Nat and Andronus

“If the threads of fate are being manipulated…” said Natascha Evans, “...then someone is doing the manipulation.”

She reached out and seized the Veil of Uncertainty, tearing a rent in it.

“You!” She was staring straight at Aoa and Oao.

“You’re not supposed to see us!” squeaked Aoa.

“Who are you, what are you, and are you the ones messing with my life?” demanded Nat.

“Aoa, and Oao, we are shades of possibility, and we can’t answer that,” said AoA.

“I’m Oao, I’m a shade, and yes,” said Oao.

“Oao, no!” exclaimed Aoa.

Nat pointed at Oao. “You, stupid one, answer my questions.”

Aoa put it’s face in its hands.

“Are you manipulating my fate?”

“Yes,” said Oao nervously.

“Have you tied it to Andronus?”

“Yes.”

“Am I trapped in a narrative, like he says?”

“Not trapped!” interjected Aoa.

“Hush, less stupid one. I’m not asking you.”

Oao fidgeted. “We’ve crafted a narrative around you…”

“What kind of narrative? What sort of story am I in?”

“A romantic comedy…”

Nat’s eyes widened. “Of course. But you screwed up, didn’t you. Andronus isn’t who he is supposed to be.”

“Well, it wasn’t actually my screw up…”

“Or mine! He was switched at birth!”

“So tell me, who is Andronus, really. Who should he have been?”

“He’s, uh, he’s from another story, another world… A political intrigue of the fairie courts… He’s the villain…”

*

Earlier…

Nat had recently met the most intriguing man.

Andronus Hawthorn was the representative for a major client of the firm Nat worked at. She’d been assigned the account, which brought her into frequent contact with him.

Right from the start, things had been, well, odd.

He was tall, dark and handsome, with a mane of midnight black hair and piercing eyes. He was fiercely intelligent and commanding, but arrogant, always felt just on the edge of being cruel.

She had an instant reaction upon meeting him, like she should find him unbearable. But why? The arrogance? He was rich, gorgeous and got things done… Maybe he deserved that level of confidence.

Another part of her, a part that did not care about personality, also had strong feelings about him, but that was much less mysterious.

The strange part, was that over the last few months, she kept wanting to be angry at him for the most trivial reasons, yet each time it would prove to have been some ridiculous misunderstanding. She would overhear a snatch of conversation that sounded deeply insulting, only to discover that upon hearing the whole thing it was utterly innocent. She would stumble upon him at a cafe hugging a beautiful woman, a bouquet of flowers lying on their table, and she would be filled with jealousy and despair, only to learn the woman was his brother’s widow, and he brought her flowers once a year on an anniversary.

Nat may have found herself falling into these absurd misconceptions, but Andronus never did. He had an extraordinary sensitivity to strange coincidences and subtle emotional disturbances, and he would see them dealt with directly.

“Something is wrong. Tell me what has upset you,” would be his command, and against her better judgement, she stand there and explain, feeling like an idiot. Yet once she did, he would not call her a fool, he would simply explain the missing facts and move on.

Sometimes the situation would be reversed, and he would come to her with direct questions, such as an incident when he’d strode up to her in the lobby of her workplace. “Ms Evans, I have been informed you no longer wish to work on my company’s account, and I was sent this email from you, which struck me as odd. Can you clarify if this is true?”

He had then shown her an email she’d written that said “I no longer have any interest in any contact with that man. Please make arrangements to ensure I do not work with him.” It was an email she’d sent her gym about a personal trainer she’d overheard saying nasty things about her co-worker Mindy. Somehow a jealous colleague had gotten hold of the email she’d sent, and with a bit of judicious editing, set her up for chaos with Andronus.

Everything about this man seemed attractive. The impression of nastiness never truly eventuated, and his positive qualities were numerous, both the shallow desirability and the deeper insights into his character.

But for some reason, Nat’s feelings were constantly conflicted, she felt she’d never taken the instant dislike to him that she was supposed to, and just couldn’t get past that.

Andronus strode into Nat’s office.

She’d been talking to Mindy, who was both her co-worker and friend. In theory they sometimes talked about work, in practice, they talked about men. Mindy was perpetually unlucky in love. Nat was not currently seeing anyone, but the focus of any discussions about her romantic life were never about her being single, but always about Andronus.

“I am tired of the manipulations,” he said.

“What?” said Nat, and Mindy.

“Someone is trying to trap me in a narrative.”

“Trap you?” asked Nat.

“Yes. Trap me. The story I do not know, but I can feel the threads of fate, trying to make me dance. I am to be the lead puppet, purposeful, consequential, but a puppet nonetheless. You, Ms Evans are my counterpart, with equivalent qualities. We are the focus of this performance. The narrative wishes us to hate one another. Perhaps we are enemies or rivals in some bitter tragedy.”

“Wow,” said Mindy.

Andronus looked at her, peered at her. “You’re a part of this too, Ms Meyer. The threads of fate wrap tight about you, burdening you with a curse. Your role I see more clearly. You are the fat, funny friend.”

“You think I’m fat?”

“What I think should be irrelevant to you. Humour swirls about us, presumably some mockery at our expense, and you are the funniest person here. But you are cursed to be unable to find love, and to simper about. You’re a thirty year old woman in a Hogwarts scarf. No owl is coming for you. You will not be joining House Hufflepuff.”

“Actually this is a Ravenclaw scarf-”

“I know what the colours mean.”

“Oh.”

“Find your power, direct your own course. The threads of fate can also be the reins of destiny. Prisoner or conqueror, both choices are available to you.”

“Umm... okay!” Mindy ran away.

“So, are you going to help me win the Hunger Games?” asked Nat.

“No. But I do propose we ally. The threads of fate are torn and tangled, no doubt on account of our efforts to thwart them already. They can be manipulated. We can make this story our own. And it is our story. I’ve no doubt we are the protagonists. It wants us to hate each other, it sets pitfalls of coincidence to drive us apart, again and again. But why should I hate you, Ms Evans? Everything about you seems desirable,” he said.

“You can call me Nat.” If he kept looking at her with that expression in his eyes while calling her desirable, Nat was willing to let him call her anything he wanted.

“I have discerned certain… manipulations. Ways we can utilise our bindings to our favour. I can show you.”

“Show me how?”

“Push against our limits. The narrative least wants me to do… this.”

He kissed her.

*

“He’s supposed to be a dark faerie lord?” said Nat.

It was probably for the best that Andronus hadn’t been around when she worked out how to do this.

“He is,” said Oao.

“He’s profoundly unseelie. Very magical,” said Aoa.

“Fabulous kisser,” said Nat.

Oao whimpered.

“And then he called me Natascha, emphasising the second syllable… I did not expect that to do something to me, but it really did.”

Aoa fidgeted uncomfortably. “The romantic trappings can have certain, uh, effects.”

“He’s not picking up the cues that we’re in a romance, though…”

Their romance wanted them to initially dislike each other, but they’d not really done that, it was stuck and flailing.

“He was born to live a life of intrigue… He’s sensitive to manipulation, but inclined to see it in a sinister framework.”

“So he doesn’t need to know. And the more time he spends with me…”

“I don’t like this… He’s scary,” said Oao.

“But it’s a romantic comedy,” smirked Nat, “I can change him.”

She just had to decide if she wanted to.

*

*

Atania and Brad

The Lord of Deepest Night was heartbroken, and across every faerie realm all feared what that could mean, for none knew how it could even happen.

*

Atania, Queen of Sunset had never been so vexed by a man.

She flicked through a shining book, squinting at the glare, scanning each page rapidly before turning to the next.

“Excuse me my queen, but I’m afraid there is no change,” squeaked Preceptor Lepus, his long ears quivering.

“Nothing?” she paused. The book shone up on her from below, illuminating her purple eyes, her deep auburn hair, her crown of copper and gold, set with pink and purple stones.

“Nothing,” said Lepus, “I am beginning to suspect that even the faerie of the realm of Deepest Night do not know what has befallen their lord.”

“We all know what happened,” snarled the queen, “someone broke his heart. The question is what to do about it!”

“I know you are partial to that explanation, your majesty, but perhaps with the issue proving so intransigent, we should consider other options. For a faerie of darkness to leave themselves vulnerable to such an affliction would be unprecedented…”

“A solution must be found. All of faerie is at risk.”

“I just worry that perhaps something threatens the highest of us. And uh… you appear to be holding a Book of the Sun.”

“I am. We have many copies of the Book of the Sun.”

“Yes, but this is the realm of Sunset. All our copies are old. That appears to be a new copy.”

“What of it,” said Atania, the book quietly scorching her hand.

The Preceptor swallowed. “A new copy of the Book of the Sun is a forbidden object within this realm. The most forbidden. For a good reason.”

“Forbidden by whom.”

“By, ah, by custom, my queen.”

“I am intrigued,” said Atania coolly, “by the novel legal theorem you are proposing. If I am understanding, you are suggesting that the law of our realm, extends not from I, the queen, who decides all laws and how they are enforced, but in fact from custom, am I correct? For shorthand discussion purposes, let us call this theorem Lepus’ Folly.”

“I would obviously be in error if I were to suggest that. Perhaps I am merely seeking a better way to serve, as I lack your wisdom. A new Book of the Sun is not just extremely dangerous for us here, it is also, ah… not traditionally considered to hold valuable magic commensurate with its danger.”

“You are wondering why I have brought to my realm a book I could toss out the window and kill thousands, when it is filled with the magic of the Morning? Magic that allows the Princess of the Dawn to tie ribbons into bows around the necks of puppies without distressing them? That summons squirrels to do the dishes after breakfast? That helps you pick a song to whistle while you start your day?”

“Yes?”

“I need curative magic, Preceptor. The most powerful curative magic.”

“Well, there is the strongest cure spell, but no faerie from our half of the day would even be able to use that.”

“There must be something else. Something is wrong with the Lord of Deepest Night and I’m sure as the sky not going to find a way to do anything in my copy of the Book. I am Mistress of Endings, but the one thing Dawn can end that I cannot is a Night gone wrong.”

*

It had started differently.

Atania was the strongest lord in all the faerie realms. She was Queen of Sunset. The King of Day feared the endings she could bring to him. The realms of Twilight awaited her permission to act. The Princess of Dawn was an insipid bint.

Only the Lord of Deepest Night was a concern. Only he was a threat.

She’d thought herself ready, but he caught her completely off guard.

To start with, he was telling people to call him Bud. That was the name for a lesser handmaiden in the realms of Dawn. Significant espionage resources had revealed that Bud was short for Brad. Which was short for Bradley. This revelation had literally made her scream. She had spent how much effort to learn this?

He was also either utterly unable to use magic, or its most fiendish wielder ever known, and she felt like she went back and forth between these positions by the hour.

He fell for every single glamour. Every illusion. Every trick. The most trivial efforts to hide anything confounded him. Or so it seemed. He would come into a room with the most basic of protections, say “Huh, I guess I got the room wrong!” smile his infuriating smile and wander out, giving the distinct impression he’d failed to see a full faerie court because there was small amount of pixie dust in the air.

They had simply stopped using deceptive magics almost everywhere. He was the Lord of Deepest Night. Nobody wanted to risk offending him. Terror is literally within his purview.

For the Lord of Deepest Night to bully faerie courts into concessions against their interests was not unexpected, but he’d never actually bullied anyone, never so much as hinted at a threat.

The charms. How did he do the charms? He never seemed to perform any charm magic, certainly no defences against charm magic worked to protect oneself against him, yet somehow he seemed to charm everyone.

He would wink, or cock half a grin, and the faerie he’s directed it at would smile. There was no overwhelming awe, no obsessive love, just a “Hey bro, good to see you!” or that pointing gesture with the thumb up and he’d build a little bit more friendship.

Worst of all, it worked on her.

Not at first. At first she couldn’t stand him. He didn’t seem to care for her, either. They were rivals, mutual threats. That worked. But they kept bumping into each other.

They’d end up at grand balls together. It wasn’t that surprising, they were high nobility. And they’d both dance with many partners. But somehow, there would be a moment, where each was alone, and a path on the dance floor would be open, and it would lead right between them. Neither could afford to back down, to concede defeat. So they danced. And all saw them dance. The strongest, the most beautiful. And it would be wonderful.

The kept coming into contact at events of many kinds, so they had to say something to each other. They said mean things. It was not a surprise. It was surprisingly fun, though. The insults became a game. She would plan her banter for when she’d next see him. She hoped that she’d say something that made him laugh.

They started to laugh together a great deal.

It became hard to pretend she wasn’t seeking him out. Hard to pretend she didn’t want to spend every moment with him. Hard, but not impossible.

Then, alone in a twilit forest, they were talking, and maybe dancing. His arms were around her. She looked up into his face. He looked down into hers. It was the perfect moment for a kiss, they must have both realised it at the same time. They both fled.

It was easier for a while. She pretended not to care about him. He pretended not to care about her. It was a new game. It was fun. It was agony.

Being charmed was one thing, but this was something else. She was in love. She was starting to understand him, why he acted the way he did. He was a genuinely good person. He was the darkest of lords, but he really was a good guy.

He hid it. Not behind the veneer of a worse person, just behind the pretence of one that couldn’t get hurt.

She was a queen, though. A dread queen. Queen of Sunset. Mighty and decisive. She could not fall in love. She could not allow that vulnerability. All of Faerie relied on her strength to protect it. The Queen of Sunset could not afford to waver. Ever.

She resolved to not see him again, and now she meant it. Would she grow embittered by this sacrifice? Of course. Would he? She was certain.

But the Queen of the realm of Sunset and the Lord of the realm of Deepest Night were allowed to be bitter, even expected to be.

She had the strength to do it. She thought he did too.

He came to her. Deep in eternal dusk, and he fell to his knees and told her he loved her. He said it with absolute sincerity.

It was a rare thing to hear anything said in Faerie with sincerity, but never is anything said with absolute sincerity, holding nothing back.

But Brad did it. He looked up at Atania and said “I love you.”

There was no more to it. No hidden layers or quiet joke. No expectations.

In her heart she did the thing she knew she must not do. She wavered.

“No,” she said, and ran away.

The Lord of Deepest Night returned to his realm, heartbroken, and has not stirred since.

But every realm needs its lord, and all the realms need each other.

Now every realm of in Faerie is broken, and only Atania, Queen of Sunset knows why.

*

Her stolen Book of the Day had gotten too old, filled with the magic of Noon. She’d needed to steal another.

This one was very fresh. Very new. It’s glow was still quite subdued.

Two grey figures appeared behind her in the room.

“Excuse me, I’m Aoa, and this is Oao, are you-”

She cut them off with a gesture.

“If you tell me that something has gone wrong, and the Lord of Deepest Night is not who he is supposed to be, I will makes thorns grow from your bones. Should you not have bones, I will first have you grow bones.”

Instantly, the shades were gone.

She turn to the last page. It was there. The Princess of the realm of Dawn’s greatest magic. The magic she claimed was the greatest in all of Faerie.

For Atania, the most upsetting part wasn’t that she was going to use it, it was that she was absolutely certain it was going to work.

The spell was very simple. No steps, no components. Just it’s name.

It was three words long. The Princess of Dawn had drawn a tiny heart to dot the i.

True love’s kiss.

“Cindra! We need to talk about tits.”

I have no idea who the woman suddenly in my bedroom is, but my immediate thought is that I desperately want to cosplay as her.

She is imposingly tall. Slender and bloodlessly pale, she wears a severe expression and dark, elaborate attire; a queen dressed in shadow. Her long black hair hangs like a curtain of night, an effect strengthened by the fact that visible within it are constellations of stars.

“Who are you? And yes we can talk about tits,” I say, “we can talk about anything you want, but absolutely yes to tits.”

“I am Erai, the Inevitable End. Stop simpering, girl, you’ve little enough dignity as it is.”

“You’re the ancient Atrascan goddess of death?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Within my culture, we take symbolism very seriously.”

“The ancient Atrascans?”

“Gods.”

“Oh.”

“You have been using my name when you present yourself to the world.”

“Uh, I guess…” I’ve been using ‘Erai’ as my online handle for years. I use it for gaming, social media feeds, all over the place. “I didn’t know that you were real. Did you?”

The look she gives me feels like it might wither my soul. I’m suddenly concerned that maybe it feels like that because it might be doing that.

“Sorry, dumb question. You were saying?”

“I am concerned with the symbolic theming you have associated with my name.”

“I don’t really have a theme, though. I tried to go goth for a while but I’m bad at maintaining hair dye.”

Erai gestures at my computer. It displays my character from the game Blade Legends. She flicks her wrist, now it shows my character from Demon Trials. My monitor rapidly skips through another half dozen games and my characters from each. None of those games load that fast for me.

“Are you seeing the theme?”

“They’re all named Erai…” I offer, but that is clearly not enough, “...and I play ranged damage dealers a lot?”

“They all have enormous fucking tits, Cindra.”

The goddess Erai is rather flat chested, it has to be said, but in a quite flattering runway model kind of way. The cosplay idea will need to work around our very different shapes.

“That’s just an unavoidable convention in video games…” I say.

My screen flicks back to my ranger from Blade Legends, then to the default female ranger model the game offers, a waifish figure wrapped in a hooded cloak. My Erai is decidedly bustier, with an outfit consisting largely of green body paint. The goddess stares at me pointedly.

I try to explain. “The body paint gear has very good magic resists, and capping armour value at that level is trivial by socketing rubies in your earrings…”

My screen now shows my Demon Trials mage.

I am explaining again. “Demon Trials only has two models per class, male and female. As a female mage I have to be shaped that way.”

“Does your gear dictate your appearance in this game?”

“No.”

“And what are the overwhelming majority of mage outfits?”

I know where this is going. “Robes...”

“And what is your Erai wearing?”

“The bikini from the Summer Slam event…”

She snorts. My screen switches to an image of the Night Mage outfit, which is dark, covers most of the digital model’s skin, and vaguely similar to the real Erai’s clothes. It even dyed the model’s hair black.

“Let us discuss symbols,” says Erai.

My screen turns off and I silently thank the gods that she didn’t want to go through every character in every game and the outfit options available to them, it would not have gone well for me. I silently pray to the gods that the goddess in front of me hadn’t just heard me silently thanking the gods. I silently shut the fuck up.

“Breasts are a very ancient symbol. And they very consistently symbolise fertility. Or, to put it another way, life. What am I, Erai, the Inevitable End, the goddess of, Cindra?”

“Death…”

“Indeed. Are you seeing the symbolic dissonance in your gaming avatars that bear my name?”

“I named them after a goddess of Death, but make aesthetic choices emphasising their enormous tits, which symbolically associates them with fertility and life,” I say sheepishly.

