Valiant: Tales From The Drift

[Tails #3: Fairy Tails]

Log Date: 8/10/12763

Data Sources: Jazel Jaskolka; Lysanne Arrignis

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Vissengard Wilds

2:12am SGT

The branches snap and whip at my face and shoulders as I charge through the underbrush, following Ravoc. Behind me, Milor’s boots crunch through the leaf litter as he tries to keep up. And overhead, the trees rustle as the wind coasts across the lake and through their canopies, creating a soft rushing sound.

“I swear, Jazel, you’re going to owe me so many smoothies after this.” I growl to myself as I extend my buzz baton to its full length, and lock it into place.

“What?” Milor pants.

“Nothing, I was just talking to myself.” I say over my shoulder.

“And despite that, you’re still not as crazy as your friend.” he mutters.

I don’t have time to answer, since that’s the point at which we burst free of the underbrush into a clearing. I skid to a halt, not sure of where I’m going and what I’m doing, until my eyes adjust to my surroundings. There’s a great tree in the clearing, and on the ground in front of it is Jazel; straddling him is the morphox, head tilted back as the last of a luminous, smoky green incandescence disappears into her mouth, which snaps shut.

My fingers tighten around the hilt of my buzz baton as voltage starts crackling across its business end.

Gripping it with both hands, I sprint across the clearing, winding up for a home-run swing at the back of the morphox’s head.

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

Dandelion Drift: Conference Room

5:33pm SGT, earlier that evening

I slump into my chair, blowing out a long breath.

Across me, Lysanne is doing the same, dragging a hand down her face. The screen against the far wall has reverted back to its home screen.

“Well. That could’ve gone better.” Dandy’s voice echoes from the room’s speakers.

“Thank you for stating the obvious, Dandy.” I sigh, looking at Lysanne. “Did you know that the mayor had reached out to CURSE?”

“Do I look like a psion, Jazel? I can’t read people’s minds.” Lysanne says, taking her hand off her face. “Are you happy now? Your little fixation has gotten us a formal reprimand from the brass and the assignment taken off us.”

“I can’t believe he called CURSE over a little damage to a reconnaissance hauler.” I mutter, still sour.

“The reconnaissance hauler isn’t the issue, it’s that the fact that we haven’t gotten anything done in three and a half months, Jazel!” Lysanne explodes. “This was supposed to be handled within a month of arriving here! We’re three months in and we have nothing to show for it!”

“We’ve got her movement patterns mapped out, and we know where she’s probably hiding out—” I start to point out.

“That doesn’t matter, Jazel!” Lysanne shouts. “We are out of time. The assignment’s been taken off of us. The mayor’s put in a request to the Vaunted and they’ll be here within the week to take over for us. It’s over.”

I sit back in my chair, glaring at her. “So what. You’re just gonna throw in the towel because the mayor called the Vaunted and left them a voicemail?”

“Yes! Yes I am.” Lysanne shoots back. “Because the assignment has been taken off us. Which means that we no longer have jurisdiction here. The mayor’s politely told us that we can leave. They can sue us for unlawful interference if we try to go back down there to trap the monster, and they can fine us for orbital loitering if we remain in orbit around Vissengard.”

“You know what the Vaunted are going to do when they get here!” I say. “We’re just going to stand aside and let them do it?”

“We don’t have any choice, Jazel!” Lysanne snaps back. “We’re Preservers, not the galactic police! This isn’t our rodeo anymore!”

I push my chair back, standing up. “I’m going to go feed the vorcruelians.” I mutter without waiting for a response. The door of the conference room slides open, and I head down the hall at speed, trying to outstride my anger.

“Jazel—” Dandy’s voice comes from one of the hall speakers.

“Not in the mood for it right now, Dandy.” I say before she can start. “I need some space. Leave me alone.”

There’s no response, so I guess she’s taken me at my word. Heading through the next door into the section of the ship adjacent to the biosphere, I fight the urge to break into a run. As the last door closes behind me, I lean my hands on the railing of the walkway ringing the biosphere, staring at the massive structure.

At the end of the day, it’s just a big glass ball, made of hundreds of thousands of hexagonal panes reinforced with crysteel. But the sight never really gets old. It’s partitioned into layers, with the largest one covering the top third of the sphere, then layers beneath that containing more specialized biomes for the specimens we pick up. There’s everything from plains to tundra to desert to ocean to mountains (sorta) to swamp to forest to glacier to beach… you get the idea. Name it and there’s a layer for it; if there isn’t a layer for it, we’ve got a couple of uncommitted layers that could probably be terraformed to fit the need.

Staring up at it, I can feel the weight of failure sitting on my shoulders. I was supposed to find a way to trap the morphox, bring her aboard, and then… what? Did I really think I was going to be able to reform her?

I guess I did.

At the back of my mind, I’d always known it was a long shot, highly improbable, but I’d wanted to believe I could do it. I’d put aside my common sense to go chasing butterflies, like I so often did, but now the Vaunted were on the way. The fun and games were over; things had gotten serious. Once they got to Vissengard, they’d size up the situation, take some notes, then break out the coilguns, and the rest… I didn’t want to think about.

It’s not how I wanted this assignment to end, though.

I rock a little on my heels, staring up at the biosphere and its levels. I’d imagined that the morphox could probably go on the top level, since that was the largest one and it had a deciduous forest similar to what was on Vissengard. I’d nabbed more than a few of the spirit blooms from the planet, saving some for study in the lab, and planting others in sample cups; I’d planned on running some tests on them, then introducing them into the forest biome if they proved benign. That way, if we did capture the morphox and introduced her to the biome, she’d have a little piece of home while we searched for a planet to resettle her on.

But she was as good as dead if we just packed up and let the Vaunted handle it.

Taking a deep breath, I push off the railing, running my fingers over the back of my left hand. If I had common sense, I’d throw in the towel, walk away, and accept that I’d been trying to do something that was impossible. That would be the good, sensible thing to do.

Or, I could double down on trying to rescue a creature that would kill me if it got the chance. And I could pretend like I was doing it because it was the right thing to do, and definitely not because I was fascinated by her. I could mask my self-serving insanity underneath a facade of moral high ground.

Lysanne would see right through it, of course. We’d known each other for too long. She wouldn’t approve, and if she could, she’d stop me. She definitely wouldn’t help me get away with it, so I’d have to keep her out of the loop, and go it alone. It wasn’t ideal; I really wanted her to have my back, but this was one thing where I knew she’d refuse. It sucked, but that was how it was going to be, and I was okay with that.

Some things we just have to do for ourselves.

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Dandelion Drift: Kitchen

7:49pm SGT

“Do you think I came down on him too hard, Dandy?” I ask as I use the knife to swipe vegetables off the cutting board and into the pot on the stove.

“All of your arguments were valid.” Dandy points out.

“Well yes, I know they were valid, and so does he, but logic and emotion don’t play nice with each other.” I point out, setting the knife in the sink, turning around and leaning back against the counter. “Just because something makes sense doesn’t mean it’ll make you feel good.”

“I suppose… that makes sense. With a certain sort of almost-recursive irony.” Dandy says thoughtfully, her dish-stacking slowing down as she thinks about it. “It makes sense that things that make sense don’t always make you feel good…”

“And how do you feel about that making sense?” I ask with a small smile.

The stacking stops altogether while she thinks about that. “Perplexed.” she says after a moment. Her long, ruby-red hair ripples as she shakes her head. “I would need more time to contemplate it before rendering an opinion.”

