A story by Nona Myuso

There was once a master of hand to hand combat on Y’menor who could feel her own heart shatter with the bones and will of any who sought to force her hand. The cutting sorrow of violence bid her weep through every battle, but her love for those she protected burned so brightly that her tears rose as a ferocious mist from her eyes. Her cries for peace became the most fearsome roar of any battlefield. Armies fell by her hands, and she wept for all who would never rise again.

She never mended her own heart. Despite this, or maybe because of it, legends claim that for a single moment amongst eternity, she was able to bring about true harmony on Y’menor.

By Nona Myuso

Distant percussions of passing things plucked their attentions away from igneous meditations, and they began to stir. Bodies upon bodies. Spines on spines on ribs through scapulae beneath shoulders and skin and scales that shifted and shimmered into place. Distant ululations carried beckonings through the rock and stone. The churning earth and soil rumbled and shifted as legs upon legs began to amble and move. Amongst the heads and heads and eyes and eyes and memories and lies one took the lead and subsumed their brethren. The now serpentine form grasped forward and upward with its centuplicate appendages. Jaws from before the dawn of man on Y’menor gnashed and choked on the dirt as they charged onward. They rushed from some distant realm of void and tectonic pressure into a sublime and radiant heat. It caressed them; remembered them; called them by a name they had never known.

“Puruczar,” it cooed.

That was the name carried on in the chorus of voices. It grew louder and louder as that brilliant heat gently faded to a passive warmth. Puruczar charged onward towards it again, and felt their maws crash through sand and soil. They felt water and movement and smelled blood and craved whatever squirmed at the center of it all.

Puruczar rushed and moved and felt and tasted and smelled and heard and lived again for the first time since it’s youngest parts last drew breath. They roared in exhilaration. The force of their triumphant cries hurtling out and back again like in the days of mud and water and flesh and blood. Puruczar continued their jubilant charge onwards until finally, they surfaced.

Slava had heard stories from radio shows and at various performances for the royal military elites of daring folk who would take to the skies simply for entertainment, but actually falling through the air felt much less exhilarating than it had been made out to be. That may have had something to do with Slava being unable to even flail about as they plummeted. Another deciding factor in Slava’s enjoyment of being airborne was the landing; a dull percussion that left their right hindquarters and thigh in formidable pain. They felt a tug at their left sleeve and, without thinking, followed it. Getting up was uncomfortable enough that under normal circumstances they would have simply waited in the dent in the thin sheet of metal for help whilst crying. Dropping into a clumsy roll from a distance of two meters or so would have left Slava almost entirely incapacitated, but the shimmer throughout their body from the sting and the gentle fluttering tugs at their clothing seemed to be all they could react to. Everything hurt so much, but they couldn’t seem to do or feel anything about it other than what the creature was telling them to do. The faerie chirped. Slava reached their hand towards the handle of a door they only just realized they were approaching, and the faerie that had been guiding their actions quickly skittered up to the lock.

It’s body was short now, with three segments; the back was large and round with shimmering little hairs that looked like glass fluttering off into Slava’s vision, the middle was longer, with the legs branching off of it in pairs, and the head was relatively small and graceful. It had eight appendages, with two that resembled scythes at the front. The hyaline fibers continued up the creature’s back and gave them an almost soft appearance. Their head, which seemed to sit atop a fur collar, sported branching, feathery antennae. Everything about the faerie was captivating. Even as they reached their limbs up to the keyhole and shifted the inner mechanisms, they seemed to be changing ever so slowly. The edges of their body sharpened and elongated. The fur became more intense; almost too bright to look at.

All at once, the faerie leapt from Slava’s hand with a sharp stridulation, and Slava involuntarily threw the door open. At the same time, the faerie’s coat flashed an impossibly bright red. The color seeped into their eyes, and distracted Slava from their renewed descent down the crowded stairwell. Slava could tell they weren’t using the stairs as they were intended to based on the feeling of hands on railings, and the aches in their body as they lifted and dropped to and from ever more precarious perches. The red began to drain from Slava’s vision as they dropped from the last railing and started running despite the pain sitting sharp in their leg. They could see the faerie flying a short distance ahead of them, and the forms of soldiers all around them blindly flailing about. They screamed in terror and swung at something in the spots that Slava still couldn’t see. Still able to function enough in the sanguine terror and blindness, one of the soldiers found Slava’s wrist and held it in a painfully tight grip. Upon the faerie’s tactile instruction, Slava twisted their arm beyond any comfortable angle in a sudden lurching turn. The soldier’s grasp was broken and Slava tumbled away, scrambling to their feet and out of the stairwell. 

