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You love Mituna Captor more than anything. The accident didn’t change jack shit about that. He’s still the love of your life. Dirty humor, gentle heart, mischief and sweetness wrapped into one bolt of lightning. Your matesprit. Half your heart. Sometimes you look at how the little Vantas loves, too, all the quadrants at once with his human in the red jammies and your own dancestor counterpart.
And you wonder, with Mituna’s beautiful snark---no, he did not lose that and become some invalid with no real words to say---and his incredible sweetness, if you might do the same. Kurloz would hardly mind, if Mituna agreed. The laws of quadrants had gotten quite lax as the centuries wore on in the bubbles, and she didn’t mind when Kurloz and Tuna made out. Hell, Tuna always asked when she was gonna do the same with Porrim.
Porrim, wiser than hootbeasts. Porrim, who was more like a mind player than Latula ever was. More knightly, more the savior of what was destined to fail. She and Aranea were together when they made the scratch. A couple of brilliant, feminine girls. Other girls, bright and strong.
You were…you wanted Porrim for her smile and jokes and wisdom. And you are terribly, terribly jealous. And besides, she had a matesprit. One she’d chosen after being with nearly all of them. The best of the best. Aranea clearly appreciated the pedestal. Porrim hadn’t slept around after that; she’d kept to herself. No outside interests. Monogamous, and with a taste in girls with curves, real confidence, and a sense of smell.
Whatevs! You’re no home wrecker. And who needs anyone besides Tuna, anyway? That’s the point of human-style quadrant love, right?
Still, Tuna’s perfectly candid and open, and you’re not unhappy when he hooks up with others. You’re happy with him, and the occasional makeout with Meulin, though you haven’t spent much time with her.
The only thing that really makes you unhappy is the pain.
You know the remains of his psionics rot and eat at his nerves, making him double over and shout. The dizziness and the memories he can’t bring himself to talk about. The humiliation he feels whenever he forgets how to do something that he used to do with ease as a wriggler.
It’s hard losing so much. It’s hard and no one understands. Not even Kurloz.
You might, though.
***
Kurloz finds you in the memory of a circus-tent church. Not one of his, just some other doomed juggalo’s. The texts here are old as time, with snake patterns carved into just about anything.
“Didn’t expect to find you here, radical sis.” He signs.
You answer, “Looking for some…some psionic shit.”
“Trying to recover the old sniffnode?” Teals are known for sense-enhancing psionics. It’s not a bad guess.
Kurloz is good at telling when someone’s lying, though, and you figure he’ll be willing to hear you out.
You tell him.
Kurloz doesn’t even blink before waltzing over to the bookshelves to help.
Aranea’s investigated every library in the bubbles. She’d probably help to. Or blab about it to half the kingdom of the dead, and who knows what they’d say.
Well, you know. Better if they don’t have a reason to say it, then! You stick to your lone research partner.
***
You wonder what your quadrants are doing sneaking off. Maybe they’re making out. Maybe they’re sick of you. You shouldn’t be worried. Shouldn’t be feeling a sick, dead green settling in.
You don’t remember why you’re worried when they come back a week later. The feeling’s still there. You can’t seem to talk about it; people have called you crazy enough times before.
***
The day is long. Well, they all are, here. The place is too hot, boiling hot, close-to-the-sunlight hot. Perfect for a beach day. You love surfing, challenging Meenah, kissing Tuna in the sand, watching Kurloz and Meulin make sand sculptures. It might be a while before the next visit. You'll make it the nicest ever.
Today, though, you take Mituna and Kurloz to an old church. It’s at the top of a sand dune, in a place that's more desert than beach.
Like so many older Messiah ruins, it's got wrecked carnival equipment and carvings of snakes everywhere. Normal snakes. Knotted snakes. Snakes with a head on each end. Snakes swallowing their tails. Snakes curled around each other like a helix of DNA.
“Those ones are fucking.” Mituna snickers.
“Tuna!”
***
Latula usually giggles more at your jokes. Her smile isn't reaching her eyes at all. What's gotten into her?
***
“Tulip, is everything ok?”
“Nah, it's all chill! Got a little on the brain.”
“You're sad?”
You just smile. Really, you’re not. You should be very, very happy.
