Bel: Visit even more rainbow drinkers.

"Moons and stars all save us, you're mad," you say, and lie back fully to stare at the sky. "Kadros, you've a thousand sweeps in you, easily— and you don't even want them? You're not even nine and you're tired out already?"

 

"I don't want to spend them all fighting, and I don't have a choice. There's never been a path open to me where I don't have to fight all the time. So. I got good at it." Another shrug. "And I knew I'd be expected to lead, so I got good at that. And then I met Enkidi, and that was like... well, I'll die sooner, which actually sucks in a way because life is kind of really good now? But at least it'll be for something."

You lean your elbows on your knees, and sigh. "I'm sorry, Erskin. I know it's depressing. That's why I don't talk about it."

 

"Coward," you say. Softly, and then, sharper, angry, "Coward! Have you ever even tried to be who you want to be? I'm broken up but I'm, I'm still trying, I know the, the, the shape of, the shape of my soul, I want it, I'm going to get it right again, I've got a thousand sweeps in me too, a hundred thousand— there are alien empires, Kadros, that rise and fall in hardly a century. There are dragons that wither away sooner than that! We have so long to grow up."

You gesture fiercely at the stars. "We— we hatch and we grow— we go up. And we fight and some of us die and some of us live. And we go up, and some of us die up in the open, too, and some of us live, and we build hives and learn how to, to be. How to want to be. What we want to be. Don't we? And we— we go up again. Two more sweeps and we hatch into the whole bloody galaxy, Bel, lightsweeps, lightcenturies. Trolls are hatched to live and live and live, everything is, everything dies, but we've got so much to be before we're dead, Bel, you galloping codfish. You idiot."

You roll over and tug his hair, sharp, meaning to sting. "And I'm going to live," you tell him fiercely. "I'm going to live to be a hundred million sweeps, I'm going to see every star out there. If you let this planet have your bones then for a hundred million sweeps I will remember you as nothing more than a brief embarrassment. Is that what you meant, when you told me always? Is that what you've been promising me?"

 

You snort and jerk your head back. "I know what I want, and I know the odds against it! If you want anything from your thousand thousand sweeps except killing on command, you're up against the same odds! Don't call me coward, I'm not the one who's running away from reality! It's not like I don't fight with everything I've got, you're the one who runs away!"

 

You want to snap back, but you make yourself lie there and think about it for awhile— it's important that this doesn't dissolve into just another stupid break-up fight.

"What would happen if you ran away?" you finally ask. "I mean, really, it sounds like you haven't even considered it. What would happen? You get yourself past the drones with a ship and a crew of likeminded deviants. And instead of fighting for or against the empire, you just leave. What would happen? How long would anyone bother to chase you?"

 

"Where would we go?" you retort. "How would we live? What would we do for food, fuel, air, replacement parts?" But as you say it, it starts to sound more like a series of problems to be solved than like an argument-ending return salvo. It's in a slightly uncertain tone that you go on, "We'd have to interact with the Empire somehow, or with someone who does. And... would we be alone, me and my crew? Would we just live out our sweeps, dying of age one by one until the most cold-blooded goes mad from solitude? It's not like we could establish a colony without a mother grub. Or an oviparous mutant, but god, how cruel."

Your claws dig into your crossed arms. "Don't you think I've fantasized about taking off with my matesprit the walking treason and living in peace? But I think the closest we could really come is piracy. I don't know if I'm nasty enough to rob shipping. And it doesn't sound as if you'd want to come along. It sounds like you want to do Ascension the normal way and..."

It hurts, thinking about that. You've been avoiding the topic. "Maybe part of me is hoping I'll die before I have to choose between you and Enkidi, and everything that choice entails. What is my third option there, Erskin?"

 

"Both," you say. "Neither. Build yourself a palace and hide it behind a black hole and live off ice and ancient wrecks. Build yourself a little mining rig and sail along through asteroid rings and sell scrap metal to pirates. Build yourself a sailing ship and ride solar radiation clear off the galactic disc, freeze yourself until you've reached the next one and wake up somewhere no one's ever even dreamed of trolls. Build a farm and plunk it down next to a star and sell pipeweed at scandalous discount prices. Build yourself a waystation at some seedy crossroads and spend the rest of your life growing fat and making a dozen new friends every night.

"And me—I hardly know what I'll be assigned to do after I go up— no reason why I shouldn't still be in some sort of position to have you. Or perhaps we really will have gotten bored with one another. Perhaps we can sneak your love back into space in a shipping crate, buy him false papers, who knows? What do you want? If you want us both we'll sort it out. You're clever, when you're not thinking in, in, in beenary, and I'm bloody well loaded, and your yellowblood's broken his rig and walked free once already. It's so absurd that you're just lying there ready to pack it all in."

 

You look at him as if he's just declared himself Empress. And then as if he's a small light in a vast dark forest. And then as if he's every moonrise after a long eye-burning day, and also like it's Twelfth Perigee's Eve.

