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“I’m going to date an alien or two,” Izumakamo announced to the rest of the group, who were all gathered at their regular table at the Noodle Pupil noodle shop. She lifted her chin in determination. “It’s in my dramascope. I’d never date one who isn’t hot.”
Shocked silence fell all around the table. Tojin, Akane and Yumi were all staring at Izzy. Masaka was staring too, but for entirely different reasons.
Izzy was always saying startling, outlandish things. It was part of her personality. So it shouldn’t have been surprising that she’d used the news about the spaceship launch to share her opinions. But this.... Masaka felt a little dizzy at the revelation.
Izzy wants to date an alien?
Akane recovered first. “Your logic, Izzy, is… um....”
“Terrible?” Tojin spoke up.
“I was looking for something more politic.”
“Allegedly terrible?”
“You’ll see,” Izzy continued, completely unphased by their reactions. “When I have both a handsome alien hunk and a curvy alien knockout fighting over me.”
Masaka continued to stare at her, unable to look away. Alien… and female....
“Excuse me,” Yumi put in, her voice faint. “I need to… um… go. For a little bit. For something.” The young woman stood and fled the table, not stopping until she reached one of the stools across the counter from Design. Always the eccentric one, the shop owner was currently gesturing in a way that made it look like she was stretching phantom noodles between her fingers.
Akane began scolding Izzy for being the one to “break the new girl” again, while Masaka slouched down in their booth, sliding a pencil from her pencil case and flipping open her sketchbook. She began to scribble madly onto a blank page, laying down thick, dark lines to calm her nerves. Idiot, she thought to herself, tuning out the good-natured banter of her companions, Don’t read anything into it.
The tip of the pencil scratched across the paper, outlining a series of squarish segments that joined together in a long snaking line. An oval head followed, and short antennae composed of sharp triangular sections. Masaka penciled in legs—many, many legs, all splaying out from the body at odd, unnatural angles. She switched to a charcoal stick, and began laying down broad strokes to provide texture for the chitinous shell, leaving spots of white in areas that would reflect the light.
I’d never date one who isn’t hot, Izzy had said. Masaka switched back to the pencil and drew curving tongues of fire in the white space around the centipede, adding zigzag motion lines and sections of deep black that made it look like the creature was writhing in pain as it was slowly charred to death by the ghostly flames.
As she put the finishing touches on the sketch, Masaka distractedly ran a hand through her short, shaggy bangs, brushing them out of her eyes. The black setae were long and soft--indistinguishable from human hair, even up close. It had taken time, and lots of trial and error, to get them to look just right. Masaka was proud of this human-looking body that she’d fashioned. With her enveloping black clothing and the liberal use of makeup to cover up the thin seams crisscrossing her outer skin, she had been able to pass as fully human on this planet for years.
As functional as the form was, however, Masaka definitely wouldn’t call it curvy. Or hot.
Masaka glanced back over at the counter, where Design was still chatting with Yumi. Now the noodle shop owner had her arms folded and propped on the counter, leaning forward so that the entire room had an excellent view of her impressive cleavage.
Why hadn’t Masaka thought to create a body shape more like Design’s?
Because, of course, she hadn’t been thinking about an attractive shape when she’d first fled to this planet. She’d only wanted to hide. She’d selected a planet that was as far away from the Cosmere’s many centers of strife and conflict as possible. Her arrival on Komashi had been like entering a calm oasis. Yes, there was still danger--in the form of horrific monsters that fed on people’s souls. …But the monsters could be chased away with art. On Komashi, Masaka didn’t have to kill to protect people she cared about.
Masaka fished in her painter’s bag for her bottle of fixative. She had to admit to herself that she’d become very comfortable on this planet. She’d thoroughly scouted the area around Kilahito, observed the humans carefully to learn their language and culture. Eventually, she’d bred hordelings to create her current human-like body, designed to fit in with the people who lived here. She’d adopted the persona of Masaka--an individual who’d become more real to her in some ways than the hoard Chinikdakordich. She’d walked among the humans and entered art school… and in doing so she had discovered the joy of painting. She’d found friends, work that she cared about, and a place she belonged.
