As you climb, each step is tall as your waist. Each step is perfectly polished, with a surface that catches the flickering lights of the braziers nearby. Each step is mottled pink, paler than the skin of an eggshell, and striped with colour as flushed as the Empress’s blood. It gets flushed with yours, too, when your palm skitters on an edge, slits right open and spills, vibrant, across the stone - but when you collapse back onto your rump with a wail, the guards behind you drum the butts of their halberds to the ground in disapproval.

It’s the same sound you’d get, when you gave a wrong answer in the schoolfeeds. It’s a sign to keep climbing, take this as the trial it is - because it is, isn’t it? It’s a match to your tests. You’re supposed to give the answers they want, when they want it, and not cry just because the screen’s gone blurry.

But your schoolfeeds are wind-swept with fresh air through the windows, and the scent of bread within them. It’s easy to stay calm there. You’ve never cut yourself during one of those! And you’d certainly never choked on the fucking air there, which’s the only reason you’re not squalling: you can’t get enough in your mouth to build up a proper wail without choking, not even when you bury your face in your knees.

There’s the clink of metal next to your face. The rod of a halberd’s close enough to lean against: when you sniffle, petulant, it brushes the tip of your nose. A cool hand drops on your neck, and then your favourite guard leans down in a rustle of silk. “D’you need me to carry you?” he murmurs. “Because I can, twinkletoes, but -” His claws drum against the fabric of your sherwani. “D’you really want to look like a pupa in front of us all? An even bigger one?”

“I am a pupa,” you sniff. “My fronds hurt.”

“A lot more than your fronds are going to hurt if you don’t hustle.” Something hits the ground next to you, a sharp clatter against the stone. You hiss, jerking back - then Ico drops the halberd’s butt to the ground again, harder this time. “‘fraid I can’t actually carry you,” he admits, watching you through his lashes. His eyes are white, at least, white and yellow all the way through. “C’mon, sweetheart, ‘afore they think I ought to cull you after all -”

And you don’t want to deal with the warning implicit, so you start climbing instead, your mouth clasped sulkily to your palm.

By the time you reach the top, you’re sweating with the effort of it all. The room is swimming orange, from the smoke and your own frustration. You want to go hive. You don’t want to be here anymore, not that you ever did, but the column of red is in front of you. And when you glance back, there’s so many steps that you’d have to go down.

So you approach it instead, and when you’re finally in front of it, orange beading on your forehead, an arm scrubbing peevishly at your eyes - then it opens, and the Empress says:

“Oh.”

Under all the veils, she’s pretty. Prettier than your proctor, prettier than the statues. She’s so soft, in the way only the highest of bloods ever get, with fat, rounded cheeks that’re flush with her blood, and skin that hangs delicately from her chin and her arms. She’s got big, doe-like eyes, and two sets of horns, more brilliantly curved than any you’ve ever seen. (Yours are stumpy. The thought’s never struck you before, but standing here, in front of her - how could it not?) The top set is curved like the maker’s lyre. The bottom.. they’re just like the handmaiden’s on the side, but bigger, and painted white and with swirling runes. At first you think they must be painted. Then she tilts her head, and the firelight catches on them.

They’re etchings. Etchings filled with gold, writing out the sort of stories you could read, you think, if she ever held still long enough.

‘cause she’s not holding still. She’s leaning forward, her hands braced on her knees. Her hair falls in a ripple over her shoulder, in a waft of vanilla that’s almost refreshing, compared to all the spices. “May I?” she asks, polite, holding out a hand - and it takes you a moment to realise what it means.

That she’s asking you.

You nod, stiff. When she smiles, the expression captures her whole wide face, from the scrunch of her nose to the dimples in her cheeks. She looks a little like you, you think. When you’re older, you want to look a lot like her. But it’s strange to think she’s looking back at you as she places her thumb gently on your chin, cups her fingers under it to turn your head one way and then another.

“Oh.” Her teeth are stained black this close, like all of the proctors. But unlike them, her fangs are gold - and her tongue is red as the rest of the room, bright like she’s swallowed the sun and it’s trying to escape, one sliver at a time. “You look just like the both of us, don’t you.” And you don’t know what that means, but maybe you don’t need to, because she sounds so pleased. “What’s your name, child?”

“Sipara Nzinga,” you say, and her expression shifts.

“Of course you are! That was a silly question. But I’m a silly troll, sometimes, so you’ll just have to forgive me my fancies. Well, then. Do you know what the two most important traits are, Nzinga?” And the way she says your name is so strange, in a way you don’t understand. But then the moment passes.

“It’s being kind,” she says, gentle, “and it’s being loyal. Because, you know, when you’ve nothing else, those are the things that matter, and those are the things that’ll pull you through. Anyone can be cruel. It’s easy, being cruel, but to be kind.. that takes strength. It takes character. And what is loyalty, but kindness to the ones that matter the most?”

“Do you think you can manage that?”

You’ve taken so many tests, since they first pulled you into the royal creche. You know, by now, what the answers are supposed to be - so you nod, brisk, and then, as an afterthought, dip into an awkward bob of a curtsy.

“Good,” she says, pleased, and she taps two fingers against your cheek. “The best of my courtiers always can.”

You were assigned to Pheres Dysseu that same night.

    First-hand accounts state that in the aftermath of the Virtuous Empyreals’ Ascension, the Empire was left in chaos. Initial heresayers held that the Demoness was a false god, and the link to the Sun was political maneuvering, borne without basis for the gain of the Empyreal alone. Others claimed that, although the Handmaiden was real, the Empyreals’ position as her avatar was fake. She had never manifested before. Why, they argued, would she appear now?

    The Empyreal faced these accusations with what would come to be known as her usual grace. She said to the nonbelievers: every word out of my mouth is the truth, and every word out of my mouth is a promise. I am the Handmaiden. I am the Demoness. I am the Sun, given form, and I can no more lie than I can snuff out the light that preserves us.

She said to the nonbelievers: what is the Sun, but death rising? Its rays poisons us. Its face blinds us. To live in its shadow kills us, but without it, we will wither, and we will die all the sooner. It gives as it takes, and as the Handmaiden ushers us into life, the Demoness carries us from it.

    She carried the suns heat in her veins, and she carried the suns light in her eyes, and with these, she had ripped the shadows of the deep from the Empire’s very roots. The Empyreal, made in the Demoness’s image, carved from the Sun’s own body, had appeared to shine light on the structure that had borne us, and burn away the rot of its foundation.

    And from the ashes, she said, we would all be borne anew.

--- GUILTY UR-NAMMU

SCHOLAR OF THE FIFTH CENTURY

TWO HUNDRED SWEEPS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION

The problem with loyalty, as it turns out, is that it never goes to quite the right person.

It takes you three nights, and one haul into his bubblebath,  to realise that Pheres Dysseu is nothing short of a hazard to the Empire, to her Empyreal, and to everyone around him.

It takes you three sweeps to decide you’ll cull every single troll in the world to keep him safe anyway.

It’s near-noon, and the sun is a burning ball of hatred up high in the sky. Even under your umbrella, with protection slathered on your husk and the tree canopy extending what feels like miles above you, you’re still sweating like a dog. But this is the problem with visiting colonies like Leafchute. They’re not civilized, like the rest of the Empire. They’re fucking space hicks, content to pretend their tree bridges and root homes count as a society. And while you’re here, you just have to deal with it.

(And of course, of all the planets your people could have chosen in this awful backwater nook of the universe, they always pick the ones with the same kind of sun as back home.)

