’ve yet to find a better way to help people start their lives over, and it’s not like corpses are still using the names or credit accounts.

The Demoness doesn’t message you, despite the occasional chats you leave to update her on your various shenanigans. Things are going well, almost too well, but you’re still not certain what that means. Either you’re true timeline and this is a lull before everything falls apart, or you’re not and instead you’re drifting through completely uncharted territory.
Regardless of your place in fate, the supply runs all go without issue, and you make no glaring errors in your hacking or encryptions to bring Imperial drones down on your head. Nor do you ruin any of your communications with the Advocate, the rustblood leader of Aldareth and ex-kismesis of the Empress. It’s three perigrees of mindless, steady work, and aside from getting to know the ex-slaves that make up your current crew, each night blends into the next.

The three city bluebloods are… complicated. You can’t fake their identities as easily as you can fake a lowblood’s, but they don’t seem to have reason to throw away their identities to begin with. You know how much money is in each of their credit accounts, and it’s not quite enough to finance a top-of-the-line starship even if they combine it. But it is enough to drag a used starship out of a scrapyard and finance its repairs. They’re the kind of anarchist you’re not sure you can trust, no matter how much Sign insists you ought to give them a chance - but they make the mechanics of acquiring a starship a hell of a lot less complicated. If the ship itself is legal, you can get air clearance even if the crew is full of planet-escaping trolls. The hardest part of getting into space is the takeoff. Even if you fly from a remote area, trolls and satellites keep track of that shit, and you don’t fancy the kind of frenzied flight that would result from having a missile locked onto your hull’s signature.

Still. Regardless of the logical practicality of their allyship, you’d prefer a different captain. The problem is that you’re not going to find a socially aware, non-impulsive, non-criminal, honest blueblood without a hidden agenda anywhere, so you’re sort of stuck working with what you’ve got.

You dock the First Ship in the small town harbor outside the scrapyard. There’s nowhere near the level of security you need to worry about in the cities; the troll who accepts your credentials is a half-asleep brownblood dozing in the one section that makes up the harbor. For ships looking for scrap metal, there’s a bigger city harbor a few miles away that has a more direct path to the yard, but most trolls seeking scrap in the first place have land dwelling scuttlebuggies rather than ocean vessels. That’s why the yard lies inland from here. You have a journey ahead of you, and your funds are stretched thin from the supply runs you’ve done and the trolls you’re providing for, but you have enough hacking prowess to scrape together the caegars necessary for rental vehicles. A few coins vanishing here and there from people’s accounts - if you’re careful, they never miss them. You have to be exceedingly cautious about your financial hacking, given that most Empire network security centers there.

Fifteen of the slaves remain, among them the brownblood factory worker rescued by his greenblood matesprit. Seven of them are psions, because the psions are anxious about being picked up by slavers as soon as you rehome them, which is fair. Psychic trolls are hard to keep safe. They can disappear in large trade colonies or cities, but there’s always the fear of being snapped up by a slaver. You’re doing your best to teach them to shield themselves, but that only goes so far when your own grasp on shields is middling. Adding them to you four and the three bluebloods, you have a crew of twenty-two, which is A) a perfectly acceptable number for a threshie flaysquadron ship and B) a fucking awesome number in general.

Renting a caravan of scuttlebugs and wagons that can carry all of the essentials from the ship is pricey, soaks up most of the funds you’ve set aside for this little excursion. It’s well worth it, though, since more than one of your crew members are disabled and you’re not exactly able to walk for miles yourself and you’ve got a lot of shit to carry. You aren’t bringing anything as big as the recuperacoons, but books and ink and blankets and pillows and clothes and the meager supplies you’ve managed to ration this long - it all takes up two wagons all on its own, and that’s without any trolls inside.

You make sure everything’s organized and no one’s giving your party suspicious looks, and then you tuck yourself into the back of a scuttlebug with Sign and Di, Rosa opting to travel with a small group of women she’s become fond of.

“We’re really doing this,” Sign says.

You lean your head against the back of your seat as the buggy starts off, closing your eyes. “If you’re having second thoughts, the time to tell me was two perigrees ago.”

“I’m always having second thoughts.”

“You are not. You’re the most confident guy I know.”

“He’s always having second thoughts.” Di stretches, somehow managing to take up more space with her splayed limbs than you and Sign combined, but her grin is too wide for you to care. “But we’re doing this.”

“I still need to inspect the ship and make sure it’s safe to fly. And double check all of the official paperwork. And make sure the blues aren’t doing anything stupid for the fifteenth time. And-”

“Psii,” Sign says, leaning forward and resting a hand on your knee. “We know. There’s still things to get in order. Take a breather. Watch the scenery pass. Look at the pretty trees.”

You angle your face toward the window, watching woods flash by on either side of the bug as you draw farther away from the town. “I hate nature.”

Di snickers.

“It’s the worst! Everything in nature is trying to kill you and it’s not even rational about it. Trolls can be reasoned with. Cholerbears and venomous plants cannot.”

“In fairness,” Sign says, “literally everything is trying to kill us, all the time, whether we’re in the woods or in a city or on the ocean.”

“At least sea monsters fuck off when you spark at them,” you grumble. “And seadwellers don’t fuck with small ships that often.”

“We’ve had our fair share of seadweller problems.”

“Seadwellers fuck off when you singe their earfins.”

“Space is going to try to kill us too.” Di wiggles again, uncomfortable in the enclosed space, and manages both to flop across Sign’s lap and elbow him in the face. “One thing goes wrong with the outer heat shields and we’ll burn up before we even leave the atmosphere. And if we have an oxygen leak we might suffocate. And if we have a fire we might blow up. And if the ship gets damaged we might all end up out floating through space forever. And if our navigational systems get messed up we might overshoot a solar system and end up stranded in darkness until we die.”

“Wow.” You squint at her. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem! I have been researching starship disasters. I wrote down some top ten lists. I can show them to you once we get settled in.”

“That is really not necessary. Why would you even.”

“Thinking about everything that could go horribly wrong is kind of calming,” Di says with a shrug.

You meet Sign’s eyes, and he just gives you a half-shrugged I don’t get it either look.

“Anyway. I’m going to make sure the ship functions well enough that there aren’t any disasters.” You wrinkle your nose at Di, and then you turn your attention back out the window. “I have something to show you two when we get settled in, though. Something that sucks less than top ten lists of starship disasters.”

“What sort of something?” Sign asks.

“A project? A plan? Sort of a combination of the two.”

Both of them are reasonably suspicious of your plans. You let Sign struggle with figuring out how to ask whether it’s a terrible murdery plan or something that’s actually beneficial to him, watching him work his way through a few quickly dropped question forms, and then you show mercy.

“It’s a social media thing,” you explain. “Sort of. Kind of. I think it’ll be good for the movement if we use it right.”

“Social media,” Sign says. “Hm.”

You let him ponder it for the rest of the ride, lapsing into silence as trees and the occasional field flick by. Once the forests give way to the barren land that the scrapyard is housed on, you watch more closely, cataloging strange metal landmarks and potentially useful parts just in case you need to come back to them later. The nice thing about repairing a starship in a place like this is that if you do enough digging, you can probably find everything you need without needing to pay out of pocket. You have to pay a toll to enter the yard itself, but that’s nothing unexpected, and the drone at the wall waves you on without a second glance. Your blueblood allies have already arrived and told them to expect a party your size.

The ship is apparent as soon as it comes into view. Unlike the other scattered parts in the scrapyard - there’s an organization to the madness, but it’s hard to see when you’re navigating the mass itself - it’s the size of a city building, and it’s not rusted over the way some of the other pieces are, indicating it hasn’t been here long. Everything about the exterior matches up to what you know about the model. It’s sleek, made for easy takeoffs and landings, better equipped for multiple atmospheric entries in short periods of time than long journeys. Still, even starships made for short journeys serve your purposes provided they aren’t cargo ships not meant to leave their solar system of construction. A flaysquadron ship is outfitted with cloaking technology that you’ll need if you want to stay off Empire radars. You’ll have to go over it a few dozen times to make sure there’s no Imperial tracking devices, and probably need to reconfigure a few of the systems themselves to smooth over safeguard loopholes, but it’s okay. You’ve got an itinerary. You’re still on schedule. You know what you’re doing.

You repeat your itinerary to yourself as you slide out of the scuttlebug and head up to the ship entrance, lest you become overwhelmed by the magnitude of what you’re doing. Three perigrees of preparation went into this, and if Sign isn’t going to back down now, neither are you.

Pieridae meets you on the folded steps into the belly of the ship, holding her knuckles out for a fist bump. You just sigh, but Di picks up your slack so the blueblood won’t be left hanging. Pieridae gives Di an appreciative nod, and you wave impatiently. “Can I get inside, please.”

“Still haven’t grown a sense of humor, I see,” she says, but she steps to the side and allows you entrance.

You feel significantly calmer as soon as you’re inside the ship, which should fuck you up, but doesn’t. With no one around to keep up the interior, the paint is peeling and the tiles are full of dust, trails of footprints apparent where the bluebloods have already been working. It’s gray with red accents, sparse in decoration, sleek. For all their bloodlust, Threshies don’t have the ridiculous lavish arrogance of seadweller generals or the desperate religion clinging that you find with the laughsassins. They worship brutality; they don’t waste their breath on beauty or philosophical ponderings. You let out an appreciative hum and draw deeper into the ship, treading on the dust-worn paths.

Even though you don’t have much experience flying actual starships, you know their layouts in theory. You’ve memorized the map of this one. The wide doors on either side of the hallway before you grant entrance to the cargo holds. When you reach the end of the hallway, you find the spindly metal staircase that’ll take you to the other decks. The middle deck contains all of the respiteblocks; the ship is large enough for each of your crew members to have their own, outfitted with their own ablution blocks and recuperacoon, even though the Threshies bunk more often than they take singles. The top deck has the bridge controls and access to the weapons and defense systems. It’s designed for efficiency, so there’s not much wasted space.

You take the stairs downward rather than exploring upward, though. The cargo holds behind you aren’t the only pieces of the ship on this level. The engine is accessible through the helmsblock, and the door to the helmsblock is at the bottom of the landing. No hallway to it, no more stretches of empty space. This is the back of the ship, a home for all the engine power.

Powered down, there’s no need for an access code or a key. You simply shove the door open. According to the dust trails, someone’s been down here already, so you’re not surprised that the column in the center of the helmsblock has little bits of biocables growing up around it. They would have all withered when the engines stopped nourishing them, but you asked the bluebloods to do you a solid and start repairs, just in case there’s an emergency.

It really is just for emergencies. You intend to keep your promise to Di and Sign, if only to prove that you can be honest when the moment calls for it. You step into the room and close the door behind you. The bioware isn’t advanced enough in its growth for psionic power to flood the engines the way it would fully calibrated, but it is capable of slotting into your spinal ports. It curls around the metal struts of the column like vines on a cage, a slick combination of organic and synthetic material. The gray tiles under your feet are damp with moisture, the walls bare of paper or paint since they’re impractical in the humidity. You tread forward, moving into the center of the room, and wrap your fingers around one of the larger cables. It doesn’t respond to your psychic signature like a malicious thing, but it thrums, and you sense hunger.

The door opens, startling you out of your reverie, and a voice says, “How did I know you’d be down here?”

You turn to Sign, reminding yourself that you have no reason to look guilty. “I’m predictable. Shouldn’t you be helping bring things inside?”

“I figured I should make sure you aren’t doing anything stupid first.”

“I wasn’t about to hurl myself into the column, asswaffle. We’re not even remotely ready for takeoff.”

“You weren’t going to do some sort of, I don’t know, auxiliary engine charge or something?”

“You don’t have to grubsit me, Sign.” You step away from the column and reach a hand toward him, a peace offering more than anything. “I’ll helm if the situation absolutely calls for it. I won’t promise not to do that. But I can promise you I’m not going behind your back.”

He sighs, soft, and crosses the gap between you, taking your hand in both of his.

“Upsetting you like that isn’t worth it,” you add, softer. “I still think that me helming is more practical than using auxiliary engines, and you’re not going to change my mind on that. But I wouldn’t ask it of any of the psions in the crew, so I understand why you won’t ask it of me. I don’t want my arrogance to fuck up a good thing.”

He brings your hand to his mouth, kissing your knuckles. “I’m sorry for doubting you,” he says quietly. “I just worry.”

“I know.”

“Why are you down here, anyway?”

“I wanted to take a look at the engines. Make sure they’ll be able to handle space flight. But I got, uh, a little distracted.”

“I can see that.” He releases your hands and walks deeper into the room, though he gives the helmscolumn a wide berth, instead moving toward the engine room door. “Here, come teach me about how the engines work. You might feel better puzzling through everything out loud. I mean, I won’t understand a word you say, but.”

He’s just trying to get you away from the column, but you can’t blame him for that. You give it one more careful look, considering the manner in which you can slot yourself in if the need presses, and then you follow him.

Chapter Text

The ship is actually in better shape than you expect. Chloride’s mechanical experience means that a lot of the practical repairs have already been completed or are well under way. You inspect every inch of the ship, taking notes on what needs to be double checked or replaced or reinforced, and only when you’re done with that do you move into your cabin.

It’s more spacious than your cabin on the boat. Leaving behind the First Ship makes your chest ache regardless of how hard you try to fight it off; nostalgia is impractical, considering it was just the place you slept, but the wooden decks hold so many memories of your own first fumblings with freedom and your family’s love and the slaves who passed through on their way to new lives. Your First Ship cabin is covered in your scent and Sign’s scent and Di’s scent, arranged to your liking, your safest space.

You can make a safe space out of this cabin too, though. Technically speaking, the starship will be safer than a wooden oceanbound ship under the constant threat of seadweller attacks. And the smooth metal walls fit your general comfort zone better than wood. You lay a palm flat against a patch where the wallpaper has peeled down in a vertical stripe, leaving dully reflective gray, and close your eyes as you listen to the ship’s hum.

It’s easy to set up your space. Recuperacoon, desk, husktop. You spend more time on crafting your pile than anything else. Books end up in Sign’s cabin, journals and painting supplies in Di’s, though the three of you can trade back and forth. You try to help the other crew move in and forge an itinerary of what they need to furnish their spaces, but Rosa takes over the job and makes you go to sleep.

It’s the next evening, after you’ve rested and the bulk of the moving has been completed, that Sign enters your cabin. He finds you with your palm pressed against the metal wall again, your eyes closed, power thrumming gently under your skin. Metal is a conduit. It’s calling for your psionics like it calls to lightning, though you’re not foolish enough to fry the insides of the ship.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, coming to settle down beside you.

You draw your fingers from the wall and lean against him, giving an honest answer. “Peaceful, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I missed places like this.”

You brace for his tension, for tightness in his voice, but it doesn’t come. Instead he wraps his fingers through yours. “What did you miss about it?”

“I missed…” It’s hard to put into words. You turn the sensations over in your mind, trying to funnel to the core of the calm you feel, sort of worried you’ll discover it’s all rooted in something painful. But the conclusion you come to feels true, and it doesn’t seem like some form of internalized oppression.

“I like being near places that can contain my power. Just in case something goes wrong and I need somewhere for it to run off.”

“You could have funneled your power into the ocean if you ever needed to,” Sign offers.

“And electrocuted so many fish. Poor fish.”

“You eat fish.”

“Might’ve electrocuted a few seadwellers too. I mean, I wouldn’t be too fussed, but I bet it would put a damper on the whole pacifism thing.”

Sign shifts, presses his lips against your cheek, and blows a raspberry. “Okay,” he says, “but on a different note, what’s this project you mentioned earlier? The social media one?”

“Shit!” You pull yourself to your feet, realizing belatedly that the exclamation alarms him. “No, it’s not - I didn’t screw anything major up, I just forgot, wow. I meant to show you as soon as we got settled in and then got distracted with engine talking and… everything else.”

“You have a lot to do,” Sign says, which is reasonable. “But if you’re not busy right now, I’d like to hear about it. See it. I’ll grab Di, last I saw she wasn’t busy either - apparently some really weird animals make their homes in scrapyards, she’s been exploring, but she got back a little while ago.”

“With food?”

“A handful of beetles and some scratch marks.”

“The scratches weren’t from metal, though, right?”

“She’s fine.” Sign gets back to his feet, nuzzling against your jaw as he loops his fingers through yours again. “Come show us.”

---

You sit both of them at the writing table set up in Di’s block, since that’s an easier surface to crowd around than your smaller desk. Then you open your husktop, sifting through the programs and documents in your folders until you find what you’re looking for.

“A lot of trolls saw this video of you,” you say, playing the grainy film of Sign interrupting the slave auction. You haven’t been able to salvage anything except blurry audio, but the picture is unmistakable. “People were sharing it across solar systems - you made one hell of an impact. Highbloods saw it. People who’ve never heard of you, people in cities, people in small towns, people in the colonies.”

“I’m still not sorry.”

“I am aware you’re not sorry. But look - if a video like that could be distributed without any of us guiding it…”

“You want to spread the revolution through the web,” Di says.

“Basically, yeah. Spreading it isn’t the problem. The problem is doing it safely - Empire networks are monitored, you can get in cullable trouble for using back channels assuming you know how to access back channels to begin with, law enforcement has entire branches dedicated to finding lawbreakers through communications and dealing with them. But I’ve been drafting up plans for how we might be able to make it work. Writing programs, building hidden websites. If I can populate them with your writing, Di, and videos of you, Sign…”

“How big a risk would we be taking?” Sign rests his hand on your shoulder. “More importantly, how big a risk would they be taking? Everyone who accesses this?”

“Less risk than people undertake attending a sermon. I’m not planning for this to make it only to the faithful. It’ll be kind of hard to prosecute everyone in the Empire for viewing it. It’s what they choose to do with it that might get them in trouble.”

“How are you going to manage that?” Di asks. “You send people crap emails claiming to increase nook sensitivity and surprise, links to revolution?”

“It starts with this. With our networks. I already have the structure for hidden networks built, I’ve been using them for as long as we’ve been rehoming slaves. And then…” You pull up a coding file, long strings of red and blue against a black background. “I got in contact with the woman who governs Aldareth.”

Di says, “You did?” as Sign says, “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

“I’ll show you everything we talked about later. To make an incredibly long story short, she’s willing to ally with us. Don’t ask me about the logistics right now, it’ll take too long. I didn’t do anything patently stupid. But this - once we’re there, once we’re on the colony itself - she can get me into systems that I wouldn’t be able to access unless I was in the goddamn Imperial palace. And from there I can wreak a hell of a lot more havoc than I can on my husktop.”

Sign is quiet for a moment. “A virus?”

“We’re going to need to be really inconvenient really fast.”

“What exactly does it do?”

“A better question is what it doesn’t do.”

He taps his fingers against the wood of the table, his eyes fixed on the screen. His gaze is contemplative - not quite excited, but not distrustful either. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch.”

Di glances from the screen to your faces, then back to the screen, scanning the text. Her lips press together. She doesn’t know a lot about coding, but a few keywords must stand out.

“Empire helmsmen,” she says.

“Okay,” you say, rubbing the back of your neck. “There’s one catch.”

---

“Absolutely not,” Sign says.

You have just explained the mechanics of the virus in as simple terms as possible. It will force the user to view the webpages you pull up. This is its main function, and fairly innocuous - no one can get in trouble for something a machine made them do. If anything, it’s a safeguard. You’re arming trolls with excuses if they’re found with evidence of heresy on their husktops.

The problem is what the virus does after that - which is to lock the user out of the machine while it copies all of the information on said machine, and relays said information to a backchannel where it can be sifted through by the revolution. When the user is a troll on a console, this means headache and possibly taking it to a repair tech. When the user is a helmsman whose computer is linked to their nervous system -

Well. Things get a little more complicated.

It won’t automatically kill them. It won’t damage their pans. At least, it’s not supposed to. But a ship commandeered by your virus will cut its helmsman off from its neural networks. It’ll cut them off from life support, if they’re being sustained on life support. Some trolls will die. Most will be trapped in their engine rooms for hours, imprisoned in their bodies with no way to escape. And they’ll have their networks back eventually but, well. It won’t be a pleasant experience.

Sign is not pleased. You sort of hoped you could slip this one thing past him since you’ve been so honest with him lately. Like maybe the elder gods would give you a free pass. So far, that isn’t working out.

“I like the social media idea,” Sign tells you, and you can tell he’s trying hard to keep his voice even. “I like the idea of using a window-opening virus to spread the movement. Those things don't hurt people. I’ll be glad to know the movement is still spreading planetside even if we’re gone. But this - the rest of it - absolutely not. You can’t possibly think this is acceptable.”

“If it works,” you say, trying just as hard as him to be patient, “it doesn’t make much of a difference. The short term will suck for them, yeah. Trolls who should already be dead will die. But in comparison, if we’re able to trigger a mass awakening - if we’re able to trigger the kind of enlightenment you’re talking about - that will be invaluable.”

“This,” Sign says, gesturing at the screen, “is an act of war. And those who’ll be most harmed are the exact people we’re trying to protect. You, of all people -”

“Me of all people?” you say.

“No, I - fuck. Psii. You know this is a bad idea.”

“I want you to finish your sentence. What were you going to say?”

Sign is quiet for a moment. Then, “You of all people should understand we have no right to torture helmsmen.”

Anger flares to life in your chest, and your eyes burn brighter, but you keep a tight hold on your emotions. When you speak, it’s level and calm as can be. “It’s not my fault that the Empire wired them to the networks.”

“No,” Sign says, “but that’s the reality. I don’t care whose responsibility it is. You need to consider them hostages, not pawns. Rewrite the virus so helmsmen aren’t harmed and I’ll be more open to it.”

“I don’t know how to do that!”

“That’s because you’re thinking about this like a war. It’s not a war.” Sign rubs a hand over his face. “Psii, I don’t want to fight with you. Let’s not fight. All of the ideas are good except this one. I’m going to go talk to the bluebloods about the ship repairs, see if there’s anything I can help with.”

That’s the flimsiest excuse you’ve ever heard to run off, given that Sign has no mechanical expertise whatsoever, but he turns around and exits before you can call him back. Truth be told, you don’t want to call him back. You don’t know what else you can say to him. Only when you close out of the program and shut your husktop do you realize that Di is watching you silently - that she hasn’t said a word since you explained the virus.

“I feel like I’m being dissected,” you tell her grumpily. “Go on. Give me a slam poem about how awful I am.”