She hadn’t counted on meeting someone like Izumakamo.
Some of the elder swarms had warned her about the dangers of trying to live among the humans. About forming attachments. It never ended well, they said. Once her true nature was discovered, the humans would treat her with fear and revulsion. She would be shunned and cast out, at best. They would attempt to destroy her at the worst.
It hadn’t happened, so far. The humans on this planet had more pressing things to worry about than a lone Sleepless in hiding. Masaka liked the life she had built for herself in Kilahito. She liked being a nightmare painter, and liked hanging out with her friends. She especially liked spending time around Izzy.
If she got to work on it right away, Masaka was certain she’d be able to breed hordelings that could round out her human figure. It would probably only take 15 or so generations. That wasn’t too long, was it?
Masaka would be willing to try it, if a curvy shape was what Izzy liked. She put away the fixative and closed her sketchbook. In the seat beside her, Izzy had her newspaper folded open to the page where the hion-viewer schedule printed. The young woman’s eyes were intent as she skimmed the synopses of upcoming episodes, occasionally pausing to jot down notes in her notebook.
The horde that comprised Masaka’s cognitive structure did not share a unified opinion on the subject of Izumakamo. The pragmatic voices of the hive mind, the parts that helped keep Masaka’s true form safe and hidden, buzzed in agitation--telling her bluntly that the relationship she was secretly pining for would never, ever happen. A human dating one of the Sleepless? The very idea was absurd. More than absurd. Impossible.
The other voices, however…. She glanced over at Izzy as her friend turned the newspaper to the next page.
Human girls liked cute things. Masaka liked cute things. …And Izzy, with her bleached-blonde hair and heart-shaped face and often-smiling lips, was very, very cute.
* * *
A few days after Izzy’s surprising announcement in the noodle shop, she and Masaka were out on their regular nightly patrol. Most of the evening passed by uneventfully… until a hordeling scout stationed a few streets over encountered a familiar black substance. Masaka’s human form hesitated in place for a few moments as scout-Masaka moved forward to investigate.
“What is it?” Izzy asked, noticing the pause immediately.
“Not sure,” Masaka said. “I think I saw something in the shadows ahead. Moving to the North.”
By now, Izzy had become accustomed to Masaka’s “keen night vision”. It helped them to track down nightmares more often than not when they were out on patrol. “We should check it out.”
Masaka inclined her head in the direction of the nearest cross-street, and the two of them set off walking quickly along the row of apartment buildings. The roadways were dim at this late hour, with very few lights on in the windows. Most of the ambient light came from the magenta and cyan of the hion lines, and from the faint glow of the star shining through the shroud high overhead. The two nightmare painters emerged onto Grove Street, a wide thoroughfare that marked the edge of Izzy and Masaka’s patrol area and the beginning of Akane and Tojin’s beat.
“Over there,” Masaka said, pointing across the road towards the street-side trash bin the scout had noted. Even at this distance, they could see that the corner of the bin was discolored by a blot of inky blackness, one that had already begun sublime away into smoke. The trash receptacle stood at an intersection, where tall residential buildings were bisected by a darker alleyway leading deeper into the city.
“We should take a look, at least,” Izzy said. “Akane and Tojin might have already gone past this area.”
Masaka nodded in agreement. As they crossed the street and passed the trash bin, scout-Masaka spread beetle’s wings and flew upwards to perch on the rung of a fire escape, alert in case the nightmare doubled-back.
It wasn’t difficult to follow the evidence left behind by the roving nightmare. Their painter's training had taught them to watch carefully for the signs, and the nightmare they tracked was making no effort to disguise its movements. They followed the trail of smoking black patches left on walls or windowsills, moving deeper into the city and crossing three more intersections. A large, fresh blotch of nightmare essence had been deposited at eye level on the brick wall of the next corner. The patch was hardly smoking at all, which meant that the nightmare must be very close. Masaka and Izzy paused long enough to quietly slip their painting supplies from their satchels, and together they turned the corner.