At least there’s a breeze. But it’s hard to feel like it’s any consolation when it sets the leaves to rustling above you. Everything’s like glass here, from the leaves, to the grass that crunches underfoot, to the dirt that’s currently trying to bore several large holes into your wastechutes. The sound should be soothing! It sounds like something’s getting shattered, over and over again, and it’s ruining your nerves.

The fact Pheres still hasn’t emerged from the river isn’t helping anything, either.

“If he’s not out in, like, five minutes,” you hiss at Riccin, waspish, “you’re going to get in there and fetch him.”

“Fuck off, I ain’t gonna.” Riccin’s not bothered. Riccin’s never bothered, for all that she’s supposed to be his bodyguard, real and proper: she’s so not bothered that she’s got an entire fucking magazine draped over her face, and some jade feeding her grapes right out of his palm.

So you snatch the magazine right off of her face, rolling it up and smacking her in the forehead with it. The jade scatters with a laugh. “Not a conversation, Kayata!” you bark, loud enough to be heard over her hissing. “We have a job to do here, dude, and just ‘cause you want to see how much of your fucking skin’s gonna peel the fuck off out here doesn’t mean ---”

“Excuse me? Oh, little rust,” she purrs, “you forget your fucking place --”

She sits up, looming over you like a bad omen. Another troll would’ve shut the fuck up, probably. Riccin’s always trying to push, push, push, see if one night, you’ll give. Just because you’re a flatscan and she’s an imperial fucking yellow, high enough that her blood’s catty-corners with yours. She thinks that means something. She thinks that just because she’s got sparks snapping off her eyes, it means a single goddamn thing.

She’s wrong, and she has been since the first time she saw you and tried to step the fuck up. There’s ozone burning at the back of your snout. All around you, the locals are wilting, stepping back, their ears pinned and eyes wide. Leafchute has their own mothergrub, and their own culture borne of it: they’re tree hugging greens, the lot of ‘em, too soft to ever leave the planet, and every show of spark terrifies them like you’re setting a torch to their trees. Riccin’s been having a ball, tossing their horns and watching them scatter.

You’ll be fucked if she thinks she can do it with you. And that’s just not how the two of you’s relationship goes. You snatch hold of her braid, yanking hard, and the mechanics on your arms whirr, the oil chugging as the gears activate. She hisses, but when the force increases, she bends. And then you smack the false tine of your golden horns right into hers, hard enough that the sound rings through the trees.

“I have forgotten jack and shit, Kayata. I’m your superior officer, baby, and d’you know what that means?” You lean in. “That means if I say go into the water, you’re already in it.”

Riccin sneers at you, then sticks out her tongue.

“And if you don’t keep that in your mouth, I’m going to bite it off.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat,” she calls over your shoulder, as you turn and flounce towards the water, “or is that a bribe, little rust?”

Your kismesis should be the worst person you know, you sulk, but it’s hard for her to hit that goal when Pheres is still under the waves. It takes another five minutes before he finally emerges, rosy-cheeked and pleased, the skin along his nose and shoulders rippled with colour. There’s a laugh on his lips, and you could hate him for it. Minthe had once sank into the water, centuries ago, and they hadn’t come out after.

The thought haunts you, but it’s never bothered Pheres. He certainly isn’t bothered right now. His hair’s plastered flat to his head and face in strands that stick as he tries to peel them off, but he doesn’t need to see to get back to shore, the ponce. “Pheres!” you wail, and sure enough, he just turns, and starts paddling your way.

You meet him at the shoreline. He’s soaked through to the bone, but he’s hot as a brand, the same as always. When you hook your arm around his waist to haul him up all the way, his gills flutter against your arm, pulsing as they push out the last of the water. “Thank you,” he chirrs at you, pleased, but then he’s wriggling away, spinning to face the waiting crowd.

Standing like this, shirtless, boney, his curls flat and water dripping off of him, he doesn’t look like a heir. But the horns are unmistakable, painted the same white and gold as Medeia’s, and when he pushes the last strands of his hair off of his face - opens his eyes -

- they blaze with the same white fire as the sun high above. “Good afternoon, everyone!” he calls out, his voice crisp and cheerful as he clasps his hands in front of him. “I hope you enjoyed the show! Ah, I certainly did.” He beams at the trolls watching him, all of their gazes rapt. “Congratulations! This has to be some of the best water I’ve ever encountered, I think, and.. heavens, I’ve swam all over the place by now, I think. If this is what mangrove filtration is.. I’ll have to inform the Empyreal that it’s simply smashing. This is far better than the reports said.”

“She’s going to be more than impressed. She’s going to be ecstatic. Ah, who’s in charge of this project? I want to get a name -”

They’re all watching him, rapt, like they’ll die if they look away.

But he’s used to it. Pheres laughs, bright and fond, his teeth biting into his lip. “Ah,” he says, sheepish, “I’m dreadfully sorry, that was presumptive of me, wasn’t it..? That isn’t the way you ask. You! Miss! Up near the front, with the lovely horns..”

The girl steps forward hesitantly, and Pheres flounces forward, takes her hand between his. The light catches on his wrist, the scars ground into them, but she doesn’t seem to notice as he presses his lips to her knuckles. You can’t hear the words he murmurs. You don’t need to.

You know Pheres, and surely enough, a moment later, her face floods green. She laughs. The hunch in her shoulders drop.. and then she turns around, back to the crowd, and calls out something in the clicks that pass off as a language here.

The rest of the ceremony is a blur. Because that’s what this is. It’s a ceremony, just another performance of the hundreds you’ve pulled off this past sweep.

Pheres is the youngest descendant of Her Virtuous Empyrean, and one of the two living Excellencies. He represents justice, and unification, and the judgement of the stars themselves, because his very hatching - only a handful of centuries after the demise of Minthe - was noteworthy, even before he’d finally climbed out of his pupa cocoon with long, frilled gills dragging down his sides. The Empyrean calls him a sign of grace, a way for all trolls to know that the Suns reach extends to everyone, no matter how deep they roam.

Pheres is the way she’ll bring the light of the Sun to the darkest edges of the sea, and his tour is her way of reminding every colony - every troll within her Empire - that her word is the truth, and his very existence is a promise of that.

And he was made for the position, you think. By the time he peels away from the jades, cheeks flushed and beaming, you know it’ll be the same as it has been on every other colony. Trolls love him, in a way they wouldn’t if he was just another troll. If Pheres was a troll, he’d be a poor one. But he’s not. He’s the manifestation of the Empyreal’s will, the spirit of the Sun on Alternia, and so they just take him as he is.

You just take him as he is. He’s pleased as punch as he drifts back to you, linking his arm through yours. His skin sticks to yours, chafing as you walk, but he just laughs. “I think that went well,” he says, and you puff your cheeks at him in response.

“I thought you drowned.”

“If I could drown, Sipa,” he says, “Rmeros would’ve offed me sweeps ago, don’t you think?”

It’s true enough. Rmeros.. he’s never liked his signmate, for all that the three of you try to pretend otherwise. And you understand why! You’re not stupid, and if you’d been Rmeros’s companion, instead of useless, drowsy Loxias.. well, things would be different, that’s all. Pheres’s a threat, for all that no one would ever accept a ruler with gills along his sides. He’s a threat, because as long as the Empyreal has him, she doesn’t necessarily need Rmeros.

After all, once Rmeros had hatched, she hadn’t needed Minthe.

“Pheres.” Your job is to keep him safe, and part of that means watching his mouth, since he’s never apt to. You might be on Leafchute, far from any of the Empyreal’s cameras, but you’re never far from her agents. You hate Riccin. Pheres adores her.