Everything ached. Their shoulder felt like it was about to hurt a lot, and the dread was almost worse than the coming pain. The faerie pushed against Slava enough that they crashed into the wall mid run, and felt an unsettling series of pops where their arm had hurt. Agony shot through their chest and arm with the actual joint too overwhelmed to feel like anything at all.

Slava crumpled behind a large column among two dozen set in a circle around the grand foyer. They couldn’t help but cry out as they grasped desperately for breath. The heaving of their chest shocked through their armpit and around their shoulder. It was leagues behind the pain of the soldier beast’s bite, but that had nearly killed them.

The faerie tugged at them again, and Slava commenced a slow, and awkward crawl across the red and white tile. The faerie now appeared with long, fluttering wings, and a long, slender body. Their legs were thin with tiny hooks that gently pressed into the skin on Slava’s finger and hand as they did their best to pull Slava along.

Sounds of people rushing around the surrounding hallways and grand foyer filled the air. Soldiers and guards shouted at guests in the upper floors to remain in their rooms. Vera and Lady Carlilia’s battle raged on amidst the moonlight cast through the rooftop fenestella. Slava, unable to actually do much about the situation, briefly reflected on how they had never seen a government building in such disarray before when a mass of screaming orange and green fire crashed into the floor behind them. There was a brief silence before a wet sucking heave pulled itself into the sound of Lady Carlilia’s gasping voice.

“You know your family always was a liability to the N.R.M….,” Vera’s voice cut ragged through the still air, “Like fucking cockroaches. None of you seem to know how to stay dead.” Her tone held that icy rage that terrified Slava in their waking hours since early adolescence. She had taken Slava’s ego to pieces countless times with that tone, even when they felt they had no self worth left to lose. Now they were sure she was going to take both Carlilia and Slava’s bodies to pieces in her ubiquitously baleful manner.

Vera emerged from the mess of broken marble she and Carlilia had made next to the central support structure of the tower, “Maybe your little brother will be better at knowing his place…”

By Nona Myuso

A sharp ringing spun through the darkness. Amorphous lights bloomed across Slava’s eyes until the motion snapped to execution. The pitch in Slava’s ears remained until it was surreptitiously replaced with a lurching hiccup, Lady Carlilia’s grasp on them forgotten until it too lurched terminally forward. Slava tumbled out of her arms onto the tile floor. Hints of something simultaneously dull and sharp jeered the flesh right below their shoulder. Slava cleared pain from their lungs with a whimpering cry only to have it rush in again. The floor shook beneath them from a nearby impact. Pain chewed at them once again and a visceral suspicion crystallized into thought.

Is my arm broken?

More tremors. A cloud of hot air that smelled like copper pots and bloody noses poured over Slava’s back and the side of their face. They moved their left arm, the one that wasn’t broken, in a feebly ironic attempt to get out of the way of whatever was coming. Torrid jaws racked Slava’s midsection. Another, more ragged scream erupted from them as the guard beast’s abominable jaws drifted slowly closed. It was an animal sound that ended in a pitiful choke. The harsh rapport of bullets punctuated a sickening crack just below Slava’s diaphragm and they felt the floor meet their face again. The beast howled.

It stopped… I’m alive… oh gods I’m alive…

The thought was more in disbelief of the pain than gratitude. Slava knew nothing of necromancy or the teachings of the Eight Goddesses, but they knew how it felt to be cut. They knew how it felt to be burned. What was new was the sensation of being crushed, and then being numb. Slava began musing about how numbness had never felt like pain until now as it forced their thoughts away from them like snakes scattering through a garden. Darkness again; more complete this time. There were noises; booming percussions of gunfire, Slava’s name, a brilliant flash, combat somewhere distant.

Fading.

Unimportant.

