Archive of Our Own

WASTES – ’S cold out.

WASTES – Not that you’d know. Freak.

VOLITION – It’s the second day of your countywide manhunt after Doma. You don’t have any maps, and, even if you did, they wouldn’t need ink to represent these vacant, icy plains. Also, you can’t hold stuff that hasn’t been fireproofed.

VOLITION – No matter. As always, your feet seem guided by some grander purpose.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Easy: Success] – From an outsider’s perspective, you must embody a walking, talking, blundering lump of coal, fresh from the hearth and lambent.

WASTES – Creature of witch oil. You don’t belong here.

YOU – *He* does, though.

TOGATA – In a way, he shares your sore-thumb-ness, the twisting, blocky outline of his duffel coat tainting the snow like a cigarette burn. On that note, he’s been complaining to you that he only has three left. Cigarettes.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Legendary: Failure] – Neneto used to complain in a similar manner about how it made him stink, but your general stench (smoke, smouldering viscera, and other assorted unpleasantries) makes it impossible to pick up, even though he polished off five just yesterday.

TOGATA – It’s been approximately two hours since you last talked.

TOGATA – He’s the one who taught you how to hold your arm out, flip your hand onto its side with your pinkie resting on the horizon, and subsequently stack your fingers until you reached the sun. One finger width equals fifteen minutes ’til sundown.

HAND-EYE COORDINATION – You do it incessantly. Eight times a day, four times during both windows.

INLAND EMPIRE – However, since it’s currently early afternoon, you’d estimated the two hours thing via your own grasp of how time functions. This instinct originates from the eight years you spent trapped outdoors, alone, screaming your agony to the wind.

INLAND EMPIRE – It’s one of the more stable things about you.

WASTES – Your footprints aren’t footprints at all. You melt right through the snow, leaving behind a broad, simmering channel. You mar me.

TOGATA – He walks ahead, clear of the furrow you’ve ploughed. You walk behind.

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Failure] – The way of things.

EMPATHY [Medium: Failure] – Togata likes being in a position where he can constantly supervise you, just in case. Probably because you’re a massive fireball. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he cares.

LOGIC – You *are*, as previously mentioned, a massive fireball.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Formidable: Success] – About five hundred years ago, there lived a singer who went by the stage name “Pitbull”. His hit song, FIREBALL, features in several animated films, including ZOOTOPIA, which is apparently about anthropomorphic animals. When told, you’d accepted this notion blindly.

TOGATA – One fateful evening, Togata tried to sing it to you, waking up Neneto in the process. He’s not too bad of a singer. Just really, really loud. After that, he made you practise saying “anthropomorphic” in English.

TOGATA – Prior to then, you hadn’t heard the word in any language whatsoever. You’re still not sure what it means.

COMPOSURE – Also, your feeble attempts at pronouncing it made him laugh harder than you knew human beings were capable of doing.

LOGIC [Easy: Failure] – A terminal affliction. Only hyperregeneration could’ve saved him from choking on his own spit.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Challenging: Success] – Togata doesn’t laugh much, although he seems like the kind of person who should. Upon recalling the sound, it brings to mind, of all things, glass. Sharp and wrong and messy round the edges. You’ve been smashed through enough of it to know. You could listen to it all day, if need be.

TOGATA – “Hurry up.” Like usual, he doesn’t bother looking back while addressing you.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Failure] – You’re much too lost in the sauce to have spotted the rooftop that’s only just poking over the snowy hillock a few dozen feet ahead.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] – Horrible placement for a village. Leaves them vulnerable to attack from higher ground.

HALF LIGHT – All villages are, by default, vulnerable to you. Slow down. Turn around. Find the sea and drown in it.

UNEXPECTED ARTILLERY – As if on cue, tiny, circular chunks begin exploding from your abdomen and upper legs, every *pop* accompanied by a transitory spray of blood.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Godly: Success] – Thankfully, you’ve never been ticklish.

1. [Endurance – Godly 16] This is fine. This is good. (Weather the storm in silence.)
2. “Get behind me.”

YOU – “Get behind me.”

TOGATA – The shooter -- whoever or wherever they are -- is pretty much only targeting you, but he obeys. For a while, it’s all white dust: the awkward, powdery shuffle of Togata’s boots, and, when he’s safely tucked away in your shadow, the puffs thrown up by the few bullets that miss.

PERCEPTION – There he is. The man of the moment. In place of the sun, a beanie-donning head swims up from the horizon, bobbing with each doddery step. All swaddled up, with a tactical vest to boot.

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – See that? That’s horror. Scrunching his nose, creasing his eyes. He hates you more than anything else on this wretched, frigid shithole of a planet, and it’s not like he’s short of choice.

AUTOMATIC RIFLE GUY – “Fuck off, *Fire Punch*!”

YOU – Sounds about right.

TOGATA – “HEY! That’s *FIRE MAN* to you!”

YOU – I stand corrected.

AUTOMATIC RIFLE GUY – “Hey, lady!” His voice cracks. Rather painfully. He reclaims what little dignity he had to begin with by pelting you with more ammo. “You can *fuck* off too!”

AUTOMATIC RIFLE GUY’S AUTOMATIC RIFLE – Ra-ta-tat.

PAIN THRESHOLD – You’ve seen one fruit fly in your entire life. According to Togata, some bugs bite. This is probably what that feels like.

AUTOMATIC RIFLE GUY – He’s currently giving you a very considerate reprieve by fumbling with the next magazine. Then, the curse of thick gloves. He drops it. 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Formidable: Success] The *thunk* is so, so quiet. As are his retreating footsteps.

ENDURANCE [Impossible: Success] – You’re back to normal as soon as the volley ends. Something cool and hard undulates up your gullet, digging into your soft palate.

1. Spit.
2. [Electrochemistry – Medium 11] Swallow.

YOU – Spitting it is.

BULLET – It somehow flies right through your flames, unscathed, carving out a little pit for itself in the surrounding slush. A deformed gold nugget; stubbornly incandescent.

YOU – Hello.

BULLET – Treasure! Hello! Friendy-filth!

1. I know you. I’ve met your family.
2. How’d my gums look?

YOU – How’d my gums look?

BULLET – Gums! Soft! Dark! Warm!

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] – That’s true. You *are* Fire Man. You’re softest where you’re studded with teeth.

BULLET – Can’t! Touch! You!

1. No. No, you can’t.
2. Who would want to?
3. For a moment, you did. You’ve seen my intestines. Not everyone can say they’ve done that.

YOU – Who would want to?

BULLET – It dies, suddenly -- burning! -- when a gout of fire lunges from your ankle and engulfs it whole. Your question is left unanswered.

TOGATA – “Jeez.” Out from his hiding spot, already trudging up the slope, overtaking you. “They *really* don’t like you over here, huh?”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Heroic: Success] – That they don’t.