“Fair enough.” Turning about, I pick up the lid and place it on the pot, turning down the heat so the soup can simmer. “Twenty minutes and it’ll probably be done. Do you think he’s cooled off by now?”

“I doubt it. Like you said, just because something makes sense doesn’t mean it’ll make you feel good.” she says, stacking bowls, then pausing. “This is going faster than usual.”

“What’s going faster?” I ask, looking up from the spice drawer.

Dandy’s brilliant blue eyes go between the dried dishes and the dishwasher rack. “He loaded this last night, correct? Yes. I remember it.” She pauses again. “He actually loaded the dishes facing in the correct direction.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in. Jazel never loads the dishwasher correctly. For a moment I’m not sure why things would’ve changed all the sudden; then I remember the conversation we had almost a week ago during the mapping flight: I would help him reform his monster girl if he started loading the dishwasher the right way. I thought it’d been a joke; it was why I agreed to the deal. I didn’t think he’d actually follow through.

Loading the dishwasher the right way was a small thing, but when you’ve known a person for twenty years, it’s the small things that really matter.

Resting my hands on the counter, I lean heavily on them as I blow out a long breath. “I think I came down too hard on him, Dandy.” I say, and it’s not a question this time.

“You only stated the facts. You had no power over the mayor’s decision to reach out to the Vaunted.” Dandy says. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for something you had no power to change.”

“Well, I kinda pinned it on him.” I say, tapping my thumb against the counter. “I implied it was his fixation that had gotten us to this point.”

“Which is true.” Dandy adds as she stacks the last of the dishes in the cupboard.

“Well yes, it is true, but just because something’s true doesn’t mean it needs to be said.” I say, picking up the spices I’d used, and putting them away. “I just feel bad about it. This is the first person he’s been interested in since we were kids. Rubbing his face in the fact that he biffed it probably wasn’t the best way to handle it.”

Dandy gives me a confused look. “Hasn’t this creature tried to kill him several times?”

“I think that just makes it more exciting for him.” I explain, sliding the spice drawer shut.

Dandy shakes her head. “I struggle to understand organics sometimes.”

“Have you ever heard of kinks?” I ask as I pass the knife to her so she can put it in the dishwasher.

“Kinks are…” she says, taking the knife, and I can almost see her CPU usage spike as she looks up word, scans the various definitions, and settles on one to fit into the context of our conversation. “Sexual deviancies or fantasies that fall outside what is considered the norm for a given culture or society. I think I see what you’re implying here.”

“Oh do you?” I ask, amused.

“Jazel is what you would call a… sub?” Dandy queries.

I can’t hold in the snort of laughter. “No no no. Jazel’s not a… pffffhehe. Jazel’s not a sub. I can see why you’d make that guess based off what we’ve discussed so far, though.” Turning on the faucet, I put the cutting board in the sink and start scrubbing it down. “I think Jazel just loves wild and exotic things. Usually that’s arcane flora and fauna, but when that intersects with something that’s intelligent and humanoid, I think that’s when the fascination evolves into attraction and becomes a kink.”

“Oh. So he sees this morphox as a potential romantic partner.” Dandy concludes.

“It’s more complicated than that, but yes. I think he finds her attractive and fascinating.” I say, flipping the cutting board and scrubbing the other side. “Which is… fair, y’know? People are allowed to like what they like, even if it’s a little weird. I just wish he’d set his sights on something a little less impossible.”

“I suppose I can understand why he’s in a bad mood, since the Vaunted are likely to hunt the creature down and kill her when they arrive.” Dandy says, taking the board as I hand it to her, and setting it on the drying rack. “It would upset me if I knew that someone I’m interested in would likely die. But as you said, he’s invested himself in something that’s impossible.”

“Yeah.” I say, drying my hands off on one of the kitchen towels. “Some lessons you just have to learn the hard way. Gods know that was the case for me. I’ve had more than my fair share of crushes and rough breaks.”

“Perhaps if you talked to him? Not to talk him out of it, but just to listen to him.” Dandy suggests. “There’s nothing either of you can do about it now, but maybe he’ll feel better if he is given the opportunity to express what he’s feeling.”

“That’s a good point. We’ve been at this for so long it feels like it always comes back to that question of who’s right and who’s wrong.” I say, glancing at Dandy. She’s one of those Cybers that’s so close to being human it could almost fool you, right down to the synthetic skin, soft and warm to the touch. But everything’s just slightly off, like the way she says things, or how her pupils widen and shrink just a little too mechanically. “Would you mind keeping an eye on the soup while I go talk to him?”

“I can do that.” she says quickly, looking at the pot on the stove. “Vegetable soup, I assume? Has been simmering for the last four minutes, needs another sixteen minutes?”

“Yeah, that should do it.” I say, pushing away from the counter. “I assume he’s in the biosphere with the vorcruelians?”

Dandy pauses again, eyes narrowing. “No. He badged out of it thirty minutes ago.”

“Guess he’s in his quarters, then?”

“No…” Dandy says again, slowly. There’s another moment where I can assume she’s skimming the ship’s access logs, then looks up with a perplexed look on her face. “He’s currently in the hangar prepping one of the skippers.”

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Dandelion Drift: Hangar

8:02pm SGT

“Where do you think you’re going?” I demand as I start down the stairs, the doors to the hangar sliding shut behind me.

Jazel looks up from the hover pads that he’s stacking in the loading bay of one of the skippers. “Supply run. Vorcruelians are almost out of food and we aren’t going to have a place to stock within two hundred lightyears. We’re going to need to load up before we leave.”

“I just made dinner.” I say, coming to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

“Enjoy your dinner, then.” he mutters, closing the lid on the stack of hoverpads.

“I just made dinner.” I repeat. “For both of us.”

“I’m not eating, Lysanne!” he snaps, turning around and gesturing to the loading bay. “I have to top off the stock for the biomes, put up with Milor’s frontier drawl when I get down there, and then I have to collect all the pylons we used to put that barrier around the settlement. So unless you plan on helping me, you can go have dinner and let me work in peace.”

“Nobody told you you had to do all that!” I exclaim.

“You sure made it seem like we were on a timetable!” he fumes, clomping down the loading ramp. “Going on about how we’ll be fined for orbital loitering if we don’t leave the system, saying the Vaunted will be here in a less than a week.”

“We don’t have to do that right now—”

“Well when are we going to do it, then?” Jazel demands, his green eyes finding me. He’s wound up tighter than I’ve seen him in a long while. “What are we staying for? We have no reason to be here. You said it yourself, we’re throwing in the towel on this one and giving up. I don’t want to sit in orbit feeling like a failure until the Vaunted get here and kill her, so yeah. If we’re giving up, then I’m packing up so we can get back on the road and forget we ever came to this place.”

I blink, bewildered at the sudden and violent outburst. “Jazel, you didn’t really think she would… did you…?”

He stalks over to the wall, turning on the console so he can access the controls for the hangar door. “I never told you not to chase people you’d regret, even when we both knew you that you’d regret them.” he mutters as an atmosphere shield ripples across the hangar doors, before the doors themselves unseal and start drawing back. “Ravoc!”

“Oh, so now you’re going to bring my exes into this?” I demand as there’s a series of heavy thumps and dark blue, winged, smoothscaled beast bounds over the hull of the skipper and into the cargo bay. It moves with all the boneless liquidity of a feline, and acts like one too; it’s got six eyes, with three on both sides of its head. The vorcruelian settles into the cargo bay, looking back at me as it does so. “Real classy, Jazel.”