Slava didn’t care. They figured it wouldn’t concern them rather shortly. The hold they had maintained on their body had always felt quite tenuous; antagonistic almost. They had forgotten where the resentment had really begun in all honesty. Had it been a bad angle on a bad day? Too much criticism layered over too much doubt maybe? They had been told to hate themself so long because of their body that the loss of it was oddly understated; a twisted relief even. Vanity. Pride. Self deprecation. It felt so petty now with the profoundness of agony washing over them; the anchors of cauterized flesh pulsing to remind them of what was happening.

Slava was drifting.

The anchors were fading.

Faltering.

Dwindling.

…

What do you think? Can I keep them?

The question wasn’t formed of words so much as something that drifted across vast distances from somewhere close. It brushed gentle over silent darkness like feathers in the night. Slava did not so much hear as feel what was communicated. It felt good. It was a lullaby from lips drenched silver in singing moonlight.

Not yet, this one is still needed.

This impulse was an admonishment so playfully complex; just as little a sentence but still so much boundless information transmuted between things Slava couldn’t see. It was legs rasping on bark and the crush of leaves. It was eyes peering from the treeline at sunset. The desire to view whatever was bombarding them with these ineffably vast notices sharpened something parallel. Slava reached, pushed some ethereal part of themself outwards into wherever they were now until-

It hurt again. It hurt so badly. When had it stopped hurting? Not important. It was so hard for Slava to form thoughts; to hold onto notions between writhing tendrils of mental interference.

Bones twitched like the legs of a contused insect. Muscles squirmed like boiling cephalopods. Pain spread, renewed in itching fractals signaling a return to flesh. A series of alarming pops and crackles ensued. Slava attempted to inhale only to taste and choke on that warm copper smell from before. It shimmered in their chest like sparkling wine on the tongue, and their lungs filled with something sweet touched sour. The pain dissipated again as they groped for air.

The schism in Slava’s psyche between their unreconciled states remained. Light was too bright; darkness indecipherable. The face looking down at them expressed… something. Slava was having trouble determining what exactly. All of this coming to and fading from was exhausting. They just wanted to know what was going on. Color resonated again and the face yielded itself to analysis. Even with that it took Slava a second to recognize concern. Expressions had always been somewhat hard to make sense of.

“Slava? Slava, oh gods- Are you okay? Can you get up? Please get up…,” Carlilia’s voice was frantic, she was crying. Something about it was off. It almost sounded how the messages felt. The effect was fading, if it was even there to begin with. Imagined or real, it made her words easier to understand.

No? Of course not? My whole torso is broken. Aren’t I actually just dead entirely? Wasn’t I dead? Am I not dead?

“Uh-aiuh…,” Slava kicked themself for not being able to  articulate- well, anything. Their ribs still felt too fragile despite the absence of pain. They looked down, faintly grateful for their ability to do so, and found their uniform in tatters. Two large tracts of skin on the left side of Slava’s belly were now gnarled and irregular. Otherwise they appeared fine. Lady Carlilia’s hand was gripping the tattered and burnt cloth at their diaphragm. Flickering green lights traced along the new scars and winked out.

“Carli, we need to get out of here, this is beyond bad,” the voice snapped Slava out of their daze, “…is he alright?” They looked to the source. It was Oryxa Rynn; a member of Carlilia’s customary entourage. She was running towards Slava and Carlilia from a nearby stairwell. Oryxa was short, with dark skin and vibrant green eyes. Her amber locks were coiled and beaded in beautiful patterns that resembled a bouquet. The red and orange fabric that composed her dress moved like the fins of a swimming copperfish. Slava thought they could see lustrous, teal shapes darting through the bands of cloth as they shifted.

“They’re fine,” Slava didn’t miss the emphasis Lady Carlilia put on using a neutral pronoun as she wiped her upper lip. It was the first time anyone had done that for them. They noted immediately  that it felt better than the alternatives. Oryxa let out a sigh, but the tension didn’t leave her. Slava moved to stand. Lady Carlilia helped. As she rose, Slava took note of the large, bladed polearm she picked up from the floor, and was somehow casually sliding into the coin purse at her side. Slava’s eyes widened as they saw the bisected guard beast on the floor behind her. It’s flesh was sizzling and cracking like dying embers. Pieces of its hide blackened and fell inwards.

This is all too much.

“Can you get us to the manor from here?” Carlilia’s tone hinted more at the approaching dangers all around. Footsteps echoed still, and a ragged barking howl sounded throughout the tower from above.