1. [Volition – Medium 10] Leave. Leave and never come back. [-4: Togata! The movie! +1: House is probably made from wood.]
2. “Why are we getting closer?”
3. Remain motionless. The picture of blazing ambivalence.

YOU – “Why are we getting closer?”

AUTHORITY [Easy: Failure] – It’s as if your words, upon exiting your mouth, had evaporated immediately. Alternatively, you’re being ignored.

TOGATA – “HEY! YOU!” He’s yelling at Automatic Rifle Guy, who you can’t see from this angle but is almost certainly halfway across the continent by now.

TOGATA – “DO YOU…HAVE…ANY CIGARETTES?!”

YOU – Ah. That’s why.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Easy: Success] – On top of demonstrating abnormally rapid cellular regrowth, regenerative Blessed aren’t required to eat, drink, sleep, or take shelter from the cold. Smoking is not one of these primal necessities. Even if it was, Togata wouldn’t need to do it.

AUTHORITY – He’s compromising your mission! Every second you don’t spend making a beeline for Doma is a second wasted!

1. [Authority – Challenging 12] Refuse to follow. Take a stand.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] – A few seconds later, Togata notices your absence. He twirls round at the crest of the hill, head spinning, scandalised.

1. [Suggestion – Heroic 15] Bring it home, baby!
2. “Sorry. Had a bit of a moment.” (Just keep walking, like a pushover.)

YOU – “Do we really have to go there? For cigarettes?”

SUGGESTION [Heroic: Failure] – Second time is definitely not the charm.

TOGATA – He stares down at you like you’ve made a perfectly reasonable request. Which, unfortunately, you have. “Agni. Relax. It’s gonna take, like…what, five minutes?” The difference in levels -- not helping.

TOGATA – He turns back around. You’ve lost him to nicotine on a fishing rod. *Imaginary* nicotine.

SUGGESTION – Of course we need the cigarattes. Stupid. Stupid Agni.

TASK GAINED: Acquire cigarettes

CONCEPTUALISATION – Since leaving the cult, you’ve been Agni. Not “Hero”. Not Fire Man. Not Lord Agni. Just…Agni. Which is nice. You can be Just Agni, and he can be Just Togata.

VOLITION [Easy: Failure] – Giddy up, Just Agni.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – A sprawl of decrepit huts -- or cottages, depending on how romantic you’re feeling -- trapped in a rocky, snow-choked hollow.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – The hill you’re on has almost earned cliff status, and some diligent, long-dead workers have hewn a rough path into its side, meandering down into the midst of it all. Beyond, there’s a sudden drop in elevation, and the white tablecloth of the world resumes, undisturbed.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] – There’s nothing preventing a quick getaway in case things go horribly wrong.

TOGATA – The space between you two has shrunk back to its default: about four feet. “You don’t have to come with me.”

YOU – A mind reader!

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – It’s no secret that you don’t like visiting settlements, especially wooden ones. 

LOGIC – You’re on fire. Unquenchable fire. In what universe would Togata be offering this for *your* sake?

1. [Volition – Medium 10] Sit down. Better yet, walk away from the cliff edge to where no one can see your fiery ass and then plonk said fiery ass down.
2. No other options. Just sit the fuck down.

VOLITION [Medium: Failure] – Uh oh.

INLAND EMPIRE – No! Just Agni! Stop doing…whatever it is you’re doing!

YOU – It’s too late. We’re making our way down this narrow sort-of-staircase even if it kills us, which is already impossible.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Formidable: Failure] – Togata, the 300-year-old regenerative, needs us. How’s he gonna cope, all alone in that big, scary, flammable village?

NAMELESS VILLAGE – Uh oh.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Here he comes, world. 

NAMELESS VILLAGE – The buzz of panic is contagious, catalysed by the portentous return of Automatic Rifle Guy as well as you being a giant naked dude blazing with the spirit of an eternal conflagration. People are trickling out of their shoddy houses to gape up at you, clinging to doors held together by lichen and sheer hope.

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – Also, the fear you’re inspiring.

INLAND EMPIRE – Oh, c’mon. You’re not *really* a harbinger of doom.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Easy: Success] – You only look like one.

YOU – I don’t exactly like being studied with unbridled terror, but I prefer it to unbridled zealotry. I think.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] – What other choice do you have?

TOGATA – Near the bottom of the staircase, he realises that, while certainly scary in his own special way, the villagers aren’t actually cringing away from *him*. As he glances over his shoulder, his mouth twists into a wry half-grin.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – Glowing approval.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Failure] – He’s proud of you!

DRAMA [Challenging: Success] – Nay, milord, he is but proud of the role thou art willing to play, as well as himself for spearheading it. This way, when the two of you hit the ground, he can parade thee through town like a majestic prize horse.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] – Horses: one of the few domesticated animals you’ve had the pleasure of laying eyes upon. On a single occasion, you bore witness to a trader dragging his nag along by a rope through your old village, all spit-flecked fur and frenzied mane-tossing.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – Reminiscing on that great, wrathful beast calls to mind…yourself. At least a head taller than everyone around you with no room for fat on your muscles. You were bred for work and war.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – That trader had sought to trade, and your village, as always, was starving.

INLAND EMPIRE – Bred for work, war, and consumption.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] – *Shhh*. They’re *looking* at you.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – At both of you, but especially *you*, the bonfire on legs. With a vengeance. By now, a couple dozen have flocked out onto the main square, if you can call it that. The soil underfoot is so frozen through it might as well be concrete. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Challenging: Failure] – Hey. Don’t worry. You’re incredibly adept at destroying concrete.

TOGATA – Hands raised, palms flat in a universal display of neighbourliness. “Chill out, folks. We come in peace.” 

SUGGESTION [Medium: Failure] – You can sense the bonhomie rolling off him in thick, relentless sheets from where you’re standing, three metres away. Without even needing to see his face.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] – They don’t seem very convinced.

SUGGESTION – Surely a winning smile from one innocuous Fire God would help?

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] – Don’t. Please don’t do that.

YOU – Okay, there must be *something* I can do to look less intimidating.

1. [Suggestion – Impossible 18] Smile. Smile for the camera, if no one else. [-1: Togata isn’t even recording. -3: *Can* you smile? +1: Only one way to find out.]
2. [Physical Instrument – Easy 8] Stay like this: totally still with a generous cushion of air around your highly lethal body.
3. [Savoir Faire – Challenging 12] What would Togata do? [-2: Probably nothing wise.]

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Easy: Success] – You halt and don’t do anything offensive with your face. This is the best it’s gonna get.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Medium: Success] – Look at you. A real bulwark of apotheosis, wreathed in divine flame. 