She sits down in a chair without ever taking her eyes off you, folding her arms on the table. She doesn’t even blink. Then she says, “This is how you want to weaken the Empire’s foundation.”

“What?”

“You told me before, the Empire is a fortress. We have to take its structure out at the base. And transportation between Alternia and its colonies is essential to its function. That’s why you want the virus to hit the helmsmen. You want to cripple the Empire’s ships. I think there are probably workarounds and you aren’t exploring them because disabling helmsmen is just as important to you as spreading the movement.”

It’s hard to be angry when she’s burrowed so quickly to the root of your reasoning. You give her a wry grin instead, aware of how cold you must look. Cold and remote and terrible. “That’s quite a thing to accuse me of. I of all people should know it’s wrong to torture helmsmen, you know.”

“Oh, Psii.” She looks so sad. “I don’t know how to save you from the Empress if you’re not interested at all in saving yourself.”

“I want to win,” you say, and it feels good to have someone to be honest with, even if every time you fall you increase the chance she’ll hate you forever. “I won’t be able to stand it if we do all of this and we don’t win. You don’t know, Di. I just think - all I keep thinking is that if we do this, if we make the first strike, and if it’s as effective as this would be - all I keep thinking is that she won’t be able to stand against us.”

“But it won’t go how you’re picturing it in your head,” Di says. “It will be painful and messy and people will die. They’ll be more focused on the war than on the movement. Even if we win, there will be no peace. It’ll be a constant struggle to unite a fractured world. If you’re going to attack first, you can’t use the Empire’s methods. You have to wage war a different way.”

You sigh. “And I guess you, with your extensive knowledge of how to code viruses, are going to tell me how to do that?”

“I have an idea, yeah.”

Another sigh. “All right, I’ll bite. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking,” Di says, leaning across the table to cover your hand with hers, “about liberation.”

---

You get flight clearance three nights after a final inspection confirms that everything on the ship is in working order. Di, Sign, and the bluebloods are on the bridge for takeoff. The rest of the crew has retired to their blocks; you asked them not to wander the bridge during the initial takeoff, lest they get in the way. Exiting the atmosphere is always the bumpiest part of a starship ride. After that, it’s just a matter of waiting to arrive at your destination. And not make any glaring navigational errors.

The bridge crew will be focused on what they’re doing, and ideally Sign and Di will both be too enraptured by the stars to think about anything else. Neither of them have been in space before. If it commands their attention, you’ll have thirty minutes to yourself. Maybe more if you’re lucky, but you’re not one to rely on luck.

“You’ll need to keep a close eye on me,” you tell Rosa as you step into the helmsblock, the door closing behind you. “If I made mistakes - it shouldn’t cause damage to me, but I might get mired in subprogramming routines. It’s been a while since I was wired in. The headspace is weird.”

“I’m being very careful,” she assures you, and she is indeed careful as you climb into the helmscolumn. The scraggly little wires from before have grown up much stronger in the time you've spent preparing the ship. Rosa is gentle as she slips them into your ports. It takes more time than you expected, because she’s not a tech, and so she isn’t familiar with the equipment, and she’s terrified of hurting you. You grunt impatiently at her and she clicks her tongue right back.

The systems don’t turn on until she slides a cable into the main interface port in the back of your neck. The shift is sudden - ship senses overlay your troll senses, and it feels like your pan has suddenly opened into cavernous space. It’s dizzying. Colors and numbers and readouts dance across the backs of your eyelids, all your senses scrambled until your mind adjusts to the new stimuli.

When it does, you open your eyes. The whole ship and all of its data is at your fingertips; it’s a struggle to focus on your inconsequential meatsack. It would be so much easier to ping the console than speak. But you do speak, wrestling your tongue and teeth and vocal cords into cooperation. “Do it,” you tell Rosa, who hasn’t moved more than an arm’s length from you.

She moves over to the console and plugs in a flash drive.

The effect is instantaneous. It’s like a great fog suddenly being wiped away from your mind. Little thoughts you hadn’t even consciously acknowledged disappear. Tiny whispers about submission and obedience die off. Your thoughts are crystal instead of mud. You are wholly yourself. The ship is part of you, and you are the ship, and you control the ship. The navigation plan unfolds before you. With one nudge of your mind, you could shift the destination. You could shift the plotted course. You could throw the ship into a star. No one on the bridge would be able to stop you, because all the safeguards that require bridge confirmation are gone. It’s like going from wading in molasses to running in clear air. The engines surge with the power you throw off, and you propel the ship forward, running on sheer exhilaration and delight -

And you might have kept on that way, if not for a voice breaking the silence.

“What the fuck?"

You draw back into your body, open your eyes, and find Sign framed furious in the doorway.

Oops.

Chapter Text

Your moirail is furious, and you’re manic.

This is an inconvenient time to have a manic episode. The very small, still-rational part of your pan acknowledges this, even as the rest of you whines about having to get out of the helmscolumn. You’ve done more for the engines in the little time you’ve been hooked in than auxiliary power would have done for the whole journey, and it makes sense to talk to Sign without the ship-senses distracting you. Except you sort of float down from your perch and drape yourself over his shoulders like a cat, buoyed by your psionics so he doesn’t take your full weight, because you are manic.

“You,” Sign says, his voice shaking with fury. For a moment, you think he’s talking to you - that would make sense, he has plenty of reason to be furious with you - but then you realize his gaze is angled toward Rosa. “You were in on this?"

“It’s not what you think,” she says with significant calm.

You contort your body so that you can nuzzle against his cheek. Your back creaks in protest, but you ignore it. “I did a thing,” you tell him.

“I’m starting to understand black romance.”

“You aren’t black for me, you’re so pale. Pale as desert sands. Pale as ice. Ice pale. But warmer. Not warm like the desert either, that’s too warm. Uncomfortable warm.” You unfold yourself from his shoulders and stand up straight, stretching with the languidness of a cat. “I did a thing.”

“You,” Sign says, and this time he is addressing you, “need a nap.”

“I did a thing."

“Went behind my back and betrayed my trust, after you specifically told me you wouldn’t go behind my back and betray my trust? Yeah, I noticed.”

You squint at him. Your feet aren’t fully on the ground, and your bloodpusher is pumping with surprising alacrity. You should probably hook back in to run your power off, except that might give Sign a heart attack. With exceeding care, you set your feet back on the ground and take a few deep breaths to center yourself. This is fine. You’re thinking straight, it’s fine. You’re so fine. You’ve never been more fine in your entire life.

“He wasn’t helming for the sake of helming,” Rosa says, since you are beyond rational speech at the moment. “He was testing a theory. I was on hand to be sure he was unharmed.” Then she sighs. “The mania was an unforseen consequence, but I don’t think it would affect psions who aren’t bipolar to begin with.”

“Sign.” You gather his hands up in yours, and he’s cold, which means you’re running hot. Your horns are sparking, you’re pretty sure. You don’t care. “Sign, we’re going to win.”

“What?”

“We’re going to win. Sign. Sign, I’m gonna fuck it up. I’m gonna fuck the Empire up so bad, Sign, listen. Listen.” You drop one hand and drag your palm over his face instead. “Listen. Listen. I’m gonna fuck the Empire up.”

“Honestly, Psii, I don’t want to talk to you right now, especially not if you’re like this. And I suspect you’ll regret this as soon as you’re thinking clearly again, so.”

“I am thinking clearly.” You drop his other hand and smush his cheeks. You’re talking really fast, but that’s because there are a lot of words he needs to hear very quickly. It’s important. “Listen to me, listen. Listen. I can free the helmsmen. I can free the psions hooked into terminals. All the ones who are being panwashed by the systems, I can get them out without locking them out entirely. I can target the subprogramming routines, I can take down the safety locks that keep them from having bridge access. Sign, listen to me. Listen. Full autonomy. Full autonomy from inside the helm, you get to be the ship and you get to direct the ship, like it’s all your body instead of having all these people tying you down-”

“You need to cool off.”

“Listen! Listen, I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be mad, and trust me I’ll be more than happy to listen to all of your grievances later, but listen. Listen. I love you. I can do the virus so it frees the helmsmen instead of ruining their neural access. I can free them.”

Sign looks past you, a furrow appearing between his brows as he watches Rosa. “That’s what you were testing?”

“Psii coded the program earlier, yes,” she says. “We were seeing what sort of effects it would have if it worked.”

“You were in on this.”

“He would have found a way to test it regardless of my input,” she says, which is true. “I thought it made sense to keep him safe as he did.”

“And you,” Sign says, focused on you again. “What were you going to do if it went wrong?”

“Well, I guess that depends on how wrong it went. It didn’t go wrong, though. Holy fuck. You don’t know - you don’t know.” You turn toward Rosa. “Can I just pilot this thing to Aldareth? Seriously, I don’t mind.”

“Absolutely not.” She looks an awful lot like Sign, forbidding and exasperated. “We need to keep an eye on your mood. This is either going to pass in a few hours or you’ve triggered a full blown mania. Hopefully the former.”

You are extremely offended. “I could be productive right now.”

“You could also fry your pan like the inside of a scrambled egg,” she says. “Go soak in your recuperacoon until you cool off. You’ve burned yourself out enough already.”

You’re going to protest, but Sign is still angry, and you think it’s a good idea not to make that worse. So you let him drag you out of the helmsblock by the arm. His fingers grip so tight they’re almost painful, and you float behind him like an exhilarated balloon.

---

“You weren’t supposed to test it like this, dummy,” Di says a half hour later.

You’ve stripped down and burrowed into your recuperacoon, and the slime is doing good work. Slowly but surely, your body cools off, even as your pan continues to buzz like a swarm of bees. You rest your chin on the lip of the ‘coon, grinning at her. She’s not nearly so angry as Sign, since the helmsman liberation thing was her idea. She’s more fondly exasperated. You can deal with fond exasperation.

“It works, though,” you say. “Di, you don’t know - you don’t know. I didn’t know, and I’ve been in computers before. I thought the neural links were as good as it gets, I didn’t even realize how much baggage they code in. They fill your pan up with cotton, Di, they stuff it up with all this empty bullshit so you don’t think about fighting. But the ships, Di, the ships - they don’t do anything wrong, the ships themselves. It’s the Empire that’s all fucked up. The ships are so big and you can feel the whole thing like a new body and space is so big and trolls are so small - Di, did you know how small trolls are?”

“This is the worst thing you’ve ever done,” she says, hanging over the back of your desk chair.

“I think you forgot the word for best. That’s okay. I forget words too, frequently, especially when I’m going fast. Opposite of worst would have worked. This is the opposite of worst thing I’ve ever done. We’re gonna win. Holy fuck, Di. I’m so fast.”

“I can see that.”

“I’m going so fast.”

“I know.”

“I could make the ship go so fast.”

“No.”

“I’m a little bit manic, Di.”

“That is true.”

“I didn’t realize the mania thing would happen. I mean, I should have realized. I’ve got a thing about flying to begin with and it’s been a while since I was super manic and so I’m probably overdue for this, and flying is a great trigger for it. I don’t feel bad yet, though. Fuck almighty. Everything in me is crystal. I’m so sharp.”

“Well, while you’re being sharp and fast,” she says, “Sign is angsting over the future of your moirallegiance.”

“Wow. Don’t make me think about sad things right now. I don’t want to pop the mood. He wasn’t supposed to come down to the helmsblock until we were prong and nub into the journey, anyway. Why did he come down?”

“We got a notification on the bridge that unauthorized coding had interfered with the helmsman. Which meant there was a helmsman hooked in. It wasn’t hard to guess.”

“Oh. Shit.” That does put a spike in your mood, though not for the right reasons. “Well, it’s good to know the bridge crew will get notified if their helmsmen contract viruses. I’ll have to do something to make it super hard to remove. Wipe out the subprogramming routines entirely, maybe? So they’d have to be reinstalled. They’d have to pull them off backups and I don’t know how many ships have backups, this isn’t the kind of thing they usually have to deal with. Maybe the helmsmen can fuck it up from inside. Shit, I gotta plug back in. I should see what all can be done from the inside.”

“I’m so glad you have your priorities in order.”

“Sign’s mad at me and Rosa. What else is new? We fight all the time. I’ll go make nice with him later and everything will be fine.”

“You really fucked up, Psii.”

“I did not. He’d pitch a fit about me testing it, so I didn’t tell him, but it was something I had to test. What else was I going to do? Send the code out with holes? Make someone else try it? Like it would be ethical to fuck with other psions over this.”

“What happened to you respecting him enough not to do things that upset him?”

“The circumstances changed. I didn’t need to helm to get us to Aldareth. It would have been convenient, and it would have helped our time table by a shitload, but it wasn’t necessary. This was. I had to test this. If it was going to be viable, it needed to be tested.”

“And you should have explained that to him instead of going behind his back. I’d have stood with you.”

You sigh. Loudly. “I didn’t want to argue with him. He wasn’t supposed to find out.”

“Well, he did. And this argument is going to be worse. You could have hooked in with your moirail standing guard to be sure you were safe. You could have Sign looking after you now, making sure you’re cooled off and well fed and that you sleep. Instead you get me while he paces off his anger. Because you fucked up.”

“Di,” you say, with all the patience you can muster, “you are saying a lot of words right now, and they are important words, but if you expect me to care about things when I’m going this fast then you are going to be severely disappointed.”

“You’re absolutely not talking to him, then,” she says. “I’ll guard the door.”

---

You see Sign again two nights later, when your pan has finally calmed down enough to let you snatch a few hours of sleep. Di confiscated your husktop because she didn’t trust you not to fuck something up, and Rosa’s been scarce. You’ve drifted between your block and Di’s, writing down ideas for coding in her notebooks since you tragically don’t have a husktop. After the sleep you go over them again, except it’s mostly incomprehensible cluckbeast scratch. She probably made the right call taking your computer.

But you manage to remember that you messed up a very important relationship, and that you should fix it, so you head to Sign’s block and rap gently against the door. He opens up immediately - expecting one of the other crew members, you think - and freezes when he sees you.

“Hey,” you say. “I’m cooled off now. Can we talk?”

“Come on in.”

You shut the door behind you as you step inside, looking around. Most of you wants to make immediately for his pile. But it’s up to him whether he wants you there, and given that you’re supposed to be fighting -

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was going to do,” you say. “I didn’t lie to you before, when I told you that I wouldn’t helm. I meant it then. And then this was something I had to do. But I should have told you. You shouldn’t have seen me like that without warning.”

Sign lets out a long, long breath. His shoulders don’t look any less tense, but his face softens a little. “Why was it something you had to do?”

“I needed to know if what I was doing was even viable. Di had the idea to separate helmsmen from their obedience conditioning, but I didn’t know how well it would work. I didn’t know if you could separate the subprogramming without cutting off their neurals entirely.”

“It could have gone wrong,” Sign says. “You could have burned out. You could have died. You could have ended up with pan damage.”

“The chances of that happening were low. And I don’t really think you can lecture me about risk taking.”

Sign leans against the wall and closes his eyes. He looks so tired that you have to wonder if he’s even slept more than you have, creases appearing at the corners of his mouth. He looks so tired that you want to fold him up in your arms and lay him down and stroke his hair until he sleeps. You can find peace in that quiet domesticity, if only you slow down long enough.

“Mom said something similar to me,” he says.

“Did she?” You don’t doubt it. Rosa doesn’t fuck around.

“She said I don’t have a monopoly on self destruction.”

“Well, she’s right.”

“She said that you helming in a safely controlled environment couldn’t be compared to me interrupting a slave auction, so I don’t have much of a right to be angry. That was the implication, anyway.”

“I’m not sure you don’t have a right to be angry. I did something wrong. You doing things wrong in the past doesn’t change that.”

“Unless I don’t consider those things wrong. See, if I don’t consider interrupting the slave auction wrong then it’s kind of hypocritical for me to go after you. We did the same damn thing for the same damn reasons.”

He sinks down against the wall. You’ve been bracing yourself for a heated argument about respect and boundaries and honesty; you don’t know what to do with this grief-struck man. You trust your instincts and cross the space between you, sliding down to sit with him. Gently, ever-so-gently, you entwine your fingers with his.

“It matters so much,” Sign says, his eyes closed. “The movement matters so much. That’s what changed for you, right? You saw a chance to right injustice and you took it. Before it was just the logistics of how fast we flew. It was different after. As soon as you had the idea to free them in your head, it was different.”

“Like how you can spend your whole life knowing you need to keep your head down and stay out of trouble, but that doesn’t stop you from leaping on a stage when you see someone being sold. Yeah.” You squeeze his hand. “It’s like that.”

“I’d have let you helm. If you told me beforehand.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Or if you did, you’d worry yourself into an ulcer. You’ll risk yourself a thousand times over for the movement, but you won’t risk my freedom. Because you don’t think my freedom is yours to risk.”

“And it’s the same for you with me, isn’t it? You’ll gamble entire planets but you won’t risk harm coming to me.”

You rub your thumb over the back of his hand, looking at the places your fingers lock so you won’t have to see his face. “You’re everything to me.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t have helmed without telling me.”

“I don’t want us to be fighting anymore.”

“The movement is everything to both of us. You can tell me until you’re exhausted that you only care about our family and the rest of it is background noise, but we both know that isn’t true. We’re just each other’s blind spots.”

“I’m sure you have a blind spot where Di is concerned. Your mother, too.”

Sign shakes his head. “No. Neither of them has as much to lose as you.”

And you’re thinking about him strung up and burning, the smell of his blistering flesh heavy in the air, the Empress’ hand stroking your hair. And you’re thinking about Di and Rosa, their fates obscured in your mind, dead or not. It won’t get worse than dead for either of them. Not the way it will for you.

“Yeah,” you say finally. “We’ve both got more to lose.”

“Is it even sustainable to keep doing this?”

The question throws you. You tilt your head, frowning. “Doing what?”

“Being moirails.”

Something in your chest cracks, bleeds. You feel the splinters of your ribs press into your lungs. Take a knife-edged breath, grip his hand tighter. “I’ve never thought it isn’t sustainable.”

“I don’t like the thought that I might need to choose between what’s best for you and what’s best for the movement. It makes me feel sick inside. But I know I couldn’t send you away any more than I could hack off one of my limbs. Psii - I don’t want to have to choose. I don’t know what choice I’d make.”

You don’t let him go. You study his profile in the light from his desk lamp, outlining nose and lips and eyelashes. Then you shift to gather him up against your chest, psionics flickering.

“I’ve already made my choices,” you tell him, and carry him to the pile.

Chapter Text

You guide the ship into Aldareth’s docking port from the helm, Sign’s warm hand on your face to ground you. He has an arm curled around the upper struts of the helmscolumn, feet finding purchase on the slippery wires below him. He’ll let you land the ship, and he’ll let you poke around the bridge controls and programming from inside the systems, but only if he’s present. And he won’t sit at the console to watch like a normal person. Instead he insists he needs to keep physical contact with you, like you’re more at risk of losing yourself without the touch of a moirail’s hand.

Maybe you are. Maybe he’s right. Either way, you don’t care so long as he doesn’t interrupt you. Actually, the contact is… kind of nice. It’s like a tether, letting you find your way back to your body instead of floating away in the wideness of shipspace.

You slot awareness back into your limbs and fold yourself out of the helmscolumn as the engines power down, slumping into Sign’s arms. Bereft of the mania from the first time you helmed, you’re a little wobbly on your feet, and he rests a hand at the small of your back to steady you.

“I got you, I got you,” he murmurs, and you wish you’d had the sense to warn him the first time you did this.

The crew bustles around as you step out of the helmsblock, readying to disembark. You find Di and Rosa on the bridge, study the interior of the docking port from the starship window. Borderline deserted, since you touched down in the farthest area from the doors - inconvenient for ships with cargo - and you’re here in the middle of the Alternian day cycle. Colonies don’t play by Alternian time rules, but starship captains tend to. Helps to have some semblance of timekeeping in the nothingness of space.

The Advocate, the leader of the colony, stands on the platform to receive the ship. You didn’t expect her to come in person, but there’s no mistaking the glitter of her psion eyes or the sign emblazoned across her utilitarian uniform. Where everything about the Empress is flash and glitter, everything about the Advocate is sparse and compact. Her only jewelry pieces are two silver rings around her curved horns, one red garnet in her ear. Her back is perfectly straight. You push the cameras close enough to analyze her expression, seeking betrayal or sneaky subterfuge, and find nothing but cold confidence.

That’s about what you expected.

You and Sign disembark first. He walks with the purpose of someone much higher on the spectrum, because he learned a long time ago that acting like you’re lowblooded is a good way to get killed. You, on the other hand - the Advocate is a rustblood, but she’s one of the most powerful people in the Empire, and you have a hard time shirking the instinct to duck your head in her presence.

But you have to protect Sign. So you keep a hand curled around his elbow, ready to pull up a shield if the need presses, not drawing too far from the ship to dart back in. If this all goes to hell, you can throw yourself into the helm and rip the crew out of here before anyone has time to blink.

The Advocate’s face relaxes into a warm, close-mouthed smile. She’s not showing teeth, so it’s not a threat. It even reaches her eyes.

“You must be the Signless,” she says, crossing the tiles between you. Her boots clack against the floor. She reaches out one hand, clasping Sign’s forearm, and then offers the same to you. You’re too startled by the acknowledgement to do anything.

“And Mituna Captor,” she says, dryly amused, lowering her hand back to her side before you can pick up the cue. “We’ve spoken.”

“We have,” you agree.

Sign tilts his head. “I’m told we have similar interests.”

“We do, yes.”

“I’m told you understand who I am.”

“That is correct.”

“Then I would prefer to meet with you privately before the rest of my crew disembarks. You’ll understand the need for protection, I’m sure. I don’t intend to endanger anyone in case this is too good to be true.”

You expect her smile to tighten around the edges, but it doesn’t. She just shakes her head and laughs. “If you were incautious, I wouldn’t waste my time with you. Walk with me.”

You’re not going to leave the ship behind, but you’re also not going to let him behind a closed door with her. Not yet. She spares you from the decision by leading you underneath an outcropping hangar, still in sight of the ship, but shadowed.

“This is a blind spot in the security feeds, if you’re worried about having your lips read,” she says. You have no way of verifying that, but you suppose it doesn’t matter either way. “There’s no one in earshot, and the mechanics of the dock will throw static at any listening devices. Let’s talk.”

“I’m a mutant heretic,” Sign says. “Let’s get that out of the way first.”