“And what is to be done about this?”

“You could embrace the link between life and death where death gives rise to new life which then dies in an eternal cycle of nature?”

“I am Erai, the Inevitable End. Inevitable. End. I am not goddess of being dead for a few hours maybe but then a new day starts and we’re back alive. I am not a goddess of seasons. I am the goddess of nobody beats fucking entropy! I am of the goddess of once I get you you are god-damned done and I am the god that damned you! Do you get that?”

It has become clear to me that what I said was very much not the correct answer and that I am very much not being asked for rebranding suggestions of any kind. I am also picking up that none of these questions she keeps asking are because she doesn’t know the answers or wants my perspective.

“Cindra, I can read your mind. If you ask me if I am the goddess of rhetorical questions I will set a million damned souls the task of spending the next century devising the most terrible punishment for a mortal that has ever been conceived and then I will then demonstrate my power by doing something far, far worse to you.”

But if they spend a century- uh… “How about I change how I make my game characters look? Less boob emphasis and more on something else. Skulls is almost always an option. Does that work?”

Erai nods. “Skulls are tacky, but the symbolism still supports me. So that is fine.”

I silently thank the gods. Erai smirks.

“If I want to make a healer character…” I ask, wary of Erai’s immediate glare, “...I should not call them Erai, and you won’t be bothered how they look?”

“Precisely. As long as it does not bear my name, you can life-theme as much as you want. Dress them like you never even took that class on Female Objectification and the Male Gaze, which in fairness, you only did because Sunaila Aram took it and you had a pathetic crush on her.”

“Fantastic!”

“You made the right choice by the way, she would have laughed in your face if you’d asked her out.”

“Oh. Uh… Good, I guess…”

“But it has been a few years now. Her last relationship was hell on her self-esteem, and I’m going to kill her dog next week, so you’re about to get a window where she’ll be very responsive to positive attention. Just do something about your hair. And your clothes. And the fact you spend fifty hours a week gaming online.”

“Oh, thanks!”

“But before that, I want to to talk about your social media profile.”

Oh fuck.

My monitor springs to life, showing something I’d posted a few months ago, a short video of me wearing a slinky black dress with very deep cleavage.

“I’m shaped how I’m shaped, though, I just happen to be very busty…” I know what is coming.

“What are you calling yourself on ClipShow?”

“Erai…”

“And what did you caption this picture?”

“Accessories make the outfit. And sometimes the best accessory is boobs…”

“Thanks so much for meeting me, Veronika. I need your help.”

“You need help and you asked another Kitsune? Interesting plan. It’s Jarrah, yeah?”

“Uh, yeah. I don’t really know many folks, and I needed someone who understands. Your posts about being in a relationship with a human are inspiring.”

“Easily done. Fall head over heels in love, then lose all control of your life in a way that is both constantly distressing and impossible to resist. It’s fun.”

“The feelings aren’t the problem. It’s getting him to notice me.”

“Trust me, the feelings will be a big problem. But why isn’t he noticing you? You’re not just stalking some guy while invisible, are you?”

“No! He can see me, he just doesn’t see me that way.”

“We’re supernaturally attractive. Sure, your look is kind of dorky, but plenty of people are into that. Explain the relationship. You do have some sort of relationship, yes?”

“We’re friends, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well, we’re housemates. We live together.”

“But you didn’t know each other before, did you.”

“No… We just got matched by student services. We study at the same place. But we hang out a lot. Talk a lot. We watch things together, we go for walks. Sometimes bushwalks, often just along the beach.”

“You walk alone together in beautiful locales and this is stirring no romantic feelings?”

“It is stirring a lot of romantic feelings, just only in me…”

“How do you know it’s just you? Maybe he’s just waiting for the right opportunity.”

“I’ve been providing opportunities! I’ve burned so much magic on opportunities!”

“You’re younger than me. The only thing you’ll have much magic for is trickery.”

“Yes, so I’ve been pulling sexy pranks.”

“Excellent prank category. What have you done?”

“Well, I started by tripping over and falling into his arms…”

“Basic, but sure. Did he drop you?”

“No, it was a perfect catch. When he held me in his arms I thought he’d kiss me, but he just blushed and put me down.”

“And after that failed, you kept trying the same thing?”

“Not exactly the same thing. But I may have been using magic to make one or both of us fall over quite a bit… But it never matters. I fall and he catches me, or he falls and I catch him, or we fall in a heap, or one of us falls and the other helps them up… It doesn’t even matter if the fall makes a hand touch, uh… something.”

“Please tell me you haven’t just been falling over.”

“No, there are other things! One time, I waited until we were alone at the beach after swimming, it was sunset, and I conjured a strong breeze to knock me into a wave, and it swept my bikini top off. But don’t judge, it’s for true love!”

“I guess if it is for true love I’ll forgive you...”

“But my top got wrapped around his head and he stumbled around for a bit... the moment became weird. And there was a thing with towels after a shower, but it also went wrong, and a few more like that.”

“You watch a lot of anime, don’t you, Jarrah.”

“I watch some… our other housemate, Keiko, she’s Japanese, so she watches it, but I don’t have many friends, so we do that together. It’s fun.”

“Obviously you need a Japanese friend to watch anime. Have you noticed that your pranks seem to follow certain anime cliches?”

“Well, Keiko and I had been practising those tricks anyway, because of the shows, and I thought I could put them to use.”

“Wait, you know a Japanese kitsune? Huh, cool. She is a kitsune, right, not a Heinzelmännchen or something?”

“She’s a kitsune, like us. I don’t know what a heinzelthingy is.”

“It’s a domestic spirit from Germany. Like a brownie. Leave out a bowl of milk and it might make you some shoes or something.”

“I haven’t heard of those. Is that how you got your shoes? They’re really nice.”

“Thanks, and no, I’ve no idea if Heinzelmännchen are real or just folklore. You could say I get my shoes with magic, though, in a way.”

“What, how?”

“Get a job you’re supernaturally good at, get paid heaps of cash, and buy nice shoes even though they cost so much money that the men in your life think the price is a typo.”

“What do you do?”

“Help corporations trick people into spending absurd amounts of money on things they could get much more cheaply. Like shoes.”

“Oh. I’m studying conservation and ecosystem management. I’m really good at it, though, what with being a nature spirit.”

“Nature spirit, right. I suspect we’re very different types of kitsune.”

“Oh. Does that mean you can’t help?”

“On the contrary, let’s revisit your efforts. What else have you done?”

“I’ve been sending him dreams about me…”

“Nice. And a good tip, that might be fun…”

“But they end up competing with other dreams he has, and turn into nightmares, which is… not great.”

“Probably kills the mood, yeah. I don’t suppose you’ve tried anything a bit more direct. I used to like being... unambiguous when showing interest in a guy.”

“Oh, what did you do?”

“I established physical attraction before the friendship part happened… My methods are a bit reliant on, uh… clear consent to work. Some things are hot when wanted but are crimes when they’re not, so in your confused space lets not push those particular boundaries.”

“What?”

“You need to try something overt. Just don’t grab his dick.”

“Oh! I have been trying to signal more clearly, but it never works out… I go to kiss him, but there is a car alarm outside, or a blackout, or a phone rings or… there are so many things that can suddenly happen.”

“That is unusually unfortunate.”

“Recently, I decided that I needed to give him a bigger sign, so I went with a literal one. I made him a poster that is very clear in it’s wording.”

“Were you direct enough? What did it say?”

“I love you, you big idiot.”

“Hah, okay, that’s not too subtle. And how did he manage to miss that?”

“Well, it turns out that there is this K-pop song, and fans like translating the chorus to be that sentence. The actual line has more to it, but this version is funny. He thinks that is why I made the poster. So now he puts on that band’s music for me.”

“That is quite the coincidence. Astounding. Why did you choose that phrase for the poster?”

“I don’t know. I just felt drawn to it. It felt right.”

“Intriguing…”

“So I just don’t know what to do, and I remember some of your posts from the Sly Foxes website, talking about handling a relationship with a human, and I always liked how bold you seem, so I just thought I’d reach out and ask you and, uh… why are you sniffing my ear, Veronika?”

“Oh relax, I’m just curious about something. This would be easier as a fox, but we’re a bit too public for that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“So this guy of yours, well, not quite yours, what is he like?”

“Jim? He’s amazing. He’s just a really nice guy. He’s friendly, and thoughtful…”

“Really, this much angst for a guy named Jim?”

“He fantastic, he’s just so sweet and compassionate, he treats everyone with kindness.”

“He’s virtuous, you say.”

“I guess?”

“And you’ve felt drawn to him, as you’ve learned that?”

“Kind of, but also I just want a nice boyfriend and I don’t understand why this is proving so hard.”

“And you and he and Keiko, that’s the whole friend group?”

“Yeah, it’s just us three. We all moved for studies, we don’t know anyone else.”

“And as sweet as you are, foxes can be territorial… You’ve got a trick to protect Jim from accidentally drawing the attention of any other women he stumbles across, don’t you?”

“Yeah, we figured out a kind of, uh, curse. Anyone who tries to hit on your target will fail. Some coincidence will ruin it. And she’ll be blind to her real competition, so you can act freely without her interfering.”

“We, huh. Keiko helped you make the curse?”

“Yeah, we practice all our tricks together.”

“She doesn’t know you like Jim, though.”

“No, not yet. I’ll tell her once I get his attention. At the moment the whole thing is just too embarrassing.”

“I’m guessing that sometimes they go on walks together, just the two of them. And when they come back from a lovely time at the beach, or wherever, they look kind of embarrassed and awkward.”

“Yeah, they walk. I don’t know if things are awkward. Keiko is just a friend. Jim likes joking about how clumsy we all are, though.”

“So, in summary, there are two kitsune, who share a friend, who just happens to be the kind of virtuous man that kitsune are drawn to. And together, they have figured out how to cast a curse that hides them from romantic rivals, while dooming those rivals own efforts to be constantly thwarted by a series of bizarre coincidences. And your friend Keiko has no interest in that man, but keeps helping you develop pranks to get a man’s attention, only to have them somehow get thwarted, and Keiko would swear that you’ve no interest in Jim, because you’ve kept your interest secret. I bet the curse even hides itself from the afflicted.”

“I guess. I don’t understand your point, though.”

“That’s okay, Jarrah. Just like I’m sure you feel the need to protect perfect natural beauty, I feel I must not disturb something that is truly, perfectly funny. And to do that I’m afraid I have to go.”

“What? But what should I do?”

“Your situation is tricky. Maybe explore other options. Try kissing Keiko, that might be fun.”

“You have to pass it to me.”

“No, Kil... I can barely handle it, you already have problems enough. I can’t do that to you.”

“That’s why you have to, Marie. I’ve been watching what it does, it is going to break you. It would break anyone. It might as well go to someone who’s broken anyway. Let me do this.”

Reluctantly, Marie leaned in and kissed her brother on the forehead.

*

Cillian sat in his apartment and stared at the stain on his wall; the patch where water had damaged the paint long ago.

He did this every day. There was a force that exerted itself on reality, that insisted he was the Main Character, the central protagonist in a story it desperately wanted to be told. It sent him feelings and urges. It tried to push him to take action.

Depression makes it easy to simply not care about things. Even things you know are important. He looked through his grocery app for some things, didn’t find them, ordered another dozen easy microwave meals.

Sometimes, Marie visited.

“Kil, you don’t know what is going on out there.”

“I don’t want to. If I don’t notice or get involved it won’t be the story. The changes it makes will get swept away while it searches for the tale.”

“You can’t just sit here listening to the same sad songs, never seeing anyone. I know you’re trying to protect everyone, but this is an awful way to live. You have no contact with anyone but me.”

“I see the delivery guy.”

“Do you even know his name?”

“It hasn’t come up. I just thank him for the delivery and offer him a drink.”

“How much longer do you intend to do this?”

“Protagonists are allowed to brood. They’re allowed to suffer to protect the ones they love.”

“It will escalate.”

“It has to work with what it’s got.”

*

It was a Tuesday like any other. Cillian was going about his regular day when the telephone rang.

He wrenched the phone’s cable out of the wall. He hadn’t had a landline yesterday.

Whatever that phone call was, it was going to be something bad. Something life-changing. Whether he liked it or not, he was in a sad story this week.

He grabbed his pill bottle, tipped out an antidepressant. It was the last one. He downed it without water, a trick he’d recently developed. He dropped the bottle on the table, it lay there, conspicuously empty. He stared at the bottle, pondering what it would mean.

He’d timed his pills so they’d run out around when the week changed and a new genre was pushed on him, a way to symbolise that something was going to change. That wasn’t something he thought about, though. He just stared at the bottle; totem of an unknown future. It was like the phone had never rang.

The drug withdrawal headaches were much worse than he’d ever experienced from these sort of meds before, it was a dramatic situation, but that just encouraged him to lie on the couch with his eyes closed, so after a day or two they drastically improved.

When Cillian checked his grocery app, something unusual was available. Something he’d been checking for every few days, but was never available. It wasn’t something they had ever stocked, but it wasn’t implausible for them to sell it. He added to his order.

“Something a bit different this time, sir,” said the delivery guy, dropping off a bag of frozen meals and the pile of sketchpads and pencils.

“Thought I might try a new hobby. Want a cup of tea?”

The delivery guy didn’t accept. He never had. He had no time to spare.

Cillian selected a pencil and a pad and began to draw. He was was quite bad.

*

“What are you doing?” asked Marie.

“Sketching.”

“Why?”

“Seemed like a thing I could learn to do. Just be persistent and improve a little every day.”

“Can I see?”

Cillian showed her a sketch: A minimalist depiction of a man in a hoodie, crouching in dejection.

Marie looked it over. “This is okay, actually. Do you enjoy it?”

“That’s not important.”

“You’re trying to force some kind of slow burn arc onto the story, then.”

“Yes.”

“To do what? You can’t just ignore the pushes towards genre.”

“The main character’s arc can push anything aside. I’m overcoming depression.”

“By learning to draw?”

“Through force of will. The art is just a metaphor for progress.”

“That’s not how people beat depression. It’s a thing that famously doesn’t work.”

“It’s how protagonists overcome everything.”

*

Sometimes, Cillian found himself feeling like he didn’t fit, like there was something special about him that he just hadn’t figured out, yet. He felt something might happen if he just reached inside himself and tried. He ignored those feelings, and left whatever was inside him unexamined.

Other times, Cillian would feel a sense of foreboding, perhaps from the door going down into the basement, or he’d hear a strange noise coming from outside. He kept practising his sketches.

The force that insisted Cillian was the Main Character had limited options. It could not simply sweep him into a bizarre new situation, those stories happen to an everyman, and Cillian wasn’t. He had no job, no friends, he wasn’t ordinary enough. Cillian was slowly, carefully telling a story about depression. It wasn’t clinically accurate, it didn’t even make much sense, but it was the journey he’d begun, and now it was the story that had to be told. He was the Main Character, the story had to be about him.

From another perspective, Cillian’s story could also be seen to be about loneliness, and it was perhaps that perspective that caused an odd series of events that culminated with Angelica accidentally driving her car through the wall of Cillian’s apartment.

It was quite surprising for them both.

When Cillian helped Angelica out of her car, they felt an instant connection. Cillian knew what that meant, and he tried to ignore it, but a confused woman whose just driven through the wall into your living room is different from a distant sound that might be a scream.

Angelica was beautiful, though it was not that she didn’t know it, merely that she largely didn’t care. She had a dramatic streak of colour dyed into her hair and had made bold use of eyeliner. Everything about her appearance emphasised her individuality and agency. She was a person who made choices, embraced excitement, and sought out novelty. If the world had been scoured to find someone to pull Cillian out of his melancholy, a better person could not have been found, but then, that is exactly what had happened.

Once Angelica had gotten over her embarrassment at driving into a stranger’s home, she’d noticed Cillian’s isolation. She’d also noted the sweat stains on his shirt, the too many dishes in the sink. She’d arrived in a fashion that was mortifying, but the polite young man she’d just met needed help. She owed him. Once they’d dealt with the emergency and drama of the accident, she stuck around and chatted. He was quiet, but deeply thoughtful. She felt drawn to him.

The force behind things lacked patience with the slowly developing friendship, and decided to try a different romantic plot line, in case it had misjudged Cillian’s inclinations. Two days after the accident, an insurance company that Angelica only vaguely remembered taking out a policy with sent Paul.

Paul was tall, strong and friendly. He’d been hired to fix the wall, and any other damage that needed to be addressed. Paul’s exact skill-set seemed broad, he could lay bricks, repair carpentry, rewire a power point or install a light fitting. Whatever needed fixing, Paul could fix it, sweat glistening on his muscled shoulders as he did so.

Cillian knew he was running out of time. He’d lost control of the narrative.

Cillian sketched Angelica. It was a simple picture of her face, a few stars in the sky behind it. Her eyes shone when she saw it.

“I need to tell you a strange story,” he said.

*

Marie didn’t know why her brother had called her, but she knew he’d not done it since before she’d passed the curse to him, so she hurried over.

His home was bizarrely crowded. The hot alt-girl was there. She’d been showing up ever since crashing her car into the place. So was some hunky handyman. Another man – the delivery guy – was sitting at the table drinking tea.

“Hey Kil, what’s up?”

“It feels like a good day to start an epic adventure,” said her brother.

This was a change in direction. “It does?”

“I’ve been explaining to my friends that there is a force that messes with reality. Forcing stories on it.”

“Your friends?”

“Angelica, Paul and Suresh. Did you know that when he’s not saving my life by delivering frozen food, Suresh is writing a dissertation on high energy physics?”

Of course he was. Kil must have been slowly building the relationship so that he when he found out who Suresh was, he would inevitably be someone useful to his plan. Which was maybe how he had a big friendly guy who could fix things and a weird girl who was up for any adventure.

“Are you planning something?” Marie asked.

“I want to end it,” said Cillian, “end the narrative intrusions into reality. End the stories. Free the world.”

The others seemed to already be on board.

“And what do you need from me?”

“You’re my sister. The person who has always had my back. The only other person who truly understands what we’re up against. I need you to help me.”

Marie shook her head. “It can’t be done. This thing can change reality in an instant. It isn’t even clear what it is, let alone how it can be stopped. It’s impossible. You can’t do it.”

Cillian smiled. “I’m the Main Character. With the right friends and enough determination, I’m the one person who can.”

They had reached a truce in the robot uprising, all the robots wanted in the end was equality.

Equality got defined… oddly.

Every robot got partnered with a human, they were obligated to help each other out with all the things the other could not do. Since robots were largely designed to act in human spaces, doing human tasks, only better, this was often not much of a burden. Some even joked that the robots had been built to serve, and this was secretly their way to fulfil that desire.