ENDURANCE [Legendary: Success] – You are untouchable, immovable, immutable; constantly devouring yourself and thus being reborn. You’re a new kind of swealing, terrible existence. You are purgatory on Earth. You look like hell and promise heaven.

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Failure] – Oops. You are also being left behind. Rapidly.

REACTION SPEED – Like an actual architectural bulwark. If you don’t move soon, you’re gonna downgrade to a permanent installation in this one-horse village.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – Haha.

TOGATA – While you’ve been playing statue, he’s ventured ahead and begun interrogating each resident on their knowledge of the humble cigarette. First up had been the butcher’s stall, like he’d expected to see a packet dangling at the end of some cooking twine.

TOGATA – They still aren’t getting too near him, but, being the lesser threat, he’s had more luck fraternising with the peasant folk thus far.

1. *I’m* peasant folk! That should be me!
2. [Pain Threshold – Formidable 13] Where’s Luna? [-1: Wrong place. -3: Wrong time.]

YOU – *I’m* peasant folk! That should be me!

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Failure] – Not today, messiah, and never again. These people don’t even know where to start with you. 

YOU – Too bad, so sad. Make way!

NAMELESS VILLAGE – A frisson of shock jolts through the crowd when you risk taking a few steps forward. 

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] – You’re garnering an understanding of what is meant by “the masses” -- as few in numbers as they are, the villagers quail before you as a collective, hissing and deflating like spume, a quivery sea of bitter, upturned faces. Mostly adults, mostly the elderly: hollow bird-boned thoraces and wintry lentigos. 

1. *I’m* peasant folk! That should be me!
2. [Pain Threshold – Formidable 13] Scan your audience. She’s here. [-4: You’re never gonna stop, are you?]

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] – A straw-coloured head, ducking behind someone else’s thick twill sleeve.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Formidable: Failure] – Luna. Luna? Why’d she leave? Why’s she hiding from you? Why’d she *ever* leave?

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] – That’s not who *or* what this is, and you know it. That boy is far older than Luna ever got to be; it’s malnutrition that’s keeping him at shoulder height, or diaphragm height by your standards. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Failure] – Luna never had it in her to look at you with that much loathing. She should’ve, but she didn’t.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – A prevailing, tentative sigh of “Fire Punch” and other similar titles.

AUTOMATIC RIFLE GUY – Rifle Guy scowls from the stalls, clutching his firearm protectively. He’s glaring. Hard.

VOLITION – You’d probably do the same thing in his position. In fact, you *have* done the same thing.

HALF LIGHT – He’s glaring at Togata, too.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – His gun is still magazine-less, so unless he runs into his house, grabs another one, runs back out again and starts spraying, you two are definitely fine. Also, you’re both immortal.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Failure] – Also-also, Rifle Guy’s wearing dark trousers, meaning he might’ve pissed himself and you simply can’t tell.

SAVOIR FAIRE – No idea what that other dude just said, but we’re talking about *Togata* here. He’d execute a triple back handspring the moment a bullet dared enter his immediate vicinity. The guy could dodge a sneeze.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – On that topic, do not sneeze. This place is, like, one-hundred-percent timber. 

YOU – Thanks. I wasn’t planning on it. Also, who’s that?

PERCEPTION – Who?

TOGATA – A sudden flurry of activity has broken him away from his most recent interviewee and towards someone deeper in the rabble.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] – Not good. Not good. Swarming arms, knife-wielding hands. Anything could happen.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] – This is the third time I’ve had to remind you: Togata’s a lot of things, but he’s far from defenceless. Plus, it’s not like he’s plunging into a battalion. Though all of these poor souls are so bony that they could probably puncture him with a finger.

HALF LIGHT – Don’t say that. It’s not funny. Being poked to death will never be funny.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – Even so, the crowd isn’t so much swallowing him as it is parting for him. Like thawing frost, a dark, watery passage appears in the middle of the horde, giving both you and Togata a direct route to whom he’s recognised.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] – To whom *you’ve* recognised. Those approaching figures are the men who once came to pick you up from the train station.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Well. Not *you*. Neneto, mostly. On account of your…condition.

YOU – Yeah. I’m not sure many people are capable of picking me up at all. Besides the fire thing, I’m kinda heavy.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – “Picking someone up” is a colloquial term for when someone travels somewhere, traditionally in a vehicle, to collect someone else and thus quickly transport them to another location.

YOU – Oh.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) – Double oh. Check *that* out.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – Multiple things happen at once. The taller of the two men moseys forth as soon as a path has been cleared, conveying a smile so broad and benign that you find yourself disarmed. Simultaneously, Togata breaks into a jog, then a run. Moments later, they collide.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Challenging: Success] – And it’s terrific. A detonation right at the centre of it all, right where their hearts overlap: so pervasive you can feel it from where you, torpid, are standing; so disastrously intimate that you just have to look away, you’ve got to, you *need* to. Yet…

YOU – I can’t. You know I can’t.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Challenging: Success] – The law of conservation of momentum.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] – They’re hugging.

TOGATA – It’s not like he isn’t touchy. He’s *frighteningly* touchy, in an impersonal, roughhousing kind of way. Tweaking Neneto’s ear. Doing all manner of things to you when donning his spacesuit. 

ENDURANCE – Slaps, smacks, a type of blow for every fighting style he’s fucked and ditched. A roundhouse kick, on occasion.

PERCEPTION – They’re still hugging.

1. Meet the…parent? Parents?
2. Stay where you are. This has nothing to do with you. This has so little to do with you, it’s insane.

YOU – One step at a time, as always.

NAMELESS VILLAGE – The crowd recoils from you, as always. By this point, some have their backs pressed against the concave, rotting walls of their homes. But they won’t go back inside -- not for the world.

DRAMA [Easy: Success] – This is prime entertainment, milord.

TOGATA – He’s disengaged from the embrace by the time you reach them. Abruptly, all eyes are on you, including his. The hug may have looked cathartic from a distance, but he somehow seems tenser than before, wearier, facing you side-on so that his attention is evenly split.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – He’s embarrassed. You weren’t meant to see him like this. He doesn’t think anyone deserves to, including the man he just flung himself at.

THE HUGGER – Lean, rangy; the kind of countenance that shows, in equal measures, both age and strength. The hair he still has is thin, clinging to his calvaria like a sheet of yellowing silver, all clipped and fuzzy round his jaw. Pale eyes complement the sun-spotted porcelain of his skin. Time has washed him free of pigment. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – Even if he wasn’t one of Togata’s associates, you’d consider this a reliable face. 

THE HUGGER – He takes a stride towards you, wholly unafraid, prompting another ambient gasp from your surroundings. This puts him in line with Togata, who has since averted his gaze.

THE HUGGER – “Agni,” he says -- no longer smiling, but expressed with a rare sort of kindness, earnest and private. “It’s been a while.”

