Valiant

[Valiant #31: Recruits]

Log Date: 10/17/12764

Data Sources: Feroce Acceso, Kiwi

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Titan Hangar

10:08am SGT

“I have been cataloguing the science facilities in the Bastion’s southern hemisphere, and while some of the equipment is dated, much of it is still cutting-edge, or ahead of its time.” Midnatt says in his familiar double-echo psi voice, pattering alongside me on his springy paws. Sol is on the other side, both of them accompanying me as I head to the Titan hangar to visit Renchiko and meet some of the new staff we’ve brought on. We’re currently making our way around the walkway that rings the base of the hangar building. “There is great potential for research to take place here. The facilities are here; the resources are here; we simply need the staff and administrative guidance.”

“I agree with that; I think a research initiative would be a great thing for us to have.” I reply. “It’d show that we’re more than just a security group; that we’re interested in the pursuit of knowledge, and not reliant on fixing problems with force alone. But to have a science team, we need the funding to pay them, and we’re kinda short on that at the moment.”

Midnatt twitches his whiskers and looks to Sol. “Capitalism.”

“Capitalism.” she agrees.

I squint at that. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying capitalism is the problem?”

“Yes. Mainstream galactic cultures have a hyperfixation on material accumulation as the means to access everything from personal amenities to grander social achievements.” Midnatt replies, then folds his ears back. “Oh, ugh. Disgusting. That’s so much… chunkier when it’s said aloud. We sometimes wish you were a psion. The sentiment I intended is much more graceful when it’s sensed and not spoken.”

“What Midnatt is saying is that your organization, like many in the galaxy, focuses on money and deemphasizes socialized structures that focus on coming together as a community, and working together for the greater good, providing a support network that can supplant excessive material wealth with other, more fulfilling social compensations.” Sol says, then wrinkles her muzzle. “Oh, my. That is chunky, isn’t it. Yes, we wish you were a psion sometimes. It would make these conversations much easier.”

I give a helpless shrug. “Honestly, sometimes I wish I was a psion too. Despite all appearances, I’m not someone that likes running my mouth.” Brushing back the edges of my longcoat, I tuck my hands in my pockets. “I think I get what you two are saying, and I honestly don’t disagree. If we could find a happy medium between paying people a decent amount, and asking them to do the work on principle rather than on paycheck, I’d be all for it. But celebrity capitalism’s got a death grip on this galaxy. You two know that, right?”

“Yes, so we have seen since leaving the Empire. The elders warned us about how greed and hubris has rotted away other galactic cultures, but we did not grasp the scale until we saw over the last six months how much money constricts organizations outside the Empire.” Midnatt says, checking his data slate. “It makes us pity you. We understand now why the galaxy is in the state it’s in.”

“It is not a monolith, though.” Sol adds quickly. “It is a spectrum. Some nations and cultures are healthier than others. Often the scientific community in the Marshy Republic is motivated by principle and ideal, yes? Perhaps we could focus on recruiting scientific staff from Marshy systems?”

“Well… not necessarily.” I mince. “I’m sure there are plenty of Marshy scientists that do the science for the sake of science, but there’s also a fair number of scientists and institutions are motivated by ego and the desire for prestige and recognition. At the end of the day, I think it’s best to measure individuals on a case-by-case basis. I’m sure there are good, principle-driven scientists in other nations as well. The Marshy Republic is known for science and curiosity because it’s what they do. It’s one of their strengths, but it’s not always a virtuous one. There’s a reason that most evil scientists portrayed in fiction are Marshies.”

“Oh, that’s a good point.” Midnatt says as we round the corner around the edge of the Titan hangar. “It’s always Marshies that are evil scientists and psions, isn’t it?”

Sol nods. “Indeed.”

“That’s not to say they’re all bad.” I say hastily. “I’m just saying the stereotype exists for a reason. But setting that aside, I just think we should measure on an individual basis, instead of judging a person on their nationality and their race, yeah? A person is not the sum total of their culture’s stereotypes. They’re their own person, and that’s how we should treat them, both as people and as recruiters. Otherwise we might be missing out on some really great recruits.”

Midnatt considers that. “…this is measured and wise. But also, does it matter if we do not have the funding to recruit a scientific team?”

I puff out a breath. “You got a point there.”

“It is well. I will be your scientific team.” Midnatt declares. “I have already started researching the Crystallizer strain that the human juvenile is carrying and have started formulating ideas for how to extract a sample and cultivate it to the point that we can establish our own colony.”

“Well that’s very— wait, what?” I say, caught off guard by that. “How— how did you know that Ridge is a Crystallizer?”

“Valkyrie asked him to analyze one of the samples she took from the juvenile to be sure it presented no unusual biohazard concerns.” Sol explains. “He determined that it did not, at least beyond the usual infection criteria for Crystallizer strains.”

“And you want to get another sample from Ridge so you can start growing another Crystallizer colony?” I say, trying to get my head around how we arrived to this point. “Isn’t there one back at the Challenger Valiant outpost? Couldn’t we just take a sample from there?”

“It would be easier, yes. But that is several hundred lightyears away. We have a Crystallizer right here in the Bastion. The second option is much more convenient.”

“Okay, fair enough.” I concede. “But what are you even planning to do with a Crystallizer colony?”

“There are many things we can do with a Crystallizer colony!” Midnatt replies with clear enthusiasm. “The Cryofelis strain particularly has multiple applications in computation, energy transmission, communications, and weaponry! With time we may be able to create our own crystal circuit boards to replace or upgrade failing or obsolescent electronics within Valiant equipment. The resonance fields generated by the Cryofelis strain have given me ideas for a short-range high-fidelity comms system, and we may be able to enhance some of the Bastion’s energy capacitation with Cryofelis modules, although I believe the Wikkanis strain is better equipped for that—”

“Alright, alright. I’m sold.” I say as we reach the main door to the Titan hangar. “Let me talk with Ridge and see if I can get him to agree to providing a few samples. If he doesn’t agree, we’re going to need to get the samples from the colony at the Challenger Valiant outpost.”

“We look forward to it.” Midnatt says as the sensor in the doorframe scans over me, and unbolts the door once it recognizes me. “In the meantime I will undertake a closer examination of the fabricator arrays and the nanoforge in the Foundry. Those will likely prove critical to realizing the projects I have proposed once we have a sustainable Crystallizer colony at our disposal.”

“We will leave you to your responsibilities. We know they are many.” Sol says as blast door retracts, and the door behind it spirals open. “If there is anything we can help you with, simply let us know.”

“I will.” I say, giving them both a nod as I step into the hangar. “I’ll see both of you later.”

With that the door spirals shut behind me, and I walk forward onto the platform overlooking the massive interior of the Titan hangar. It’s the same as I remember it being two decades ago — the massive alcoves in one wall housing the Titans, the expansive garage on the opposite wall for repairs and maintenance. The room broadening out into the testing range at the far end, and the hangar doors, just out of sight around the corner, for loading the mechs onto ships that could deploy them from orbit. At the corner where the testing range joins to the wall, a ring-like operations center is built around the corner, lifted high up so it has an overview of both the testing range and the maintenance and parking area of the hangar.

I take a deep breath as a melancholy smile passes over my face. I’d missed this place, missed all that it meant to me. Missed the memories I’d made here.

Moving across the platform, I step onto the freight elevator at the platform’s edge. Once it senses me stepping onto it, a holoscreen pops up near the railing, and I select the option to take me down to the hangar’s floor. There’s a broad set of stairs off to the side that I could’ve used, but I’m not particularly inclined to go traipsing down five flights of stairs today.

As the freight elevator clunks free from its locked position and starts lowering, I lean against the railing as I take in the hangar. There’s a dozen alcoves along the parking wall, each one at least seventy feet wide and over a hundred feet tall. Each alcove has an elevator ring around it, so that maintenance teams can work on mechs without them having to leave their alcove. From what I can see, only three of them are occupied; the rest are empty. And I recognize all three mechs within the occupied alcoves; they’re the remnants of the Challenger program’s Titan squads in its fading days. The rest of the Titan division, if I had to guess, was likely scattered in the Lunar Echo and Solar Echo Titan hangars, and in the Horizon Breaker.

A section of the railing clicks open as the freight elevator clunks into its gap in the hangar floor, and I push it open, starting across the vast space of the parking and maintenance section of the hangar. I remember this part well — the long walks across the hangar, built to house behemoths that could cover dozens of yards in a single stride. Like walking in a house of giants, or being an ant on a long journey across the kitchen floor. We actually kept freight carts in here for exactly that reason — to help move parts and materials for repairs and maintenance, obviously, but also to get around the hangar faster. Renchiko had managed to find at least one of them and hotwire it so she could scooter around the hangar faster — she wasn’t willing to wait for us to find the access codes for the equipment locker so we could get the keys.

As I close in on the parking wall, I raise my voice to call out to Renchiko, who’s standing at the base of one of the occupied alcoves along with a few other people. “Little sister! How’s it doing today?”

Renchiko looks up from the folding worktable she’d brought out from the maintenance garage across the hangar. It’s got parts and a portable holoarray on it, which is currently producing an exploded view of a Titan mech. From the looks of things, she was giving her new acquaintances a rundown on basic Titan mechanics. “Hey, Feroce. Did you need something?”

“Not as such, no. Just wanted to check in on you.” I say, nodding to the others as I reach the worktable. “Are these the ones you were telling me about?”

“They are.” Renchiko says, pointing them out one by one. “This is Jaree; she used to work in the Halfie Protectorate’s astromilitary. That’s Jill; she was a ship mechanic. Payton there was a drone mechanic, and Brant was a digital systems specialist.”

