Tealight (Ihina)
- Location
- New Zealand
"No,"
The door slams shut.
Professor Quinn bent forward, bracing hands against knees as she caught her breathe in the broken city.
The Little Goddess had not been kind. Not in her failure to collect Ihina, nor in the moment where she had pulled flesh out of her body to heal some broken hero.
The girls lack of gentleness was one of the things Ihina admired in the girl, that queenly sense of entitlement, one of the few good lessons her father had instilled in her.
It was also a pain in the ass when Ihina was on the receiving end of it.
Of course, if she were gentle it would be a liability we'd have to work around all the time.
Uggghhh.
Pitter patter, pitter patter,
Can you break me down,
klitter klatter, klitter klatter,
run right out of town.
Ihina stood herself back up, hammered at the door again.
It had taken twelve minutes to jog here. Puffing and wheezing as she went.
The reduced weight was a blessing. The bone tired exhaustion in her bones, and reduced muscle mass less so.
There was also the hole in her guts, where her stomach growled and cursed, insisting that she stop for a meal, and maybe twelve kilos of chocolate cheescake.
Fuck you...
Goddess...
just...
Ihina glanced over her shoulder, out across the submerged car park, the shadowy buildings.
Am I being followed?
Have they found me yet?
The city was dead. Broken. There were... random items, washed up on the bonnets of cars. Bits of the streets themselves, and pot holes, sunken patches of road. A single pipe still bubbling water.
She was standing on the steps outside a back door, a few centimeters above water level.
Her clothes were soaked.
Were there eyes out in the gloom. Were there other things watching...
It would take time for enemies to find her.
Time and resources...
But even if Lawyer Carol had forced through her bail (or whatever), Coil was still in charge of the PRT, and could point other threats her way....
A ferret is a cunning beast,
that slinks along the bay,
and finds itself a tasty feast,
in birds along the way.
She caught her breath, stood up, set to hammering at the door a second time.
The door swung open, and Faultline stepped forward, grabbing Ihina by the collar and pushing her to the edge of the staircase.
She allowed herself to be pushed back, hands held up, not fighting.
It's only a few steps drop. Shoved into water. Nothing to bad...
"Would you cut it out?"
"Parlay?"
"What?"
"Parlay!"
"I'm not a fucking pirate, professor. Why the fuck would you-"
"Come on...."
"Shut it"
Faultline shook her, and she didn't bother to resist it, half falling, half slithering off the step, dragging Faultline down and splashing into the pitch black water below.
Faultline let go over her, turned to go back inside.
"I need somewhere to stay."
"Not my problem."
"I can pay you,"
"We're not a hotel," Faultline reached out for the door handle, began to close the door.
"Information. I can pay you in information."
The woman paused.
You don't really care about the information do you.
Just want the excuse. Want to do the right thing, need to pretend like you're a hard woman.
"Fine. Just promise to shut your mouth and not talk to me till the morning."
"Stay,"
Ihina took a half a step forward.
"Stay! On the tiles. You're dripping sewage everywhere, you're-"
She stayed.
Her dress was ruined.
Her hands were all deformed and wrinkly. She could see her veins and tendons now, all to easily.
The room was as it was before. A private VIP lounge, this time lit by tea lights rather than sunlight, Gregor the Snail lying on a couch in the corner next to the bar/kitchenette area.
Kitchenette
Ihina took half a step, gravitating towards it, then stopped short as Faultline returned to the room, slinging a towel at her, along with a dressing gown.
"Bathroom. No water. Get changed and chuck that filthy dress out the window or something."
But its my favourite!
She followed instructions, ducking into the unisex bathroom, and wriggling out of the drenched summer dress.
Folded in amongst it was a cell phone, and then a second cell phone, and then a battery.
Right. Messerene's phone.
She'll probably have a replacement by this time tomorrow, but in the mean time...
Could I have called her for help?
Could I have contacted the Elites?
Probably not wise.
Ihina thought about the dozen or so dicks she had drawn on the girls face and sniggered.