“What? No! Of course not! We can’t do the ritual here! Not now!” Oryxa was clearly frustrated and scared. It was only her comment that clued Slava into the fact that they were all now standing in front of Živko’s; the restaurant Lady Carlilia was attempting to locate earlier.

“What i-,” Carlilia’s question was cut off by a radiant orange flare, and a crash that sent the trio sprawling. When Slava regained their senses, Lady Carlilia was already getting up and sprinting towards the source of the disruption. They followed her path to see she was charging Vera, who had crashed and was kneeling to the right of the restaurant. Her hair was almost as bright as the dissipating fires that still wreathed her form. She was pale, with menacing blue eyes that spoke of the kind of beauty that could, and would cut anyone down to size. Tear stains, and red mascara marked her cheeks. The floor that had endured the crash was cracked deeply beneath her feet. As Lady Carlilia approached, Vera rose, and her hands started glowing the color of the rising sun.

“YOU KILLED M-,” much like Vera had interrupted Carlilia with her meteoric stunt, Carlilia interrupted Vera with a noteworthy punch to the face. Vera hit the ground, and her hands extinguished. Tiny chartreuse lights danced around her head. Lady Carlilia wheeled around to face Slava and Oryxa, “Ryx! Take Slava and fly!” Oryxa’s response held something in it that threatened to break Slava’s heart in that very moment, “Carli, no! They’ll kill you!”

“You don’t have time to think about that right now!” as Lady Carlilia spoke, she rushed back towards the two who had now righted themselves. She untied something from her wrist before tackling Slava into a sort of half hug with one arm and reaching out to Oryxa with the other. When her hand reached Oryxa’s face, Carlilia drew her in for a kiss. The two remained for seconds that felt like lifetimes; Slava acting as nothing more than an unwitting bystander.

Carlilia pulled away first, “I’m sorry, Ryx.” With that, she shoved Slava towards Oryxa and yelled with the same voice she used to make Vera’s firebreath miss, “GO!” A choked sob escaped Oryxa’s lips, and she grabbed Slava’s wrist. The last thing they saw before another enveloping pop and complete darkness was Vera stirring, and Carlilia reaching into her coin purse to draw her weapon.

By Nona Myuso

The Grand Central Palace of Exryvin was arranged in such a fashion that every floor in the center spire had two concentric hexagonal hallways. The outer hallways upheld whatever clandestine workings the upper echelons of North Rhetz society required to stay aloft whilst the inner hallways on the lower levels could be accessed via the front entrance of the palace by anyone with a visitor’s pass. The floors at the middle were reserved for soldiers’ barracks with the ones above those reserved for visiting nobles and higher ranking military officials. The center of the main tower was open, making the inner hallway of each floor a catwalk washed pale in moonlight. In the center of the illuminated courtyard was a large angular structure resembling a red and black tree with the branches connecting to seemingly random ceilings for added structural integrity. The chaotic metal appendages contrasted with the controlled red and white stone decor of the surrounding architecture, creating an uncanny juxtaposition of organic and artificial function. White marble with luminous red gemstones set into the angular patterns seemed to command respect through the polite tap of shoes on tile, almost reprimanding any who would dare move faster than a brisk stride in those stately halls. Slava had already committed the calamitous sin of running full sprint through three or four hallways behind Lady Carlilia before realizing their footsteps were the only ones making noise. Their venture to investigate the matter further was interrupted by something harrowingly familiar.

“You fucking idiots!”

The savagery of the vituperation echoed from the direction of Stepan’s room like flatware falling on tile. Slava then heard what sounded like hot grease and burning firewood mixed with screaming from the same direction. They could feel their blood leaving their face as they frantically approximated a half remembered prayer to a goddess that could have been Si’Ona but also very well may have been Nephine. As the screams warped from that of boiling men to something deep and vengeful, Slava felt it wise to beg both deities for their protection. Vera had found Stepan’s body, and she was beyond fury.

Vera Margaret Pavlov was Stepan Dimitri Pavlov’s oldest granddaughter and heir to the Pavlov Military dynasty. Vera’s father, Gregor Dimitri, had been next in line for the position of Governor General to the north-western provinces until seventeen years prior when he and his wife, Palmera Noelle, were killed in action during a coup d’etat.  In a just world no sane human being would have ever put Vera in any sort of position where she had any ability at all to exert her wrath upon another soul. On Y’menor, however, Slava had just murdered the only person preventing her from becoming one of the seven most powerful individuals in the public eye of North Rhetzvit.

