“The important joints of the Thinkers —meaning those of the arms and legs, mainly— will have a sort of clockwork-like mechanism, one compatible with their malleable bodies. Surfaces on the variegated pieces serve as attachment points for the high-density filaments of the psychosarc, adding both resistance to tensile and compressive stress and an intrinsic force component to the articulations. These can be rearranged internally to provide a wide range of movement, a characteristic most notable in the case of Dirofil, Shadiran, and all of their Splinters.”
—Tidbits of our Creation, Page 18
There was something negative to be said about Lyssav: she didn’t entertain the idea of others needing time to climb.
She dangled head down from the ceiling that the sea provided, arms outstretched and reaching for wagging tails and kicking haunches, tail intruding betwixt the bright Retrievers. The trio of wounded suns bled its attention over the flea that had to jump from sphere to sphere, who waited for said crutches to get close enough so he could take the leap. “Hurry up, snail.”
Dirofil took his sweet time judging every moment of his ascent. He enjoyed the excuse of cautiousness in this little crusade to punish his all-too-eager sister. He now understood that to enter Cynothalassa could be only seen as a nefarious ritual. That he would not cross the sea without losing himself, and that he would lose himself to slay the world.
He wondered how would the sea change Lyssav, and decided he would pity her if she didn’t manage to muster the amount of power the sea demanded. Maybe she could kill a Reaper. Maybe the Reapers were small game once one managed to negotiate the Mauling Layer.
His hand grabbed onto a passing cylinder and he swung from it for some seconds, until a sphere drifted close enough and he took the jump. Down below the miasma creeped dense and jealous of the features of creation, of the little pieces of ground that could be found in their wondrous world. Taking a peek at the abyss, a thought assailed him, making him stare right into his sister’s horrid back: he needed to get a damned pair of wings.
“Make haste!” Lyssav barked much like the sea, and Dirofil ignored likewise.
“Tides tear spires down one lick at a time.”
“I tear annoying Thinkers to pieces a bit faster than that, brother,” she said, her tone more controlled to achieve the threatening effect she wished for.
“You could lift me up there if you wanted to get me into the sea sooner.” Dirofil took another jump that presented no difficulty whatsoever, landing on a green sphere with a slanted orbit.
Lyssav dislodged a Labrador from the sea, plucking it from the tail, and grimaced when faced with the image of the whole dog acting like a pendulum once the tail was stilled by her grip. She soon enough stopped caring, swinging it around, to her side, winding up a throw. She grinned, and the grin dripped malice.
“Catch!” she said, hurling the pooch at a vertiginous speed against his brother.
Dirofil’s legs lost no time and reacted, propelling him off the sphere an instant before the panting Labrador crashed slightly off-center into the floating element, reducing it to a cloud of drifting rubble that resonated in a pained wail as the dog, now spinning out of control, sailed across in a diagonal trip towards the core of the world.
It had been close, and now the grating laugher of Lyssav contaminated the atmosphere, even as he barely held onto a floating cylinder, gripping it with only his tail.
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He dropped to a sphere that happened to pass below and landed on all five, his joints bearing the brunt of the fall, absorbing its energy without issue. His ears taking the brunt of the mockery, failing to mimic the joints.
“I expected the dog to explode, but these boys are hard, eh!” Lyssav seemed… happy. Excited. And far from considering it distressing, Dirofil found unwelcome solace in her innocent yet terrible joy. “You have a minute until I toss another.” She clapped, three hands still clasped around the excrescences of the sea.
Dirofil glanced over his shoulder, back at the spire. It would be so easy to crawl down those walls and make Lyssav stir in pursuit, filled with rage. Yet he didn’t take the chance, for it was not time to indulge in such banal pleasures. Adjust the cape, ready the ankles, and shoot for another sphere. That, he had to do. That, he would do.
Talons scraped the glass-like stone, barely able to dent the time-hardened surface. The thought of a dog being more effective of a weapon than his own bones weathered its way into Dirofil’s core with the speed and might of a crowning blade, and like a boulder would, he barely minded it.
The next three spheres were sorted in a flowing motion, as Dirofil didn’t fear the fall. He could redirect himself back to Leptos’ platform with a weak explosion if he slipped.
And Lyssav, likewise, wasn’t afraid of killing her dear sibling. If he fell, she would dive in for him and smack The Fourth Imagined back up, sparing him the rage of the dark core of the world. Thus she chucked another dog at his brother. “Catch!”
But this time Dirofil stood at the ready. He skipped over the incoming projectile with peerless grace, kicking it midair to change the direction of both parties, saving the sphere that had so patiently supported him and bouncing off towards the next step on his stair of lazy bubbles. Standing on a single leg perched on a tiny sun, the upper left and the only right hand sliced their way to the sides, palms facing upwards, and the third hand pressed against the chest of the automaton, fingers fanned out as he leaned forwards, the long tail a perfect counterweight.
In front of his public of one, Dirofil bowed and thanked. In presence of the performer, Lyssav clapped and cheered. Skill, displays thereof and the following boast, those three things were worthy of her respect.
She extended her abdomen, her arthropod like legs stiff at its sides, the clawed tips trembling, and the five-pronged stinger at the end pointing at Dirofil’s toes.
“Climb, brother. This sea shall cry our names in fear.”
Dirofil preserved the silence as he reached for one of her legs, intending to use them as the rungs of a ladder. And it was not that Lyssav wouldn’t mind, but rather that she encouraged such behavior. She would recoil at the touch of most Splinters, but throughout the tides every one of the Originals of the core had earned her respect, one way or the other. Parvov with Fire, Morbilliv with physical prowess, Dirofil by playing the monkey, and Babesi by virtue of standing unafraid and unbothered in her presence, even when she tried to scare the brat. Lyssav had once asked Babesi about how would the Sixth react if she tried to predate on her. Babs had simply blinked and answered “We will find out if I taste good!”. After that, she had slung Babesi overhead and sent her back to her spire with a dismissive throw, only for her to return about an hour later and demand to be sent flying over the chasm again. And again. And again. Babs regarded not the power hierarchy, unlike the others.
“Dirofil, what can you tell me about Babesi?” she asked as her hands found purchase deeper into the sea, dragging both her body and his brother’s up as the Retriever light reduced her pupils to the width of a hair.
“She domesticated a family of giant, mutated dachshunds to care for her. Plus, she’s very adept at hiding and keeping her pocket among puppies tidy.”
“This sea is some devious creation.” Dirofil could feel the smile forming in his sister’s face when she said those words, despite being unable to see it beyond the bulk of reddish flesh. “How characteristic of Babesi to find a way to become a spanner in its works.”
Lyssav kept climbing, accelerating with zealous determination, robbing from Dirofil the chance to bid a last goodbye to the sight of their home. She didn’t mind pulling on legs of clawing underbellies to push herself further. The scared whines from the Retrievers fed her resolve, their fright-fueled kicks rattling the knot of her cranium as she laughed as the maniac she was.
“Ave, mare—” Dirofil began echoing what he had said many tides ago.
“Yes! The ones about to die salute me!” Lyssav singsang, never stopping her crawling.
And from that tide onwards, until the end of this damned world, one could call the sea rabid.