But she knows the meaning of loyalty, the same as you, and you’ve never quite trusted it.

The two of you glance towards her as one, but she’s back to flirting with the jadeblood who’d been feeding her. She’d got an arm braced on the tree above his head, her braid dangling in front of his face, and as you watch, she takes the excuse to reach out, brush her knuckles against the fine arch of his cheekbone.

“My apologies,” Pheres murmurs. “But I think she’s a little preoccupied. Do you suppose she’ll be back in tonight..?” Jadebloods are rare on Alternia, and the ones that stay on planet tend to be traditionalists. The Empyreal trusts they’d never act out. Isn’t trust the basis of her empire? But you never have, and so you’ve always steered Pheres away from all of them, save the most mealy-mouthed of expatriots like here.

And that means Riccin’s rarely seen them, either. “No way in hell,” you tell him. “Riccin’s gonna be knee-deep in jade slurry for the rest of the week, dude, we’re gonna be lucky to see ‘er at breakfast.”

Pheres titters. “That is vulgar. But, ah, for the best, I suppose. We don’t need any tales slipping back to the Empyreal. Because, ah, speaking of my glorious signmate..”

He leans in, nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck. Some people think that the two of you are flush. Riccin does, for all that they spend as many afternoons in Pheres’s rooms as yours, and they ought to know the idea of either of you swinging into any quadrant would make you both hurl. Everyone should know! But they don’t, somehow.

Whatever. The two of you are just.. something else, something that surpasses quadrants, or names, or anyone’s understanding except each other’s. Pheres is yours, and he has been since the first time Medeia spoke to you. She asked you to give him your loyalty.

You’ve given him everything, since the first time you’ve met him, and he’s done the same.

“He’s not the one that we need to worry about.” His mouth’s close enough to brush your skin. “The Empyreal is saying she’ll be back at the end of the sweep. So when she arrives home, we’ll finally have to” His breath catches. “.. talk about Minthe.”

    When we look back, in the oncoming centuries, we should ask: why did this happen, and how? How did one maroon take over an empire? The Condescension’s reign lasted for nearly as long as our species has lived. A thousand attempts have been made to topple it. How did this one succeed?

    The answer, of course, is social engineering. The Condescension managed her Empire through propaganda and social mores. She built a framework in which questioning her was unthinkable, and in which leaning in would gain the most rewards, and then she extended it to every element of her citizen’s lives. Perhaps this is the way through which all empires are formed. The records are too old, and have been lost for too long, for us to know. When all of our foreknowledge comes from the mouth of the elders, distorted through oral tradition, how can we ever know for sure?

    What we know is that religion formed an important part of the Empire in the past, and that through religion, the Empyreal sealed her control over our entire galaxy.

[...]

The issue of descendants was confronted by the First Scorch of the Open Sky in the fifth century after the Empyreal’s Rule, to help solidify and answer questions after the hatching of the first descendant, Minthe. The people were in chaos. The Empyreal was a God, and although the old faiths had long been eliminated among the younger castes, the coldbloods still remembered the foundations of their former religions.

The Messiahs had never spawned descendants. The Moongods had never deigned to walk the planet. The Servants were spirits, and the Ancestors were dead, and none had ever tried to claim their offspring wandered the planes, free of the divinity that was their hatchright. Even the gods of the darkest depths did not meddle in this manner, seeding their flesh into our eggs, and their genes into our lives.

To reproduce was to admit a connection to the world, and to bind yourself to it. The divine were above that, and it was through this that they gained the right to rule.

The Empyreal disagreed.

The Chant of the Sun establishes the facts of our reality. A descendant is simply a part of their ancestor reborn, and their life is a chance at redemption for the crimes of the past. Trolls of the same bloodline are but fragments of the same soul, scourged by the flames of death until purified of their regrets, their traumas, their pains.

The Empyreal is not a troll. Her soul is the sun itself, too strong for just one shell. When it grows too strong, it splits, as not to shred the first of its shells. The Descendants of the Empyreal, named in the Chant as her Excellencies, are not true descendants: they are simply aspects of the whole, split among different bodies.

The First Excellency Minthe is the first Descendant of the Empyreal, and is nothing more than an extension of the Empyreal herself. Although this philosophy was introduced in the Chant of the Sun, the Empire did not understand the full implications for several more centuries, until the Betrayer, the False Sun, rose up against the Empyreal.

He killed her, in front of her descendants and the Empire, in a mirror of how the Condescension had died nearly a millenia ago.

    And in that moment, the true nature of her Excellencies was revealed.

--- HA’AEHO WILCOX

SOCIOLOGICAL SCHOLAR

1000 SWEEPS AFTER THE ASCENSION OF THE EMPYREAL.

“I just need a file,” you whine. “Ullane, please!”

“Am busy, miss Nzinga.” Ullane’s walking fast enough that you have to trot to keep up with her, the heel of her shoes echoing sharply through the white halls. It’s amazing what sort of respect she elicits. She’s not the highest troll in the hospital by far: there’s a troll you’d passed by with a symbol that almost matched yours in warmth, and almost all of the doctors are yellow here. Nah, Ullane’s clawed her way all the way up to the top through merit, mostly, and the fact she’ll give hornrot to anyone that tries to step in her way.

Or trod on her heels, so you’re careful not to trot too quickly. The ceramic horns on your headband are fake, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have real ones tucked behind ‘em.

“I know you’re busy, but -” Hospitals make your horns buzz just to be in them. The constant presence of psionics is so strong in here, it feels like an ache, and you kind of love it. All around you, everything is constantly in motion, almost like you’re in space, except infinitely more efficient. Doctors and patients and items wheel through the air above you, so well coordinated that there’s no risk of collision. Two construct makers create a bed as you walk by, one working on the frame while the other attaches glowing red wheels, and a healer soothes their patient while they work, her glowing hands pressed to the nape of his neck. The walls glow with tech. The air glows with aura. Your horns ache, and your ears are so full of chatter, you almost get distracted off of Ullane.

You love hospitals.

If you weren’t stuck with Pheres all the time, sometimes you think you would’ve been a doctor - but you’re a flatscan, and that means no one wants you doing anything important. If you hadn’t been stuck with Pheres, they would’ve kept you in the fucking creches for the rest of your life, tucked away like a wriggler.

Or else they would’ve made you into a second Matari, simpering and swinging her way through life, yanking on the line of people’s expectations just so she could strangle them with it later. You get why she acts the way she does. It’s funny, and it’s charming, and it’s not like she’s ever had any other options. Flatscans are like maroons: too close to the Sun’s favour to cull, but too delicate to risk them roaming far. Pheres is the only reason you’re free to do what you want.

The Empyreal had asked you for your loyalty, that night when you’d first met her, and you’d learned quickly that it means stepping outside of your role in life. It’s just a shame that, for you, that’s meant violence, and not working here, under Ullane, saving fucking lives and shaping the future.

At least you’re still shaping the future.

“Ullane! Ullane, please, c’mon, babe.” You can’t touch her! Gods, you’re tempted to, but you can’t, because for all that she likes you, Ullane’s bite has always been worse than her bark. She doesn’t believe in holding back when she wants to make a point. And right now, her shoulders are tense, and her mouth’s a thin slash. You’re already teetering on the edge of her patience.

You can’t afford to push her! But at the same time --

“I don’t need you to look,” you wheedle, speeding up so that you fall in step next to her. “Please? I’ll look myself, babe. I just need your permission, because these are files in, like, your basement. They’re your jurisdiction.”