“Pleasure to meet all of you.” I say, stepping forward to shake hands one by one. Jaree is a stocky cat Halfie with silver-blue fur and some muscle; Jill looks like a Mercurial with orange hair and freckles; Payton’s a bog-standard Original with brown hair and a bit on the rounder side; and Brant is a scrawny-looking elf that’s missing the tip of one of his ears.

“Wow, this is— you’re Songbird?” Jill says as she’s shaking my hand. “This is amazing, pleasure to meet you. Big fan. I loved the concert on Talingrad.”

“I can respect a man that would arm-wrestle a star dragon.” Jaree says, taking her vape out of her mouth to let out a puff of smoke. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“She’s gonna be asking you for your autograph later.” Brant says, tilting his head at Jill.

“Brant!” Jill hisses.

“This is a bright young woman you got on your hands.” Payton says, nodding to Renchiko. “She’s going places. Knows a hell of a lot more about complex mechanical systems than other kids do at her age.”

I smile at Renchiko. “No surprises there.” Glancing back to the group, I nod to the mech in the alcove beside us. “So you four are up to the challenge of being support staff for a Titan operation?”

“Think you’re gonna need a bit more than just us.” Jaree grunts. “I’ve told ‘Chiko as much. She’s gonna need a copilot, for one. Full garage crew and an operations support team for field deployments. I’m thinking we’d be better off starting her on sommat smaller until y’all got a proper staff for all that.”

Renchiko glares at Jaree, and I can tell right away that these two are going to be butting heads a lot. “Jaree does have a point, unfortunately.” I say. “It takes a full team to run a Titan-class mech. At a bare minimum we’d need at least twenty people, and that’s assuming skeleton crewing for the garage, ops, digital, and medical components of the team. A full support team for a Titan-class mech usually runs between thirty to fifty people. We just don’t have that kind of staff right now, and with the budget looking the way it is, we might not for a while. That being said…” I turn, looking around the hangar as if I could see through its reinforced walls, digging back through memories of my years with the Challenger program.

“We can run a skeleton crew. We don’t need twenty people just to get a Titan up and running.” Renchiko insists. “You and Mom did it with practically no crew after the Challenger program collapsed. It was just you two and a few engineers. We can do the same here.”

“What me and Ratchet did after the program collapsed wasn’t sustainable.” I reply. “We didn’t have enough mechanics to quickly repair the Firefly Blue after each engagement; every time we deployed, we had practically zero operations support and were running blind; and had no medical officer monitoring us to make sure our BIOS injections weren’t going to give us a stroke. There’s a reason Titan support teams are so large.” Turning back around, I walk over to the worktable and take over the holoarray, closing down the Titan schematics and navigating back through the Bastion’s file directory. “However, the Challenger program put a lot of time, money, and people into researching unique technology and new concepts to see if they would be viable for the program. One of those concepts was a miniaturized mech with transforming modes. I assume you all are familiar with Hybriddyr-class mechs?”

All I’m getting from Jill, Payton, and Brant are blank looks. Jaree just takes another puff from her vape.

“Right. I guess not.” I say, searching for another analogy. “Alright, how about transmorpher Cybers?”

“Oh, yeah yeah yeah!” Jill says.

“Ah. Yeah, I know what those are.” Payton nods.

“Those are the Cybers that have a transforming chassy that can shift between a biped form and other forms, right?” Brant says. “Like a… mechanical tiger or a wolf or stuff like that.”

“Yes.” I say, going back to navigating through the file directory. “So take that idea, scale it up by like fifty, and that’s basically what a Hybriddyr-class mech is. This concept is something that got the attention of one of the Challenger research teams, and they came up with an idea for a transforming mech that was a little more surgical than,” I wave my free hand at the Titan in the alcove beside us. “the big boys. A smaller one that could still be piloted, but could be deployed to metropolitan and urban environments without worrying about crushing an entire building if it took misstep.”

“Something that would have a much broader use case than a Titan.” Jaree concludes. “Since there ain’t a lot of shit that you would normally throw a hundred-foot mech at. Most problems are too small to justify using a Titan; it’d be like trying to hammer a nail with an excavator.”

“Exactly. The idea was to create something that would allow our mech pilots to deploy more often and see more action in the field, without needing them to retrain into an entirely different skillset.” I say, entering my password as I come up against a restricted group of files. “So the research team came up with the Shrike — an aircraft that could perform the duties of a subsonic strike fighter, and then land and transform into a small, bipedal mech for more localized operations.”

With that, I open up the presentation file for the Shrike project, which contains a looping graphic of the Shrike design in both the fight and mech configurations, the transformation between the two, an exploded view of the machine’s design in both configurations, and some size comparisons for demonstrating it’d be usable in a city environment. Everyone one leans in for a closer look, watching as the Shrike design is marched through a number of scenarios to demonstrate its expanded utility.

“You said it was a ‘small’ mech?” Brant says, raising an eyebrow.

I shrug. “I mean, twenty, twenty-five feet tall. It’s small, relative to a Titan.”

Renchiko frowns. “That’s… small, yeah.”

“But small is good.” Payton points out. “A smaller mech means a smaller team for maintenance and support. You don’t need as many people to keep it running and repaired.”

“And it means you get to deploy it more often on a wider variety of missions.” Jaree adds, aiming it at Renchiko. “I know a bit about military ops, and I’ll tell you right now, that thing?” She waves her vape at the Titan in the alcove beside us. “There’s only three reasons you’d deploy one of those on a mission: you need to take down a Leviathan, you need to fight another Titan, or you wanna destroy a lot of infrastructure and you don’t wanna waste ordnance on it. I don’t see the Valiant doing any of those three anytime soon. Providing heavy fire support and backup for ground teams, though?” She motions back to the Shrike’s presentation file. “That’ll fit the bill. And I guarantee you, fielding one of those will cost the organization a fraction of what it would cost to deploy a Titan.”

Renchiko sighs. “Fine… yeah, I guess that makes sense.” She glances wistfully back up to the Titan.

“It doesn’t mean you won’t ever get to pilot a Titan.” I point out. “This’ll allow you to build up your skill and experience with operating mechs in a combat environment so that once we’re built up to the point where we can afford a support team for Titan deployments, you’ll have an existing skillset to draw on. And it’ll allow you to still contribute on missions where it wouldn’t make sense to deploy a Titan.”

“Yeah! If it wouldn’t make sense to deploy something as big as a Titan, you could deploy a Shrike instead!” Jill encourages her. “So you’ll spend less time sitting around here waiting for people to need a Titan!”

“Did they actually follow through?” Jaree asks me. “On the Shrike. Did they get a working design?”

“They did.” I say, pushing off the table and tucking my hands in my pockets. “They got a working prototype together and fielded it a few times to gather feedback and work out the kinks. I was one of the test pilots for the prototype run. After that, I know they produced at least one first-gen Shrike. That was towards the end of the program, though, and funding and momentum were starting to dry up. Still, I know we have the blueprints in the mainframe and the backup archive, and I know that the research team was trying to create the Shrike in-house to test the program’s supply-chain independence. If we can’t track down the prototype or the Shrike that was produced, we can always see about firing up the Foundry and assembling it from scratch, since we have the blueprints.”

“So this is feasible, then.” Jaree says, motioning to the holoarray. “Jill and Payton can manage the maintenance and upkeep for the Shrike, Brant can handle upkeep for its digital systems, I can handle operations oversight, and Valkyrie can manage the medical oversight of the pilot. It only requires one pilot, right? I can’t imagine a mech that small would need two pilots.”

“Yeah. The Shrike is a single-seater design.” I confirm. “Single tech specialist is fine, although I’d want more on the garage crew than just two mechanics. Remember, it’s a transforming mech — there’s lots of moving parts and precision engineering. It’s a complicated piece of machinery, moreso than the usual you’d expect out of a mech that size.”

“Fair enough. But the bottom line is that it requires fewer mechanics than a full Titan.” Jaree says, looking back to Renchiko. “If you wanna set your sights on getting the Shrike up and running, we’ll help you with that, ‘Chiko. I think we’ll have more luck with getting that up to speed and fielding it. And more importantly, you will be more useful to the Valiant this way.”

“Alright, alright, yeah, I get it.” Renchiko huffs. “But you guys still need to know the basics about mechs. You’re gonna need it for maintenance, whether it’s a big or small mech.” She holds up a stack of data slates with rugged, rubberized edges — the slates that the hangar techs typically used. It looks like each one has had several technical manuals downloaded onto it.

“Oh. Reading.” Payton says, deflating. Jill and Brant also look decidedly less enthusiastic about the prospect of having to study.

“Oi. Buck up.” Jaree orders to them. “The kid’s barely eighteen and she’s read up on this shit. Y’all are grown-ass adults; you can do the same.”

I chuckle as they start reluctantly taking the slates. “Gotta eat your greens before you can have your dessert. Don’t worry, I know how it feels. I had to do the same back in the day.” Feeling my phone vibrate, I reach into my longcoat and pull it out, checking it. There’s a text from Valkyrie, asking me to come to the central tower as soon as possible — with no explanation of what it’s about.

“You gonna stay and do homework with us, Blue Raspberry?” Jaree says, taking one of the data slates.

