Mornings after sex are truly wonderful. You wake up slowly, lazily, feeling a pleasant tingle all over your entire body like countless tiny needless, prickling every muscle. Linda stretched and the slight crack of her neck and back served to complete the absolute bliss she was currently enjoying.

She moved to rub her eyes and the pleasant tingle was gone in milliseconds. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring her hands down. With her eyes still closed, she pulled a bit harder down and one of her wrists gave out a rather nasty crack. Her pupils shrank instantly once her lids were no longer shielding them from the light seeping through the opening at the top of the tent. She had to blink quickly a few times to chase away the bright spots, clouding her vision, before she could finally focus on her surroundings. With some effort, her gaze steadied on a familiar face.

The beautiful face of a boy, familiar, yet almost unrecognizable due to the twisted smile, distorting his features.

“Kay?” Her voice sounded like screeching floorboards in her own ears.

“And thus the traitors are awakened, bathed in the bloody light of the morrow, to face Her wrath almighty.” The boy recited in response, but the melodic tones of his voice sounded like sharpened knives, looking to sink into unprotected flesh.

“They can neither turn nor see the stain of sorrow which marks them for eternity of service to the Legless calamity.”

Linda’s neck cracked with the speed with which she turned left when she heard the familiar deeply accented voice from behind.

“You know the Ariah quite well for a servant of Kriya”, the boy snapped in return.

“Fortunes is one of the less psychotic passages within that toxic book, boy”, Wint said without a trace of anxiety in her velvet voice, which was remarkable, considering the helpless position she was in. “Which be quite fascinatin’ all things considered, ‘specially once you read till the end.”

Kay’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to deliver another biting retort, but another familiar female voice cut him off:

“Down, streetwalker.”

The boy hung his head low obediently and moved to wrap himself in a ball in the corner where he sat before they walk up. Recognizing the woman who entered the tent made Linda’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

“Lady Ariah, explain yourself!” A third familiar voice boomed behind Linda’s right shoulder and she jumped slightly, as much as her restraints allowed and turned back to see the austere grimace twisting Wotar’s face.

The other water lady moved so fast that Linda thought for a second she may have teleported herself. That the loud slap she had heard was just the sound of her coming out the other side of the space portal. It wasn’t until Wotar spat a small pool of blood on the floor which reached the girl’s feet, did she realise what had actually happened.

“Ah keep tellin’ ye, Yer Highness, there be no ladies around ‘ere.” Ariah spat in turn. “Not me, not ye, no woman holds power over the lives of the free people on the Fringes.”

“Shall I then take this as your official petition to secede from the Alliance?” Linda had to give it to Wotar – the woman didn’t go down easy. Her tone had taken on the same deceptively soft tone as the first time the girl had heard the Ruling over sea speak back in her palace in Syfis. “A simple letter would have sufficed. Even an electronic one or a dimensigram if the free people still remembers how to use a terminal.”

“How typical!” The other one barked out an ugly little laugh. “Yer continental snobbishness knows no bounds. Only yer stupidity can compare. It’s this same stupidity which has brought ye to this sorry state, I’ll have ye know.”

“Oh, please enlighten us novices!” Wint chimed in with a voice which dripped sarcasm like gasoline pouring next to a burning candle.

“Ah, the lady Tempayah!” Ariah graced her with her widest wolfish grin. “For what be the official visits of the Rulingsome without the company of the most wanted criminal on the planet. Ye know, I’m a wee bit disappointed, I’ll have ye know. Ah thought me an’ you could come to an understanding.”

“Most wanted criminal? Because we ate without paying?!” Linda spoke before she knew it and shivered when she felt the water lady’s stare pin her down like a spear.

“Where did ye find this one from?!” Ariah laughed again - an even nastier laugh. “It truly be as if she’s fallin’ from one of the Moons!”

She let the pressure build up in the air a while, before speaking again, this time with a note of almost dramatic seriousness in her voice:

“Well, ah guess I’ll do the honours. Lady Pearce, is it? Hell of a name! This woman with whom you’ve been travelling for half an Air moon rotation already had some irreconcilable differences of character with the dear mother of our beloved leader here. T’was because of lady Tempayah’s pet project which revolved around exposing government secrets. On the wide web. Where every idiot woman with a terminal could see.” Linda’s bewildered expression seemed to fuel the malicious smile on her face. “But please, daughter, ask her yerself if ye don’t trust me. What was that nifty pen name of yers, m’lady? The suffocating greyness of the mundane – her highness the lady Suffo Matrix. Aye, she hath come on her white stallion to save us from the chains of corporate and political demagoguery with the help of her quick keyboard punching fingers that could break through the most protected terminals and intranets on the planet.”

