l’ Pinza do Roz Timorre

There is a point that every engineer looks forwards to and yet, simultaneously, loathes: the first real interaction. Every variable and stress tolerance can be accounted for, you can have perfect confidence in your design, but the moment when your divine intent is brought against the chaos of reality will always put a fear within you. Saleh, now, feels something of that drop.

She looks about; takes stock of her works. Personnel, supplies, procedure. All as it ought to be.

A huge claw moves with uncanny ease, wraps itself joint by joint around her hand. “You’re ready,” Cowie assures her. “Pull the trigger.”

“Thank you.” She’s right. If this is to end in disaster, let it. But let it end.

Sal's hand goes to her receiver, and elsewhere in the ship intercoms crackle to life. “All personnel, this is your captain speaking. Please attend promptly to Habitation Deck Sub-Three. I repeat, all personnel, Hab sub-three.” Then it's done, and she waits.

The soft step of boots against metal flooring announces Nera's arrival before she appears in the doorway. She's been working in hydroponics again, but clearly took the time to change from the clean state of her clothes– worn tank top, cargo pants. For an inconvenienced noble she wears it well.

"Nera!" Saleh smiles her best easygoing smile, and leans back against Loulou's hands– the little woman's been laser-focused with setting her hair to braids for the past few minutes. Around her are all the other Wasps, too– Cowie provides her body as a graceful, curving recline for the two women, Nofie's ferrofluid/drone-suspension subaltern perched at its shoulder, and Agwe bookends the whole scene from the crook of the xenomorph's knee. A tableau of snacks, blankets, and pillows adorn the room, and a projector casts light onto the far wall.

"I wondered if the announcement had caught you at a bad time in your work," she continues in fluid Suldani. "I guess I forgot that it's your first time with this ritual of ours. I could've been more specific."

She keeps her tone as far from mocking as possible, but it's hard to avoid a little smugness, especially as she sees the disgust and dismay of someone who's been absolutely had draws across Nera's face. The noble casts a moment's glance at Cowie– as if she'd betray me like that– and pauses just an instant more before social convention drags her in, finding the remaining free space at Sal's side. Her posture is ramrod straight, keeping wholly contact-free.

Sal, thankfully, isn't alone in appreciating the humor of the moment. "Welcome to (hell) yuri night, Nera," Nofie laughs, before grimacing. "Eugh. Low-confidence on that echo, y'all, I don't fuck with whichever one of (these stupid bitches) me spoke up there."

"Mandatory attendance, always has been and it always will be." Agwe motions to the wall, where a paused image sits of a cave grotto with two absolutely gorgeous women center-frame. "We've got some new stuff on the docket tonight, actually. You haven't missed anything."

Cowie doesn't add to the jibe, for what it's worth, but Sal's sure she can feel the low-pass rumble of a laugh echo through it.

Nera sneers as she puts together what’s on the screen, dropping into Ispisahlari (it means the same to Saleh, but she far prefers its pre-translated phonemes to Galcomm). “Maybe the echo is right. I think whoever picked this might have it out for me.”

"Do not say so before we've even started." Sal sits up, gently but insistently tugs her hair from Loulou's grasp as she does. Now that there's a two-way language divide between them again, her words lose some of the momentary ease. "I was recommended this on the quality of the romances above all else. Whether or not Harrison Armory, who we both hate, can live up to Ispisahlari or Suldani soaps is the test, and we must conduct it in good faith." She grabs for a plate of torn flatbreads, mopping zhoug onto one.

"I'm open to new experiences. That said, it's good to hear you haven't been insulted silent."

"I'm just surprised that you have chosen to induct me into this ritual by testing the merits of a mutual enemy rather than that of a friend," Nera replies. Thank god, she’s going for the food. "I have heard many good things about Sparri and Prosperan offerings, you know."

“I am sure for their quality, but consider. This is our first time being able to commiserate in person. We know what is good, and having it would give this day no special impact. So—” Here she gestures to the screen— “if we are satisfied, it is a revelation. If we are not, our ire extends in the same direction. You see?”

Finally, Nera relaxes. Settles back against a slope of chitin. Launch strain within acceptable limits. “It’s elegant, I’ll admit. But if our opinions differ?”

“That’s the best (possible world) outcome, sometimes.” Nofie’s avatar can’t eat, but she found a few qualic-captured sweets that she pantomimes snacking on as the scene rolls. “It turns into a symposium in here.”

“To spar with blunted blades. It speaks bloodless exertion.”

