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It was difficult to explain what it was like to build for the Game. There were few enough times Sjin had ever really needed to try, but when he had, there just didn't seem to be any particularly appropriate words to use. Language just... ran out, in certain situations, and this was definitely one of them.
The moments before each build started were far too unnerving to worry himself with merely describing it. After his translocated vision cleared, he would find himself standing on nothingness, looking out across the shifting mess of undefined world that preceded each arena. The memories of every other time burst free, returning like a wave, ideas and potential flaring into brilliant – terrifying – exhilarating life behind his eyes. Then Ridge's hands would close onto his shoulders, and the need for dull little things like words or breathing faded away, as the awaiting firmament began to fold beneath his fingertips.
The first few times, he remembered nothing at all of the process, just a white-hot blur of unrestrained creation as stone and metal and earth flowed at his command; borrowed memories and his own inspiration alike reworking themselves out of raw reality along his blazing thoughts. Then it was over, the brilliance faded, and he came back into himself on the starting podium – detail and understanding drained away like a passing dream, leaving nothing but the shades of familiarity in their place.
He was the architect – but he ran, and fought and died like everyone else, spilling the finishing touches of his blood across his own designs.
Even now, so many times on, he never recalled the actual builds, but as time had passed he became more aware of the print of himself in these constructed worlds. It wasn't precisely memory, but there was an increasing sense of inbuilt deja-vu to the arenas now, and several times Sjin had found himself ducking, dodging, or taking a leap that should have made no sense – in a pursuit, as a sword had come down towards him, or footing had shifted abruptly – and found against all odds and logic a different path, a kink to the stonework that made a perfect hidden handhold, or a chance-defying avoidance of some trap or hazard.
He quite literally seemed to be making his own luck. And that had got him to thinking; in the Games, or the brief moments of aftermath-downtime, before the returning shift sealed everything away beneath the everyday, once again.
It gave him an idea. He just had to figure out how to keep hold of it.
The chance arrived sooner than he had expected. He wasn't sure if it was because of something he had done, or a change in whatever temporary infusion of power Ridge set into him, but this time there was a little glimmer of coherence flickering at the back of the maelstrom of creative chaos that replaced his mind, and he curled his mortal awareness around it like a lifeline in a burning sea. A slight change here, an adjustment there; all tiny, tiny alterations in the grander scheme, little tweaks to the roll and play of the focusing world, half-hidden from himself.
When it stopped, as proper awareness rose up to meet the descending, borrowed power, he caught on hard, reaching into the last remnants of awaiting world and wrenching them into place around him –
– as his knees hit the floor, breath drawn suddenly-sharp into his lungs, and he gripped onto the cool stone underneath, listening to the frantic pound of his restarting heartbeat. Eternal moments ago, the shaped rock underneath had moved like water through his fingers, but now it was very much stone, very much solid, and Sjin let out a long, shaking breath, blinking frantically as he tried to remember how sight worked. He still seemed to be here, which was good, so whatever the Architect had done in those last fragments must have at least partially worked.
There was a shift in the air, and he stood up quickly. He was in a cellar – familiar, in that odd way that everything ever was – with thick stone walls, inset with wrought-iron torch brackets that spilled firelight across the subterraean space. He was also, very clearly, caged. Heavy, black metal bars were sunk unforgivingly into the floor and ceiling, marking out a few-metre square enclosure.
Ridge was hovering on the other side of the impromptu prison, watching him with a faint air of curiosity, his arms folded into a lazy brocade strata.
“Alright, Sjin,” he said, in a casual tone that struck stark contrast to the sudden thump of Sjin's own heart. “You got my attention. What's this about?” He gestured to the bars. “If it's a... comment, I'm afraid I'm missing the point.”
“I – um – I wanted to ask you,” Sjin replied. The feel of words in his throat was still weird, and he tried to ignore the deep sense of being diminished that the comedown had saddled him with. “For a favour, this time.”