1. “If one week is ‘a while’, then, sure, I guess.”
2. “Who are you?”

YOU – “Who are you?”

TOGATA – Scrutinising the ground, very, very carefully. The careful-est.

THE HUGGER – Another smile tugs at the thin seam of his mouth. “Apologies. I don’t think I ever properly introduced myself.” He has the decency not to offer a handshake. “Dats.” He gestures behind him to where the other man is. “My partner, Niodera.”

NIODERA – Also reasonably tall, but a little stouter and more densely built. Dark, close-cropped hair. He dips his chin in a nod of concession.

EMPATHY [Legendary: Failure] – There’s something there. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but there’s a line between these two, a taut rope, tough and irrefutable. 

DATS – “It’s good to see you.” His attention drifts up from Togata, who remains incredibly interested in whatever his boots have to offer. “Both of you.”

INLAND EMPIRE – Surprisingly, he means that.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] – Ah. That’s what it is: *recognition*. You and Togata have that same metaphorical rope tethering you together.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Godly: Failure] – The rope of friendship!

1. “Do you have any cigarettes?”
2. “Do you have any cigarettes…sir?”

YOU – “Do you have any cigarettes?”

TOGATA – This is what ends up breaking him out of his sulk; his head whips up, incensed, lips already parted to issue a reprimand. 

EMPATHY – You’re probably ruining the moment here, but you kind of do that by default. By being…what you are.

YOU – Okay. You don’t have to keep putting it like that.

DATS – He intervenes before Togata can launch into a tirade. “Hm. And here I was, thinking Togata must’ve somehow caught wind of our location and decided to come visit.”

TOGATA – He’s, like, really mad. Twin blooms of splotchy pink burgeon over his cheeks--

ENCYCLOPEDIA – Symptomatic of the cold.

TOGATA – --but, in his case, mostly outrage. Plus humiliation. His eyes flicker helplessly between you and Dats, disapproving of this weird persiflage you two have got going on. When his brain is finally un-scrambled enough to form a sentence, it comes out positively fizzing with indignation. 

TOGATA – “Alright. *Alright*. I’m not sure where you” -- a pointed glare at Dats -- “got the idea that *I* would ever waste my afternoon kicking it with a couple of geezers, but, whatever. ’Cause I wouldn’t. And I’m not…doing that.” He sniffs, and, all of a sudden, something wonderfully familiar snaps back into place.

INLAND EMPIRE – As if he’s chosen now to remember that he is, in fact, the oldest person participating in this conversation. He might even be older than the village itself. 

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] – Pure, unfettered self-importance emanates from his soma. It’s suffocating, and honey-rich.

YOU – Yep. Nice and familiar.

TOGATA – Even though the flush hasn’t yet fully drained from his face, he extends his palm to Dats, cool and haughty. “Cigarettes. I know you’ve got ’em.”

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] – Dats, the traitor, is putting up an impressive fight against any oncoming signs of amusement. 

DATS – He sighs -- a soft, unpretentious noise compared to Togata’s extravagances -- and digs around in his coat. Within mere seconds, a packet has been produced. 

TASK COMPLETED: Acquire cigarettes

TOGATA – His hand is barely recognisable as such; a wan, solid blur of movement, and the packet’s already been nabbed, gutted, and slipped into his own pocket, a cigarette perched deftly between his first two fingers. 

DATS – He doesn’t wait for a “thanks”. A lighter is produced with equal speed, and Togata leans forward, the pair looking for all the world like a king and his loyal courier. 

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] – With *rehearsed* speed. This is a routine. 

SAVOIR FAIRE – Togata’s had these fellas in his employ for God knows how long. Trust him to teach the old dogs a few new tricks.

HALF LIGHT – This feels…off.

YOU – Oh, shut up. It’s refreshing to see Togata being cosseted -- because, of course, that’s what’s happening here, even if he won’t acknowledge it. Not in a million years.

VOLITION –  Still, it’s undeniable that you’re getting restless. You’ve spent too much time dawdling. It’s time for you to scram or get sold.

CONCEPTUALISATION – I feel like you’re taking the horse metaphor a little too far.

1. [Authority – Heroic 15] Lead the way. Togata will surely follow you, since he always does, and it’s never, ever been the other way around. Ever. [-3: You followed him here. -1: After he shot you multiple times.]
2. [Half Light – Medium 11] Despair.
3. Just wait to be auctioned off. That’s a thing that happens, to non-horses.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Failure] – Your fear of setting the entire village ablaze is neck and neck with your fear of being abandoned.

VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] – This culminates in your favourite turnout: total catalepsy.

HALF LIGHT – He’s gonna stay here. He’s gonna live out the rest of his immortal life in this peaceful, no-nonsense place with people he actually knows and people who aren’t enveloped in perpetual, all-consuming fire. Then, you’ll trudge back to the cult, companionless and revenge-less, where everybody’s waiting for Lord Agni, but no one’s waiting for *you*.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] – Again. The movie. You confronting Doma is supposed to be the pinnacle of this entire enterprise, as Togata keeps reminding you. He wouldn’t throw all that away just to go play house. 

COMPOSURE [Medium: Failure] – If you had the neck mobility to look around, you’d notice that the flames either side of you -- the ones that periodically lick over your shoulders -- are ever so slightly larger.

TOGATA – He’s noticed. Well, he’s noticed something. The blue rill of smoke streaming from his cigarette twists into a curlicue. He narrows his eyes and turns back to Dats. “So. We should probably get going.” Togata pats his other pocket: the one that’s been reserved for the highly prestigious task of carrying his camera. “Got a movie to film, obviously.”

DATS – “Obviously,” he repeats.

VOLITION – Wow. That was easy. 

NAMELESS VILLAGE – And so is the rest of what happens. Dats insists that Togata take some dried hare along for the road, which he refuses, and then he insists again, and then he accepts.

TOGATA – Togata doesn’t need to eat, but at least he now has something to cavalierly wave in front of your face. Literally wave. Right under your nose, as close as he can get without the food catching fire. He’s done this on every single occasion he’s managed to swindle an unsuspecting cultist.

YOU – I don’t need to eat either. It’s unclear what he’s been trying to prove or accomplish.

COMPOSURE – To be fair, there *was* that one time you got a tad fed up and attempted to throw a snowball at him.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – The word “attempt” is being used because snow tends to not stay snow when in your proximity.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] – A slushball, if you like.

TOGATA – The result had been a sizeable volume of meltwater in his can of survival goulash, which he then made Neneto consume after telling her it was limited edition.

TOGATA – However, after you leave the village and scout out the tumbledown shack Dats recommended as a place of shelter, he simply drops onto the ground and starts tucking in. Togata eats like how you used to as a child: hunched over, leery, focus fluctuating between the scraps you were clutching and whoever dared come too close.