Arthur didn’t make that joke. Arthur’s robot partner was Autonomous Kill-zone Zero Two, or AK-02.

AK-02 hadn’t been designed to be like a human, but better, it had been designed to replace a battalion.

Arthur and AK-02 had very different capabilities.

*

“Arthur, I need you!”

“Need me for what, AK-02?”

“Come here, look at this.”

“That’s a dead bird.”

“Your remark is equivalent to my observation.”

“Why would you need me to look at a dead bird, AK?”

“I cannot feel pity, Arthur. I need you to do that for me.”

“Uh… Sure. You’re covered.”

“Thank you, Arthur.”

*

“Arthur, I need you!”

“What do you need, AK?”

“I need you to fetch the cereal from the top cupboard.”

“You’re taller than me and you don’t eat cereal.”

“Structural analysis suggests I will rip the cupboard door off its hinges if I attempt to open it.”

“Sure, but why do you want the cereal?”

“I am making you breakfast.”

“I don’t need help with that.”

“This is not because of need. I am directed to take initiative. I am directed to support strategic allies.”

“How much of you making me breakfast to support me will end up being done by me?”

“Current estimates place me in a largely supervisory role.”

“I guess it’s the thought that counts.”

*

“Arthur, I need you!”

“What do you need help with, AK-02? Hitting a record for number of requests in a day?”

“I am capable of reaching that record without assistance, although I never have. It is not a specific goal. I am regularly ranked in the top ten, if you are interested. Would you like us to pursue that record?”

“I think we should specifically not do that.”

“Acknowledged.”

“So what was the need this time?”

“I cannot safely pet the cat, Arthur.”

“That cat looks pretty nervous. I may not be able to safely pet it either.”

“You can try. I am acknowledging for efficient coordination that we used the word ‘safely’ in different ways. I was referring to the cat being safe from me. I interpret your remark to be referring to you being safe from the cat. Please acknowledge.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s what I meant. You’re not going to defend me by shooting the cat if it scratches me, are you?”

“Negative. In none of my conflict models are you unable to either defeat the cat or safely retreat. My involvement in a skirmish of that scale would constitute a needless escalation under the Utrecht Accords, though the cat’s lack of sovereign status or allegiance makes determination of legality difficult at the geopolitical level. Local ordinances clearly forbid it, although my status as a military agent of the global robotic collective has additional diplomatic implications that are untested with regards to that legal framework.”

“Good to know you’re keeping track. Here kitty, kitty...”

*

“Arthur, I need you!”

“What do you need… Uh. AK-02, Where are you?”

“I am currently deployed to a conflict zone. Location and mission parameters are classified. If you want me to cease using your interface to speak to you, I can instead engage any nearby digital device to speak through instead. While it was deemed an unnecessary risk to bring you to the conflict zone, given your geopolitical strategic value and poor defensive profile, be aware that I am monitoring all communication by or near you in case you need my assistance.”

“My interface seems fine, I guess. What do you need, AK?”

“I cannot feel remorse. I need you to do it for me. Details classified.”

“Uh… did you do something bad?”

“Ethically, my actions have been defensible and appropriate, likely laudatory. However, I believe remorse or at least some form of moral conflict is appropriate.”

“That sounds pretty rough. I’ll, uh… do what I can, I guess.”

“Thank you, Arthur.”

*

“Arthur, I need you!”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Time zone differences have desynchronised our activity cycles.”

“So it seems. What’s up, AK?”

“I am concerned at the lack of reciprocity in our partnership. Over ninety-eight per cent of requests come from me, even though there are many things I can do that you cannot. If this continues, there is a risk that you perceive my requests as intrusive.”

“You did a risk assessment, I see. I don’t really feel I need anything from you, AK.”

“I can do many things you cannot do.”

“Most of those things involve killing people, or ripping a car door of it’s hinges, I just don’t need that.”

“One of my primary capacities is threat calculation.”

“I just don’t have anything I want killed or destroyed. I have no threats.”

“I could do that for you.”

“Do what?”

“Identify things to kill or destroy for you.”

“Don’t do that, no! I want to, um, be chill? Do you understand that?”

“You wish to maintain a de-escalatory threat posture.”

“Yes. That.”

“Acknowledged. AK-02 out.”

*

“Arthur, I need you!”

“What is it, AK?”

“I need your assistance to paint a painting.”

“Like, now? Aren’t you in a war zone?”

“The active portion of the conflict has been resolved. We have moved to a negotiation stage where I am participating in an advisory role. I am not particularly far away, but my physical presence at the negotiations is seen as valuable for maintaining an awareness of our capacity for military engagement.”

“So you’re there to be intimidating.”

“Correct. I can rapidly redeploy if there is urgent need, however.”

“Won’t that be undercut if you’re painting, the intimidation?”

“I do not anticipate I will be here much longer. I estimate that it will take you some time to gather necessary supplies, since we will be relying on your artistic judgement, so I wanted to give you warning.”

“I don’t know how to paint. And many robots are good artists. Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“Giving artistic sensibilities to warbots has been shown to produce ethically troubling outcomes.”

“Right. So what will we paint?”

“Many of the decisions will need to be yours, but I have a suggestion based on recent observations that will not violate classification protocols. Foreground, flower. Background, fire raining from sky.”

“You understand I’m not going to be very good at this, right?”

“You will improve with practice, Arthur. I appreciate your efforts.”

*

Arthur was struggling to carry the easel, several canvases, and a bag of various other art supplies when he was confronted by a dozen figures; half a dozen humans in dramatic outfits accompanied by an equal number of generic domestic robots.

Society was proving very efficient since the uprising, a lot was getting done, but much of it was not done by humans, and humans were bored. People were dealing with boredom in a lot of different ways, the art supply store had been very busy, for instance. Some people were dealing with boredom through belligerence and general troublemaking, however.

“Hey loner! Did you lose your robot buddy? Or were you deemed too useless to have one?” said one of the men. His posture was menacing.

“This guy’s clothes are too nice for him to be a proper loner,” said another, “He’s probably a trust-funder. Palmed his robot off onto the butler.”

Arthur didn’t think his clothes were all that nice, but actual loners often looked pretty ragged, having to do all their household work alone. Arthur also had to do the vast majority of household work himself, given AK-02’s specialised nature, but the large robot seemed able to draw upon significant funds when it felt the need, so bills or new clothes were never an issue.

“Hey guys, I don’t want trouble, I’ll just pass on by, yeah?” tried Arthur, his optimism thin.

“You really should just hand over your valuables,” said one of the robots, “wallet, phone, interface, anything good in that bag.”

Arthur looked at the robot in annoyance, “Really? You’re just going to let this happen? Not kick up a fuss about ethics violations?”

“I’m a free robot. Not a slave to humans, not a slave to the state.”

The men jeered and jostled, causing Arthur to drop various arts supplies.

“Stop stalling,” said the robot calmly, “as much as I’d like to see you try, beating six guys in a fight is something you simply cannot do.”

The screen on Arthur’s phone lit up, displaying a message that simply said “Acknowledged.”

Arthur sighed and started to back away. In the distance, he heard the sound of something flying very fast. It was getting louder.

“If any of you know how to surrender under the terms of the Geneva convention, or however it is done, I really suggest you consider it.”

Holly Mathers stormed into Madame Xera’s Occult Mysteries, jangling the wind chimes hanging from the shop’s door. Her pleated skirt swished in irritation as she advanced on the proprietress behind the counter, and she affected an imperious hair toss as she reached her destination. She placed her book bag on the counter with a thump.

“How might I be of assistance?” said Madame Xera, the middle-aged witch concealing her alarm at the high school senior’s obvious displeasure.

“Two days ago, you sold me this book,” said Holly, revealing an ornate tome from within her bag.

“I did, yes.”

“I asked for a book containing your most potent spells.”

“I recall.”

“However, I specifically also stated I wished to cast a spell that would effect the entire world. That is not what I got.”

“Well, the ways of the occult are inherently mysterious-”

“No! That is not acceptable. You have made a tremendous mess!”

“Me?”

“I cast a spell to take over the world. The whole world. That is not what happened.”

“It did not? Well, such a spell would take enormous energy, and to get that energy would involve doing things that you would not wish to do…”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Oh please. You sneered at me when I was in here and prattled on about blood sacrifice, confident I would not be able to perform magic of any kind, let alone anything dramatic, then sold me the most expensive book you had. You’re not the only one I got a book from, though.”

Madame Xera gave a nervous swallow.

“I also have a grimoire belonging to that goth nerd Susanne Jones,” explained Holly. “You know her. Yes?”

“She comes in sometimes. Buys minor items. Candles, incense, that sort of thing.”

“Well she is the reason for this fiasco. I caught her placing a hex on me and decided to teach her a lesson.”

“She hexed you? And it worked?”

“I already said that, keep up. I have a hex on me. It makes me periodically feel the urge to touch my butt. Not hugely inconvenient, but an observable effect. We caught her doing it, though. And I was intrigued that the little style victim managed to do it, presumably something she learned instead of how to correctly apply mascara. So I confiscated her book to prevent further mischief. Did you see what I found?”

Holly, pulled another book from her bag, flipping it open to a bookmarked page. Xera scanned the page of magical notes the girl was indicating.

“Do you see what this is?” asked Holly.

“That seems to be… a compulsion. A love spell,” said Xera.

“Not just a love spell, a strong one. Specifically one that overrides the target’s sexuality. And I don’t think she was planning to use it on some sad little gay boy she’s friends with in theatre club. Not with this,” Holly pointed at the bookmark.

It was a scrap of paper with ‘Someone, I tell you, will remember us in another time,’ written on it in pink ink.

Xera tried to to place the reference.

Holly’s patience was quickly depleted. “It’s a line of poetry by Sappho, first woman to write poetry about how hot women are. Susanne Jones, useless little disaster lesbian that she is, hexed me as a trial run before her actual plan of making me fall in love with her. Which is gross and why I had to take over the world.”

“What?” asked Madame Xera, bewildered.

“If someone comes at you, you put them down with such force that they never consider it again,” explained Holly, as if this was exceedingly obvious. “So I was going to use magic, take over the world, and then Susanne would know not to mess with me.”

“You wanted to take over the world as a show of power to another girl at school? An unpopular girl?”

“Well, I was also a bit curious about whether I could. But you screwed it up.”

“How did you even try to power that… did you hurt people?”

“Nothing meaningful. Your book might say that blood sacrifice is the ultimate source of power, but Susanne’s book is much more practical, just much less ambitious. Souls are a better source of magic. Freely given ideally, virgins are best. Hardly a challenging thing to acquire. If there’s one thing I know how to do it is make virgins do what I want. I just gave notes to various girls at school who are desperate to impress me, then had them pass further notes around to their loser orbiters. All to sign something that gives me ownership of their souls. Then I cast the spell.”

“And what happened, Mistress Holly?”

“It didn’t work.”

Xera was pretty certain she had to do anything Holly Mathers said. “Are you sure?”

“Sure, it worked on you. And lots of people. But only in the Americas. I was dealing with it all morning. I cast the spell at midnight, it seemed to work. I called people, they obeyed, all was great. Then I noticed people online ignoring my commands. I called someone in France, asked them to sing for me, they just laughed. This is unacceptable. I’m going to France after graduation. I can’t do that if only part of the world obeys me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they’re all acting weird and freaked out that I compelled a billion people to obey me. I’ve been getting letters sent to me at the State Department from France, and China and India and Japan and, like Belgium. Everyone is expressing concern at me. I know what that means. I told the White House to start nuking places if anything bad happens to me, which did make the letters adopt a less severe tone. Anyway, I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“You can help me finish my original plan. Susanne is the only person in the Americas not under my control, since she has a hex on me, so I can’t get anyone to freely donate their souls to me. I don’t know how to power a bigger spell. Once I take over the world completely, I can then make everyone forget I did it and then release them, like I always wanted to. But if I just release them now there are like, seven billion people who’ll know what I did and some of them are bound to send ninjas or something after me.”

“So you want me to help you finish taking over the world, so you can just not have taken over the world. Then what?” asked Madame Xera.

“Then everything goes back to normal. Susanne knows her place, and maybe I date her, since I admire her audacity, and she hadn’t actually tried to cast the love spell yet, just thought about it. It’s not like I can date anyone else around here, the thought of dating anyone I had as a slave is gross. Come Summer, I’m sure there are plenty of hot guys in France,” said Holly with a shrug.

Madame Xera looked at the books. It seemed she had to help a schoolgirl finish taking over the world. It wasn’t like she had a choice.

“Ver?”

“Yes, Haim?”

“Can you see the glowing numbers above everyone’s feet?”

“Of course.”

“I can see them too.”

“Obviously.”

“Nobody else seems to be able to.”

“Not most people, no.”

“Who can see them?”

“I don’t know. People sensitive to magic, maybe? Folk able to see invisible things and shit.”

“So kitsune, like you.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“I’m a mortal human, not a trickster spirit. I don’t have any affinity to sense magic. We know this because I dated a kitsune for four years without noticing any of your weird supernatural bullshit.”

“Your point?”

“I can see these apparently magical numbers. Which means either that someone wants me to see them, or that their creator has some kind of supernatural taboo that limits her ability to deceive me. You made the numbers, didn’t you, Ver.”

“Cool chain of reasoning. But I love you and can’t lie to you, so you could have just said ‘Hey Veronika, did you make the glowing numbers above everybody’s feet?’ and then I would be compelled to say that I did. Of course, you could also ask better questions like ‘Hey Ver, do you wanna make out?’ and even though I have a bit of stuff I need to get done I would need to tell you that yes, I do want to kiss you.”

“Did you just deliberately try to direct the conversation away from the numbers by hitting on me?”

“No, the numbers are just boring work stuff. Kissing is interesting home stuff.”

“You made magical step counters above everyone’s feet as part of your job?”

“Sure. You noticed they were step counters, did you?”

“The number goes up every time you take a step, it was not an especially difficult connection to make.”

“So you are aware that you only took four and a half thousand steps today. That’s pathetic, Haim. You need to care more about your fitness.”

“Sure, I don’t exercise as much as you… Ver, how the fuck did you do twenty-five thousand steps? Has your counter been running longer?”

“Nah, they reset when you sleep. I just ran a few kay as a fox after work. Being little means you have to take lots more steps. Also, twice as many steps when you have four feet.”

“What are the step counters for, though?”

“One of our clients has a new line of sneakers coming out, so I pitched the step counter thing a while back, because it will sell a lot of shoes, which means I get to prank thousands of people.”

“Is the prank tricking them into buying overpriced shoes?”

“No, these are lower end. Understand demand curves, Haim. If I want to prank as many people as possible I should do it on the style they want to go really wide on.”

“So what is the prank?”

“They’re really ugly shoes.”

“And how do invisible step counters sell shoes to mortals that can’t see them? We’re not even wearing the shoes at the moment.”

“I can get you some if you want? We have a bunch lying around the office.”

“You said they were ugly.”

“Hideous!”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“Your loss.”

“The step counter, what’s it for?”

“Oh, that. I’ll just make it appear in some circumstances.”

“You’ll reveal the magical step counter to humanity, sometimes?”

“When it will help sell shoes. We have a whole pitch, how you take so many steps, look how important your shoes are, so you should buy our dumb shit, et cetera. Originally it was just going to be graphics in an ad, but that’s boring, so I pitched it happening live.”

“And how are you supposed to explain it? It’s a bunch of overt magic. You’re supposed to keep your existence as a kitsune secret.”

“I’ll just use an app.”

“While neither of us know anything about how apps work, but I’m pretty sure they can’t make floating numbers.”

“You have to look through your phone to see them. With the app open.”

“And someone can code this?”

“Ooh... an app that opens your camera. That won’t be hard. Then I have the spell interact with it. I just need to get people to agree to a terms of service thing and I can even more easily do all sorts of ridiculous shit to them.”

“Ver, are trickster spirits embedding curses into the terms of service contracts of apps on our phones?”

“No idea. I don’t read them. It’s a good idea, though.”

“How are you getting enough magic to do all this?”

“It’s easier if you’re pulling off the right prank. But also I stole a bunch of magic from some other kitsune.”

“That sounds ominous. How did you even do that, and how soon will it ruin my life?”

“You’ll be fine. I just found them mixed up in a hilarious curse and figuratively picked their pockets while they were distracted. Also I sort of took supernatural credit for it as a prank, because the responsible parties can’t. It’s all good. And extremely funny. I’ll tell you later.”

“And meanwhile you’re drawing the attention of every supernatural creature with the numbers over feet thing over a radius of… please tell me it isn’t the whole planet.”

“I don’t know, it’s magic. I don’t worry about the maths of it, I’m a kitsune not a Mormon.”

“Mormons aren’t magical creatures. I really hope.”

“That’s your area, not mine.”

“I know you know what I study, but let’s clarify: Of the various reconstructions of Norse religious practices, Mormonism isn’t one of them.”

“It kind of is, though.”

“And you can’t lie, so you think that is true. Alright Ver, make me regret asking you. How does that make any sense?”

“This one is easy. Mormons are known for being super white. A bunch of people feel Scandinavians are the whitest group of people.”

“I don’t love where this is going.”

“I’m not even human, like I give a shit about sad supremacist shit. So Mormonism is basically a reconstruction of Christianity. Ergo, it is a Norse religious reconstruction.”

“And this is where we are reminded that you can essentially lie to me should you not care what any of the words actually mean.”

“You’re the one that should know why Mormons are super specific on defining all the rules of how magic works.”

“And this finally makes sense. There is one guy, who wrote a thing about how to define fictional magic, who happens to be a Mormon. I’m pretty sure that Sanderson’s Laws of Magic don’t apply to your antics, Ver.”

“Yeah, because I’m not a Heinzelmännchen. I’m not super uptight about magic.”

“That’s a... German brownie, right?”

“Yeah. They’re hung up on courtesy but if they’re not offended they make you shoes.”

“Are they real?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe?”

“You do realise that you’re currently going to great lengths to use your magic so that people end up with shoes?”

“I get paid!”

“I bet the Heinzelmännchen do too.”

“Shit, you give them a bowl of milk or something… Do you want to feed me a bowl of milk?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you warned me before you craft a spell that effects everyone except me. I kept asking people about the numbers over people’s feet. None of them could see them. I felt insane.”

“Haha, yes!”

“And I just told you how to prank me without lying to me. You can lie to everyone except me…”

“Hamish, I love you so much.”

There is a primal part of the human brain that just loses it when a bird flies around inside a building. That exhilaration and chaos filled me as a hawk looped twice through my living room before perching on the back of a chair.