“That’s not the point I was trying to make and you know it.” he shoots back at me as he heads for the loading ramp of the skipper again. “I don’t know why it even matters anyway. You win; you’re right and I’m wrong. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go clean up the mess so we can punch out of here and pretend that this didn’t mean a lot to me.”

“I never wanted to be right!” I shout at him as the loading ramp starts to close behind him. “But I knew it wasn’t gonna work! You set yourself up for failure and you’ve only got yourself to blame for that! Anyone with half a brain could've seen that!”

The ramp door’s closed by the time I’ve finished shouting, but I’m sure he heard most of it. Swearing to myself, I start back up the stairs as the skipper’s thrusters kick on, and it launches out of the hangar, passing through the atmosphere shield as the hangar doors start to close behind it. Reaching the console by the door, I open up a voice channel to Dandy.

“Hey Dandy, forget the soup and get out the Venusian whiskey instead. Please.”

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

Helios Settlement: Perimeter

9:45pm SGT

“Should’ve never put these things up in the first place.” I mutter to myself as I reach into one of the columns of light near the perimeter fence, and pull the thumbnail-sized crystal out of it. The moment I do so, the light goes dark, and there’s a fading hum as that section of the magical barrier loses power and evaporates. Tucking it into the zippered bag sitting on the saddle, I give Ravoc’s shoulder a pat, a sign that he can move on to the next column. “Should’ve just let her get into the settlement and find some poor soul to eat.”

Ravoc doesn’t answer as he starts ambling along the fence again, and I’m not expecting him to. Vorcruelians can’t talk, after all. But talking with him has become a habit of mine, especially when I’m alone and I have no one else to talk to. It helps me feel less alone.

“Lysanne’s right, though.” I say, leaning over the saddlehorn to rest my head again the scales between his shoulders. “It was never going to work. I don’t know why I thought it would; maybe I’ve just been too damn lonely to see past my own delusions.” Turning my head, I look out into the dark forest, where countless spots of sapphire-blue light mark where the spirit blooms have unfolded in the night air. “That mortal urge to be bonded to another creature is stupid, if you ask me. Makes us do stupid things. Hell, it even gets some of us killed doing stupid things, just trying to earn attention and affection.”

Ravoc flicks one of his feathered ears.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you think I’m just trying to make excuses for myself.” I say, rolling my eyes. “Oh boo hoo, he didn’t get what he wants, he’s going to blame it on the hormones and reproductive biology. Well, good sir, I answer your accusation with…” I pause, thinking about that for a moment. “…actually, I don’t have a good comeback for that. Well played, Ravoc.”

He snorts a breath through his rounded muzzle, which I assume is a modest downplaying of his debate skills.

I give his smooth, snakelike scales a couple of scritches across the shoulder. “I shouldn’t have blown up at Lysanne like that. Got mad at her, but all she was doing was telling the truth. Telling me something I already knew but was trying to ignore.” I let out a long sigh. “Gonna have to apologize to her when I get back. Probably gonna get the cold shoulder for a couple weeks, too.”

Pushing myself back up so I’m not leaned over the saddlehorn, I unzip the pylon bag as the next column of light comes up. “I can’t just leave, though. Can’t just drop it and sail back off into the stars like she never mattered.” I poke a finger into bag, stirring it around in the crystals within. “I might not be able to change her, but I should at least warn her about what’s coming. It’s the least I could do.” As we reach the column of light, I reach out to snag the next pylon.

“Mr. Jaskolka. What are you doing out here this time of night?”

I twist in the saddle as Ravoc turns in place. Behind us by about thirty feet or so is a man in a collared shirt, slacks, and grey hair. Milor’s following along behind him, flashlight in hand.

“Retrieving company assets, Mayor Grimes.” I say, reaching back out again and grabbing the pylon crystal out of the column of light. “CURSE would be pretty pissed if I just left these all behind.”

“You’re leaving us without protection from that creature?” Grimes asks. Simple question, but carries all the weight of an implied lawsuit.

“You don’t need our services, of which protection is a part. That’s what you called the Vaunted for.” I reply, making a show of dropping the crystal into the bag. “My colleague has made it clear that you intend to bring litigation against us if we try to continue our work or remain in orbit, so we are gathering up our property and making preparations to depart. You can entrust your wellbeing to the Vaunted from hereon out.”

“Litigation?” Grimes asks mildly. “I don’t recall threatening anything of that nature.”

“Sure was implied, though.” Milor mutters.

Grimes looks back at Milor. “Whose side are you on?” he asks incredulously.

Milor shrugs. “Kid’s been trying. He spilled blood and risked his life. I respect that. Plus, you interrupted my drinking hour for this.” Milor looks at me. “How’s those slashes healing up, kid?”

One of my hands almost goes up to the strips of medical tape on my cheeks before I catch it and keep it down by my waist. “They’re going to scar over. The gel didn’t really do much to fix it.”

“Pity. Makes for a great story to tell around the campfire, though.” Milor says. “So you’re just going to grab up the rest of these nifty crystal-things that are powering the barrier and get on your way, then?”

“Milor.” Grimes says. It’s got a warning tone to it. The mayor looks to me after that. “The Vaunted said the soonest they’ll have a unit out here is in four days. We can’t afford to leave the perimeter unguarded for that long.”

I lean forward on Ravoc’s saddlehorn. “That,” I say, savoring every word. “is no longer my problem.”

“You would put everyone in this settlement in danger just to spite us for wanting to get this problem fixed faster?” Grimes demands, motioning to the fence. “There are women and children in there—”

“No, you’re putting everyone in danger because you couldn’t wait for us to work out a peaceful resolution.” I cut him off. “We were working on the problem. You didn’t like how long it was taking, so you showed us the door and invited the Vaunted in. You made that choice. What you don’t get to choose is the consequence of that choice. You’re a politician, so your reflex is to pivot and slide the responsibility for this onto someone else, but this is the result of a decision you made, and no one else. Now, doubtless you will turn around and spin this to your constituents inside the fence that the Preservers left you high and dry so you can fortify your position as their advocate and defender. And you are welcome to tell them those lies. But you will not insult my intelligence by spinning those same lies to me and expecting me to pity you for something you brought upon yourself.”

I can see the mild facade fall away from Grimes’ face as his expression hardens into something more pugnacious. “Milor—”

“I’m out, boss. This is way too political for me.” Milor says, turning and walking back towards the gate in the fence. “I ain’t paid enough to argue ethics. I drink, shoot stuff, and hand out parking tickets. And as far as the law goes, the kid is right. The crystal-things are CURSE’s property. We can’t tell them what to do with it.”

“You’re useless, you know that?” Grimes says to Milor’s departing back, then glancing back to me. “What do you expect us to do for the next four days? Pray that the monster doesn’t notice that the barrier’s down?”

“You’re frontier settlers. I’m sure you’ll think of something. You’ve got enough resources to barricade the Vissengardians in their villages against their will; you’ll figure out something to take care of your settlement.” I say, tugging on Ravoc’s saddlehorn. He swivels around, starting to march back along the perimeter in the direction we’d been heading beforehand. “Have a good night, mayor. It won’t be too much longer before we’re out of your way.”

“Don’t say that like you’re doing us a favor.” Grimes snaps as Ravoc starts trotting away. “You’re a real piece of work, Mr. Jaskolka.”

“Well, I’m no saint.” I agree over my shoulder. “But at least I’m not a politician.”

With that, I make a clicking sound to Ravoc, who takes off running along the perimeter to the next column of light in the distance.