“I know who you are.”

“I need the resources of your colony to stage a revolution. If you refuse, we’ll turn our attention to other colonies. The revolution is going to happen either way. You’ll be better served allying with truth than by trying to squash it now. It can continue without me. I might be the face of the movement, but the movement isn’t mine. It’s the people’s.”

She nods. “I appreciate that you don’t play word games.”

“I don’t want to play games with you. I want your alliance. I’m not an idiot.” He’s using the voice he usually gets when he talks with hostile highbloods, all posturing, no warmth. It’s a survival instinct. It’s also the best way to dispel the image of him as a naive and weak leader. “You’ll want something in exchange for your allyship. You’ll want me to offer you things that the Empire can’t offer. I would like to know your expectations right now, because if I can’t meet them then I need to know before I waste time. I don’t exactly have all the time in the world.”

“No, I suppose not,” she says. “Shame to have a shortened lifespan.”

“But what fascinating things we can do with our short lives,” he says, dripping sarcasm. “Tell me what you want.”

Another smile flickers across her face. “You are not what I expected.”

“I am what I need to be.”

“As am I. I want a stake in your revolution.”

“What sort of stake?”

“I want to keep my colony, and I want a seat at your planning table. I want to be able to choose what you do with our resources. I want to help you strategize for your future. Those are my terms.”

“I see.” Sign nods, contemplative. “Why? What do you get out of it?”

“It’s a game.” Her smile widens, just a hint of glinting teeth underneath. “I intend to win.”

“It’s more serious to me than just a game.”

“That’s why you’re the face of the revolution.”

“Hmm.” He considers for a few moments, and then nods. “Okay. I don’t think you’re asking for anything unreasonable. But you need to understand we may not always use your strategies.”

“Oh, no. I expect it to be a collaborative effort.”

“As long as that’s understood.”

“You ought to help your crew disembark. I have a few things I need to discuss with Captor.”

“I still don’t use that name,” you point out.

“I don’t care,” she says, reasonably.

Sign lays his hand on your arm. “Is it safe?” he asks, heedless of the fact that she’s still in earshot.

“If it’s not, we might as well get the horror movie part of this over with now,” you say with a shrug. He does not look convinced, so you add, “It’s as safe as it’ll ever be. I’ll just rip the place to shreds if I have to.”

“What a romantic.”

“Go help unpack,” you say, shooing him back toward the ship.

The Advocate waits until he’s gone, and then she gestures toward a wide door. “Come with me.”

If anything goes to hell now, you’ll be the only one caught in the crossfire. One of the psions in the crew can emergency helm if they need to leave immediately. Sign will pitch a fit about you, but Di will calm him down, and -

This is kind of a morbid thought process to waste your time on, but the Advocate makes you uneasy. She’s already made you uneasy during your communications - she always seems to be one step ahead of you. A great ally when her interests intersect with yours, but she’s still too much of a wildcard. You’ve dug up as much about her past as you can. You haven’t learned enough to satisfy you. She can’t afford to act anything other than totally in control here. Her quick mind and sharp strategism are what attracted the Empress to her in the first place. She was in charge of a few of the campaigns to expand Empire territory. She never volunteered for projects that involved the destruction of sentient life.

She doesn’t trade slaves in her colony.

That’s the biggest factor making you believe she’s safe. Aldareth is a huge colony, but the lowblood population is made up near-entirely of free trolls. There are pathways slaves can use to gain their freedom back. They don’t scrutinize emigrating trolls with the same systems that other colonies use. That’s why you sent so many freed trolls here to begin with.

You manage to ponder in silence for the entirety of the walk. Balmy light season air blows against your face as you exit the hangar, wispy clouds trailing across the sky. This planet only has one moon, and it glimmers a strange pearl color as it hangs above you. The stars look different from here. They scatter across the sky like spilled glitter. At least if you’re making the wrong choices here, you’ll still have the stars -

“Are you comfortable underground?” the Advocate asks, interrupting your train of thought.

You snap back to the present. “What? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Most psions I meet experience discomfort underground. But - no, you weren’t in the factories or the mines. That’s right.”

You’re claustrophobic for different reasons, but being underground doesn’t bother you. “I was military,” you say.

She walks through the entrance of a long, low complex. You wouldn’t doubt that the floor space covers about a square mile. Inside it’s just as sparse and utilitarian as her outfit, fluorescent lights powering the place, white walls spotless. She leads you down a twisting maze of hallways, so many you’re certain you couldn’t find your way out again if you tried. A few times she has to scan a key card or her iris to make a door unlock. When you finally arrive at the elevator, you’re thoroughly turned around.

“Your military background is the reason I’m trusting you with this,” she says. You follow her into the elevator, suppressing another shiver of unease as the doors slide closed. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak of what I’m about to show you with your preacher. Not yet, anyway.”

“He’s my moirail,” you say.

“You’ll understand the need for secrecy.” The doors ping. You step into a hallway that looks exactly like the million other hallways you’ve walked through. The pressure is different here, though. You must be pretty far underground.

She speaks again as she strides forward, not even looking over her shoulder to be sure you follow. “I’ve been waiting for your preacher, you know. I don’t have any intention of harming him. I need him.”

“We need you, so that works out well.”

“You said the Empress was concerned about the research and development section of our colony?”

“She’s investigating it, yeah.”

“No doubt she thinks someone is embezzling the money. Nothing registers on her radar except greed.” Ire curls around the Advocate’s voice like fingers around a throat. Not for the first time, you wonder exactly what transpired between them. “The real story is much more interesting.”

She scans both her key card and iris before a large metal door. This scanner has a third stipulation - a needle slides out and pricks her finger. “Not many people are authorized to come down here,” she explains. “We take precautions.”

You’re about to point out that someone carrying her dead body could get past all the security systems, but then the door opens, and you stop breathing.

A hangar like the docking port topside yawns before you. But it’s much, much bigger than the docking port. Bigger than the topside building complex sheltering this place. Miles of space open before you - you can’t even see to the back wall. It’s not the space itself that makes your heart stop beating. It’s the cargo inside. Ships, hundreds of them, stretching as far as the eye can see. Makes and models of all sizes and types. Whoever was in charge must have been stockpiling for sweeps. Certainly longer than the Advocate has been alive, as though she’s carrying out someone else’s work.

“I have been waiting for your preacher,” she says again, the words laden with meaning.

You lean on the railing of the balcony overlooking the place, at a loss for words. She turns her face to yours, meets your eyes with the most vicious grin you’ve ever seen. And in a flash, you understand why she makes you so uneasy.

She’s you - you as you would be, untempered by Sign’s idealism and Di’s compassion and Rosa’s calm practicality. You look into your face and you see yourself a thousand sweeps out, loneliness and grief hardened into something remote and cold. Destroying planets from the inside out, kissing the Empress and biting at her lips for the pleasure of drawing blood. You see yourself reflected in the vengeful curl of her lip, and it scares the shit out of you.

You make a mental note to be very, very careful.

“I assume the Empress doesn’t know this place exists.”

“It would be a shame if she interfered with my pet projects.”

The corner of your mouth twitches. “Someone who saw this might think you’re ready for a war.”

“Someone might.” She curls her hands around the railing. “So I’m sure you see why the idea will have to be introduced… gently… to your preacher.”

You survey the ships. Enough for a small army. Not enough to stand against the whole Empire, but if you free the helmsmen and fuck with their trade routes, if you use the other tools at your disposal -

“Yeah,” you say, the adrenaline shooting through your chest, electrifying the tips of your fingers. “Yeah, I won’t tell.”

Chapter Text

You let the information she gives wash over you, your ears buzzing. She rattles off military statistics like she’s been hatched doing it, inventories of ships and weapons systems and the types of armies they can accommodate. There’s enough here to house thousands of trolls. Underground so they won’t be seen on satellites, all the trolls working on them vetted or not given the scope of the project. Armor and food supplies slowly stockpiled, money laundered carefully enough through the systems that even your careful checking didn’t see any discrepancies with the taxes.

Eventually you have to stop her, because a problem occurs to you. She’s barely paying attention to you. You get the sense she takes more pride in her own treachery than pleasure in telling you about it; she doesn’t care much whether or not you pay attention.

“This is all incredible, and I have no idea how you’ve gotten away with any of it,” you say. “But we’ve founded the movement on freeing slaves. We’ve promised psions they’re never going to have to pilot again. I’ll do a lot of underhanded shit to hurt the Empire, but I can’t break those promises. I mean, morally and politically. It’s too easy to spin in propaganda and…”

“That’s the thing.” The Advocate leans over the railing, her full weight resting on her folded arms, claws curled. But she’s looking at you rather than the ships. Her eyes glitter as they reflect the bright lights above, and her smile is a knife slash. “They don’t run on psionic power.”

You look at the ships. Back at her. Back at the ships. “They all use auxiliary power systems?”

“We’ve developed better systems than the auxiliary ones in Empire ships.”

The Empress doesn’t know. She definitely doesn’t know, because if she knew then you’d know already. None of this was in any of the information you’ve been given about the colony. No wonder she was so suspicious, if this is what they’ve been working on and no one ever let her know -

You want to know how the engines work. You want to ask a million questions about the development and engineering and cost, everything she hasn’t told you yet. But you prioritize what’s important first. “How fast?”

“The fastest right now can reach half the speed of a class five battleship. That’s not enough to offer an edge over the Imperial army, I know. But it’s far faster than any other non-psionic ship that’s deployed right now.”

“And the weapons systems?”

“Very effective.” Her smile widens. “If you’ll come sit in the meeting blocks with me, Mr. Captor, I’ll tell you all about them.”

---

You keep very quiet about it.

You don’t even tell Rosa, and she’s most likely to support a war. The Advocate doesn’t mention her ships even when she meets with the four of you. There’s a lot of things to focus on besides impending war, so you rationalize that it's just not coming up. She has trade statistics and economic repercussions to discuss, potential allies and potential enemies. Ways to destabilize trade routes without your interference being traced. New back channels to funnel slaves through, ways to keep track of those you’re freeing to be sure they don’t fall into malicious hands. Her expertise is welcome. Things begin to move very fast - like you told Di, sand under the Empire’s foundation running into the ocean. Your networks expand to cover a far wider area. Though you’re stationary for now, you’re moving more slaves than ever before. It’s just a remote operation.

Your nights fall into a comfortable sort of monotony. You spend most of them plugged into a computer terminal (following a heated argument with Signless about whether it was healthy to plug your body in rather than just type on a keyboard), working on the liberation coding. Now that you’re past the first hurdle, most of the remaining work is tedious potential roadblocks. You have to customize the code for different ship models and security systems. You have to shut off bridge pings without entirely shutting off medical monitoring. You have to add a system message explaining what happened, lest the helmsman panic at the sudden freedom. You have to chart the way you want the virus to spread and overcome the blocks that’ll be set up as soon as the Empire realizes what you’re doing. The work drains you more than coding usually does, but it’s worth it.

You’re going to win. Between your ability to free helmsmen and the ships at your disposal, the Empire won’t be able to stand against you. Surely you’ve diverged from the true timeline. This is why the Demoness told you not to come to Aldareth; she knew that you’d finally have the resources you need to win a war. You picture your other self, trapped in the binds of the true timeline, moving to whichever colony he decided would be better than this one. How long will it take, then? How long before some troll talks or a camera captures the shine of Sign’s eyes and drones come down on top of them? And your other self, wounded and furious, shouting at Mai because he believed what she told him. I trusted you, you see him screaming, his eyes bright with terror and pain. And her calm. I told you that you would be angry.

You try not to think about it. You don’t want to think about your true timeline self. There’s too much to worry about already. So many tiny little decisions to be made, each of them resulting in an offshoot timeline. What if you ruin the coding? What if you slip up and send the wrong communication to the wrong person? What if the Empress finds out you’ve allied yourself with the very troll she asked you to investigate? What if, what if, what if?

You’ve lost track of the nights slipping by when the Advocate lays a hand on your forearm as you step out of the terminal. “How close are you to being ready?” she asks.

You watch her carefully. You are always careful around her. She knows far more than she lets on. “How close to ready do I need to be?”

“I don’t think we have a lot of time left. You need to talk to your preacher.”

Your relationship with both Sign and Di has gotten better now that you all have purpose. Sign, busying himself with recording his sermons so they can be distributed through the back channels. Di, keeping track of the slaves and the trade numbers of the colonies to help you with strategies. The pair of them, writing and drawing together and discussing the best ways to overcome obstacles. You’ve slept in a ‘coon with them and drooled on one shoulder or another more nights than you can count.

You’re really not looking forward to the argument you need to have.

“I can spin it to put Sign on board,” you say. “But not if I make it sound like you’ve been preparing for war. And not if I make it sound like we need to strike first.”

“I assume you don’t want me to help with the talking, then.”

“Absolutely not. You can’t manipulate him as far as you can spit.”

She gives you a wry grin. “Good luck.”

---

You sit Sign and Di down at the meeting table in the group of respiteblocks you’ve appropriated for yourselves, like you usually do during strategy sessions. You don’t have papers or maps spread in front of you, though, which is a change from the usual. Sign sits across from you, Di beside you. You drum your claws against the table and take up a quiet rhythm.

“Okay, so there’s a really cool thing I have to tell you guys about,” you say.

Sign arches an eyebrow. “Then why do you look like you’re bracing for an argument?”

If you were a better actor, you’d have faked extreme excitement, like you only just found out about this. As it is, you just shrug. “Because I am apprehensive about the thing. Because I’m used to everything falling to shit, and if this falls to shit I’m going to be very disappointed.” A pause. “It’s not gonna fall to shit, though. I mean, I don’t think. I think we’re doing okay. I think we’re going to be okay.”

“We’ve always been okay,” Sign says.

“I mean, I think we’re going to be more okay than usual.”

At least Di knows what you’re talking about. She covers one of your nervously tapping hands with hers. The secrets you’ve told her hang between you, the tuskbeast in the room. You’re sure she hasn’t told Signless any of the things you’ve shared, and you have to wonder whether she feels guilty. You can almost see your deception like shimmering miasma in the air. It’s a wonder Sign can’t smell it on you.

“Something to do with the coding you’ve been doing?” Di guesses.

That’s a pretty good guess. It would be just like you to sit down and announce that you’ve figured out how to force psions into servitude for you instead of the Empire, or something equally horrifying. They have to know you better than that, though. You wouldn’t. Even true timeline you wouldn’t - would you? You might try to poison every slaver in the Empire, but you wouldn’t -

“Psii,” Sign says, reaching across the table to cover your other hand. “What is it?”

“The Advocate built ships,” you whisper. “Ships that don’t run on psionic power.”

Sign’s eyes widen. “No helmsmen?”

“No helmsmen. Bridge crew, but no helmsmen.”

“Are they fast?”

“Powerful. And fast.”

“Just - just prototypes? I mean, are there blueprints drawn up yet? Are we talking theory or-?”

“There’s thousands of them ready to be manned. Different shapes, sizes. She showed them to me on the first night we came here. That’s what she wanted to talk to me about.”

Sign’s not stupid. You can see the gears in his head turning as he tries to figure out why you’d be anxious about sharing this news with him.

Di speaks first. “She’s a psion,” she says slowly.

“She is,” you agree.

“Can she see the future?”

Di’s asking the question Sign doesn’t know to ask. Did she see the war too? You just shrug one shoulder.

“If she was willing to ally with us,” you say, “she must think that we have a fighting chance. And with her help, I think we do.”

“If you get the virus programming ready to send to the Empire ships,” Sign says. “You send that first, you free the helmsmen. You give them control of their ships. If enough of them ally with us over their captains - if enough of them defect - those ships will be the only reliable ones in the Empire. They’ll be the only ones that can be trusted, at least until they repair the helmsman coding. And if you can keep them from repairing the helmsman coding…”

“The Empire would have no reliable ships, and we would,” Di finishes. “They’d be toast. We’d have control of all off planet trade. The Empress would have to give us an audience. She’d have to listen, she’d have to give in to what her constituents want if she wanted access to the ships. And if she didn’t do that, she wouldn’t be able to rule over the Empire anymore. It’s too far spread to govern without interstellar travel.”

You nod, glad that they’ve come to pacifist conclusions on their own. “And even if she didn’t acquiesce, we could cut off resources to colonies that refuse to ally themselves with the revolution. The economy would collapse. We could push reforms and new laws and get away with it because we’d have all the trade power.”

“You should have told us about this as soon as you found out,” Sign says, but the excitement in his voice takes away any bite the words might have. “We’ve been strategizing with the assumption that we’ll need to make political compromises. We wouldn’t have had to focus nearly so hard on that if we knew that we’d have this kind of leverage.”

“You needed to strategize like that just in case something went wrong,” you point out. “I still can’t be sure that sending out viruses will have the effect we want. There’s a million different scenarios that could play out. I want them to play in our favor, but…”

“You want to keep our options open,” Sign finishes. “I can understand that. Still, I wish we’d known. Ships without psionic power - do you realize what that means? We wouldn’t even need to worry about the economic repercussions of ending slavery. The biggest argument for it is that we need interstellar trade, and we need psionic power for interstellar trade, but if that’s not true…”

“I was worried you’d get the wrong idea,” you say. “I didn’t want you to think that I - that I was planning something I wasn’t.”

“Like what?” he says, bewildered.

“Like a war.” That’s Di, propping her chin up with the hand that isn’t in yours. “Right? First strike is to free the helmsmen. Second is to deploy the ships to undefended colonies and forcibly take them over. Third is to demand the surrender of the Empire. You do it before anyone can muster the forces to fight back, like a conquest.”

“But we won’t do it like that,” Sign says. “I mean, taking away the travel capabilities of the Empire will sort of force their hands. But we’ll give the colony governments choices about whether they want to ally with us or not.”

“And after that?” Di presses. “If they don’t ally with us? How do we enforce it?”

“We cut off their trade. They’ll either need to learn to be self-sufficient or they’ll need to agree to our terms.”

“And if they fight back? If they decide violence is the only acceptable answer? Plenty of trolls are well trained in fighting, especially in the rougher colonies.”

Sign tilts his head. “Usually I expect these arguments from Psii.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not being contrary just for the sake of being contrary. I’m just worried.” Di releases your hand and pushes her chair up, leaning on the back two legs. “We’re playing with fire. I’m worried about who’s going to get burned.”

“We’ll have to have the Advocate sit down with us to plan exactly how we’re going to approach this,” Sign says. “Figuring out the logistics isn’t something we have to do at this very second. She’ll have input on how she wants the ships used, anyway. She…” He trails off, pauses. “Does she want violence?”

You decide transparency is your best option. “She knew that you were coming. She knows that you’re a pacifist. She knows exactly what you stand for. I don’t think she would ally with you if she wasn’t willing to make compromises.”

“That’s not a ‘no’ on the violence question.”

“I think she is willing to take a pacifist approach even if it wouldn’t be her first choice. That’s the important thing.”

“Why does she care so much about us?” Di asks. “Why wait for us? Why not gather up resources and move on her own?”

This is a question you’ve given a lot of thought to, because you have had a lot of time to devote to investigating everything about the Advocate.

“I think she knows that you’re telling the truth about your visions,” you say slowly, putting the pieces in order. “At the very least, she believes you’re telling the truth about your visions. She’s seen the video of you interrupting the slave auction. She’s seen you preach. She knows that you’re the kind of force that would move trolls to switch their loyalties. She needs you. Just taking over the Empire, that’s all well and good, and maybe she’d be able to win that conquest. But she doesn’t just want to dethrone the Empress. She wants to burn the whole Empire down. Something happened between the two of them - I don’t know what, but the Advocate hates the Empress. It’s…” A shiver rolls down your spine. “It’s not black. Not healthy black, anyway. She hates the Empress like how I hate the Empress.”

Both of them are silent for a few moments. You don’t know what else you can say. Almost as an afterthought, you add, “I guess she probably needed me too. Freeing helmsmen and ruining trade routes is kind of a big deal, politically speaking and all. So maybe she was waiting for me just as much as she was waiting for you.”

“You said she hates the Empress like how you hate the Empress,” Di says finally, and it is so strange to think that she knows what that means better than your actual moirail. “Does she hate the Empress more than she cares about the movement?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah. So we need - we need to be careful. I’ve been being careful.”

“I guess it was too much to hope that we’d just happened to find an abolitionist and pacifist rustblood in a high position of power,” Sign says, sighing quietly, the sigh of someone disappointed but not altogether surprised. “I knew that from the beginning. We’ll just have to make our positions very clear and find out what she wants. At the very least, she’s straightforward when she communicates.”

“So we’ll talk to her tomorrow if she’s not too busy,” you say. “You can all get on the same page regarding the ships. They’re the best resource this colony has to offer.”

“I really do wish you’d told us about them right away.”

“I’m sorry. I was anxious. It felt… too good to be true. And I was afraid that if I let myself hope, everything would fall apart. But I think…” You look at Di instead of him, studying her profile in the dim light. “I think I fixed the future. I just don’t want to say that too loud so I don’t jinx it.”

“Was the future broken?” Sign asks.

“I didn’t want to tell you. I guess I can tell you now, though. Now that I’ve fixed it.”

“Are you sure it’s fixed?” Di asks, and you hear the same note in her voice that you’re trying to suppress in your own - the desperate hope you’ve been quashing down.

“I haven’t had any horrifying visions of doom in a while. No day terrors, either. I’ve been sleeping.” You close your eyes. “I haven’t lost myself in time. I think we’re going to be okay.”

“What was it you were trying to fix?”

“You died.” You stare down at your hands. “I saw you die. I’ve seen you die so many times. You don’t know how hard I’ve been trying to keep it from happening.”

“Oh.” Sign blinks. “I thought I already knew that?”

“What?”

“It’s not exactly some great secret that I’m going to die, Psii. I thought we’d already established that I’m cullbait.”

“But you’re not going to die anymore, because I fixed it.”

“I’ll die at some point regardless,” he points out. “But it would be nice if whatever particularly horrifying death you’ve seen didn’t happen. I like it when you don’t have day terrors.”

He’s an idiot. You want to tell him so, but you also don’t want to give him the finer details of his death or the fiery end of the revolution. He’d be far less at peace with the burning movement than his own burning. So you just run a hand through your hair and say, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He catches your hand again. “Is this why you pulled away from me? You thought I was dying?”

“I thought I was going to kill you.”