They immediately saw that they needn’t have hurried. Akane and Tojin were standing in the middle of the street, having tracked the Nightmare on their own. Akane had her painter’s tools out, canvas placed on the pavement in front of her, her brush moving in bold decisive strokes. Tojin hovered a few steps behind her, his brush and canvas readied in case she needed backup.
The last trailing ends of a Nightmare were just flowing out through the wall of one of the buildings. The bulk of it had already coalesced in the center of the road, forming a hulking, elongated shape. Smoke boiled and streamed off of it, and it had only the smallest white pinpoints for eyes. It towered over Akane, nearly twice her height. Six sets of short segmented forelegs waved in the air as the bulbous body reared up from the road. Mandables as thick and as long as Tojin’s arm snapped together with a nasty clicking sound. The grub-like creature leaned towards Akane, appearing fully capable of snapping her up and swallowing her whole.
An insect larva. Why did so many of the nightmares have to take the shape of insects or spiders or other crawling things? It was a constant reminder of the elder swarm’s warnings—of the dangers of living among humans. The human subconscious mind had a deep-rooted fear of things that were other. Deep down, they would always be afraid of beings like Masaka.
Akane didn’t flinch or back down from the sight, however. Her full attention was on the canvas in front of her. As Masaka watched, the Nightmare shivered and eddied, beginning to lose height. Its substance fanned out and broadened in the middle as it continued to collapse in on itself. The mandibles shrank and disappeared, feathery antennae and large faceted eyes sprouting in their place as the entire head shifted and rearranged itself. Wide wings quivered and flapped as the nightmare took flight. Now compacted into a fuzzy creature barely the size of Masaka’s palm, the nightmare fluttered off into the darkness. Akane’s painting had trapped the creature into the diminutive shape of one of the many species of moth that collected around the hion lines, attracted by their light.
Akane let out a breath and stepped back from her canvas, and Izzy and Masaka moved forward to congratulate her on her work. It wasn’t unusual for nightmares to cross the boundaries of a painter’s patrol area, so Akane and Tojin weren’t surprised to see them. The four friends lingered for a few minutes in the empty street, sharing news and the results of their evening’s work. They didn’t chat long--there was barely an hour left of their workday, but they all still had patrolling to do. So the four of them said their goodbyes, promising to meet up at the Noodle Pupil after the end of the shift.
As Izzy and Masaka retraced their steps back to their own patrol area, Masaka found herself cheered by the brief encounter. By the memory of Akane painting skillfully in the middle of the street. Her friend had stood strong when facing down the insectoid nightmare, a creature that was larger and much more threatening than Masaka’s true form. …And Akane hadn’t been afraid.
Nightmare painters were made of sterner stuff than the humans who dreamed safely in their homes every night. Maybe someday, her friends would be able to accept Masaka for what she was--if she ever plucked up the courage to tell them. …And perhaps it was a sign that her one-sided attraction to Izzy might not be completely hopeless, after all.
The darker, pessimistic voices within Masaka’s hive mind hummed that those types of thoughts were pure foolishness. That her friendship with Izzy could never grow and metamorphose the way she wanted--into something resembling a real romantic relationship. She shouldn’t even consider the possibility. Either she'd wind up with relationship built on secrets and lies, which couldn't last long. ...Or tell the truth, which would only serve to drive Izzy away.
Izzy and Masaka returned to Grove Street, nearing the place where the Masaka-scout still stood watch—perched above the sidewalk on the fire escape. The scouts weren’t part of Masaka’s human disguise, so they hadn’t been bred to have the same warm skin tone of Masaka’s human form. Instead they were mottled black and gray to blend in with the environment, with small bits of red around the thorax and head, and more on the underside.