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Dandelion Drift: Common Room

11:22pm SGT

“Dammit, Dandy! Stop being tall!” I grunt as I swipe and jump for the bottle of Venusian whiskey that Dandy’s holding out of reach.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Arrignis, but your blood alcohol content is reaching the limits of operational saturation.” Dandy apologizes, tilting the bottle out of reach when I jump for it again. “I understand that you are distressed, but this is not a healthy coping mechanism. Please, drink some water instead.”

“Helpy coping mechanism my ass!” I growl, puffing some strands of hair out of my face. “People have been using alcohoho…hol to cope for a long time. Want me to prove it? I can prove it!”

“Ms. Arrignis, just because people have been doing something stupid for a long time does not make it an acceptable or wise thing to do.” Dandy says, holding a bottle of water out to me.

“Callin’ me stupid?” I mutter, swiping the bottle of water and flopping down on the couch. “I’ll tell you what’s stupid. Jazel’s stupid.” Gripping the cap of the water bottle, I struggle with getting it open.

“Mr. Jaskolka’s life decisions sometimes leave something to be desired, yes.” Dandy agrees, setting down the whiskey on the kitchenette in the back, then coming over to help me open the water bottle. “But he seems to have gotten his priorities back in order, even if his mood has not followed them.”

I throw a hand out to the wide, curved, floor-to-ceiling window of the common room that gives us a view of the Drift’s biosphere as it slow revolves in its shielded housing. “He. Totally. Lied to me! I thought he was aces! But no! He’s a kinky sonnuva bitch.” I look at Dandy. “He. Likes. Fluffing foxes. That sly bastard.”

Dandy’s face cycles through a few weird contortions that make it look like she’s trying to hold in a giggle. “P-Please, Ms. Arrignis, drink some water. It will help b-b-blunt the worst of your intoxication.” she says, her voice a couple of tones higher than it normally is. She reaches out grip the water bottle and guide it to my mouth.

I narrow my eyes at her. “You’re not laughing at me, are you?”

“Of course not, Ms. Arrignis. Please, drink.”

I grumble, but take a few sips of water with her help, staring back out the window at the slow turning of the biosphere. Wiping my mouth, I squint at the top biome, where I can see one of the vorcruelians going for a short flight over the trees. “…why’d he take Ravoc with him?”

“Pardon?” Dandy asks as she picks up pillows from the other end of the couch, fluffing them and setting them near me.

“He took Ravoc with him.” I mumble, staring at my water before taking another sip. “Like… why. Did he need to show off his pet to the feedstock cashier and say ‘I need enough protein stock to feed four of these for six months’.”

“Ms. Arrignis, you’re not making any sense.” Dandy says, sitting down beside me. “Why would he be visiting a feedstock supplier? Our feedstock bins in the cold storage room are all at roughly 75% capacity.”

I squint at her. “…what.”

“Our feedstock bins. They’re all around 75% capacity. None of the specimens in the biosphere should be going hungry anytime within the next two months.”

I just stare at her, trying to process that, at least until I feel a burp welling its way up through my chest, and I turn my head away to let it out. “…oh god, that burned my nose coming up. I think I’m starting to sober up and I don’t like it.” I lean on the arm of the couch, looking around for the bottle of whiskey that Dandy took from me.

“Oh no you don’t.” Dandy says as soon as I start looking around, grabbing my shoulder and pushing me back against the couch. “No more alcohol for you tonight. You will thank me tomorrow.”

“I’m not thanking you right now.” I grumble, squeezing my eyes shut and pressing the mouth of the water bottle to my forehead. “That makes two. He lied about being a kinky bastard, and he lied about the vorcruelians running out of food. Did he lie about the pylons? No, he has to get the pylons or procurement over at CURSE will go ballistic at us. If he goes down there, he has to get the pylons. But why would he go down there at…” I glance around, looking for a clock readout and seeing one on the coffee table in front of me. “Dear Dreamkeepers, is it really almost midnight? DANDY!”

“I’m right here, Ms. Arrignis, no need to shout.” Dandy says.

I jump in place, nearly dropping my water bottle. “Good grief, don’t sneak up on me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I haven’t moved, Ms. Arrignis. You just forgot that I was sitting here.”

I stare for a moment. “Right. I wanted to ask you something. Um… what was I thinking about? Gods, I just forgot it.”

“You were mumbling something about the time.”

“Oh right! I wanted to ask you, are we in geo… ginkro… ginkrosychroooo…” I blink, then close one eye as I try to focus. “I can’t words right now. Help me out here.”

“Geosynchronist orbit?”

“Yes, that. Are we in that?”

“Yes, the Drift is currently locked into geosynchronist orbit around Vissengard. The time up here should mirror the time on the surface.” Dandy says, brushing a scarlet lock of hair behind one ear.

“So it’s almost midnight down there.” I mutter, rubbing my closed eye. “Why would he go down there in the late evening? Nobody’s going to be awake. Guess that makes it easier to collect pylons. But he’s going to be outside the fence, that’s more dangerous at night. Maybe that’s why he took Ravoc. But why would he do that instead of just waiting for da—”

Dandy notices when I stop mid-sentence, staring off into the distance. “Ms. Arrignis?”

“He’s going on a nightwalk.” I whisper. “Oh shit, he’s going to try to catch her on his own!”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow—” Dandy begins.

“He’s gonna try to catch her on his own.” I grunt, setting the water bottle aside before lurching off the couch and staggering in place. “That idiot is gonna try to catch her on his own. That horny, kinky, fox-fluffer—”

“Ms. Arrignis, sit down.” Dandy says, standing and grabbing me. “You are in no state to be going anywhere—”

“Dandy, that ninetailed bitch is gonna eat his soul like a three course meal with dessert and a fine wine if I don’t get down there and back his ass up.” I say, grabbing Dandy’s shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “I need to get down there and stop him before he does something stupid.”

Dandy raises an eyebrow.

I roll my eyes. “Well, does another something stupid. He’s done a lot of stupid stuff recently.”

“You are not going anywhere in your current state.” Dandy says firmly. “You are too drunk to pilot a skipper.”

“Exactly.” I agree. “That’s why you’re going to pilot it for me.”

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Helios Settlement: Residential District

12:33am SGT

It takes five minutes of incessantly pounding and kicking on Milor’s front door, but he finally answers it, albeit without pants or his widebrimmed hat, plasma pistol in hand, and looking like he was dragged from an early grave.

“You better have a damn good reason for waking me up at midnight.” he grunts.

I hold out the bottle of Venusian whiskey. “Peace offering.”

He stares at the bottle, then looks at me. “Have you been drinking from this peace offering?”

I sway slightly. “Yes, but that’s besides the point. I need your help.”

He squints at me. “How much help are we talking here?”

I look at the bottle, then back at him. “Slightly more than half a bottle of vintage Venusian whiskey’s worth of help.”

Reaching out, he grabs the bottle, sizing it up. “…I’ve worked for less before. Lemme guess, this has something to do with your friend?”

“He’s trying to catch the monster on his own. I need you to come with -hic- me and drag him back to the ship.”

Milor stares blearily at me. “You’re asking me to risk my life for half a bottle of whiskey.”

I stare up at him. “It’s good whiskey. I wou -hic- know.”

Milor continues staring at me, then at the whiskey, then tucks his pistol under his arm and unscrews the cap, taking a sip. After a moment, he sizes up the bottle again. “…alright, that’s good enough to die for. You got yourself a deputy on duty. Where are we going?”