“Mm. Now come on, let’s keep to topic.” Advance to cruise speed, maintain bearing. “Things are picking up.”

———

Ungrateful is really very good, is the thing. HA propaganda, sure, but well-made at that. Fantastical enough to avoid political snuff status, expertly acted. Almost avant-garde in some shots.

It’s engaging. The whole crew’s locked in, come the second episode. Sal herself can almost forget the bias of its writers. Nera might be having a harder time there— she keeps sneaking glances, but the damn woman has her poise on. At least she’d know if it was upsetting her.

“I am not wholly sure what they are trying to do with us always breaking to the Tilimsani agent. She seems very sympathetic.”

“Does that even make sense for House Sand to be involved? I can’t tell if that’s a reach or not.”

“Wouldn’t feel realistic if Asteria was one-dimensional. But if this is some ‘she sees the light’ stuff, like… that’s gonna be cheap.”

“I don’t understand the appeal of her, actually.” Another look— well, at least someone’s having the wine. “But it does make sense to me, it is an open secret that Sand agents tend to be involved in counterinsurgent activities. What doesn’t make sense is how isolated she is. Why send her in alone for a cell this large? It’s clearly impossible.”

“I gotta guess it’s like— the mythical elevation of the antagonist. Hyper-competent enemy force, right? It lets them put all their character work on her, too.”

Saleh makes a face at that. Maybe she overvalued this show. “Wait, is she a love interest too? That completely went over my head. I don’t mind a star-crossed throuple, but the indications I’d look for are missing.”

She only recognizes her slip a moment before Agwe punishes it. “Remember, this isn’t an Ispisahlari flick. You can’t go off flowers.”

Nera, thankfully, seems just tipsy enough to miss her chance at follow-up. “It just feels like a missed opportunity. Every spy I have known has been deeply petty, the opportunity for a parallel in the same dramatic conflict in the Sand side could make her feel more real and get to their own propagandistic aims.

“Although I suppose the sandmen as some sort of horrifying super spies suits their ends just as well.”

“How many spies you know?” Now’s our chance to get the juice elite secrets.”

“At least three, though two in various stages of retirement. Possibly more, spies and all. You’ve met one of them, actually.”

“I knew it!” Cowie pitches with laughter, and it almost throws Loulou off. “Yeah, ok. Points to Nera for accurate critique, I wanna see ‘Fuckyou’ attitude on Astoria or I riot.”

“You are going to see nothing, we are talking right over the end of the episode,” Sal grouses, but this is exactly what she was hoping for. Everyone at ease, flowing conversation. “You are both going to be talking about a bitchy censor bar and we will miss Bannerjee getting stabbed or eaten alive or kissed or something.”

"I hope it's getting stabbed," Nera offers. "Or they finally do something with the constant teasing that she will burn herself on her kobold's slag lines."

“Well then, pay attention. Though they’re paying her far too much competence for that bit to resolve.”

Five minutes later, right before credits, she burns herself. The room explodes into laughter, and behold; Nera laughs too. Saleh trades barbs, plays into mock outrage for the bit, but internally she’s ecstatic. Her design passes with flying colors.

All that’s left is the punchline. She turns the conversation to what show should follow, nudges believably for an answer when Nera demurs, and—

The screen fades up to white. Text writes in flowery script across the screen:

“Across the glittering field of stars, love will always bring us home!”

“Did I just hear the doors lock?”

“SUPERSTAR ARGOS: PCV DREAMS DELUXE!!”

There’s something Nera wants to say. She keeps almost getting to it, then evading at the last moment. That’s fine, Sal lets her have her time. It’s worth observing this run-up, especially when the woman she’s known so far is so usually determined.

It feels like catching her stumbling over Suldani in the greenhouse. She's wondered, now and again, if those moments were intentional. If Nera, so ready to make a game of things, had placed herself nearer the door in the hopes that her efforts would be noticed. And then she goes and speaks it now, halting and unfamiliar, and Saleh doesn't know what to think.

“Saleh, I want to say am sorry for awkward. I feel bad. I want to ask you question.”

She straightens up, as if pulled by a cord— visceral emotion twines through her in a knot too messy to name. Consideration, then— “You haven’t been learning that long, right? I’m actually impressed.” She articulates her response a little more than necessary, responding in kind. Effort deserves appreciation, and even more so if this is the bid for vulnerability it feels to be. “Especially with what you’ve had to work with; I hear the translations are pretty awful. Ask away.”

