“Love is a serious mental disease,”
― Plato
A beacon lit a shadowed stage, grey sand turned to stars under a harsh glare. Heavy wind pushed grit into her fur, ignored as she circled her target. She paused, a shift of the light enough to push her onto a different path. The ground where Lyra would have stood evaporated, turned to ash by a thin line.
“You’re still being too loud…”
“I know,” Lyra bit her lip. “How can he hear with that tin-can on his head, anyway?”
“I like my helmet,” Brull laughed from within the spotlight. “It stops you from slipping your spear into my eye!”
“It’s a cheat and you know it,” Lyra sank deeper into the shadows. “How should we do this, Fen?”
“The cat always has his guard down,” Fenrir snorted. “Just take your time, it will work…”
Lyra ground her teeth and resumed her random circles. Brull stood like a monolith. The armour he wore got stronger, each time they fought. Now, it shone silver, trimmed with the faintest gold.
He almost looks like Arthur…
Brull’s head turned, his sword pointed fully away from her position. Her eyes flashed, hunger and triumph as she blurred the definition of speed. Her aura flowed around her, no longer blue but a starlit black. A silvered edge that coated the red eyed wolf within her.
She called no warning, just a silent attack that slammed home onto Brull’s lower spine, right where the armour faded into its seams. A jet of night lanced from her spear’s tip, a needle that hunted the gaps for the cat-kin’s skin.
“A good blow!” Brull tilted from the force. “But remember, my armor is a metaphor, you can’t find a chink like that!”
He twisted his shoulders, a backslash with Excalibur that illuminated the desert for miles. Lyra slid along the attack, sparks shaved from her breastplate. Her spear retracted, a turn that wrapped its haft into Brull’s face.
“I’m just getting started!”
The shaft smacked the cat-kin’s visor, a greasy shadow left behind. Brull raised his sword in a guard, vision blocked by Fenrir’s midnight aura.
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“Tricky…” Brull grunted. “But I don’t need to see you to win this fight!”
Excalibur brightened to a daylight white, Brull’s form highlighted by the sun. He drew the blade in a firm line, horizontal to his body. A clean chime, followed by shattered glass. The Shadow’s of Fenrir that stood before him vanished on the wind, broken down into ash.
“The power of my sword is still too much for…”
Lyra loomed behind Brull, the tall shadow of a wolf painted in the sky above. The cat-kin twitched, then pushed his legs to dive aside. Fenrir’s maw slammed shut on the sand, a hair behind the red-faced knight.
“HEY! You guys agreed not to swallow me,” Brull shuddered as he launched several blind swings. “That’s a nightmare I’ll never forget…”
“All is fair in…” Fenrir paused. “He’s finally awake!”
The shadow around Brull vanished as Fen pranced around in Lyra’s mind. The black furred wolf rolled on her back, face pressed into imagined grass.
“Your crush has reappeared, huh?” Lyra laughed, her spear returned to the void. “When are you going to give it up, Huan would kill you if she knew you were her rival in love.”
“I’M NOT IN LOVE,” Fen snarled. “I just want to consume his power for my own!”
“Uh huh, sure…” Lyra rolled her eyes. “Let’s run to meet your ‘not-crush’ the second he’s free, so you can plot how you’re going to make your move.”
“SHUT UP!”
Lyra ran forward, in a full argument with herself as she raced toward the city limits. Ven’s prison was on the other end of Avalon, it would take some time to reach.
“Hello…” Brull stumbled forward in the sand, still blind. “Lyra? Fen? Where are you guys?”
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“How many times have we gone over this…” Mara poked Speaker Ant on what she considered his nose. “The Colony is free to expand at will, but you need to file all the proper paperwork first!”
“It seems like a waste of valuable time,” Speaker rubbed his antenna over his face. “We always follow the construction and safety guidelines…”
“I found another open tunnel just yesterday,” Mara rubbed her face. “It went straight down for thirty kilometres, with a tiny pile of smashed animals on the bottom!”
“Well construction guidelines are always followed,” Speaker curled on himself slightly. “And the number of reported accidents has gone down over 30% from last year…”
“Fine…” Mara pushed a sigh from her lungs, head rested on the back of her chair. “At least set up a department that reports the construction after the fact, we need a record of some kind or the city will devolve into chaos.”
“Alright, I can do that,” Speaker nodded eagerly. “It should be as simple as…” He paused. “I’m getting a report about interference on the drone network… someone is tampering with a farming unit out by Cain’s place.”
“Out by Cain’s…” Mara twitched to her feet. “I bet you all the city's wealth that it’s Ven, I told you the golems would piss him off…”
“I still don’t understand…” Speaker tilted his head and followed her through the door. “They are machines, without them we couldn’t have finished half of what we’ve accomplished.”
“He left pretty clear instructions about what he called ‘artificial intelligence’ and I’m pretty sure your drones are exactly that,” Mara shrugged as she walked. “We’ve had zero issues so far, so I let it continue, but I don’t want to start a fight with Ven about it.”
“It could be some children… we’ve had many young beastfolk playing around with the drones,” Speaker’s antenna twisted. “Maybe they just went too far this time.
“Maybe… you’d better hope so,” Mara laughed. “I doubt the Queen would say no if he asked her to scrap your project!”
“I know…” Speaker drooped. “But it was the only solution to our labour issue. We need workers, and the people are all focused on scientific expansion and artistic expression.”
“Well, maybe Ven will understand…”
A black storm interrupted her words. It rose from the eastern horizon and covered the land in a heavy mist. Shadows licked at the air, temperature driven to a deadly chill. The light from the street lamps faded, drawn into the night black fog, until Mara could barely see a foot ahead.
“Or maybe not…”