Ullane’s tail lashes, hard enough to catch you in the leg. “You have the Third Excellency’s passcode,” she says, flat. “Cannot use that? Why?”

“Because --”

Pheres hadn’t needed to say more than the name Minthe. The Empyreal had died. The Betrayer had come to her on the day of her Ascension, with the sun high in the sky, to ask a favour of her. He had laid his horns down, bared the nape of his neck to her as he’d kissed the hems of her robes. He’d performed every rite, as was his right, and when she’d lifted his chin to see her - when she’d asked him what he’d wanted, her wrists bare, her thumb on her his cheek - he’d asked for her life.

And he’d taken it, as the moon had passed in front of the sun overhead. You suppose he’d planned it that way, just for the fucking theatrics of the moment. There was something about his psionics that had never been seen before, and, afterwards, would never be seen again. The Betrayer - the Beheader, as he’d been known, back when he was the Empyreal’s executioner and her confidante - was a construct maker, one of the finest in the Empire for the fact his creations would last for sweeps without fail. It was a unique skill, one that took power, but with the sun’s light blazing from his third horn, and the sun’s white carved into his very skin, no one had ever thought to ask where he’d gotten that power.

It had been a mistake. The Betrayer was a leech, the first of his kind. He drained the life from those he touched, and as he took the light from the Empyreal’s eyes, it spooled into his own. His constructs were made from souls. He’d make an axe from the sun’s light, once she’d fallen, and he’d turned to face the Two Excellencies. Rmeros had been a pupa, back then. He’d cowered behind his throne --

-- but Minthe had stood up, and they’d spoken with Medeia’s voice, and they’d fought the Beheader with her weapons.

The history books say that Minthe didn’t die that night. How could they? Minthe is Medeia, for all of the Excellencies are but aspects of the Empyreal. You’d memorised the Chant as a pupa. You know the rules of the thing. When Medeia takes the body of her descendants, it doesn’t kill them, it just absorbs them, because they’ve always been the same.

Except that doesn’t hold, when you grew up watching Pheres and Rmeros fight every time they’re in the same room. They’re not the same, as anyone with eyes could see, and neither of them are anything like the Empyreal, and you don’t think Minthe was, either. They’d been serious, in all of the pictures and the videos before Medeia had died. They’d been her guard in action and in appearance, with a mouthful of knives and a tongue sharp enough to pass as one.

The Empyreal and her descendants black their fangs every night, all the better to blunt them. Minthe had been a different sort of creature than their ancestor, up until they were not.

You won’t let that happen to Pheres.

“-- because it’s for Pheres,” you say, owlish, “but he can’t know. Please, Ullane.”

It takes two more hours of whittling, but she gives you the code, finally, after a great deal of hassle.

The library filing system is massive. Ullane is head over the top facility on Alternia, and one of the oldest still left standing on the planet. Rumours say that this is the place where The Empyreal had her ports removed, back in the first century of her rule. You know that’s a lie, but only because Pheres had whispered to you, once, that as a pupa, he’d seen her back, still bristling with wires. No, she’d kept it for another reason, and you only hope that Ullane isn’t aware of it.

You don’t wear your sign. It’s nowhere in your files, stripped bare from the records in Medeia’s spite, and you’re not supposed to know you even have one. As companions to the Excellencies, you and Loxias wear the Cuckoo sign. It’s the only one you’re supposed to ever need. But you’ve always loathed other people’s secrets, and you’ve always wondered about the queer way that Medeia watches you, sometimes.

So you’d pried. And that’s why, when the symbol of the Phoenix begins appearing in the mosaic of the walls as you descend into the basement, it feels like home.

This had been your ancestor’s hospital, back before the Empyreal’s rise. It was the place that Medeia had worked, during that first, fatal rebellion, long before she was the Empyreal, and it was the place that your ancestor had betrayed her.

It was the place your ancestor died. It’s also the place that your face and your bloodchrome should allow you full access to the files, once you get past the first locks. You’d needed Ullane’s key to get in. You’re trusting that your genetics will allow you to purge the system afterwards, because if anyone finds out what you’re looking for..

.. well. Pheres dying will be the least of your worries.

Ullane’s key lets you in. The doors of the library vault slide open with a hiss and a pop. The air within smells almost painfully crisp, in the way that stagnant vaults get: you don’t suppose anyone’s been down here in ages, and when you run your finger across a shelf, it comes away with dust.

There’s no visible cameras, when you glance around at the ceiling. But you know that doesn’t mean much. So you lock the door behind you promptly, then you walk over to the nearest control panel, hooking your nails into the corner and tugging.

Age has sealed it into place. It doesn’t move until you roll your shoulders, and the mechanical gauntlets on your arms click to life. The technology’s old here, you’re relieved to see, old enough that it’s a audiovisual flat curled into a vat on the inside, breathing softly amidst the nutrience gel. That’s good. The Empyreal loathes biotechnology. All but the farthest reaches of the Empire have been stripped of it, and the fact there’s some hidden away here, in the one place she does her best to ignore..

.. it’s a good sign, that’s all. Maybe you don’t even have to cover your tracks. You’re starting to think that she wouldn’t look here, even if there was an axe to her neck.

But you hold your breath as you press your palm to the bioreader all the same. If this doesn’t work, it’ll set off alarms. If it doesn’t work, you’re going to be culled, at best, if the Empyreal doesn’t just husk out your body and burn your soul herself. And then there’ll be no one left to protect Pheres, and the only one who’ll care when he falls is his little cerulean.

Like that’ll do him any good.

The screen quivers. But the alarms don’t go off. The light flickers green, and the jar unseals with a hiss, the worm within stirring. It smells like poison when you screw it open, but it settles neatly over your face. You’d practiced at hive long before you’d come up with this plan, just to make sure you didn’t panic, but there’s still that flash of fear as the flatworm settles into place. The belly splits. Carbon rods slide up your nostrils, your mouth - breathing syringes, you remind yourself, to ensure you won’t asphyxiate, and the vocal command, to navigate -

- and then the flatworm ripples as it finally finds your horns. There’s a pressure in your head, unfamiliar, but you’ve read enough books to know what it is. The worms were engineered off of a cerulean technomancer’s genome, in the handful of decades before the Tyrian Empire fell. These were made for trolls of any caste to interface with easily, but back then, warmbloods were raised to fall to psychics easily. The Empyreal changed that. All of your exercises in the royal creche have primed your pan to resist, so this hurts, as the worm sloughs past your resistances. It feels like needles in your eyes, digging in one painful inch at a time.

But then something pops. The pain alleviates as spots dance in front of your vision. Then they brighten, merge.. and you’re staring at a screen, projected against the back of your lids.

HELLO, DAEDAL NZINGA.

LAST LOGIN: -1938.46 SWEEPS AGO.

PLEASE ENTER COMMAND.

AVAILABLE DIRECTORIES ARE…

You get to work.

        > BLOODLINES, DAUTHS

    The Dauths bloodline is maroon, hemochrome #8b0000, and listed as EXTINCT. Last known member was Haziin Dauths, adult title THE BEHEADER.

> BLOODLINE PROFILES - MEMBER PROFILES - PSIONIC BREAKDOWN - LINKED BLOODLINES - DESCENDED BLOODLINES

    -- anaxilausAnnexed [AA] is now trolling iDo [ID]! --

AA: u said u had deets forn me

ID: Oh, sugarpod, don'tcha just know you're gilling my heart when you hit me up like this? / (•ㅅ•)＼

ID: You need to try betta, sweetheart, or else I'll need a sturgeon~

AA: urn fishpuns suck

AA: arne u still wearning fake fins

ID: Don't be fishcious~ I know I'm fintastic, and that's just awfully hard to resist, but my goodness gracious, I just don't think we're in the right square to go talkin' about what I'm wearing.