“I wouldn’t mind staying and talking you through the generals principles of mechs, at least what I know from the perspective of someone that’s been a pilot.” I say, frowning at my phone. “But Valkyrie needs me for something, and she’s rather vague about what exactly it is, despite the apparent urgency. She’s not the type to send these kinds of messages on a lark, so I prolly shouldn’t keep her waiting.” Tucking it back into my longcoat, I nod to Renchiko. “Go easy on them. Not everyone picks up stuff as fast as you do.”

“Ask Legaci if she can find the Shrike and the prototype while you’re up there. I want to get started as soon as possible.” Renchiko says as I start backing in the direction I came.

“I’ll ask her, but remember, you still got your general training to focus on!” I remind her. “Don’t let me catch you skipping any of your other classes so you can work on this!”

She makes a face at that, which is enough for me to count as an acknowledgement. Turning about, I start jogging back to the freight elevator, and quickly find myself wishing that I was riding one of the freight carts instead.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Titan (Mech)

While the Titan is not the first iteration of the giant mech concept, it is by far the most popular and iconic expression of the idea in the modern day and age. While the term ‘Titan’ originally referred to a specific class of biped colossal combat platforms, the term has since expanded into a blanket term that covers the Titan, Jeger, and Hybriddyr-class mechs, and the constellation of smaller subclasses that are related to them.

Modern Titans trace their lineage to the ambitiously-named Type-1 Total Annihilator (T1TAn) originally produced and fielded by the Cyber Meritocracy roughly three thousand years ago, in response to the Collective’s escalating deployment of Leviathans. While the Cyber Meritocracy had regularly fielded giant mechs prior to this time, all prior iterations had been either octoped or hexaped in the interest of stability and redundancy, so that the mech would retain ambulation in the event that one or multiple legs were lost or damaged. The T1TAn iteration was an experimental run intended to test out improved mobility in a biped configuration, and was met with mixed results; improved mobility was confirmed but survivability in combat was noted to have dropped somewhat. Production of the T1TAn was discontinued after a decade, but the model had caught the attention of human nations, who expressed an interest in purchasing the surviving models and integrating them into their own astromilitaries.

The T1TAn mechs were considered a success once fielded with human nations; however, a rogue T1TAn incident that resulted in severe damage to a city drew attention to the fact that the T1TAn mechs were controlled by intelligences coded and designed by the Cyber Meritocracy. Concerns were raised that other T1TAn mechs might go rogue, or that the Meritocracy might reassert remote control over these intelligences and use them to weaken or sabotage the forces they were part of, and so the remaining T1TAn mechs came to be regarded as a potential security risk. Human nations quickly started development on pilot programs, while simultaneously reverse-engineering destroyed or damaged T1TAn mechs with the aim of building and fielding their own. These efforts bore fruit within two decades, and the first Titan mechs controlled by biological pilots soon started deploying to worlds and systems contested by Collective Leviathans.

In the current day and age, three main mech classes fall underneath the Titan blanket term: Titans, which have biped locomotion and a generally humanoid design; Jegere, which have quadruped locomotion and generally resemble canids, felines, or other predator species, and are generally fielded by the Halfie Protectorate and other non-human nations; and Hybriddyre, which can shift between a biped and quadruped form, and are fielded by both human and non-human nations. Other variations and subclasses exist between these three main classes, and are covered further in the Titan Subclasses entry.

Despite being an impressive feat of engineering and military power, practical battlefield use for Titans tends to be narrow. Their primary purpose is to exist as a counterpoint to Collective Leviathans, or other Titans. Beyond this, their sheer size makes them exemplary for destroying infrastructure, or clearing entrenched positions that traditional forces have difficulty breaking through. A secondary effect of their size is that they tend to draw fire from opposing forces, making it easier for allied forces to mount offensive maneuvers while enemy attention remains focused on the Titan.

However, there are other use cases for Titans outside of the military, particularly in political and propaganda terms. Titans are often used as expressions of national pride, while Titan pilots are practically celebrities in most cultures, and are often used for strengthening domestic policies and encouraging support of the military. (In some far corners of the human nations, this celebrity status has been taken to dysfunctional extremes, with aristocratic systems of governance coalescing around certain pilot lineages.) The psychological effect of Titan presence is also well noted; Titans often serve as a deterrent to attacking the locations where they are posted, and on the flip side, can be used for force projection and intimidation of enemy groups — the threat of an enemy deploying a Titan alongside their regular forces is sometimes enough to prompt a surrender from less well-armed enemies.

For more on Titan mechanical systems, Titan pilot culture, and Titan-related topics, please see Dan Splainsworthy’s Comprehensive Primer On The History, Culture, and Future of Titan Mechs.

Event Log: Kiwi

Sunthorn Bastion: Northern Hemisphere

10:43am SGT

“Look, Tony, no offense, but I’m not going to use my relationship with Songbird to try and control the Valiant.” I say as Tony and I wander along one of the smaller paths winding through the patchy woods outside the central tower. She’d deliberately led us down one of the overgrown paths, presumably so we could have this chat in relative privacy.

“I’m not saying you should ‘control’ the Valiant.” Tony equivocates, her hands clasped behind her back. “I’m saying that there are certain events and matters that the Republic has a vested interest in, and if the Valiant also happen to show a passing interest in such matters, I think you should encourage Songbird to… pursue or advocate on those matters.”

“Tony. That’s politispeak for doing the exact thing I just told you I wasn’t gonna do.” I say, exasperated. “Just because you’re phrasing it different doesn’t change the fact that you’re asking me to manipulate my boyfriend.”

Tony presses her lips together. “I thought he was your handler.”

“Yeah. He’s that too. He can be my boyfriend and my handler at the same time, y’know.” I say, shrugging. “Where is this coming from, anyway? Did Forecast put you up to this?”

“Forecast gave me orders before he left, but they did not pertain to you. Mostly.” Tony says, sighing through her nose. “He did tell me to try and establish a working relationship with you, inasmuch as you would allow me to. He also warned me about how… willful you are.”

“Okay, and does a working relationship involve pressuring me to use my boyfriend for the Republic’s influence operations?” I demand.

“The Republic’s invested a lot in helping get this organization started up. We need to be seeing payoff for that investment.” Tony says, reaching up to brush her short black bangs out of her eyes. “Just because you and me and Tarocco and Cahriu are posted with the Valiant doesn’t mean we aren’t operatives of the Republic anymore. We have an obligation to our nation, Kiwi.”

I scowl at that. “I don’t owe the Council anything. I’ve done plenty for them over the past twenty years. I’ll serve my nation, but in my own way now. In a way that involves building a better galaxy, instead of trying strings to people and organizations so we can yank them around in the directions we want them to go.” I stop at this point, turning and facing her. “And if you try to do that with the Valiant, and it’s pulling them in a bad direction, you and me are gonna have a talk.”

“We’re not tying strings to anyone, Kiwi.” Tony doesn’t stop walking; she just keeps going. “We’re just encouraging action when the aims of the Republic and the Valiant happen to align. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

I let out a groan and start following again. “God, this is why I hate you sleepers. You’re always weaselly, slippery types that like playing word games. Manipulating people and pulling strings behind the scenes.”

“Would you prefer I blow stuff up and make a mess like Mask Knights do?” Tony replies tersely. “Sleepers are deployed for a reason. If I hadn’t held my cover as long as I did, I wouldn’t have been able to help when Dussel betrayed the Valiant earlier this year. I wouldn’t have been able to free Jackrabbit and Legaci and take control of the Accatria, and I wouldn’t have been able to intervene when Dussel tried to smash you like a bug against a windshield.”

“Okay, first, you only delayed it. He still ended up smashing my face in.” I point out.

“My other points still stand. You might not like sleepers, but we are essential tools for the Republic.” Tony says. “Besides, I’m not here just for the sake of influencing Valiant operations. I’m here to keep an eye on things. On certain people.”

“Ah, right. Pardon me, you’re also spying while you’re at it.” I say, rolling my eyes. “As if that somehow makes it better.”

“Not spying. Monitoring.” Tony mutters, her voice getting a little quieter. “There are dangerous individuals in this organization, other people that operate behind the bigger personalities like Jackrabbit and Sierra and Songbird. Even though she works behind the scenes most times, Legaci is powerful, just in terms of the surveillance and technology she now has access to. Honestly, I think the only thing holding her back is the fact that she’s having to make up for the staffing shortage, and that she’s dealing with multiple idiots on a daily basis. And then besides her, there’s Kaiser…”

“That’s the Shanarae dude with the spectacles, right?” I ask, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“He’s more than just that.” Tony says, shaking her head. “Something’s not right with him. He’s polite enough, but you can tell something inside him is just… wired different, and not in a good way. He’s not an immediate threat, but I feel like if he wanted to be, he could be, very easily.”

“He’ll stay in line.” I say. “Kaiser knows that getting on the wrong side of Songbird isn’t somewhere he wants to be.”

Tony looks over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “Is that so.”

I shrug. “I was there when Songbird recruited him. Songbird was very clear about what Kaiser could expect if he joined CURSE. It’s why he joined the Valiant instead; he wanted to be on the winning side.”

“That’s a very confident assessment of how all of this is going to play out.”

“Well, Kaiser’s the calculating sort, isn’t h—”

The snapping and crunching of branches has both of us drawing up short, fixing on the bend in the path up ahead. I can feel faint tremors running through the ground to the cadence of massive steps; a moment later, Blockchain lumbers into view, the rusty red colossus hauling a shipping container that looks like it’s gliding on a set of hover dollies and tethered to his waist with a chain. He’s collecting deadfall and snapping branches off the trees on either side of the path as he goes, tossing them in the shipping container and opening up the path so that it’s not as claustrophobic on the sides. Upon seeing us, he stops and lifts a hand, waving to us.