CONCEPTUALISATION – The kind of hypervigilance that accompanied not knowing when your next meal was going to be. Strangely, this still applies to children who don’t feel hunger.

PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] – To say you don’t feel hunger is a gross oversimplification. The hunger’s there all the same; it has to be, otherwise you’d understand the hunger of others about as well as a blind person would the concept of colour.

RHETORIC [Challenging: Failure] – Togata’s spoken about this before. About some dude, Plato, in a cave. Or whatnot. He didn’t go into much detail.

YOU – Well, I *do* feel hunger. Just not much.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] – Just not how you’re supposed to. No point lying to us, Agni-boy. An involuntary contraction of the abdominal wall. Maybe a little deeper, and that’s about it. It bothers you, as most things do, but the sensation pales in comparison to being an immortal candle wick, as most things do.

ENDURANCE – You keep your abs clenched constantly anyway. Or they keep themselves clenched.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – After eight-or-so years of your body literally bending over backwards to accommodate a second epidermis of relentless flames, it’s hard to separate the automatic from the manual.

TOGATA – He’s gnawing at that hare jerky like it’s a strip of leather; which, judging from its fibrous appearance and your own personal experiences, can’t be too remote of a comparison. He’s also staring at you.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] – Not in a defending-his-spoils way. There’s a pinch point between his eyebrows, one you’re well acquainted with. He’s waiting.

EMPATHY – Waiting for something to say, or for you to say something.

EMPATHY – Something, generally, needs to be said.

1. [Suggestion – Formidable 13] Will a conversation into existence.
2. Wait. In solidarity.

YOU – “How long have you known Dats and Niodera for?”

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Failure] – You are a born socialite. Frankly, it’s intimidating.

TOGATA – He breathes out hard through his nose -- an almost-sneer. “Nice, normal small talk. Good job.” A beat while he swallows his mouthful. “Three, maybe four-ish years. Got them out of Behemdorg. They’re not Blessed, but…y’know. Not exactly a place to be.” 

PAIN THRESHOLD [Legendary: Failure] – Now he’s anticipating a reaction, and, unfortunately, he gets it.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Medium: Success] – Behemdorg: once city of cinder-block buildings, currently city of cinders. Black, sailing cataracts. Pillars of smoke. Pillars of rubble.

PAIN THRESHOLD – And, here you are, a righteous pillar of salt. And more smoke. 

TOGATA – He matches your discomfort with his own look of strange, probing curiosity. He always gets like this when you’ve got “GUILTY” plastered on your forehead, which is most of the time. He doesn’t even turn away while fishing around in the inner lining of his coat, nor when he brings his thumb down on the wheel of his lighter. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Easy: Success] – While Togata has previously expressed his desire to light a cigarette on you, such an endeavour would be impossible considering the voracious nature of your flames. He hasn’t yet offered a sacrifice to the cause, suggesting he is in fact aware of the reality of the situation.

TOGATA – He takes his first drag while inspecting you. The next time he speaks, however, he’s admiring the lack of stars overhead. The sky is bruise-pigmented.

TOGATA – “I offered to marry them once.”

1. “What?”
2. Stare vacantly.

YOU – “What?”

TOGATA – “No, like, not *me* getting married to *them*. Like,” and here he pauses, cigarette snagged between his lips, to tap his two indexes together in a gesticulation that obviously represents holy matrimony, “them getting married to each other. I actually do have a license.”

TOGATA – Another pause. In the light you cast, the smoke he sighs out is a puff of gold.

TOGATA – “Literally no idea why they said no, but…they did. Whatever.” One index finger returns, pointing to the sky. “One day. One day, I’ll marry someone. Oh, wait. Not me marrying someone. Two people, together. Or more. I don’t really care. Not *me* marrying…yeah, you get the gist.”

INLAND EMPIRE – Togata does not stutter. Togata has never stuttered before. Apart from that one time. You know, the night the real Togata crawled out of the old one and they were the same, really, except the real Togata keeps looking at you like you’re a state secret in need of extermination.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Failure] – Of course, *that’s* why you’re distracted by the ungainly, stumbling lilt of his voice (which he’s been purposefully deepening these past few days), and by the tiny crease that’s appeared at the join between his brow and nose bridge -- a crease you really like -- and by how he unconsciously chews the butts of his cigarettes whenever he’s frustrated, like he’s doing right now.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] – And by the stray loop of hair that blocks out the white of one eye, leaving it dark and warm and fathomless.

TOGATA – He abruptly stops zoning out and blinks at you, perturbed. “Something I said?” Before you get a chance to explain yourself, he leans forward, incredulous, as if letting you in on a deep and terrible secret. “Alright, there’s no way you don’t know what gay people are.”

1. “What?”
2. Stare vacantly.
3. “Was that another English lesson thing?”

COMPOSURE – You don’t reply verbally, but your face very helpfully assumes a pastiche of confusion all on its own. 

TOGATA – He’s not smiling. Not quite. Still, there’s a suspicious wrinkling around his eyes. “When you heard ‘my partner, Niodera’, did you think they were just *really* good friends?”

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Failure] – Uh, no.

YOU – “I guess.”

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – That’s a smile.

TOGATA – “Oh, yeah. *I guess* they’re SUPER good friends. Friends who kiss and live together and are in love with each other.” Togata scoffs and removes his cigarette from his mouth, flicking the long ash into the air.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] – Huh.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Heroic: Success] – Look! There *are* teeth marks on that cigarette butt!

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – …huh.

EMPATHY – He’s waiting for you to say something clueless, or rash, or a merry combination of the two. It’s been a while since he’s had an excuse to school you.

1. [Inland Empire – Formidable 13] “How do you tell the difference between loving someone and being *in* love with them?” [-2: You already know.]
2. [Electrochemistry – Godly 17] “So, if I like you more now I know that you’re a guy, what does that make me?” [-2: You already know. -2: Are you ready to elaborate on the connotations of the word “like”?]
3. [Locked] Absorb it in silence.

YOU – “How do you tell the difference between loving someone and being *in* love with them?”

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] – Was that the right choice? Was it really?

TOGATA – His thumb is wedged under the flushed give of his upper lip, one impulse away from a bout of nail-biting, another custom of his, but the cigarette itself is a toppled smokestack. Unattended to. A breath flutters -- negative space -- against that ebbing thread of skybound vapor.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – Togata has informed you that skin is technically the largest organ in the body.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – It’s subjective whether you have any. Either way, the thing that’s been aching within you is similarly omnipresent, but subcutaneous. Deep roots, yeah?

TOGATA – “Are we doing another quiz?” he muses, referring to all the other times you’ve chucked a dumb question at him and he turned it into a competition.

EMPATHY – Again, you’re struck by the feeling that Togata’s got his foot in another world, because he blinks and that thoughtful expression is immediately supplanted by something cynical and scathing.