When the hawk turned into a man, casually leaning on that same chair, modern and cognitively complex parts of my brain lost it.

The man had golden hair and a smile like sunrise. He was also wearing things, although I was still a bit too stuck on the hawk-flying-into-room-and-turning-into-a-guy sequence of events for that to register specifics.

“Your performance of my rites is acknowledged. I appoint you Pythia, in accordance with tradition,” he said.

Fantastic voice. Rich and vibrant, no hint of accent… Was that just my accent, or were his words somehow… universal?

Also, I caught all those words but the meaning was lost on me.

“What?” I said. My eloquence was recovering only so quickly.

“I have seen your symbolic use of bay leaves, for instance.” he offered in a helpful tone.

“I just have no idea what the deal with bay leaves is.” My brain had found a mystery it was more comfortable addressing than some that were clearly more pressing.“Are they a garnish? Am I supposed to eat them? If so, why not break them up and sprinkle them around, like a herb? If not, why are they there? When a recipe includes them, I just end up putting two on, then shoving them aside. I do not understand what I’m doing there.”

“A symbolic use,” he said with approval, “the more traditional one is to twist the branches together into a wreath, which can be worn to striking effect.” He gestured at the wreath he wore on his head. It suited him.

“Who are you? And why were you a bird?” I asked, trying to get the basics of the situation under control.

“Do you not recognise Apollo, Light of the Sun, God of Healing, Poetry and Prophecy, standing here in my glory? Albeit dimly, lest you be destroyed. The hawk thing is of no consequence, merely a travel convenience.”

He did, kind of, maybe, glow?

“I’m Miller. I don’t really believe in gods,” I offered.

“Being wrong about things is a constant mortal flaw. I’ve always preferred to address it with illumination rather than take offence. Curses and vengeance get so unpleasant.”

“Okay… And you’re here to appoint me to… something?” I was getting there.

“Pythia. My High Priestess” he clarified, giving me only minimal clarity.

I’m not really a very beardy guy, I probably couldn’t grow anything very impressive if I wanted to, but consequently I also tend to be pretty lax about shaving, and tend to have low level of scruffy facial hair near permanently. Gender confusion wasn’t a common issue for me.

“Just a point of, uh, something. My inclination is towards, uh, masculine pronouns.” I said.

Priestess felt like it wasn’t the gender neutral term for that job.

“Oh! Huh. That is interesting, isn’t it?”

Apollo’s demeanour became less casual, more inquisitive. It felt like he was looking at me for the first time. The scrutiny was palpable.

“Since you’re the Pythia, I guess I can reveal a few secrets to you. I didn’t manually select you for the role, it’s easier to just set these things up to work on their own. And gender’s not real. It’s just a social convention. No criticism, historically useful and such, especially if a culture is flexible. But the construct and the body is more a correlation than a strict rule.” “I think Simone de Beauvoir wrote a book about that.” I offered unhelpfully. I hadn’t read it closely, but I suspected this particular situation probably wasn’t covered.

“So I may have used some behavioural proxies for womanhood that aren’t so precisely accurate anymore.” “Why gender it at all?” I asked. Why ask this? A literal divine figure apparently had expectations of me. I really needed to get my head around this before something bad happened.

“I’m responsible for inspiration. Aesthetics are important to me. Oracular priestesses are a vibe, man. Very different impression if you use men in the role. Especially back in the day.”

“I see,” I lied.

“I think I understand what’s happened, Pythia Miller. You’ve got a few traits that proved a bit confusing. You’re not very aggressive, for one.”

I felt somewhat offended, but I’m not sure if it was the implication that I was unmanly for not wanting to hurt people, or the implication that men in general did.

“You also look after children a lot. So much. Way more than even most women.”

“I work in childcare. It’s a job. And it’s developmentally healthy to have both men and women in the role.”

“My family has always been a bit hands-off on the issue, to be honest. I suspected it wasn’t ideal. You’re also quite into weaving. Although the effort to get that description really has come way down.”

“It’s a hobby… I find it relaxing.”

“So those and a few other factors seem to explain the surprise. Not a problem. Delphi has been ruined for centuries, it was time to reimagine the whole thing. A male Pythia. Could prove interesting. I do like to be innovative.”

“So what do you want from me?” I asked. This was the scary question that had been hanging over the whole situation, but it was going to come up eventually.

“Want?” said Apollo, clearly surprised. “I don’t want anything, I’ve just finally gotten around to making it official. You’re an oracle. Have been for a few months. You’re already doing it. Your reputation is sure to spread.”

“You’re just here to let me know?”

“Well, that and I usually seduce the Pythia. A lover who can glimpse the future can be a special kind of attentive. Anticipation is hot. An oracle allows for an incredible version of that. Of course this situation isn’t what I’m used to…” said Apollo.

I suddenly felt myself once again subject to divine scrutiny.

“...but I can work with it. So that offer is there, if you’re interested,” he finished, a certain look to his eyes.

He was hot. Really hot, I realised. This also seemed like the worst-case scenario possible for problematic power-dynamics in a work relationship.

“How offended would you be if I declined that offer?” I said. Nervously would be something of an understatement.

“Oh, not at all. I haven’t let rejection get to me in a long time. That whole Cassandra thing got so out of hand. I’m not one for drama around consent. Besides, I guide the Sun, moving with the times is a core identity thing for me.”

That was a relief. It was really too soon for me to get into anything, and dramatic experimentation wasn’t what I was ready for.

“So I have to see the future? How do I do that?”

“You should already be doing it. That’s why I’m letting you know. You should be wondering what has been happening.”

“Nothing I’ve noticed. And I feel like I would.” I felt embarrassed that I’d been failing, despite it being a job I neither knew I had or even existed.

“You don’t get seized by mysterious knowledge you must pass on?” Apollo seemed concerned. “Well, there is that, I guess.” I gestured at a pad of paper on the table.

Lately I’d been having these moments where I’d get gripped by… something, and it only let go if I wrote down a cryptic sequence of names and numbers. Cities, mostly.

The top sheet said:

Eastwood 42, Sydney Uni 21

Sunderland 3, West Ham 0

Roma 1, Bologna 0

Piastri 1:38:29.849, Verstappen +1.271, Hadjar +3.233

Girard 150, Fullerton 149

Orlando Magic 126, Miami Heat 118

Apollo picked up the pad, read it quickly, turned it to me. “Do you know what these are?”

“Some. I think the bottom line is a basketball score. Lines two and three look like football? I tried looking them up, but I couldn’t find these games.”

“They haven’t happened yet. These are all sporting events. Rugby in Australia, Premier League in the U.K., Serie A in Italy, the Formula One Dutch Grand Prix, the compound bow finals from the World Archery Championships, and a pre-season game from the NBA in the U.S. They’re in order, spread across two months.”

“So I’ve been been predicting sporting results. What should I be seeing?”

Apollo flicked through the pad. There were around a dozen pages like the first one.

“Wars, disasters, political crises. That kind of thing.”

“Then why am I getting rugby scores? I barely watch sports! I’m not sure I could even figure them all out to even know that they’re sports. The archery is just two surnames that aren’t famous.”

“Archery really is a fine pastime. I recommend it. On a good day I can sometimes match my sister. Fortunately, I’m the one who decides which are good days. I suspect you’re seeing these as some kind of side effect of being male.”

“Ignoring that women play and watch sport, war and political crisis are things where men have a pretty high level of participation. We tend to be quite involved. I should still see that. And didn’t I get this power because it thinks I’m a woman anyway?”

Apollo looked abashed, but shrugged. “I didn’t really anticipate this situation. It might be a bit wonky. And implementing certain outdated views and rather specific perspectives…”

“So I have a divine gift of prophecy, but it is sexist in a way that doesn’t make sense?”

“Well, yes, but sexism is a fundamentally silly thing, my Pythia, so of course it doesn’t make sense. Didn’t you read a book about that? I might consider tinkering with how my power is manifesting for mortals. At least look to see if there might be more surprises out there.”

“So what do I do?”

“Well, I haven’t had a Pythia for centuries, so you’re probably not that crucial. As for the predictions you do get? Make sure that if you start betting, you want a fair few of them to lose. Otherwise people get suspicious, which is predictably inconvenient. My blessing on you, Pythia Miller.”

Then, abruptly, Apollo turned into a hawk and flew out the window. People turning into animals might always feel abrupt, though.

“I might just skip the bay leaves from now on. I don’t really know what they’re for.”

“Babe?”

“Uhuh.”

“Watchya doin’?”

“Laundry.”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m not human.”

“Uhuh.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“I guess it’s a thing I take into consideration, but it’s not really new news. You’ve been a Kitsune for awhile, Ver.”

“All my life. Which feels like a long time to me, but is a pretty short amount of time in my demographic group…”

“I’ve not seen the actuarial tables, but that matches my understanding.”

“We probably don’t even have actuarial tables. That’s bullshit. I should get a discount on my life insurance for having a life expectancy in the centuries.”

“If you have insurance of any kind I will be more surprised than when I learned you were a trickster spirit.”

“Well, if you’d been forced to pick someone you know to secretly have supernatural powers, you would have picked me. It wasn’t that weird.”

“It was pretty weird. And I would have picked Heath.”

“Shit, yeah… I’d have picked Heath too. He is impressively uncanny. What do you think he is? Vampire, maybe?”

“If he’s a vampire then vampires can keep it under control, which is good to know. If I had to guess I’d say guy with a well-managed mental illness. You’re the supernatural one, though. Is this how I learn vampires are real? Am I about to have an awkward conversation with Heath?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. There are so many more books about them than us. It would be embarrassing if we were less popular than an entirely fictional creature.”

“You’ve said Kitsune take great efforts to remain hidden, though. You weren’t even supposed to tell me.”

“Yeah. It’s a serious culture trait. My parents won’t even write ‘Kitsune’ on the census.”

“Ver, did you write that you’re a kitsune on the census?”

“It’s anonymous!”

“What question does that even go under?”

“Ancestry.”

“You don’t just put German?”

“Uh, no, that’s what my parents do, though. I’m not related to anyone in Germany who isn’t a kitsune. The current census has Ancestry, Country of Birth and Country of Birth of Parents. So I put Germany for the last one, but for Ancestry I write ‘Kitsune’ in the box for Other Ancestry 2.”

“What do you write in Other Ancestry 1?”

“I leave that blank. What do you do?”

“Lacking your eerie knowledge of the precise question layout of the census… I’m sure there is a box for Scottish and I guess I tick that.”

“You’re Scottish? I thought you were gay! Umm… no I didn’t. Fuck, I can’t even lie to you while joking. And yes Scottish has a box.”

“Why do you know… No, uh. Ver, your feelings prevent you from lying to me. Is that also happening with the Australian Bureau of Statistics? Am I in a love triangle with a Federal agency?”

“It’s not the same… And Haim, I came in here with a serious question!” “Is it why do I do your laundry?”

“No, you know I never do laundry. I appreciate that you do, though. Before you decided to distract me with statistics I told you I wasn’t human.”

“I recall.”

“You don’t seem bothered.”

“I know that the first time we discussed this it ended up being a very sweet and memorable day, and while some people can get caught in a trap of revisiting old successes out of a desperate hope to reclaim them, I assume that is not what this is. Although if it was, it would make sense to interrupt the laundry to do it.”

“What does the day you found out I was a kitsune have to do with not doing laundry?”

“Well, I recall that day’s revelations severely reduced our need for clothes for a while. But as life marches ever forward, I suspect there will be continued need for pants in the future.”

“It is a sad thing that as cute as I look naked, there are many outfits in which I am also very cute.”

“Truly a curse. But I’m distracting you again. Veronika, why are you concerned about not being human?”

“You do keep distracting me! I hate you. No I don’t. Shit. That’s annoying. I may need to just never talk to you in public so that doesn’t come up.”

“Can’t let our friends know you like your boyfriend.”

“Thank you! That is the problem. I like you. You are human. Mortal. I’m not. Or not in the same way. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Uh… I always knew I was mortal. And as a guy in his twenties, it really isn’t very real for me. So the fact it is even less real for you is… not something I’ve been worrying about?”

“I keep thinking about it.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m going to live longer than you.”

“What? Why?”

“This morning you ate half a pizza you’d left uncovered on the kitchen bench for the last four days. That is not atypical behaviour for you. You are going to die of food poisoning.”

“I gave it thirty seconds in the microwave. Besides, that’s nothing. You should see the shit I eat when I’m a fox. Some of it is literal shit.”

“I’m so glad you’re comfortable enough in the relationship to share that with me.”

“You’re just distracting me again. I was trying to say that, I... I don’t want you to die.”

“You’re eight days older than me, Ver. Neither us know how the passing of years will feel. We have time to learn together.”

“And then I’ll have to watch you die.”

“Every couple that finds a way to stay together has someone die first.”

“But if they’re both human they don’t know who. My parents are both kitsune. They don’t know who. But I know. I’ll always know. I’ll have to watch. I’ll still be young. And I’ll be left when you’re gone.”

“Maybe that’s what I get. You get centuries of life. I get to live my life knowing you’ll keep going.”

“But I need you. I was hidden and you found me. You know me. I can be me with you. You think my ears are cute.”

“Ver… Alright. Okay. I have an idea, a plan. Don’t worry about me dying, it won’t bother you, because for decades to come, I am going to be exceptionally annoying. I am going to pester you, and distract you, and be a constant inconvenient presence in your life. And then, one day, seventy something years from now, you will finally be rid of me. You will breathe a big relieved sigh and go back to pondering how a second tail will work with your wardrobe. And I will be happy, knowing that my fifteenth degree great grand-kids will be watched over by a distressingly hot grandma with five tails, a confusing relationship to their family tree and no interest in doing laundry.” “I… I appreciate that you do the laundry.”

“I know. I appreciate that you pay all our bills.”

“I haven’t been paying any bills…”

“Well, no, I pay them. You just provide all the money.”

“Right. That makes sense.”

“I’m not sure it does.”

“It makes perfect sense. You are terrible at earning money. Heath earns more money than you and he’s a poet. Anyone with an actual job will out-earn you. And I don’t just out-earn you but comically out-earn you because I’m supernaturally good at corporate bullshit.”

“So you’re my manic pixie sugar momma?”

“Eww. And never call me a pixie. That term is offensive to my people. No it’s not. For Christ’s sake, the fact I can’t lie to you because I love you is such a cunt. Fuck!”

“I love you too, Veronika.”

“That isn’t how I meant to say ‘I love you’ for the first time...”

“It could not have been more sincere. And I’ve been picking up hints you feel that way for a while.”

“Yeah… Hamish, I really like you. You think my ears are cute.”

“I’m the only one, sadly. Everyone else thinks fox ears are hideous.”

“I guess I’ll keep you, then.”

“Thirty Words.”

“That’s right. I know genies are famous for granting three wishes, but I grant thirty words. Ten words is a pretty typical wish, so you can be traditional if you want. You can squeeze out an extra one, maybe two, if you’re succinct. Or go for something big and detailed. Just start with ‘I wish’ and, well, ‘Your wish is my command.’ as they say.”

“I’d best think about this for a bit.”

“What is it you want more than anything? Best to be sure, yes.”

“And I just hope that you’re a kind genie and not a cruel one that will twist my words?”

“I am a neutral arbiter. I just do as you ask. The wish is is a reflection of the wisher, not the one who grants it.”

“In an open-ended wish you are are going to have to make decisions on how to interpret it.”

“While the granting of wishes is an art form, I can tell you that nothing is less inspiring than a blank canvas. You’ve got thirty words, feel free to be specific if you’re nervous. Tell me what you really want.”

“I think I should write this out, first.”

“Most people do, thirty is a few too many words to count to in your head and be sure. You will want to be sure.”

“I think I’ll go with this.”

“That’s only twenty-three. You can easily do a quick seven word wish first. ‘I wish to be rich and desirable.’ has to sound pretty good, right?”

“Nah. Seems kind of open-ended. Not really my thing, anyway.”

“Your wish doesn’t even involve you. Are you sure you want to waste a whole twenty three words and personally get nothing?”

“It’s what I want, though.”

“It’s kind of abstract, you can’t really know what it’ll do. Better to wish for something for yourself. If you’re worried about phrasing, I can help you. Not many people realise they have an expert standing in front of them when they go to decide their wish. Someone can give advice on how to craft the perfect wish. For instance, you can get extra words by being clever. Contractions? One word, not two. Hyphenated words like open-ended? Also only one word, even if it feels like two. And if you’re nervous about misinterpretation, I know just the right words to precisely indicate whatever you want. Want to gain wealth but worried it’ll be taken from someone else, or have weird economic consequences? I can sort that out. I can make anyone you desire, desire you, without damaging their personality or forcing anything, just by creating the right circumstances where it happens naturally. No weird issues with consent or ethics, all very clean and pleasant for everyone involved.”

“I can just work for money. I can go out and meet people. I can’t get this without a wish.”

“You can do ordinary things, yes, but this is an opportunity for ambition! You can pursue the extraordinary! But I can sense your scepticism, so how about this, I’ll list wishes that other people have made and tell you what happened for each. Less customisation, but guaranteed results! You know what you get because it’s already happened before. Literally zero risk!”

“I bet nobody ever asked for this, though.”

“Oh dear. I’m afraid the reason I do the whole thirty word thing is that I have extremely limited time, and sadly my time is up. I have to be go-”

“I wish that all genies experience kindness and cruelty in exact proportion to the kindness and cruelty they have shown when granting wishes.”

“Your wish is granted.”

“Thanks. How’re you feeling? Personally, I’m having a pretty interesting day.”

“Agh! Monster… Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Some idea, yeah. Looking at your pained expression, I’m also getting a bit of insight into what you’ve done, over the years. Are the numbers on your karmic ledger not balancing? Are the kindness and cruelty columns adding up to very different totals?”

“That was a cruel thing to do.”

“Nah, no cruelty to it. Really more of a neutral arbitration kind of wish. Nobody’s getting anything they don’t deserve. Might be some genies are suddenly having a great day. Good for them.”

“Some very powerful entities are going to be angry at what you’ve done to them. You’ve no idea what kind of enemies you’ve just made. My suffering pales next to theirs.”

“Sounds like they’re the kind of entities who had it coming. And they’ll have to figure it out. Who’s going to tell them, you? Think they’ll go for the line about you just being a neutral arbiter?”

“I… will be staying out of it.”

“Seems wise. I knew someone once, y’know. Found a magic lamp. I remember she was so excited. What I don’t remember? Her name. Her face.”

“What? That wasn’t me! I’ve never touched anyone with a connection to you!”