“A favour?” Ridge rolled the word a little longer than it needed, a faintly unsettling gleam sparking in his endless stare. “I can't let you remember building all this. That wouldn't be... fair.”
“N-no. No,” Sjin corrected, then coughed lightly, pushing a little more confidence into his voice as he met Ridge’s amused gaze again. “I know that; yeah, no point.”
“Then what?” Ridge reached out, running one extended finger along the bar in front of him, and the metal warped and shivered under the contact. It was now or never, and Sjin gritted his teeth.
“I want you to play.”
Ridge blinked. The moment of surprise – real surprise, a weirdly humanised expression on those usually so-composed features – gave an extra boost to Sjin’s confidence, and he ploughed on.
“Just one round. Stripped down to our level, for a change.”
Ridge drew his hand back, head tilted, as he renewed his gaze.
“That’s not how it works, Sjin,” he said quietly, and one elegant brow arched. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I know. Still. C’mon, Ridge - ” Sjin flashed the most winning grin he could muster as he stepped forward and leaned on the metal. “Just one round? Down there in the dirt with the rest of us.”
There was a long moment of silence, while the faintest hint of a frown eased against Ridge’s features.
“...why?” he asked, and there was an edge to his voice now, somewhere between curiosity and a strange sort of disappointment. “You want... what? A chance to get your own back?”
Sjin laughed. He hadn’t meant the sound to be quite so loud, and quickly bit it back. He shook his head.
“No – not really. Well, yeah, okay a bit, but mostly no. I just wonder if you know what it’s like, down on the ground floor, as it were.” He leaned further forward, resting his forehead into the gap between the bars, and smiled slyly across the narrowed gap. “It'd be... fun. Bit of a variety.”
Ridge reached forward again, his expression unusually blank, as he settled fingertips onto Sjin's face and the power began to shift.
“I'll think about it.”
- - -
Welcome to the Survival Games.
You will run. You will fight. You will die.
- - -
Brilliant sunlight lanced down, breaking away the enclosing folds of waiting that had wrapped him like a shroud, and Sjin took a sudden breath as the world resolved into sudden, shocking-clarity around him. There were always a few strange moments at the start of a Game, as memories poured back from hidden reserves, when everything felt... new, somehow, just out of the wrapping. Yet the understanding of it all was there instantly, burned into your mind – the certainty of what you had to do, and had done, so many times before.
Sjin stood up carefully, looking around. Glass walls surrounded him on all sides, forming a narrow tube that he could just about bend down in, set at the edge of a wide field that was emerald-lush in the bright sunlight that poured down from above. In the centre of the open space was a tower a few storeys high, made from knotwork twists of silver metal and facetted glass, and Sjin noted the crates nestled beneath the corkscrew legs of the structure. There were two dozen or so identical cylinders arranged around the edge of the field, and he could see mostly-familiar figures in each one, all straightening up, looking around, shaking their heads as the memories came back.
Sips was visible a few slots over, leaning back against his glass, and he met Sjin's gaze with a small nod. Usual rules, then. They would -
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” The voice rang out, crystal-clear and overlain with an audible grin, and each caged attention swung upwards to where a familiar figure hung in the air at the top of the cornucopia-tower. Even from there, Ridge was sharp against the sky; gold gleamed like a burnished outline down the edges of him, while the unfathomable folds of his coat rippled and shifted in their own patterns in the air. His arms were extended to either side, as if on display, and a grin like the death of worlds curled across his face as he touched down on the tower and extended one elegant hand upwards.
“I think we're all familiar with the rules?” He snapped his fingers, and the sky fractured as massive numbers embossed themselves against the cloudless blue. “A simple one, today. Three rounds, three chances, and always to the Last Man standing. With one modification.”
Ridge tapped a foot against the tower-edge, and a silver platform slid out of the base in front of him. He reached up, settling both hands onto the lapels of his coat, and his glittering gaze swung down towards the forcibly-assembled faces. Sjin realised with a jolt that he was looking right at him.