The bathroom also was lit by candlelight. No water, no power, just the room, sink, toilet, mirror, with a reflection of the tea light in the mirror, and a reflection of Ihina herself and-
She met the reflection's eyes. Startled at the face, the harried hair, the unfamiliar body shape.
But my body is not me.
I am me.
My body is just a meat sack, and now it is a different shape.
When did I first realize that?
When was it, at school? with all the other girls worrying about the changes that were happening to them, and I realized this is not me.
Disembodyment, anti-establishment, mind-body dualism. Mind monism.
Kleptomania, dysphoria, ambidexterous, disjunction, orthogonal projection.
I am a collection of pretty thoughts.
A thread, a ghost, a dream,
a blurring of definitions, a reaching out, a reflection,
a picture of the world inside the world.
Air drained in and out of the body.
That would make it harder.
Believing that your body was you.
Harder taking injuries. Harder being ugly, or pretty, or... different.
She thought about Gregor the snail outside. Newter. Coral.
What are thoughts made of?
What is love?
Love is a verb. Love is a measure of how much suffering you will pay to keep someone as part of your life.
Have I ever been in love? Do I want to?
She finished drying. Not breaking eye contact with the scarecrow in the mirror, an awareness of skin, and sharp candlelit reflections, and mirrors at the back of the room, and on the ceiling so that there were reflections of reflections of reflections, a tiny abyss of stars.
And if I started singing opera, the light would flicker. Thermo-acoustic resonance. The same phenomena that destroyed Apollo thirteen, the same...
There was the knocking at the door.
She finished drying. Finished running the fluffy towel over rumpled skin, then threw on the dressing gown, pocketed cell phones, and stepped outside.
Faultline was standing by with a plastic bag, holding it out.
"For the dress," she explained, and then looked past Ihina. "And the shoes."
Ihina nodded, and then placed the offending items within the plastic, which was rapidly tied tight, and tossed to the bottom of the stairs.
Ready to be retrieved as needed in the morning.
mourning
mooring
Mawing: To open ones maw in a threatening manner.
Maw:
The jaws or throat of a voracious animal.
A place for tying boats.
An additional amount.
An extensive waste covered with patches of heath, and having a poor, light soil
Briefly she stepped towards the window, looking outside, and finding only reflections.
Can a city be described as a moor?
Certainly the soil quality is low.
When Leviathan hits a city, does it reduce or increase soil quality?
Many kinds of natural disaster effect soil quality.
Volcanoes lay down a layer of fertile ash... but also acid.
Earthquakes lead to liquefaction, uplifting dust and silt.
And still.
"Grab a couch when you want to sleep professor."
Ihina looked over and nodded, but didn't speak.
Faultline left the room.
Going to weep.
Going to break.
Going to pound her fists and curse, and swear and hate.
She could respect that.
She could respect a lot about the woman. Forcing herself together. Making her way in what was all too often a man's world. Solving mysteries.
A woman with real steel in her spine, but also with the softness to care for people.
Neither predator nor prey. Neither queen nor slave.
Awake.
Awake, and hurting now.
Ihina's eyes drifted past the doorway, past Gregor the Snail, still resting on the couch.
Kitchenette.
The thought hooked onto something in her brain, and she made her way over, stepping past Gregor, and raiding the shelves, rattling around until she found a draw almost entirely filled with salted peanuts.
YES.
When she stood up, the room was filled with candles.
Too many candles, more candles than there ought to be, and they were still glowing even though everyone had gone to bed, even though they were a fire hazard.
She tore open a packet of nuts, scrabbled a handful out of the packet, and threw them down.
Too loud, too loud.
I'm making too much noise, Faultline will come out and tell me off for eating all the snacks.
She glanced at Gregor, checked that he wasn't watching, then stuffed another couple packets of nuts into the bathrobe.
He's watching the candles.
What the fuck?
They've been up for twenty hours and he's watching the candles.
She rustled through the packet, pulling out more salted goodness.
"It's for Spitfire, isn't it?"