"Of course I want you both!" you choke, eyes filling. "I want to live a long time with both of you, and Pancho and everyone, and never kill another troll! I want -- god, all right, for starters I want to wrap my head around the idea of wanting things, because it's weirdly difficult." You give a wobbly laugh and scrub your eyes with the heel of your hand. "I think you're crazy, Erskin. For the record. I think you are guano bananas out of your freaking mind. That said, I like your brand of crazy and would like to subscribe to your newsletter." More cracked laughter. "I want to save all the history and culture the Empire keeps erasing. You don't even know how often history gets rewritten, babe, you don't know, nobody knows unless they're a dusty nerd who collects old books and actually reads them. And the art, my god, the paintings and textiles and beautiful little things -- we're so good at making beautiful little things! And then we leave them behind to get ruined! I hate when beautiful things get ruined, I hate it, and I hate that no one but me seems to care. I want to save those beautiful things and books and history and -- and make people love them like they should."

With a great groan of self-directed irritation, you flop off your boulder seat and onto the sand beside him. "You'll probably be ordered to blow up whatever I build, but what the hell. Let's try optimism, it can't be worse." Which is a huge lie; even this much hope is scarier than death.

 

"See, was that so hard?" you ask with gentle mockery. You roll over enough to butt heads. "You can go be a hoarder and we'll play cops and cullees and when I catch you I'll shag you rotten. I bet I'll have the most handsome uniform and you'll spend every night humping your old books in jealous lust."

 

"Ill collect uniforms," you reply with a crooked grin, "and refuse to tell you who I got them from, and you'll jump to outrageous conclusions and tear them off me."

You lie there for a while, lost in his eyes, letting the concept of a future settle. You'll probably have to have this epiphany a few more times, you think, before it sticks or gets burned out of you for good. You just get tired; the bullheaded hope fades out after a while. Maybe he'll have to keep smacking it back into you. You could be okay with that.

"If you get tired of toeing the line," you murmur, tracing the scar-ruffled edge of a fin with your forefinger claw, "you can come get me and we'll run away together. Go have stupid adventures somewhere nobody cares about."

This maudlin line of conversation is cut off by the fluffcheep scrambling up over your shoulder to plop down between you with a huge water beetle, still sluggishly paddling, impaled on his beak. You can't tell whether he wants you to eat it or whether he's just stuck, but he's very emotional about whichever he's trying to convey.

 

You've gone a little breathless— that intensity, the soft stroking of your fin, run away together. It's almost a relief when the little potato breaks the moment off.

When Bel pats him and fusses with dutiful attention, you steal the beetle and pop it in your mouth, and the fluffcheep screams in absolute fury. Laughing, you let it bowl you over a few times, then tangle it up in the long grass and make your escape up a tall rock.

"When you catch me you can kill me," you tell him, "but first you've got to catch me!"

You grin at Bel and dash off, the potato in hot pursuit. It's not the largest playing field, but it should be good for a few turns around the rocks.

 

You laugh and call encouragement to your pet, who shows a surprising turn of speed for something so small, his little legs going like mad. After Erskin's done a few laps, you announce, "SHOCKING AMBUSH!" and hurl yourself at Erskin in a playful tackle. "You can't fight back yet," you add as you try to pin him, "I get a surprise round."

Of course he has no respect for this rule you made up on the spot, and you tussle a bit with the fluffcheep bouncing around you and twittering excitedly. It's not long, though, before you give up in a sprawl-armed flop: "Whuf. I can't go on, I'm too hungry. If you don't have anything to eat in your sylladex we're going to have to go back to civilization, water bugs and frogs won't cut it."

 

You pin him and sit on his chest, just to show him who's boss.

"I'm starved," you say. "I'm all out, haven't had a proper hunt in ages—that fish last night was the last of what I'd packed up."

You groom him 'round the horns a bit, hesitating. "I don't..." you start, and chew on your lip. "I'm not up for civilization again. Not so soon. I only just got free this last week. Do you want to split up, meet back up at Jethro's location?"

(note: without the flyer erskin wouldn't have any motorized transportation. not that he gives a shit.)

 

"Jethro's location...?" You frown confusion. "He's not at the hotel?"

 

“Of course not, it’s been four— no, five? days. I flew Jethro back to his hive to recover from all the ridiculous city living we’ve been doing, then bought a two wheel overland skimmer and set off to find you after it’d been a few nights with no word but vampire massacre and Jethro had finished my sweater. It’s extremely warm and attractive and you can’t touch it.”

You give him a playful headbutt, like a complete sap. It turns into a round of horn wrestling and is just threatening to turn further into fang wrestling with maybe some tongue when there’s a horrible crackling sort of static shock that goes all through you. It feels like you’ve been tumble-dried, with extra tumble, and suddenly everything is the wrong shape and smell.

You know that smell, though. It’s wired straight into your hindbrain: you’re skin-to-skin tangled up with an adult.

RUN.

Rational thought goes straight out the mind window. You leap free, grab the fluffcheep, and bolt for the smallest crack in the rocks that will fit you.