“We need the reconnaissance hauler. It’s still got the mapping data on the surveillance array. I think I know where the monster lives and Jazel probably figured it out too.” I say, putting a hand out and leaning against doorframe to steady myself. “I may or may not be too drunk to fly it myself.”

“Yeah, how’d you get down here?” Milor asks as he screws the cap back onto the bottle.

“Dandy piloted the skipper remotely until I got through the stratosphere. I was able to handle the rest from there.” I say, running a hand up my face and through my hair. “You can’t hunt monsters like that. You need to put some pants on.”

“And you need to sober up.” Milor answers. “You won’t last two seconds against that thing as a dizzy drunk. Stay right here, I’m going to grab some pants, my badge, and some tabs for you.”

He walks back into his apartment, disappearing into the dark and leaving me outside on the porch. I stay braced on the doorframe, combating fuzzy senses, until he comes back, his pistol now properly holstered. Straightening the collar of his jacket, he puts on his widebrimmed hat and angles it to the side just so, pulling a toothpick out of his pocket and tucking it between his lips.

“Right.” he drawls. “Let’s go hunt monsters.”

I stare at him for a moment. “Is that the same toothpick, or do you just keep a pile of them in your jacket pockets?”

He lets out a sigh. “We’re off to a great start already.” Reaching out, he grabs the back of my shirt, dragging me along as he steps off the porch. “C’mon, blondie, we’re burning starlight and you’ve got a lot of sobering up to do.”

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

Vissengard Wilds

1:29am SGT

There’s nothing quite like feeling the wind through your hair.

Especially when you’re clinging to the back of a vorcruelian, cutting silently through the night sky like a star shadow.

I don’t get to fly with Ravoc much. Technically we can in the biosphere, but space is limited in there, and we can really only fly in circles. But out here, on a planet, where the horizon is endless and the sky goes on forever…

Out here, we’re free.

Free to dive and swoop, twist and wind to our heart’s content. Being able to turn in any direction without worrying about flying into glass panels is incredibly liberating, and I can’t say how much I missed it. I know Ravoc’s missed it even more.

But that being said, we’re not here for a joyride. Our flight tonight has mostly been in one direction, and we’re following the map I copied over from the surveillance array in the Beruna. Instead of the ever-widening circle that we took when we were first mapping the morphox’s travel patterns, we’re now headed straight for the lake where the Beruna took a hit that sent us scrambling back to the settlement. I was willing to bet that the island in the middle of it was where she made her home, well away from the settlement and the villages. And if it wasn’t, well…

At least I could say I could tried.

Leaning over the saddlehorn, I study the shadowed terrain ahead and below us, patting Ravoc’s shoulder and pointing once I see the flat darkness of the lake up ahead. “That’s it right there, buddy. Let’s go into a drop glide.”

The only acknowledgement I get is a flick of the ear, but Ravoc fixes his wings in place, and we slowly drop altitude as we close in on the lake. By the time we reach it, we’re skimming the treetops, which disappear from beneath us as we pass over the lake. The air is noticeably cooler over the water, and I shiver, leaning closer to Ravoc’s back as we cruise over the glassy surface of the lake. Up ahead, the dark outline of the island glows closer, pocked with specks of light from all the spirit blooms within.

When we reach the shore, Ravoc coasts upwards a bit, braking off some of his speed to make his landing easier. As he touches down on the grass, I unbuckle my legs from the flight saddle, and slide off his back as he crouches down and folds his wings up. Taking a moment to get my sense of ground balance back after so long spent flying, I look up into the trees, finding that the forest before me isn’t nearly as dark as I expected. There are more spirit blooms here than anywhere else I’ve seen on Vissengard; so many that their bioluminescence bathes the entire grove in a soft blue glow.

Taking a deep breath, I look to Ravoc. “I’ll need you to stay here and wait for me. Try not to wander off while I’m gone, alright?”

Three of those six orange eyes blink at me, before a rumble starts in his chest and comes out as an inquisitive chirrup. I plant a hand on my face, looking away.

“N…no. It’s not a date. I don’t know where you got that idea from.” I mutter. “Look, I don’t have to sit here and endure these injurious accusations. I’m gonna go do my thing. You better be here when I get back.”

Ravoc’s finned tail thumps once against the ground, like an auditory shrug as I start into the forest. He doesn’t follow, though, and it isn’t long before the only thing I can hear are the whispers of the ferns against my legs and the quiet crunch of my boots through the leaf litter. There’s no paths here, so I’m just following the gentle slope of the island upwards, watching as the undergrowth starts to thin out the higher I go. The spirit blooms saturate the grove, and even though they’re not glaringly bright, there’s so many of them that they fill the forest with a diffuse blue ambience, almost entirely destroying any shadows that I would’ve otherwise cast.

Eventually, the ground seems to level out near the crest of the island, and the trees become taller and more spaced out. Pushing through the last of the ferns, I step into a clearing, and across from me is a massive, twisting, hunched tree with warped and whorled branches, each one weighed down with spirit blooms. It looks out of place in this forest of tall deciduous trees - something that really should belong in a different climate or biome.

Starting across the clearing, I walk up to the tree, standing beneath its overhanging boughs. Something like this probably took centuries to grow to this size, and it was probably the source of all the other spirit blooms on Vissengard. I’d assumed that they were native to this planet, but after seeing this tree and how different it was from the rest of the forest, I wasn’t so sure.

Reaching up, I take one of the spirit blooms by the stem, and pluck it from the branch. It comes away easily, the little petals still glowing as I cup it in my hands. Looking back up at the tree, I weigh the fact that it seems like the morphox isn’t here — I could leave now, if I wanted. Still alive, no worse for wear, and with a couple of samples from a magnificent floral specimen.

But that wasn’t what I came here for, so I push the flower into my mouth and bite down, feeling the viscous blue liquid spill from the soft petals. The taste is familiar - blue raspberry, peppermint, and just a hint of nostalgia. Trying not to let the taste overwhelm me, I swallow it all, pressing the back of my hand to my lips to make sure that none of the liquid manages to leak out.

There’s a whispering rush as the trees overhead sway in a sudden breeze, and when I look around, it’s to see the morphox standing there in the clearing, her august eyes fixed on me. Dropping my hand from my mouth, I turn to fully face her.

“Hallo, Kayenta.”

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Vissengard Wilds

1:45am SGT

“How you holding up back there?” Milor calls from the cockpit of the Beruna.

I let out a groan from where I’m lying in the hall with a headsplitting headache, my palms pressed into my eyes. As promised, Milor had given me tabs to clear my intoxication, but had forgotten painkillers to go along with it. Now the result was hitting me hard.

“Yeah, I know how that feels.” Milor replies to my groan. “Had a few too many of those moments when I was back in the service. Only way to go if you’ve got to sober up quick before a mission, though.”

“I would’ve been more useful to you drunk!” I moan, squirming on the floor. “I can’t even stand up without my head splitting in half!”

“That, my dear, is what we call the physical manifestation of regret.” Milor preaches. “Drink some water. It’ll help flush it out of your system.”

I grunt, but claw my way back into the cockpit, finding my water bottle and screwing it open. Taking a few sips, I rest my head back on the cool metal floor, closing my eyes as I cap my water bottle again. “Alright, what’s the plan when we get there? I can’t think for shit with this headache, so you’ll have to be the brains here.”