TOGATA – “Wait, Agni, *what* are you asking me here?” He has to masticate his cigarette butt to calm himself down. “I mean…I guess you just know. I can’t explain it.” You might as well be dirt on the heel of his boot. “At some point you’ve got to decide for yourself.

TOGATA – “Ah. And it’s scary. I don’t think I’ve ever not been scared while…in love.”

TOGATA – Poor phrasing. Discomfort warms his cheeks with a rosy, feverish pall.

COMPOSURE – He wasn’t supposed to say that. That wasn’t his line.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Togata, in love? Hey, don’t get so excited. Remember: you barely know what love is. Is it what you and Luna have? Had? But you weren’t *in* it; that’s something different. Were your parents *in* love? They must’ve been, if Dats and Niodera are, because in hindsight they seem awfully alike, those two pairs of infallible singularity.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Medium: Success] – There were lessons to be learnt in the air between them. The heat distortion of it. Magnetic forces. North and south, snapped together. Togata taught you this.

TOGATA – Togata, who’s trying his hardest to will himself into non-existence at this very moment. Is he gonna *eat* that cigarette? Cigarettes aren’t edible. You hope he knows that.

1. [Pain Threshold – Impossible 20] “You’ve been in love before? What was that like?”
2. [Empathy – Heroic 15] Is it a place? Like the cinema? Do we both have to be in there? Is that what the “with each other” bit means? If I, Agni, hypothetically, were in love with you, Togata, would that guarantee your involvement, too? Your presence? [-3: A bit…needy, don’t you think?]
3. Time’s up. This conversation’s your worst suicide attempt yet.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] – You lapse into silence. Mostly. Soft crackling, from you. 

TOGATA – “Hey. Agni.”

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] – You’re a real macadamia nut, aren’t you, Agni? Even the peasant boy -- forever-firewood, Blessings be upon ye, even *he* knows what nuts are; a priceless imported treat on a holiday everybody celebrated, without knowing what for.

YOU – Where do you *find* macadamias, anyway?

INLAND EMPIRE – Why, anywhere you like, Agni. A prince with a hothouse will feed the serfs. Snuff the steam off ’em.

INLAND EMPIRE – You’re “a tough nut to crack”, is what Togata said once, knowingly. He smiles when he’s lying, and he smiles when he’s telling the truth.

VOLITION [Challenging: Failure] – And he’s stripped the shell right off you.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Medium: Failure] – A shoddy metaphor, Agni. Not our best work. You can call your heart a creamy kernel of unguarded purity all you like; we all know what you *really* look like inside, and not in the figurative sense. It isn’t pretty.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Legendary: Success] – “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” 

VOLITION – You’re white flesh. You’re what Togata calls “marshmallow fluff”. He tells you to jump; you don’t have the mind to ask how high, but you’d do it even though the fire eating your knees staunchly recommends not jumping at all. 

YOU – Shush. We’re listening. It’s listening time now.

TOGATA – At some point during your exchange he’s become a little inverted, a little more caved in on himself, and it’s probably all your fault, and looking at him generally makes you feel like an open wound. Which you are. But more than usual.

TOGATA – “After we go see Doma…did you have, um.” He coughs. “Anything in mind?”

AUTHORITY [Formidable: Success] - He’s…asking for your input.

EMPATHY – Something’s wrong. The Togata you know and love isn’t humanly capable of finding wisdom in voices other than his own. And he’s still red-faced-- 

LOGIC [Medium: Failure] – Admittedly, people do get a tad…steamed when physically near you, and he’s part of that majority, but you’re not *that* close to each other. You can’t be. He’s not wearing his spacesuit. This whole thing reeks of actual, diagnosable illness.

YOU – Sorry, the Togata I what?

EMPATHY – Don’t apologise. Honest mistake. You technically don’t know him, at all.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Easy: Failure] – God, it’s just *cruel* how contagious malaise can be. Just cruel. Anyway, nausea’s squeezing the secondary macadamia nut of your stomach like a vice. Also, in lieu of your body temperature changing, which it can’t, you’re kind of itchy. Now you guys can be restless and miserable, together. Welcome. 

TOGATA – “*Hey*.”

TOGATA – Whoops. You forgot to provide an answer. In his rage he ends up tossing the half-burnt cigarette in the approximate region of your feet. It’s up within milliseconds, ingurgitated by a hot hungry burst of livid soot. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Stupid Agni…and your stupid fire. Cigarettes are a dying breed!

TOGATA – He seems to agree. Regret, the disdainful kind, dilutes his unease. He pouts. 

1. “Me? Anything on *my* mind? Suicide.”
2. “Not really. You’re the director. I assumed you had everything planned.”
3. “If I tell you, you have to promise me you’ll make the best and most insensitive joke of your entire career.”
4. “If I tell you, you have to wager how likely I’d be able to end my misery via drowning.”

YOU – “Not really. You’re the director. I assumed you had everything planned.”

DOG-EARED NOTEBOOK – Togata always has everything planned. It’s stuffed into that little notebook of his, the one he tends to come walking up to you with -- in the middle of the night, usually, interrupting your scream-at-the-snow sessions, and you’d be on your hands and knees, your back a broad convulsive horseshoe -- and he reads it to you, sometimes.

DOG-EARED NOTEBOOK – It’s more for his sake than yours, he’d say. You’re a great natural light source. Atmospheric. Neneto had agreed, while frowning.

TOGATA – “Hm, well.” And it’s hard for him to broach this. Togata finds everything so easy. “I don’t know what *you’d* consider revenge, but,” some more throat-clearing, here, “afterwards, we could…go back to the cult, maybe.”

LOGIC [Easy: Success] – That would be the sensible thing to do, seeing as you owe all those people their livelihoods. Additionally their dead children, if that’s achievable. Like, going to heaven and bartering with God.

RHETORIC – Or a projector. Movie theatres, heaven. Semantics.

TOGATA – “We don’t have to, though.”

LOGIC – Nope. Never mind.

TOGATA – Your confusion hits him like a mallet. He -- Togata! -- scrambles: “I mean, we’d have to *go back*. Just not stay. We’d take Neneto with us. That other kid too. Sun? If you want. They’re a little inseparable. And…”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Your fire.

TOGATA – “Doma’s fire. Neneto was right, that one time. I don’t know if you remember. I was kinda in the process of chopping half your head off. But if I got something that was sharp enough, and fire-proof, so I wouldn’t need to keep Mr. Tighty Whities around, then I could probably--”

TOGATA – A speedy downward hand movement, with all his fingers squeezed tight, forming the flat of a blade, and an accompanying *schhk*. “Cut the regenerative core out of your head. From the side that isn’t on fire, obviously.”

COMPOSURE – Here he pauses to take a breath: to swallow down any wayward points, which there are a lot of, because he sounds all over the place. 