Earlier memories that had been fizzing at the back of his mind caught hold, storming to the fore so suddenly that he let out a short gasp – even as, high above, Ridge gave a dramatic shrug, and swung the shifting folds of dark fabric off his shoulders. There was an air of surprise, palpable across the area, as he carefully placed the coat aside and stepped forward onto the platform. It began to descend, while even higher, branded against the sky, the first countdown began.
“So.” Ridge's voice still rang out like a proclamation, and if anything in the tones had diminished it was difficult to tell. “Would you like to play a game?”
This was it. Oh. Shit. Sjin pressed back against the glass of his starting prison, his heart in his throat as he watched the silver platform move, and met the gleaming stare that was still pinned directly on him. Seeing Ridge down to his waistcoat – his long sleeves tugged up a little to keep their cuffs clear of his wrists, his hair actually moving slightly in the soft breeze that stirred the area leaves – was beyond weird. But there was enough of Sjin's own survival instincts still firing, somewhere behind the shock, to note that there was a thin blade visible now at the man's hip, and that the platform was going to touch ground at about the same time as the countdown finished.
Of course. Drama queen.
He risked a glance aside to where Sips was still looking at him – rather more alarmed now – and waggled his eyebrows frantically, trying to get across with facial semaphore alone everything they might have ever discussed that was relevant now. There was a click, a faint grind of hidden gears, and the air was suddenly clear in front of him as the glass snapped away. Sjin swiveled, in time to see Ridge step down onto the grass, still grinning, still looking directly at him.
The platform began to ascend again, as the reverberating thunderclap of the starting gong rang out, and the usual startup hell broke loose. Darting shapes scattered or stormed the cornucopia, as was their preference, but Sjin just bolted. He caught a brief glimpse of Lomadia tackling some unfortunate figure to the ground, her expression grim as the already-bleeding Lalna tossed a swiftly-captured sword towards her; saw a brief crimson flash that must be Xephos vanishing into the nearby woodland with Honeydew barreling after him; but then he gave up on tracking anyone else and headed for where the trees were thinnest. The city itself would be mostly empty for a few minutes while the melee played out, and he should be able to –
There were footsteps behind him, crunching against the faint leaf-fall in the trees' shadow, and Sjin forced a bit more acceleration out of his legs. The treeline fell away abruptly and he burst out into the first avenue of shaped stonework. He vaulted a low fence, darting towards the darker shade of a nearby alleyway, and took a chance to glance back for the pursuit that had nearly cleared the woodland. He gulped.
Even cloaked in temporary mortality – assuming he actually was, right now – Ridge moved with a vicious elegance. Each step was perfectly-timed, each movement tuned with a liquid grace that made Sjin's teeth grate together; he suddenly felt as if he were some particularly unwieldy, gangling construction in comparison to the pursuing figure, and he was fairly sure he was only ahead even now because Ridge was enjoying the chase.
That was probably the case. Well, he didn't have to make it easy.
“Come at me, then,” he muttered, and swung back into the alley again. The city was a nice one, he had to admit – all smooth curves and aligned roads, high overhead latticework of bridges and suspended walkways, with buildings that rose and fell like frozen waves beneath the crystal sky. He'd been on the ball, this time.
It wasn't familiar, not in any normal way, but Sjin tried not to dwell on normal as he sprinted through the streets, letting his mind relax even as adrenaline surged and sparked through his body. He knew this place, even if he didn't know he knew it, and he tried to let that feeling flow, dodging and weaving a route through the streetways, following the slideglance guidance of muscle-memory. He ducked; there was a click behind him, and the roar of fire at his heels, but he cleared the sudden-inferno with inches to spare. He caught an ornate lamp-post as he went past and hefted himself over the innocuous mosaic pattern below, where his mind was suddenly full of the sense of awaiting sharpness beneath.
It was working. Giddiness spiraled up around his thoughts, and he couldn't suppress a slightly-manic giggle as he searched the skyline, looking for anything that might be helpful.
