CHAPTER FOURTEEN - DODECAHEDRAL HEART

Dear Eygi,

I apologise for writing so soon, but the vessel is proving... interesting. We're churning our way up the river with alarming speed, the engine simply dismisses the current of the river, goes against it with no show of effort. Inexorable - the thing feels inexorable. Sometimes it feels less like sitting on a boat, and more like being a message on a telegram wire, or a pre-recorded play on a theatrophone. The crew certainly adds to the impression, like they might as well sit back and relax, the boat will take them where they need to go, no rushing necessary. Not that they're lazy, of course. There's always work to be done. The rank and file of the crew are always moving, checking, rechecking, dismantling, reassembling, scrubbing, shovelling, watching, preparing... something always needs repairing or cleaning, really. They scrub the deck until it shines in the morning light, always spraying it with stuff that helps contamination slide off instead of taking root. Once they get into forbidden waters, I think they'll start spraying it with more repellent, just to make things harder for mutants. Not much work on the engine, surprisingly enough - I think the theurgists are taking care of it, by and large. I barely see them around, but the engine never stops thumping, the smoke never stops billowing, the entire vessel never really stops moving. Sometimes, when I'm sleeping, I can feel the heat oozing up through the boards, filling my room up like an oven. No idea how the theurgists deal with it, but I'm thankful for the speed.

Anyhow, part of the crew is always working and working, but another part is... almost idle. The warriors, I mean. The frontline hunters, the ones who're actually going to be firing into the horde. Veterans, all of them. Great War, or some of the skirmishes afterwards. Until the hunting starts, they've not really got much to do, so they just sprawl like enormous wildcats on crates and railings, guns dangling between their legs, immaculately oiled and cared for. The guns, I mean. Not the legs. The ship feels slightly overfull, honestly. I mean, you see people working, you see people lounging around, you feel the engine thumping away, and it's like... well, like there's just too many people, and too little work. I suppose that's accurate for now... and honestly, I think the boat won't be so full once they make for home. I mean, how many are going to die up in the north? I suppose having a large number of people helps, when you're losing people left and right to mutants, contamination, madness...

Eerie, being on a ship like this, where they expect to take so many casualties. I suppose that's the point, though. The casualties, I mean, not the eeriness. Can't imagine the mutants would be particularly unnerved, at least, not sure if they can be unnerved... anyway. Anyway. I get the feeling that some of these people expect to die, and they're on this voyage because it's a better death than slow madness and mutation. I mean, they've already got contamination sleeping in their blood, gnawing quietly at their heart and mind. Already dead, just looking to die productively, where their madness won't hurt too many people. It's easy to feel sad for them, but it's easier to feel slightly alarmed. The older veterans definitely put me ill at ease, there's a long, drawn-out silence to them, a rangy quality in their limbs, a glittering quality in their eyes, a capacity for great stillness and great tension. They're always either holding their guns, or have them ready to hold at a moment's notice. I honestly don't think I've ever seen them relax, drinking's forbidden while they're on the river, they only drink during shore leave. So there's no real... outlet, I suppose.

The younger veterans, though, they're different. More agitated - seems inversely proportional to their age. Younger they are, angrier they get. The old girls, they just lounge around watchfully, stare off into the distance, monitor people with these cold, flat eyes of theirs... they barely move their heads, but I know they're watching me. The younger ones... they can be just as mutated, but they act so much more irritable. Always striding around, glaring at anything that moves, chatting in low, angry voices. The older veterans watch me, but the younger ones actually try and talk. Can't count the number of times they've just asked me to pick up large objects, or to stand still so they can measure themselves against me. I'm still trying to figure out why some of them have golden rings on necklaces, I mean, most of the older ones seem to have them, but it's not exclusive - some of the younger ones are in the same boat (pardon the pun). Not as many, but still. Not sure if it's a sign of prestige or something else, and I'm nervous of asking. The captain says they're harmless, but I'm... really not sure.