The tense set of Tony’s shoulders quickly relaxes. “Ah. Hullo, Blockchain. Doing a bit of hedge trimming today?” she asks.

Blockchain nods, or at least as close as he can get to it. I think his shallow, domed head is fixed on a rotary track, so in order to ‘nod’, he has to bend the entirety of his massive torso slightly forward before straightening back up, almost like a quick bow.

“Huh.” I say. “So he’s a… gardener now?”

Tony shrugs. “Apparently it’s what he likes doing. According to Legaci, he likes being around foliage and living things because he spent most of his life working in a junkyard before this. Songbird asked him if he would mind helping get the northern hemisphere’s landscaping cleaned up, and it’s all he’s been doing for the past few months. He seems pretty happy with it.”

“Huh.” I repeat. “Fancy that.”

Blockchain lifts a hand, holding up single blocky finger, then turns in place, each footstep shaking the ground slightly. Reaching into shipping container, he rummages around until he comes up with fistful of tall grasses that have red blooms on the tops. Using his other hand, he delicately pinches one of them, tearing it at the stem, then lumbers forward, offering the flower to Tony.

“Oh, for me? Thank you.” Tony says, reaching up to take the flower, whose stem is still a foot long, mostly on account of how big Blockchain’s fingers are. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Blockchain gives one of his odd bowing nods, before his domed head rotates towards me. He lifts a hand, a finger pointed at me, then at the flowers in his other hand.

“Oh, me? No, no, I’m good, thanks.” I say, holding up a hand. “I’m not really the flower kind of girl. But thanks.”

“Who said it had to be for you? You could give your boyfriend flowers, prove to him that romance isn’t dead.” Tony smirks.

“Flowers? For men? Please, don’t make me laugh.” I say, waving her off. “Besides, I know what my boyfriend likes, and flowers ain’t it. Snuggles are where it’s at.”

“Oh really?” Tony says, raising an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have guessed it for the galaxy’s most notorious Challenger.”

“I know, right?” I agree. “He is super cuddly. Not even like sex cuddles. Just a straight-up sleepy snuggler. Not gonna lie, it’s kinda weird, but also kinda adorable.”

“He’s a vampire, isn’t he? Don’t they run a lower body temperature than most humanoids?” Tony points out. “That might have something to do with it.”

“Huh. Now that you mention it, he is pretty cold during the first thirty minutes in bed.” I muse. “And when we first started bedding together in his suite, he had like, I kid you not, four blankets on his bed. Layers for days. I thought I was gonna melt that first night. I got him to cut it down to just two blankets, but it’s starting to make sense now.”

“Well, I’m glad to have solved the mystery of your snuggly significant other.” Tony says, pulling out her phone and checking it. “I need to be getting back to the tower now, though. Valkyrie needs me to help monitor an important meeting.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you.” I say as she turns and starts heading back the way we came. “And Tony? You should know I joined the Valiant to get away from taking the Council’s orders. I’m here to make a difference in the galaxy, not play their games. If you want to keep playing their games, be my guest — but I’m not doing it anymore.”

Tony pauses at that, looking over her shoulder like she’s about to give some patriotic retort — but in the end all she says is “You’re young. Give it time.”

She heads off with that, offering no further explanation. And though I’m tempted to demand what she means by that, I know that if I call after her it’s going to get me into another conversation I don’t want to have. Turning back to Blockchain, I motion to the bend in the path behind him. “You mind if I get around you here? I’d like to get my steps in for the day, and going for a scenic around the grounds is a good way to get there.”

Blockchain shambles to the side a little, and I start to walk down the path. Before I can pass him though, he lowers one of his massive hands, blocking the way. Coming up short, I look up to him to see him pointing down the path, then pushing a hand outward twice.

“Mmm… I don’t quite follow.” I say hesitantly.

Reaching up to place the flowered tall grass back in the shipping container, Blockchain points down the path again, then raises his fingers to his domed head, placing them underneath his eyes and pulling them down in curving lines. Then, moving his arms as best he can, he puts his hands on his head, curling his fingers so that they form rounded mounds and twitching them up and down like… ears?

I stare at him, nonplussed. This is more communication than I’ve ever had from Blockchain before, and I’m not equipped to figure it out. Obviously he’s using some sort of hand signs, but I don’t think it’s an actual sign language — he’s just making stuff up to try and tell me something. “Are you saying there’s an… animal down that path?” I guess.

He lifts his hands to his head again, repeating the rounded-ears motion, then taps a finger to his eye visor before pushing both his hands out, fingers splayed wide as slowly moves them away from each other. Then he points to me again, and raises one finger to his domed head in the universal gesture for quiet, while making walky-fingers with his other hand.

“Something’s out there and I should walk quietly?” I guess again.

He takes one hand, lifts it level, and wiggles it back and forth. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, and I make a mental note to ask Songbird if we can get Blockchain a voice module sometime. Doing these charades is like going target shooting at dusk; I can barely see what I’m trying to get at.

“Well, I’ll be careful and keep an eye out as I’m walking.” I say, starting past him again. “I’m glad to see you found something you like doing. You seem a lot happier than you were when you were working for CURSE.”

He gives another bowing nod, then raises a hand to wave goodbye as I continue past him and down the path. As I pass the end of the shipping container, I can hear the snapping and rustling of branches pick up as he goes back to trimming the bordering trees, growing faint with distance. The difference on the stretch of the path he’s worked on is notable; there’s more light sprinkled along the path, and it’s much less close and pressed in from the sides.

Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my phone, unlocking the screen and flicking through the screens until I find the app tracking my exercise activity for the day. I open it up so I can check my steps, and I’m in the middle of studying my step graph when my next step comes down on water, instead of ground.

“What the—” I say, jerking my head up at the same time that I yank my foot back. In front of me is a stream, cutting right across the path — something that hadn’t been there when I was staring down the length of the path a minute ago. As I lower my phone and look around, I realize I’m not on the same path I was on just seconds ago — the sides are no longer lined with broken branch stumps, and the ground beneath my feet is soft, springy grass, instead of hardpacked ground that’s been traversed by thousands of feet.

“The hell…” I murmur, turning in place. I can no longer hear the snapping of branches or the occasional rasp of rusty metal on metal; the path behind me twists and winds, instead of being the relatively straight procession that I just walked down. Completing the circle, I can see that the path continues across the stream, leading further into a grove with an abundance of wildflowers sprung up around trees with warped, winding trunks, rather than tall, straight trunks you usually see at lower altitudes.

“Blockchain?” I call, just to see if I’ll get a response. “Tony?”

There’s nothing but the wind through the trees. Lifting my phone, I swipe my way over to the phone and text icons, only to be greeted with ‘no service’ on both of them. Locking my screen and tucking my phone away, I shake my wristmarks and pauldron runes to life, and step forward into the stream. I’ve already gotten one foot wet, so I might as well.

Following the path deeper into the glade, I can’t find anything terribly unusual in it. There are birds, insects, flashes of small mammals here and there — all the usual woodland stuff. The wildflowers provide pops of color in the shade of the trees’ broad, spreading canopies, and there’s a preponderance of what appear to be black sparrows with crimson eyes roosting in those canopies. There’s not exactly a lot of them, but enough of them to be noticeable — they definitely outnumber all the other species of birds flitting around in here.

As I follow the path winding between the trees, I have to cross a stream at least twice more, and it’s only on the second time that I realize that it’s the same stream. Looking behind me, I can see the way the previous two streams curve away into the glade on either side without deviating or wandering from the arc — the whole thing is a tightly wound spiral. Ending, presumably, in the center of the glade.

Shaking the water off my shoes, I cautiously make my way forward towards a ring of trees up ahead. I can already see between the trees to what’s ahead; it looks like a sunlit hollow, the ground gently sloping down to a pool in the center with a single warped tree casting its shadow over it. The stream cuts between the trees, completing a final spiral around the hollow before feeding into the pool at the center. The grass within the hollow is yellowed and knee-length, and as I arrive to the edge of the hollow, I notice that the warped trees ringing the hollow have orange and red leaves, almost as if it was autumn within this particular area.

I’ve seen enough movies to know that I’m probably walking into trouble, but I’m already here and and I’m curious, so I start down into the hollow anyway.

Nothing happens as I make my way through the knee-high grass, so I take that as a good sign that I won’t be suddenly smitten for trespassing on sacred ground or whatever this is. Heading down to the hollow, I elicit to jump over the stream this time, since it’s narrowed by this point. Arriving to the pool at the center, I crouch down at its edge; from what I can see, the water isn’t deep, and it’s exceptionally clear. The bottom looks like it’s sandy rather than muddy, and I could probably easily wade in it and only be thigh-high at the deepest point in the center. Beyond that, there doesn’t appear to be anything in the pool — no fish, no bugs, no weird squiggly wriggling things — aside from a trio of blue lotus flowers drifting on the surface.

Obviously very symbolic and all that, so I do exactly what I know I’m not supposed to do: I reach out and grab the nearest lotus, snapping it off its stem so I can take a closer look at it.

“Man, you really woke up this morning and chose violence, didn’t you?”

The voice comes from the side; turning around and standing up, I can see someone sprawled out on one of the long, spreading branches of the tree beside the pool. It’s a Halfie, a red panda Halfie in particular, dressed in a green-blue hoodie and jeans, staring lazily at me with brilliant green eyes. His arms are draped over the branch, his chin resting on his blackfurred hands.

“Lemme guess, you’re the guardian of this…” I give a little wave to the hollow. “…place.”