She tilted her head back, poured the nuts in, her stomach growling in appreciation.
Fucking hell I needed that.
When she looked back down, Gregor was looking at her.
"Yes, professor."
Okay.
Fuck.
Ummm...
"She used them for target practice. When she was training with her power."
Fuck.
Fuckidy fuck fuck fuck.
She wanted to pace, but that wasn't the right thing, and she wanted to chew on her own fingers, but that wasn't okay either, and she hadn't realized it but she was eating in a temple, and it didn't look much like a temple, but it was one, because-
Because a temple is a place of worship
a place of spiritual awakening.
It doesn't matter what shape it is
and-
She walked to the couch opposite Gregor's and sat down.
He wants me to leave him alone. He want's to be alone to mourn. Alone with the candles.
Alone with Spitfire.
"I owe you,"
The words hurt to say, and it was the wrong time, and she wasn't supposed to say them, and there were no icons for this.
There were no icons for expressing appreciation, for-
"I owe you because you protected me, and the Little Goddess, and because we wouldn't have got her back without you."
The man moved. Bulky. Strange viscous fluids spilling out from beneath him, dripping over the floor.
His hands were transparent. Translucent.
I can see how they are moving…
"We have been paid professor. We will be paid more."
"I know, but-" -personal, presence, persecution, profit, promise, porous, peregrine, pact- "- I owe you something. Me personally. And… I promised to pay your boss lady in information so… so if there was something you wanted… a question… if… if there was something you wanted to ask now, without everyone else… something you want to know..."
She forced herself to meet his eyes as she trailed off.
I don't know how to deal with tragedy.
The candles surrounded them.
Soft light, flickering.
Gregor held her gaze for a while, then looked past.
Please. Please just tell me something to give you.
A question. A question that I can answer…
"She was given a power that could only be used to hurt people."
No.
Don't tell me that. This again? Don't-
"She never did. She never hurt a single person with that power."
A moment passed, and then his gaze settled back on Ihina. His gaze, with the translucent head, those translucent eyes, catching at the candlelight.
"Can you say the same, professor?"
The door slams shut.
Professor Quinn bent forward, bracing hands against knees as she caught her breathe in the broken city.
The Little Goddess had not been kind. Not in her failure to collect Ihina, nor in the moment where she had pulled flesh out of her body to heal some broken hero.
The girls lack of gentleness was one of the things Ihina admired in the girl, that queenly sense of entitlement, one of the few good lessons her father had instilled in her.
It was also a pain in the ass when Ihina was on the receiving end of it.
Of course, if she were gentle it would be a liability we'd have to work around all the time.
Uggghhh.
Pitter patter, pitter patter,
Can you break me down,
klitter klatter, klitter klatter,
run right out of town.
Ihina stood herself back up, hammered at the door again.
It had taken twelve minutes to jog here. Puffing and wheezing as she went.
The reduced weight was a blessing. The bone tired exhaustion in her bones, and reduced muscle mass less so.
There was also the hole in her guts, where her stomach growled and cursed, insisting that she stop for a meal, and maybe twelve kilos of chocolate cheescake.
Fuck you...
Goddess...
just...
Ihina glanced over her shoulder, out across the submerged car park, the shadowy buildings.
Am I being followed?
Have they found me yet?
The city was dead. Broken. There were... random items, washed up on the bonnets of cars. Bits of the streets themselves, and pot holes, sunken patches of road. A single pipe still bubbling water.
She was standing on the steps outside a back door, a few centimeters above water level.
Her clothes were soaked.
Were there eyes out in the gloom. Were there other things watching...
It would take time for enemies to find her.
Time and resources...
But even if Lawyer Carol had forced through her bail (or whatever), Coil was still in charge of the PRT, and could point other threats her way....
A ferret is a cunning beast,
that slinks along the bay,
and finds itself a tasty feast,
in birds along the way.
She caught her breath, stood up, set to hammering at the door a second time.
The door swung open, and Faultline stepped forward, grabbing Ihina by the collar and pushing her to the edge of the staircase.