“Darling, there’s a reason why I’m the deputy and not the sheriff.” Milor says as the floor of the Beruna tilts slightly in a sign that we’re dropping altitude. “The only plan I’ve got is to shoot fluffytail, grab your friend, and book it back to the Beruna. If you’ve got something better, let me know, but otherwise I’m keeping it straight and to the point.”

I lift an arm and give him a thumbs up. “Sounds good to me.”

“Perfect.” For a moment, there’s nothing but silence and the muted roar of the thrusters. “Out of curiosity, what did you bring with you?”

I grunt, rolling over on my back and feeling around my waist. “One buzz baton, a bone bracelet, and a deck of basic element cards.”

Milor looks back at me. “Seriously?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I was drunk.” I mutter. “Usually I’m a lot more prepared than this.”

“Amazing. We are actually going to die out here.” he mutters back. “What a stupid way to die.”

“We’re not gonna die.” I grunt, struggling to roll over and push myself to my hands and knees. “We’re going to grab Jazel, run back to the hauler, and get the hell out of here.”

“A lot easier said than done.” Milor says, leaning forward over his console. Now that I can finally look through the forward window, I see we’re cruising over the lake towards an island that’s filled with pinpoints of blue light. Thousands of spirit blooms, a higher concentration of them than I’ve seen anywhere else on Vissengard. “Scans of the island aren’t showing any good spots to land; the shores are sloped too steeply. If we parked on one of the slopes we’d be liable to slide right off into the water.”

“What if we parked in the water? The shallows around shores usually have a shelf of some sort before they drop off into deep water.” I ask as I use the chair to pull myself up, and slump into it.

“Worth a try.” Milor says, poking at his console screen and adjusting the sensor array. “Looks like the shallows are only about knee-deep around the south end. I’ll see about setting down there.”

While Milor brings the Beruna around for a water landing, slowing so he can inch her up on the shore, I reach back and grab my water so I can take another few sips to try and thin out my headache. As we set down in the water, an alarm goes off on Milor’s console, warning that the landing surface is unstable and the Beruna is not sitting level on it.

“Willing to bet it’s because the landing gear is sinking into lake mud.” I say after a moment.

Milor looks at me from beneath the brim of his hat. “No really?” he drawls, sarcasm dripping off those three syllables.

“Okay look, shut up.” I say, taking another swig of water before capping it and pushing up out of my chair with a wince. “Let’s go, we’ve got a horny idiot to rescue.”

“Y’know, I’ve got t’ask.” Milor says, unbuckling and following me into the hall. “Did your friend really think he’d get a chance to tug on those tails?”

“Don’t ask me what I think he thought.” I say, hitting the console as I step into the cargo bay. The loading door starts lowering. “Because whatever he thought, I think it’s stupid.”

“Well, I’ve gotta respect his ambition.” Milor says, boots clunking down the stairs after me, and echoing as we cross the cargo bay to the lowering ramp door. “Y’know it takes courage to chase like that. To pursue someone outside of your league, to chase the impossible.”

“I never took you for a romantic, Milor.” I say, starting down the ramp where it’s come to a rest on the shore, bridging the gap over the water. My first step onto the grass comes with a loud rustle in the trees that just about scares me out of my shoes, and I look up to see something big and dark sinuously winding through the trees. It takes a few seconds for me to recognize the outline and the six orange eyes, and I put a hand to my chest as I let out a tense breath. “Good grief, Ravoc! You about gave me a heart attack.”

“Well, we’re in the right place, at least.” Milor says, hitching his hands on his hips as Ravoc blinks his orange eyes in sequence. “That’s the critter he was riding earlier tonight when he was collecting the crystal thingies.” Reaching up, he tilts his wide-brimmed hat back, staring up into the forest of ghostly blue flowers that lies ahead of us. “Question is, where’s the kid?”

“Ravoc, where’d he go?” I ask, moving towards the vorcruelian. “I know you know what I’m asking; don’t play stupid with me.”

Ravoc tilts his head, feathered ears flicking. After a moment, he turns in place, slinking his way back into the trees, heading up the gentle slope of the island’s hill.

“C’mon, Milor.” I say, following after Ravoc. “Three against one is better odds than two against one.”

Milor blows out a gusty sigh as he follows us into the waist-high ferns. “Follow the cat dragon into the enchanted forest in the middle of the lake in the dead of night. You know, you could’ve told me beforehand that I was walking into a fairy tale.”

“Most fairy tales don’t start with drunk young women showing up on your doorstep, Milor.”

“They do now, lassy. They do now.”

Event Log: Jazel Jaskolka

Vissengard Wilds: Kayenta’s Island

1:51am SGT

The moment I say her name, her lips peel back in a snarl.

“You have audacity to come to the heart of my domain after trying to kill me.” she growls. The way her tails are lashing to and fro, and how her fingers curl into fists, makes it clear that she’s not in a good mood tonight.

I look down at my arm and the bracer on it. “Yeah, I guess I did take a swing at your neck, didn’t I?” Reaching over, I start unbuckling it and pull it off, throwing it to the ground between the two of us. “I’ve never wanted to hurt you, though. Just scare you enough to get you out of my personal space.”

She watches as the bracer hits the ground, before those eyes flick back up to me. “You think that will save you?”

“Not as such, no.” Pulling my hunting knife off my belt, I toss it to the ground next to the bracer, then sink to my knees, sitting down. “I wanted to talk.”

“You assume much, thinking I’d be interested in talking to you.” she says, her fingers uncurling and moving in a swirling motion. Both my knife and bracer burst into white-hot, furious flame, and as they start to melt, she kicks them aside as she crosses the clearing. She comes to a stop standing over me; tonight all she’s wearing is a chest wrap and another leaf-patterned skirt, this one mimicking autumn foliage with a slit along the side. Judging by the way the fingers of her right hand are stretching and curling, she’s giving serious thought to raking me across the face.

“The Vaunted are coming. They’re going to try to kill you.” I say, resting my hands in my lap. “I thought I’d warn you before I left.”

Her mouth curls, as if she found something about that amusing. Crouching down to one knee, and resting her arm on the other, she hooks one of her sharp nails under my chin and tilts it up. “If you wanted to leave this world alive, you shouldn’t have come here.” Another nail joins the second one, tracing along my throat. “I don’t know what the Vaunted are, but many have tried to kill me over the last four centuries. I’m still here. They’re not.”

“The people over the last four centuries didn’t have the ability to nuke a zone from orbit.” I say without trying to move my jaw too much. “I’d much rather you come with us so you don’t get killed.”

“You are remarkably naïve.” she muses, using her fingers to tilt my head to one side. “And don’t seem to grasp the fact that your soul will belong to me once I tire of this.”

“I’m not exactly a wellspring of good life decisions.” Reaching up slowly, I curl my fingers around the hand she has under my chin, and carefully move it out of the way so I can tilt my head back down again. Though there is some annoyance in her expression, she doesn’t stop me, probably because I’m moving slowly and trying not to be threatening. “Why do you eat souls during every spirit bloom? It’s such an awful thing to do… the Vissengardians seem to think that if they don’t give you a sacrifice, you’ll punish them for it.”

She tilts her head to one side, sizing me up. “For the same reason the wolf and the hawk hunt. All creatures must eat to survive, and so must I.” Reaching up, she uses her nails to pick at one of the strips of medical tape on my cheek, peeling it back. “You must understand this as well. I know you eat meat; I smell it on you. Other creatures die, so that you may continue — this is part of the unending cycle.”

I wince a little as the strip of tape comes off, and she tosses it to the side before starting on the next one. “So what? If you don’t eat a soul every three to five years, you’ll die?”