I'm deeply nervous of talking to my mother again. It's been years and years since I've met her properly, just polite letters since I was fifteen. I understand she's well, living properly, and my father is alive, but... well... alright, this is getting taken out of the proper letter. But I can't talk about this with anyone else, and writing things down usually helps. So, imaginary Eygi, please excuse my frankness. My mother isn't a bad person. I like her. A lot. But she's... do you ever get that feeling of being unwelcome somewhere? Just viscerally unwelcome, no matter what you do, and it's always twitching in the back of your brain that someone else would be happier if you weren't around? When I was younger, I ate more - just had to, I'm large, people like me eat a lot. I was picky, too, I still don't eat eels. I always needed new clothes and shoes as I grew up. If I made a mistake, it was a big mistake, I couldn't do things by halves - I could shatter a chair by accident, and when I was still growing up, it was easy to have accidents. I didn't have many friends, or... any, really, so I was either working or I was at home. Taking long walks helped, but... it meant we were always near each other. I had nothing else to do, and my mother was always too busy or too tired to go out and have a social life. Meaning, she was stuck in the same house as the person who was taking her money, eating her food, making her life that little bit harder. And once you realise that you're inconveniencing someone just by existing, it... changes you. And I'd try and help, I really would, but there'd be things I couldn't do. My father couldn't work, and needed constant care. I could do a little work, but I was big, clumsy, and expensive. Two parasites clinging to one healthy person.

I still think... maybe if I wasn't around, mother wouldn't have needed to go to the lodge for help. The money from the judges was fine, but it just vanished too quickly. I mean, imagine if she... if my father had died during his accident, and I had never been born, then my mother would just have a big packet of money and nothing but herself to worry about. A harpoon being an inch to the side would've eased things for her, and me slipping and falling into the river on a cold night would've made life ludicrously simple.

It's the sort of thing you can't stop thinking about, once it roots in your brain. Just poisons the rest of your life. Leaves you keenly aware of your own shortcomings, and... anyway. It's been eight years since we've spoken. That's always going to be awkward. Then you add this to the mix, and...

I'm nervous. That's all. I'm sure it'll be fine, but... nervous.

And there are other things I haven't mentioned, but... no, moving on. Don't want to mope, I'll just make myself miserable.

It's fun lifting things. I leave my smart clothes down in my cabin, then I just head up and... lift stuff. There's always crates that need moving, and it's nice to have a large person around to reach high places, lift people up, shift things that might take a small team to do... gods, it's been years since I've sweated out of exertion rather than stress. I just... feel my muscles moving, straining, I hear my joints popping, I feel thin trails of sweat go down my forehead even on cold days, I just... it's nice to feel useful. I get the same feeling when I give out a judgement, but there's something wonderfully visceral about this. I used to gut fish back in Mahar Jovan, this is similar, but... more varied, more irregular. I just let my mind whir, and it doesn't matter, because I'm not using my mind for anything. And then at the end of the day, I put my smart clothes back on, button them all up, and I can feel this ache lingering in my fingers, I find it easier to relax, the clothes just rasp over my skin, which feels more sensitive, more alert. Everything just feels more real. I wonder if that's because of blood? I mean, I work, the blood goes to the surface of my skin, maybe that makes me feel more. I wonder if there's been a study of this - your blood sinks inwards naturally, being idle helps it accumulate around the brain, thus inflaming thought and paranoia and whatnot, but then when you exercise, it flows away from the brain and towards the skin, heightening presence and perception at the expense of thought?

Hm, no, then again, when you stand on your head for too long, the blood rushes upwards and you suddenly become rather silly. Though, come to think of it, that might prove my point - too much blood near the brain prompts silliness and dizziness. Drain it away like pus from a wound, and you become more serious, more grounded. Maybe they should immobilise philosophers using enormous plaster casts, just to really get their brains inflamed with nonsense, while judges ought to do something more physical. I mean, we do plays, by why not wrestling, or weight-lifting, or just very long runs? I hear that running for leisure is becoming more popular in some circles, maybe they have a point. Goodness, and here's me, with my long walks to help me focus and relax - I think the conclusion I'm coming to, Eygi dearest, is that the ideal state of a judge is an immaculately muscled superbeing with a brain the size of a city and muscles girdled with veins. The ideal judge is a vascular judge.