ID: Unless you're trying to vacillate? (=ＴェＴ=) In which case: oh, no.

ID: Maybe I need to call us in a third leaf, here~ Get some kelp~! (^=˃ᆺ˂)

AA: soz

AA: would rnip off yrn bulge and feed it 2 you beforne i flipped

ID: Heavens, that's just not very warm of you, now, is it? (,,^・⋏・^,,)

AA: rnly

AA: thought we werne B O T H playin' waderns tonight

AA: >:P

AA: you have the deets

AA: orn n

ID: Of course I do. Try to have some patience, sweetheart. (=｀ω´=)

ID: One illegal ɹǝpɐǝɥǝq git, right here and in the wild.

ID: Don'tcha think a fellow would cover that sort of thing up?

AA: loool. why? me, u, 'n' meddypoo arne the only ones who knows it's a thing.

ID: Really!

ID:

ID: Really?

AA: always rnemembern to tip and thank urn censornarchivists beforne u go, dude.

AA: bc who knew? who needs mindfuckerny when uve got gaslighting instead? >:}

You fucking hate honeydens so much.

You’re a flatscan. They do jack and shit for you, on any level, except probably give you cancer - but psionics are practically fucking addicted to the thought of lung damage, brought on by the Empyreal’s ongoing bulgetucking over everything hookah-related. At least the Empire doesn’t allow legal dens to sell or produce the sort of mind honey that causes burn out, and this one is clearly cut with tobacco, the heavy scent of coffee seeded through it. There’ll be no bleeding on the floor here, and no scorchmarks on the sofas.

No, folks’ll just be tipsy.

Of course this is where you’d find Hadean fucking Photon.

It’s a pretty place, at least! It’s high-ceilinged in the way that all places that cater to warmbloods tend to be, with thick, wooden rafters more than capable of supporting a few trolls laced through the top. There’s lanterns hanging from the top, high enough that they’re blurs in the darkness, and candles on every table, carefully pinned into place, and guards lingering every ten feet or so, their eyes half-shut as they lean against the walls. You recognise the amplifying bracelets looped loosely around their horns and wrists, and the set of the stones in them.

Glitch’s honeydens are some of the most expensive in the Empire. You dropped three hundred caegars just to get in the door, even before the drink fee, but it makes sense: the ground’s covered in lush carpets and pillows, soft enough that you could practically sink into them, and each table is practically full of trolls. The amount of money she must spend on security alone - to make sure nothing ignites, to make sure no one fights - is more than enough to warrant the fees.

And the amount that her honey goes for. It’s a good thing you keep most of your money in paper, because you’re going to be burning through a good quarter of it tonight, even if things go fast.

And they might just go fast, because you spot Hadean right at the back, lounging on a table like he’s already half-asleep.

He stirs when you slide into the seat across from him. He looks just like the picture! Long-limbed, long-faced: he’s all points, from his elbows to his nose, but at least he’s got some weight covering the roughest edges. Muscle, too, for all that it’s lean.

He’s got long horns with thick tines, lacking any of the nicks that you’re used to. They’re polished. They’re heavy. If it weren’t for the glowing third hanging between them, he’d look like any other cast-off from the royal creches, especially when he sighs and sits up, one elbow pushing on the table while he sloppily holds up his head. “You,” he says, raking his eyes up and down, “are way too young for me. Sorry, kiddo, call me back in.. what’re you, six? Six sweeps. And when you’ve got another six inches on you, too.”

You’ve dealt with lost eggs before! There were three in the palace alone, back when Pheres was younger. Apollo Harley had had the good grace to cocoon directly in the sewers, and she’d been found at around five, when she’d fled from the seadwellers who’d raised her. She had spent most of the time you’d known her chasing the both of you out of her rooms, and now led the Imperial Comballet. Nikola Gemynd, your agemate, had been found at four sweeps, sleeping in a gutter. He’d been apprenticed under the communications master, and ran a show every night over podcasts. Orivar Tyrgan, the only other gilled maroon, had been hauled in kicking and screaming at six sweeps, more than half feral, and they’d never been able to civilize her.

That was the case with some eggs. They didn’t know what the fuck was best for them, and if the Empyreal couldn’t have them leashed, she wouldn’t have them at all. And isn’t that what Hadean is? Sure, he’s crecheraised, from top to bottom, but he’s still lost, because he doesn’t know what he is. No one does, and you don’t know how everyone’s missed it for so long, because looking at him..

He looks like more of a god than Medeia.

You don’t know why she hadn’t culled his ancestor the first time she’d laid eyes on him.

Or, when the waiter drops a drink on the table and just so happens to brush his hand against Hadean’s as he steps away, you do know. But you’re pretty fucking appalled. When you’d found out that the Beheader had descendants, you’d expected something.. you don’t know. Amazing! Someone majestic, straight out of the books, who’d split Medeia’s throat with his own horns, and spare you the trouble of watching your boy die.

The only thing that Hadean looks capable of splitting is his fucking shirt, since it’s unbuttoned down to his navel.

You’ll make this work, though. You have to! And when he reaches for his glass, you swipe it first, holding it just out of reach. “So not interested, loser, chill your jets and call me when you can figure out what a button is. You’re Hadean Photon, right?”

“Don’t blackmail me for my fucking drink, you heartless wench,” he complains. “Are you with the paparazzi?

“Fess up, or I’m going to drink your drink.”

“So this is blackmail. Wow.” You’ve dealt with a lot of lost eggs. You’ve dealt with a lot of maroons, period, and you’ve hated ninety nine percent of them. They’re all so spoiled. At least the brownbloods, like Matari, have some bite. Hadean doesn’t even have a bark.

How are you supposed to get him to kill the Empyreal? He looks like he can’t even manage to kill himself, and not for lack of trying.

“I see how it is,” he says, mournful, but finally, he sits up.  “I’m just going to be fucking pestered to death by a shortstack who’s too cheap to buy her own drinks. If I order a new one, what, are you going to steal that, too? Is this a pale gambit?” He presses a hand to his heart. “Oh, miss Tinnie -”

How are you supposed to get him to do anything, when you really just want to throttle him?

“Just -” You drag your hands through your hair, your breath coming out as one long hiss. You don’t know how to do this. You’ve never had to play social games - why bother? You’ve had your machines, and your biotech, hidden away where the Empyreal wouldn’t smash them, and you’ve had Pheres. You never needed to figure out how to navigate this sort of mess.

You’d never thought that, when it came time to scalp her next body, Medeia would ever size up the mutant over fucking Rmeros in his prime.

“I just need to talk to you, fucker,” you say, and you’re going to hit him, because you almost sound plainative.

"What, are you someone's auspistice? Because if so -" He leans back in his chair, hooking his arms up above his head. "It didn't happen," he drawls, "and if it did, it wasn't that bad! And if it was, well, it's not a big deal. And if it is, then, it's not my fault, I usually check for rings, and shouldn't that count for something?"

You're going to strangle him, you decide. Fuck saving Pheres. Fuck killing Medeia. You're going to strangle Hadean Dauths right here and now, and it'll ruin everything, and it'll be worth it.

"And if it doesn't, that sounds like your problem, not mine."

Who could blame you? But at least this dries up the orange that’s trying to flood your eyes. Right! You don’t know what you’re doing here. This is different from working on machines, or genomes, or scrapping in the yards. But you could. This doesn’t have to be a social game.