Meet me at the tower. Always the tower, whatever else I've put down.
They'd agreed that, so many Games ago – whatever else happened in the chaos of the starting arena, they would know where to go if split up. It had never been perfect, and Sips had grumbled about his definition of 'tower' enough times, but it worked well enough before.
Sjin's gaze finally locked onto one sky-scraping shape, a little different to its fellows, a little more angular. It wasn't the Compound tower, but it was the only one that had any elements of that structure about it, and his half-planned flight was already leading him in that direction anyway. Good enough.
Or it would have been, if there hadn't been a raw stitch twisting its way like a dagger into his side. The sound of pursuit was still there, and Sjin grimaced as he clutched at his protesting muscles, stumbling into the next little district of housing. These were richer buildings – some sort of merchants' quarter, perhaps – with wider roads between the houses and more ornate decorations set into the thick stones of the walls.
“If you'd just wanted a run, we could have worked that out separately,” Ridge's voice rang out again and Sjin jumped, glancing round to where the pale figure had already entered the district behind him. There was a faint air of breathiness to the smug tones, but not much, and Sjin gritted his teeth.
“Getting – tired, Ridge?” he managed, taking a moment to catch his own breath as Ridge strolled out into the centre of the fenced road. His rapier-thin sword was drawn now, and light glinted and danced down the edges of the blade, all-but shedding sparks onto the pavement. Ridge brushed a loose curl of hair out of his face, and grinned again as he nodded up towards the slightly-different tower.
“You could've made it less obvious, you know,” he said, cheerfully. “That was a lot of explosives stashed up there. Nice touch with the partition wall, but I do check the totally-not-suspicious towers beforehand. Not bad, Sjin – but not enough.”
“Haven't caught me yet,” Sjin cut back, trying to keep his expression neutral as Ridge's grin widened.
“I think I have.”
“Think again, mothertrucker.” Sjin's boots skidded against the smooth stone underneath as he shot off again, putting the pause-worth of air to good use.
He dived down a gap between two houses, jigged left, right – left again as the hair on the back of his neck prickled – and darted out of the narrowing space into a small square, surrounded by high yard walls. Vines crept down the brickwork, forming foliar ladders that snaked up towards the peaked roofs above. Sjin hesitated a fraction too long choosing which one to go for, and he gulped as the faint prickle of a sword settled against his back, digging into the gap between his shoulders.
“You start off with a bloody sword, but I'm not allowed a few sneaky bags of TNT?” he snapped, as he tried to draw clearer information out of his half-held memories. Why here? This didn't go anywhere.
“I said I’d play,” Ridge's voice was low, close in behind him. “I never said I’d play fair.”
“Always had you for a cheaty-pete,” Sjin muttered, trying to keep his attention on the echoes of his own mental map. Ridge chuckled.
“What can I say? Can you really cheat in your own game?” The sword swung lower, tracing a cold path down Sjin's spine – not deep enough to actually hurt, yet, but enough to send an icy shiver through his flesh at the contact. “But you're not exactly running blind.”
“I know my work,” Sjin conceded, as he peered over his shoulder, angling to see a glint of the dark stare behind him. “Besides, whose fault is that, Mr Magic-memory-eraser? Can you blame me?”
“I never do.”
Sjin blinked, surprised at the sudden lack of playful threat in Ridge's voice, and took the chance to turn. No immediate skewering occurred, although the sword-point now hovered a few inches from his sternum. Ridge was watching him closely, looking suddenly serious.
“I've been doing this a long time, Sjin,” his voice dipped, just a little, and for a moment there was an age, a heaviness to the tones, gone as fast as it appeared. “With people much, much craftier than you. I know how it works. Sooner or later, everyone wants revenge.”
Whatever response he had been expecting, laughter clearly wasn't it, but Sjin didn't even try to hold back the sound as it rolled up his throat. Ridge blinked, and in that moment he suddenly looked mortal, uncertainty mapped awkwardly onto a face unused to the concept, and Sjin struggled to get words out past his own halting breath.