...I should do more exercise, clearly I've become silly in the time it took to write this letter. Then again, I think I might've found it easier to respect that Lord of Appeal if he hadn't been the size of a child. Hard to respect someone you know you could take apart like a soft-boiled egg, you know? No, no, not quite 'hard to respect', more... well, it does make it easier to disagree with them. Yourself excluded, of course. I'm just rambling, ignore everything I say, most of this is destined for the fireplace anyway. I'm thinking like a brute - this is exactly the sort of thing I generally dislike doing, I'm already cringing with guilt and shame. I'm a judge, judges don't think like brutes who judge things by the size of the ammunition crates they can haul. Ignore me.

Yours,

Tanner

* * *

Tanner found the boat to be a pleasant place when dusk fell. When the sun touched the river and turned it a shimmering shade of red, the tiniest waves now flecked with shards of purest gold. The low thump of the engine had faded into the background now, even after only two days on the boat. Funny - she'd devoured time for years and years, swallowed days like they were lighter than air, crunched down week upon week, inhaled years like they were never going to stop. Now... now she found herself forced to mull over each bite, to sip, rather than glug, to sample, rather than gorge. Two days, and it felt like two weeks, two months. By all mathematical reckonings, her days should be worth less and less as time went on, and right now, a day should be almost nothing. Yet... well, instead of referring each day to the span of her life, she was anchoring time into smaller progressions. Either way. It meant that she stared out on the waves with little thought for anything else, keenly aware of each second that flowed by, aware that she couldn't spend an hour here without getting restless, whereas back home she could easily waste an hour doing the same basic activity over and over and over. Human thought had crawled back into her sleepy brain. And she wasn't sure if she liked it. Her mind was a widening gyre that spun wilder and wilder with each passing hour, inviting newer, stranger thoughts, bringing her to conclusions she abandoned a moment later as her attention wavered. Well, once she had a routine again, she'd be fine. Once she had a routine. Not a second before.

She glanced idly into the water...

Saw a familiar bottle drifting by, algae-stained and bobbing gently.

She knew that brand. Knew the logo. The twin faces of Mahar Jovan's kings to show that royal approval had been granted, and the image of a kestrel with wings flared underneath. She knew that stuff, father loved drinking it when she was much younger. It thumped lightly against the side of the boat, slipping away a moment later, but... a shudder had already run through her. The smell of beer had already filled her nose, the sensation of sitting quietly on the dock gutting fish with her father, the feeling of familial warmth that was only truly noticeable once the wasteland of adulthood had crept in, and any hint of warmth was remarkable. Her mind flickered over the sensations of childhood. The sensation of mindlessness, not stupidity, just... lack of thoughts-that-coiled. Thoughts which ran in straight lines and were softened by lack of experience - every thought inevitably bumped into memories as it ran, collided and struck off little chain reactions, until a single thought could awaken a thousand other things in turn. In childhood, there was less to bump into, fewer obstacles for the train of thought to plough through. That beer bottle... home was close. Home was coming. Whether she liked it or not. As a child, she'd see the bottle and think nothing of it. Now...

When she'd left Mahar Jovan seven years ago, she'd compared it to having a briar slowly unpicked from her brain. Little briars of memory slowly teased out, snapping back to coil around the central mass, a sluggish, rusting thing on the horizon, a second moon that slithered around itself perpetually, thorns glinting in the light of the setting sun. She'd embarked from it, and entered into a world of softer impressions, fewer reference points, blankness. And now... now she could feel the briars slowly coiling around her once again. Embedding into her thoughts. That bottle should mean nothing. Instead it meant remembering her father. The accident. Dinners with him, gutting fish with him, talking idly about nothing at all, walking by the side of the river while he hummed under his breath... memories upon memories, chain reactions sparking off new reactions in turn, a single thorn of the briar turning to a branch turning to a larger branch, turning to the rusting bulb of the whole plant, the inexorable core of the Tanner-that-had-been.

Her breathing had intensified.

And a moment later, she withdrew from the tooth-laden railing, walking with as much stately dignity as she could to the comforting darkness of the space below the decks. Evening was drawing in. The night crew were ready to work away, but most were bunking down. Silence surrounded her, and she relished in it. Idiot. Shouldn't be so affected by a single damn beer bottle. She knew there'd be more like it, soon enough. Little pieces of trash in the river, labels she recognised, smells she found familiar, and then she'd start to see the docks of Mahar Jovan approaching, the domes of the west and the lodges of the east, the gargoyles with their hands running with blessed water, the creaking of a thousand bridges, all of it. She'd thought... well, she thought she'd moved on from things. That the lovely little labyrinth in Fidelizh was her home now.