He smirks at that. “Guardian. Hmm. That’s a good joke.” He gives a puff, blowing a lock of blizzard-white hair out of his eyes. “What does that make you, then? The itinerant protagonist?”

“The what?” I say, squinting at him.

“Itinerant protagonist. Translation: wandering hero.” he says, before giving a big yawn that shows of a maw of scintillating, sharp teeth. Sharper than I think they’re supposed to be for his particular subspecies. “You’re checkin’ all the boxes on the protagonist bingo card. Sassy liddl’ lassy and hair that looks like someone shoved your head in a paint bucket at Home Despot.”

“Whu— this is my natural color, thank you very much!” I retort, tugging at one of my locks and pulling it around to study the emerald hue. I didn’t think it was that outlandish.

“Dear, please. We both know that’s not your natural form.” the Halfie says, using one of his black claws to dig between his teeth. “Sure, you retain your hair color from your original form, but even that’s not entirely true, is it? It’s supposed to go bright red at the ends. Same shade as those pretty eyes of yours.”

I draw a sharp breath, feeling my heart skip, and not in a good way. My fingers tighten, almost crushing the lotus in my fingers. “Who are y…” I start to ask, petering out when he repeats my words at the same time that I do, in perfect sync.

“I was hoping for something a little more inspired than the usual clichés, but I suppose that’d be setting the bar a little too high, isn’t it.” he says, flicking away a shred of lettuce off the claw he’d been using to dig between his teeth. “Next you’re going to ask me how I know about that pesky little secret you can’t even bring yourself to share with your boyfriend. And then after that, you’re going to ask me how I know about your boyfriend.”

I’m stymied for a moment, then snap at him. “No, I’m going to ask you why you’re such an asshat!”

That brings a toothy grin to his face as his attention leaves his claw and comes back to me. “That’s more like it. Feisty. Mark another square on the bingo card.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m supposed to be your entertainment or something.” I say, folding my arms. “You gonna tell me what your name is, or what?”

He adjusts one of his arms, resting his chin in one hand. “Solebarr. I know you have several names; which one do you want me to use?”

“You can call me Kiwi.” I say, spinning the lotus stem between my fingers. “Care to tell me where I am, Solebarr?”

“I’ll tell you where you are if you can tell me why you’re here.”

That catches me off guard. “…you’re just being difficult on purpose now, aren’t you?”

“Mm. Maybe.” he says, his red-banded tail sliding off the branch and hanging below it, idly swaying back and forth. “Maybe I just don’t want to put up with the cliché questions that I’ve heard millions of times over. ‘Who are you? Where am I? What’s going on?’ Over and over and over again. You figure they’d find creative ways of asking it, but no, it’s just the same shit, every single time.” He sighs, twitching his whiskers. “So. If you can’t rely on the other party to bring the fireworks, the only option is that you’ve gotta step up your game and hope they move to match you. Or, well, I have to step up my game, and hope that you can keep up.”

I give him an incredulous look. “You’re—”

“Yes, yes, insane, crazy, off my rocker, short a few marbles, got a screw loose, two biscuits short of a baker’s dozen.” he says, limply gesturing his free hand as if he was trying to speed us through this part of the conversation. “I’ve heard it all before, and it is just as boring as all the other stuff. So let’s skip over the mandatory incredulity, and get down to the part that matters.” He crosses his wrists over the branch he’s resting on once more, his head lowering as those bright green eyes drill into me. “Are we going to tell the same tired story yet again, or are you going to impress me, Kiwi?”

I don’t know how to answer that, and I’m at a loss for a moment. I know I’m being challenged, but I don’t know quite why, or how to answer it. On the surface, it seems like he’s dinging my conversation skills, but it’s more than just that. It feels like he’s challenging who I am as a person.

“Okay.” I say hesitantly. “Well… why don’t you ask the questions, then.”

Those scintillating teeth flicker in a smile again. “Now that… that has potential. I think I’ll take you up on that. Tell me, little mountain jay, do you crave power? You can lie, if you want. I’m not just interested in the truth; the way people lie says a lot about them as well.”

I don’t know why, but that last sentence sends a chill down my back. It carries the implication that he will know the truth, whether I tell it to him or not — and that he views lying not as a deterrent, but as a window into a person’s psyche.

“I mean…. I suppose I do. Most people are lying if they tell you they don’t crave power, right?” I answer. “Power forces people to respect you, to take you into consideration. It gives you more options because people can’t ignore you or your wants when you have power.”

“But you crave it more than most, don’t you.” His claws trace the worn grooves in the branch he’s lying on, the sound of polished keratin over smooth wood. “That is a product of you having spent much of your life taking orders, even if you disliked them. For you, power is freedom. It forces others to consider you not as a subordinate, but as an equal force which must be respected and given latitude to pursue the things you desire and the things you believe in.”

“I mean yeah, more or less.” I say, shrugging. “Wouldn’t you want freedom to live the life you want to live, instead of just being a gear in someone else’s machine?”

A little pink tongue runs across his teeth. “I like freeing gears from the machine, and seeing how long it takes the machine to break. And watching it fall apart.” He traces little patterns on the branch with one of his claws, kicking his digitigrade legs back and forth like a doodling schoolgirl. “The freed gears sometimes go on to create their own machines. Such is the cycle.”

“So you like breaking shit.” I surmise flatly.

“A reductive way of phrasing it, but yes, I suppose I like breaking things.” he says, lifting up a finger that looks like it has a ladybug crawling over his claw. “All in service of creating opportunities for a good story. Besides, some things need to be broken, don’t you agree? If things never change, they can never improve. There are plenty of machines that people cling to because it is what is familiar, and they have never known anything else. The only way to get them to try something new, something that might be better, is to break the machine. Only then are they forced to explore everything outside of it.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “…I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re trouble.”

“I like asking dangerous questions. A lot of people dislike that.” His bright green eyes remain fixed on the ladybug as it opens its shell, starts to unfold its wings, then decides it isn’t a good takeoff spot and folds the shell closed again, continuing the climb along to Solebarr’s knuckle. “For example, what if you could wield vast power without having to rely on your boyfriend for it? Would you have still fallen for him? Or would he just be that uptight goody-two-shoes that you aggravate from time to time?”

Something in me revolts at that question. “Doesn’t matter. That’s how things work, and I’m just glad that tangling isn’t a death sentence for him the way it is for everyone else I tangle with.” I answer quickly.

Solebarr’s teeth gleam. “You’re avoiding the question.” The ladybug reaches his knuckle, unfolds its shell, and takes off this time, buzzing away through the air. “You need him because of the power he gives you. Would you still be with him if you could have that power without him, and without slowly draining others? But more than that…” His eyes leave the ladybug, and rove to me. “…do you actually love him?”

I grit my teeth, flaring the wristmarks on my free hand to life. “I think you should watch what you’re saying.”

“I’m just asking the questions you’re afraid to ask yourself.” he says, using a claw to dig between his teeth again. “They deserve to be answered, don’t you think?”

“I’m not going to bother answering them, because they can’t be answered.” I snap at him. “I’m not going to worry over questions that can’t be answered. I’m okay with the way my life is right now, and I’m not going to worry about a version of my life that isn’t possible.”

“Fair enough. But what if I told you that version of your life was possible?” It’s offered up lightly, innocently, as he takes his claw out of his teeth to point at the blue lotus in my hand.

I look down at the blue flower, then at the other ones floating in the pool. “Are you saying—”

“Clichés, dear, you know I don’t like them.” he drawls. “Keep it interesting. Let’s not fall into the same tired patterns.”

“Mehmehmeh, clichés, make it interesting.” I mock him in a nasally voice, before holding up the lotus. “So what is this, a wishing flower or something? You’re telling that if I ask you for power, you’ll give it to me?”

“Perhaps. You’ll have to be more specific about what kind of power it is, since there are many kinds.”

I give that a moment of thought. About what kind of power I would want. Arcane power? Physical power? Political power? You could do things with all three kinds, but this whole conversation sprung out of the fact that I had to rely on Songbird to exceed my natural limits. It wasn’t really about the kind of power; it was about having to lean on someone else for power.

“So if I ask for it, you’ll give me a Spark?” I demand suddenly.

That gets a bark of laughter out of Solebarr. “Oh, hahaha! You are funny, little mountain jay. No, those are not mine to give. There’s someone else you have to ask for one of those. I think almost all of them are spoken for, anyway… only the green one’s uncommitted at the moment, at least as far as I’m aware.”

I huff at that. “Okay, fine then, so you’re not all-powerful.” Looking down at the blue lotus, I spin it back and forth in my fingers, studying the yellow stamen and pistils. “But you can give me the kind of power that Songbird has? When he’s listening to music and has raw power flowing through his veins?”

He rests his chin back on his crossed wrists. “I suppose I could, yes, although that’d just be me giving you something you already have. You have that potential to be as powerful as he is — not through sonic sorcery, of course, you don’t have the heritage for that — but there are things that you can do that you don’t realize you’re capable of. You just haven’t figured them yet.”

“Whu— dude! Seriously? You’ve just been yanking my chain this entire time?” I demand. “Wait, are you still yanking my chain? You’re telling me that I’m already as powerful as Songbird is?”

He holds up a blackfurred finger. “I said you have the potential to be on Songbird’s level. And the whole point of this exercise was to interrogate your motives for being with Songbird. Love born out of convenience or ambition isn’t really love, is it?”

“Screw you, dude! I didn’t ask for relationship advice!” I say, giving him the middle finger. “You probably can’t even do any of the shit you keep implying you’re capable of!”