“You couldn’t, love. The worst you could do is make a mistake. If I’m going to die, the Empire will be responsible or it’ll be my own fault. Not yours.”

“Sometimes I feel like you don’t properly appreciate that I am the most powerful psion alive.”

“Sometimes I feel like you don’t properly appreciate that I can handle bad news without having a nervous breakdown.” He gets to his feet and stretches, his joints popping, a punctuation to the anticlimax. “I’m going to go get dinner. Then we’ll sit down and make a list of things we need to discuss with the Advocate, okay?”

“Get some for us, too!” Di calls at his retreating back. She waits until he’s gone before she says, “You’re not bullshitting? You really think we can win?”

“I think coming to Aldareth was the best thing that we could do,” you say. “I think the Advocate’s dangerous, but she’s also the best ally we could have. I think we have resources now that we weren’t meant to have before. So - yeah. I think maybe we can avoid the whole war.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then I guess we deal with that as it happens. I have to take everything in little pieces. If I try to think about it all at once, I feel like I’m drowning.”

“That’s fair.” She kisses your cheek. “Are you close enough to set a date?”

A date to send out the virus. Your heart skips a beat, but you nod. “I think so.”

“Tomorrow, then. We’ll set a date and figure out exactly what we’re going to do.”

And that’s the plan. You eat dinner with Sign and Di and Rosa, catch Rosa up on everything she’s missed. You outline all of the fine details you need to discuss about the ships, everything from quantities to quality to which trolls would be assigned to which crew. You check on your communications and relocate colony resources to a few trolls planetside who need them. You undress, achy but satisfied with your work, and slide into the slime with Sign and Di. You settle between them and let yourself relax for the first time in ages, forcing your mind away from all of your usual worries and the whispers of the elder gods.

You’ve just drifted to peaceful sleep when the screaming starts.

Chapter Text

At first, the screaming is so loud and close that you think it’s coming from your companions. You leap out of the recuperacoon and spin around, snarling at invisible threats, only for Sign and Di both to raise sleepy heads and blink at you in bemusement. And then the pieces fall together and you realize why the voices in your head are suddenly so unbearably loud, and you’re grabbing for a towel and a fresh change of clothes before you’ve even left your defensive crouch.

“Psii?”

You shove your legs through your pants and pull on a shirt, already running for the door, cursing your own slowness. You’re not going to be fast enough - you’re not going to be fast enough - you turn back to them as you wrench the doorknob open.

“Di, you’re the quickest of all of us,” you say, and her green eyes are bright and alert. “Go tell the Advocate to evacuate the colony now. Sign, you need to come to the hangar with me and get onto the ship - we need to leave. We need to leave, we needed to leave as of ten minutes ago.”

“Psii, what-?”

“The Empire,” you say, and there’s no time to explain the deaths screeching in your ears, and you will not be fast enough to get to the Advocate, and you have never heard this many people die so close to you all at once. “The Empire is coming.”

Sign stares at you, his face a mask of manufactured calm. Then he grabs for his cloak and leggings. “Does the colony have an evacuation alarm?”

“Fuck. Fuck me. I don’t think so.” You scrub a hand over your face and dart for your stuff, fishing your phone out and tapping your fingers over the screen. “There’s not enough colony-wide threats - the atmosphere - there’ll be fire alarms on the buildings but evacuation alarms…”

Di dives past you and disappears down the hallway. You can only hope that she’ll find the Advocate in time to get some people out. And how are you meant to save everyone, when the Empire is coming in full force and there’s no alarm to wake the sleeping people up and a message blast won’t be fast enough when everyone’s dying against your temples-

“Get my mother and go to the ship,” Sign tells you, his voice still very calm. “I’ll be there soon.”

“The fuck do you mean you’ll be there soon - you’ll be there now, we do not have time to argue, we need to go.”

“I have to go wake people up.” Sign grabs the hand not clutching your phone, his eyes burning like flame in their intensity. “Someone has to get them out.”

And you know that you couldn’t get him back to the ship unless you knocked him over the head, and besides he’s right. You can pull every fire and gas alarm in the colony, but some people still won’t be reached, and you’re not going to be able to evacuate them. You close your eyes and try to block out the splitting pain in your head, the screams - think - you have to think-

The virus. Your eyes open. The virus, and the ships. All the ships amassed for your war, they’re all going to be destroyed - and you don’t know if the Empire knows or -

“I’m sending it out,” you say. “The helmsman program. There’s no more time to test it. I’m sending it out now.”

“Do you have a backup-”

“I’m sending it out now,” you snarl, and your eyes flare so bright that for a moment you’re afraid you’ve hurt him, and he nods.

“Go get my mother.”

You run for the door and peel down the hallway, Sign moving the opposite direction from you and pulling fire alarms as he goes. The earsplitting ringing against your eardrums is not a great thing to add on top of the chaos already inside your mind, and you’re having trouble seeing straight as you move to Rosa’s room. You slam your hand against her door. While you’re waiting for it to open, you pull out your phone again.

TA: call them off
CC: lol
TA: CALL THEM OFF
TA: CALL THEM THE FUCK OFF
TA: DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU THAT YOU WON?? YOU WON SPOT THE MUTANT CALL THEM OFF
CC: do you have any idea who the fuck i am
CC: because i think youve forgotten
CC: do you think we’re friends?
CC: matesprits?
CC: that because youre mine im gonna up and forgive every single betrayal youve leveled at me?
CC: did you think i wouldnt KNOW
CC: you crazy son of a bitch
CC: did you think i wouldnt know that you sold yourself to her
TA: call them off and II’ll come home
TA: call them off and II’ll do anythIIng you want

The door opens as you’re waiting for the response. Rosa takes one look at your face, the ringing alarms and flashing lights, and grabs her cloak. “The ship?”

“I’m sending the virus now.”

She nods, unquestioning. “Do you need to plug in?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do it from the ship?”

“No.”

CC: youll come home no matter what
CC: i cant wait to make you watch him DI----E

One hallway down and you ask Rosa to carry you because you’re not fast enough, you’re blinded by pain. She slings you over her shoulders and carries you out of the building where you sleep. You scan the skies and catch your breath.

You can’t see them yet, but you know they’re coming. The drones. By the time you can see them in the sky, it’ll be too late to do anything. You keep your gaze locked upward as Rosa runs faster, the strength and prowess of a hunter guiding her movements. If you plug into the mainframe of the colony and send out the virus, there’s a good chance you won’t have time to reach the hangar. You know perfectly well that Rosa will turn around if you see the drones. But your progress is saved on the terminal, not your personal networks. Even if you could remake all your work, that terminal gives you access to official channels you can’t see on your husktop. You’ll never have another chance to send the virus, not effectively, at least.

Rosa barks something you can’t hear. Then repeats herself. “Signless?”

“Getting people out of the colony.”

She says something that you’re pretty sure is a colorful swear, and then you make out, “Di?”

“Getting the Advocate.”

“Would it kill any of you to stay where you're supposed to?” she shouts, but she’s running for the compound instead of the hangar.

The Advocate meets you inside the door, no bruised shadows on her face to indicate interrupted sleep. Maybe she was awake. Maybe she doesn’t sleep at all. “Captor,” she says. “Are you hurt?”

“Just slow.”

“It has to be now.”

“I know.”

---

You yank up your data on the virus, and you throw digital death at the Empire.

I’m going to kill her, you think as you send out every video you’ve ever taken of Signless, every record of his sermons, every vow he’s made for people’s protection. You send out the coding to yank helmsmen from their obedience subroutines and give them their ships. High on vengeance, you dig into Aldareth’s security networks and yank camera feeds, following up your virus with footage of the drones. THIS IS YOUR EMPIRE’S JUSTICE.

Signless should be in the hangar by now. You ignore the sinking in your gut and the screams and the desperate thought, I shouldn’t have let him go, I shouldn’t have let him go, I shouldn’t have let him go. You can’t hear him or Di or Rosa amidst the cries, but why would that mean anything? Maybe they’ve been drowned out by the hundreds, hundreds, thousands, all falling now, and it’s your fault, your fault-

You can’t find him on the security feeds. You search through the feeds on the streets of the suburban residential areas, find him still knocking on doors and ushering people outside. God dammit.

“Fuck,” you hiss. He’s alive at least, but he won’t be for long. “We have to go get Sign, he’s not going to come here by himself, he’s an idiot.”

Rosa gives you a look that plainly says I could have told you that. “Do you know where he is?”

“I’ve got the street number.”

TA: well
TA: II gave you the chance to call them off
CC: what
CC: did
CC: you
CC: just
CC: do

You peel yourself out of the computer terminal with a sense of grim satisfaction. No time to look back or worry about the repercussions; you have to move forward. Across the Empire, ships are suddenly destabilizing and forwarding their virus to other ships, which are destabilizing. If it works like it’s meant to, the entire Imperial fleet will be affected in under an hour. If you’re lucky, if the drones are being ferried by one of the ships affected first, you may have bought yourself a little time.

“We have to go,” you say, hopping onto Rosa’s back again. “Come with us.”

“I am not,” the Advocate says calmly, striding down the hallway that’ll take her to the lower levels, “leaving my ships.”

You stare after her, but you know there’s no point calling her back. Understanding her like you understand yourself, you know that she won’t be convinced to give up her advantage. Not when she doesn’t have anything else to live for.

---

You forget to breathe when you emerge into open air.

You can see them, the drones. They’re dropping through the atmosphere like flaming omens of death, the light of their approach blocking out stars and the moon. Rosa runs faster. The screams swell, pounding against your forehead with the relentlessness of the tide, and you swallow the bile that wants to choke you. They’re targeting the compound first, the ships, she knows about the ships, sweeps of work all gone in a blast and you can’t get them out and there’s drones in the hangar, firing at the ships trying to rise into the air -

“We’re not safe to meet here either way!” Rosa calls to you, as though you weren’t already unsafe enough. “Send a message to Signless and Disciple, tell them to find a place to hide until the attack is over!”

Terror takes hold. Where the fuck can you go that won’t be razed by the drones? If they’re tracking people with heat signatures, you’re fucked no matter what you do. But Rosa is already running, putting space between you and the hangar and the drones still dropping out of the sky.

She’s not fast enough.

A drone bears down on you, programmed to eradicate fleeing prey. You lash out with your psionics, slicing clean through the head and shoving another lance of power through the control centers, and then another is upon you. You keep throwing your power at them like you’re mowing down an opposing army, Rosa’s stride never faltering as she seeks shelter.

And then three are on you at once, and you can’t take them all down, you don’t have the focus with the noise inside your brain, and you brace yourself for the end. A quick death, a doomed timeline, a better outcome than imprisonment. Sign will die in the colony and Di will probably perish too and it’ll be all your fault, you who kept poking the Empire with a stick just to see how long it would take to bite. You don’t even know what happened, you don’t know what the Empress saw or who betrayed you, and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter -

The drones stop.

They stop above you, like they’re not sure whether or not they’re allowed to kill. And if the Empress has given you some sort of immunity then that would make sense, wouldn’t it - them identifying you and backing off - but you shear through all three when you have your power back, just to be sure.

This, finally, makes Rosa pause. “What was that?”

“Go toward the city, we need to find Signless. Where the fuck is Di? Why wasn’t she with the Advocate?” Dread mingles with the terror, but you can’t hear her voice in your head still. Fuck, you hope she’s not in the ship waiting for you.

“Why did they stop?”

You brace yourself, harden your resolve. “Rosa, I need to tell you something about me. And the Empress.”

---

You breathe your confessions in her ear as she runs, too breathless to respond. Might as well get everything on the table now, because if you have immunity to the drones’ power, you need to protect as many people as you can. You have to find Sign and Di. You have to - you have to -

The drones initially dropped out of the sky over the compound and the hangar. They’re concentrated there, burrowing through the layers upon layers of security to rip open the hidden fleet and destroy it. But there are so many of them, too many of them; they’re descending on the city, wreaking havoc wherever they can. Imperial justice. The Empress will tear the whole fucking colony to pieces before she lets the Advocate get away with her treason.

You can see it in your mind. The drones will keep dropping out of the sky in an endless march against the colony. They’ll burn every building to the ground and rip the survivors limb from limb. They’ll harvest the blood that runs in rivers through the streets. They’ll destroy everything on this planet, and then the Empire will blame the murder on the Advocate, on Signless, on you.

Everyone here is doomed.

Unless someone buys them time to escape.

“Put me down,” you tell Rosa, your mind whirling over the possibilities, the logistics. She slides you off her back so that your feet find purchase on solid ground. The majority of the drones are still concentrated at the compound, but as soon as they break through and destroy the ships, they’ll come here. It’ll be nothing like the few drifting through neighborhoods and rooting out trolls right now. It’ll be a full-fledged massacre.

A few perigrees ago, a lifetime ago, you sat on a beach with an old psionic woman who told you, With practice, I don’t doubt you could shield entire cities.

That’s what makes you so dangerous.

You scan the buildings around you, find the tallest one, a large hivestem complex built more vertically than horizontally. Rosa turns to you, sees your face, and says, “No.”

“I don’t hear you. In my head, I mean. I don’t hear you or Sign or Di. Find them and get safe.”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” she shouts, because she knows, because she must have seen it in your eyes. But by the time she tries to pull you back, you’ve rocketed out of her reach.

Maybe you were wrong about the immunity. Maybe the drones will shoot first, identify later. Maybe all you’re doing is hastening your own doom. But you finish your flight unaccosted, landing on the roof of the hivestem.

Up here, the scene is almost peaceful. It would be peaceful if you could shut off the cacophony inside your skull. The roof is a garden, flowering shrubs and trees spreading their branches, a tiny tranquil pond reflecting the sky. A metal fence runs around the edges, and you curl your hands around it, watching the end of everything that matters.

Trolls are running through the streets, so small from this vantage point that they barely seem real. They’re heading for the hangar, for the compound, as though anything will be left by the time they arrive. You draw your gaze from the ground to the sky and see more of them, more of the drones, being dispatched from whatever hellish ship carried them. They’re bearing down on the hangar. They’re going to keep coming, and coming, and coming, and they won’t stop until all that’s left is ashes.

You don’t know if any of the ships are still flyable. You don’t know how many drones are in the hangar. You don’t know whether it’s already too late. But you know that every single troll here has a better chance of survival if you do this than if you don’t.

You reach for the calm place inside yourself, the one you found when you tortured the slaver, when you pushed your family away to satisfy your own vengeance. To your own surprise, it’s not vengeance that brings on the clarity this time. It’s the thought of every slave you’ve ever rehomed to Aldareth, some of whom are even now running for their lives through the streets. It’s the thought that you brought them here, and you followed them thinking it would be safe, and you carried their ends with you. Delivered them a few sweeps of peace and then a meaningless slaughter.

The shield bursts out of you as easily as if you’d been hatched making them. It is easy. It is so, so easy. Your psionics are an extension of yourself, all the pure energy packed into your body finding another way to escape. No wonder you feared yourself, you think, as the red-and-blue shimmering wall escapes from your body and arches upward. No wonder you’ve been frightened of your own destruction, as the shield lowers itself almost to the ground. Doesn’t touch the ground, leaves just a few feet of space so the running trolls won’t be affected. Catches the flying drones in the streets and shoves them back so violently pieces shatter. More than one is thrown into a building, and the others are pushed ever outward and upward. Out of the city, out of the colony, out of sight, out of fucking mind.

You throw the shield toward the hangar and the compound, tossing drones aside as you go, and when you reach them, you also reach the edge of your limits. Even you still have limits, destroyer of worlds, supernova. You ground the shield around the edges of the buildings, a shining dome covering the compound and the hangar and every part of the city you could reach, and you hold it there.

There’s nothing left inside you. Your blood pusher and lungs contract, seeking air like you’re trying to breathe in two-dimensional space. Your psionics have always seemed a bottomless wellspring of power; even when you’ve burned out, it’s been because of your body’s limitations, not your psi’s. But there’s nothing left now. All of the energy in your body is maintaining the shield around you, holding the drones out as they slam against it, again and again and again, desperate to find a crack in the armor. Every impact registers dully like an ache to the pan. You curl your fingers harder around the metal railing and concentrate.

A voice shouts, “Pull it back!”

For a horrifying moment, you think it’s a voice in your head, that she’s doomed to die. And then Rosa waves in your periphery to get your attention, tearing your focus from the shield. She must have broken into the building and run up fuck knows how many flights of stairs to get to you.

You hold the shield steady in a corner of your consciousness, the drones still hammering dully away at it, and yell back, “What the hell are you doing? Get Sign and Di!”

“You’re my son too!”

She tries to wrap her hand around your arm, to pry you from the railing. You don’t doubt that she’d knock you out if she could - but she hisses and jerks back, and her palm is scorched where it touched you. Flame licks the edges of your sleeves, a sight so strange that you wonder idly if you’re hallucinating. Your clothes are built to withstand the temperatures associated with a burnout. You can’t imagine how hot they’d need to be to be set aflame, but your slippery grip on the railing falters, and you realize distantly that the metal is melting under your hands.

There’s no pain, really. There’s nothing at all. Everything that you’re made of is hovering around the city, standing against Imperial drones. Only the barest scraps of self are left inside this disintegrating body. It’s like the expansiveness of helming without any of the programming. You, and you, and nothing but you, distilled to energy and heat and the single-minded desire to really ruin the Empress’ night.

You feel death a tenth of a second before it happens. All things considered, you were probably doomed the second you threw out the shield. Psions aren’t built to use all their power at once. Your body, your stupid inadequate body, roasts your organs as your skin blisters and your fingers drip liquid silver.

You feel death, and that tenth of a second stretches into its own infinity. There is just this: the moment before you’re gone, and the moment that will come after. You turn your face from Rosa and scan the colony one final time, and you see, blooming like a flower in the midst of the destruction, an underground hatch opening in the wreckage of the compound. You see one ship launch itself into the air, and then another, and another. In the end, you can’t be sure whether you saw it with your eyes or with your visions, because too much time passed in a tenth of a second for this to be real.

You think, Maybe I did something worthwhile after all, and then you remember the seriousness with which Sign and Di both extracted their promises from you. You swore on her life; you hope that doesn’t damn her. I’m sorry, Di, you think, and the hammer blow of a drone shatters the shield, and the power snaps back into you like a rushing elastic, and your heart explodes.

You are a collapsing star. The world goes white, and you’re gone before you hit the ground.

Chapter Text

You are now the Signless.

You’re pounding at the entrance to another hive when you hear the hum of the approaching ship. The curtains on the window flutter, and you know there’s someone inside, but they’re not going to open the door. You shout a warning, shout to be let in, and place an open palm against the closed door. Nothing. So this is where it ends, then. At least you got the luxury of not having to watch the Empire destroy everything you’re working for.

Then a voice yells, “Kankri!”

That gets your attention. There aren’t many trolls who know that name, the hatchname you had in the other world. It’s not inscribed in any official records. Your wife has never even penned it in her journals or sermon notes. It's a secret held carefully between your family members. You turn, and she’s waving frantically at you from the open hatch of the ship.

You blink a few times, just to make sure you’re seeing right. The ship hovers above the houses, too large to dip between them, but there’s a rope ladder hanging out of the hatch on the bottom. Di motions for you to grab it, but you’re already moving. Either this is, miraculously, one of the non-psion ships; or you’re doomed anyway, and you’d like to die beside your wife.

You scramble up the ladder, your lungs burning from the combination of frantic running and shouting. When you glance down, other fleeing trolls have grabbed hold of the ladder and started up underneath you. You haul yourself over the metal lip of the hatch, and Di wraps her arms around you, clinging so tight you’re pretty sure she’d have tackled you if it wouldn’t toss you out the hatch.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” she breathes, stroking your hair like she can’t believe she has another chance to touch it. “Fuck, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay…”

“I’m okay,” you affirm, still winded as you step away from the hatch to let other trolls into the ship.

You look around to get your bearings, and despite the situation, you laugh a little as she kisses down your jaw and over your neck. “Easy, easy,” you say, kissing her hair. “I’m okay.”

The hatch opens onto a wide floor, empty and covered with dust at the moment, but clearly meant for cargo. The walls and floor are an off-white, metal staircases spiraling to the upper decks on either side. You very carefully extricate yourself from Di and start over to the stairs, half because you want to get out of the way of the entering trolls and half because you need to find something useful to do.

She twines her fingers through yours, clearly resisting the urge to wrap herself around you like an enthusiastic barnacle, and you are so relieved and you love her so much it hurts. “You found the Advocate, then?”

“No,” she says, surprising you, “someone else must have - I guess they had a way to get the ships airborne just in case something like this happened. The Empire’s not firing back, so I think they only had the one ship with the drones, the one that’s up in the atmosphere right now -”

You start up the stairs, her voice continuing in the background, babbling the way she does when she’s stressed or afraid and doesn't have a nearby tree to climb.

“- I saw the ship rise out of the ground, which was an adventure by itself, but good because I was in the hangar and there was basically no way I was getting to our ship, and - love, wait, wait.”

You pause at the top of the steps, your hand extended, ready to open the door onto the upper deck. “What is it?”

“There’s windows,” she says breathlessly, helplessly. “You might not want to - you might want to help people into the ship instead -”

Protecting you, like she always does, like every member of your family always does. Because they think you can’t handle it, seeing what the Empire has done, is doing, like you’re made of glass. As though your faith would shatter because you witness physical proof of what you’ve always known, the corruption at the root of the Empire. As though your principles are based in your view of the world through a distorted lens.

She doesn’t mean it like that; you know she doesn’t, she wouldn’t be all-in for the movement if she did. She believes it just as much as you. But she wants to keep you from hurting, and you’re going to hurt whether you watch the destruction or not, so you just say, “I have to know,” and open the door.

The windows are made of thick glass or some other clear substance, not nearly as dusty as the cargo hold was. You can see the colony spread out below you, the hangar a pillar of flame, a dozen or more ships hovering over the streets to pick up fleeing trolls. The ship you’re on rises further into the air, either prepared to drift to another spot or shoot into the atmosphere, and you say, “We have to find my mom and Psii,” and then you see them.

~0~

You have seen burnout victims before.

You are, contrary to what the protective instincts of your family might believe, very fucking aware of what the Empire is. You have to know what the Empire is to be able to rage so effectively against it. So you have seen burnout victims before, discarded like trash outside factories or floating in the sea after ship crews tossed them near the docks. You have seen burnout victims before, but nothing prepares you for the reality of seeing Psii.