But home had a sharpness to it that nothing could truly replace. Felt like... if humans were insects, which shed their carapaces time after time, leaving behind solid remnants of earlier life-stages, then home felt like it was full of them. A mound of shed selves, a little cairn commemorating her existence. She could see the shades of her younger self in the water. Could see all the things she had once been, and knew that nothing could ever remove them. The labyrinth might be where she lived and died, but Mahar Jovan was where her carapace-cairn had been built, and never would it be moved, and never would it fade until she was still and cold in her oversized coffin.

A blink.

She'd... lost herself in thought a little. She was deeper in the ship than she'd been before, much deeper. This was close to the engine - the heat was rising, the thump-thump of the great engine-heart was almost deafening. The doors were no longer wooden, they were metal, heavy metal, with large wheels to seal them shut. A low, warning glow emanated from beneath these doors, like they were eyelids covering glowing eyes, currently at rest, but always at risk of waking. She hesitated. Never been here. Not sure if she should be here. Would definitely be easier to go back up, find her cabin, sit down and write something. Scribble her thoughts in a letter for Eygi... a part of her was utterly paranoid that she'd die in the north, then her letters would be found, and her well-meaning discoverer would go 'oh, well, ought to deliver these!' and then Eygi would be deeply disturbed for the rest of her life by how Tanner Magg was less of a person, and more of a collection of arbitrarily jittering thoughts shoved inside some sort of supine protoplasmic invertebrate jelly that sometimes chose to act like a human. So, maybe worth holding back on the letters, or at least removing the names, and-

"What are you doing down here?"

Tanner squeaked, jumped, and the floor underneath rumbled alarmingly once she slammed back down. The voice swore slightly, and she heard some much smaller feet retreating. One of the hunters? One of the crew? Some sort of mad stowaway cannibal with sharp teeth and... no, couldn't even see the voice's teeth. Just a mask. Oh, crumbs. Mr. Pocket. He was back. Seven years - how many relatives had died in that time, how many were terminally ill? Oh, crumbs, oh... no, his mask had been whiter, more delicate. And this mask was grey. Heavy. Looked metallic. Thick black glass covered the square-shaped eye holes, and the mouth was little more than a set of holes through which breath could wheeze in and out. Like something both ceremonial and practical, not sure where one ended and the other began - just enough ornamentation to be ceremonial, just enough simplicity to be useful. Then her eyes drifted downwards, and she saw his red tunic, and...

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Right.

She smiled uncomfortably.

"Sorry, didn't mean to... interrupt anything, uh-"

Was the correct term 'master theurgist'? Or 'mister theurgist'? Or 'sir theurgist'? Or should she just ask for his name, or... people didn't talk to theurgists much, just wasn't necessary, they kept to themselves and did things their own way. Even had independence from the judges, did all their justice internally. The theurgist looked at her oddly, then shrugged. His hands were stained up to the elbows with oil, and what she could see of his dark hair was utterly streaked with sweat and grime. He must've been down here all day.

"Not interrupting. But people don't tend to come down here. What do you want?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just wandering."

"Hm."

He examined her quietly.

"I recognise you. You're a judge, yes? I saw your cape when you arrived."

She nodded rapidly.

"Yes, yes, judge. That's me. Tanner Magg, nice to meet you, Mr...?"

"I'm working. No names during work. Interferes with things. Theurgist will do."

"Yes, Master Theurgist."

"...where did master come from?"

His voice lightened slightly, and she could detect a trace of an accent she couldn't quite recognise.

"Uh."

"Master Theurgist, sounds like something out of a serial. Well, very flattered, but still. Theurgist will do. Or just don't name me. I mean, I'm not going to start calling you by your first name, not even in my thoughts. Easy enough to avoid naming people, I do it all the time, then I forget their names and suddenly it's unpleasant to ask. Anyway, must be getting on. Work. Want to see the engine, judge?"