HALF LIGHT [Godly: Failure] – You’re thirteen years old. The pain you’ve experienced thus far is manageable. At night, your sister thrashes and screams. There’s hands on me, Agni. She’ll latch onto you like a barnacle, like you’re a much older man.

TOGATA – He interprets your lack of a response as further confusion. This is accurate. He knows you well.

TOGATA – “What I’m saying, is…it’d work. In theory. You wouldn’t be Fire Man anymore. Or Fire Punch. Just…Punch.”

COMPOSURE – He’s not even smiling at his own joke. It’s a shitty joke. But he doesn’t even try.

TOGATA – “You might lose your memories.” 

HALF LIGHT – You wouldn’t be Agni anymore. You wouldn’t be “big brother” anymore.

CONCEPTUALISATION – Togata’s face is damp. Everyone’s lit the same, whether you’re burning or admiring the sunset. So the sweat turns to amber, and it’s honey that’s spilling down his brow, down, clinging to the fuzzy curve of his cheek, and you’ve immortalised him in gold leaf, and you’ve shot a deer.

VOLITION [Heroic: Failure] – You’re fifteen. You’ve shot a deer. The deer’s dead.

INLAND EMPIRE – You’ve always got beautiful things laying at your feet, Agni. 

TOGATA – Your director won’t look at you. He’s mapping out the intricacies of your brain on that patch of snow over there.

1. “What about the movie?”
2. “What about the Ice Witch?”
3. “But, the cult?”

YOU – “But, the cult?”

TOGATA – He snorts. There’s no mirth in the noise. “A cult’s a cult, Agni. They’re gonna go nuts with or without you. You seriously wanna blast Doma to smithereens and then go back to getting bits and pieces lopped off you?”

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] – Yeah, actually. That *was* our strategy, up until two seconds ago. Togata’s strategy. I mean, it’s not an abject *want* -- despite popular opinion claiming otherwise, you’re not really our Lord and Saviour -- but they’d *starve* with you gone, right?

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] – Togata, towering over you, tells you about whale fall, and ropes of cold greased sinew that twist in the dark, and molluscs, burbling nutrients into their wet congealed anatomies. Your left cerebral hemisphere topples onto the ground. Those corpses can feed the ocean for up to fifty years. You’ll last twice that.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – Togata tells you about sin-eaters.

1. “What about the movie?”
2. “What about the Ice Witch?”
3. “But, the cult?”

YOU – “What about the movie?”

TOGATA – “By that time, I don’t know how much movie I’m gonna have left to film. I mean…with Doma…whatever happens, happens. And that’s that.” Togata shrugs as if his shoulders are in active cooperation with him. They aren’t. They don’t so much shrug as twitch vaguely.

TOGATA – “Revenge plots usually don’t follow the protagonist post-revenge, unless there are more bad guys on the way. In your case…”

1. “What about the movie?”
2. “What about the Ice Witch?”
3. “But, the cult?”

YOU – “What about the Ice Witch?”

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] – Ah, the Ice Witch. The memory of that petite, shrouded figure wells up like hoarfrost, like cancer: the frillneck of her parka’s fur-trimmed hood; and the slender fist bunched in Judah’s hair, a thick white sheaf of it. Judah’s disembodied trachea, drooping -- ribbed, like a hose, lip bloody and frayed. Undignified. It’s enough to leave your hackles bristling.

TOGATA – Togata’s, too, from the look of things. Which is weird. Not only is Togata unaware of Judah’s beheading, but he would likely jump for joy at the news.

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Success] – Hence you very tactfully avoiding the topic of Judah being beheaded, again, during your retelling of the encounter.

SAVOIR FAIRE – He’s also done it himself. Beheaded Judah. On multiple occasions, according to him, although you’ve only witnessed it once. It was a pretty hack job, in comparison.

TOGATA – He mulls over the mention of the Ice Witch’s name. Your firelight turns sallow on the shiny column of his throat. 

HALF LIGHT – You’ve gone and broken him for good.

AUTHORITY – The Togatas of this world (if any other than him exist) do not coerce their actors off the path to stardom. They do not quail in the face of their actors’ clumsy “repartees”, which aren’t repartees at all but instead rather callowly worded inquiries, and they don’t offer to free you from the mantle of godhood, especially not when it’s the one thing you’ve got going for you. The Togatas of this world do not believe in the Ice Witch.

HALF LIGHT – Because she’s *real*!

TOGATA – “Agni. The Ice Witch doesn’t exist.”

RHETORIC [Easy: Failure] – Oh God. We’re not doing this again.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] – You do not attempt to argue back, nor do you burst into angry tears while attempting to argue back.

TOGATA – “But if she did…sure, she’d qualify as a bad guy.” He looks exhausted. His head is lowered into his hands; hair tumbles over his knuckles like black treacle.

INLAND EMPIRE – The thing is, Agni, none of it’s fun anymore. It’s never been fun for you, and now it isn’t fun for Togata either. You did something horrible that night, splitting him down the middle and forcing this sullen puffy-boned creature -- who can’t laugh, can’t bear to cohabit with itself, in this body -- into the limelight.

TOGATA – “Just. Ignore me. I’m tired. It’s late.” He strips off his coat and lays it underneath him, converting it to a mildly soggy bedspread. Then he flops to the side. His skull hits the ground so hard you wince. “We’ll do whatever. Cross that bridge…bridges, those *bridges* when we get there.”

SUGGESTION – Togata, traditionally, does not get ignored. Thus there is no point in asking others to ignore him. Least of all you.

TOGATA – One thing Togata *does* do is effortlessly pull off half-hour power naps, right next to you. He is profoundly allergic to sleeping bags. He preaches the reptilian custom of basking on rocks warmed by dangerous heat emitters. (You’re not confident in what a reptile is, exactly.)

TOGATA – Oftentimes he’d just kip in a few strategically layered jackets; i.e., whatever he’d worn during the day. His favourite position, the one he’s currently adopting, is with his arms wrapped round his own shoulders: a sort of constricting one-man hug, as if he’s trying to hold his innards together.

TOGATA – He’s going to sleep facing you. This habit isn’t particularly old, but it is consistent.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] – Seeing Togata’s face uncovered is strangely relieving. You aren’t sure why. He’s not unconscious yet, but the recumbence is already coaxing his muscles into a mirage of peace. Wrinkles ironed smooth. Eyes closed. His lashes are almost long enough to hide the binary star system of moles printed on his cheekbone.

ENCYCLOPEDIA – What do *you* know about binary star systems, Agni? Nothing other than what Togata’s already told you: the romance of them, for the most part. He had to enlighten you on gravity, too; tethers birthed from the enormity of it all, suns and their dull dumb clumps of rock roaring over the great celestial theatre screen. We -- our little chunk of the universe -- are the odd ones out. Most planets see two stars in the sky.