“That is correct.” she says, peeling off another strip of medical tape. “I long since surpassed the natural lifespan of my people. Consuming souls lengthens my own life, keeps me going with the proper rest and hibernation. And it allows me to feed my garden, which I’m sure you’ve seen throughout the forest.”

“I didn’t know you were the reason for the spirit blooms.” I say as she picks another strip of medical tape off my face. “I thought you woke up when they bloomed, not the other way around. That’s how the Vissengardians always told it.”

“The Vissengardians don’t know me. I’m just a spirit they make sacrifices to so I don’t come to them and take what I want by force. But yes, I am the reason for the spirit blooms. Whenever I eat a soul, I feed some of it to the garden. Every flower is a memory, a moment, a dream. And souls have many of those. It’s why you see them spread out across so much of the forest. If I didn’t feed my garden, I wouldn’t have to hibernate; I could survive for years on the energy that comes from a single soul.”

“If you don’t feed the garden, will it die?” I ask, trying not to grimace as another strip of tape is peeled from my face.

“No, it will survive. Here and there, individual blooms may die when they get stepped on by accident, plucked or eaten by wild creatures. The blooms can sustain themselves; I just help them spread.”

“And what’s the reason for feeding the garden?” I ask, watching her face. The way her eyes rove as she picks at the edge of another strip of tape, the way she tightens her lips in a thoughtful slant when it slips between her nails and doesn’t come off right away. The way her brows furrow with focus as she tries again to peel the strip off my face.

“Because it’s what I do. It’s just… instinct. It’s what I’ve always done.” she says, flicking her fingers to get the strip of tape off them before she moves onto the last one. “It is part of the unending cycle.”

“So you steal souls to keep on living, but you feed some of them to the garden because you can.” I say. “But a lot of innocent people die that way, as sacrifices to you. Why don’t you just… hunt down bad people and eat their souls, since they deserve it?”

“Bad souls taste bad.” she ways without missing a beat. “They make me sick. And they look like that.”

I follow her arm to where she’s pointing to a cluster of flowers off to the side that I’d missed before. They cling to the branches of one of the trees on the edge of the clearing; I probably missed them because they’re black and bloated, like rotten fruit, with scarlet veins running through them. They blend in a bit if you’re not looking for them.

“Oh.” I say quietly. “Yikes.”

“Indeed.” she says, picking at the last strip of tape again and slowly peeling it from my face. “It is unpleasant to eat a corrupt soul. It’s like eating rotten food; you know what you’re eating is bad, and it will probably make you unwell.”

“I guess that makes sense.” I murmur, thinking that over. That definitely made things harder, as far as finding a solution went. She needed to eat souls to survive, and the souls of bad people wouldn’t fit the bill. There was no neat, tidy arrangements coming to mind at the moment; in order for her to live, good people had to die. Or maybe they didn’t need to be good people; they could probably be normal people. They just couldn’t be bad people.

It did seem a little unfair that bad people got exempted from the soul buffet.

A last yank of the medical tape brings my attention back to her as she flicks that last strip away. “Come with us. We’ll get you out of here before the Vaunted arrive, and we’ll figure out a way to feed you. There’s a solution; we just have to figure out what it is. You don’t have to keep eating sacrifices of people that deserve to live.”

She hooks one arm over her knee, resting the tip of her forefinger on my nose as she peers at me. “I’ve had four hundred years to find another way. Trust me, this is how it must be.” Lifting her finger, she taps my nose. “I will let you run, and get a head start, so you have a chance to get away. I’ll still chase you, and if I catch you, I’ll eat your soul, but I want to give you a fighting chance.”

On any other day I’d probably have taken the offer. It’s a pretty good offer coming from a creature that eats souls as a matter of survival.

But tonight was a night for making bad decisions.

“You don’t have to chase.” I say. “I’m not going to run.”

I can see the faint amusement on her face evaporate as I turn her offer down. In fact, you can see her expression go through the stages of acceptance at record speed; first bewilderment, confusion, realization, indignation, and finally fury as what I’ve said sinks in. Without warning, she shoves me with both hands, knocking me on my back, then pounces on me, pinning my shoulders down with her hands.

“You think you’re going to earn points with me by being the willing martyr?” she hisses, her nails digging into my shoulders. “You think I’ll have a change of heart and let you go for trying to be a hero? You think that impresses me?”

I wince as her nails dig through my shirt and draw blood. “If you eat my soul, then the Vissengardians don’t have to offer another sacrifice. And it’ll let you go back into hibernation by the time the Vaunted get here, which will raise your chance of survival.”

“It’ll spare them a sacrifice for this one cycle.” she seethes at me. “And what happens in the next bloom cycle? Your sacrifice here won’t save the next sacrifice in five years’ time. You do nothing but waste your own life trying to prove a point and break a cycle that cannot be broken.”

“Is it a waste if you get something out of it?” I gasp, wanting to yank her hands off my shoulders but knowing it’d probably be a bad move. “Call it my gift to you.”

“I don’t want a gift from you!” she snarls. “Your soul isn’t something you give. It’s something I take. So get up and run.”

I grit my teeth, trying to catch my breath. “No. You want my soul, you’ll have it on my terms, not on yours. I decide how you’ll get it — and it’ll be a gift. You can either accept it, or refuse it.”

I can see her snap. She’s infuriated, and it shows in the august glow of her eyes, but the way she bares her teeth at me resembles a smile — I can tell that she’s past the point of caring. 

“Fine.” she breathes, a lot of muted fury riding on that single exhaled word. She lets go of my shoulders so she can wrap her hands around my neck, her thumbs pushing up beneath my jaw as she hisses the next words close to my face. “I accept your gift. And none of it will be going to the garden this year; after all the trouble you’ve put me through, I’m going to keep it all for myself, and I will savor. Every. Last. Memory.”

As her lips brush over mine, I start to realize I’ve probably made a critical miscalculation.

My elbows dig into the dirt as I try to push myself back upright, but she bears her forearms down on my shoulders. At the same time that my mind is racing, it doesn’t seem to be moving fast enough; by the time it occurs to me that I should keep my mouth shut, she’s already got me in a liplock. In my rising panic, my thoughts start to escalate in increasingly strange directions: wow, her lips are soft for a feral creature and her breath tastes like peppermint, she must eat the flowers too! and wait, does this technically count as my first kiss?, and the crowning epiphany:

Maugrimm have mercy, I’m going to die by reverse CPR.

Lysanne’s never going to let me live this down.

Then she starts to inhale, and I can feel a tug. The breath starts to leave my lungs, but something else seems to be coming along with it. A sensation of cold starts at my toes and starts to rise along my legs; as Kayenta lets go of my neck and pushes back upright, I can see a trail of luminous green smoke twisting and curling through the air. As she settles into a sitting position, she tilts her head back, breathing it in; the cold rush continues racing up my body until it hits my head, and I lose all sensation as the last of my soul’s pulled from my body.

I have a feeling of drifting, being pulled here and there, then tugged down into somewhere dark. A fading spot of light.

Then a click, like teeth closing, and then nothing.

Event Log: Lysanne Arrignis

Vissengard Wilds: Kayenta’s Island

2:07am SGT

The branches snap and whip at my face and shoulders as I charge through the underbrush, following Ravoc. Behind me, Milor’s boots crunch through the leaf litter as he tries to keep up. And overhead, the trees rustle as the wind coasts across the lake and through their canopies, creating a soft rushing sound.

“I swear, Jazel, you’re going to owe me so many smoothies after this.” I growl to myself as I extend my buzz baton to its full length, and lock it into place.