“You – oh, Ridge, come on! That's honestly what you think?” He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, shaking his head as he pushed down on the giggles, and met the slightly-widened dark stare again. “I love this! I've built factories and houses before, sure – but you give me cities; worlds even. It's like going from a tiny sandcastle to building with the whole friggin' beach.”
Something flickered across Ridge’s face, some trace of emotion too fast for Sjin to pick it up, then he frowned slightly.
“Then why… this?” He nodded down, towards himself, and Sjin took the opportunity to back up a few steps as he held his hands up, open.
“Why not? I wasn’t lying – “ not exactly, not if we’re being technical about it “ – I just thought it’d be fun. Get you to see how the other half live, y’know.”
The glint in his eyes came back, very suddenly, and Sjin’s heart skipped a beat as Ridge stepped forwards again.
“Oh, I do. And you don’t understand the half of that.”
“I know something you don’t, though,” Sjin added quickly, as he backed away further. Ridge advanced, each slow step spreading the returning grin a little wider across his face, as he idly swiveled the blade in one hand, tracing little gleaming patterns in the air.
“And what would that be?” He stopped, barely a swordstroke away, and raised an tailored eyebrow. Sjin met the gaze – as he took another step back, as he felt his heel meet raised stone a fraction of a moment sooner than the last time – and his eyes narrowed.
“I know when to jump.”
The pressure-plate sank down, accompanied by a faint, well-tuned click, and Sjin saw the briefest start of surprise in Ridge’s eyes as he hesitated – and the bottom dropped out of their little world. The last step had taken Sjin far enough that he managed to jerk back and cling onto the nearest wall, driving his fingers desperately into tiny holds between the bricks as he tried to keep balance on the remaining ledge – and he heard the half-formed expletive shout as Ridge vanished downwards, grasping futilely at the air as instinct failed him.
“Enjoy having gravity, you son of a gun!” Sjin yelled, angling himself so he could peer over the ends of his own feet, to where the pale shape had vanished into subterranean gloom. Nothing vengeful or deific seemed to be surging back up towards him; not immediately, anyway, and he focused his attention on holding on. The trapdoors would be on timers, so he just had to wait.
With a shift of concealed gears, the floor came back. Sjin edged carefully over to the vines and pulled himself up onto the nearby roof. The altitude wasn’t much, but it was enough to re-orientate, and to note that something back the way he had come was already on fire. Still, he didn’t encounter anyone else as hurried closer to the angular tower-shape, hesitating only as he was almost at the door, to drop carefully into an alley just to one side. The doors were still closed, but that didn’t tell him much. Ridge would have removed his explosive cache well before anyone had even arrived at the start; it had been just on the wrong side of unobtrusive to attract attention.
It was nice to know he’d set the decoy up right.
“We gotta stop meeting in alleys, Sjin. Goddammit, people will talk.”
Sjin spun round, a delighted grin rising onto his face as the familiar voice broke through his concern, and Sips stepped out of one of the adjoining gaps between the buildings. There was a livid bruise across his face, narrowly missing his left eye, but other than that he seemed unscathed, and Sjin’s gaze was drawn to the bulging sack slung across his partner’s shoulders.
“You found it?”
Sips snorted; he swung the bag down and it clinked – a little ominously – against the pavement.
“I said you’d give me a friggin’ complex with all that ‘mahogany doors’ shit, but it makes ‘em obvious, I’ll give you that. Must’ve looked a right weird bastard, trying to follow wood around a city while everyone else is pounding on each other.”
“Any fatalities yet?” Sjin glanced up at the countdown sky, but nothing had shown up on the overhead ticker. Sips shook his head.
“Don’t think so. Lom’s giving it a damn good try though – nearly nailed me to a wall. You dealt with god-boy?”
Sjin nodded, as he eyed the bag. It was almost familiar, and like a particularly destructive kind of christmas had come all at once.
“Got him with a trapdoor.”