Linda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Although this was a rather frequent occurrence ever since she arrived here, she was once again feeling as if she had no idea which way was up. Wint, the woman with the funny accent who liked to get almost blackout drunk and sleep with as many young boys (preferably virgins) as she could take at once seemed like anything other than an activist and freedom-fighter, let alone a prodigy in something as complex as computer science.

Linda twisted her neck as much as she could to try and see Wint’s face. The woman didn’t seem to have reacted in any way to what was said about her which was weird for two reasons. First of all, if what Ariah was saying were true, knowing the narcissistic streak the windstorm had, Linda expected to see at least a bit of pride shine on those sharp features. Second, because a part of her still thought she was a pretty decent judge of character and if this woman was as smart as the water lady implied, the girl thought she would’ve picked up on it by now.

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“Each one of us attempts to help society evolve as she feels right”, Wint’s voice had not lost its depth, but now held no trace of the heavy accent.

“See, what’d I tell ya, Wint?” The other woman beamed. “We’re gonna see eye to eye!”

“I suppose”, the windstorm nodded, while Linda’s eyes attempted to pop out from her skull and her neck kept creaking unpleasantly due to its uncomfortable position. “But you’ve yet to tell me what it is I’m supposed to see.”

What the…?! To be fair, from the beginning it was more or less clear that Wint was not the most reliable person in the world – she was a lone wolf, mostly interested in her own wellbeing. But of all the moments to choose to betray them! Brilliant, just brilliant!

Linda was just opening her mouth to voice her outrage, when she got a powerful knee in her ribcage, followed by another kick when she tried to turn to Wotar. Had the Ruling over sea gone completely mad?

“Ye truly brightened my day!” Ariah continued in her uplifted tone. “Ah was a wee worried at the start that ye might have given into pressure from the powers that be. It’s good to hear that yer free spirit remains intact.” She paused a second, as if waiting for the windstorm to respond, but when she didn’t, the woman continued. “Women like ye are essential in today’s mad world. We’ve lost all direction. We oppress the strong and powerful and promote the weak. We’ve turned feeble, like men! Whole generations of young women, growing up brainwashed by the pseudo-values that this legless’ mother started promoting.”

“The fight for equality of sexes is precisely what makes AWA citizens the freest people on the planet.” Wotar hissed through clenched teeth.

“Equality of sexes makes us free” , Ariah repeated mockingly. “Listen to her, why don’t ya? She truly believes this nonsense! Come ‘ere, boy!” The woman barked at Kay, still wrapped up in his corner. “Tell me, lad”, she continued in a softer tone. “Actually, tell our distinguished guest what ye do for a livin’?

“I’m a recreation boy, la… big sister Ariah”, he corrected himself quickly.

Linda felt something heavy and unpleasant lodge itself inside her chest. But of course – the first boy she had been intimate with on this weird planet would be a gigolo. Why the hell not? How could she have been so stupid to think that a hot piece of ass like that could be genuinely interested in someone like her? The only thing stronger than the internal sobs of her bruised ego was the thought of asking if she could stop by an gynaecologist at some point. The last thing she needed right now was to contract some weird alien STD. Well, if she lived long enough to worry about that of course.

Outside Linda’s head, Ariah spoke again:

“A recreation boy… And why’s that me lad? Why do ye need to sell yer body for debits? Does some one force ye into it?”

“I’m an orphan… I gots to survive somehow”, he muttered, head hung low.

“But is there no other way to get by ‘round ‘ere?” Ariah insisted, a mocking glint shining in her eyes, still glued to Wotar’s face. “Why can’t ye work in one of the factories or perhaps the harvester’s servicing plant?”

“Ah can’t do that, big sister”, Kay shook his head. “To work in the factory ye have to be physically strong – to load and unload all those heavy palettes… And for the service plant ye need to be good with them ingenious lines of work.”

“Engineering work ye mean?” Ariah corrected him and unceremoniously spun him around and pushed him to sit back down in his corner. “Yer precious men, Yer Highness! Weak, helpless, see what happens to ‘em without a strong female hand to guide ‘em?”

“Utter nonsense!” Wotar erupted in response. “The only thing your little theatre showed me is the desperate need the male citizens of AWA have to get better access to education and encouragement to pursue professional development!”