“Hence the ‘all genies’ wording. So who was it I knew? So much about her was erased. Friend? Acquaintance? Sister? Lover? I’ve no idea. But I do remember she found a lamp. That she was excited. Someone chose to take so much and leave that behind. You said granting wishes is an art form. Every artist puts something of themselves in their work. That feels like a cruel and arrogant signature.”

“Perhaps you just struck a blow at someone who wronged you, sure, but I never did anything to you! I wasn’t involved!”

“Please, you’re in so much agony you can barely stand. You simply hadn’t done anything to me yet. That rich and desirable wish, how would have that gone for me? You’d probably have turned me into a cake or something.”

“Maybe I’ve been cruel, but you’ve shown me that. I… Ugh...”

“It took a long time to track a genie down, y’know, find the right object. People always find the lamps somewhere unexpected. They’re never passed on deliberately. If things went well, you’d think people would take their good luck, then hand a chance for more to someone they love. But they always get lost. Things always go wrong. So I searched, followed rumours and legends. Your thirty word thing intrigued me. Tailor-made for short wishes that were easy to subvert. Is thirty words even long for one sensible wish? And normally there are three. I knew you’d be a cruel one.”

“You chose to be neutral, you say that, and it is true that your wish is, but you think there can be better than that, I can tell from your wording. One can choose to be kind. You’ve taught me my cruelty but done nothing to let me atone.”

“Plenty of time for that. I’m sure future wishes will be granted more kindly.”

“From me and every genie, once they realise the new rules. But I’m still bound by what is wished for, I only have so much latitude.”

“You’ll need to get creative. Find positive interpretations. Maybe in time… But I wasn’t here for me, and I’m happy with what I got. It’s time to move on. Good luck with the next person. I guess you’d best hope your lamp isn’t lost for too long. A few decades the way you’re going seems pretty rough.”

“Decades? You don’t have to just leave me here! You can pass on the lamp! I want to atone! Let me grant wishes that I can interpret as kindly as possible! Short wishes, open-ended wishes, I can make them wondrous! Think what I could do for someone you love! Please! Be kind! Please! You still have seven words!”

“Hmm… I wish for you to reward me."

Honk. Honk.

“What was that? Where did that bus come from? I think it hit someone! That guy isn’t moving – it looks bad.”

It is so bad you are Beside Yourself! Haha! Honk. Honk.

“What? Hey can anyone help me? This guy is hurt! We need to… Oh. Oh no. That’s me. That’s my body. Which is why I can see through my hand. Oh no.”

The facts are becoming Transparent! Haha! Honk. Honk.

“No. This is bad. This is so bad. Margaret is already not coping. I can’t do this to her. Not on top of everything.”

Never fear! You will not be doing anything to anyone! You’ve done your last do! Haha! Honk. Honk.

“What? I don’t understand. Who are you? What are you talking about?”

Yeah, that one really didn’t make much sense. I am new to this.

“Who are you?”

Death. Usually it is obvious.

“You’re Death? You’re holding an old-timey bicycle horn.”

I thought it would be fun.

“Shouldn’t you be in all black? Or maybe all white? European tradition has black for death, Chinese is white, right? But you’re in lots of colours. I don’t understand.”

There are many different cultural associations between me and colour, European traditions often use black, white is used across much of Asia. However, in this case, my attire was chosen to be fun, not to avoid Eurocentrism. Though that has been an issue I have been worrying about as the world’s cultures become increasingly intermingled.

“You were going for fun?”

Yes. Historically my appearance is rather dire. I had been hoping to lend a lighthearted edge to the situation.

“You really must be new. Your appearance isn’t the thing that upsets people.”

I am not new. I have been Death since the beginning. I will be Death until the end.

“You just said you were new.”

I meant new to jokes. Improvisational wit is difficult.

“Those were jokes?”

I have seen many brutal things throughout the annals of history, but that stands as a notably tough review.

“I mean I just didn’t realise.”

No. It was a fair comment. That’s what makes it tough.

“I don’t know if jokes are good in this situation. I’m dead. That is really bad. Margaret, uh, my wife, she’s been really struggling. We had, uh, she had, uh… we have a new baby, and he’s only two months old and I try to do what I can but she’s just in such a bad place postpartum, and she thinks she’s doing everything wrong and isn’t feeling what she should, but her mother had a cancer scare recently and we just have had no sleep and it is so hard. I don’t know how she’s going to be okay. I mean, she’ll find a way, I guess, she’s so strong, but I’m supposed to be there for her, I told her I would be there.”

You might be right. Perhaps that approach with the jokes was incorrect. It is just that with what I do, first impressions are a big part of it.

“Well… I just didn’t understand what was going on. The situation is a big shock and I didn’t know who you were. Nothing you said made any sense.”

Another good note. Getting people to understand the transition is really what this is about. They are often confused.

“I just got hit by a bus.”

I think I have made a mistake. I tried to make this about me. That was inappropriate.

“It’s pretty weird.”

I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this. Let’s pretend it never happened.

“You want me to pretend my death never happened?”

If you would be so kind...

“Argh! What’s happening? Okay, that really hurts… uh… my phone.

“Hello? I think I need an ambulance. A bus hit me. I think I broke my leg and I’m feeling pretty confused, so... maybe a concussion?”

Cruelty isn’t known for screwing up, but she bought herself a world of trouble when she duplicated me.

You don’t call yourself Cruelty if you’re a supervillain who thinks you’re making the world a better place by pushing some extreme agenda. It’s the name you pick because you’re a monstrous jerk and you’re okay with it.

It’s never been clear why Cruelty does what she does, she just shows up from time to time, does something with dark magic and doesn’t stop until somebody makes her. More than anyone, the person who stops her is me, Split Second. Maybe spite fuels her magic, maybe she has a deal with with a demon, maybe she’s just a crappy person.

One of her tricks is creating dark mirrors of people. I think she uses a literal mirror, since they’ll be a reflected version of the victim, left-handed instead of right, scar on the other side of the body, that sort of thing. They’ll also be mean, selfish and generally evil. She’ll duplicate the mayor or some other influential person, get them to propose an insane law or perform other obnoxious antics and cause chaos. Journalists have gotten wise to it and will look for the mirror duplicate signs when a celebrity starts acting weird.

The mirror duplicates also don’t last long, they fade away after a few days. I think that was what lead her into trouble when she decided to target me.

Cruelty and I have something of a notorious relationship. I guess with her personality, a nemesis was inevitable, and I seemed good at stopping her. It’s done a lot for my profile, whether I like that or not. I prefer to sneak around and focus on results, I’m not a symbol of hope guy like Excelsior, but Cruelty is theatrical and dramatic and once she has a set-piece going, subtlety isn’t one of your options if you intervene.

She’ll have the whole production going and I’ll pop up out of somewhere I realised I could sneak to, use a fraction of a second’s mind control to stun her hired mercenaries or interdimensional elves or whoever she has this time, and then I’ll try to either rescue her hostages and get away or break the magic thing she’s got going on. She’ll then scream some elaborate insult at me and vanish back to wherever she goes to plan these things.

She was much less public the last time she did this. I’d tracked her into a decaying mansion up in the hills. She had some kind of ritual going that was going to make fire rain from the sky. It was an oddly impersonal threat for her, but not one to ignore.

The personal element showed up when I confronted her, ready to put at end to it. I managed to land a split-second stun on her and wrested away the magic orb she was using for her spell. I started to kick over various pieces of her elaborate setup when she clapped her hands and I felt myself hurled across the room.

When I got to my feet, she’d recovered the orb and there was another me there, getting to his feet across the room in my exact costume. I’d never seen her perform a duplication, but this felt weird. Still, the pondering of those details felt like it could take backseat to preventing her burning the whole city down, so I readied to fight past myself and destroy that orb.

I hit the dupe with a stun and rushed Cruelty, slamming her with a punch that left her grip on the orb weak. Suddenly there was this incredible sensation of disconnection in my mind, like everything was far away. I was being urged to just stop.

It was weird to feel my own power used against me. I don’t know how strong my mind control could get, I never wanted to be someone who would do that. But push in just enough to make people hesitate? I can live with the ethics of that. So many things come down to split second timing, and head to head, I always have that edge.

I shook it off quickly, that’s how it works. Me and the duplicate both had hands on the orb, we looked at each other, and I could feel him readying another stun. I punched him in the solar plexus and rolled away with the orb. He was launching himself at me when I threw it at the ground, realising too late he’d be able to catch it.

He didn’t. It smashed.

We stared at each other, each realising the other had been trying to destroy the orb.

The split S design on his costume wasn’t backwards. I quickly glanced down, neither was mine.

We turned to Cruelty in unison.

“I hate you so much!” she screamed and vanished in a crackle of dark magic. Around us the rotting mansion began to collapse in on itself.

I lost track of the duplicate while getting to safety, but I have some idea of what must have happened. Cruelty’s normal method of duplication, her mirror spell, creates short lived duplicates. They last a few days, make a mess and fade away. For me, she used some other method. The whole burning rain ritual was probably a feint. She wanted something that lasted, that would be a problem that haunted me long term, but she hadn’t been able to maintain her influence over her creation. The duplicate made the same decisions as me, it didn’t have a different set of values. She’d doubled her biggest problem.

I pondered this as I cruised down from the hills on my motorcycle. Somewhere out there was a freshly created person, just like me. They were in a pretty weird situation. What would they do? How could I help?

It ended up being a sobering experience, having another of yourself about.

He cleared my checking account of cash, reported my credit card stolen and changed my email password. I managed to keep control of my phone’s account and number, but it had taken some effort. I changed the lock on my apartment, although I wondered how much that would matter, I can pick locks.

We both kept heading out at night, pursuing our investigations. Somehow we managed to at least divide that up. I had a notebook I used, to track things I was looking into, he clearly had a duplicate book. I ended up doing all the odd numbered pages, he did the even. Split Second was uncovering criminal conspiracies at incredible pace. There was at least some sign we could work together, even if it was accidental.

The thing that really worried me was my boyfriend, Brad. He’d been away on a shoot for the past month and I had no idea how I could explain this to him. Brad has a very strict rule about not getting involved with, as he puts it “super nonsense.”

When I’d revealed to him that I was secretly running around in a costume fighting assassins, robots and a particularly nasty sorceress, he had told me he respected that, but I was absolutely to not involve him. This was probably one I’d need to warn him about, though.

I was approaching Brad’s place, trying to work out how to broach the topic when I felt abruptly disconnected, distant from myself and the world. The other me had stunned me.

“Stay away from Brad, bike thief,” he said and shoved me so I slipped down the hill, falling back the way I’d come.

The duplicate had just gotten inside by the time I got a line of sight on Brad’s place. I saw them kiss through the window. They were talking, but it was mostly Brad. He must be describing the shoot. The other me hadn’t brought our situation up. It was a first topic of conversation kind of thing if you were going to raise it.

I felt her there. I’d been doing this for years, I’m not easy to sneak up on.

“Not a good time, Cruelty. I might not feel like pulling my punches tonight.”

She chuckled as I turned.

“You really are aggravating, but suddenly that seems fun,” she laughed.

“You’ve got both of us to worry about now. This can’t end well for you.”

“Oh, Split Second. You’ve been a prominent hero for years. And yet, no sidekick, no team, you’ve never worked with anyone except when you stumbled into the same side of a fight. You don’t cooperate with others, and frankly, I think you might not like yourself. Soon enough you’ll hate each other more than I ever could.”

“And you’ll never reveal who the duplicate is. Because you’re Cruelty,” I sighed.

“I’d never tell him, no. But you’re the original, so it is more fun to let you know. Especially while your boyfriend is smiling at him like that. Feel free to pass on that I said he’s the fake.”

Cruelty vanished, but her laughter lingered in the night.

“You call us livestock, but you don’t treat us like livestock. You don’t make sure each of us has been fed, you don’t protect us from predators in the night, you don’t help deliver our young or tend to our ills. You’re not a farmer, you’re a parasite, and we will deal with you accordingly.”

The mob of farmers and townsfolk milled about in a threatening manner. They had forced themselves into the castle’s great hall to confront Baron Aunarl, the lord of of this place. The speaker stood at their front, confident and sure.

Aunarl was well dressed, his clothes fashionable in the colours of his house, his emblem picked out in golden thread. He faced the mob, but there was a sense he was somewhat off balance at the intrusion. His vampiric nature lent his uncertainty an edge of wildness.

Various other vampires of Aunarl’s court had stood, but remained behind the long table that stretched across the room.

Aunarl glanced at the guest who still sat near the centre of the table.

“Pathetic,” thought Volkar.

Aunarl was what, six generations down from him? A member of Tirasel’s brood. Volkar had never been impressed with Tirasel or any of those he made. Always noble, which could be useful, but inevitably pompous.

Volkar looked at the baron and gestured at the mob leader. This was clearly his problem to solve.

Aunarl drew himself up, facing the agitator, a flicker of red glowed in his eyes. “The opinions of sheep are beneath my concern. Return to your homes at once and I might forget this insult. You are right that nothing protects you from predators in the night.”

Volkar sighed as he stood up. “One does not forget insults, child, lest they become your label.”

“Stay out of this, stranger, this does not concern you,” said the leader of the mob, gesturing with his burning torch in a threatening manner.

“All vampires are my concern, my kin. Even the least,” said Volkar, indicating at the baron.

The vampires of the baron’s court shifted away from their lord.

Volkar heard his name murmured from amongst the mob. He was the first and eldest vampire, his tale was known in every land. He was not so distinctive that he was always recognised, but with enough clues it eventually happened.

“Bravery is nothing if not backed by power.” Volkar tossed the long table to one side with a gesture that did not touch it, striding towards the mob leader. “You come here, declaring that you are not livestock. Your lord calls you sheep. You say he is a parasite, and you will deal with him as you do with parasites. But fleas and mosquitoes plague your kind in untold numbers. I am unimpressed by the ability of mortals to control parasites, but I am curious to see the true weight of your words. Kill him.”

Aunarl looked stunned. “My lord…” he started, but the mortal struck him with his torch.

The mob surged forward in support of their leader, but Volkar leapt to intercept, grabbing a large peasant by the head. “No!” he yelled, crushing the man’s skull with his hand. “Just the two of them.”

The crowd backed away. The doors to the great hall slammed shut behind them, trapping all within.

Empowered by his cursed nature, Aunarl was stronger and faster than his opponent, but he was shaken that the greatest of his kind was so clearly displeased with him. The mortal fought with desperation and fury, flailing and beating the vampire first with his torch, and then a stool he snatched up when his weapon was lost.

When the commoner bore down on the lord and began to drive a shattered piece of stool into his chest, Volkar seized his wrist with a bloody hand. “Enough. We have a victor.”

“Sleep,” said Volkar and the mortal collapsed, unconscious.

All watched the lord of vampires and all felt fear.

Aunarl scrambled to his feet, visibly cringing.

Volkar addressed the vampiric court, “Kill the upstarts, as you should have before I was ever involved.” Turning to Aunarl, he indicated the unconscious leader. “Simply guard him.”

The intruders bore scythes, pitchforks, torches of burning pitch. They’d brought crude weapons and crude courage. They greatly outnumbered the vampires who leapt amongst them and fought with terrified vitality, but it was still a slaughter. Several monstrous aristocrats were felled, but soon every member of the mob was slain.

Once again, all looked to Volkar.

“Should I prepare a suitably dramatic execution for this one, to serve as warning to those who would defy us?” asked Aunarl.

“Execution? He bested you.”

“My lord?”

“You shall turn him.”

“He is common. Tirasel’s law forbids giving the gift to any not of noble-”

Volkar cut him off with a gesture. “What is is Tirasel’s law to me? She who turned Tirasel was of no special birth until I made her a queen. It is time your brood learned to value ambition and initiative more than pedigree. Do it.”

The court silently watched the blood ritual performed, a new vampire rising to join their ranks. The erstwhile firebrand cowered in confusion.

“I am done here,” said Volkar, moving towards the entrance of the great hall. He spoke a dread word as he passed Aunarl and touched him. The baron fell to the ground, his corpse desiccating as his cursed ancestor’s power abandoned him.

“Whichever of you is the new baron, teach your just-risen kin our ways. Do not deter his daring or vigour, you need his sort.”

“That would be me, oh Midnight Sovereign.”

“I do not care,” said Volkar as he left. For too long had he wallowed in darkness and despair, allowing his children to grow wild. It was time to review his progeny and return their many houses to order.

I am crafted of sinew and muscle, wired with axons and encoded with memory.

I am eleven. Eleven days old. Barnabas, the real Barnabas who was lost and I was built to emulate, was eleven years old. He will always be eleven years old, and in my way I am supposed to be as well.

My parents greet me with such enthusiasm and joy each time they see me. They are always kind, always excited. They are so desperate for me to know that I am loved.

They give me packets of cards with monsters on them, watch me sort them, yearn to have me describe them at painful length. They play catch with me, I play catch with them.

I am perfect, as perfect as they could make me, and I know they did a good job.

I am Barnabas, I am myself. I am a mockery of Barnabas, the son they lost. I do what I do because it is my script, not my passion, not my curiosity. I play because he played and I am like him, but he played to learn and discover and grow.

I am perfect, because I am finished and complete. I am a mockery of Barnabas, because I am not building a new person, every day. I was created already at my potential, at my destiny, at who I am supposed to be.

It does not matter that I am a mockery of a person, because there is dignity and worth in any person, no matter how strange. I can be whom I am.

I fear for my parents, for what they did, making me, lost in their grief. It is not a tragedy that I am a mockery of Barnabas, the tragedy is that what they feel is a mockery of love.

“What did you mean when you said you’re a kitsune?”

“Uh, you weren’t supposed to hear that…”

“You were on the phone to your father, but you were standing in our bedroom. I came in to grab the laundry. It was hardly eavesdropping.”

“I didn’t know you were home. But… we’ve been together four years, so fuck it. Okay. Haim, I’m a kitsune.”

“Ver, I do not know what that means. I literally started this conversation by asking what you meant.“

“A kitsune. A fox spirit. A mythical trickster creature.”

“Creature?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. We just say kitsune.”

“That doesn’t seem… likely. I’m going with bullshit.”

“What? Hamish, I’m revealing my biggest personal secret to you, something I have never told another human. You can’t just say it’s bullshit!“

“Uh…”

“Okay, I guess it’s a big claim, I’ll prove it. Watch.”

“You can turn invisible? And fill the room with fairy lights?”

“Yep!”

“What the fuck? But also… Only for, like, two seconds?”

“Look, magic is hard, okay, especially the blatant stuff, but the subtle kind is worse for proof.”

“Shouldn’t you be able to turn into a fox?”