“Thank you.” Maybe Nera doesn’t appreciate the assist, but she says nothing of it now. Her focus appears hell-bent on what she has started. “How do you handle the alienation? The, uh, being-gone, live translation.” Her script noticeably deviates, now stumbling, and she corrects. “How do you handle the knowledge that you will probably never return?”

“Iiiiii…” Oh, dear. The question hits like a hand to a drum, echoing within her. All the absurdity and light from moments before rises up and out in an aborted laugh, drifting above them like smoke. “I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask. As far as everyone else seems to be concerned, I haven’t really been ‘handling’ it at all recently.” She can barely disguise her unease with a jab, trying to reclaim some of their normal rhythm. This is kind, she processes; it feels almost wrong.

“You handle it more good. Than me.” Beat. “I’ve been angry. Tired. I feel big vagina in my heart—” Saleh hides her start at the mistranslation, in some ways it’s actually grounding to hear a genuine fuck-up in connotation— “and I don’t know how to fill it.”

Nera motions to the cast of padding and bandage and drain situated over her chest. Behind it, Sal knows, lies a wound as literally staggering.

She pauses, tries to order her thoughts. Breathes.

“It… The wound. You’ve got a good metaphor going on, now.” What an absurd universe, so bent on allegory. There’s a parallel drawn somewhere in her brain, between the noble and a certain monster on her ship, and she hesitates before chasing the comparison away. “You don’t heal it. Or, I can’t heal mine,” she hedges. “Sometimes I try to pack it with things that make me remember home, and— those tend to pick up the bloodstain, after a while.”

Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe she should switch back to Galcomm and not lead Nera by the nose on a language she barely understands. Maybe she’s giving up too much.

“My tantrum earlier, on the omni. That was me letting it soak through. I let my engineering, my friends, become a reminder of how awful everything is. I used to think that was all I needed, find new things to stop it up over and over and over—”

The metaphor’s tortured. She stops and lets go of it, soft resets with a shaken head. She needs a new approach.

“My faith started on Cradle. You might be aware, I dunno.” Now she chooses her words carefully, they feel raw in her throat. “It holds that’s all who believe, so long as they are able, must go there. Go to a city, to a site, and make that hajj. I am at this moment one of the only people from my planet who can do this.” And I have waited long enough already. “When I go, it will be dragging Suldan behind me. I already know it’s going to be the most painful thing in my life, more than leaving. But at least the ache of the wound will mean something.”

Nera’s still cleaning, or pretending to. God, and they even avoid the same way. There’s a nausea, or something like it, that comes in this moment— it’s familiar, if far reduced in magnitude since the rescue. Part of it almost feels like envy: only a few choices other people made, it says, differ her and me.

“The story I told Cowie.” Nera breaks the silence. “The—” and she says a word that Saleh does not know, but the circuitry wired under her jaw whispers a guess through her posterior temporal— “<TITLE:ALLEGORICAL:WHO-TEACHES-AND-LEARNS>. Can not go back. I have tried the fix. <TITLE:ALLEGORICAL:?PERSON?STRUCTURE?-CALLS-TO-SERVICE>’s answer has not fixed it either. For me. I hoped you solved it. But I do not have the same weight.”

Beat.

“I do not speak well. But. You go is not what stop them. But I know the weight is a lot. I do not know the rules, but if you want me to I will help. Carry you? I think we all will.”

Something in her almost bucks. That her heart be made tender, in the same instant that Nera repeats the false equivalence that put a knife in the floor between them— 

She deflects. Reaches for the ache of gratitude instead.

“It would be an honor. I know the planet is nothing special to you, but your presence— I would be so lucky,” she admits. Clears her throat. “That’s not why I say it.

“Your answer was…” And here she pauses again, because this can’t be personal. Nera has had enough of Sal’s opinion, it hasn’t helped. “You built not for yourself, but to your uncle. To the new-old life. I think that right now you sit with your Pathfinder,” and she cannot remember the names of the Passions herself so she says ‘hanif’, “and you need to find what work will let you hear the journey. Your fables have their opinions, but— there’s something to be said for the Wolf,” said the only way she can think. “I’ve had to accept that, recently. What that looks like for you I don’t know. But we’ll carry you, as well, whatever it is.”

She has to hope Nera understands— for a moment something flashes in the woman’s eyes, and Saleh feels it scorch her like flame. Too long a moment later, Nera recovers with a nervous laugh. “I thought you would say <TITLE:ALLEGORICAL:JIHAD> led me wrong. The, uh, augur said it leads me too close.” There’s something on the contrail’s end, right at the edge of her words— is it relief? Who of us does it belong to?