“Only one way to test that out, mm?” he says, flicking a finger towards the lotus I’m holding. “Go on, make a wish.”

“I wish you were a less aggravating person to talk to!” I growl at him.

He rolls his eyes at that. “Okay, look, be serious. You picked one of the flowers. Are you gonna make a wish or not? Because if you’re not, put it back in the water where it belongs.”

“I dunno, do I want to make a wish?” I retort.

“How am I supposed to know what you want?!” he protests. “Isn’t that your job?”

“You seem to know everything else about me!” I point out. “My original form, my boyfriend, personal insecurities, probably my sandwich preference—”

“Okay, okay, fine.” he says, putting a hand up. “Seriously though, are you gonna make a wish or what?”

I glance at the lotus in my hand. “I dunno. What I can I wish for?”

He shrugs. “I mean, there’s plenty of stuff you could wish for…”

“Okay, can I have the power of a god?”

“Wow, okay, calm down there, Satan. Godhood is a little bit above my paygrade.”

“Okay. How about the power of a demigod, then?”

“Alright, look. Let’s— let’s aim a little lower, okay? Something more in the mortal realm of possibility. There’s plenty of things you mortals like asking for. Riches, royalty status, fame, popularity, skills, talents, forbidden knowledge, bringing people back from the dead — let’s kinda stick to that level and below, okay?”

“You can bring people back from the dead?”

“I mean, that one’s conditional. Customs and immigration between the mortal plane and the afterlives are a bureaucratic nightmare, don’t even get me started on that. Plus the dead person in concern actually has to want to come back to life. Consent is important in matters of life and death — as we say in the business, consent is the difference between resurrection and necromancy!”

For a moment I just stare at him, because I have no idea what to say to that.

“Sorry, did I go a bit too far there? That was supposed to me a joke.” he says, scratching at his jaw. “I mean, technically it’s true, about the whole consent thing, but I was trying to. Y’know. Make it funny. Gods, I can never tell what you mortals think is funny. Is it the delivery? Deadpan delivery is kinda hit and miss; I never use it with my wife because she needs expression or tonal cues to catch onto the joke, and seems like that’s how a lot of mortals are…”

“What the hell are you?” I ask after a moment.

He shrugs. “Y’know, I still ask myself that question sometimes. You gonna make a wish or not? If you don’t know what to wish for, I can make a few suggestions and see if those catch your fancy.”

“You think you know what I want?” I scoff.

“Well, you thought that I knew what you wanted earlier, so I figured I might as well take a stab at it.” he shrugs aggressively. “Let’s see. You… maybe you want to wish to be human? Considering how hard you’re trying to hide what you were born as.”

I draw a sharp breath. That hits a little too close to home. “That’s… no.”

“Ah. Touchy subject, I see.” he says, reaching up to scratch behind one of his fuzzy, rounded ears, white-rimmed around the edges. “Could give you wings… everyone likes wings, at least for the first couple of days… the ability to read minds? But that’s just psionics, you can get that from Masking a psion. Could get wings from Masking a Hakiru too, come to think of it. Hmm hmm hmm. What does one get a Maskling that they couldn’t get from some other species…? Oh, I know! You wanna be Starstruck? You can’t get that from Masking other people!”

“What? No!” I say, making a face. “Do I look like the kind of person that would throw on a sparkly stargirl uniform and fight the forces of evil? Please. Besides, only teenagers and college students get to be Starstruck.”

He throws his hands up. “Hey, don’t knock it until you try it. Besides, nobody said you had to fight the forces of evil. That’s why we’ve got the corrupted Starstruck, the whadjamacallem, there’s a name for it…”

“Dark Stars.”

He snaps his fingers. “Dark Stars! That’s right. You could be one of them. Trade the bright lights for a darker color scheme and an edgier look.”

“Dude, Dark Stars are bad guys. Everyone knows that.” I point out.

Solebarr raises an eyebrow. “Yes. And?”

“And I’m not a bad guy!” I protest.

“Dear, please.” he scoffs. “We both know that you might not be a bad guy, but you’re definitely not a hero, little miss murder mitts.”

“Okay, yeah, I’m no saint.” I grumble. “But I’m also not interested in being turned into a magical girl by some fuzzy carpetbeater sitting in a tree.”

“You sure?” he asks, kicking his feet back and forth. “Comes with a ton of perks. Flying, interstellar travel, a cool alter ego, and an obscene amount of power. Like seriously, I don’t know why we keep giving this stuff to teenagers. It should be illegal, but we keep doing it anyway.”

I bite my lip. Raw power… and flying. It’s kinda tempting. The rest is just gravy. “…no. No, I’ll pass on that. All the power’s tied to the costume, right? I’d like to keep my dignity, thank you very much.”

Solebarr grins. “You were tempted. Only for a moment, but I could see it.”

I stick my tongue out at him. “But I didn’t let it win. I’ve got some impulse control.”

“Fair enough. Right then, since you want to do things the ‘grown up’ way…” he says, making air quotes with his fingers. “…why don’t we… give you administrator access to all three Bastions. Is that miracle practical enough for you? Provides plenty in the way of power, even if it’s not the sort that you’re accustomed to.”

“Wait, administrator access?” I repeat. “Like… Challenger Administrator? That’s the rank that’s got access to all Challenger assets and stuff, right?”

“Indeed.” he smirks. “The highest level of access for all Challenger infrastructure. Absolute system clearance for all Bastions, Challenger vessels, and facilities. Override privileges for Challenger systems. Access to the fabled Challenger archives within the central tower. It’s my understanding your angelnet still hasn’t managed to break the encryption safeguarding them. All this and more — the Challenger world, at your fingertips.”

“You’re yankin’ my chain. You can’t give me Administrator privileges.” I say in disbelief.

“Only one way to find out.” He hangs an arm under his branch, his hand outstretched and fingers open.

I hesitate, then move forward and place the lotus flower in his hand. The black fur is soft to the touch, and once he has the flower in hand, he brings it up and crams the whole thing in his mouth, chewing on it for a bit before swallowing. Hiccuping out a puff of sparkly blue dust, he licks his lips, then rubs the back of his hand across his mouth. “Mm. Man. It’s been almost two decades since I tasted one of those.”

I glance at the pool, where the other two lotus flowers are drifting on their water atop their pads. “They’re literally sitting right there, dude. You could probably reach down and grab one if you wanted.”

He gives me a Look. “Gods, you’re dense.” Reaching up, he hooks one of his fingers, and the claw on the end seems to snag on the air as if the air itself was made of fabric. He starts tugging at it, the air stretching and distorting, before he straightens his finger and lets the snag snap back into place, sending a faint ripple in all directions. After it passes through us and fades away, I glance at him.

“That’s it?” I ask, feeling a little underwhelmed.

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s literally just changing ones and zeros in a bunch of computers. Were you expecting something more?”

“I mean, yeah, kinda…”

He shrugs. “Look, I dunno what to tell ya. I offered you the power of the stars themselves, but you got all huffy about having to wear the sparkly costume that would come with it. So we settled for the ‘adult’ stuff instead. And the adult stuff is changing a bunch of ones and zeros in a computer to give you command over a vast network of advanced technology and equipment, and all the social and political power that comes with it. So… yeah.”

I scowl at him. “I think you’re yankin’ my chain.”

He sighs. “There’s just no pleasin’ you, is there? This is what makes me sad about advanced societies. They get so cynical sometimes.” He reaches down, tapping a claw against the tip of my nose, and I quickly recoil even though it isn’t threatening. “Where’s your sense of wonder? Can’t you just believe sometimes? You’re so obsessed with self-image and how you appear to other people that you’d throw away the fun stuff in life just because it’d make you look silly to some people. And your boyfriend is even worse.”

“Why does it matter to you?” I say, stepping back a bit so that I’m out of arm’s reach from him.

Solebarr smiles, folding his hands back over the branch and resting his chin on them once more. “There are selfish reasons for it to matter to me, and I suppose those are applicable. But more than anything else, it matters to me because I choose to care. And choosing to care, I’ve found, is infinitely more fulfilling than not caring.” He closes one of his brilliant green eyes, the other one half-lidding like he was about to doze off. “Now get along, little mountain jay. Your wings are a bit bigger now. I think you should try them out. Get in some trouble, if you can. There’s so many wonderful new mistakes out there, just waiting to be made.”

That strikes me as a dismissal of sorts, and even though some part of me has been aggravated by the conversation and the fact that he was toying with me through most of it, I don’t really want to leave just yet. I’ve still got questions that haven’t been answered, things that I want to know, and I’m debating whether or not it’s worth it to stay and try to pry those answers out of him. Pulling my phone out again, I check the time, and notice that it shows that I’ve got service on my phone and text icons again.

“Why are you here, anyway?” I start to ask. “I’m pretty sure you’re not one of the Val—”

But when I look up from my phone, the hollow is gone, and I’m standing on the stairs leading up to the central tower. No transition, no weird portals or magic — I’m just suddenly here, as if I’d always been standing here.

“The hell…” I mutter, turning in place. There’s no sign of the path that led to the hollow glade in the first place. The only indication that I hadn’t imagined the entire episode is that my shoes and socks are still damp from wading through the streams. Aside from that, there’s no sign that anything else has changed, or that anything even happened.

After spending a moment trying to get my head around it, I give up and check the time on my phone again. It’s getting close to midday, and after a weird rollercoaster ride like that, I could do with a bite to eat. Food was easy to deal with and didn’t require the kind of mental footwork and unsettling introspection I’d just been put through.