“Is he dead?” Sips looked down, as if he could see through the layers of stone beneath them, and Sjin shook his head.
“Traps aren’t lethal.” He looked back up, grinning. “We get one round, Sips; don’t want to end it straight off. The sewers are particularly annoying, I think. I... might not have put any torches down there.”
Sips blinked, then frowned slightly.
“You dropped the world’s fanciest bastard into a sewer?” He saw the grin on Sjin’s face and let out a bark of laughter, shaking his head. “Geeze. Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Sjin, you crazy sonovabitch.”
“H-hey!” Sjin cut back, trying to stifle his own giggle. “It’s not like it’s an active sewer. There’s limits to my crazy, I’ll have you know.”
“Uh-huh.” Sips turned back to the sack and bent down, starting to unroll the folded neck of the bag, and peered inside. “I don’t recognise half this shit, anyway.”
“Me either.” Sjin fished around in the clinking depths of the sack, and pulled out a small metal cube, inset with what was undoubtedly a timer, and covered in rune-like symbols that screamed ‘warning’ without the need for actual translation. He put it aside and withdrew the next item, this one a collection of rotating crystals set into network of fine golden wires, that gleamed with thaumic malevolence.
The exact contents of his second – real – stash were mystery to him too; he knew that he had found or thought of each one, making solid something from his own mind, or plucking an idea out of the near-infinite library of elsewhere-possibility that wound up around the arena space. And he had clearly thought each thing would be interesting. At some point, you had to trust in the judgment of your almost-alternative, high on god-juice, self.
“Any idea what any of it actually does?” Sips was examining something that looked like a short sword – or rather, like several short swords, fused through each other at angles that slightly hurt to look at – and swished it experimentally, accompanied by a sound like ripping tin. Sjin shook his head.
“Nope. Explode, mostly, I’d guess.”
Sips put the sword down and looked up again, squinting in the bright Game sunlight at the huge numbers emblazoned on the sky.
“One round,” he said, thoughtfully. “Then fancy-frock down there’ll get all his usual shizzle back; and we are royally fucked.” He didn’t sound worried, and when Sjin met his partner’s eyes, he could see the gleam there. “Still think this is a good idea?”
“Oh, hell no,” Sjin laughed, as he grabbed a handful of the most portable little pieces of borrowed devastation and clipped them to his belt. “No way. But it’s going to be fun while it lasts.”
After all, what was the point in making sandcastles if you didn't get to knock them over once in a while?
---
It was fun. There were so few chances in life to really let loose, to see if the world you'd spent so long shaping could burn just as well – and Sjin remembered, all too clearly, what had happened in those other times.
But this? This had been exactly what he’d hoped for; and possibly a little more than that.
It had all ended in tears, of course; as the countdown had ticked, players taken off the board one by one, by fire, explosions and everything else between, rains of nuclear and magical destruction that tore the ravaged landscape into a shredded memory of itself. And those final few moments at round-end, when the restored, angry, gilt-edged streak had cut the burning sky apart – but not quite fast enough, as the tail of their own gleeful apocalypse had finally caught them up; still laughing, still leaning on each other even as the inferno bore down.
Then – reset. Round Two. Round Three. Those had been… short, for them both. Understandably, no one else had been very impressed, and Sjin had barely made it off his podium each time. That was fair enough, but it wasn’t the Game he was concerned about now, as light broke into his waiting awareness for a fourth time, and he opened his eyes much more gingerly.
No more tube; no more arena-field. He was lying down and there was still glass, but now it was beneath him – a wide platform of smooth crystal, hanging in the air with no visible means of support. There was a bright, featureless sky above, shading down to thickened darkness far underneath, and nothing much else to the platform, which only served to more strongly highlight who was there.
Xephos was standing a little way to one side, with his arms folded across his chest and his face set into one of his more long-suffering expressions. In the centre of the platform, a few feet from Sjin himself, Ridge lounged back in a similarly-crystalline chair. The man could probably make a bar-stool look like a throne with the right posture, but he did seem slightly more disheveled than usual; his shirt was more rumpled than ruffled, right then, his hair not quite as celluloid-perfect as he usually presented. He was smiling, but there was a faint, predatory glint in the exaggerated depths of his stare.