“Shit shit shit fuck shit…,” even after the already abundant surprises of the night, the last response to the implied horror Slava expected from her ladyship’s mouth was that. They were equally, if not more shocked when Carlilia lifted them into her arms as if they were nothing more than a young brushound, and bolted down the hallway; veering towards the railing of the catwalk. Exactly half a second before Slava had the wherewithal to pull themself back to their senses Lady Carlilia had taken a running leap over the short stone wall and into the frey of black and red chrome branches. From their left came Vera’s continued screaming that definitely wasn’t Rhetz and bordered on savage nonsense. Slava’s heart rushed into a frenzied tantrum until whatever little mechanism inside them that kept time running at a steady pace broke entirely and the next action felt like an epic play in slow motion.

With almost choreographed precision and grace Lady Carlilia turned in the air so that she was facing the direction of Vera’s bellowing. As she did this, she moved her right arm out from under Slava’s knees and pointed at where Slava could now see Vera standing with her hands gripping the top of the railing.

The things making their way down through the tangle of steel towards Slava and Lady Carlilia were beasts Slava had only ever heard stories about. The creatures’ skin crackled and glowed like smoldering leather. They bared vicious horns, teeth, and claws that glowed like hot iron. Powerful appendages that appeared to be gnarled hands and feet with branching fingers and toes gripped the bars and launched their warped and bloated forms forward with petrifying speed. Before the monsters could reach them Vera’s ululations reached a crescendo and her mouth and eyes began to glow a bright hot orange. As flames erupted from Vera’s mouth in a tight stream Lady Carlilia intoned something indecipherable followed by a tremendous, echoing, “Stop!”

Slava closed their eyes tight and awaited any of the innumerable deaths yearning for them. A flash of sudden intense heat to their left threatened their fear come true until they felt Lady Carlilia shift to replace her arm under their knees as she used her now back leg to land on a branch whilst facing where they had leapt from. Slava opened their eyes and saw black scorch marks and traces of fire dancing along a huge swath of the stone and metal architecture. Vera’s shot had gone astray. To Slava’s further amazement, the monsters faltered amongst the canopy. A calamitous din proceeded as their forms crashed through the beams. Any doubt in Slava’s mind that the creatures were once human dissolved as one shook its- his head and almost put a hand to his face before more than two eyes on his mutilated head widened in some blooming emotion. The former guard’s jaw, which was now more porcine than anything, split down the middle as a mind rending caterwaul haunted the palace.

Slava could only suck in a short breath as Lady Carlilia gingerly stepped off of her perch, plummeting no less than a few stories onto a lower branch. Vera’s frustrations rippled down the open space of the tower followed by demands for the fleeing duo’s heads. The guard beasts were slowly regaining their composure through keening whines and barking despite the enraged pyromancer’s demands for them to mobilize. Lady Carlilia sprinted along the beam she and Slava were poised upon with uncanny deftness and hopped over the connected railway onto one of the lower floors. Still holding Slava, she dashed towards the nearest stairwell and, rather than more conventional methods, opted to leap over the stairs, landing gently as a Kallavian moth dancer. A guard and a few terrified nobles gawked at Carlilia as she darted into the adjoined hallway. Her Ladyship’s steps yielded not a sound as she continued her dizzying feats of athleticism down the tower and through the scant crowds of nobles fleeing the open catwalks for cover. She stopped to frenetically survey her surroundings, “Živko’s, Živko’s, where the supine fuck is Živko’s?”

Recollection sparked in Slava’s mind. They and Stephan had gone there earlier in the week for breakfast with Vera and her fiancé. A quick glance around revealed that Lady Carlilia had miscalculated her descent. The sudden uproar of footsteps flooded the surrounding hallways.

“It’s two floors above us! In the hallway to our right!,” across the tower Slava could see a crush of armored guards on the same walkway as them and Carlilia, splitting up to rush their location. About a quarter of them stopped at semi-regular intervals; aiming their rifles at the two. Slava’s answer was as reflexive as the instinct to run. Carlilia looked up in the direction Slava indicated before swearing again, and backing away from the railing to embark on another running start. Just as the crowd of enforcing officers reconvened on her ladyship, she leapt from their reach with spectacular ease.