“I. Need to change my bandages.” She gestures again to her staunched wound. “Help me? I need to tell you something else.”

The invitation gets a nod from Sal, who sets down the remainder of the work and nudges her slate to activity. “It’ll want to take care of the rest anyway,” she supplies, indicating the stowaway. “C’mon, medical isn’t far. Aggie will get on us both if we half-ass it.”

They go. It’s a short trip, made shorter by familiarity. Nera almost leads Sal, more familiar with this route than even the captain of the Wings. It’s a strange feeling, maybe nice. Nera is perhaps the second most paranoid person she knows, if this ship can feel like home then it is a victory.

When they arrive it’s Sal who looks around for instruction. A set of prepped supplies sits ready, good planning, and— She glances away for courtesy as Nera unceremoniously strips her top, right there. No curtain. Yes, she’s meant to help, although to what extent she’s unsure, but the moment of transition feels raw. What she does catch, all the same, is quietly stored away.

“Do you mind if I switch back?” Nera’s speaking Ispisahlari now, her words flowing far more gracefully even as Saleh’s c/c is forced to work. “I would have continued, but, aha, I’d like to be as intentional as possible in what I am saying when I tell this story.”

“Feel free. You were doing good, but so long as neither of us need to bring Galcomm into this I’m happy.” She allows herself satisfaction when Nera laughs, smug that someone understands her disdain here.

“The thing I’ve always heard is that we learn Galcomm so that its speakers cannot hide behind the translation whe n they misrepresent you.” Nera picks at old bandages, draws them gory out of the hole punched in her breastbone. 

“Oh, I can imagine it’s a nightmare for diplomacy. How lucky I evaded that job.”

“Pass the alcohol?”

Saleh wets a cotton with the dilute, hands it over and forces herself to study the wound for a moment. She knows it doesn’t hurt her— somehow— but all her instincts rear back at the sight of bare viscera, of skin and bone split to show the cavern where her lungs sit, wet and gently pulsing and with no heart to rest beneath. Of blood, weeping gently down in a rhythmic drip, drip, drip. Working with Cowie’s blended body ill-prepared her for this, but she tries to learn now.

“What do you know of how I got this?” Nera again breaks the silence.

“I heard that you suspected Nofie would understand its significance, and she does not. That places it solidly outside my realm of comprehension.”

“The bastard,” she hisses, the sting of alcohol crumpling her words. “Youd think you'd remember when you cut a girl’s heart out.” Before Sal can act on that deeply troubling sentence, she continues. “That may be unfair. There was a place outside time where she took a number of people to: me, Ma’ii, Sarah, and her wife, and— We seemed temporally erratic. The others that could answer when I checked don’t seem to remember either, so I might be the only one who does right now. I know this is not reassuring.”

“You would think he would remember nearly wiping himself from our memories. I know she doesn’t see it as a sickness but this time stuff has concerned me from the start.”

Saleh rights herself from leaning on the wall. Now her study of Nera’s work is even more focused, as if some magic secret lives in the wound. “I wouldn’t believe, but I don’t need to. You have good proof,” she decides. “So he did this to you?”

“Yes and no. It was initially explained that we were needed to stabilize points in his timeline, parts where she had fractured and sought to regain control. I had seen it as an extension of that tendency he'd gotten into to use ‘time stuff’ to meddle, driven to its logical extreme.” Nera’s hands are methodical at their work, sterilizing the network of drains that lead into her body. “We stepped into those points in time, and for better or worse made sure it played out correctly. We reconciled the impulse, and it marked us in turn.

“I killed Marten.” Beat, roughly the length of a gunshot. “In that version of events, I was the one that landed that blow, on that site, in the rain, and it was visited back on me. I haven’t felt the same since.”

She wants to keep herself even-keeled; shock disperses as quickly and she can make it, hopefully nothing makes it to her expression. She’s used to a smokeglass intermediary; it’s made her skills lag. “I’m… glad you’re not trying to condemn yourself again,” she decides, “because it sounds like the one to suffer was you.” Because that’s the thing, she still remembers how it actually went. The crashing sound of No Future’s ribcage folding in on itself is burned into her mind, so it can’t be Nera’s fault— not in any way that matters. It isn’t let to be. “I’m sorry you had to do that.”

"I admit I may have had more reservations if I knew what I was getting into, but I would go to any length for a friend." She’s not wrong, if this is the apology and point in itself.