Sjin eased himself up onto his elbows, carefully. He still seemed to be intact, which was a good start – so he might as well begin on a positive.
“Hey there, guys.”
“Sjin, what in godsname were you – ?” Xephos started, but cut off as Ridge waved a hand and he lapsed back into silence. The demigod's stare didn't falter, and Sjin tried a weak little smile.
“No hard feelings?” he suggested. “I mean, they weren't really sewers. Very clean, all in all.”
“I’m going to have to burn these clothes,” Ridge said, conversationally, and Sjin couldn’t resist.
“Aw, Ridge – c’mon, if you just wanted me to get your pants off – “
There was a poorly-muffled snort of laughter from Xephos, who turned away, his shoulders shaking slightly as he failed to suppress amusement. Ridge leaned back, his expression somewhere between a sigh and a smirk, and folded his long fingers down against the glass of his chair. He shook his head.
“I've got to admit – I hadn't even seen some of that stuff.”
“I'm... creative?” Sjin said, carefully, trying to read anything helpful off those sculpted features. How bad was this going to get? Something like Ridge had had a lot of time to learn to be imaginatively vindictive. He was fairly – fairly – sure that he wasn't in danger of being properly killed, here, and the presence of Xephos added weight to that. If Ridge were really angry, he probably wouldn't have let Xephos stay around for any serious aftermath.
That was assuming that post-Game Xephos was anything like he was back in the world, of course. But if you had to bet your life on something, it seemed a pretty sturdy chance.
“Soo...” Sjin continued, a little warily, as he glanced between them both. “How much of a dressing-down is this going to be?”
There was a shared glance, which he wasn't entirely comfortable with, and another round of hard staring.
“I know there’s no point threatening you,” Ridge said at last – and Sjin's fingers tightened, suddenly, against the underlying glass. The emphasis on that final word was very slight – indeed, unless you were really listening for it, you’d miss it entirely, but it echoed like a slamming tomb in Sjin’s mind. He looked up sharply, to meet that fathomless, very knowing stare. Neither of them moved for a few heartbeats, then Ridge leaned back, and something lightened in his eyes.
“Even I need keeping on my toes; I’ll give you that. But pull this stunt again, Sjin – and you don’t get to play. Understand?” He flicked imaginary dirt from his still-crumpled lapel, frowning at the wrinkled fabric. “That goes equally for Sips, before you get any bright ideas.”
The tightness in his chest settled – as the careful juxtaposition of what hadn’t been said, behind those almost-idle words, slotted into place – and Sjin managed a grin as he relaxed his hands.
“S-sure,” he replied, pushing the edge from his own voice with the most winning smile he could manage. “Don’t pull anything without prior permission. Gotcha.”
Ridge laughed, and in his peripheral vision Sjin saw Xephos press his hand to his face, shaking his head.
“And I look forward to finding out how you plan to wriggle out of exactly what I just said,” Ridge added, and Sjin chucked.
“Hey! I’m a man of my word. So... no hard feelings, then?”
He winked – accompanied by another snort from Xephos, who had given up trying to look composed by now.
Ridge grinned. This time, the expression was one of the dangerous versions.
“Not entirely.”
And then there was no more glass underneath him, and Sjin barely had time to yelp as the world lurched sickeningly upwards. He grasped automatically for handholds that weren’t there, his stomach lurching up into his throat, as the little square of floating crystal shrank away rapidly and the heavy darkness beneath the word stretched itself up around him. Familiar fear sang in his ears, but it was secondary to the words that echoed there now – unspoken, in any true sense, but close as a whisper. His vision began to blur out, his last breath stuttering free in halting laughter, and he felt the curl of shifting reality press down against him.
“Enjoy having gravity. See you later, Sjin.”
Oh – but it was on now.