As Masaka approached, the hordeling crawled upwards, seeking a better view of the street below. However, the Masaka-scout reached a spot where the sides of the fire escape had become coated with condensation from the cool evening air. The pads on the hordeling’s tiny feet lost their purchase on the slick metal, and the hordeling abruptly plummeted down towards the pavement. She hit and bounced a few times with the audible tapping sound of chitin against a hard surface, coming to rest squarely on her back. A bright green luminescence flashed an alarm pattern from her abdomen, as the red legs waved helplessly in the air.
…Stranded right in Izzy’s path.
There was no time to intercept Izzy. Masaka could only brace herself inwardly as she watched Izzy’s foot descend, right on target to crush the helpless hordeling. It wasn’t something Masaka had ever gotten used to--the flash of pain, whenever one of her hordelings was killed. The sensation fed back along the cognitive network that connected the many individual creatures of her hive mind. Brief, but never pleasant.
To Masaka’s immense surprise, Izzy noticed the insect just in time. She balanced there on one foot for a moment, the sole of her shoe hovering in place.
“Oh, a firefly!” she exclaimed (highly).
Instead of squashing the hordeling flat, Izzy shifted to crouch down right next to it, inspecting her with interest. Scout-Masaka wriggled, but stuck on her back, she couldn’t get enough leverage to right herself. Izzy loomed over the tiny insect. However, something about her posture indicated that she wasn’t a threat. Masaka saw only genuine curiosity in her expression.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind up close before,” Izzy said. “Do you suppose it bites?”
“That one feeds on flower nectar,” Masaka said, feeling a surreal disassociation. Then, feeling the need to explain how she knew, added, “you can tell by looking at the mouthparts.”
“Huh,” Izzy said. Then without warning, she scooped the insect up into her cupped palms, flipping her right-side up.
If Masaka had felt a sense of disorientation before, it was magnified a hundredfold now. It wasn’t just the sensation of vertigo from the scout’s sudden change in orientation. The warmth radiating from Izzy’s hands transmitted itself through the insect neural net, flooding into every corner of her hive mind. The smoothness of Izzy’s skin under scout-Masaka’s feet. The enticing floral scent of the perfume that she wore, amplified at such close range.
“Such pretty markings,” Izzy stroked a finger along the length of the smooth elytra that protected the delicate wings. Masaka was forced to suppress an involuntary shiver at her touch.
Seeming not to notice her reaction, Izzy stood and moved two steps closer to the wall. She gently set the hordeling down onto the asphalt in a sheltered corner by a trash receptacle, out of the way of any vehicles or careless pedestrians.
“I used to think these were all over the city,” Izzy said casually. “That they were some special breed of insect found only in Kilahito. Then I realized that I never see them when I’m patrolling with Tojin or Akane. Odd, isn’t it?”
Taken off guard by the words and not quite sure what to say in response, Masaka could only nod stiffly. It was one thing to send out scouts as lookouts when she and Izzy were working together. It was quite another to creepily stalk and spy on her friends--so she didn’t.
Izzy rose to her feet and took a deliberate step back towards Masaka. “It’s because they’re yours,” she said abruptly, “aren’t they?”
The directness of Izzy’s words hit Masaka with a shock like cyan and magenta hion lines touching. Masaka thought she’d been so clever, disguising herself and her scouts from everyone. Only Design had ever figured out her true identity, and the noodle shop owner had admitted that was because she had already met Sleepless on other planets. So far Design hadn’t seemed inclined to share her secret with anyone else.
When Masaka failed to respond to Izzy’s words, the blonde looked away, glancing over to where the hordeling was now climbing straight up the brick wall. Very aware of the scrutiny, the Masaka-scout stopped a few feet above the ground, then unfolded her wings and clumsily took flight. A slow sequence of phosphorescent green flashes lit the darkness as she moved higher, fleeing in the direction of the roof.