But no, she keeps going, and Sal’s perplexity alongside. She likes to think she can read Nera, the opposite is surely true, yet this puzzles her. "There are other parts of this.” Her anxiety seems greater than before. Copping to theoretical murder is easier than… what? “What I wanted to tell you in truth—” She’s so tired. The maiming, her escape, that wasn’t all. “—one of the moments we had to visit was when she decided to expose herself to Sarah’s experience of the battlerage.” She would not tell me this unless she really needed this. So I will do as I’ve promised and give her witness. “When we were there, we were imposed on members of the crew.” I will relieve her of this weight.

“I was placed in your body, and there was some bleed. I was able to use your skills, and. I know more about your time as Court Architect than I have let on.” Sal reaches the point of surety with the plunge of a boar upon its spear, and is rent through.

In an instant her composure shatters. Shame at her deeds brought to light— fear that this could be used against her— an aching kindness that Nera can look at her with any respect, and the pain that it redoubles— deep and formless anger, that this person be made to hold her burden— all of it crashes against her and her words fail. She chokes, her eyes well up and the world smears. 

“—That’s not fair.”

Nera, to her credit, looks distressed. Lost, even, in a way that could be satisfying if it weren’t so damn awful. She begins to say something, and Saleh registers the edge of some vain apology before she shakes her head to knock them aside. “No platitudes.” Her psyche, blasted clean, is too raw to receive them. “Please. I hope you respect me that much.”

She gains control enough to register that Nera’s still looking at her, and it stings. “Finish your fucking bandages, she adds hurriedly, without force. “Let’s not both suffer.”

“…I understand. Help me pack and wrap this then. It’s faster with someone else.”

Bless her.

Sal quiets, taking the out and attending to the wound. It’s still too much blood for her, and her eyes are shot and shiny, and her emotional state rests somewhere between “don’t cry into her goddamned chest hole” and “Lawahiz was right all along”, but her remains deft. Gauze and bandages are set in place, her hands dip within the lacuna and work, touch gracing past exposed lungs and the seam opened between Nera’s breasts. It’s precarious, some still-sane part of her understands. Like Cowie— more so, even.

She watches Nera’s words leave her body before she hears them. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you,” she tenders, halting. “I don’t know where I would’ve gone, but all of the pain I felt through you felt like the pain of home. It’s selfish, coming to lay this at your feet, but it was the first time in a long time I felt like I could trust anyone, because I know you speak to me from experience and a genuine wish to make the world better and not a desire to prove your superiority.”

Saleh responds, and then breaks on a sob. Tries again. “I’m surprised you expected me to have any answers, knowing this.” She wants to say so much and she knows it will ruin her, so she moves instead to assess the damage. “You said we were all imposed on. Lou is— I haven’t told anyone the extent of what I’ve done, down there, but she was who brought me escape. Did anyone, whoever got her, did they…?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about it after, but I know we didn’t react quite the same. Ma’ii did seem to have trouble, though. The bleed was tangible, but in a way that seemed traumatic. I don’t know what that means for them, though.”

Ma’ii. She can’t tell whether that makes her feel safer or even more in danger. “I’ll hope they were occupied with their own troubles,” she responds. The wear of emotion begins to leave her, and in its wake is bone-deep exhaustion. “I wish you had got this out of the way before we had to play our little game back in the hangar… It would have changed what I brought to you, I think. Thank you for telling me now, and—”

She sets a final retaining bandage. Considers her work, considers Nera.

“I’m glad you reached out to us. I don’t think we would have sustained well, kept yet apart. And it’s good to know your state.”

“I’m glad too,” Nera confirms. “I don’t know what going home would’ve been like, but I’m glad I didn’t need to find out.” No doubt those fucking butterflies would have been on her in a second— Saleh’s brain notes another point of familiarity with her closest crew. “I also didn’t tell you then because I was unsure how to broach it. I was recovering, before we spoke, and during… I didn’t want to pull your feet out from under you. I am used, in these situations, to people digging for this information ahead of time and pulling it out as an excuse to display their mastery. It would’ve been unfair to do that to you, in the middle of the hangar. You deserve better than that.”

Nera gets up, and— in the moment that proximity zeroes between them Sal feels the warm brush of lips against her cheek. Then she’s off across the room, washing blood from her hands. It’s… Small, amongst the cavalcade inside. Still too big to observe directly. But she notices it.

“As always, too much doctrine. I beg you think less through.” There, a jibe. Something familiar to hold onto. “At least you’re talking straight with me now. I’m going to go lie down.”