Slava grit their teeth and squeezed their eyes shut as they heard the volley of gunshots around them and felt a blanketing pop. They were abruptly shunted into a more thorough darkness.

By Nona Myuso

Darkness rested gentle against languid meditations without consequence of thought. Time and stone were left alone. Ever shifting magnitudes hummed dreams of petrified lives past over and around the small fragment of form as the ages drifted by. It had been such a long time; a peaceful time. Countless moments, hours, millennia, eons had passed in the way that left one wondering whether their mind had simply gone still for a minute or the rest of the world had just elected to leave them behind altogether. The latter felt more likely. They remembered something. They also could barely remember anything. Before the questions had a chance to properly form, to gestate and unravel into… something, they faded away; like the countless veins of igneous rock that shifted and flowed invisible into the darkness. The soil and earth churned, and there was only the roiling deep once more. Even so, voices called from some far away, molten present.

By Nona Myuso

There were few ways Slava’s plan could have gone more wrong in less time.

“L-Lady Carlilia I w-,” Slava stopped when the woman quickly looked to both sides and then back at them. Her eyes were storm grey like theirs. Slava felt a sudden rush of emotion and tears began forming. Something felt off. They felt relieved, like some abysmal chasm of panic had been simply wiped away.

“Close the door,” Lady Carlilia’s tone was quiet. Slava obeyed, biting their lip.

“Are you alright, Slava?”

Slava blinked the tears from their eyes and ventured a tentative response. Everything was so confusing.

Why is she acting like this? Why am I feeling like this? Can I trust her?

“I’m a-,” their voice cracked and they swallowed hard, “…alright -I’m fine.”

“Good. Come with me,” Lady Carlilia’s voice was genuine. She grabbed Slava’s wrist and hurried off down the hall with them in tow. Slava was on the shorter end of average which meant Lady Carlilia was almost tall. She had a broad frame and long, curly, brown hair tied into a high ponytail, or at least Slava could have sworn it used to be brown.

Has her hair changed color?

It seemed lighter, but they couldn’t tell for sure in the moonlight. Stranger still, her ladyship’s hair didn’t bounce so much as flow through the air as she walked. Slava chanced a second look at her dress to find that it seemed to be doing the same. They felt their confusion double. It was almost as though their skin itself were boiling; each bubble an unanswered question eating away at the corners of their mind.

Slava stopped. Lady Carlilia almost pulled them both entirely off balance before coming to an abrupt stop herself. A sharp irritation emerged in Slava and they pulled their arm free from her ladyship’s grasp.

“Lady Carlilia, I-,” Slava was interrupted by the uncharacteristic glare on her face as she wheeled around to face them.

“Slava, we don’t have time for this,” the words were a rushed hiss as she tried to stay quiet. “You’re an intelligent young man, I’m-,” she stopped as her voice wavered. Slava felt that same feeling of chilled sick pouring into their stomach that they had when looking in the mirror, and their indignation left them.

“…that’s not right is it?” Lady Carlilia’s voice was pensive, “…young woman?”

Slava felt a different kind of sick now; a burning itch all over their body that gave way to a cold sweat.

“N-No, it’s nothing- my lady, please-,” their thoughts were too scattered. Panic bled into etiquette and the result was a slurry of both babbling incoherently out of Slava’s mouth. They were pretty sure they were not a woman. They were also pretty sure they were not a man. In fact, Slava had never felt a particularly strong connection to either term. Being called by masculine terms had always felt almost akin to being outright insulted, but being called by feminine terms felt wrong for different reasons. This train of thought only served to introduce deeper confusion to an already hopelessly opaque situation.

Lady Carlilia stepped forward and gently grasped Slava’s arms. Slava’s heart jumped. The focus on their own inner turmoil  dissipated.

“This is too important to discuss at present. Right now you and I need to go,” her eyes were gentler then, though her jaw was still tense. Slava swallowed hard and nodded. Lady Carlilia paused. For a moment it seemed as if she were staring right through Slava. A shock of alarm rattled them.“Gods fucking damn it,” Lady Carlilia hissed, snapping out of her apparent fugue,

“We need to run.”