“What?” Milor pants.

“Nothing, I was just talking to myself.” I say over my shoulder.

“And despite that, you’re still not as crazy as your friend.” he mutters.

I don’t have time to answer, since that’s the point at which we burst free of the underbrush into a clearing. I skid to a halt, not sure of where I’m going and what I’m doing, until my eyes adjust to my surroundings. There’s a great tree in the clearing, and on the ground in front of it is Jazel; straddling him is the morphox, head tilted back as the last of a luminous, smoky green incandescence disappears into her mouth, which snaps shut.

My fingers tighten around the hilt of my buzz baton as voltage starts crackling across its business end.

Gripping it with both hands, I sprint across the clearing, winding up for a home-run swing at the back of the morphox’s head. I know she can hear me coming, because those vulpine ears flick backwards at the sound of my boots thudding over the ground, but she’s only started to turn around by the time the baton makes contact with the back of her head.

There’s a satisfying crack as she gets laid out right on top of Jazel.

“Good lord, girl.” Milor says, hand still on his pistol grip as I skid to a halt in the dirt just past the two of them. “Swing like that, you could be trying out for the Spaceball Major Leagues. The hell did you need me for if you were just going to come up here and beat her senseless?”

I’m about to make a snarky remark when I notice the morphox’s fingers curling in the dirt, and I grab the baton with both hands again, winding up and at the ready to clock her in the noggin again. Ravoc and Milor circle around on either side of her as she dizzily pushes herself up on her hands and knees; I can see she’s out of it, and based off the blood glistening in her hair on the back of her head, she’s probably got a concussion.

I let my baton lower slightly; she doesn’t seem like too much of a threat at the moment. From where I’m standing, I can see her blinking rapidly and swaying in place; she doesn’t seem to notice we’ve surrounded her. Something else has her attention; based on the way her chin is tilted forward, the way her shoulders are hunched, how her tails are all kinked up, it’s almost like…

I can see it a moment before it hits, and I know what’s coming. She clamps her mouth shut as if she was trying to hold it in, then vomits a cascade of neon green-blue miasma all over Jazel’s prone body.

“Oh sweet lawd ha’ mercy!” Milor shouts, holding up a hand and looking away. “Did she just upchuck his soul all over him?”

The morphox wheezes. “Alt above, that burned so bad coming up…” she gasps, strands of liquid energy still dripping from her stained lips.

“Is that his soul?” I shout, jerking my buzz baton up again. “You put that back in his body! Right now! Right the hell now!”

The morphox looks up at me, disoriented and befuddled. “What??” I can hear the bewildered confusion in her voice.

“SOUL!” I snap at her, pointing at the partially-digested morass of Jazel’s soul, which seems to be acting like lava lamp blobs, clinging to his torso and also wobbling about in the air above his body. “PUT THAT THING BACK IN HIS BODY, WHERE IT BELONGS.”

“I can’t just shove a soul back in a body! That’s not how it works!” the morphox protests weakly.

“Ya took it out, ya sure as hell can put it back in!” I shout at her. “Milor, back me up here!”

When Milor doesn’t answer, I look around. He’s on the edge of the clearing, gun holstered and hat off, braced against a tree and dry retching.

“Oh c’mon!” I yell at him. “Really?!”

“I have a sympathetic stomach, okay?!” he yells back, before dry heaving a couple more times, and taking a moment to catch his breath.

The rustle of fabric draws my attention back to the morphox, and I see she’s trying to crawl away from Jazel. I don’t hesitate to whap her with my baton, nailing her right at the joint between her shoulder and her neck. She crumples back atop Jazel, convulsing and twitching as the electrical current works its way through her body. “Put his soul back in his body, or I swear to the gods I will beat you to death with this thing.”

She glares up at me as her convulsing subsides, her eyes full of hate and spite. “Y-you think you can kill me before I kill you, you mewling runt…?”

“Maybe not, but I have a territorial cat dragon that will bite your arm off if you try to hurt any of us.” I shoot back, nodding to Ravoc. “So unless you’d like to lose a couple limbs and bleed out while getting bludgeoned to death with a shock stick, I’d advise that you GET YOUR SKINNY LITTLE ASS IN GEAR AND PUT MY FRIEND’S SOUL BACK IN HIS BODY.”

The morphox bares her teeth at me, but does look aside at Ravoc, who snorts a puff of flammable blue gas through his nostrils. Pushing herself back upright, she looks down at the mess in front of her, then reaches out, her hands leaving trails of aquamarine light as she starts shaping the mass of regurgitated soul. She corrals it together, keeping the edges from wandering off, and then hooks a thumb in Jazel’s mouth, prying it open; leaning in, she blows gently over the gathered soulstuff, which slowly starts to swirl back down into Jazel’s mouth.

“Alright, I think I’m good now.” Milor says, coming back from the edge of the clearing and putting his hat back on, then stopping when he sees what’s going on. “Wait, is she… putting the stuff she just vomited back into…?”

“Milor, why don’t you just turn around and I’ll tell you when it’s over.” I say without taking my eyes off the morphox. “Putting an extracted soul back where it belongs isn’t a task for weak stomachs like yours.”

“Y’all givin’ me more nightmare fuel in three hours than I’ve gotten in ten years of workin’ here.” Milor says, turning his back to what’s going on. “I’m just sayin’, she done sucked his soul out of his body, chucked it back up, and now she’s putting that upchuck back in his body. Shit’s gross, kid.”

“So is mouth to mouth resuscitation, but it still saves lives.” I shoot back at him, angling the baton at the morphox again. “Don’t think I’m not paying attention to you, silvertail. You better not be skimming any off the top.”

She glares at me with those orange-red eyes, but doesn’t respond as she continues coaxing Jazel’s soul back into his body. As she gently breathes the last of it back into him, the razor-straight scar lines glow back to life on his face, the same color as the blooms all around us. A moment later, his eyes flick back open. 

The first thing he does is gasp a breath, snap-curling upright and slamming his head right into the morphox’s.

She jerks back, clutching her forehead as she reels backwards and staggers away with a little shriek. “Maelstrom have mercy!” she yowls as she stumbles away after her second incidence of head trauma in five minutes.

“What’s happening?” Milor says, turning around and seeing the morphox stagger away. Then his attention goes down to Jazel. “Oh shit.”

I start to edge after the morphox, but then look down at Milor’s exclamation. Jazel’s arms are curled in to his torso, his fingers hooked against his chest and his shoulders hunched; his eyes are wide but his pupils are pinpricks, and it looks like his muscles are locking up. “What’s going on with him?” I demand.

“He’s going into shock of some sort.” Milor says, crouching down and scooping Jazel up. “Wouldn’t be surprised; having your soul jammed back in your body prolly ain’t fun. C’mon, we got to get him back to the settlement. I’ll call ahead to the emergency room once we get back to the Beruna.”

He starts running back the way we came; I start to follow, twisting around and scanning the clearing as I go. I keep the buzz baton held out, as if to ward off the morphox, wherever she is; it’s only as I’m backing up into the trees that I catch sight of her, crouched on one of the roots of the twisted tree that forms the heart of this grove. Still clutching her head, glaring at me, watching us go.

Even though I don’t plan on ever coming back to this planet once we’ve left its surface, I’ve got an unsettling feeling that this won’t be the last that I see of her.

Turning off the baton, I turn and pelt through the woods after Milor and Ravoc, fleeing back to the Beruna and the safety of the settlement.