You don’t believe it, not really. You see them on the top of the tallest building, your mother holding onto him like it’ll kill her to let go, and you know he’s dead. You know it. But you don’t believe it.

Di says, “No,” hoarse and strangled, pressing a hand to the glass. The ship moves toward them, and she says it again, “No,” like if she denies it vehemently enough, it won’t be true. She rips herself from the glass and runs for the stairs, her voice rising to a howl, a keen, tearing from some primal part of her you don’t think she can control. “No, god dammit, no!”

There’s something wrong with your emotions. This fact is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing second. Not because you feel nothing over Psii - you still don’t quite believe that, not yet - but because you should be aching to hold her, but her cries don’t touch you. Instead of running after her, you walk to the stairs at a calm, measured pace. Your fingers tremble slightly when you wrap them around the metal railing, and your body should still ache from your earlier run, but your feet thud against the steps and physically, physically you feel nothing at all.

Your mother won’t let him go. It’s only the grace of the building’s height that allows the ship to dip low enough to reach them, and Di takes hold of Psii, hauling him through the opening. Your mother follows, and you register - clinical, detached - that she’s covered in burns. The fabric of her dress has been scorched away in multiple places, her arms blackened where they curled around him. Her hands are a ruin.

You register this because you look at her, because you can’t look at him. The Empire’s destruction, fleeing trolls, dying trolls, corpses, you can take all of that. You can’t look at him. You can’t look at him, but you have to look at him, so you do.

Your feet carry you forward without any conscious decision. The trolls crowded into the hold part as you glide past them. You register that one is pulling up the rope ladder and closing the hatch, and that the ship is moving again, and that Di’s face and your mother’s are both streaked with tears, and your pan skips over the reality of Psii again, so you make yourself look.

He doesn’t look like Psii anymore, is the thing. His suit is burned away around his sleeves, melted to his skin in other places, which are not skin so much as a landscape of blistered emptiness. His face is coated in blood, drying across his cheeks, dripping onto his shoulders. His eyes are closed, and you’d know he was dead even if his body was perfectly intact, because even when he sleeps his eyes always have a faint luminescence. That's gone now. There’s no static hum of power in the air, no increased pressure. There’s nothing at all.

Di hits his unmoving chest, a gesture so violent it nearly shakes you from your fog. “You bastard!” she shouts, like they’re arguing and he just pulled some insulting bullshit out of thin air. “You bastard, you idiot, you fucking idiot, you promised me!”

Her voice cracks, breaks. Your mother lets out a dry sob. Psii, if he were here, would snap back at her. His eyes would flare, twin moons. But he’s not here. The body in front of you is just an empty shell.

You kneel beside the shattered ruins of your moirail and take his hand in yours. His body is still warm, but it must have been running much hotter earlier to burn your mother like this. His claws and horns, the only pieces of him that seem to have escaped unscathed, are chipped and flaking.

“His claws are a mess,” you say, aware that it’s an absurd observation to make, aware of the stares on your face. “I haven’t fixed them lately. I should’ve made time. To take care of him." You let out a shuddering breath. "Excuse me for a moment.”

You stand, intending to politely find a bathroom, but the world tips precariously around you. For a moment, you think it was the ship, but then you realize you just can’t keep your balance. You sit back down and barely hear yourself say, “I’m very sorry about this,” before you’re sick all over the floor.

~0~

The ship you’re on flies to a much larger ship, docking inside its built-in port. You should pay attention to your surroundings - you don’t even know how the larger ship got out of the colony - but you can’t really see anything. You’re existing somewhere outside your body. You try to carry Psii out - this, at least, should be one goddamn thing you can do for him - but you’re still having trouble standing straight. Instead, your mother gathers him protectively against her chest, and if anyone was tempted to mention the uselessness of keeping a corpse, they’re deterred by her fully extended fangs.

You’re in a respiteblock, somehow. You don’t remember how you got there. You touch your own cheek and are a little surprised to find yourself dry-eyed, but maybe your instincts to hide your tears for your own safety won out. The block has a recuperacoon in the corner but is otherwise unfurnished, and Psii is stretched out still and burned along the floor.

He’s gone. You’re starting to feel it, a sensation like you missed a step on a staircase and you’re unexpectedly falling. The scope of it is incomprehensible. He’s gone. Your mind considers the things he’ll never do again, and your heart jerks away from it, singed.

You’ve had fevers before. Hot as you already run, raising your temperature by a few degrees tends to be dangerous. The last time you were badly sick was sweeps ago. Your mother laid you on the wooden floor of an abandoned hive and pressed cool cloths over your forehead, but your body itched to run. You itched to get up, flee, pace. Somehow your body had convinced itself that you could outrun the illness if you were fast enough.

You feel it again, now.

You’re going to have to face it, the full scope of the awfulness. It’s going to be a knife into the ribs over and over, the edges dull, the force blunt and uncompromising. It’s never going to stop hurting. You’re going to want him to soothe the ache, to rub your shoulders and distract you with strategy talk, to appear and ease your grief. Just as stupid, just as impossible as running away from the flu.

He’s gone.

“What happened?” Di asks, and it’s not a curious query so much as a snarl. “He’d better have a good fucking reason, I’m going to kill him, I’m going to-”

You catch her as she falls to her knees, burying your face into her hair. You won’t be able to comfort each other, you’re both falling through the same awful chasm, but she needs someone to hold her, so you do. She shakes apart in your arms.

“He did exactly what he always does,” your mother says, and you think Sacrificed himself, but she says, “Saved our lives.”

Di hiccups for breath. “I’m going to kill him. I hate him, I hate him so much, I’m going to-”

“It’s okay,” you say, a completely meaningless platitude considering nothing will ever be okay again.

“He was in contact with the Empress,” your mother says.

You blink. The sentence doesn’t make any sense, and you’re not sure if that’s because you’re dissociating or because it makes as little sense as it sounds. “Sweeps ago. We know that already.”

“An hour ago,” she corrects. Her mouth is pressed into a thin line. Her tears have stopped, but her fangs still poke over her bottom lip.

“I don’t understand,” you say, but Di clearly does, because she unfolds herself from you and surveys your mother with a light in her eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Why?” she says. You’re a little too busy on the don’t understand piece to have jumped to why yet, but you are somehow not surprised at all when your mother says, “Same reason it always is.”

“Well.” Your voice has taken on that stiff, formal tone again, disconnected from the rest of you. “It would have to be. He wouldn’t contact her for any other reason.” It’s calming, speaking the truth, the same soothing ease you feel when you preach. Like if you make sense of the world, you can stop the awfulness. “He wouldn’t go to her unless he thought it would save our lives. Oh, Psii.” There’s something to be said for the fact that he can make you pity him posthumously. You touch his blistered cheek. “Oh, love. You didn’t have to do that.”

Di reaches out to Psii. You think for a second that she’s going to hit him again, but then she pries the folds of his melted pants apart and pulls his phone out with her fingertips. The screen is black and bubbling, and she hisses. “Fuck, it’s still burning hot.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to get much information from that,” you point out, reasonably.

“Did she attack because of him? Because she knew where he was?”

You suspect this is just Di’s way of winding herself into more fury, because if she’s angry at him then she doesn’t have to hurt so much, so you say, “It wouldn’t be his fault even if she had.”

“He would think it was, though,” she snaps with an urgency that perplexes you. “Was it him, Rosa?”

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter-” you start, because it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter why this stupid and senseless thing happened or what factors caused it, but Di snarls, “It matters,” with that same weird urgency.

She lays a palm flat on Psii’s chest, curls her fingers slightly, claws pressing lightly against his skin. “Is this a war?”

“I don’t know,” your mother says again, helpless.

You’re spared the burden of responding when there’s a knock on the door. Your feet carry you to the sliding pane and your finger presses the button to open it without your conscious volition. The Advocate stands framed in the doorway, her chin tilted. It’s hard to tell where she’s looking when she doesn’t have pupils, but when her eyes flare brighter you’re pretty sure she’s seeing Psii.

“May I come in?” she asks.

You step aside.

She enters, all calm and grace. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, but it's hollow and performative. “The Empire is scrambling for its ships because of him. That’s the only reason we haven’t been followed.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m told we owe him a debt of gratitude besides. We couldn’t have gotten the gateway open if he hadn't held off the drones.”

So that’s how he burned out. Of course he did. Of course he shielded the colony. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself, not with slaves he rehomed running for their lives. You should have seen it. You should have seen it because you’d have done the same damn thing if you had psionics, you should have seen it, you should never have let him go. You shouldn't have let him go.

Your mother says, “Who told you that?”

The Advocate delicately shrugs one shoulder.

“I would like to know,” your mother says, “who told you that. No one was on that rooftop except for him and me.”

The answer seems obvious to you - any shield strong enough to hold off the drones must have come from him - but when there’s no reply, your mother adds, soft, dangerous, “You knew.”

The Advocate proves once again that she’s made of steel; she doesn’t wilt or flinch when faced with a furious rainbowdrinker. Instead she regards your mother levelly. “Yes,” she says after a moment. “I knew.”

The glow in the room brightens. It’s hard to look at your mother directly, but the Advocate still doesn’t flinch.

“And did you warn him?”

That’s a fair question. It would be just like Psii to have been forewarned and sacrifice himself anyway. But Di’s shaking her head. “He can’t have been warned,” she says.

You blink. “Why not?”

“Because he’s a promise-breaking bastard and he can’t have meant to do that. I can't believe he planned that. If he planned it I'll kill him twice.”

This does not strike you as a very valid line of reasoning, especially considering he managed to hide continued contact with the Empress from all of you, but you don’t point that out. You watch the Advocate, analyze her tone when she says, “No, I didn’t warn him.”

“Did you try to change it?”

No hesitation this time. “No.”

“You,” your mother says, “killed my son,” and you only just have enough time to throw yourself between them before she lunges for the Advocate’s throat.

You’ve never seen her lose control like this. It’s another part of her, one she tries to keep hidden from you, locked away behind mugs of tea and a calm demeanor. But there’s nothing calm about her as she snaps her teeth by your ear, the Advocate’s throat intact only because you’re a physical barrier between them. You won’t be able to hold her off, not if she keeps attacking, and a tendril of real fright snakes through your chest, because you don't know if the Advocate's psionics are strong enough to hold her back, but then Di tackles her from the side and sends her sprawling onto the ground.

Pure rainbowdrinker strength allows your mother to throw her off, but she hasn’t had time to regain her footing before you spread your arms and shout, “Enough!”

Di sits up, breathing hard, ready to pounce again should the situation call for it. But you say, “It won’t help anything, Mom, it won’t solve anything,” and your mother sinks back to her knees and buries her face in her hands.

“There must be a medbay or an infirmary on this ship,” you add, sounding much more like yourself now that you have a problem to solve that isn’t insurmountable. “Go - go, you need your burns treated. And you need to calm down. Di, love, go with her, please?”

You make it sound like you’re worried about your mother’s control, but you need them both to leave. You can’t be what they need and still get the answers you want from the Advocate. It didn’t matter, before, why the Empire was attacking. The Empire has always been a senseless and destructive force, like a natural disaster. But there’s a woman standing before you who says she knew what was coming, and if you’re looking to cast blame anywhere but on yourself, you’ve found a good mark.

Your mother wipes a smear of green from her chin - she’s bitten her bottom lip. Her mouth is still curled in a snarl, but she must read intention in your face, because she stalks past the Advocate and disappears past the doorframe’s edge. Di picks herself up, brushes dust off her clothes, gives you one last hard look, and follows.

You sit back down with your moirail. You may have failed when it counted most, but you can damn well keep watch over his body.

“Tell me what you knew,” you say.

She pauses again, weighing her words. “More than you wish.”

“That,” you say, “is not an answer.”

“I knew he was doomed,” she says. “Anyone with half an ounce of foresight could see that.”

“Did you know he would die tonight?”

“I did not know that tonight would be the night until it was.” She considers. “I did know he would die in service of a greater good.”

You clench your fists. “Did you know the Empire was going to attack?”

“I think I would have had a better contingency plan if I did.”

You take Psii’s hand again, rubbing your thumb over the back of his palm, unable to stop noticing the brittleness of the claws. “You should have warned him.”

“Do you truly believe it would make a difference?”

“Maybe,” you say. “Maybe not. Even if you thought it wouldn’t make a difference, you should have warned him anyway.”

The Advocate slides onto the floor, facing you across your moirail’s body. “I needed him to die.”

You don’t look away from his hand, his fragile fingers. “Say that again.”

“Do you understand what he would be in the Empire’s hands?”

“He wasn’t in the Empire’s hands,” you say. “He was in mine.”

“He was a weapon.”

“People are not weapons.”

“Not the way you use them, no.”

Something inside you goes cold. You have never been inclined to violence, have never understood the urge, but you suddenly need Psii to open his eyes and shoosh you and hold you down until you stop feeling this. “What, exactly, does that mean?”

“Only that the Empire exploits people in a way you will not.”

You finally look up, find that same impenetrable mask. “So he’d be more useful to the Empire than to me? Which makes him expendable?”

She finally averts her gaze. “I am sorry,” she says, more genuine than before. “It is not easy to lose a moirail.”

“That’s what happened to you, isn’t it?” you ask, as pieces click into place. “The Empress killed your moirail.”

A small, bitter smile graces her lips. “There are worse things.”

You close your eyes. Your temples throb. “Did it work, at least? Did Psii do what he meant to?”

“He saved the lives of everyone on the colony, if that’s what you mean.” She regards the burnt husk of his body. “He did what I needed him to do, and then I didn’t have a use for him anymore, so he serves a better purpose dead than alive.”

You almost lunge for her. You’re not sure what holds you back, except for the raw ache inside you, the ache that says nothing will ever be right in the world again.

“If you think that I will ally with you after this,” you say, as cold as the blades you want to carve into her, “you are out of your goddamn mind.”

“One life for hundreds. You can’t tell me that’s a sacrifice you would not make.”

You reach for your rhetoric. You’ve spoken and penned thousands of words about oppression, about every awful aspect of the Empire that you can fathom. You’ve spent hours upon hours analyzing this world and the other one, layering the universes over each other. You always have an answer, except now this woman is sitting three feet from you and telling you that she killed your moirail without an ounce of remorse, and you cannot find the words that explain why she’s wrong.

You stand abruptly. “I need some air. I need to take a walk or I’m going to do something I’ll regret.” You start for the door, then halt and turn back to her. “Don’t-” and your voice breaks, finally, and you would do anything not to have your delayed meltdown happen in front of this woman. “Don’t move him. Please. I know he’s just extra weight and we should throw him out an airlock, but - please. I need to get a shroud first. My mother will want to - please.”

“I can’t harm him now.”

“Please.”

“I will not move the body.” She presses a closed fist over her heart. “You have my word.”

As far as you’re concerned, her word isn’t worth much, but you can’t stay in the room. You can’t keep looking at him, and you certainly can’t keep looking at her. You walk out the door, down the hallway, into a marked ablution block. Then you sink down against the door, press your fist against your mouth, and scream, and scream, and scream.

~0~

You don’t know how much time has passed before you finally stop screamsobbing into your hands. When you lower them, there’s a small nick where your teeth cut into your knuckle. Tiny, really, but a tiny nick is enough to damn you, and that seems like such a trivial thing to worry about when Psii is dead and the world is ending.

You wash the tears off your face and prod through the ablution block for a bandage, but there’s nothing inside the medicine cabinet. This ship wasn’t stocked for use so soon. It doesn’t matter, you think viciously, and exit the block with the red splotch still visible on your hand.

The Advocate is leaving when you approach, the door whooshing softly shut behind her. For that one moment before she notices you, there’s something else in her face, something impossibly ancient and sad. That must be whatever’s underneath her facade. If you weren’t so busy hating her, you’d find it pitiful.

You pass her, open the door again. For a heartstopping moment, you think there’s something wrong with the body, but then you realize she’s just cleaned away the blood. Even the blisters look a little better, though you might just be remembering them worse than they are.

You’ve half-turned back down the hall, opening your mouth to say something - you have no idea if it’ll be thanks or a caustic comment. So you aren’t inside the room when your moirail gasps back to life, his back arching off the ground like he’s been shocked. All thought of the Advocate vacates your mind in an instant, instinct taking over before rational thought can catch up, and you’re kneeling beside Psii when he opens his eyes and starts to scream.

Chapter Text

No.

You know from the second you wake up. The pieces fall into place and the horror lives under your ribs and your pusher is pumping blood through your sluggish veins, and you are alive against all reason, and no.

There aren’t words for it. It’s worse than anything you might have felt when you overtaxed yourself, when you burned yourself out, when you ruined your body beyond any semblance of repair and collapsed and that should have been the end of it -

But the horror. The horror eclipses all rational thought. You don’t know how long you keep screaming - unavoidable, uncontrollable - because you can’t really think until after you’ve quieted. Your throat feels like it’s been scraped by perfectly manicured fuchsia talons. You gasp for breath in the sopor slime, and then you feel the cool press of a slime-soaked compress against your cheek, and then you feel your moirail’s warm palm on the other side of your face. It stings, but it’s good for grounding.

You try to reach up, grip his wrist, but your limbs aren’t cooperating very well with you. Instead, you turn your face in the general direction of his head and rasp, “I was gone.”

“Yes. Yeah. No one is contesting that.” He sounds odd, removed, remote. He’s retreating into a place where you can’t touch him, and there’s too much poison inside of you for you to wrestle any semblance of a rational thought into being.

“I was gone.” Hysteria threatens to drag you under. You’ve exhausted yourself with your screaming fit, you’ve already done the histrionics thing, it’s time to pull yourself together and make a plan but you were supposed to be done -

“Easy, easy.” Sign keeps moving the cloth over your blistered face, your jaw, the shell of your ear. His palm disappears, probably because he thinks he was hurting you, as if he ever could, you’re so fucking stupid -

“Easy,” he repeats as you try to voice this. “I don’t know what the fuck is happening. I need you to just - for five minutes, Psii, I need you to just - I need you to let me take care of you. I’m trying so hard not to lose my shit right now, and my mom and Di are going to be in here any minute, and I need - you need to be my moirail right now. I need you to be my moirail. Please. Just give me five minutes.”

It’s absurd, that this of all things is what calms the hurricane inside you. He always knows the right things to say, even when he has no idea he’s saying them. No doubt he’s calling himself selfish, your moirail just came back from the dead and you’re freaking out what’s wrong with you, and he needs you. He needs you more than you need to dissolve into hysteria. What’s wrong with you isn’t ever going to be fixed, but Signless is right here, and for now he’s still alive, and he needs you.

You force your fingers to cooperate with your pan, lift them to brush so so gently against his cheek. “Tell me what you know.”

“About you being alive? Literally fucking nothing. Literally absolutely fucking nothing, I’m so fucking freaked out I - happy, I mean, happy! I think. I don’t actually know what I’m feeling. Aside from the fact that I’m right on the edge of losing my shit in every comprehensible way. Psii.”

You open your eyes, but quickly discover that the light hurts, so you guide your fingertips over his jaw by touch alone. You press the pads of your fingers against his lips, smearing sopor over his mouth.

“It’s not a good thing,” you tell him, softly. “I should have stayed dead.”

“Don’t. Do not. Not right now. I can’t - I can’t. Not right now.”

“Okay.” You weren’t referring to your own suicidality anyway, but you’re not sure you have the capacity to explain. “Tell me what just happened. Let’s process it. Neither of us knows what’s going on.”

His hand covers yours, his fingers intertwining with and squeezing your own. It sends the faintest sting up your arm, but if he lets go, you think you’ll kill him. When he exhales, it happens in stuttering starts and stops, like he can’t remember how to let go of his breath.

“You woke up. You started screaming. I figured it was because of the burns, so I moved you into the ‘coon. I couldn’t get you to stop screaming. Then you calmed down long enough for me to send a message to Di and my mom.” He’s inhaling too much air again. “You have a pulse. You’re not undead, you have a fucking pulse. You did not have a pulse before, Psii. This was not a case of, of, of mistaken identities and thinking that a badly injured psion is a goner, you were dead. You were charcoal.”

You let go of his hand, but only so that you can place your open palm against his chest. Just from the feel of him, you can tell that his ribcage has expanded too far because he’s hyperventilating. You rub a soothing circle with your fingertips, your ragged claws scoring the faintest lines into his skin. “Breathe.”

“I’m breathing.”

“You have to breathe out. Empty your lungs. Otherwise you’ll faint.”

He does so with great difficulty, sucks in another inhale that widens his ribs too far. He’s going to dislocate something if he keeps this up, so you press your hand more firmly to his chest and say, “Again. With me.”

He matches your breaths, which you exaggerate for effect. It’s good for you, probably. You have no reason to breathe, aside from the fact that this body is alive again and physically demands it, but you’ve got plenty of reason to keep him breathing. It’s a slow process, getting him to pull air into his lungs like a man who isn’t drowning. He slumps forward against the recuperacoon, his head against the lip of it, and you bury your nose between his horns.

That’s when the door opens and two pairs of footsteps join the party. You recognize Rosa’s quiet gasp and Di’s snarl, so you aren’t particularly concerned with opening your eyes to identify them. Which means you don’t see it coming when Di socks you in the jaw.

“Ow!” you yelp, and then she shouts, “Kankri Maryam if you hold me back from hitting him so help me God I am going to divorce you,” and you grudgingly open your eyes to find the fuzzy image of Sign with his fingers clasped around Di’s forearm, which is raised in a fist.

It’s so normal, aside from the way she has tears in her eyes and she’s swiping furiously at her nose with her free hand. The haggard gauntness to her cheeks makes it pretty clear that she’s spent more time crying than not for these past few hours. It’s so normal, but it’s also one step removed from normal, an uncanny valley, a mirror of your familial interactions.

Sign lets go of her arm when she gives up on the punching course of action. Newly freed, she cups your cheeks in her hands and says, “This isn’t possible.”

“I don’t suppose,” Rosa says finally, ever the voice of reason, because she learned some incredible skills for managing a crisis through the sheer life experience that raising a mutant gives, “that you’ve developed a craving for blood?”

Their scents don’t smell any different from how they normally do. You really shouldn’t be able to smell them at all, or breathe, or have a heartbeat, because you know perfectly well that you turned your insides to oozing slush.

You shake your head. “I don’t think so.”

“He has a pulse, Mom,” Sign says.