He flowed from speech to question with the rapid ease of someone not entirely... well-socialised. She could tell, heard it in her own voice fairly often - a desire to just get a question out of the way, not giving it a proper preamble. Uncomfortable with asking for anything. She nodded quietly, following him through one of the metal doors. He was a short man, squirrelly, but his arms had a sturdy burliness to them which betrayed how intensive his work must be - made him look slightly ape-like, heavy arms and heavy fists dangling down to his knees, while his body was thinner, his legs downright skinny. He hauled the door open with ease, the metal protesting slightly... a blast of heat exploded outwards, and Tanner was suddenly regretting wearing her smart clothes.

The engine was... it was something, all right.

Theurgists were an odd bunch, and she'd never really... understood them. They flickered around the periphery, maintaining machinery, oiling the right gears, building the right stuff. Factories used them, trains used them, boats used them, the military loved them, and even in her own home... well, the blue lights in the labyrinth were theurgic, the breathing pillars were theurgic, her automatic quill had a theurgic battery that kept it moving, meant she had to use very little effort while writing. So much of of her life touched theurgy, but it'd never... been clear. Just something which existed. And now... well, now she got to see one of its most potent emanations.

The engine was a roaring mass of metal, a dodecahedron the size of her whole body, bristling with eerie structures that reminded her faintly of human spines made out of metal. The spines compressed and relaxed perpetually, wheezing like tobacco-stained lungs as they did so. The heat was tremendous, emanating outwards from the dull mass in the middle, metal consistently grey despite the intense heat it produced. Little openings revealed themselves randomly across its surfaces, grilles opening to expel blasts of heat. Long pipes thumped and pulsed, conveying water to be boiled in the infernal atmosphere of the engine. These pipes extended all around it, flowing up the walls, the ceiling, the floor, everything - like standing in the middle of some colossal root system, with a burning bulb right in the centre, fuelled and sustained by the rushing of water. The theurgist ignored her immediately, crouching down to attend to some of the pipes, running his hands over the surface... she had no idea what he was doing, but she watched curiously regardless, as he massaged the pulsing metal, stroked it slightly, examined the joints... he removed a tiny metal rod from his belt, almost shaped like a pen, and began to slowly trace out little patterns, ones that held no significance to her whatsoever.

The engine pulsed like a heart. Water was brought up, the engine evaporated it, and blasts of steam erupted to sustain the boat's movement. There was something distinctively organic about it all - the regular pulses of heat and steam, the quasi-vascular pipelines delivering water to the core, the spinal columns which wheezed and hissed as they did something to the interior. There was light, but it emanated only from long, hair-like filaments that slithered uncannily over the core, burning bright enough to make her eyes ache. Power that made them glow, made them move, made them spark when they brushed against one another. And the vents... the little mouths that opened on the core, smooth metal suddenly parting as hidden mechanisms activated, there was... she could, for a moment, see the interior. She saw light. Red, furious light, sparking with little flecks of blue. The roar of the engine transmitted itself through her bones, and she... well, she felt small. Not a usual experience for her. The theurgist spoke suddenly, voice muffled by his mask, barely audible with the low roar of the engine.

"Impressive, hm?"

"Quite. Quite. Very impressive."

And slightly terrifying.

"Fun, thinking about it. You're sleeping on top of this lovely thing - probably didn't even think of that until now!"

His laugh was light, but Tanner couldn't quite see the humour. Before her was a great sum of things she didn't understand. Theurgy was a cavernous unknown - she'd hear of factories, sometimes she even poked her head inside for a case, and she'd see mechanisms, she'd see machines, she'd see workers, and every step would seem simple and self-evident, but then... then theurgy would happen. Follow the simplicity backwards, follow the machines to their source, and there was just a leering, closely-guarded unknown, filled with red-robed men and women who kept to themselves, swapped secrets with only their own, and didn't take kindly to intruders. She just accepted this - everyone did. But confronted with this... thing. This pulsing, heart-like engine, with its strange lights and sparking hairs, with the sluggish rush of water into its core... white heat, waves of it, and a smell, a strange smell, somewhere between chemicals and oil.

"It's... fascinating. How, I'm sorry, how exactly does it...?"

"Does it work? Can't tell you, obviously. Just think of it like a nice happy miracle. Water and fuel go in, the engine destroys the latter to boil the former, the steam turns the wheels. Let's just leave it at that."

