“I hurt. There’s one at the center of all. I am. I have wings. How quaint.”

—Lyssav’s first words.

Doratev carried himself with unwarranted security and dignity as he stepped into Lyssav’s room. The throne had been torn from its place, possibly having been devoured, and now a hammock of a red pointerine-like substance hung from two of the walls, several elastic threads grabbing to the lattice for dear life as Lyssav’s heavy body rested on it, her eyes staring at the doorway with disinterest.

“What do you bring for me, Splinter?” She asked in an amused tone as she basked in the cold shine of the Retriever lights.

“First, call me Doctor or Doratev, if you’d be so kind. Second, and the answer to your question: A task. It has come to my attention that you can materialize dog based materials after getting to know them. You could be of use to the crew, Second Envisioned.” Doratev explained, calm and collected, unbothered by Lyssav’s nature.

“Do you foster a wish for thoughtlessness? I am rabies incarnate. I deserve a little bit of respect,” Lyssav raised from her lying position, her arms spreading to the sides of her girdle: three to the left, two to the right.

“Sure, I’ll see if I can fit being murdered by you in my busy agenda,” Doratev produced a Corgite tablet, golden and polished, from under his coat of metal flakes. “Oh, look at that, I have free spot three tides from now, right after playing tag with Babesi.”

Lyssav was a fraction of a second away from jumping over Doratev and ripping his core from his torso, but she refrained from doing so: Doratev’s last word had saved him. If this insolent Splinter was a friend of Babesi, she couldn’t simply put an end to his life. No, killing this pest would hurt Babesi, and for her sake, she needed to endure his vexing attitude. “What do you need of me, you cure?” she said, moving her teeth one by one, her core shedding blood-red light over an unbothered Doratev.

“It’s simple,” Doratev extended his upper left, wrist angled downwards, dorsal of the hand facing upwards, and the leech finger risen higher than the others. And enveloping one of the phalanxes, a band of black. “This, Lady Lyssav, is Dobermannite. And the captain’s ring. Stole it while he meditates. So by eating it you will be bothering Morbilliv too.”

“Go on,” Lyssav gestured with two hands, swiveling them to signal him to proceed.

“Dobermannite is a rare, hard to refine, and exceptional material. We don’t get much more than a few grams for each dog we groom, and we only find Dobermans when a titanic creature breaks through the mauling layer and drags some down. As if this weren’t enough, the window to catch them before they abominate is short, a span of three or four tides at most.” Doratev turned the ring about his phalanx, contemplating the little nicks and imperfections in its surface. “We have several projects that could use a material that shows such resistance and malleability. Your skill at materializing matter out of thin air is what could prove useful to the crew.”

“I owe you no usefulness,” she squirmed a bit in her hammock, stretching several legs and twisting her tail. “But do tell me what are these projects about. Maybe I can benefit from them.”

“A new body for Morbilliv, something I called Project…” Doratev’s word hung on his voicebox, rendering him silent for only a few moments. Now that Seloma was on board, he couldn’t let anyone know that was the original name. She would think that it was a compliment to her virtues, rather than a reminder of her vices and Doratev’s hatred for her. “You know, I forgot the name, didn’t pay much of a mind while thinking of it, and now it’s gone. I must have it recorded somewhere.”

“A Splinter of Dirofil forgetting a name he himself granted? I am not stupid, Doratev. And lies are no friend of mine.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I regret the name I gave to the project. That’s all.” Two of his hands found each other behind his spine, and a third remained on the front, middle finger and minimus still rolling the ring around his annulary. “Pardon my dishonesty. The crux of the matter is: Dobermannite would be of use for the plating in the new body of Morbilliv. If you could produce enough, we could upgrade the hull of the corship itself. That could prove enough to cross the Mauling layer, up and down. And, well, if we had a surplus, I am sure I could think of further uses for it beyond small applications in variegated trinkets, but those are the main two, yes.”

Lyssav turned her eyes in place, angling her pupils as she considered what the insolent Doctor had said. “Can I eat the Corgi?”