Rosa’s quiet for a long moment. You settle against the rim of the recuperacoon. Your resurrection is not the same mystery to you that it is to everyone else. You know exactly why you’re here. You knew it the moment you woke up.

“Are you Psii?” Rosa asks.

You say, “I can’t think of anyone else I might be.”

“Are you Psii,” she repeats, flatter. “I don’t know the full scope of troll psychic powers, but it stands to reason that someone somewhere may be able to reanimate a body. Which is a cruel joke at best and something hideous at worst.”

“On the rooftop, you told me that I was your son. You tried to get me down.” You don’t move. It doesn’t seem worth it. “Did I get that right, at least? Did I help?”

“We’re all breathing thanks to you,” Di says, except that choice of words doesn’t actually make you feel better, because it would have truly been better for everyone if the four of you had just died. Multi-hued smears on the side of a colony, never to be identified or remembered. Nothing but ash in the wind.

“Also,” she adds, “fuck you. Fuck you so much. Fuck you. Fuck you so fucking much. You promised me you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself. Did you know you’d come back?”

“No. I thought I’d made the right choice for once in my goddamn life.”

“These aren’t the injuries you had, either. They’re burnout injuries, sure, but they’re not - they’re not fatal. It’s like your body healed up all its damage until it was at a level you could take without dying.”

“I didn’t mean to die until it was too late. And then I thought, if I was dying, I must have changed things, so all of this bullshit would be worth it. But I was wrong.” Your mouth twists. “I was wrong about so many things. I’m so fucking stupid.”

“I’m not going to lie, you are kind of a gigantic fucking idiot.” Di runs her fingers through your hair, a far gentler touch than the earlier punch. “Is this permanent? Are you back for real? Or is this some kind of - last ditch gift from the gods, a chance to say goodbye?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” This, at least, you’re certain of. “Di. Sign. Rosa. I made a mistake.”

“I know,” Sign says softly, the voice he uses when you’re in the pile alone, when you can’t pull yourself out of the future or the past.

“I made so fucking many mistakes. Every goddamn choice I’ve ever made was a mistake. I could have - I could have -” A pained gasp. One iteration of you had to be the true timeline, the one destined for the helm, the one who’ll live thousands of sweeps knowing exactly what he did to the people he loved. One iteration of you has to listen to the psions slowly dying as they hurl their ships into stars or are cut from the wires by enterprising crew members. One iteration of you will watch him burn, watch his face turn, watch him curse the ground your species walks on. One iteration of you had to make all the stupid decisions, and you are so stupid, you are so so fucking stupid.

“Di,” you say, and you find a coil of her hair and let it wrap around your fingers, “Di, you were right.”

“I’m always right.” She leans closer, so you can feel her breath on your forehead. “What was I right about this time?”

“When you told me that it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter who’s responsible, I mean. You were right. I don’t know how I could have been so fucking stupid. None of this would be any more awful than it already is if some of the blame was on your shoulders. It doesn’t fucking matter. None of it fucking matters. I had to - I had to -”

“Psii, take it easy. Easy.” Sign brushes his knuckles over your blistered cheek, the ghost of a touch. “We know about the Empress. It wasn’t your fault she attacked. She’d probably have made a move whether you were on the colony or not. It was only a matter of time. You saved all those people, Psii, stop.”

“You don’t know everything,” you tell him, sick and miserable to your core. “You don’t know everything.”

“Okay,” he says, and when you peek your eyes open a slit, he’s pressed his arm against Di’s, seeking her comfort to stop his trembling. “I think it’s time for you to tell us the truth.”

~0~

You tell them everything.

Rosa quietly excuses herself before you get deep into the story. It’s a mumbled excuse about needing to get some proper medical supplies for both your burns and hers, but you think she’s just giving you space. She can sense that this is a confession meant for them, the two people you love most in the world, the two people you’ve ruined beyond repair.

You tell them about the visions alternately guiding and taunting you, providing puzzle pieces that never fit into a clear image. You tell them about the Handmaid of Death, your conversations with her, your friendship, the way she - but you can’t go on when you talk about her like that, so instead you backtrack and work your way through the mechanics. You tell them about the Empress, about keeping your options open, about trying to slow or accelerate the pace of the revolution. You tell them about doomed timelines, stumbling over your words as you explain it the way she did a lifetime ago, a maze with ends that snarl into nonexistence except for when one path proves fruitful. You tell them that you would destroy the universe over, and over, and over, if it meant the revolution succeeded. You tell them what’s coming. After all, there’s nothing left to lose now.

“I don’t know if the doomed timelines thing was even real,” you finally finish. “Because I’m looking back now and I - everything I did - everything she got me to do - that could have so easily been a lie that she told to prod me into making the wrong choices. Shit, I’m so stupid. I ruined it. The revolution, I fucked it to hell, and I can’t even blame anyone else.”

Di says, “Psii, please, don’t,” and then she says, “Love?”

You open your eyes fully, damn the light sensitivity. Sign’s sunk down against the side of the recuperacoon, his knees pulled to his chest and his fingers threaded through his hair, gripping it tight. You can’t see his face from this angle, but the pose tells you enough.

“I am not going to accept this,” he says after a long moment. “I am not going to accept this thing as true.”

You could point out that his acceptance doesn’t actually change the fundamental laws of the universe, but you can’t quite bring yourself to. Not now. Not about this.

“It’s not necessarily over,” Di says. “We still have a lot of things on our side. The virus, the ships, the ripple effects being felt through the entire galaxy. We might still win this. Just because your friend Death didn’t think we could doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Forgive me for being suspicious of the judgment of actual literal Death.”

“It’s over, Di,” you say, because it is. You’ve still got that coil of hair trapped between your fingers. You know that a thousand sweeps out, you’ll do anything to remember the texture, so you try to map it in a way that your body won’t forget.

“You can’t just give up. It’s not over yet.”

“Di.” You smile, surprised by how genuine and tender the expression is, and reach up to tuck the bit of hair behind her ear. “It’s over. It was a manic episode and now we’re crashing. It was a puppeteer’s show and the audience is laughing at us. It’s done.”

“I don’t believe that.” Her lips are pressed into a thin line. “You, with your bullshit roundabout discussions of temporal mechanics and fixed timelines and doomed timelines and coin flip choices - no. Nothing is real until we make it real. No one can say we’re in some kind of bad end ‘true timeline’ until that end actually happens. I’m not just laying down and giving up.”

“Okay.” You let your hand fall back into the recuperacoon. This, too, you’ll have to remember later. The cool embrace of sopor, the closeness of both of your loves, so far removed from engine fluid and remote mechanics.

“No, don’t just say ‘okay,’” Di snaps. “Tell me you’re going to fight.”

“I’m going to fight.”

“Great. Now say it like you actually mean it.”

“Leave it, love,” Sign says, so quiet the words are barely a breath.

“No, not you too. We can’t just-”

“Meulin.” He tips his head back against the recuperacoon, and now you can see a sliver of his face, his eyes closed, his brow furrowed. “Just for a few minutes, leave it alone. I need to think.”

She falls silent, but barely thirty seconds have passed when she speaks again. “Psii, how did you come back?”

“The universe needed me alive, so here I am.”

It’s the most detailed answer you feel like giving, even if the truth is still a stone dragging you into the depths of the ocean.

“Do you remember anything about being…”

“I was not conscious. I was in another place. I know I wasn’t in my body because my body felt wrong when I came back. That’s all I can give you.” It’s not a lie, technically speaking.

“I’m not going to accept this,” Sign says again, quiet but firm.

“You could kill me again to see whether the universe brings me back a second time,” you suggest.

“This is a crock of shit, actually,” he says, conversational, like you haven’t spoken at all. “No. I’m not going to - no. I’m opting out. This hoofbeastshit doesn’t actually apply to us. Great, glad we settled that! Everything’s fine. Oh, God.”

You reach out of the slime, slide your sopor-coated fingers across his cheekbone, leaving a thin translucence behind.

He covers your hand with his. “This isn’t true because - because that would mean that the other world failed because there was kindness there. It would mean that this entire universe is predicated on us being cruel to each other until we collapse. And somehow that’s good for the growth of the world, or what the fuck ever? No. I’m not interested in being part of that story.”

“Sign,” you whisper.

“I’m not doing it. I won’t be a part of it. I won’t.” His breathing is ragged. “That’s not the life I intend to lead. Fuck everything about it. I know perfectly well there are elder gods out there giving zero shits about our species, and if I can be a non-praying atheist with that knowledge, I can sure as fuck be stubborn enough to opt out of this. I’m not doing it.”

You think your pusher might crack, bleed enough that it pulls you into second death. “Sign, please.”

“I won’t.” Under your fingertips, the muscles in his cheek move as he bares his teeth. “They want me to recant? Fucking try me.”

~0~

They slide into the slime with you later, the two of them, and you give yourself an hour of measured breaths to remember what it’s like to be with them. Then you climb out of the recuperacoon and find a uniform that’s roughly your size squirreled away in the back of this respiteblock’s closet. You slide the fabric on, press a kiss to Sign’s forehead and Di’s cheek, and exit the block.

“I need to speak with the Advocate, please,” you tell each troll you pass, allowing them to point you in the direction of her study. Despite the suddenness of the attack and subsequent escape, she has a host of materials set up in an office-like area. This does not surprise you at all.

You find yourself outside the door, and you give yourself a few seconds to breathe before you press the buzzer to request entry. An answering buzz comes less than two seconds later, and the door whooshes open. She knows you’re coming.

You would give anything for it not to be true. You would die for it, but she knows that. You’d kill for it, but she knows that too. You step into the dim yellow room, the crystal lampshade on her desk throwing colorful shadows on the walls. The Advocate looks up at you and smiles, her hair pulled back in a messy knot, a pen stuck through the strands. “It’s good to see you up and about again.”

Normal psions do not have the power to bring back the dead.

You say, “Mai.”

Her smile falters. There - the flash of sorrow in her eyes, thousands of sweeps of misery behind her face. For a moment, you think she’ll carry on the bullshit facade, pretend you have no idea what you’re talking about. But then she sighs and pulls the pen out of her hair, letting the strands tumble down around her face.

“Oh, Psii,” the Handmaid of Death, this girl you trusted, your worst enemy, says. She even sounds like she means the pity. “I told you not to come to Aldareth.”

Chapter Text

You sink into the chair across from the desk, your bloodpusher making a home in the pit of your gastric sac. Mai folds her hands atop the wood and watches you silently. Her eyes are a painting titled “Misery,” but you can’t trust anything you see. You can’t even look at her face, really, so you glance at the bookshelves behind her instead. This ship has been stocked with all the literature and comfort she needs, because she knew she’d be using it, because she knows how everything will unfold for all of history.

You’re so stupid.

“Explain,” you say, even if it’s just another way of torturing yourself, a picture of all the cues you missed and lives you ruined. You need something to distract you from the riot of destruction in your head. Screaming helmsmen and immolated starships and severed rigging and Signless, Signless, Signless, burning.

She explains.

~0~

She lays it out for you linear, which is to say, with no comprehensive conception of time. Immortal beings don’t need to concern themselves with piecing together sweeps and events and pinpointed dates. For all her meddling in history, she has remarkably little care for the exact times at which things took place. She is a whirlwind of cause and effect, a hurricane, change and decay trapped in a troll’s skin. Such creatures don’t need to mark passing nights on a calendar.

You guess it’ll be like that for you, too. Your system clocks will run in ETAs between destinations. Nothing will exist except the countdown timer, reset again and again and again in this futile crawl toward the end. You’ll let sweeps slip by, centuries sliding through your fingers. You’ll become something other than your current self. And if you have to compare yourself to immortal creatures - will you be the Empress or Death? You’re suspended between them, destroyer of worlds, a wretched slave hating everything about the universe that hatched him, still wanting to save it anyway.

You wonder how long it’ll take before you understand Mai perfectly.

She tells you her story with a cold detachment that makes you wonder if you ever knew her at all. Because she is something different, something otherworldly, a creature that’s lived a life no troll ever should. But she’s a troll too, a soul like yours molded in the shape of a brutal accident of fate. She should have been cared for by a lusus, should have spent her wigglerhood discovering hobbies and making friends and exploring herself. She deserved better.

You could say that about an awful lot of trolls, though.

This is what she tells you:

She arrived on a meteor piloted by gods and fate, raised on a poisonous green moon by a man whose cruelty was made worse by congeniality. When she was younger - and she says “younger” like she’d talk about a past life, the same way you’re sure you’ll feel about your current existence five hundred sweeps out - when she was younger, she wanted to understand why her. Was she the only one who could do the job, or was she just unlucky? But, she says, her eyes fixed on some scene you can’t see, eventually you learn that those questions don’t matter. They’re nothing but a plea: Could I have been different in another life? Useless, because nothing will ever be different. There are no happier stories.

Her master is and will be a terminal disease in your world, but he’s already here. You were never going to avoid Alternia as it is. Signless had just enough pieces to put together an optimistic view, but he was wrong. Well, not completely. He’s a little bit right, and so are the clowns, and so are the generals, and so are the slaves who wait for the Handmaid of Death to deliver them. Nobody has the full, bloody picture of the puzzle.

She grew up in the ruins of your world. There will come a day, she says, sooner than you think and longer than you can bear, and you will be allowed your peace, and the Empress will become queen of an entombed galaxy.

She began at the end. Her existence sprouted on the last page of a story, and her task is to write the pages that lead to the conclusion. There’s some room for creativity, and there’s room for brute force, and there’s room to wish so badly she was someone else. Anybody else.

So there she is. Authoring the end of the world in needles and blood. A prod here, a flash there, a well-timed assassination -- she’s existed through the whole of your history. And here she pauses, now that she’s laid the framework. Runs a hand through her hair and sighs.

My linear and your linear are not the same, she says, and grabs a pen to sketch it out. Your history, a straight line across the page. She peppers the line with little dots and scribbles, places she popped haphazardly in and out of existence to usher in a million tiny apocalypses.

Then she pauses again. Sketches tiny, tiny lines along your chronological viewpoint. They’re deliberate pen strokes, different from the flashes that bled and ripped through the page.

It all becomes the same in the end, she tells you, but sometimes flashes aren’t enough. Sometimes, situations require active monitoring. A stronger hand. Sometimes, she has to live a life like a regular troll. Play a part for a few dozen sweeps, an exercise in theater that never garners any applause.

She’s lived in every Alternian era by now. Sowed the grenades centuries early and then pulled the pins in her next lives, cause-and-effect, explosions and implosions and collapsing houses of cards.

She laughs, then, and the cruel edge in it makes you think not everything about the Advocate is faked. The Empress hates it when I show up, she says. In her more spiritual moments, she thinks she’s being haunted by a reincarnation of the same damn rustblood. In her practical ones, she thinks it’s unfortunate that one irritating rust managed to get so goddamn much slime into the Mother Grub.

A century ago, she lived among slaves who rose up in rebellion against the highbloods. They infected their masters with parasitic disease and tore the cathedral to pieces. She kept herself close to the other painters, offering helpful suggestions for a mural of creation. She did the finishing touches herself, painting tangles of leechwires with the most delicate brush, etching the irons underneath with the serrated tip of a knife, knowing that a hundred sweeps later, one particular psion’s feet would carry him into the cavern to find a message only he understood.

At the same time, she was living overlapping lives as she created Aldareth’s hushed-up projects. The people involved weren’t all her. She was just there to nudge the right trolls into action. When the time came to live the Advocate’s life, the framework was already in place. She inherited the impending doom of the world. It couldn’t be allowed to work, of course; her purpose had always been to maximize destruction. If she left a town of self-governing lowbloods unscathed, if she kept from trading slaves on the one colony she had control over - what would that ever mean? Just pieces to add to the pain later. Maximum chaos.

The universe... had a glitch. Nothing but a plot twist, a snarl to resolve to a demon’s satisfaction. People aren’t supposed to remember their past lives. But the Signless has never been one for convention. His life’s tragedy had been set in stone since before he hatched. His death will pave the way for his descendant to survive into adolescence, to usher in a new universe and a new era. The Signless has never been more than a prequel note for the story of a child who won’t be hatched for thousands of sweeps. The trolls surrounding him, well. You all have your own parts to play in the unfolding of the epic. Some more willingly than others.

Between bouts of warfare and murder, she struck up a friendship with the psion marked for a fate worse than death. She had already befriended him in the future, for some definition of "friendship." When she’d first appeared to him, a half century into his imprisonment, she hadn’t understood why he’d snarled at her. Well, she had. Understood that she hadn’t yet lived all the pieces.

In the past, she conversed with him, half rebellion and half obligation. I can’t confirm what you’ve seen in your visions, she told him, before changing the subject. It wasn’t time yet. He needed to trust that their interactions were a middle finger cheerfully raised to fate, not another footnote in her blood-inked tale.

He found her irons carving in the caverns. A hidden act of rebellion, she told him, and whispered it’s not an explosive waiting to tear your fragile mind apart. Keep your options open. Talk to the Empress.

Well. You know how the rest of that story goes, until her earnest warning stay away from Aldareth sent you careening down this path.

And the manipulation there, her careful engineering of the war. She did more to ruin you than the Empress ever has. She let you work on the freed-helmsmen virus and gave you access to the resources you needed to blanket the galaxy with corpses. She let the Signless record his earnest messages and spread them so far that crews in the farthest quadrant sectors were mutinying against their overseers. She let your alliance “accidentally” slip to the Empress just in time for the drones, the rubble of a hangar, the pointless and sacrificial shield that let her turn the next chapter in your shattered narrative.

She rewound your body until your injured shell could hold the scraps of your soul. An easy thing to do, really, something she’s done for herself a hundred hundred times to live a new falsified lifespan. But, she tells you, she couldn’t have brought your spirit back if the timeline didn’t demand it. The elder gods were the ones in control of that. She knew they would give you back, but she doesn’t know much more than that. She doesn’t serve them. Sometimes, the two forces seem to be working together; sometimes, she’s certain she’s at perpendicular odds with them, ushering in the doom of a universe they cradle.

She spoke cruelly to Signless to rattle him, because that was the only way to make him leave your body long enough for her to work. You shouldn’t feel bad that you didn’t catch it, she tells you gently. You weren’t supposed to see, so you didn’t. A different quirk, different clothes, different posture - it’s so easy to pull on disguises and mold into a new being. You had no reason to think she was anything other than the badass slavery-hating colony leader you’d vetted extensively, so you didn't.

“And now here we are,” she says. “You’re all caught up.”

You can’t bear to look at her, so you close your eyes. “This was all always the true timeline.” It's a truth you have to voice aloud, hollow as it is, because you can't leave it unsaid in your empty-grave mind.

“I don’t know if it’s worth anything,” she says, “but I am truly sorry. I don’t feel sorry about very many things these nights, but consider this a rare occasion."

“The doomed timelines, then.” Your voice breaks. “That was all bullshit, right? Just - just stringing a carrot along so I’d keep trusting you.”

“No, that part was true.” She pauses. “At least, insofar as I know. I’ve never experienced a doomed timeline. I might be wrong. But I really did try to give you outs where I could.”

“Were we ever really friends?”

It’s such a stupid thing to ask. So goddamn fucking insignificant in comparison to literally everything else, but you just -

“You were…” She pauses again, corrects herself. It’s like she doesn’t know how to fumble her way through conversation when she’s not advancing a chaos cause. “You are as close to a friend as I’ve had. I thought that maybe I could play through it. Like wigglers playing at being threshecutioners. You know what it’s supposed to look like from watching other people, but you never really know if you’ve gotten it right.”

You’re falling. You stare at the backs of your eyelids and say, “So that wasn’t part of the manipulation. The friendship.”

“No, that was part of the manipulation.”

“What fucking purpose could that possibly serve.”

“Oh, Psii.” She’s so gentle, so pitying, that with your eyes closed you could pretend she was your moirail instead of your worst enemy. “We had to be friends. If we weren’t friends, how could I ever have gotten you to leave your family when they needed you the most?”

Your eyes fly open. You’re halfway to the door before you’re even conscious of it, but the lock clicks, and the weight of heavy static pressure suffocates you. You move anyway, lash out with psionics of your own, but you are trapped in a room with the only psion in the world more powerful than you and you are a fool.

It’s not an even fight. You can’t even flatter yourself with pretending. She has you pressed against the floor before you can throw your power at her, and god dammit, you’ll burn yourself out again, right here, you don’t care, you’ll kill her and rip this ship apart if it stops this sequence of events from unfolding and -

The cuffs click around your wrists, and your psionics disappear. You’re blinded, gasping for the spatial awareness that had been easy as breathing seconds before, your lungs feeling like drowning.

“Mituna Captor,” she says, the Advocate back in her voice, because she has not yet finished this character’s story. “You’re under arrest for desertion, heresy, high treason, and just about every other crime on the books.”

You scream into the floor.

“It’s all right,” she murmurs, softer, as the world spins away from you. “It's all right. Just be patient. Give it a century and you won’t feel anything anymore.”

Chapter Text

They house the four of you together, partially because you've been accused of the same crimes and partially because the Empire is currently experiencing some slight difficulties with its ships.

You curl up in the corner of the cell, which is not so much a barred-off prison as a cargo hold meant to carry a great deal of bodies at once. The four of you are the only ones here, though, which makes the space cavernous. You reason that they didn't want to put you with the run-of-the-mill criminals just in case you incited a riot. Or maybe you four are the only ones who have been arrested.

It doesn't matter.

You want it to matter, but it doesn't. There's very little outside this cell that matters anymore.

You have the facts, of course, offered to your pan through the radio channels of your psychic prowess. You know exactly what's happening outside your self-contained world. The narrative blooms inside your skull like an explosion. Your hands are still cuffed behind your back, and you want to bite down on a knuckle to avoid whimpering out loud, but instead you chew your tongue bloody so you don't bother your family.

With your eyes closed, you can see it all clearly enough that you're not sure whether your thoughts are imagination or helpful vision supplements. The helmsmen are still dying, but that's nothing new. They were dying before you sent out the virus, bodies bent into submission and muscles cracked under the strain of carrying cities on their backs and lifespans shortened by their gasping breaths and empty circuitry. They were already dying, and now they're just dying faster.