How many times have you raked horns with Riccin, with Rmeros, with every troll who thinks that you being a flatscan means a single fucking thing? All throughout your life, trolls have always thought that, just because you don’t have a spark, they get to hold conversations.

You’re brown. They’re lucky you’re letting them hold their fucking breathes, and maroon or not, that’s just what you have to remember here. Hadean’s just like Riccin, and the rest of the royal creche. The fact Pheres could die if you don’t get him into line doesn’t mean a single thing.

"I'm not anyone's auspistice," you huff. "Holy shit, you're a fucking mess, didja know that? 'cause - holy sunfucker, dude, are you drunk?”

"Sunfucker? Please. We already covered that you're way too young for me~" A beat. “If I say yes,” he asks, curious, “will you give me back my drink?”

“No.” You flounce up in one swift motion, and just as quickly, you dump his drink on the carpet. Hadean squawks, shooting up like you personally shot him - then he squawks again when you’re in his space, too quick to react, and you’re grabbing him by the shoulder. The gears of your arms shriek as you haul him out of his seat, but he doesn’t resist so much as he just goes limp in protest.

“Help!” he calls out. “I’m being kidnapped by an oompa-loompa!”

One of the bouncers looks up.

“We’re going to the backroom I paid for,” you hiss at Hadean, “and we are going to talk. If you make one gross fucking joke, I will break off your horns and knit your mouth shut with your own pencil-bulge, and if you listen without me murdering you, I will buy you enough drinks for the rest of the day. How’s that?”

The bouncer is still looking at the two of you, contemplative. Does this look pitch? God, it probably looks pitch, and the thought does nothing to sweeten your mood. Hadean squints at you, contemplative, then he squawks again - what was his lusus, a sow? - when you shake him. “Hurry up!”

“Fine,” he snaps, and it’s the first sign of actual aggression you’ve seen from him. He half shoves you away, climbing to his feet, and he makes a show of straightening up his jacket. Like his shirt isn’t open. “Keep your hands to yourself, pipsqueak, before you get fucking dirt on me.”

It absolutely does look pitch, and your ears are pinned back to your shoulders as you lead the way to the back.

By the time you finish checking the room for bugs, Hadean’s half-sprawled across the wooden table, watching you with all of the sullen spite of a wriggler who’s had his SoftHands taken away. You’d dug up a picture of the Beheader from Daedal’s files, back at the hospital. He hadn’t looked like this boneless, lanky mass in front of you. He’d looked like the sort of troll who could kill a god, and then he had been.

A small, hysterical part of your pan keens that Pheres is going to die, and all this is going to do is guarantee you’ll die with him.

But you can’t listen to that. Failing isn’t an option, and that’s the only thing you have to remember. “Alright! You’re Hadean Photon,” you announce, but you’re scarcely a moment in before he’s interrupting -

“You hope.”

“No,” you snap. You’re pacing, and maybe you shouldn’t, but - nah, maybe you should. You have to treat him like Riccin. He’s about as inconsequential as Riccin. “I do not. I wish you were, like, legits anybody else, so I could cull you, wrap this, and consider this fucking done, time to find the actual real deal. Unfortunately: no! I’m stuck here, with your candy ass, because you’re Hadean Photon, and neither of us can fucking change it. And shut up, and don’t interrupt me. You’re Hadean Photon - except, like, you’re not. You just think you are.”

“Your name isn’t Hadean Photon, which’s, like, a phony-ass fake bloodline that doesn’t even go back to a real troll.” You’d spent three hours down there, rooting back as far as you could, and you’d kept swinging back to it. The registries claimed it was a related line, but it was just a false lead. The sort of thing that only held up until somebody with access to every file in the system sat down, and started peeling it all back, one file at a time. “Like, iunno how the fuck you never noticed, but, uh, your supposed ancestor has a completely different blood chrome?”

“Wow, is the brownblood being hemoist? So she was a little warmer,” he says, dismissive. He’s resumed slouching on the table. He looks like all of his bones have melted out of his fucking body. “That doesn’t mean anything -”

“Nettle Photon was brown, fucker!”

“So she was a lot warmer.” He shrugs. “It happens!” He pauses. “It does happen, right?”

You’ve been pacing. Now you stalk over and grab him by the braid, giving it a yank. “Do you have a pan in here?” you demand. “Or, like, did you boil it away with booze and coraldust back when you were still seven? Important question, dude, I just kind of want to fucking know, for, like, reasons!”

He squints at you through his open eye. “Careful, my braid’s sticky.”

You drop his braid. It clings to your hand for one, breath-takingly horrible second, then it drops. “Why is it sticky?” you demand.

“I’m not going to tell you that,” he says, patient. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

The room’s soundproof. It’s alright if you shriek, though it gets strangled down.

Not enough, though, because Hadean perks up at the sound. “Did you just peep?” he says, curious. “Seriously? Oh, chill out, you look like you’re going to burst something.” He takes his braid back with a yank, resettling it onto his shoulder, and actually sits up. It’s hard to tell where he’s looking, when his eyes are pure maroon, but you think he’s watching you side long. “Who’s my ancestor, then?”

“Haviin Dauths. The Beheader. Used to be the Empyrean’s executioner, back in the day, but…” There’s almost no pictures of the Beheader left. Medeia had burned him from history after the death of Minthe, as best as she could. But Ullane’s hospital collected information from everywhere. And Medeia was so determined to ignore the past, she hadn’t thought to purge those particular archives.

Or maybe she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to destroying her matesprit’s last work. You don’t know, and you don’t care, but it’d let you find the picture you slide onto the table. It’s of Haziin smiling at the camera, standing next to the Empyreal. They looked old, for maroons. They looked like friends, almost.

Hadean looks at both of them for one long moment. Then he shrugs. “I don’t see the resemblance,” he says, glib, and slides the picture back to you.

When you snatch his braid again, at least he has the courtesy to squawk.

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause he’s actually hot. Don’t worry~, you’ll, like, maybe get there somenight? But that’s Haziin. That’s you, back in the night. But, like, you’re not gonna know that name. Because it got purged.” His eyebrows go up. He blinks at you, and part of you trills, because you’ve got him hooked. Purging is for dissidents. Maroons don’t get their lines written out of the books, or their signs erased: for all that they’re common, they’re too valuable for that. It just doesn’t happen.

“We don’t purge maroons,” he says now. “Pull the other leg, shortstack.”

If curiousity is how you’ll get him in, then you can work with that. “We don’t purge maroons usually,” you shoot back. “But they don’t usually fuck up this badly. ‘cause, like, your ancestor had two titles. They called him the Beheader, back when, like, people could actually stand his fucking face. And then they started calling him the Betrayer, after he died.”

“The Betrayer,” he says, and he looks at the picture again. You all learned the story in the schoolfeeds. It’s a part of the Chants. It’s a part of every wriggler’s telly show, some black-shrouded antagonist out to ruin the world.

But right here, right now, the two of you might be some of the only people on the planet who’ve ever seen his face.

He’s smiling, in the picture. He’s got an arm around Medeia, and the glow of his horn is a perfect match to the glow of her eyes.

“You already killed God once,” you tell Hadean. “I’m here, ‘cause you need to do it again.”

    --- anaxilausAnnexed [AA] is now trolling indulgingDelights [ID]! --

AA: is this urn handle

AA: is this rnly

AA: rnly

AA: RN L Y

AA: urn handle

ID: yes. =:)

   --- anaxilausAnnexed [AA] is now trolling indulgingDelights [ID]! --

AA: arne u doing urn psi exerncises

AA: bc its imporntant dude

ID: i made a prosthetic nookworm.