But there was more to it. What was going on inside that core? Why did it smell so peculiar? Why did she feel her skin crawling when she looked at it? What was the light dancing on the inside - fuel didn't burn red and blue, coals didn't, oil didn't. A clunk sounded from one part of the room, and she turned to see a huge pill-like structure being swallowed up by the pipes. Plugged in and extracted - she could see more around the room, too, little hidden bulbs covered up by the pipes they fed. Whale oil, yellow and glistening, being fed into the great machine. One hungry gulp at a time - she could see how the machine powered itself, how the fuel powered the heat which powered the devouring of oil which powered the swallowing of water. The harpoons might well be powered by the same thing, and she'd seen lamps up on the deck, little mechanisms reliant on this engine functioning. All powered by the same exchange of matter. Everything interlocking perfectly, rationalised towards perfect efficiency. She could even... yes, she could see how some of the water wasn't evaporated, it was just warmed, and sent back out in a rippling pulse through the pipes, warming the ship. She'd bathed in water warmed by this thing, she'd eaten food boiled by its exhalations. She was standing inside a giant body, and this was its furious heart. Her eyes flickered uncomfortably back to the theurgist, who was standing up from his work. The heat made her face feel flayed, like she was losing every little layer of the fine, invisible hair which covered the skin, one strand at a time.

"Like it?"

"...it's certainly interesting. And hot."

"Well, enjoy it while it lasts. I'm heading off, couple of cities down the line. Have to cool the engine so it'll last while your lot heads north. I'm not going with you, too risky."

"You're leaving it unattended?"

"More or less."

Her eyes were wide.

"Is that safe?"

His grin was audible.

"None of this is safe. Nothing is. This thing could rupture and this whole vessel would go up in flames. Those pipes could split and water would flood the hold. The whale oil could detonate. Lots of ways of people to die to this. Engines are always dying, they're always winding down to the point where they just... pop. Right now, it's running hot, and I'm keeping an eye on it. When I'm gone, it'll run slower, cooler. Dying in slow motion."

Tanner stared at him.

"Ah."

"Wonderful, hm? Interesting? Everything we build is just a house of cards. Instability weaponised. Theurgists, we just build bigger houses of cards than your lot, and we can hold them together for longer. But they all come crashing down. Sooner or later, all these things burn out."

His fingers twitched, and she couldn't help but imagine him reaching out to stroke the core, this hellish thing in the middle of its nest, groaning and pulsing and wheezing, an abstract sculpture that might as well contain anything inside its many-sided surface.

"I... see. Interesting."

"Everything does it. You should see the experimental things we build. Hot as sin. Glowing white. I've seen heat so intense things just burn, no need for sparks, the heat just chars. Seen a tree carbonise from the inside out, looked like it was made of stone by the end. Hey, if you're heading north... you might get to see one of the titans we killed. Give it a look for me, won't you? Loved seeing that last time I went up there, don't think I'll manage this time. Give it a gander - and remember that sort of thing is sleeping under your bed."

His grin was almost visible behind the mask, a glinting of white teeth behind a metal grille.

Tanner gulped. She was deeply regretting coming below decks.

"I see. I see."

"I mean, you don't. If you did, you wouldn't look as scared, you'd probably be more excited. But, well, just a judge. No offence."

"None... taken. I think."

He hummed lightly, cocking his head to one side.

"How many laws do you have?"

"What?"

"How many laws? I see these big books you people have. How many laws?"

"...thousands, must be. We try and condense them, but... well, laws are one thing, but there's precedent, and revisions, and there's the squaring of city law with our law, and..."

"Each law makes more laws, right? You make a law, but then it gets applied, and the precedent forms more laws..."

Tanner shrugged.

"Not so much 'new laws', as... accepted interpretations of existing ones."

"Sounds like a new law to me."

"I suppose it might."

"Not so different, then. I've got my lovely engine, getting hotter and hotter and faster and faster until pop, and you've got your laws, breeding over and over and over until... what, your libraries fall down? It becomes impossible to do anything?"

"Unlikely."

"Still. Instability's the way of things. This lot know that, the hunters, I mean. Just rush forward, faster and faster, then boom. Running fast and hot. That's the way to do it. Now, my parents, they're farmers, they did the same thing a generation ago, they'll keep doing it generations from now, all stable and homeostatic and nice... doesn't matter, though. You know humans walk by falling and catching themselves? Read that, once. We walk by destabilising and then restabilising just as quickly. You look nervous of the engine - don't be. It's more human than most."