She allowed herself to be pushed back, hands held up, not fighting.
It's only a few steps drop. Shoved into water. Nothing to bad...
"Would you cut it out?"
"Parlay?"
"What?"
"Parlay!"
"I'm not a fucking pirate, professor. Why the fuck would you-"
"Come on...."
"Shut it"
Faultline shook her, and she didn't bother to resist it, half falling, half slithering off the step, dragging Faultline down and splashing into the pitch black water below.
Faultline let go over her, turned to go back inside.
"I need somewhere to stay."
"Not my problem."
"I can pay you,"
"We're not a hotel," Faultline reached out for the door handle, began to close the door.
"Information. I can pay you in information."
The woman paused.
You don't really care about the information do you.
Just want the excuse. Want to do the right thing, need to pretend like you're a hard woman.
"Fine. Just promise to shut your mouth and not talk to me till the morning."
"Stay,"
Ihina took a half a step forward.
"Stay! On the tiles. You're dripping sewage everywhere, you're-"
She stayed.
Her dress was ruined.
Her hands were all deformed and wrinkly. She could see her veins and tendons now, all to easily.
The room was as it was before. A private VIP lounge, this time lit by tea lights rather than sunlight, Gregor the Snail lying on a couch in the corner next to the bar/kitchenette area.
Kitchenette
Ihina took half a step, gravitating towards it, then stopped short as Faultline returned to the room, slinging a towel at her, along with a dressing gown.
"Bathroom. No water. Get changed and chuck that filthy dress out the window or something."
But its my favourite!
She followed instructions, ducking into the unisex bathroom, and wriggling out of the drenched summer dress.
Folded in amongst it was a cell phone, and then a second cell phone, and then a battery.
Right. Messerene's phone.
She'll probably have a replacement by this time tomorrow, but in the mean time...
Could I have called her for help?
Could I have contacted the Elites?
Probably not wise.
Ihina thought about the dozen or so dicks she had drawn on the girls face and sniggered.
The bathroom also was lit by candlelight. No water, no power, just the room, sink, toilet, mirror, with a reflection of the tea light in the mirror, and a reflection of Ihina herself and-
She met the reflection's eyes. Startled at the face, the harried hair, the unfamiliar body shape.
But my body is not me.
I am me.
My body is just a meat sack, and now it is a different shape.
When did I first realize that?
When was it, at school? with all the other girls worrying about the changes that were happening to them, and I realized this is not me.
Disembodyment, anti-establishment, mind-body dualism. Mind monism.
Kleptomania, dysphoria, ambidexterous, disjunction, orthogonal projection.
I am a collection of pretty thoughts.
A thread, a ghost, a dream,
a blurring of definitions, a reaching out, a reflection,
a picture of the world inside the world.
Air drained in and out of the body.
That would make it harder.
Believing that your body was you.
Harder taking injuries. Harder being ugly, or pretty, or... different.
She thought about Gregor the snail outside. Newter. Coral.
What are thoughts made of?
What is love?
Love is a verb. Love is a measure of how much suffering you will pay to keep someone as part of your life.
Have I ever been in love? Do I want to?
She finished drying. Not breaking eye contact with the scarecrow in the mirror, an awareness of skin, and sharp candlelit reflections, and mirrors at the back of the room, and on the ceiling so that there were reflections of reflections of reflections, a tiny abyss of stars.
And if I started singing opera, the light would flicker. Thermo-acoustic resonance. The same phenomena that destroyed Apollo thirteen, the same...
There was the knocking at the door.
She finished drying. Finished running the fluffy towel over rumpled skin, then threw on the dressing gown, pocketed cell phones, and stepped outside.
Faultline was standing by with a plastic bag, holding it out.
"For the dress," she explained, and then looked past Ihina. "And the shoes."
Ihina nodded, and then placed the offending items within the plastic, which was rapidly tied tight, and tossed to the bottom of the stairs.
Ready to be retrieved as needed in the morning.
mourning
mooring
Mawing: To open ones maw in a threatening manner.