“I meant what I said before,” Izzy said, watching the firefly drift upward. “About wanting to go out with an alien. The others think it’s crazy. But….” She turned back to Masaka again, “I don’t think I’ll have very far to look.”
Masaka stared at her. She doesn’t mean.... She can’t know....
The pragmatic voices of Masaka’s hive mind immediately took charge. “Izzy,” she began, defenses rising, preparing to deflect and divert.
“Masaka,” Izzy spoke over her in a rush, then kept going--as if she wanted to speak the words before her nerve failed. “I like you. A lot. In a more-than-work-partners kind of way. I’ve been thinking about you often, these past few months. I think we should go out on a date.”
Masaka froze up. Her normally quick hive mind, able to process and act on sensory input from hundreds of sources at once, suddenly went distressingly blank. Unable to muster a coherent response, Masaka repeated numbly. “A… date.”
“Yes, a date.” Izzy closed the remaining distance between them, and extending her hands out towards Masaka. She smiled, for the first time looking a little bit nervous. “It’s customary, when two people decide that they might like to be girlfriends. The dating kind.”
Masaka could only look at those extended hands, hands that were slender and calloused and smudged with old ink on the left thumb and index finger. Hesitating. The many voices within Masaka’s mind, the pragmatic and the hopeful, came buzzing back to life, clashing in direct opposition. She wanted this, what Izzy’s words offered. And yet. She’s made some astute guesses, but she doesn’t understand everything. You’ll lose her completely if she learns all of your deepest secrets.
As the silence stretched, Izzy kept her hands extended, her entire posture tense and earnest. “It’s our day off tomorrow,” she added hopefully into the uneasy silence. “If you’re not too busy. I hear there’s a carnival in town.”
For so long, Masaka had wanted this. To be accepted. To be able to be herself around someone who was not scared of what she was. Izzy knew that the firefly hordelings were connected to Masaka. …And she hadn’t been horrified or repulsed. She was a nightmare painter, used to strange and disturbing sights. Maybe she could be trusted with the truth.
Izzy’s hand was still extended towards her, steady and unafraid. However, as the moments stretched on into minutes, Izzy’s bold façade began to visibly crack. Her expression became more and more uncertain. She’d taken an enormous risk by confronting Masaka like this--and she was starting to second-guess herself.
Some part of Masaka knew that she might never be presented with a chance like this one again—and she found that she wasn’t willing to let the opportunity slip away. The hopeful voices of her hive mind surged to the forefront, wanting to honor the risk that Izzy had taken, entreating Masaka to take a risk of her own. Before Izzy could backtrack, or deflect with the pretense that she hadn’t meant anything by it and it had all been an outrageous joke, Masaka reached forward and folded both of her hands around Izumakamo’s.
The long sleeves of her black sweater fell back, and even with the thick layer of foundation makeup that Masaka used, the seams at the base of her fingers and along the wrist were faintly visible in the light of the hion lines directly overhead. Izzy noticed, and her lips parted with a delighted “Oh!”
“A date at a carnival,” Masaka said (highly), her words slow, almost shy. “We would like that very much.”
All of the tension that had been building in Izzy’s frame suddenly left her in a rush. She leaned back a little, and in complete disregard of the local noise ordinances, let out a whoop of relief and exultation.
There was still one small matter that bothered Masaka, however. She frowned down at their joined hands, unsettled. “Does this mean we are required to fight a handsome alien hunk, now?”
“You remembered that?” Izzy grinned at her, her eyes dancing mischievously. “I wasn’t being serious, of course. Couldn’t you tell I was just joking?”
Masaka couldn’t help it, she found herself smiling back slightly. “No, Izzy," she said. "Nobody can tell when you’re joking.”
That made Izzy laugh. A delighted, joyful sound. Her fingers tightened around Masaka’s in a way that warmed her and set her insides buzzing pleasantly. She gave Masaka a little tug forward, and didn’t let go. “C’mon.”
Together they set off down the street, holding hands for the rest of their patrol.
* * *