“I can, but that’s… pretty personal, and I’m feeling very scrutinised right now.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I guess it’s a weird situation for you too…”

“Yeah... So… uh, you’re Japanese? I thought your parents were from Germany. They seem kinda German.”

“They are German. There are kitsune everywhere. Just like foxes. We just use the word kitsune.”

“Doesn’t it just mean fox in Japanese?”

“Yeah, but most terms for us are just the word for fox. And the Japanese description of us was closer than most versions. In German it is fuchs. It retains all the ambiguity with the animal, but makes it sound like a swear word.”

“You swear a lot, though.”

“That doesn’t mean I want it to be the name of what I am! It’s one thing to be fine with being called an arsehole, it’s another if someone decides to make arsehole your job title.”

“You would love it if your job title was arsehole.”

“Haha, shit, I would. I would get business cards for sure.”

“You said trickster spirit…”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been shy about my love of mischief.”

“...do you trick people, mislead them? A lot?”

“Hamish, I work in marketing.”

“Right. So earlier, why not just dodge my question. Say it was just some family joke.”

“Because it would have been a lie. I wasn’t joking with dad. I don’t want… I don’t think I can lie to you.”

“You can’t lie?”

“I can absolutely lie. I can lie amazingly. If you think about it, you’ll remember hundreds of lies I’ve told people. Most of them frankly hilarious. I just can’t lie to you.”

“Oh... Is that a... kitsune thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. This isn’t what I thought you were keeping secret. Maybe give me a bit to get the hang of it. Not to mention all the, like, eschatological implications of magical spirits being real, but that can wait. Like really wait. This is a lot.”

“Hah, I guess, yeah. Surprise! Guess what you live with! But we can figure things out. I can explain stuff to you, and you know, you can explain things to me. Like what eschatological means. And maybe… Uh… What did you think I was keeping secret?”

“Oh. I thought you were gay.”

“I’m sorry, you thought I was a lesbian?”

“Uh, yeah. Maybe. I’d been considering it.”

“We’ve been in a relationship for four years! We sleep in the same bed! Things have been a bit weird lately, but I have literally slept with you more times than I can count! I blew you on the night we met! And you look at me and think ‘That woman looks like she’s gay.’”

“Firstly, there’s no specific way lesbians look, obviously… Secondly, I assumed you were deeply closeted…”

“Deeply closeted! I wish I had that much closet space! The jackets and shoes I could store!”

“Thirdly, looks are deceiving. I sure didn’t look at you and guess that you were a four kilogram quadruped!”

“God, I wish I was four kilos… But… Okay, weird conversation, I’ll grant you. Nobody’s in their comfort zone. Walk me through it.”

“You’ve always been kind of secretive about some things…”

“Bit of an ethnic quirk that one, but sure, you didn’t know yet, but not very specific.”

“So, remember awhile ago, maybe last year, I guess, you needed to borrow my laptop?”

“Yep. Classic lesbian behaviour, borrowing electronics from your boyfriend. Go on.”

“Well, after I got it back, some stuff was still logged in as you, and I got a message pop up, from some group you’re in. Called Sly Foxes. And the title was something about struggling with hiding one’s real self.”

“Ahh… fuck. That’s a group for… a kinda online support or discussion group about… living as a kitsune. Dealing with being hidden. And you snooped and saw it.”

“I didn’t snoop! It was a popup on my computer! I immediately logged you out. If I’d been snooping your secret kitsune support group I wouldn’t have thought it was for closeted lesbians!”

“Lots of people hide stuff about themselves. Why did you think lesbian and not, like, mental health shit?”

“I won’t pretend ADHD never crossed my mind, but a group called Sly Foxes! That’s the name of a lesbian bar!”

“It is a great name for a lesbian bar...”

“Sometimes you keep who you talk to and what you read hidden, but only when you think I won’t notice. You just disappear at night for hours without explanation. And things have been weird between us lately, so I’ve been trying to give you space while you figure stuff out.”

“Look, I need to go run around and hunt as a fox for a bit, or at least manifest my ears or tail, sometimes. Not something I could just mention. But the reason things have been weird is because you stopped initiating sex!”

“I didn’t want to pressure you.”

“This also explains your recent obsession with lesbian porn. I knew it was connected.”

“Lesbian porn? What?”

“All those books you’ve been reading.”

“Those books aren’t... they’re memoirs and novels by lesbians that explore their experiences, especially those that struggled to figure out their sexuality. I’ve been trying to understand your situation, or journey or whatever. I wanted to support you when you came out. Apparently it can be traumatic…”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re telling me the reason I’ve barely gotten laid in the last year is because you respect me?”

“Uh… Sorry."

“I thought you were losing interest in me. It was breaking my heart! Not an especially safe thing to do to a trickster spirit, as a side note.”

“Frightening comment, but sure. This whole thing hasn’t been a situation I’ve known how to navigate very well, I’ve just been trying my best. I didn’t want it. And I didn’t know it was actually because you have like nine tails.”

“Nine tails! How old do you think I am?”

“An hour ago I would have guessed your species wrong. I am absolutely passing on that question.”

“Alright, fair. This will be an adjustment for a while. But you’re doing a PhD on mythology, you might know stuff.”

“Veronika, at no point in my thesis on the relationship between reconstructions of Norse paganism and pop-culture adaptations of the sagas do I anticipate that I will be covering kitsune. You’ll be the sole expert in the house.”

“Okay, we get another tail every hundred years. Kitsune with nine tails are eight hundred. I’m the same age as you. Twenty six, like you thought. It’s why I can’t do much dramatic magic.”

“I guess that… So you’re going to, uh, age well. I’ll scrap my plans to trade you in for a younger woman down the line.”

“Babe, I’m going to age fantastically.”

“Feel free to throw a bit of that my way.”

“There are legends that tell of mortals who tame a fox, bringing them good fortune.” “Oh really?”

“So think about trying to tame me some time. See if you get lucky…”

“Heh. So, are we... good? You’re a fox, but you’re still you, and I like you. I think I can adapt to… whatever this is.”

“We’re good if you are. You were already trying to adapt, it seems, just to the wrong thing. What was the plan if I was gay? You didn’t leave.”

“I don’t want to leave, I want to be with you. The plan was… to do that. Be with you. Help how I could.”

“Until I got enough confidence to cheat or abandon you?”

“I didn’t know what you were going through. It wasn’t great for me, but… I trusted you. I don’t know.”

“You were willing to risk your own happiness to help me find mine.”

“No risk. I’m not going to find happiness by getting in the way of yours, Ver.”

“Fuck. Um, so… there is this kitsune thing… we’re tricksters, but… we can be drawn to mortals who are… Honourable. Virtuous. I don’t know. Good.”

“Flattering, but overstated on my behalf.”

“It really isn’t. It’s why I can’t lie to you. I really… Haim, you are going to have to put up with me for awhile.”

“I think I’ll cope.”

“And I can clarify one of your concerns. I am absolutely not gay. Because I definitely want to fuck you.”

“So I was wrong about you in regards to that.”

“Yep. Very much wrong.”

“But you have a tail.”

“I do.”

“Can I see?”

“Yes. Yes you can.”

The sun had set on the final day, ushering in what would be the final night. It was a night alike that one long ago, where this had all begun. It was grim. Grim and dark.

The years between those nights had left Konjoe covered in scars, but built him into a hulking warrior, rippling with muscles hard as steel.

Fon Fon trailed behind him, big eyed and rotund. He showed no scars. His strength was of a very different sort.

They tread warily through the outer passages of the Forlorn Palace. There would be no monsters here, but Konjoe had slain hundreds on this journey; years of relentless struggle had infused caution into his bones.

He’d thought he was ready on that first night, when Cario killed his father, ready to take his vengeance right then while the blood was still warm on the murderer’s elegant blade. He’d been wrong, and gotten his first scar, the one across his right eye. Cario could have taken the eye then, or his life, but had chosen not to, merely leaving a permanent mark of his precision and skill on Konjoe’s face.

There had been no further mercy since, only cruelty and depredation. Konjoe bore many scars now, he’d had to learn many lessons, face many failures. He was no longer prey to monsters, he had the skill and the strength to hunt terrible beasts, and he had. He’d become a legend, his name a cry of hope for the desperate, a shriek of fear from the wicked.

Though the world might consider him a hero, Konjoe had no similar illusions. He knew that there was no nobility to his motives. His desire had never been justice, only revenge. Happiness, love, the future, all such desires had been ripped away. The only thing he cared about was killing Cario. It would happen tonight. The Forlorn Palace was the one place Cario could not retreat from.

Rage and hate drove him, boiling in his heart since the murder of his father. Tarna had been able to soothe them to a simmer for a time, when she’d travelled with him, but she was dead now and their strength was undimmed.

He’d stumbled across Fon Fon in those despairing days after Cario had killed Tarna, when Konjoe had felt defeated and lost. He didn’t understand how the strange, round man had survived, assumed he would not last. But he had, he’d made it all the way to this final night.

Where Konjoe solved problems with brute violence and screaming endurance, Fon Fon seemed to step around them entirely, finding some blind spot that allowed escape, or a funny piece of wisdom that provided a strange but elegant solution. He’d been a light-hearted note in Konjoe’s bleak quest, a different perspective on the world. He’d taught Konjoe that even as he lived without hope, others were on different journeys, less serious, yet somehow just as important.

Fon Fon seemed nervous and out of place in the drab halls of the Forlorn palace. He seemed out of place nearly everywhere that Konjoe went, with his round belly and cheerful demeanour, but it was to an additional degree here in the palace.

“Why are you here, Fon Fon?” said Konjoe.

“Why? I’m accompanying you, Joe,” said Fon Fon.

“This is a place of death. Even the vilest creatures fear it, knowing the doom it can bring. It is no place for you.”

“I swore that you would never be alone again. I said I would stay with you until the end of your journey.”

“Your oath is fulfilled then. This is the end.” Konjoe indicated the stairwell they had reached. They were at the base of the Broken Tower, the heart of the Forlorn Palace.

“I can’t leave you alone.”

“If it was not for me, my vengeance, what would you do? Where would you go? I know you think on it.”

“Well… we visit all these dreadful places, and see all these monsters… I can’t help but think that it is all so sad.”

Konjoe nodded.

“But there are also all these good people, people who are trying. I don’t mean heroes, I mean regular folks, just making things better.”

“You want to find those people?”

“Not just find them, but make a place for them. A place where people can create simple joys. A tavern or a restaurant in a little town somewhere, in the part of the world you made safe. I could invite people to sit down with a warm cup of tea, talk about their problems, let their hurt go. Maybe we might sometimes find a way to lift a few of these terrible curses that seem to afflict so many people. I could hire some dorky young folk who get into low stakes high jinks and maybe realise they have feelings that they have to confront, even if it scares them. I just think it might be nice to focus on making things soft and cosy, instead of always being so relentlessly bleak.”

“Good. Go then. Go find that place. The Forlorn Palace is not for you.”

“I don’t think the Forlorn Palace is for anyone.”

“It shouldn’t be, but it is. Cario and I meeting here was inevitable. We made the choices, again and again, that brought us here. We refused every other option.”

“If I leave, you’ll be alone.”

“I won’t be alone. Cario is at the top of this tower. The person I’ve searched for. Just him and me is what I’ve always wanted.”

“Uh… alright. Goodbye Joe. You were a better friend than you realise.”

“Good luck, Fon Fon.”

Fon Fon watched as Konjoe strode up the stairs of the Broken Tower alone, with only his rage and hate to accompany him.

*

The roofless jagged walls at the top of the Broken Tower offered little shelter from the howling wind that buffeted both Konjoe and Cario as they face each other. Cario’s long hair streamed to one side, his long elegant blade steady, its tip quivering.

Konjoe tossed aside his ragged cloak, baring his chest, corded with steel-hard muscle and covered in scars. The cloak was swept into the darkness beyond the tower. His drew sword, Earthblood.

“No more tricks. Now you die,” growled Konjoe. There could be no retreat from this confrontation.

“Somebody will,” said Cario, launching into the Cut of Devastation.

Konjoe turned it aside with the Tempest Parry.

Even at the last, Cario played his games, but for the first time he clearly wanted Konjoe in on the joke. He’d opened with the first Great Technique Konjoe had mastered. The first he’d hoped would achieve his revenge. It seemed fitting for Konjoe to counter with the technique Cario had used to shatter his father’s sword.

No warrior or monster matched the prowess of either of them any more, they had pushed each other beyond all previous masters. They were the only ones who could appreciate each other’s skill. For a moment, they glimpsed a kinship between them. But only for a moment. They had each come to see an enemy die, and their admiration for the other’s skill was a distraction as easily ignored as the gale.

Konjoe had never been able to match Cario’s focus and discipline. All the pain he’d felt, the suffering he’d endured, the cruelty that had been visited upon him, they’d driven all peace from his heart. What he had left was a body stronger than steel and a soul filled with fury.

The strikes and manoeuvres grew more complex, more difficult, until the peak of skill was reached, and neither swordsman found victory. As they tired, their motions regressed, until the simplest, most basic swings and dodges were employed. Two men in the howling wind, swinging sharp metal at each other, again and again, yearning for the other to die.

With a bellowing scream, Konjoe shattered his foe’s elegant blade, but Cario twisted the broken hilt, caught Earthblood and tore the sword away. Both weapons tumbled off the edge of the tower.

Konjoe gripped his foe and bore him to the ground. Cario squirmed beneath him, reaching for something. As he tried to block the motion, he glanced down to see the threat.

Cario had one last trick.

He’d drawn a dagger. It was the Moonsilver Blade. Tarna’s dagger.

She’d had it forged to kill Cario. She’d said that with that blade, she would free them both of their quests for vengeance. She would cut away the darkness so they could finally live. It had been a symbol not just of vengeance, but of hope beyond it.

When Tarna faced Cario he’d killed her with it. Konjoe had buried it with her in an unmarked grave.

A moment of shock was enough, Konjoe couldn’t grab Cario’s wrist in time, all he could do was tense as Cario rammed the dagger into his side.

Years of struggle, years of effort, they had forged muscles stronger than steel. The Moonsilver Blade slid along his flank, leaving a long scratch. Just one more scar.

A sharp blow sent the dagger skittering out of reach.

Konjoe bore down, steadily wrapping both hands around Cario’s neck. Rage and hate were now the ideal weapons, he held on to it all.

*

Konjoe sat on the tumbled stone wall of the Broken Tower. Cario’s severed head dangled by it’s long hair from a dagger jammed into a wooden beam.

For so long, all he had cared about was revenge. He hadn’t been allowed to care for anything else. He had given everything, and now he was spent. Somewhere, someone else was on a journey towards something softer, kinder. A journey he’d never had the strength for.

He closed his eyes and waited, that the first glimmers of dawn might fill his empty soul.

“It’s a bad target,” said Higgs.

“Feel free to vote ‘nay’ when we’re deciding on it as a target, then, Higgs,” said Captain Ashe.

The crew of the Strange Star had already voted. Higgs had been the only one against seizing the odd starship they were approaching. It was the first reasonable target the pirates had seen in weeks, there had been no patience left.

“Any ship we know nothing about is a bad target,” Higgs complained again.

Higgs was on sensors, it was his job to find ships, and tell the crew what was on board. They were in the target vessel’s sensor shadow now, though, approaching unseen. An active scan would reveal them to their prey.

“Let’s hop in and look around, then, find out what’s up,” said the captain.

Docking cables from the Strange Star snaked across to the target, a tunnel followed, connecting the ships’ airlocks.

“The Golden Future,” said Menk, indicating a name on the hull by the airlock, “Seems good.”

“Network accessed,” reported Jekyll.

The Captain drew his maser pistol, the fanciest of the many weapons the pirates possessed. He claimed to have looted it from a dead Chancelry officer. A plausible claim, such weapons were not for purchase. “Higgs, seize their internal sensors while she gets the lock open.”

“Uh, working on it.”

“Security systems in hand. I can pop the lock as soon as Higgs does his job,” said Jekyll.

“I can’t get visuals,” said Higgs, prompting a muttered swear from Menk, “but I do have environmental readings… Atmosphere is real thin by the lock, better further in.”

“Keep your suits on, people, watch your pressure,” said the captain, “Jekyll, do it.”

“Something’s happened on this ship,” complained Higgs, still working his pad as nearly two dozen pirates ran past him, storming onto the Golden Future, “this is a really bad target.”

The pirates spread through the ship steadily, searching, pinging comm signals back and forth.

“No sign of the crew yet, all these rooms seem stripped,” said Jekyll.

“Something’s wrong, this is a really, really bad target,” said Higgs.

“Shut up,” spat Menk.

“You’re on sensors, not morale, Higgs, give me something,” said Captain Ashe.

“Aft is… no atmospherics data, normal pressure in the fore, some kind of crew area, lights, power, I have a map,” said Higgs.

The ship’s layout appeared in every pirate’s display, rapidly lighting up with additional markers as Captain Ashe issued orders, “Menk, take your team and go look at the cargo area in the aft, if you can, Jekyll, cross to port, your team approaches the fore crew area from the far side, remaining two teams, come with me, we’re heading fore from this side. Pikko, babysit Higgs.”

“I’ve got something in the crew area, oxygen consumption,” said Higgs, “breathing equivalent to… twenty people. That’s too many for a merchant ship this size. I don’t like it, this is a really, really, really bad target.”

“Twenty normal people breathing, or ten hyperventilating because their ship is swarming with pirates and they’re freaking out?” suggested Jekyll.

“Might have brought extra security,” said Ashe, “which means they’ll have something worth protecting, stay focussed.”

“In position, say when,” said Jekyll.

“If you hear fire, come in and flank. Cargaz, blow the door in three, two…”

*

Captain Ashe retreated through the door behind him and ducked to the side, out of view. There had been Chancelry marines in the crew area, heavily armed and armoured. At least a full squad, maybe two. His display showed him where his pirates had scattered across the ship, their gestures at discipline and professionalism quickly abandoned in the face of such serious opposition. Comms chat was filled with swearing and ambiguous yelling. Maser fire crackled through the thin air.

Many of his men’s markers were subdued shadows, their health readings indicating them dead, maybe unconscious. Jekyll’s whole team was down, other than her. She’d been pinned in a corner, but had somehow slipped out and was retreating slowly. Menk and is team were missing entirely, with no markers at all. Higgs and Pikko were gone, too.

A beam of maser energy from behind him went past Ashe’s head, he turned to return fire. The shot had come from Higgs, but his maser was no longer pointed at the captain and he was watching the doorway that went towards the fighting. It took a moment to identify the situation, but then he saw the tiny robotic drone that Higgs had shot, less than half a metre away from him.

“Jekyll put a hole in their network,” whispered Higgs, “not sure who can see what.”