Tucking my phone away, I turn and start down the stairs of the central tower, my shoes squelching as I start heading back to one of the monorail stations so I can catch a ride to the mess hall.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Central Tower — Central Operations Room

11:00am SGT

The door to the COR spirals open once it scans over me, and I step inside, my boots sending digital ripples across the crysteel-screen floor. The entire room — and it is a big room at that — is bathed in cool blue tones and shadows, likely an aesthetic decision made by those that regularly work in here. Much of the room is an open floor plan, with a vast network of holoarrays projecting screens and images wherever they need to go. For those that need a solid surface to work on, portions of the glass floor can hover up to provide a physical screen or keyboard for typing on. A few hoverchairs are drifting around, likely for Kaiser’s benefit; Legaci has no physical needs as such, given she’s a hologram.

“Alright guys, I’m here.” I call to the trio slightly off to the side of the room’s center - a column of densely compacted light bridging the floor and ceiling, representing the Bastion’s mainframe and surrounded by dozens of smaller screens. Reaching up, I brush away one of the drifting holoscreens as I close in on Kaiser, Legaci, and Valkyrie. “What’s all the fuss about?”

All three of them turn to me. “We have a new recruit we need to talk to you about.” Valkyrie says.

“Oh really? Is it someone with potential to be an Agent?” I ask, slowing down as I arrive near them.

“Maybe. But we were thinking about using them closer to home. Don’t imagine we’d be deploying this one to the field; he’d likely be support staff, with his skillset.” Legaci says.

“We called you here because we needed to ensure we are all on the same page regarding this recruit.” Kaiser says, pulling a holoscreen from the side and tilting it to face me. “We wanted to ensure you would conduct yourself in a professional manner around this individual.”

I furrow my brow, then look at the screen. It shows the camera feed from one of the tower’s minor conference rooms; within is a wiry, shorter man with dark hair and tanned skin — cleaned up in a suit, but I can still recognize him even without the mechanic’s clothes and the oil smudges.

Koriah Nagatain, Renchiko’s uncle.

My fingers curl reflexively, and I take a deep breath that I don’t actually need. Pressing my lips together, I fight down my initial response and replace it with a much cooler demand. “What is he doing here.”

The three of them exchange looks. Valkyrie is the one that answers. “He was the one that initiated contact. He volunteered to join the Valiant. Legaci vetted his application, connections, recent contacts and history. He came back mostly clean, and he has a skillset that overlaps with Ratchet’s. Skills that we can use.”

“From what I can tell, CURSE hasn’t touched him or been watching him.” Legaci says. “I don’t think they ever picked up on the fact that Renchiko is Ratchet’s daughter, and Koriah has never been on their radar. Honestly, the dude’s barely been off Shanaurse in the last twenty years, so he seems like a safe pick with a good skillset.”

I fight the urge to grind my teeth. “Okay yeah, that’s great. Whatever. You know he’s not here for the Valiant, right? He does not care about what we are doing here. He does not believe in what we believe in.”

“We know.” Kaiser says. “Motive was one of the first things we established when considering his application. We are aware he is applying so he can be reunited with his kin, and have addressed it with him during his interview. He has not tried to hide his motive and understands that the price of reuniting with his niece is that he works for the Valiant and follows the orders given to him, whether or not he agrees with them.”

I take another deep breath. “So what. You want me to stand by and just let him waltz back into Renchiko’s life? You do realize he kicked me out after Ratchet died and threatened to call CURSE down on me, right?”

“That was a decade ago, Songbird.” Valkyrie says. “People change.”

“People change. Sometimes.” I reply tersely. “When we went back last year to recruit Renchiko, you know what he did? He threatened us and called the local police down on our heads. Different decade, same old shit.”

“Not ideal. I’ll concede that.” Valkyrie admits.

“The situation is different now.” Kaiser says in his usual brusque tone. “He has come to us, not the other way around. We have something he wants, and he does not get it unless he complies with us. All the leverage is with us, and we can exert it if he steps out of line.”

“We are not going to weaponize Renchiko in this.” Valkyrie says sharply, turning her head ever so slightly in Kaiser’s direction. “She may be eighteen, but she is just a child. She has lost both her parents. We are not going to turn her last family relationships into collateral damage.” She turns her grey gaze on me. “Do you understand, Songbird?”

I work my jaw around, chewing on my words before I spit them out. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about me weaponizing my little sister. Did he tell you what he did after Ratchet died? Or did he just… gloss over that?”

“We’re not here to rehash old—” Valkyrie begins.

“Alright, so he didn’t tell you.” I interrupt. I can feel my temperature rising. “Well, let me tell you, so you have a little insight into how his mind works. The whole reason Ratchet and I fled to Shanaurse in the first place is because it’s frontier farm world out on the edge of dark space. Low profile, under the radar, and Ratchet had family there. We went there because Ratchet knew that if CURSE found out about Renchiko, they would try to recruit her one day, and Ratchet didn’t want that. She told me that.” I point at the holoscreen that holds the video feed from the room Kori’s in. “And she told Kori that. You know what he did when I returned to Shanaurse after she died? He threatened to call CURSE, because he knew that I wouldn’t risk revealing Renchiko to them. That’s how he forced me to leave. He didn’t let me say goodbye to her. Didn’t even let me see her. And he didn’t tell her why I left. He let her believe, for ten years, that after her mother died, I ran away and never came back. So that when I did come back, she hated me. She thought I abandoned her after her mother died.”

The others are quiet. Kaiser is impassive as usual; he probably doesn’t give a shit about the family drama, outside of tucking it away in his mind to use as leverage at a later date. But both Valkyrie and Legaci look uncomfortable with how my voice has started to quiver with suppressed rage towards the end.

“That’s the kind of person you’re dealing with.” I say, pointing at the screen again. “I’m not rehashing old grievances. I’m telling you what he’s done in the past, so you know what he might try to do in the future. And don’t you ever accuse me of trying to weaponize my little sister after how he used her against me. I know you don’t like me, Valkyrie, and I haven’t the shittiest idea why, and I haven’t said anything about it up to this point. But I draw the line here. You back off this, and you do not tell me how to manage my relationships with my family members. Is that clear?”

Valkyrie looks taken aback at that. Kaiser clears his throat. “As entertaining as I find this uncharacteristic outburst, I think it would behoove us to return to the original topic. We brought you here to talk about this so that seeing Mr. Nagatain about the Bastion would not come as a shock to you. What we need to know now is that you have the capacity and restraint to avoid throttling him on sight, and can treat him as a coworker, 5377.”

“If it helps, we are also considering using him as part of a Titan crew.” Legaci adds quickly. “That way he may eventually be contributing to helping Renchiko realize her career ambitions.”

“Do what you want. You’ve already brought him here, so clearly you didn’t need my input to begin with.” I growl. “If you really want my opinion next time, come ask me. Don’t dump this shit on me after the fact and expect me to be okay with it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go pound sand in the training rooms.” Whirling around, I start marching towards the door, calling over my shoulder as I go. “And Legaci, if you could track down the Shrike prototype and any of the first-gen Shrikes, that’d be great. Please have them transferred to the Titan hangar if you can find any of them here on Sunthorn.”

With that, I step back through the spiraling door of the COR, my stride picking up speed as I try to outpace the anger chasing me.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Sunthorn Spice

4:18pm SGT

“Hey, Sandago. Two fizzwaters, the new favorite for me, and then whatever Renchiko wants. Do you mind if we sit on the Overlook?”

Sandago turns, his digitized faceplate showing raised eyebrows that approximate faint surprise. “Been a while since that’s seen use, but sure.” he says, one of his arms reaching under the counter and sliding the card over to me while his other arms pull two glasses down and starts filling them with ice. “Go on ahead, I’ll bring your drinks up once they’re ready. What would you like, young lady?”

“Cherry and honeydew melon, if you’ve got it?” she asks. “About half and half.”

“Now that’s an interesting mix. We do have that; I’ll have it up to you in a couple of minutes.” Sandago says.

I start around the counter, heading to the wide set of floating stairs that winds around the side of the bar. Renchiko follows, saving her questions until we reach the second floor, which is a hall that circles around behind the bar counter itself and has a single door in the far wall. “I’ve never been up to this part before.” she says, looking around.

“It doesn’t get used often.” I say, tapping the card to the door, then pushing it open when it unlocks. “The Overlook’s available by request only, at the discretion of the barkeep. It’s where Challengers would go to have drinks and important talks with each other, and some privacy to go with it.”

“Oh, wow. This place is swank.” Renchiko says, stepping in after me and looking around. There’s a couple couches on either side of the room, a small dinner table with chairs, a counter against the far wall with tall chairs tucked under it, and with glass walls above, to the sides, and facing outwards. Because the Sunthorn Spice is one of the establishments on Sunthorn’s equator, the Overlook gazes outwards into the space beyond the Bastion — in this case, looking out across the massive rings around the gas giant we’re orbiting.

“Quite a view.” I agree, then turn around at the step of footsteps. Sandago’s stepping in with our drinks. “That was fast.”

“Fizzwater is easy, and cheaper than alcohol. Just between you and me, it makes you one of my favorite customers.” Sandago says as he hands us our drinks, then retreats back to the door. “I’ll leave you to it. Just ring the buzzer if you need anything.”

I sip from mine as the door closes behind him, and make my way over to the counter and one of the high chairs. “So, you’ve probably figured we’re here for a reason.” I begin.

“I’m not in trouble, am I?” Renchiko says, following me over to the counter and hoisting herself up on one of the chairs.