Maw:
The jaws or throat of a voracious animal.
A place for tying boats.
An additional amount.
An extensive waste covered with patches of heath, and having a poor, light soil
Briefly she stepped towards the window, looking outside, and finding only reflections.
Can a city be described as a moor?
Certainly the soil quality is low.
When Leviathan hits a city, does it reduce or increase soil quality?
Many kinds of natural disaster effect soil quality.
Volcanoes lay down a layer of fertile ash... but also acid.
Earthquakes lead to liquefaction, uplifting dust and silt.
And still.
"Grab a couch when you want to sleep professor."
Ihina looked over and nodded, but didn't speak.
Faultline left the room.
Going to weep.
Going to break.
Going to pound her fists and curse, and swear and hate.
She could respect that.
She could respect a lot about the woman. Forcing herself together. Making her way in what was all too often a man's world. Solving mysteries.
A woman with real steel in her spine, but also with the softness to care for people.
Neither predator nor prey. Neither queen nor slave.
Awake.
Awake, and hurting now.
Ihina's eyes drifted past the doorway, past Gregor the Snail, still resting on the couch.
Kitchenette.
The thought hooked onto something in her brain, and she made her way over, stepping past Gregor, and raiding the shelves, rattling around until she found a draw almost entirely filled with salted peanuts.
YES.
When she stood up, the room was filled with candles.
Too many candles, more candles than there ought to be, and they were still glowing even though everyone had gone to bed, even though they were a fire hazard.
She tore open a packet of nuts, scrabbled a handful out of the packet, and threw them down.
Too loud, too loud.
I'm making too much noise, Faultline will come out and tell me off for eating all the snacks.
She glanced at Gregor, checked that he wasn't watching, then stuffed another couple packets of nuts into the bathrobe.
He's watching the candles.
What the fuck?
They've been up for twenty hours and he's watching the candles.
She rustled through the packet, pulling out more salted goodness.
"It's for Spitfire, isn't it?"
She tilted her head back, poured the nuts in, her stomach growling in appreciation.
Fucking hell I needed that.
When she looked back down, Gregor was looking at her.
"Yes, professor."
Okay.
Fuck.
Ummm...
"She used them for target practice. When she was training with her power."
Fuck.
Fuckidy fuck fuck fuck.
She wanted to pace, but that wasn't the right thing, and she wanted to chew on her own fingers, but that wasn't okay either, and she hadn't realized it but she was eating in a temple, and it didn't look much like a temple, but it was one, because-
Because a temple is a place of worship
a place of spiritual awakening.
It doesn't matter what shape it is
and-
She walked to the couch opposite Gregor's and sat down.
He wants me to leave him alone. He want's to be alone to mourn. Alone with the candles.
Alone with Spitfire.
"I owe you,"
The words hurt to say, and it was the wrong time, and she wasn't supposed to say them, and there were no icons for this.
There were no icons for expressing appreciation, for-
"I owe you because you protected me, and the Little Goddess, and because we wouldn't have got her back without you."
The man moved. Bulky. Strange viscous fluids spilling out from beneath him, dripping over the floor.
His hands were transparent. Translucent.
I can see how they are moving…
"We have been paid professor. We will be paid more."
"I know, but-" -personal, presence, persecution, profit, promise, porous, peregrine, pact- "- I owe you something. Me personally. And… I promised to pay your boss lady in information so… so if there was something you wanted… a question… if… if there was something you wanted to ask now, without everyone else… something you want to know..."
She forced herself to meet his eyes as she trailed off.
I don't know how to deal with tragedy.
The candles surrounded them.
Soft light, flickering.
Gregor held her gaze for a while, then looked past.
Please. Please just tell me something to give you.
A question. A question that I can answer…
"She was given a power that could only be used to hurt people."
No.
Don't tell me that. This again? Don't-
"She never did. She never hurt a single person with that power."
A moment passed, and then his gaze settled back on Ihina. His gaze, with the translucent head, those translucent eyes, catching at the candlelight.
"Can you say the same, professor?"
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