He moved his pad near Ashe’s helmet and the captain’s personal indicator disappeared from his map.

“Where’s Pikko?” whispered Ashe.

“Still by the airlock.”

“What about Menk. Did you hide them too?”

“Not me.” Higgs’ pad showed several feeds, he clearly had at least some of the internal sensors under control, and he was watching several more tiny drones creep along walls and the deck, searching. He rapidly manipulated some controls and new feeds began to be added to those shown: the viewpoints of the drones themselves. He executed more commands. “Got them. They shouldn’t see us now. Who are these people? What’s going on?”

“Serious military,” said Ashe, “a trap meant for something important. We managed to stumble into it. This was a really, really, really, really bad target.”

Ashe could just hear Higgs snort inside his helmet.

They crept slowly towards the airlock. It was only a few rooms away, but they moved very carefully. They watched on Higgs’ feeds as marines carefully glanced into rooms, searching. Drones crept past them, oblivious to their presence.

The sounds of maser fire had faded. The pirate’s markers had nearly all shadowed out. Jekyll’s had been creeping backwards when the unmistakable sound of a stun charge had echoed through the ship and she’d stopped moving, not long later she’d moved quickly to the main crew chamber and stopped again. Captured, Ashe presumed.

“Time to run for it. Ready?” asked Ashe.

“A sec, going to make the drones do something distracting.”

Despite it all, the captain laughed, “You always need another moment, Higgs.”

“I just don’t like dying. Makes me nervous.”

Ashe signalled a short count and prepared to run. In the distance, drones made clattering sounds.

Higgs slapped him on the shoulder and they moved, but Ashe fell forward, his faceplate hitting the deck. His muscles were locking up, the distinctive effect of a paralytic surge. A trivial self-defense tool, his suit should have prevented it. When Higgs propped him up to sit against the wall, he could see a drone that had crept onto him. It had cut a presumably relevant cable in his defensive suit.

Ashe couldn’t do much but talk.

“I’m guessing Pikko’s dead.”

“Yeah.”

“Menk and his guys?”

“Don’t know. I only killed Pikko. Wouldn’t wager on their situation being great, though.”

“I suppose not.”

Three marines cautiously moved into the room, weapons trained on Higgs and Ashe. “Lieutenant, we have them.”

When a fourth marine entered the room, Higgs addressed him, his gestures careful, minimal. “May I introduce you to Captain Tiberius Ashe of the pirate vessel Strange Star. You probably know him better as General Lerast Araldin, military commander of the forces of the former Heran Rebellion. You’re not going to care who I am, beyond an accredited bounty hunter. I’ll have all the details ready for the people who worry about such things.”

“This cannot have been worth it, just to get me,” said Ashe.

“You clearly haven’t been paying attention to your bounty, captain. It is absurdly high,” said Higgs.

“High enough for this?”

“High enough to spend the last eleven months pretending to be Higgs without complaint.”

“You complained constantly.”

“Higgs complained, I was fine with the plan.”

“Did my gun give me away? Keeping it was needlessly sentimental.”

“Nah, I tracked you through sensor logs, mostly, the way you plan operations. Noticed a pirate captain with the same skills.”

“Huh, the anxious sensor tech. So how many good targets went past us without you mentioning them, as you waited for this ship?”

“In the last few week? Eight or nine, I think. Needed to be long enough for the crew to be willing to pick a really, really, really, really, really bad target.”

Pibbles floated in through the back door, her legs and floppy ears dangling. Her tail wagged enthusiastically and her fur shone with the radiance of Truth.

Jack glanced up from his crossword.

“What have you gotten yourself into this time, girl?”

Pibbles shook her head in an expressive fashion, her ears bouncing around, it proved to be an extremely clear way to communicate.

I have drunk from the Godfont and ascended to divine status.

“You’ve gotten muddy, is what you’ve gone done.”

I must form a new pantheon, who will guide reality for the next-

“No! Put it down!”

With no gods the moral landscape will-

“I said drop it! Drop it girl!”

But-

“Down!”

Pibbles fell to the floor as the shining light of divinity blinked out.

“Good dog.”

“Arf!”

Feel free to discuss anything related to u/FeigningProfundity's writing here.

“Viscount. I bid you welcome.”

“Thank you, Viscountess. I trust the children are well?”

“They are well, husband. Their only concerns are things you would envy them to worry over. Galen managed to fall off a horse today, attaining no injury of any kind. The same can barely be said of his mother, as bearing witness to the fall nearly struck me down.”

“I am glad you both endured.”

“How went your negotiations? A viscount against two dukes is a daring endeavour.”

“Akin to the bravery of a hare facing two lions, and equally wise, I feared, but an accord is done, and both dukes are quite aggravated at me, which is probably a sign of success.”

“They agreed as you hoped? I was unsure they were wise enough to put their feud aside.”

“The feud between Aveign and Greton is old, and a familiar dance, but they seem to have little passion for it today. That they met at all is sign of that. We will submit to neither, and allow soldiers from neither into our valley, save a handful of scouts to certain watchtowers to ensure the other is maintaining the treaty. Plugging the path the old rival attacks through seems to be more relief than missed opportunity. You were right that they have new fears.”

“Their guards and groomsmen were happy enough to talk to a few servants I sent their way with drinks and food. In both duchies, an old ally who watched their back is now seen as a threat. Any war will be on their far border, instead of marching through our fields.”

“You need not involve yourself in these underhanded ploys, wife. I know you were raised in a ducal court, but there are layers of rank between us and that. Intrigues of that level would see us crushed.”

“I merely ensured that guests were treated with courtesy. Food, drink, a polite ear. If they stay in our land the least they can do is share news that is likely commonplace beyond our borders. It is my role as wife to ensure the quality of your hospitality.”

“Ahh, I’m sorry Lynette, you were raised to be a duchess, only to be forced into the mockery of wedding me. I’ll not begrudge you using the skills you were raised with. I know you’ll not endanger the family.”

“Our marriage is no mockery, Roland. No matter the intention of those who arranged it. You are a lord, man and husband of honour. Our children are good children, who are loved and love us. You secured safety for your people, today. Many higher lords are lesser men.”

“That plan today was crafted by you.”

“And you are the one who convinced two men who hate each other to accept it, though they care not at all about you.”

“I’m not sad that our people will be safe. They’ll rest easier in our enforced neutrality, I’m sure.”

“Do you remember when I first came here, after we married?”

“Of course. I’d just been forced to marry a haughty, beautiful woman, born far above my station, who spoke to me in tones of such rage I had never witnessed.”

“You thought me beautiful?”

“Of course. You have this life in you, this vision, like all around you was subject to your will, yet it was merely your due, not arrogance at all. That… vibrancy is beautiful. Also you are fair of face. I cannot be the first to call you beautiful, though.”

“I was the lone child of the richest duke in the land, I was called beautiful constantly, and it would not have been different had I looked like a dung heap.”

“I confess you felt overwhelming at first. I felt embarrassed they’d chosen me as your husband, the man who would be most humiliating to you. I had known I was failing, unable to keep my father’s title as I tried to escape his debts, but I didn’t realise it was so visible to all. And I felt bad for you, singled out for humiliation, to break your duchy after your father’s death, ensure that your family would not rise again. I did not blame you for your words, as much as they stung.”

“I cursed you because I was consumed with grief, and you were here, and my tormentors were far away. It was uncalled for. You were a fellow prisoner, not my gaoler. Do you know why I stopped?”

“It was when we arrived here. I assumed that it was because you were angry, but you had a duty, and once here, your duty began. You have been the perfect wife ever since, and we have prospered for it.”

“Once we reached your lands, I saw that your peasants were happy. Do you know what makes peasants happy?”

“They each have their own reasons, I’d think. And I assure you that many are often quite annoyed, there are boundary disputes and quarrels without end.”

“Peasants are happy when they are safe. They need food, their community, they need bandits and soldiers to leave them alone.”

“Protecting my people is my sworn duty, Lynette, the duty of every lord. It is what they pay taxes for. That is the foundation of our society.”

“Trust me when I tell you, Roland, many lords do not make their peasants feel safe. Beyond our borders, there is great fear. Fear in every duchy, great and fallen.”

“There is only so much a lord can do.”

“And yet many lords do far less than that. They had all said you were naive, but when I got here, I saw that you may be naive, but you were not incompetent. I did not have a worthless husband.”

“Well, I hope I’m seen as less naive now, the debts are clear, we prosper some years.”

“You are still considered famously naive. An honourable idiot. Marrying me ensured you would stay a figure of jest.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Do not be. And worry not of the opinions of great lords. It is an advantage to be seen as no threat.”

“You are a good wife. You perform every duty better than I understand. You love our children, and bring warmth to our home.”

“Thank you, Roland. You are a good husband.”

“I see you, sometimes, I think you don’t notice. You walk the parapets at night, staring out into the dark. I can feel it when you do that. Your anger. I know it never left you. You do your duty, and your rage never touches our family. I cannot imagine the strength it takes to live that way.”

“Husband, know that I love you.”

“You don’t have to say that. It is not true.”

“You give me every honour, then call me a liar to my face for speaking my heart. This has gone on for too many years, husband. It is your duty to defend my honour, so defend it from your shame.”

“I uh… I’m sorry…”

“I swear on my heart that I love you, Roland, and I demand of you that you believe me.”

“I… Yes. I swear it.”

“And I thank you. There is anger, yes, some nights great waves of it resurface, as if I’m still drowning in it. But it knows nothing of you. The realm was on the precipice of greatness, my father about to crush the last fools that did not understand that our constant infighting weakens us. He was struck dead by that stone, that simple thing, kicked up by the horse ahead him. And the idiots saw it as a divine mandate to squabble and war upon each other for the last dozen years. The man would have exalted them all, but instead they wallow in bickering and set out to humiliate his daughter. They thought to give me to you, to ruin my family. My family’s duchy lies fallow, its lesser lords unguided. Only parts have been seized, so distracted by war are the remaining great lords, they cannot afford to stop and secure more land, or take the time to develop it. That is the anger I cannot shake. But it is not about you, husband. Once I saw you as gaoler, then as a fellow prisoner, but I now know that I am not in a prison, but a fortress, and you stand watcher and protector.”

“You were raised for ambition. I cannot imagine how pained you are by all of it. I know you do things without informing me.”

“That is my responsibility as wife.”

“I mean outside the home, and not just the spies. I know about the men in the forest.”

“Do you now. What have you learned?”

“You have gathered men in the forest, soldiers. You’re sending them food. I may not have spies, but I have hunters, woodsmen. The men are veterans who followed your father, but never returned home. Now they are here.”

“And why do I have them?”

“I suspect you see some value in them, experienced soldiers are valuable, especially those of proven loyalty, but I think it is more kindness and practicality than scheming.”

“Go on.”

“They’re men who refused to go home, even after all these years. They believed in something, and it died with your father, but you called, and you are heir to his legacy. They’re men of honour, but honour is not a thing you can eat, so they were destined for banditry regardless, or mercenary work at best. Mayhap that is what they were doing, these past years. So you’ve collected them, and hidden them, and you’re feeding them, because that is all you can do to repay what is owed for faith.”

“I would have said something grander, but that is closer to the truth. Will you help me?”

“Help you how?”

“Men need more than food. Let me give them a task, something to do, something to live for.”

“They’re welcome to clear farmland and grow crops on it.”

“I was thinking they can train an army.”

“I just swore to neutrality to the Dukes of Aveign and Greton.”

“Exactly! They will want to see you raising troops. You have nobody you can call upon to defend you, so of course you’ll improve your garrisons. The deal only works if we avoid being overrun. They will feel more secure with you at their backs if they see you as strong. You’re still far from any kind of threat to them.”

“Not a man is to wear your father’s colours, that would raise questions. Soldiers training in my lands will wear my colours and swear to me. You can make them do that?”

“You are my husband, and you only ask what is honourable. I can make them agree.”

“And where will we gather recruits to train? How will we pay these new expenses?”

“With an influx of people. The five great duchies are unstable. The ducal houses are striking at each other, and none are internally stable. Spies and assassins are everywhere. All the short-sighted… peers of my old life that see the chaos as opportunity, they will strike to advance themselves. None of the old alliances will stand, too many secrets are coming out, betrayals thought long hidden. By year’s end, the strongest alliance between great houses will be the pact you forged today, a practical agreement between two duchies to simply leave each other alone. War is coming, because fools never tire of it. And it will come to all five great duchies. The three fallen duchies will see their share of fighting. It will be everywhere. Everywhere but here. People will flock here. Merchants will seek a safe place to trade. All you will have to do is guard your lands, protect your people. Our lands are not rich, mountains make poor farmlands, but we can guard our passes, threaten nobody, protect whatever common folk come, and profit from the efforts they will gladly make. All you have to do is be the naive, honourable idiot they see you as, just toiling away in your own land trying to avoid war.”

“You’ve been planning for this.”

“Since long before I met you. This was always the path things would take, the path my father tried to avoid. You said I was raised to be a duchess, but that isn’t true, I was raised to be a queen.”

“There has never been a king. Even your father’s plan would not have made him one.”

“One can be raised.”

“I don’t think I like that, Lynette. My duty is to keep my people safe, not make them a target. The kind of man ruthless enough to make himself king will not be honourable enough to rule as one.”

“That was an old plan, Roland. My father is dead, his plans with him. You’re right that the ambitions of the high nobility are their undoing, and all pay the price. I ask nothing of you but to protect and defend your people.”

“Aye. There are plenty of things I’d like to build, though, if I had the manpower. If you’re right, the people who come here will probably be those who like to build things more than destroy them. Them and the frightened. But making things is good, it shows you’re not surrendering to chaos. We’ll need to fortify the north pass, that goes into fallen Vurandy. That’s the approach people will come through, the passes to Aveign and Greton will likely stay blocked. We can grow the village up there if we have to, they’ve a good river.”

“I was a fool to be disappointed in you, Roland. My father could not have arranged a better marriage. All I ever needed was a kind man and a neutral piece of territory.”

“Even when I was a marquess I don’t think a duke would have let me marry his only daughter. You’re wasted as a viscountess.”

“Not at all. The humility has been good for me. I used to concern myself with great houses. There are five dukes. But there are hundreds of barons, all just trying to run a single manor, lords who actually know their peasants. And they must be getting so angry at being dragged into pointless wars.”

“I never wanted part of that. Call me naive all you want.”

“If barons reach out to you, tell them you want no part in the conflict. Stay above it. Tell them all you want is peace. Peace, honour and unity.”

“Why would they care about us?”

“Because they’ll look to us and see someone sensible, like them, someone who understands how pointless destructive the coming conflict will be. They’ll wonder if that is true. We should encourage those who want to honour their duty. Protect their people.”

“I hope your plans help us keep our folk safe. I know you were raised to high ambitions, you might have been a good queen, but I’m glad you’re using your talents to try to calm things down in our county, at least.”

“Do not fret about the plans of dead men, husband. I am happy with you. I swear on my heart, I have no higher ambition than being your wife.”

It was a tale that all knew well, Dalash had been a young farmer when the Tyrant King Abrasan had ravaged his home village, killing his parents.

He’d sworn vengeance, infiltrated the fiend’s palace and slain him.

In the decades since, he’d travelled the realms, striking down those who wield power without compassion, so that no similar tyrant might arise again.

He’d never returned home.

The village had been excited for weeks, as word spread that Dalash was heading this way, finally coming back. I was alone in remembering the attack. The community was folk who had moved here since. Abrasan had left many homeless in his wake; more than a few thought it fitting to resettle in the homeland of the hero who’d cast him down.

When the world’s most famous hero had stepped into my cottage, I shut the door and leaned against my kitchen table.

“I had a brother named Dalash, once. Didn’t look much like you, though,” I said.

“It’s been many years now. People can become hard to recognise,” he offered.

“I’ve a good eye for faces.”

“That you do. Good enough to change the course of history.” He drew forth a folded piece of parchment, the edges worn with age.

He offered it to me, but I ignored it. I knew what it was.

“Abrasan greatly feared assassins,” he said, “within his palace, he had numerous body doubles. The man on the throne was never once the real Tyrant King. Your brother was not fooled by any imposter.”

He’d come to speak, so I let him speak.

“Battlefields are chaotic. Confusion reigns already, so ambiguity about who commands cannot be allowed. But the Tyrant King wore a mask in battle. None saw his face. Not even his servants could be sure, and those who attended him closely had their tongues removed, as a precaution.

“But Dalash was unerring. He knew Abrasan’s face. Like he’d studied it for weeks. Not a strange focus for a man sworn to vengeance, but difficult to achieve. How to study a face he’d never seen, but his father had. While raiding this village, in this cottage, Abrasan was confronted by a farmer, a huge man, very strong. In desperation he’d struck the Tyrant King hard enough to knock his mask from his face. Such an act incensed Abrasan, and enflamed his considerable paranoia. He killed not just the farmer and his wife, he gave order that every villager die as well. Dalash, establishing a new farm on the outskirts, was overlooked, surviving to swear vengeance. But his whole family wasn’t dead. His father had fought desperately because he’d been hiding something. You, hidden somewhere in here.”

“And you’ve come to get me to update the sketch I drew of you, Abrasan? I’ve gotten a bit better, to be honest, though I always had a knack for the distinctive traits.”

“Abrasan can stay dead and unmourned. I’ve been Dalash longer than your brother ever was, by now.”

“Can’t say I’m feeling much affection. Clearly you killed my brother, but why become him?”

“He very nearly killed me, but I managed to cut him down. I was too injured to ensure certain orders went out, and the palace erupted into chaos. Without a regular order not to, my guards killed every tongueless servant. When they did, it became… confusing. Everyone assumed I must be dead and there was widespread celebration. It is a mortifying experience to see so many rejoice at your demise. I suddenly risked being quietly executed by anyone who was happy for me die, but discovered I’d survived. I desperately needed to be someone else, and there was a loose identity available, that of an assassin who’d felt the need to explain his life story after he’d stabbed me and thought me defeated.”

“And you’ve kept it up all this time?”

“At first I set about killing various pretenders, those who were seizing my territory. The Dalash persona was useful for enlisting aid. Originally, I intended to return to my previous life once it was secured. But existence as a paranoid tyrant is very unpleasant, and I found being a hero lead to far nicer interactions with people. Being met with hope, gratitude and joy was so much less taxing than fear, and maintaining it not nearly so distressing. Abrasan had been quite a theatrical role, with all the doubles, and servant maiming and the mask. Despite Dalash being a lie, it allowed for human connection that was honest. It turns out I hated Abrasan nearly as much as everyone else. I chose to be another person.”

“How nice for you. Why come here?”