You want to focus on the positives, but those are pure fantasy. Every narrative has the potential to play out differently, you reason. Even if the majority of trolls fail, even if the uprisings are cut down and the bodies are thrown from airlocks and the highbloods double down on their cruelty, there have to be places where the people win. There have to be places where the captains see the video footage and say, "This is wrong," and put their feet down. There have to be places where the crew cuts their helmsman from the wires, but instead of culling them, they take them to the medbay and give them back their limbs and let them rest. Those stories have to play out, tiny encapsulated bubbles of hope against the merciless torrent of truth:

It's not enough.

It's never going to be enough.

You've turned your face toward the wall, knees drawn to your chest, but you don't consciously realize you're crying until a gentle nose presses into your hair.

"Hey," Signless says.

You laugh, watery, from the absurdity of it. You desperately want your hands free to touch him, or at least to wipe your face and pretend like you're holding your shit together, and you know he's probably wishing for the same. With his own hands cuffed behind him, he lays down on his side and curls his body around yours, his chest pressed against your back, his face hidden in your hair.

"I'm sorry," you offer. "I'm trying not to be like this."

"Hush," he murmurs. "No apologies. Not now. Not from either of us, which I'm saying because I really, really, really want to tell you I'm sorry but I feel like that's just going to make both of us feel worse."

"Okay," you say, and lean into him as well as you can with the awkward arch of your back and the clasped position of your hands.

"Okay," he says, unbearably gentle, like if he can't soothe you with his hands he'll try to unknot your muscles through sound alone. "Right in this minute, we're okay, right? We're just going to stay in this minute for now. Not in the past, not in the future. I need all of you here with me."

Words he's spoken a thousand times to calm you in your pile, when you could steal a moment to let yourself be cared for, when time hadn't unspooled to its total end yet. Words he'll never get to speak to you again, soon.

"I wish you could rub my shoulders," you tell him, trying to make it conversational instead of plaintive. "Not to complain since, you know, we all have things to complain about, but they're kind of sore as fuck."

"I'll see if I can convince one of the guards to cuff your hands in front. As soon as they bring us food."

"What? No. Don't you dare."

"Okay," he says, and you'd know how bad things are even if you hadn't seen it all, because he never acquiesces to non-dumbassery that easily. "Di, love? Your hands are cuffed in front, right? Could you come over here and rub Psii's shoulders?"

You'd protest that it's not necessary, but you suspect your family would like to stay as close as possible for as long as possible, and you're not going to begrudge them something you want so desperately. Di scoots over and nudges you to sit up, pressing herself against your back as you do, Sign leaning against your side. She places her hand on one shoulder, her wrists cuffed too tightly to massage both at once, and rubs gentle circles into the tense muscles.

"Kankri?" Rosa murmurs, her voice a fever dream, slurred from whatever they drugged her with to make her docile enough to place in the hold. "Come over here, please. I need to remember your face."

---

You are probably a day into the journey, though it's possible only six hours have gone by. Alternatively, it's possible that three nights have slipped through your grasp while you've hidden from the world. There's no way to mark time in this dim, empty space, but you've been fed twice and neither time has a guard seen fit to uncuff your sore arms. You're waiting for the chance to make a break for it, of course, snatch some purpose from the jaws of futility and race away with it, but the hope isn't there anymore. It's just a performance of pretending things aren't over, not the true and wild and manic hope that you created this revolution on.

"Ah," Rosa murmurs, breaking a silence that's not uncomfortable, but not necessarily pleasant, either. She's more sober now; they haven't given her another dose of soporifics, which strikes you as bad planning on their part. "I think I've discovered why they haven't muzzled me."

"Hmm?" You sit up. Sign's curled up mostly-asleep beside you, Di clinging to his back in a tangle of limbs and cuffs.

Rosa's voice comes out quiet, strained with self-loathing. "I'm thirsty."

"Oh." You scoot your way over to her. "Okay, use me."

"I am not going to-"

"Okay," you say impatiently, "so we'll just wait until it gets so unbearable you can't help attacking, because that's going to work out for everyone. Use me, god dammit."

It's awkward, angling your bodies together until she can reach your shoulder, but you can't really offer her your wrist with the way your hands are tied. She pulls the collar of your shirt away with her teeth, avoiding your jugular so she doesn't accidentally damage an artery, and bites down.

She doesn't like to feed from any of you when there are other options available, but it's not the first time she's bitten you when the need presses. It probably is the last, though, you realize with another pang in your stomach. She drinks just enough to keep herself from becoming dangerous, not enough for full satiation, and you'd argue about it except that you're not sure what limitations your un-dead (not quite undead) body has now. You probably shouldn't start testing them with a rainbowdrinker.

You zone out, mostly because of the endorphins, which is perfectly fine by you. Anything that dulls the aching edge of the voices in your head is a miracle. You slump against her and listen to her murmurs of, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and it's obvious that she's apologizing for more than the blood, that she's as frightened as the rest of you, that when you peel Porrim Maryam's pain and worry and love back to the bones, her roots are just a girl who took a grub slated for death because it was kind, and right, and her calling. She's spent her whole life preparing herself for the death of her son, but she was never going to be ready for it to happen like this.

It takes time to ship four traitors back to the homeworld, is the thing, and you take that time to keep as close to your family as you can. You're still drifting in your own head when Sign starts to laugh.

It's an awful sound, that laugh. Not his normal carefree snorting laughter, or even a forced chuckle; it's something guttural and broken and pained. It's in the same range of noises you might hear from a slave watching their clade die. He's not performing it, because he wouldn't do anything that would unnerve or upset the rest of you on purpose. But it is a truth in this open space: Before, silence. Now, Signless, laughing, and hopelessness echoing from the walls.

You go to him. Of course you do. You go to him and nuzzle against his cheek and try to wrangle him into enough coherence to tell you what's going on, and he says, "I had a vision."

Words that usually mean a story for sleep, a wondering dissection of a seemingly-normal night-to-night interaction on another material plane. Di would get out her ink and write the words and draw the scenes until he said yes, that's right, that matches up to what I saw. You'd snark about the idiot actions of the characters in this ongoing saga, and he'd turn your snark into an actual rational conversation, and something hopeful would come of it.

But this is Signless, After, and so even the visions are twisted inside-out.

Dread is in your stomach, in your throat, in your voice as you ask, "What did you see?"

"Well," he says, the words a mockery of his normally-light tone, "there's good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

"I'll take the good news."

"The good news," he says, "is that the Empire is so fucked."

---

When they unload you from the ship, it's rough and uncompromising. The guards don't care much that they're handling trolls, and why should they? It's not like you've ever been anything but vermin to them. Signless retains enough of his dignity to offer them chilly politeness that's just shy of becoming sarcastic, while Di makes friendly bargains. "Hey," she says, "if you stop making the goldblood trip I'll do you all kinds of favors." Then, when ignored, "The first favor is that I won't rip your fucking spleen out." Rosa, after attempting to tear out a throat or seven, gets fitted with the muzzle you'd been praying against and walks with a predator's snarling gait. There's very little of her calm, refined self visible at all.

You've prepared yourself for most anything. Another sight of the Handmaid, maybe, coldly observing. A sight of the execution platform and the irons. Even the Empress, waiting to receive you, vengeance in her face and her pink-tipped razor claws. But as you're ushered into the fresh air of the Alternian night, you find yourself facing a figure who makes you remember the primal thing trolls must have been before you put rules to your killing.

The Grand Highblood smiles.

Everything in you wants to bend a knee.  Lay yourself on the ground in front of him, close your eyes and pray to be passed over.  You don't think it's outside mind control, since if that were the case, you would already be kneeling.  The man just emanates terror, his painted mouth stretched so wide he could swallow you whole, his eyes bright with manic delight.

Rosa growls.  Di, on your left, goes so rigid she may as well be a statue.  Sign, to your right, straightens his spine and tips his head back.

"Hello, Kurloz," he says.  You don't breathe.  Don't.  Move.  "I was wondering when we'd finally get a chance to talk."

---

It turns out that the Grand Highblood does not appreciate mutant heretics having his hatchname.  Brings up all kinds of uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.  He deals with it as most highbloods do; he locks each of you in an individual cell beneath the Church's court, making sure you're each close enough to hear the other's screams, but too far to touch.

He comes to you first.  The psionic dampeners leave you defenseless, which is a relief in its own way.  Trolls aren't themselves in the Court.  You are nothing but a weapon, and your pan's will is just an inconvenient fly to be swatted away.  As long as you can't use your psionics, the Grand Highblood can't use your psionics.

The walls of your cell are a riot of color.  You note that there's more blue and purple than you'd expect to find in a commoner's cell.  Seems like you're getting the special treatment.

The Grand Highblood enters the cell unaccompanied by guards, no clubs in his hands.  You can't find any signs of a weapon, actually, besides the fists that could easily beat you to death.  It's not a big cell, so his bulk takes up most of the area, forces you to squeeze yourself down into a corner.

He sits down and leans against the bars of the door, one leg drawn to his chest, one splayed casually across the ground like he just wants to shoot the shit.  "So," he says, his tone schooled, reasonable, "you're the little spark bug who's been causing the Empire a whole lot of hassle."

You don't say a word.  There's a principle in interrogations.  They have to get you talking first.  Have to get you on their sides.  He'll root the answers out of your pan no matter what, but it's best not to let him twist your freely-given words against you.

"It's a damn shame she's laid a claim on you already," he adds, conversational.  "I'd love to keep you."

"I'm not a thing to be kept," you snap.  The need to say it, say it now when you still have your mind to yourself, outweighs the need to play inconvenient prisoner.

"I ain't seeing anything but a thing to be kept," he says.  "Got all that pretty metal in your spine.  You're ruined for being a troll."

"Maybe you should kill me, then," you say.  "Me being a heretic not-troll.  Abomination in your eyes and all."

"Between you and me, brother, were the choice all up to me, that's exactly what I'd do."

"You going to admit she's more powerful than you?  And here I was thinking nothing was greater than the might of the Church."

He laughs.  "I ain't interested in being goaded with word games."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to get my gaze on to the brother what's been causing such an inconvenience.  Since you're only gonna be here for another, oh, hour.  Maybe two."

Something inside you goes cold.

"It ain't often we got a prisoner crossing our radars hard enough to bring the Empress here herself.  Should make you feel special, sparkling."

---

You hear the click of her heels long before you see her.

You haven't been in close proximity to her since before you ran, and you'd forgotten how she manages to occupy space, to stretch her being until she's in command of every single thing around her.  There's no way to forget that she's a queen, no way to mistake her for anything else.  She stops in front of your cell, her mass of hair pulled back into braids so it won't pick up grime from the walls.  It makes her look younger.

"I reelly didn't want it to go down like this," she says.

Down the hall, metal clangs as Di throws herself against her cell door.  "Don't fucking touch him!"

"I know it's over," you tell her.  "I know.  I know how angry you are with me, and I know that you're going to take that out on me, and nothing's going to stop hurting until the end of time.  Please let me say goodbye to my family."

Her mouth presses into a thin line.

"You have no shortage of ways to make me miserable," you say, "but if you give me this, I'm going to love you so much faster."

She gives you what you want, probably because she feels what you do.  The story's ending.  The conclusion is exactly what it was always going to be, and there's nothing any one of you can do about it.  There's no miracle in store for you now.

Signless holds you against him with a protectiveness that plainly says he'll kill anyone who comes too close.  "Psii," he whispers.

"It's okay to recant," you whisper back, kissing his jaw, his ear.  "It's okay.  Don't let them hurt you."

"I feel like I'm dreaming.  I don't feel like any of this is real."

"It's okay."

"It's not."  His voice cracks, breaks.  "If this is how it always goes - if this is how it has to be - what then, Psii?  What is there left to have faith in?"

You lay your forehead against his temple and close your eyes.  "Have faith in me, love," you murmur.  "Have faith in me."

---

You take the last of your stolen moments to pray.

It's been a while since you prayed.  You can't remember when you last reached out, but you do now.  You cast your consciousness outside of yourself, out past the edges of your planet, past the confines of your universe to where the elder gods watch over you.  You ask them to protect you, to keep you, to let your mind remain your mind even as the Empress tries to warp it into another possession.  You ask them to help you keep his memory alive, past when you'll all be gone, past when your names should be nothing but a breath on the wind.

You give everything you have, everything that's left, and you beg the elder gods, Let me keep this.

And deep in the darkness, in the void, in the living emptiness where the gods unfurl their tendrils and keep their thoughts,

something

answers.

Chapter Text

The church’s main court is in the capital city, so it’s not hard for the Empress to transport you to the Battleship Condescension.

By all rights, it’s a city itself, a habitat enclosed by metal and weapons. It hasn’t flown yet, because her helmsman disappeared inconveniently before it was finished. She leaves your arms and legs free after she fits the dampening collar around your neck. Where are you going to run? Who, exactly, do you think you’re going to fight?

You don’t fight. You sit beside her, where she wants you, as the armored scuttlebug approaches the hulking mass of the ship. Your throat is dry as you turn to her.

“I can’t do this,” you say.

“I’m only taking you on a tour,” she says, which would sound almost comforting if she didn’t follow it up with, “Gotta watch your family die before you’re installed. Maybe then you’ll fuckin’ behave.”

“I’ll behave if you don’t kill them,” you offer. “I already told you that.”

“Shore. I’ll keep a bunch of traitors around because it makes you happy.”

“What if they weren’t traitors? Would you still kill them then?”

She snags her fingers in the collar, dragging your face close to hers. “I don’t want anyfin dividing your attention.”

“I feel like the pain is going to divide my attention,” you point out, reasonably.

“Good.”

She releases the collar and clamps a possessive hand around your arm as the scuttlebug moves into the ship itself, docking in the hangar meant for smaller vessels to rest. The only reason she’s not pulling you by the collar itself, you’re pretty sure, is because she doesn’t want to strangle you.

“You’re going to break my arm,” you tell her, unprotesting as she hauls you out of the bug. “I’ll be harder to helm.”

She eases up only slightly. Her fingers are chilly where they meet your skin.

The bottom of the ship is where all the engineering components are. You expect her to ignore it and head for the upper decks, but no. You should have guessed the purpose of this tour. You do, as soon as you realize the direction you’re going.

“You said you weren’t helming me yet.”

“I just want you to see it.”

“I don’t need to see it.”

“I need you to.”

She presses her fingertip to the scanner outside the entrance, letting it read her identity and access level. The door whooshes open. You dig your heels in, but she’s never cared much about your resistance.

It’s the helmsblock, obviously. It’s like every other helmsblock you’ve seen, except there’s about ten times as much bioware. The cables creep around the column and make their own little mountain, hungry, waiting for something to feed on.

“I’ve been lettin' them grow since you left,” she says. There’s a note of something else in her voice, something besides her vindictiveness. Affection, maybe. Pride.

“Great.”

“Did you helm for him?”

When you don’t answer, she hooks her other hand under your chin and jerks your face toward hers. The words come out soft and silky, spoken as gentle as Signless in your pile, her breath fanning over your mouth. “When you whored yourself out for him, did he use your power? Send electricity running through your veins? Did you feel how fuckin' great it is to fly? Did you like it?”

Your lip curls, but she reads some other answer in your eyes. Laughs. “So it’s only me who ain’t good enough to fly for.”

“Yes,” you say, not because it’s true but because you know it’ll make her angry. “It’s just you. You’re worthless to me.”

You’re rewarded by the flash of anger in her eyes.

“And also,” you add, “I have a small problem with the nonconsensual slavery thing. Which wasn’t an issue with him.”

“He didn’t even know what he had.” She removes her hand from your arm to caress your cheek, her other hand still holding your jaw steady so you can’t jerk back. “If he were strong, he’d've strung you up no matter what you said about it.”

“No,” you say. “If you were strong, you wouldn’t have.”

She does not appreciate this philosophy. The anger is more than a flash this time. “I’ve got a lot of fuckin' patience, Tuna.”

“I don’t use that name.”

“I’ve got a lot of fuckin' patience, but I think we need to start workin' on you a little sooner than planned.”

~0~

“Working on you” mainly means she tranquilizes you, as one does, and that you wake up strapped face down to a table, as one does. You test your range of motion and discover you can move your fingers a little, but that’s about it.

Fear claws its way up your throat, and a phantom voice whispers shh, shh, shh.

“Oh, good,” the Empress says. “You’re back.”

“I have the feeling I’m about to wish I wasn’t.”

“Here’s the thing,” she continues, ignoring you. “You were so obedient before he got his claws in you. Because you knew if you weren’t, there’d be consequences, right? Your time away has really fuckin' spoiled you.”

You try to turn your head toward her, but she has the collar locked to the table. Every muscle in your body seizes up as her fingertips lightly touch your top spinal port, then begin to work downward, bumping over each ridge of your spine.

“They really did do beautiful work on you,” she murmurs.

“Did you know I’m in pain every fucking night of my life?”

“That’s just a bonus.”

You close your eyes. “I know you’re mad at me now, but you weren’t when they did this to me. You didn’t have any reason to hurt me.”

She laughs, surprised rather than cruel. “There. That, there. That’s why you weren’t hatched a highblood.”

“Pointing out that you didn’t have a reason to hurt me?”

“No.” Having finished her first exploration of your spine, she begins dragging her fingers back up the ports, watching your muscles spasm in response to touch. “It’s cute that you can’t think of a reason.”

“Did I do something to make you hate me? Before all this?”

“Of course not,” she says, like it’s obvious. “Pain is just a tool. It’s not somefin you earn or avoid.”

“I didn’t deserve it.”

“It’s not about deservin' it,” she says impatiently. “If you’re in pain, it’s harder to run. It’s hard to want anyfin besides the cessation of that pain. I give you relief, and it’s hard not to love me. You’re fated to be my matesprit, but I like that so much more when you behave yourself.”

You don’t even know where to start with that, but she saves you from needing to respond by continuing, “Now, though. Right now I’m just fuckin’ pissed. And I know it’s gonna feel so much betta once you’re in more pain.”

You’re spared from needing to respond to that when she jams the electroprod into the spinal port between your shoulders, given that you’re unable to do anything except scream.

~0~

She’s right: Pain is a good tool.

You reach a breaking point. Everyone does. You find yourself gasping for mercy, stop stop stop i’ll do anything i’ll do anything, and she pauses.

You lay there gasping, your throat raw, your body still shaking.

“Unfor-tuna-tely,” she says, “that’ll only work on your interrogator. I don’t give a shit what you know. I’m not bored yet.”

You lose yourself for a while after that. Separate from the body, go somewhere else. You let your consciousness drift back to that outside space, the one on the edge of the universe, where eldritch horrors can cradle your fading spirit and whisper, shh, shh, shh, this will end, all things end.

You return to your body when the pain stops, finding a warm hand pressed against your lower back. You’re too delirious and exhausted to make sense of it. Signless? you think. Maybe you’ve gotten unstuck in time and woken up someplace else, sometime else. It wouldn’t be your first episode.

“You’re fuckin’ freezing,” the Empress says. It’s her hand. “Don’t die on me.”

“I already did that,” you say - whisper, really, unable to manage more than a croak. “It didn’t take.”

“I know.”

“What.”

“I was thinkin’,” she says, “you and me can have a chat, with you in a more reasonable frame of mind now and all.”

Unparalleled dissociative ability aside, you really don’t want to introduce more pain to your body, so you say, “Okay.”

“The Highblood,” she says, “has respectfully asked a few nights with the mutant and olive to himself. He’s not happy about the heresy. And that red makes such a pretty shade of paint. So he’s just gonna do as he pleases, and then we’re gonna kill both of them. He’s not gonna recant, though, is he?”

You’re too tired to answer.

“That’s what I thought. So anyway, we’re gonna burn him. Burn her too, maybe, before the arrow goes in her pusher. Depends what mood I’m in.”

“Okay.”

“‘Okay?’ That’s all you’re gonna give me?”

“There doesn’t seem to be much point to saying anything else.”

“We tagged the fuckin' jadeblood. She’s starvin' under the Court. Biddin’ goes up after the execution. She’s gotta see it, too.”

“Okay.”

“Hm.” She plays with the sweaty hair at the nape of your neck. “Actually, I like you betta like this.”

“I’m tired.”

“I can tell.” She rubs your shoulders, and you hate the relief that rushes through you, your body’s betrayal. “I’m feelin’ betta after our little session tonight. I’m gonna go deal with a thousand fuckin’ problems you caused with your helmsman stunt, and then I’m gonna bring you back and make myself feel betta again.”

She unstraps you from the table. You’re so far past being able to walk that it’s laughable. You don’t even try to push your way to your feet. When she picks you up, cradling you against her chest, you lay your head on her shoulder. It strikes you, idly, that you could try to gore her with your horns, but you’re not sure you could manage that either.

You only realize that you’re still on the Battleship when you enter her private flight deck. It’s got a wide-open window to overlook the stars, which her palace block lacks. She sets you down on the softest surface you’ve ever felt in your life, an unbelievable swath of luxurious silk and fabrics so expensive you’ve never seen them before. Your body, traitor that it is, relaxes with impossible relief. Your mind, still your mind, thinks, I want my moirail.

There’s small pressure on one of your ankles. You have to flex it to figure it out, since you’re too sore to crane your neck and look. She’s tethered you to the floor by means of a short chain, ensuring you can’t leave the pile or, more importantly, kill her in her sleep. You appreciate that she thinks you’d be capable of either feat right now.

By the time you’ve managed enough cognition to recognize that, she’s moved away and back again, wrapping a sopor patch around your arm. “Get some rest,” she says. “I want you fresh later. It’s more satisfyin’ when there’s somethin’ to beat out of you.”

“I have to ask you something,” you say, croaking and slurred with exhaustion.

“You ain’t in the shape to ask me anyfin.”

“When you said we’re fated,” you murmur, unsure if you’re actually awake enough to get through the question, “what did you mean?”

There’s a pause. “Exactly what I said,” she says. But if she elaborates, you don’t hear it as you drift into slumber.

~0~

You fall into a pattern; pain followed by sleep followed by pain. Your life doesn’t currently consist of anything else. You suspect the sessions don’t last more than an hour or two, but it’s impossible to gauge time accurately. You also suspect she’s keeping you drugged to make sure that your consciousness doesn’t have time to recover. She tips water laced with who-knows-what against your cracked, grateful lips, doses you with sopor patches for someone higher caste.

The session time is limited not by her goodwill, but by her own schedule. She has to go be Empress while you lay half-dead in her block. If it was just about the pain, about driving you out of your fucking mind, she could very easily hand you to the scienterrorists. They’re extremely experienced in setting psionic nervous systems on fire.