Kurloz opens the door to the temple. It's musty. Stained glass windows of the cherry-and-lime spiral have gone grimy and cracked with abandonment. Below are two large bowls, big enough to fit a troll. There's snakes around the outside brims, carved there.
Open-faced recuperacoons. The sopor you’d found in there would be fetid. Kurloz has been kind enough to replace it with vibrant green.
“What's this?”
Latula says, “It's a cool ritual thing Kur-bro and I found. One troll gets in each bowl. We relax and stuff, and drink some cool potions. There's some prayers.”
“What’s it do?”
Latula says, “It's a surprise!” She winks.
Mituna hesitates. But Kurloz pats his back and gives his small, closed smile.
With some encouragement, Mituna gets into the crimson sopor bowl. He gets comfortable in there.
Latula steps into the lime.
Kurloz brings them both vials. Something red for Latula, something green for Mituna.
Latula drinks. She can't taste much but pure sugar in it, with a faint bitter burning. There's a hint of heat. No sense of smell means she can't taste the ingredients.
The change comes slow at first. The crackle and flash. The start of a game, the memory of pain. Psionics that buzz in the brain, high and bright as the rosy moon and low and blue and and dank, fit to drive you to bed for weeks. Old, old selves.
There's a connection. Mituna’s confusion, his thrashing, shouting as Kurloz chants and pushes him back down into the bowl.
***
N0 N0 N0 NO NO NO
***
A hive from up in the roof, spawned in error. A cave deep below. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
You find her easily, too early, two early. Three early, really. She is long and deadly, not easily defeated by something as primitive as your psionics. Instead YOU sit there as she cuts string after string.
Final boss. Your fucking denizen. Atropos, maker of death and fate. You should not be there, and she tells you so. This game decided to kill you on the spot, Heir of Doom. Just your fucking luck.
“Heir. You are not meant to see this place.”
“Fate fucked me up.”
“Fate has not done that to you yet.” Her simple, blank face twists into a grin. You wonder if Damara’s time powers will be able to spit you out before the game and install a different browser. One with two heads instead of three. Less dangerous. More fitting. Less creepy. Maybe you would not be tied to a fortune of doom. You could be something else.
“How's fate gonna fuck me up even more? I programmed the game. I know you're gonna kill me.”
“You might win our fight.”
“Lol. Lmao, even. I just saw you cut a yellow string. I'm not a myth nerd like Cronus, but even I know that's my life. And those other strings are the ones
“It does not have to be. Fate is not certain. You have an opportunity to alter fate, to take it for your own.”
“Yeah?”
“A deal for you, heir. I know your entrance was inconvenient, but I can do something about that. Your friends will die if you do not return to Beforus. You can protect them all, and I will bring you back, but it will cost you dearly. Doom will be upon you.”
There's no other option. You must be the martyr.
***
You will be the martyr.
YOU ARE THE HEIR OF DOOM
***
No one can say you don't love your matesprit, and you feel his pain for yourself, taking it all away, absorbing the shock and confusion and the jerking motions, the fog of it all.
Love feels like a blunt, hot needle right where your joints are. Love feels like jerking your arms so far you tear ligaments. Love feels like healing. Mituna is growing stronger. Through your tears, you see him rising through the sopor. Love. That's your Tuna.
Your thoughts are jumbled as he throws Kurloz off of him.
***
Your head aches with clarity. Your senses don't need that helmet. Everything is wonderfully, horribly in focus, slicing through sharp as a cavalier's blade.
You throw Kurloz off of you, with practiced ease. Your psionics are back. You missed them and dreamed of them and rambled about them, back before.
You’d have given anything, you said.
Tula’s there. Her eyes have gone dark with burnout, shaking with the lack of energy.
You remember when she first saw you like this. The cries you made, too pathetic for a cool gamer girl.
Latula is barely making a sound. She just twitches, with the pain you’d just had drawn out of you. The constant pain.
Your body feels good enough to run a thousand miles.
You hate it worse than a mouthful of tacks.
“What have you done?” You don't stumble anymore. You feel a strange sense of loss.
Latula is too shaken to speak.
Kurloz signs instead.
“She loved you.”
You sink to your knees.
“She shouldn't have.”