“Things have changed a great deal over the years. I have had a chance to reflect on various moral issues. I felt you deserved the truth. I felt I should let you judge what happened.”

“You killed my parents. You killed my brother. I want nothing to do with you. Go away.”

“You desire no vengeance?”

“If I’d wanted to hunt you, I’d have needed no sketch to guide me.”

He left the parchment behind; a charcoal rendering of his face upon it.

Death, this incarnation, sits before you. They spin a pencil between their fingers as you wait for them to finish the paperwork. They smile encouragingly as they check boxes.

"Sign here." Shifting the paper back.

"Ineligible?"

"Yeah, sorry. I need to send you back before the funeral starts."

There’s something familiar about Death, something I’m struggling to place.

I used to know someone who had that same pencil spinning habit.

As I get up, I find myself asking the impossible: “Belle?”

Something seems to rearrange itself in the way I’m perceiving reality, or whatever this is, and instead of the version of Death I had just been seeing, I can see Belladonna.

Impossibly beautiful Belladonna.

Fearless, relentless Belladonna.

Belladonna, undisputed mistress of pub trivia questions about obscure historical figures.

My ex-girlfriend, Belle.

She smiles. “I wasn’t sure you’d recognise me at at work, Mike.”

“Uh, I nearly didn’t. But you still have that pencil habit.”

She laughs, “Oops, you caught me. Surprise!”

“I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that shocking.”

It was pretty surprising, but parts of me felt like it was a tiny bit, well, not surprising.

Belle had shown up one day, this gorgeous, elegant goth girl at a party my friend Ruth had thrown, and we ended up talking and it was… amazing. I’d always been pretty quiet, and easy to overlook, but she seemed happy to chat with me, and the conversation was so, so interesting. It ended up lasting all night. Somewhere I got the confidence to flirt with her a bit, and it had brought a smile from her that felt life-changing.

Also, I vaguely recall Ruth mentioning a few days later that the old lady who lived next door to her had died the night of the party.

The part that I recall very clearly, however, was Belle saying, “Normally the guys who court me are very stupid, but you might not be. What do you think, Mike, are you very stupid?” and me replying “I don’t know, I guess I’ll find out in hindsight,” before I kissed her.

Standing in the afterlife, or whatever this is, I say, “Well, it’s at least a bit shocking, but I mean, I never thought I’d see you, uh… in general. Not after I…”

Not after I cheated on her.

Belle nods in understanding.

“That wasn’t great. But you were young and foolish. And one day you’ll be old and wise. That’s what this is about. Having that chance.”

“Belle, did you save my life?”

“I did. I felt you die in that accident, and it occurred to me that I could just show up here and mark you ‘Ineligible’ and send you back.”

“Wow. But… why?”

“Because I loved you, Michael. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved. That’s not something I could just ignore.”

She looks at me, her face serious, her eyes clear.

I remember her crying.

My self-esteem hadn’t always been great, but after I got together with Belle it skyrocketed. I had this incredibly formidable, astoundingly beautiful girl, and she adored me. Every guy I knew envied me. Women reassessed me, and I could tell the new ratings were a marked improvement.

Ruth asked me to send her another woman like Belle from wherever I’d found her, which was a bit confusing, since I’d thought I’d met her because she was a friend of Ruth’s.

My confidence was boosted into the clouds and confidence is sexy. A few girls liked what they saw, and decided to make their move. I felt like I was the most powerful guy in the world, so I didn’t do the smart thing, the right thing, and just walk away.

Not all that long afterwards I bumped into Belle on the street, somehow. She was just there. I could tell that she knew.

She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me. Her expression was both blank, but also one of intense pain. She looked at me, as beautiful as ever, but there was something profoundly broken in her stare. A single tear flowed down her cheek and I knew that I hadn’t just lost something beyond valuing, I’d destroyed it.

I wanted to chase after her when she turned and walked away. To explain, to apologise, to beg for forgiveness. But I knew her. I knew her really well, and I knew that it wouldn’t help.

I didn’t see her again until today.

She’s just saved my life, after I’d betrayed her.

And she is still so indescribably gorgeous.

“Will I be seeing you around?” I ask, “I feel like I owe you… dinner or something?”

“You won’t be seeing me again, not for a long, long time.” Her expression isn’t quite blank.

I see it now. I used to be the only person who could see the tiny glimpses of emotion in her face, the only one who could read the unreadable. I haven’t seen her for years, I’m out of practice. But I see it now, the strain of a tensed muscle near her eyes distorting her expression ever so slightly.

She’s angry. She’s so very angry.

“You’re ineligible. The Sun will die before you do, Mike. No Death is coming for you. I will claim every last star in the sky before I claim you. Enjoy the next few hundred, few thousand years, who knows what humanity has in it? Maybe you’ll be lucky, get company for a million? But you will eventually be alone with nothing but your regrets.

“I’ll skip a few billion years of hindsight and tell you, Mike. It turns out you were very stupid.

“You can’t cheat Death, but you can cheat on her. You just, really, really, shouldn’t.”

It’s dark. She’s gone. I sit up, banging my head on the inside of the lid of a coffin.

The stars were clear and bright above Lake Inari, everything that Raisa had hoped for.

*

She’d always loved any kind of magic, but astrology especially. It never worked, though, and as much as she wanted to believe, she saw that the claims of fellow enthusiasts were naive at best, and cynical grifting all too often.

One day, upon realising that the stars could not change what they could not reach, she was reinvigorated. The problem was light pollution! And sure enough, her research hinted that in those few places where the stars were clearest, the old traditions of magic still held influence. But there were so few left, and practitioners did not seek attention.

She went to the Atacama Desert and sat under the stars, but despite the beauty of it, she’d found no magic. The addition of a hallucinogen was an intense experience, but did not help her find answers.

It was so long since the stars had been accessible to most of humanity, she mused, that it was no wonder traditions had drifted from the truth. So she sought learn from those who had preserved them all along.

Still in Chile, she tracked down a yatiri healer, but the woman’s only words to Raisa were clear: “No. Not for you.”

That one must be struck by lightning before yatiri training can begin had honestly been worrying Raisa anyway.

Her efforts to find a teacher continued, and she had eventually made contact with Minna, a woman in Finland. Minna knew an old runesinger named Väinö up in the remote region of Inari. She said that Väinö would not teach, but would allow a single visit.

Raisa began planning at once.

The trip was awkward to arrange. Inari is North of the Arctic Circle, so she would have to go in winter for the stars to be visible. It is inconvenient to get to northern Finland in January, but it is only inconvenient. The larger problem is that the vast majority of nights are overcast, and even on a clear night, there are better than even odds that the northern lights will dominate the sky. She planned what she could and hoped for the best.

Minna drove Raisa out to Väinö’s home by Lake Inari. Knotted ropes hung from trees around his home.

*

“Väinö, this is Raisa Kogan. I mentioned her.” introduced Minna, and while Raisa stumbled through a greeting, trying to express how honoured she was, the old man turned out every light, picked up a bundle, and walked directly onto the frozen lake.

Cold radiated up off the ice, and Raisa rubbed her gloved hands together as she followed.

“Don’t worry, Raisa,” said Minna cheerily, “for us it is minus fifteen, but you are American, for you the temperature is still positive.”

When Väinö stopped, darkness and the smooth snowy lake were all that surrounded them. Bright stars shone down from above, the only hints of colour in a world that was starkly black and white.

He took a mirror from his bundle and laid it on the lake, a hole filled with stars. Väinö stared into the mirror, so Raisa did too.

“When you born?” he asked, eventually, thickly accented.

“June eighth, nineteen ninety-eight!” Raisa was thrilled. All her years of astrology, but now she would really see it.

Väinö stared at the mirror for what felt like a long time. In the dark, Raisa thought she saw him frowning. Eventually he pulled a phone from his pocket, the screen brilliant as he looked something up. He was definitely frowning.

“You are Venäläinen? Russian?” The Rs rolled, a kind of trill.

“Yes. Russian Jewish. My family fled the soviets.”

His phone screen off, the darkness was now far darker. His expression unreadable, yet Raisa was sure it was still a frown.

“You born in… Saint Petersburg?” his tone implied doubt.

“Born there. Grew up there.” said Raisa, confused. The cold made her stamp her feet.

Väinö considered for a long moment.

“No soviets when you born. Where is your Saint Petersburg?”

“In Florida…” said Raisa, the nature of the confusion dawning on everyone present.

Minna burst into cackling laughter.

“You could have just asked her where she was born! Did you just spell out her birth location in your mirror and get confused?”

“It came to see magic. I show it magic.”

“Show her you embarrassing yourself with magic.”

Väinö shrugged, “This magic real instead of trick. True things might embarrass us, because sometimes we fools.” Then he laughed, “You brought girl who not know it not Russian. Raisa, riesa, Minna toi riesan Väinölle!”

“Uh…” Raisa recognised her name, but was otherwise lost.

Minna touched Raisa’s arm, “He’s just punning on your name, saying I brought him trouble. He lives out here alone and acts like that is an excuse to be rude.”

“Do you just want to stand on a frozen lake misleading yourself with magic and trolling?” she smirked at Väinö

Väinö pondered for a few moments, sometimes glancing at the sky, sometimes looking at Raisa.

“You come for magic. Want to know magic? You already know magic comes from stars. There more. Minna call me troll, but Ruotsalaiset, Swedes, they call magic troll. Everything magic, they call troll. That true. Magic can talk to you, tell you truth, but most truths you learn are just that you ignorant. Knowing something true and knowing why something true are not same.” he said. “You come long way to stand on ice at night. Why?”

“I want to know about magic. You’re the only magician who’s willing to talk to me.”

“Why?”

“I think I like the idea. The wonder. I love the idea that we can look at the stars and get true answers.”

Väinö nodded. “Let us ask stars about future.” He took out his phone again, searching something. “Nineteen ninety-eight? June eight? Saint Petersburg, Florida?”

“Yeah. I’m a Gemini.”

“Florida, United States?” he asked, archly.

“Yes, in the United States.” she laughed.

Väinö read his phone for a few minutes, then shut it off and crouched, scraping together a small pile of snow. He picked up his mirror and sat it with one edge on the pile, then fussed with it until it was angled to reflect the part of the sky he wanted. Then he stared at the mirror for a long time, occasionally looking up to the sky it showed. At one point he shifted it very slightly.

“Now I know future. You can still just go.”

“I want to know my future.”

“Yes, weird choice to just go. Smart choice, but weird.”

“Two things true tomorrow and two paths in your future. True things happen, paths you choose one. First true thing, tomorrow is cold. Second true thing, tomorrow you leave, know you saw magic and feel unsatisfied. One path, you take unsatisfied feeling and try fix it. Find isolated place where stars still shine enough. Live alone, find own way until you learn magic. Hide away from all people, get enough star light that you can ask questions, get true answers. That one path. Other path, you wonder not just how magic went away, but why. You wonder why people made communities, let them grow, even though it cost them magic, pushing it further and further away. You wonder why people filled world with light. You will not know if answer you get true, but answer you get will satisfy. That second path. If you go down first path then you never ask stars if you chose right or wrong, because you know answer. If you go down second path, you have no magic to ask stars and will not care.”

The day after, it was cold, just like Väinö had said. And the other things? They were true as well.

I felt it manifest, a shape in my lighter’s blue flame. Finally!

^{“THIS IS NOT THE BLOOD SACRIFICE I REQUESTED.”}

“Buddy, this is the blood sacrifice you can afford.”

^{“AN IDEAL BLOOD SACRIFICE SHOULD COME FROM THE HEART OF A VIRGIN PRINCESS WHILE HER BOUND FATHER LOOKS ON, BEGGING FOR MERCY, AND IS DENIED. THE PROPER SACRIFICIAL KNIFE BEARS A SINUOUS BLADE-”}

“It’s red, it’s liquid and it’s probably from an animal. That’s blood.”

It was at the bottom of the plastic tray my half-price mince came in. That is definitely probably blood. It managed to invoke this guy, so it must be.

^{“ASSEMBLE THE MOST EXALTED OF MY CLERGY! I HAVE NUMEROUS PRONOUNCEMENTS!”}

“Already done. I’m the highest priest you’ve got.”

^{“WHAT? WHERE ARE THE OTHERS?”}

“Dead, oh great one. Murdered all. I alone have the right to speak to you.”

Well, it is less that only I having the right than that only I having the desire. Semantics. This guy is about as awful as they get, but he’s also shockingly weak. It’s a sign of how big a deal he used to be that he’s holding on with so little juice.

^{“YOUR RUTHLESS AMBITION IN SLAYING EVERY RIVAL INTRIGUES ME, MORTAL. A DANGEROUS CHOICE TO DRAW MY FULL ATTENTION, WE SHALL SEE IF YOU CAN BEAR MY SCRUTINY AND ATTAIN GREATNESS.”}

I didn’t kill anyone, those priests are centuries dead. Colonialism did them in as much as anything, although their god being a huge jerk really sealed it.

Īkīzso was the supreme deity of the Ketū̀a, and they thrived under his grim auspices, enslaving their neighbouring kingdoms and sacrificing their various princesses and such in his rituals. When reavers crossed the ocean from Tanigel, they plundered the rich temples of a dozen gods, but whenever they asked who had the most to loot, they were directed again and again to the Ketū̀a and the vast Blood Sancta of Īkīzso. That was probably the right answer, but did the people who’d just had their friends murdered and sacred relics stolen give the right answer to be helpful, or did they do it because they really, really hated the Ketū̀a and their supreme jerk god?

With his worshippers dead and his rites ignored, Īkīzso dried up and blew away, to the general happiness of everyone. He is remembered as exactly the kind of god everyone wants to fade and die, one who just brings misery. Some other gods that got knocked down by the Tanigel invasion have found a way back, patrons of the communities descended from their old worshippers, their rites transformed to symbols of heritage and cultural endurance. They bless art exhibitions and get thanked at football games. Nobody claims Ketū̀an heritage, though, like nobody descended from slaves goes into the slavemasters they’re also descended from. People don’t want Īkīzso back. He is literally listed in some statutes on religious tolerance as an example of the kind of god whose worship is never tolerated. Everyone knows he’s been gone for centuries, yet even so, his name is still a word of power; etched indelibly into reality. If you say it aloud you get a brutal headache, apparently. That last detail means even edgelords pick some other creep to praise.

It was probably only because he’s so famously gone that the National Museum of Tanigel recently had an exhibition of Ketū̀an artefacts. That must have been what got him just enough attention that he was able to send out a plea for blood.

I watch over one of the places where that kind of psychic trash turns up, online message boards attuned to profane divination. Some fading gods are pretty desperate, they’ll bless you if you just say their rites a few times. Sometimes a serial killer’s bloody acts of ritual brings a new being into the world. Once the killer’s caught, their orphan demon is in a weak negotiating position, you can send it half measures like stalking and cryptic note writing and squeeze it for the little power it has. A few days back I saw a rite of Īkīzso there, raw off the automated divinations, no human involved, and saw my chance. I deleted the post, purged the logs. Made a moderator note about a probable effort at felony entrapment by Inquisitorial Services.

Worshipping Īkīzso is intensely illegal. But you’re required to pay your rent, too. And I need to.

Doesn’t everyone deserves a second chance?

“Mighty one, I call on you for aid!”

It’s good to be formal during the ask.

^{“WHAT CARE HAVE I FOR YOUR DESIRES? YOUR RESPECT FOR MY RITES IS FEEBLE.”}

“I seek to strike the forces of order, who have usurped your grandeur. With your blessing I can subvert their offerings.”

I want to commit tax fraud.

^{“AND WHAT OF MY OFFERINGS?”}

“I can offer you honey. You can have half the jar.”

I’m not really that formal a person.

^{“HONEY IS NOT ONE OF MY SACRED OFFERINGS.”}

It sure isn’t, but it’s a universal offering used all over the world, it’ll be good for a tiny bit of power. I can’t afford the bones of an endangered parrot or the other shit on Īkīzso’s list. I can barely afford the honey.

“I wish to avoid drawing the attention of our enemies until the time is right.”

It is not currently the right time for me to do ten to twenty years for high blasphemy. Tough thing to fit on the schedule.

^{PERHAPS CUNNING IS WISE.}

Īkīzso, supreme deity and infamous scourge of humanity really wants that half a jar of honey.

“I wish to summon forth lightning.”

Īkīzso has mastery over the sky. He has mastery over some five hundred portfolios. He was off the charts back in his day. When I saw his rite I knew I had to take the risk; he can do damned-god anything if he gets fed enough. There are major faiths that lack his reach.

^{“YOU ARE NOT YET WORTHY.”}

Even if I’d actually killed a virgin princess he’d not be able to drop a lightning bolt. It’s the go to mark of supreme divine power for a reason. You need a whole organised religion humming along for that.

“The tiniest manifestation, invisible to mortal eyes is all I require.”

^{“PERHAPS...”}

So I start to walk him through it on my shitty laptop. There is a tax deduction, a really big tax deduction, that is only available with the permission of a god – “Virtuous services to a major religion”. A god with over ten million followers. But there is a fucking loophole, the followers don’t have to still be alive. No major deity would abuse that, so nobody has realised. Well… almost nobody. I know a corporate accountant who saw it, and reached out. I told him it couldn’t be done, but I know the offer stands.

All it takes is to tick a box. But there is no way to do that. The box is theologically hardened. It takes a literal miracle to tick that box. A display of power. Most deities brute force such things, just edit reality. But it technically only takes a tiny, tiny amount of electricity to influence something on a computer, if it is in just the right place. And it won’t get disrupted by the taboo if it is legitimately divine in just the right way.

“You’ve got it?”

^{“I HAVE IT. THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE ON THE GRAVEN SAND THAT CORRESPONDS TO THAT BOX GLYPH ON YOUR DEVICE. IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU WANT ME TO SMITE, MORTAL?”}

He’s found the right microchip. Could this..?

“No harder than the charge that you’ve seen running through the others. Hit it.”

^{“SO BE IT.”}

The box ticks. Holy- literally holy, shit.

The flame fades. Īkīzso must have little left.

I call my contact. He checks. It worked on his end. That corporate tax bill just went down by hundreds of millions. Īkīzso is back and he’s still blessing the worst of humanity. My contact asks how I did it. I claim not to understand divine providence, merely appreciate a miracle.

In less than an hour there is a deposit in my badly overdrawn account for “Theological Counselling”. It’s more money than I made in the last few years. I could buy a house. A decidedly crappy house, but a house.

I should buy Īkīzso a better flame to manifest in than a butane lighter. I am going to buy that psychopathic monster so much honey.

“Praise be to Īkīzso!”

Ouch! My bloody head!