“Loretta’s welfare is non-negotiable, I am afraid.”

Lyssav forwarded her lower teeth, as if parodying a pout. “Which captain made that ring?”

“Parvov. Why?” It took but mere instants of silence and Lyssav’s glare for Doratev to realize what was the meaning of that question. “Yes, this could be a keepsake of my friend. There’s a bit of Dobermannite in the deposit, saved in case need for it arises.”

Lyssav’s upper hand shot and took hold Doratev’s wrist with an iron grip. Another of her appendages then reached for his finger and the ring while she held a killing flare to the unmoved Splinter. With a violent spasm of her wrist she dislodged the finger from the hand, and once the phalanxes dangled lifeless from her hand she took the ring for herself, sliding it around one of her long teeth.

“Give me my finger back?” Doratev asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

“You truly don’t fear me. Why?”

Doratev curled and relaxed his remaining fingers, demanding for his small bones to be returned. Lyssav gracefully acquiesced, dropping the amputated finger into the mutilated hand, and watching how it wriggled into place and reincorporated into the hand’s structure as Doratev’s flesh covered it once more.

“Because nobody suffers their own death. Only the anticipation of it. Suffering requires a future, no matter how immediate.”

“The echoes of everyone I have eaten still dwell inside my soul, Doctor. And, let me assure you: they are not having a good time.”

“But do they feel? Or are those simple… recordings, playing over and over?” Doratev massaged his sore bones carefully caressing the empty spot where the ring had lain. “Is your soul a prison, or an archive of last breaths?”

Lyssav stared past Doratev, her teeth twitching lightly. “I am unsure.” Then she smiled horribly, in the way only she could. “You are quite the valuable asset, Splinter. Go to the storage and bring me a lump of that material you want. I shall multiply it sevenfold.”

“Sevenfold is a good start. But I was thinking more on the terms of… about seven-hundredfold?” Had he been able to, Doratev would have shown a sycophant’s grin. “Or am I wrong to assume that wouldn’t be problematic for you, Lady Lyssav?”

Lyssav descended from her hammock, and with sudden movements crawled up to Doratev’s face. “I know what you are trying to do. I’ll play along, Doctor. But don’t think for a second that clumsy adulation will win me over.”

The only slit pupil of Doratev turned to a thin line as he gazed in the scorching fire of her soul. “Personal space.”

Lyssav, surprisingly, backed down, a signal of respect for the brave Splinter. “How delightfully weird you are. Bring me the metal. I shall cover the ship’s skin with it.”

“Where do you intend to get the thought energy for such feats? I have crunched the numbers. Granted, I assumed the energy needed for materialization, but I purposefully aimed lower than I should have. And even then, considering a perfect core, and following the progression of efficiency I calculated from your sibling’s cores, you would need a few thousand tides of meditation to gather that much energy. Tell me, Lady Lyssav, what’s your secret?”

Lyssav let out a satisfied purr, her joints adding the unpleasant chittering of a cockroach orgy to it. “Every soul I assimilate acts as a multiplier to the amount of energy I can gather. Leptos is capable of a greater efficiency by virtue of partitioning his own spirit. I do not enjoy such gift. But I can digest pain and matter into power too.”

“Fascinating. Would you mind letting me study your core?”

“Only if you let me eat yours afterwards.”

Doratev grabbed the lower end of his smooth face, a finger tapping on a pseudocheek.

Lyssav blinked, and then a small offended snort escaped her voicebox. “You are not supposed to consider it as an offer, Splinter.”

“Then don’t make offers I am not supposed to consider!” Doratev then recovered his composure, straightened his metal-flakes coat, and headed for the door. “Pardon my outburst. I hate asking this of you. I should retrieve the Dobermanite from the storage without delay.”

“Yes. Yes, you should. Go on, don’t keep me waiting. We are going to paint this puppy black.”

And she watched him drag his bones away, and she hummed contently as she heard the steps getting lost in the distance. What an interesting Splinter she had come across. Not one to be eaten, and not merely out of love for Babesi. Such a weird mind deserved to exist unimpeded out of its own merit.