1. “Togata?”

TOGATA – “Mm.”

RHETORIC – Translated: “Yes?”

1. “Can you tell me a story?”
2. [Encyclopedia – Godly 16] “Can you tell me more about binary star systems, and why I think of them when I look at you?”
3. [Locked] I feel like I want something from you, but I don’t know what. I’m not allowed to want things.
4. “If you went along with Neneto’s idea, and I wasn’t on fire anymore, and I lost my memories, would you stick around?”
5. Shut up.

YOU – “Can you tell me a story?”

TOGATA – A grumble; reminiscent of the kettle your dad used to leave whining over the fireplace. Its verbal component goes something along the lines of: “You’re such a kid.”

TOGATA – He wriggles for a second and continues; coherently, this time. “You should’ve asked me that while we were walking. I’m too tired.”

TOGATA – Togata’s eyes crack open a sliver.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Heroic: Failure] – Your heart drops. Not quite out your ass; it’s wedged real good down between your last few ribs, though, squirming something fierce against the bell bottom of your lung. You get funny about him when he’s like this: mussed bangs, haphazard limbs; the very edges of him gone smeary-soft, blurred into his surroundings.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) – His cheek is smushed on his wrist, and he’s watching you.

HALF LIGHT – You’re going to die. It’s too hot. Everything’s too hot. This will kill you.

TOGATA – He grins and kindly flings your pulse over to your extremities. Your extremities are bad at ball games. “Enjoying the view, Fire Man?”

TOGATA – His arms (bare, by the way, folded slips of brown speckled skin) slacken for effect, head slightly raised off the floor, cocked: coquettish.

COMPOSURE [Godly: Failure] – So, great, he’s noticed you staring in a convincing impression of the village idiot -- unrelated to the fact that you are, indeed, a fucking village idiot -- and the nickname’s doing very little to assuage the colour of your ears. Beet-red, in case you were wondering.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – You know this because, as a kid, most of the blood in your body would divert to your head if anything provoked you in the slightest. Needless to say, it’s a primal, awe-inspiring survival instinct, pumping vital oxygen directly to the control centre of your body.

COMPOSURE – You are the only person in your family this happened to. It prompted years of torture. Each jibe would in turn make your ears grow even redder. It’s a primal *embarrassment*.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Challenging: Success] – I think the term you’re looking for is “defence mechanism”. Or “threat display”.

TOGATA – The grin disappears before you can reply and he goes, “Let me know if you have any preference concerning genres. I’ve got a few movies in mind.”

TOGATA – For recital. He closes his eyes.

1. “Can you tell me a story?”
2. [Encyclopedia – Godly 16] “Can you tell me more about binary star systems, and why some can be easily mistaken as one unit, from a distance?”
3. [Locked] I feel like I want something from you, but I don’t know what. I’m not allowed to want things.
4. “If you went along with Neneto’s idea, and I wasn’t on fire anymore, and I lost my memories, would you stick around?”
5. Shut up.

YOU – “If you went along with Neneto’s idea, and I wasn’t on fire anymore, and I lost my memories, would you stick around?”

INLAND EMPIRE – The idea’s comforting, in a way. A blank slate. A kind of medium death: sat snugly between sleep, the little death, and death, the…big death.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Formidable: Success] – While I appreciate what you’re trying to say, “the little death”, or *la petite mort*, as Togata has notified you, actually refers to the bout of clarity you experience post-orgasm.

YOU – Let’s just call it “catastrophic memory loss” for now.

TOGATA – His eyes peel open slower this time, and they’re absent of any bleariness. “Hmm.”

HALF LIGHT – If you regenerated anew -- *completely* anew, every inch of you wholesome and untested, like the snow burying so much of this Earth -- isn’t it still the big death? Would that be *you*, reborn? Truly, Agni: what, if anything, within the throes of this voluminous meat-and-shit sack, encapsulates *you*?

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Not your heart. You’ve had at least five of those already. Not your guts, not your lungs. It’s never been your arms, Agni-boy; they’ve spent more time fermenting in the bellies of others than appended to you, jack-hammering away at the scum of society. Not your legs, even though they’ve carried you away from so, so many evils, including yourself.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – We’ve been over the brain. The mucous outer rind of it. Cast it to the flames!

INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Success] – So, in the end the memory macadamia must be what it boils down to. Only in this glandular nub of knowledge can you dip your pinkie and steep in your own consciousness.

CONCEPTUALISATION – We are gathered here today to savour the dregs, gentlemen: the coffee grounds belonging to one Agni (no surname attached); the dark motes glued to the bottom of Togata’s mug, which he bore to one Agni in witness, in complaint, where the concentrated flavour lies.

PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] – It tastes…gritty, to put it nicely.

TOGATA – “I guess I would. I’d have to.” He’s very sombre all of a sudden. “Who else would chaperone you? Neneto? Also…you’re kinda boring, Agni. Under my wing, I think you’d grow-- no, *bloom* into a much more interesting person. Real street smart. Just look how I turned out.”

TOGATA – A smile cleaves his face in two, but you see the beatific thing in his eyes, mostly.

EMPATHY [Medium: Failure] – A miracle: you smile back, and there’s a high chance it isn’t horrific. He smiles harder.

TOGATA – “Agni 2.0…actually, no, I’ll give you a dumb name. No. *That’s* not dumb.” A pause. “Do we have any objections to the christening of ‘Tyler Durden’?”

COMPOSURE [Easy: Failure] – Apparently you’re making a more aptly horrific face again, because he just laughs. This is an ideal outcome.

TOGATA – “And…” The sleep’s taking him now. He’s got bricks for eyelids. “And, everyone loves a good amnesiac rom-com. Just look at 50 FIRST DATES. Sandler…he was great. He was great.”

TOGATA – He mumbles this last part into the crook of his elbow. A few more gentle, fidgety noises, and he’s gone.

YOU – He’ll be up and about in thirty minutes.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Togata is the perfect organism. There’s never been a more fast-tracked, efficient demonstration of hibernative torpor.

CONCEPTUALISATION [Medium: Success] – Like an unassuming offshoot of the dormouse.

VOLITION – He isn’t particularly mousey, at all, and this rings true when he’s bossing you over the snow plains. Which he’ll be doing, in thirty minutes.

PERCEPTION – It’ll be nighttime by then. It’s not night yet. It’s dark, but it isn’t night yet.

HAND-EYE COORDINATION [Easy: Success] – Eighth time today, Agni. Stick your hand out. Half a pinkie: seven minutes ’til sunset.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Heroic: Success] – Difficult to tell with your fire, which is quite competitive when it comes to light pollution, but isn’t that a star? Let’s look at those, for a change. Nothing’s burning. You’re still alive. Let’s look at the stars.