ID: it undulates when you look at it.

ID: and this girl tied a knife to it.

AA:

ID: does that count? =:)

AA: no!!!

AA:

AA: pp

    --- indulgingDelights [ID] is now trolling anaxilausAnnexed [AA]! --

ID: so what.

ID: does this mean i’m a lowminded murderer?

ID: just because some fucker forgot to spill his pail before he - l - went and killed someone a few millenia ago?

ID: because just saying, this doesn’t seem fair.

AA: join the club

AA: sornrny bb

AA: sometimes life just isn’t

    --- anaxilausAnnexed [AA] is now trolling indulgingDelights [ID]! --

AA: it is 3pm

AA: i have been thrnowing rnocks @ urn window forn five mins

AA: rn u srnsly still asleep

AA:

AA: gj

AA: now urn pillow is wet  A N D   outside

    --- indulgingDelights [ID] is now trolling anaxilausAnnexed [AA]! --

ID: what’s your address.

The most aggravating thing about Pheres actually going off and getting a matesprit is that you don’t spend many nights at his hive anymore.

Oh, you’ve got a suite of rooms attached to his in the palace. You could sleep over there, without sleeping in his bed, and if you did - well, if you were there, he’d make room in his recuperacoon. It’s not like you loathe Meukit, either. She makes him perfectly happy, and she’s fine to share. You’re just not keen to sleep in a space where Pheres’s been fucking, when push comes to shove, and you’ve never been especially keen on sleeping alone.

You don’t like Riccin sleeping over at your place, either. The two of you are pitches, but she’s too touchy, and she can’t fit into your recuperacoon, anyway. She always wants to sleep on your bed. And then she’ll kick you until you fall off of it, every time she falls asleep, which wouldn’t be tolerable even if she did it on purpose.

So you’ve just been compromising! Pheres sleeps over with Meukit, and you..

You’re just not sleeping.

It’s fine. That’s the only good point of coffee, as far as you’re concerned, because the taste certainly fucking isn’t doing anything for you. It keeps you up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and it means that when people come pounding at your door in the middle of the day, you’re more than awake to receive them.

Your hive’s smaller than most greenbloods. You rented it under a teal’s name, just to have a place close enough to the docks that it wasn’t under the Empyreal’s watchful eyes, and you only go here hemoanon. So you’ve got a hand on your gun as you head down the stairs, and you press your palm to the security system to activate the cameras. It’s not one of the wader gangs, though, looking to press for money, or someone begging.

It’s Hadean, the ends of his hair burnt and soot smeared across his skin. He’d had the foresight to pull on a cloak and hood, one that covers his free-form horn, but his eyes are glowing, bright enough to see even through the film of daylight polluting your camera.

And he’s swaying.

You snatch open the door, and you don’t wait for him to react before you’re hauling him inside. Your hip hits the door, smacking it shut, then -

Hadean’s laughing, wide enough that he’s flashing teeth. “Can’t keep your hands off of me, huh?” he teases, but there’s a rasp to his words. His jacket’s hot as a torch from the sunlight, hot enough to burn when the zipper catches your skin, and you’re swearing as you tug him towards the kitchen. He’s so much bigger than you. You don’t have on your proper mechanical gauntlets at this stage of the night, not when you’re supposed to be home alone. All you’ve got on is the bioware you’ve been trying to build, piece-by-piece from the books you’ve retrieved, and all it does is bypass the nerve damage.

It doesn’t do anything to help when Hadean can’t manage to support his own weight. He tilts on you, hard enough that you stagger. “Sorry,” he says, almost a keen, and he grabs you, steadies himself right before the both of you hit the floor. “Sorry, sorry -”

This close, he doesn’t smell like alcohol. He just smells like smoke, and blood, and the ozone stench of psionics overworking. When you wrestle him into the chair, finally, he collapses like he can’t hold himself up. When he looks up at you, the haze over his eyes is pale, almost enough for you see the outline of his pupils.

When you look up, his horn’s almost free of psi entirely.

Your mouth’s dry as you reach up and press your palm to his head. “Hads,” you snap. “Hads, what the fuck, what did you do?” His skin is cold. He’s a maroon: there’s no way in hell that his skin should be cold.

But you don’t have time to think much about it, because you’ve barely touched him when he’s flinching back. “No, no, no,” he barks, jolting like you slapped him. His knees hit the table. The entire thing rocks as you jolt back, half-sprawling on it to keep it from flipping. “Don’t touch me!”

“I’m not touching you!”

“Well - don’t! You can’t.” He presses his palms to his eyes, hard enough that the skin blanches around them. “Don’t touch me,” he repeats, softer this time, and if he wasn’t so cold, you’d think he was running a fever. This can’t be an overdose. You’d stayed up all day after you’d discovered who Hadean was, and the sort of shit he did, researching all the ways to tell.

You don’t know what’s wrong with him, except something clearly is.

So you head to the sink instead, grabbing a cup and filling it with the hottest water your tap will manage. The water’s foggy. It’s always foggy, but a little lime won’t kill him, and when you slide the glass onto the table in front of him, you’re careful to keep your hands away. “I won’t touch you. Calm down, Dromeo, no pale-ro. But, like, here - drink this.”

He doesn’t touch the water. “Technically, this is your fault,” he snuffles, peering down his nose at you. You can’t tell if the rheumyness of his eyes is from his psi coming back, or tears. He just doesn’t seem like the sort of guy that would cry! But he didn’t seem like the sort that would let himself get this fucked up, either. “If you hadn’t told me about my ancestry, I wouldn’t have been so upset that I missed the ring on her finger,” he complains. “So, honestly? Technically, this all your fault. Good going, Sips.”

You consider the glass on the table, then you dump it on his head.

“You’re the worst,” you tell him as he squalls. “And if you come in here, stickying up my table again with your gross, unwashed bod, I’ll skip the fucking glass and just hit you with the hose. Didja wake me up just because someone’s matesprit walked in? Like, seriously? It’s high noon, motherfucker, some of us actually sleep.”

“You weren’t sleeping, bulgemunch.” He pushes his bangs out of his face with a low hiss, blinking the water off of his lashes. Did it sober him up? Maybe a little. “You don’t sleep at this time of day.”

“And how d’you know that?” you jeer. “What, are you breaking into my room to watch me sleep? ‘cause - creepy!”

“Because - because you’re too high to sleep dry. Your hair’s got zero sopor in it, and - shit, your icon’s always active in the middle of the day.” When you squint at him, he actually curls his lip at you. His fangs are sharper than yours, and stark white. Most maroons tint them black, to match Medeia’s, or they at least blunt them. “I’m not stupid,” he says, peevish. His voice is all jittery, still, like he can’t keep it still, pitching up and down like there’s something wrong with him. “I pay attention.”

He’s sick, somehow, but he’s still aware enough to admit he pays attention. Nobody else’s gone and noticed any of that, except Pheres. Not even Riccin. The idea that Hadean has is.. strange, and you shove that thought, and the feeling it elicits, into the back of your pan. It’s not worth dealing with right now, not when he’s making your entire kitchen smell like soot.

“Whatever. Look, what d’you want? ‘cause I know it’s not just to, like, squat on my floor, you’ve got a credit chip. And, like, beeteedubs, I am so not good at playing second in a duel, just sayin’.”

“It’s a - no.” He shakes his head. “I don’t feel like it,” he says. “I’m not saying.”