“No. Far from it.” I say as I get settled in. “There’s something you should know, and it may be a little… surprising.” I give her a moment to get settled before I go on. “Your uncle is here. On Sunthorn.”

Renchiko stares at me with her mouth agape. “Kori?”

“Yes, Kori.” I exhale. “I found out earlier today, about five or six hours ago. I did not come and tell you right away because I needed some time to process the information, and to cool down.”

“Is he here to take me back to Shanaurse?” she asks, the beginnings of dread flickering across her face.

“No. Nonono.” I say quickly. “Nothing like that. He’s here to work. He applied to join the Valiant, and the recruiting team accepted him after they vetted him, checked his background, and interviewed him. He appears to be aware that you will not go back to Shanaurse, so instead of trying to get you to go back, he is coming to work here instead.”

I can see Renchiko’s mind kicking into overdrive. “So he’s just going to… work here? Doing what? Is he going to be telling me what to do?”

I turn in my chair, reaching out and taking one of her hands. “Renchiko. You are eighteen now. You are, in the eyes of the law, an adult — meaning you can make your own decisions. You are no longer a minor; you no longer have a legal guardian that can make choices for you. Which means that you have the power to shape your own life and make choices about what relationships you have with other people, including family.” I pause for a moment, trying to figure out if any of this is getting through to her. “Take a deep breath. Long, deep breath. Take a moment to calm down.”

She does that, taking a couple deep breaths. “So… I can still do what I want. I can still train for being a Titan pilot.”

“Yes. He can’t stop you from doing that.”

“Okay. Alright.” Renchiko nods, relaxing a little. “He was always deadset against letting me do that back on Shanaurse.”

“I suspect he knows that he can’t stop you anymore.” I say, letting go of her hand and leaning back, grabbing my glass and sipping from it. “I am willing to bet he promised your mother he would watch over you, and that’s why he’s here. I don’t think he believes in what the Valiant are all about, but if you are here, he is willing to work for us if it means he can be somewhere he can keep an eye on you.”

“He won’t be able to stop me from going on missions, will he?” Renchiko asks, picking at the goggles around her neck.

“He will not.” I assure her. “He will not have the power to make personnel and staffing decisions for missions. My understanding is that he will be employed as a mechanic here on the Bastion, and will not be in a position of authority. He will be here to keep an eye on you, but only to the extent that you allow him to.”

Renchiko looks at her drink. “And what about you? Does he know you’re here?”

I’m quiet for a moment, then turn in my chair so I’m facing towards the counter again. Setting my glass down, I stare out over the rings of the gas giant we’re orbiting around. “I suspect he knows I’m here. I have not spoken to him yet. I’m not sure how that conversation will go when it does happen. There’s, uh…” I lick my lips before going on. “…there’s a lot of unresolved issues there. When the time comes, we will hash it out our own way.”

She nods to that, then picks up her drink and takes a sip from it. We’re both silent for a bit, looking into our drinks, and I take a finger and start tracing it around the rim of my glass as I gather my thoughts.

“Something I do want to say, Renchiko, is that I’m not here to try and make your uncle look like the bad guy.” I say after a while. “I have my issues with him; I do not like him for a number of reasons. But that is between me and him. He is still your uncle, and what he has done, he has done to try and protect you. I don’t agree with the methods he used. But I understand his intentions. You uncle cares about you, in his own particular way.”

“But he forced you to leave.” she points out. “And then lied about why you left.”

I nod quietly. “Yeah. He did. Did the wrong thing for the right reasons. I know a lot of people that have made that mistake, myself included. Though when I did it, the only person I was hurting was myself.” I puff out a long breath. “Point is, I’m saying give him a chance. And if he blows it, he blows it. But at least give him a chance. Don’t try to be angry at him for my sake. That’s my job, and you don’t need to carry that weight.”

“I’ll think about it.” she says, sipping from her glass.

“Okay. Fair ‘nuff.” I say, letting it be instead of trying to push it. After all, she is eighteen; she can make her own choices now. Picking up my drink, I sip from it while we sit in silence for a while.

“So, uh.” Renchiko says after a bit. “I heard Ridge has like… crystal herpes or something?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Oh god, don’t describe it like that. He’ll go ballistic if you call it that.”

“So he does have a crystal STD?”

“No, he doesn’t. It can’t be sexually transmitted, unless you’re… actually, I’m not gonna go there. Just— bottom line is, it can’t be sexually transmitted unless you’re doing some really weird shit. It’s not an STD. Don’t call it that.”

“Okay, but is it contagious? Should I stay away from him, or…?”

“I mean, yes, it is technically contagious, or I suppose… transmissible is the word. That’s how it survives; it has to spread from host to host in order to travel. But the infection potential is very low, so unless he’s donating blood to you or something along those lines, you’re not going to catch it.”

“Oh. Good. How did he catch it, though?”

“He slipped and faceplanted into a coolant pond full of crystal water. Twice.”

“That sounds like something he would do.”

“Yes, yes it does.”

Event Log: Kiwi

Sunthorn Bastion: Songbird and Kiwi’s Apartment

7:32pm SGT

“…investigators state that all of the victims suffered from catastrophic neural damage, leading some to speculate that the infamous Challenger-turned-mass-murderer, Laughing Alice, may be behind the deaths. A sense of unease was palpable in the districts where the targeted killings took place, and there has been a notable uptick in the number of outbound flights from Snohjem. Still, many of the visitors to the resort world were unfazed, largely owing to the fact that the killings have been concentrated within the wealthiest strata of Snohjem’s vacationing demographic…”

The sound of the apartment’s door spiraling open gets my attention, and I look up from the orbit of runes circling my wrist. Songbird’s already shrugging off his longcoat, draping it on one of the chairs at the counter as the door spirals shut behind him.

“You look like you had a day.” I remark, setting aside the notebook I’d been using to sketch out some new spell ideas.

His only reply is a grunt as he trudges over to the couch and flops over on it, landing his head squarely in my lap and curling up. I blink, then set aside my pen, my runes evaporating as I run a hand through his scruffled blue hair. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I snapped at Valkyrie.” he mumbles as I turn off the holoarray and the news on it. “And they hired Renchiko’s uncle without asking me first. And I had to tell Renchiko about it.”

“Yeah? Didn’t know the greasemonkey had an uncle. Do you not like him?” I say, stroking the back of his neck.

“He kicked me out after Ratchet died by threatening to sic CURSE on me, and he’s the reason I wasn’t around for most of Renchiko’s childhood.”

“Ahhh. So he’s a dick.”

“Yes.”

“And the others aren’t worried he might betray us?”

“Legaci says he’s clean. And Kaiser says Kori knows that the price of being near his niece is that he takes our orders and follows our rules, whether he agrees with them or not.”

“But you still don’t like it.”

“Correct.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“Nothing.” he sighs, turning to lie on his back so he can look up at me. “Kori’s a case of ‘asshole trying to do the right thing’, not ‘asshole for the sake of asshole’. I know he cares about Renchiko and just wants to protect his niece. He’s going to have to accept that she’s eighteen now and can make her own decisions. If he doesn’t understand it, I’m going to make sure that part gets through his skull. But outside of that… it’s not really my place. Renchiko will decide the kind of relationship she has with her uncle, not me.”

“So why worry about it if there isn’t anything you can do about it?” I ask, reaching to brush some hair away from his eyes. “Your hair’s starting to get long again.”

“I guess I… I don’t know.” he says. “I know I don’t have a lot of power to do anything about it. Or I do, but I can’t use it, because I don’t want to be a dick, like Kori’s been in the past. I just worry about how it’ll shake out.” Closing his eyes, he puffs out a sigh. “Yeah, I noticed my hair was getting in my eyes a couple weeks ago. Fashionista will probably give it a trim once he finally catches me for a makeover.”

“Prolly the only person on the station that knows how to give a haircut.” I say, tracing my fingers over chest. “Do you wanna do something? I didn’t have anything planned for tonight.”

“Not really. I’m just… tired. Today drained me. It was a lot to deal with, emotionally.” he says, his eyes staying closed. “…if you could just… keep doing what you’re doing right now. It feels nice after the day I had.”

I smile at that, winding my fingers back along his chest to trace his collarbone, and out along to his shoulder. I can feel him relax in my lap, the muscles in his shoulders loosening up as my hand returns to his neck, and traces up his throat, and then back down again to the hollow of his throat. And I just keep doing that, gently mapping out of shape of his body with the tips of my fingers, watching as the weight of the galaxy slowly bleeds out of him.

And in that moment, I see the Songbird that no one else sees. Or rather, I see Feroce, not Songbird. I see what he looks like when he feels safe, and no longer weighed down by the burdens and expectations and reputation that everyone is always piling on him. He looks blissful, serene, almost happy, and I can’t help but think back to the conversation I had with Solebarr today.

You need him because of the power he gives you. Would you still be with him if you could have that power without him, and without slowly draining others? But more than that…do you actually love him?

I bring my hand up, cupping his cheek. “Feroce?” I ask softly.

“Mm?” he mumbles.

“I love you.” I say even more quietly.

He cracks his eyes open, little gleams of ruby irises looking up at me. After a moment, he gives me a drowsy smile. “I love you too, Kiwi.” he murmurs.

That sleepy little affirmation melts me, and my chest warms with adoration. Reaching out, I grab the blanket over the back of the couch, and pull it over him as his eyes drift closed again. I’d never really considered myself the domestic sort; I thought I liked my love life the way I liked my job — breathless, fast-paced, wild and free. But this, this…

This was really nice too.