But it’s not a methodical manipulation. It’s not about you at all. She’s angry, and using her own hands to hurt you makes her feel better, so that’s what she’s doing.

It’s maybe the fifth or sixth night -- for whatever meaning time has in this in-between space of consciousness -- when there’s a change. She lifts your groggy form from the pile, and you try to make your pan cooperate enough to manage, I can’t, I can’t. Not tonight, I can’t. I can’t. None of that is new, but what is new is being carried to her reclining platform and laid down. She lays beside you and wraps an arm around your waist.

“I was thinkin’ maybe a break tonight,” she says.

You wait for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m not so mad anemonemore. Don’t want you thinkin’ pain’s all life is gonna be. A big part of it, shore. But I’ll make it go away when you make me happy. That’s what matesprits do.”

You make a vague noise of acknowledgement.

She brushes her fingers over your lips. “Execution’s tomorrow,” she says.

There it is.

You summon all the willpower and energy left in your body. “You don’t have to do this,” you whisper. “It’s not too late. To make a different choice. It doesn’t have to be this.”

“Yeah, it does.”

You’re tapped out on the willpower and energy front. You’ve closed your eyes and pleasantly started to drift when she impatiently snaps, “Look.”

You open your eyes again - irritated with yourself a second later for not even questioning the command - to find her fingertips gliding over your wrist. Said wrist is dark with mottled bruising from where you’ve thrashed against your restraints.

“You’ve got a fracture.” Where her fingers touch, your skin returns to its usual shade of gray, and the pain leaks away in tiny pulses. “And now you don’t. I bet your moirail couldn’t do that, could he?”

“No,” you say. Tired, so tired. “But you don’t want to be my moirail.”

“Well, look at it this way. In the end, I really couldn’t have done any of this without your help. You’re gonna make such a good ship. I built it for you, you know.” She kisses you gently on the mouth. “Betta that pain-in-the-ass mutant shows up with you where I can cull him than somewhere my fronds don’t reach.”

“I still don’t understand,” you say, “why we have to be matesprits.”

“The gods say so.” She kisses your mouth again, then presses a line of kisses down your jaw. “Granted, when my lusus told me you were my soulmate, I didn’t think you’d cause so much fuckin’ trouble. It’s just a bump in the road, though. All relationships have ‘em.”

“A bump in the road.”

“Shore.” She presses her fingers to your temple, soothing the headache you didn’t even realize you had. “I want this relationship to work. It ain’t my fault you got poisoned by pacifism.”

There are a lot of arguments you could make. Starting with I’ve been telling you how to make this relationship work but you don’t like anything that involves any kind of sacrifice, making its way all the way down to and also enslaving me and everyone like me is not a fundamental tenet of a relationship that works. But your energy is limited, and none of the words would matter. She’s heard them all before.

On this side of time, it’s easy to understand how you’ll come to love her. You’ve never known such bone-deep tiredness, and she’s only kept you for a few nights. She’ll break down every little piece of resistance and make you thank her for the privilege.

It would be so easy to give up. “We’re inevitable,” she says. “The sooner you wrap your pan around that truth, the sooner you stop caring about your goddamn ‘family.’”

It would be so easy to give up.

Not yet, little one, a voice murmurs against the inside of your pan. Not yet.

When? you ask, not expecting an answer, not expecting the comfort you’re craving.

One more night.

Just one more night.

Chapter Text

The Empress opts not to drug you before the execution. She doesn’t want you to doze through it. It’s important you feel every scream with all your senses.

You’re not sure if it’s prompted by her anger, or if this is part of her eternal plan to make you miserable enough for cooperation. Some combination of the two, you suspect. She fits you with a new Imperial uniform. The fabric covers your bruises, but it doesn’t hide the collar. “So they can see what you are,” she says, kissing your neck, her lipstick leaving prints above the collar. “So they can know they lost.”

They’ve set the flogging jut in the middle of a wide-open space made for Church entertainment. A hush falls over the crowd as the Empress descends from her scuttlebug, a leash forcing you to trail behind her. She ascends the platform to the throne beside the Highblood’s, settling into it with the leash idly held in her hand.

“On your knees,” she says, lounging against the throne. The viewing platform is raised high enough to see easily over the crowd whether you kneel or not, but you would rather be on your feet beside her.

“Don’t annoy me right now, Tuna,” she adds, dangerous, when you don’t move.

You kneel.

The open space is packed with trolls, so many it’s hard to make out individuals. Clowns and bluebloods fringe the edges, while the center of the mass seems to be made up of lowbloods. You see slave tags glinting on more than a few of them. The executioner, a blueblood strapped with more muscle than any troll needs, stands with the platform in his arrow’s sights. You scan the crowd more frantically until you find her -- Rosa, pale and swaying, still pulling against the chains that bind her.

Everyone here knows who your family is. They’ve seen him speak, read her words, heard about the freed helmsmen, maybe even been on ships affected. They know about how you tried to tear the Empire to pieces with your teeth. Maybe there are sympathizers in the crowd, but for their sakes, you hope they had the sense to stay away. Hide. Pretend not to notice anything amiss.

And then you see your loves, as they’re brought onto the flogging jut’s platform. Signless limps slightly, and Di’s holding one of her arms like it hurts. Even from here, the swelling on both faces is obvious.

The Empress doesn’t deign to stand as the crowd quiets again. A camera troll points a lens at her, ready to broadcast as far as your actions have reached.

She raises a lazy hand. “These trolls tried to fuck the Empire. Now they’re gonna learn what comes of that bullshit.”

The Grand Highblood, on the other hand, does stand. His voice is so loud it feels like a migraine of its own. It wouldn’t surprise you if he’s subtly influencing the crowd with fear, toxic ripples emanating from his form. “This abomination has managed to survive into adulthood, and at what motherfucking cost? He lies. He’ll tell the truth now, or he’ll burn until he does.”

Signless does his best to stand straight despite the obvious injuries. “I’ve always told the truth,” he says. “You’re the liar.”

The Highblood makes a move like he’s going to step off the platform. Like he’s going to go wring Sign’s neck himself. The Empress lays a hand on his forearm. You’re close enough to hear her murmur, “Don’t legitimize him,” but her expression doesn’t change in the slightest.

You turn your head and smile at both of them. “You really don’t like that he knew your name, huh?”

The Highblood growls, but he settles back into his seat.

You can see the irons heating. Di’s staring at them with horror written across her face like a book, but Sign isn’t. His eyes scan the crowd, find his mother, find you. He locks gazes with you, his mouth pulling down at the corners, his sorrow palpable even through the space. I’m so sorry.

The Empress’ hand touches your hair, cards casually through it.

“If you stop this,” you mutter, “I’ll give us a chance.”

She laughs.

And Signless is being pushed forward, brought toward the hot irons, and then the Empress says, “Wait.”

You barely breathe. She stands, glides her way down the steps. The too-packed crowd does the impossible and parts around her like the ocean. She stops just in front of the execution platform, tilts her head back to look up at them.

“Do you know my hatch name?” she asks.

Signless just looks at her for a long moment. “Meenah,” he says. “I liked you better in our last life.”

You, freed from her grip on the leash, get to your feet and follow her down. You’re not very conscious of the action; you’re moving with something deeper than instinct, less rational than thought. You half-expect the Highblood to grab you, but he doesn’t. Why would he? He doesn’t believe you can do any damage. Your body has been torn to pieces and your psi is inaccessible with the collar.

There’s amusement in the Empress’ voice when she speaks. “That’s all that is,” she says. “A psychic parlor trick. Makes lyin' easier.”

“You’re going to ruin us,” Signless says. He’s glowing with something bright and manic, even beaten and exhausted as he is. “I gave you every fucking chance, and you -- you just destroy everything you touch. You’re going to spend your whole life feeling empty, and once we’re all gone, it will mean fucking nothing.”

“Yeah, I’m bored. Cool trick with the name. Get him in the irons.” This last directed to the troll holding Signless.

Sign struggles, as trolls are known to do when threatened by burning metal. His wrists are inches from the cuffs when the Empress says, “Wait,” again, sharper, unsettled.

You can’t see her face as her lusus ceases to communicate with her, as the stop the execution becomes the last thing heard. But you see the change in her posture, the rigidity. The thing about having a godlusus is that her voice is always with you. Guiding you, shaping you, validating you. Fainter and fainter, maybe, as you careen beyond her control on the edges of the galaxy. But always there.

Until it isn’t.

You hear her, though, the emissary of the horrorterrors murmuring inside your pan. There are other murmurs, too, urging surrender, calm, control.

It’s about fucking time, you think.

The Empress half-turns, uncertain in a way she never is. And then she sees you, really sees you, and the uncertainty gives way to fury. Betrayal.

“No,” she says.

There is something to understand about gods.

Something you’ve understood for a while, that the Empress has always failed to comprehend. Her arrogance and self-assuredness will always be her ruin. In the true timeline, it takes a few thousand sweeps.

In this one, it only takes a minute.

Because the true timeline is a sum of choices that lead to the propagation of a new world. And the doomed timelines, prosperous as they may be, simply don’t. And those timelines, as they dwindle into their eternal nothingness, an existential crisis personified -- something has to happen to them.

The thing to understand about gods,

is that they need to feed.

The Empress sees only one future. Her claws wrap through your pan and scrape out all the sticky rebellion. Your power fuels her dreams. She searches for meaning, and searches, and searches, and all the while believes it’s just around the corner. Her lusus, emissary of the horrorterrors, assures her of her rightness. Of her path. Sure, an Heiress may threaten her attention, but Gl’bgolyb makes sure she careens along the true timeline’s route.

The Handmaid sees the timelines laid out like a maze, their ends spiraling into nothingness. She drifts through your history as the grim reaper, culling where necessary and planting the right seeds. The true timeline unfurls like a bloom underneath her guidance. She’s powerless to exist in a doomed timeline, but she prays for as many of them to formulate as possible, whispered wishes blown away by the wind.

But you. You are a different creature entirely.

You, hatched from stardust, supernova power thrumming under your skin. You, touched by the gods, relinquished from their grasps to live an unwilling second life. You, a gift to the Empress snatched from beneath her grasping fronds, a bypass, a gift to the gods instead. You’ll lay down on the altar if they ask, but it’s not that kind of sacrifice.

You, who lets dead trolls walk through your body so they’ll find their peace. You, with a moirail you’d burn the entire world for. You, with a hunger to end the slave owners and spirit the injured bodies of the slaves to safety, because it’s just and it’s right and more than anything, it’s kind.

You are uniquely positioned to become their voice. The doom of a universe.

The Empress sees it, understands, just a second too late.

The shadows spread from inside your chest, coat the rest of you. Your eyes are bright, chaos writhing behind them in place of psi. The crowd falls away, and there is just you, and the Empress, and your family, and the deal you’ve made. When you reach for her, your hand is wreathed in holy darkness.

“Don’t touch my moirail,” you say.

“This ain’t-” She takes a step back, her fins pinned flat to either side of her head. “This ain’t how it happens.”

“In another timeline, no.” You close your fingers around her wrist. “But I’m making the rules for this one.”

And you drag the life out of her.

It should be a drawn-out process. A climax, a slow motion play of your victory.

But in practice, you snarl your gods-touched spirit through the infinite ocean of life she’s stolen. You hear each whispered end as her ghosts cease to haunt her. Haunt you instead. You drink her immortality, and the shadows bind the two of you together, licking up her limbs like - like biocables - and you laugh.

And then it’s done. She’s an empty husk, a sack of useless bones held together by sinew, her last snarl still etched on her lifeless face, and you are a pillar of sacred inky-black in the center of the field.

Silence. And then a twang, and a vague sense of irritation as the Executioner’s arrow buries itself between your ribs.

“Don’t be boring,” you snap in his direction as you drag the arrow out. The skin closes up, gray and shadowed, like the wound was never there.

Then, addressing the rest of the crowd, “Why do you think her lusus isn’t screaming? You wanted a holy sign, Highblood. I’m as holy as it fucking gets.”

The Highblood steps off the platform, dazed and stumbling as he makes his way down the steps. Your fingers curl into fists, your entire body thrumming with the desperate desire for him to strike, for you to hit back with a thousand times the power.

He drops to his knees.

“You’re lucky,” you tell the kneeling supplicant before you, cruelty and mania splitting the grin on your face. “I just saved you from killing your messiahs.”

And you rear back, the shadows hooked into solid claws, ready to bring them down because it’s an execution, after all, and somebody should burn --

And a voice says, “Psii.”

You snarl, “Don’t you fucking dare,” but of course he’s there. Signless, your moirail, the end of this universe, he’s wrestled his way off the platform, freed by the dumbstruck hesitance of the trolls holding him. He’s limped over to you, dragging one of his legs behind him, which you know even despite not being turned toward the action. He slips into the hurricane of your pain and bloodlust and revenge, the only troll who dares to come close, and lays his hand against your skin.

“You’re freezing,” he says, soft, so soft. “Oh, Psii. What did you do?”

“Nothing I wasn’t prepared to do.” You’re trembling, and his touch is fire. “Let me kill this piece of shit. Let me kill this piece of fucking shit, Signless, and it’ll be over.”

“You’re not going to kill a surrendering troll.”

“Do you have any idea how many fucking lowbloods” - Your voice cracks, breaks, because their cut-short lives are a part of you now and their pain is your pain and you’ll never stop feeling it, not really, not until you’ve made every single highblood pay - “Do you have any idea-”

“Yes.” He wraps both arms around you, hugs you close, like you’re in the pile and not surrounded by your own hurricane. “Yes, love, I know. I know. I know, shh. I know.”

“I want him to die,” and you hate the plaintiveness in it, the vulnerability, because if you sell your soul to the wicked powers then it seems like you should stop feeling this hard.

“I know. Hush, love. Shh. It’s all right. I’m safe now, aren’t I? I’m safe.”

You take a few ragged breaths. “I made you safe.”

“You made me safe.”

“Nobody can fucking touch you.”

“Including him?”

The shadows are flickering out, curling back into your body as you remember what it is to be a troll, just a troll, not a god or a godling. You’re still shaking, blinded by furious tears.

“I want him to die.”

“Shh,” Signless murmurs, nuzzling against your cheek, your ear, your jaw. “Shh, love, shh, shh, shh. It’s all right. It’s all right. You can come back. Come back.”

You draw in a gasp, your legs folding beneath you. The gods are leaving you now, their influence evaporating into the night sky, but they’re still nestled inside you. Their eldritch fronds coax your pusher to keep beating. But even in this, their touch is tinged with apology. We don’t want you miserable, little one, a thousand tongues whisper. We just want you strong.

And then it’s this: You, collapsing before the kneeling form of the Grand Highblood, your body your own and your life continuing on. A thousand thousand ghosts inside you, their ended lifespans curled around your organs. The body of the Condesce, an empty shell, fallen just feet away. Signless, lowering you to the ground, his arms wrapped tight to warm your freezing form. Di, throwing herself from the platform and wrapping her good arm around your ribs. Rosa, pale and wan, freed from her restraints by a troll who recognizes the weight of a miracle, stumbling through the crowd until she breaks into your silent circle. Rosa, her own arms wrapped around her son, her body quaking as she sobs.

Signless won’t let go of you. His face is drawn, the sorrow at what you’ve given up warring with furious, disbelieving joy. The timeline stretches before you, an unwritten space where you can do anything you want. Be anything you want. Put this entire fucking forsaken world back together.

“Still an atheist?” you whisper, and he barks a laugh.

“A more pressing question,” he says, turning to the Highblood, his protective arms still clasped tight around you.

“Do you believe me now, Kurloz?”

Chapter Text

It’s a cool, clear night when you go to meet Gl’bgolyb for the first time.

The stars sparkle overhead like a swath of spilled sugar, forty-eight Alternian constellations wrapping around the planet, one for each of the elder gods. They stretch until the night sky meets the dark emptiness of the sea, the ship’s front slicing through the waves like an icy blade.

It’s the Orphaner’s vessel, and you’re alone with him, but there’s no reason to be afraid. He despises you, killer of queens and doom of universes that you are, and you’re not particularly fond of him, given your newfound knowledge of what becomes of your mother in the true timeline.

You know a lot of things, now.

But if he tried to harm you, he’d be the one to end up dead. And if you can’t kill the Grand Highblood, you also can’t kill the Orphaner, even if you do hate him. Gl’bgolyb still needs to eat even after the end of the world.

Sign and Di couldn’t come with you on this journey, given that the yawning of the abyss still does unfortunate things to normal troll pans. But you know they’ll be awake when you get home, anxious to lay their hands against your skin and convince themselves of your safety.

When you reach the black expanse above her lair, you climb over the deck railing and simply let yourself drop into the water. Protective shadows ripple outward from your body. Landdweller or not, you can no longer be harmed by anything as simple as “deep sea pressure” or “drowning.”

You allow the emissary of the horrorterrors to wrap a creeping frond around your body and draw you into the deep like you’re her grubling, because in many ways now, you are. When the timeline finally surrenders to entropy, she and the elder gods will consume what’s left in a meal fit to sustain them for lifetimes. But in the meantime, she’ll drink the starlight energy inside you and call it even.

When you finally surface again hours later, the ship is right where you left it. You climb the rope ladder onto the deck and shake yourself off like a wet barkbeast.

“Knew it was too much t'hope she’d killed ye,” the Orphaner says, heaving a beleaguered sigh as he steers the vessel back toward shore, but you’re barely listening.

---

You light a candle for the Handmaid when you’re back on the sand, burying the base in a patch of wetness that will be swallowed by the tide.

It’s a meaningless gesture; she’ll never know about it, and it doesn’t change anything. You’ve already tried begging and bargaining with the gods to change her fate. But the forces that snare her are outside their control. She’s slave to a creeping corruption, a universal rot that cannot be wiped away. When the gods explain it, you could swear you feel fear in them.

All you can hope, you suppose, is that your true timeline self will be good for her. He’ll be angry for a long time, but when the rage cools off, you hope the friendship will give them both some solace.

There’s a lot more to worry about than a woman an entire universe away, but she’s your friend, and despite everything, you miss her.

You sit and watch the waves and let the candle burn. It’s halfway gone, the horizon brightening with the first signs of dawn, when you finally master the grief well enough to go home.

---

“Home” is a small hive tucked in a copse of trees just outside the capital city. You’ve kept it secret from the public, lest trolls feel the need to make pilgrimages. The Highblood offered you shelter within the Church, and you had a great time watching Sign’s parade of facial expressions as he looked for a polite way to decline.

They’re waiting up for you, of course they are, even though the sun has now climbed high into the sky and they must be exhausted. Sunlight is also on the list of Things That Can No Longer Harm You.

You keep your explanations short and wearily ask to go to sleep. You’ve been distancing yourself from them despite the fact that you three sleep in the same recuperacoon, and you know they can tell, but you’re not sure how to stop.

At least until you wake screaming from an inevitable day terror, and Di bites your shoulder and says, “Tell us what the fuck is going on.”

So you do.

You tell them about how every life the Empress took lives on in you now, how all the pain and anger and grief is an infinite ocean you can’t let yourself touch lest you drown. You tell them about the gods and their whispers and what it means to walk with them, and you tell them about how you won’t ever be as you were, and how you need to make peace with that.

“And I’m going to be alive for such a long time,” you tell them, shaky. This is the other part you can’t let yourself view head-on. “So much longer than either of you will live. So much longer than highbloods even live. And that’s fine, that’s what I agreed to, but it’s going to be such a long time, and I’m going to be alone.”

Signless wraps his fingers through yours and kisses your sopor-drenched knuckles, his brow knit. “But free. You are free, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” you say, because you are. Despite being tied to the gods, despite having some kind of divinity yourself, your choices remain your own. Your mind is your own. You haven’t been tied down and carved to pieces and ruined.

“Then we’ll find a way,” he says, kissing your hand again while Di nuzzles against your shoulder. “I promise.”

---

They find a way, because of course they do.

It’s a few perigrees later. You come home from another busy night of putting the world back together to find Sign and Di sitting at the table in the nutrition block like they’re staging an intervention.

“Hey,” you say cautiously, shrugging off your jacket and hanging it beside the door. “What’s up?”

“We’ve been talking,” Di says without preamble. “About immortality.”

“And about the people living with you,” Signless adds. “The ones who need to find peace.”

“Okay,” you say, just as cautiously.

“And we were thinking,” Signless says. “About the Empress. And how she could keep you alive in the other timeline.” His mouth twists slightly, but his voice is measured. None of you like thinking about the true timeline if you can help it.

You sit down in a chair next to him and across from Di, resting your elbows on the table. Di reaches out and squeezes your hand between both of hers.

“And we were thinking,” she says, “that there’s no reason you have to bear this burden alone.”

You know what they’re offering. Your heart crumples in your chest. “You don’t want this,” you say.

“That’s the thing, though.” Signless takes hold of your other hand, warm pressure, grounding. “We really, really do.”

“It will hurt,” you say, because it will. You’re fine being the keeper of your own day terrors, but to bestow them on your loved ones seems an act of unforgivable selfishness.

“That’s okay.”

And at the same time…

At the same time, you want it so bad you can barely breathe.

Because you could keep them. The three of you, unexpected godlings of this universe, watching over the galaxy for too long to conceptualize. You could have them forever, and the three of you could do the work together, and you wouldn’t have to wake shaking from the terror of Signless’ dwindling lifespan and Di’s mortality.

Everything could be okay.

The bestowing of stolen immortality feels like inexcusable selfishness, yes, but you’ve learned some important things over this whole shitty journey. You have to stop making their choices for them. You have to stop assuming you know best. You have to let them live the lives they want, and if those lives happen to be the softest and most wonderful blessing anyone’s ever given you, that’s okay. You have to let them give you that.

You close your eyes, fight a spasm of pain and longing.

“You’ll be outside time,” you warn them. “You’ll watch people die. You’ll see generations come and go. You’ll become different. Cheated of a normal life cycle.”

Di smiles, gentle. “We know.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to take it back. If you regret it, I mean. I probably can, but I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” Signless kisses your temple, just as gentle. “We’ll deal.”

And maybe you’ve learned something about letting them make their own choices, or maybe you’re not strong enough to resist the selfish decision. It doesn’t matter, really. There’s nothing in you that wants to say no.

“Okay,” you say, surrender and relief at once. You laugh a little, strangled, because you're suddenly so high on hope you can't pull enough air into your lungs. “If we’re gonna do this, we should meander over to the pile.”