You squint at him. “You’re not - you don’t get to not say, you look like shit, dude.”

“I’m not saying,” he repeats. He reaches out towards the glass, but his hands are shaking: it doesn’t want to sit steady, no matter how hard he grips it. “I’ll - look, I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

With the way he looks, he might not be alive tomorrow. Hadean’s a key part of your plan! That’s the reason you’re so concerned, you think, because - if he took something, and he dies, that’d be on him. You’re not a mediculler. You’re not even his age. You can’t be expected to know what the fuck to do with him. “I’m calling Ullane,” you decide abruptly. “She’s a doctor, dude. She’s gonna figure this out, okay?”

He opens his mouth to say something, but then the door rattles.

“Goddamnit,” you huff, but you’re relieved. It’s a good excuse to leave! And Hadean’s just slinking down at the table, his head ducked, as you flounce over to the door. There’s someone you don’t recognise outside. You debate for a moment, if you want to open it - they’re cold, sure, their colour blurred enough under the light’s rays that you can’t tell if they’re jade or teal.

It’s the sort of thing that makes a big difference. Jades are okay, if not decent. Teals are just fucking glorified bluebloods -

- and then the door kicks open, and the jadeblood shoves past you with barely a passing glance. He’s huge, in the way only lowbloods ever seem to get. You hit the wall with a thump, the snarl in your throat dying as soon as the air gets ripped from it. “Sorry about that, love,” the jade calls over his shoulder, distracted, “but I’m here for your mate -”

“- aha! There you are, you fucking wanker!”

After this, you swear, you’re never going to take off your prosthetics again. Scrambling to your feet, you kick the door shut as you race into the kitchen. There’s a taser by the lightswitch, one of the many emergency precautions you’ve hid around the hive: when you thump your fist into the wall, the panel pops open, and the taser falls neatly into your hand.

Just in time. Because the jade’s snatched Hadean up by the collar of his shirt, dragging him from the chair as easily as a sack of potatoes. “You fucked my sprite, then burned down my hive,” he says. “I could’ve forgiven the first! You got a little roughed up, but fair’s fair, innit? But you burned down my hive, you goddamn bastard, and that - that’s going a little far.”

You aim the taser, right at the base of his skull. Your finger is on the trigger when Hadean wraps his hands around the jade’s neck instead.

He grabs him, and the jadeblood goes limp. Hadean collapses back into the chair, but the jade comes with him.

It could almost be an embrace. The jade falls against Hadean unsteadily, his eyes fluttering shut. An arm lifts, like he’s going to try to push him away - but it just settles on his shoulder instead, limp, close enough that it could pass as an affectionate stroke. The jadeblood’s breath slows.

Then, as you watch, it stops.

The room is brightening steadily with each passing second, from the glow in Hadean’s eyes and the flare of his horn. It’s bright enough that you can’t see for a moment, bright enough to leave spots dancing in front of your vision. But then it dulls. When Hadean looks at you, his eyes are maroon again, flooded all the way through.

And his face.. he looks confused as he takes in your expression, then the body in his arms. He looks at it like he can’t remember what happened. Then his eyes widen, and his face blanches. He shoves it away even as he staggers back, springing up from the chair in one motion.

“What the fuck,” he breathes. “What the fuck?”

“Hads,” you say, “what the fuck happened?”

He blinks at you. His eyes are wild, but there’s colour back in his face, and his psionics are steady again in a way they weren’t before. More than steady. He’s actively glowing.

“I told you! I told you, he - I didn’t notice the ring. Her ring. So we fucked, and he came back, and turns out nookmunch here didn’t appreciate that, for some reason, so he tried to kill me. He choked me out, and.. well! Guess it just didn’t take.” There’s no bruises around Hadean’s neck. You’ve seen people choked before: you’ve done it yourself, for all that it’s an intimate, messy kind of violence, too personal for you to appreciate, but there’s no bruises on him at all, and his eyes are wild. “It didn’t take,” he repeats, breathless. “I’m alive. And I just - I just ---”

You realise, suddenly, you hadn’t quite thought this through.

Hadean laughs, and it’s an awful, broken sound. “I died. And now I’m alive, and I just ate him,” he says, dragging a hand down his face, and his voice is so much steadier than it was a few minutes ago. That’s the worst part of it all, you think, is that he sounds so much better. “I just fucking ate him like some kind of feral sewer-rat. Holy shit.”

Oh. And now he’s actually crying.

Scratch that: he’s sobbing, big, coughing hacks that wouldn’t ever be read in a novel, never mind seen on the fucking television. Your ears are pinned straight back, but it doesn’t do anything to distill the sound. It’s - this would be bad enough if Hadean was the sort of troll that cried on the regular, because you’ve never been able to deal well with that. You don’t know how to.

But Hadean isn’t. He’s a maroon, and he’s a ponce, and a spoiled, coddled brat of a troll, and - you’ve never seen him so much as genuinely angry, before, and everyone’s supposed to get mad sometimes. He just treats everything with the same idle contempt, no matter the situation, and in the two perigees you’ve known him, you’ve never managed to drag anything out stronger than discomfort or curiousity. He doesn’t do strong emotions.

Except, apparently, he does, because each sound out of his chest sounds like he’s going to fucking die.

You shouldn’t touch him. You really, really shouldn’t touch him, not when there’s a jade still cooling on the floor, and his horn is bright with life-force. The two of you aren’t pals, not really. You’re barely even allies. But you hauled him into this mess. You dragged him out of his coddled little cage of lies, and..

If you hadn’t told him, this would’ve happened, anyway. Eventually.

But you did tell him, and it happened now, and when every sob sounds like he’s breaking, the least you can do is try to hold together the cracks.

“Hads. Haaads. Look at me, okay?” You step over the body, kicking it back as you settle in next to him. Hadean’s tall enough that you don’t even have to kneel on the floor to be level, the way you might’ve with Pheres: him sitting, you standing, you’re at the perfect height to reach out and set your hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t!”  He hisses at you, reflexive, and tries to jerk away.

You don’t let him. You tighten your grip on his shoulder, and you snarl right back, loud enough that it startles him to stillness. Your teeth aren’t sharp, but your tusks are longer than most highbloods would dare to keep them. “You’re not going to hurt me,” you snap, with a great deal more confidence than you feel. “So stoppit. And look at me! It’s okay. It’s okay, and you’re okay, and we’re going to figure this out.”

“It’s not okay.” His voice’s rasping. “And I don’t want to hurt you, but that doesn’t mean - I just ate someone! I didn’t fucking mean to, I just - did!”

“So make sure you’re trying harder with me,” you say, brisk. It’s not how it works. You know it’s not how it works, and so does he, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is getting him to stop sobbing, before he breaks his heart and yours. “You’re not a feral, fucker. You’re not a lowblood. We’re going to figure this out, and you’re not going to hurt me, and you’re not going to hurt anyone else that you don’t want to. Okay?”

“Hold still,” you tell him, and before he can flinch, you place your palm on his cheek.

His skin is rough. He obviously doesn’t exfoliate, or moisturise, and the thought’s so silly that you want to laugh. But how are you supposed to laugh, when you might die? Because Hadean’s staring at you, his expression unreadable, and you don’t feel anything, but.. you don’t think the jade did, either. All you can do is stand here, with your hand on his skin, and wait.

Thirty seconds pass. Nothing happens, and you let out your breath all at once. “There,” you say, voice rough. You lift your palm, then ruffle his hair, because you don’t know what else to do. He’s staring at you. “You didn’t kill me, dude. You’re not feral. Okay?”

“.. okay,” he says.