“Yeah, yeah – and education, and promotion and government assistance and a whole bunch of time, energy and effort wasted, before ye finally understand the simple universal truth”, Ariah shook her head. “That there’s simply things women are good at and other things men are good at and that’s been so since the dawn of time for a reason. Whether ye look for that reason in religion or in science – reality is right there, waiting for ye to finally get it.”

Ariah looked ready to continue her lecture, but was interrupted by an insistent buzzing which came from her pocket. She took out the little gadget – its screen was blocking and its oval metaline body continued to vibrate in her hand. Linda couldn’t see more than the back of the device, but the smug smile which returned to the face of the water lady with full force gave her a rough idea of what was happening – nothing good. At least not for the three of them, or should she say the two of them, considering Wint’s face was mirroring Ariah’s expression.

“And here be some more good news from Yer favourite capitol, Yer Highness”, Ariah declared in a solemn tone, which nevertheless betrayed its mocking nature, when she decided to accompany it with a grotesque imitation of the local army salute. “Oh, please look! It’s so beautiful!”

She approached them with a brisk step and turned the device’s screen so they could see it. The small backlit square screen was playing a video on repeat, which looked like it was taken out of a horror movie with a director who seemed to be both drunk and high. The picture was shaking violently and whatever could be discerned from it was engulfed in flames and accompanied by the sounds of blood-chilling screams. Linda thought she’d seen in the corner of one shaky angle a piece of blue-green window.

“Oh, Great Mother!” Wotar’s voice from behind Linda’s back broke up in such a way that she barely recognized it.

“Ah, so now ye turn to Her!” Ariah bit off, voice dripping with contempt as she put the hellish device back inside her pants’ pocket.

“This means war, you Kriyan abomination!” Wotar barked at her and Linda was almost sure she’d heard the sound of a huge wave break against a shore rock somewhere behind her back.

“Oh, is that so?” The other woman kept snickering nastily. “And who might I ask will you wage this war against? You new best friend from the East?”

“The Empress has nothing to do with this!”

“Is that so?” Ariah raised her eyebrows. “Are ye prepared to bet yer head on it?” The Ruling over sea’s silence brought another crooked smug smile on the other water lady’s lips. “Tis what I thought. Ye know, I might’ve been wrong about ye, lady Aquina. Ye truly appear to be just an idealistic fool genuinely and helplessly wrapped up in yer dystopian babble. And lest ye proclaim me black-hearted, before I do away with ye, I’ll tell ye what ye just saw. No, yer precious fire witch didn’t turn unfaithful on ye like a male in heat during his hormonal rush. What I just showed ye is a part of an operation called “Scarecrow”. And although it was conceived on the Old continent, it has nothing to do with Tyrannia.”

“Those filthy earth legless abominations…” Wotar hissed behind Linda’s back.

“Silence, infidel!” Ariah spat.

What followed was another loud slap on the face of the Ruling, as Linda began to realize she had been shaking for a while now. Wint had apparently realized the same thing, because she kicked the girl’s leg and gave her one of her typical admonishing stares. The girl opened her mouth to cry out, to express her rage at the other woman’s disgusting betrayal, but for a split second her eyes followed the tilt of the windstorm’s head. She had nodded to the corner where Kay sat. Or rather, where Kay would’ve sat if he hadn’t stood up.

With a sudden and surprisingly powerful movement, decorated with the glint of something small, sharp and metalline, his hand trust forward and whatever he was holding wedged itself between Ariah’s ribs. She turned her head to him – eyes wide in bewilderment, but before she could react, he slashed at her throat again with the tiny blade.

Linda gawked at him, astonished, but as usual, Wint was the first one to get over the shock and her voice brought the girl back to reality:

“A thousand thanks to ye, laddie…”

“Do not thank me”, he hissed through clenched teeth and his eyes were still alight with menacing flames. “I ain’t doin’t this for ye.” In the next moment, he threw the small knife at Linda’s feet and she might have imagined it, but she thought he winked her way too. “Big brother is coming!”

Those were the last words he muttered at his confused audience before slipping out of the tent quickly and quietly, as if he were never there.

“Big brother is coming…”, she repeated, mesmerized by the boy’s parting words. It had sounded almost like an incantation of sorts.

“Yeah, yeah, great mystery, that”, Wint’s sharp ironic voice shook her out of her reverie. “So do ye plan on giving me that knife there anytime this hecarotation or what?”