She was getting the distinct feeling that this theurgist didn't talk to enough people. Even Tanner was... it was odd, but she felt a budding irritation towards him. She understood how he was thinking, understood how thoughts could whirl and find new associations, but she'd learned to restrain herself. Seeing someone else fail was almost annoying - not sure why. Maybe it just reminded her of what she could be if she had significantly fewer social graces, or maybe it just... well, she knew she wasn't much, she was a giant, clumsy lug of a creature who had odd thoughts. And if she could manage to become civilised, why couldn't this overexcited newt manage it too?

She was being too judgemental.

...then again, she was a judge. Sort of her whole set-up, really.

"I see. Interesting."

A pause.

"I... think it's rather too hot for me in here."

"No, that's just me."

She shot him a faintly disgusted look, and the black glass covering his eyes somehow twinkled roguishly.

"Sorry. Couldn't help it."

He could've. He really could've.

"I'll be heading off. Thank you for... showing me this device. And thank you for maintaining it. Think I should get some fresh air, though."

Even annoyed, she tried to be courteous. The theurgist shrugged.

"Right-o, right-o. I'll just stay down here with my unstable core lubricated by dead whales. Again, you see that titan - can't miss it, really - you pay attention, it's very fun, very warm, too. Oh, by the way... whereabouts are you going to? Heard you were going north, not sure how far."

Tanner shifted uneasily.

"Rekida. Settlement on the fringes."

"...those freaks? Well, good luck."

She wanted to leave. But curiosity was blooming in her mind like some sort of exotic fungus.

"What's so... peculiar about them?"

"Just freaks. Odd. Ma used to come from round there, moved away yonks ago, before the Great War, back when she was a girl. Cold, dark, miserable, and all the people there decided that it'd be really fun to spend a thousand years stomping each other's faces into the ground to stay warm. Miserable little place, apparently. Poor and hungry, and somehow proud of both of those things. Well, good luck. I'm sure the Great War improved it, cleared out most of the freaks, anyway. You know a bunch of them just stayed there? So many other cities, evacuated, but Rekida just decided 'nope, we're staying put, and dying en masse. And we'll be keeping our women and children with us, just out of pride.' Like I said, weirdos. But, anyway, best of luck. Nice to meet you, Tanner Magg."

He was right, it was uncomfortable to use someone's first name in conversation, made her feel like he'd just stroked her face or done something equally invasive. No, no, it was like becoming suddenly aware that someone had been stroking her bread. Nothing else, just stroking her bread while she wasn't looking. That was how it felt. Like sitting in someone else's bathwater. She paid her respects and left as quickly as propriety could allow, bowing slightly as she went, the theurgist already ignoring her. The intestinal-vascular-root system of the core pulsed and twitched, water flowing at impossible rates through the piping, mechanisms clicking and shivering and wheezing, the hellish roars of the core serenading her until she forced the metal door shut with a clunk, and she relished in the silence, the coolness, the dark. The red light continued to spill from underneath the door-frame, but now... now it was sealed. The eye had closed, the giant was asleep, and its heart was being maintained by this strange little ape-man with his grey mask and flashing grin. No wonder he was odd. Hours upon hours in there with that thing... she couldn't imagine it. Well, couldn't imagine doing it while remaining ordinary.

Her mind was twitching with two feelings. Irritation and pride.

Irritation. Plain old irritation. Disliked his rambling and his forwardness. Reminded her of Eygi, but with distinctly less charm. She felt less like a conversation partner, and more like a stuffed doll he'd seen fit to converse with. She'd been restrained, though, and a certain amount of pride came with that. No insults, no yelling, nothing. And she knew how strong she was, now. The ammo crates had made that abundantly clear - she was powerful. All the years of doing nothing but writing hadn't disguised the fact that she was a naturally powerful person, but to this little theurgist, she might as well have been a delicate, shrinking violet, all high airs and refined manners. A glittering wasp surrounded by sticky fronds of cobweb, bound in place and easier to admire.

After all, weren't ferocious predators more beautiful when painted? When immobilised by pigment? When drained of vitality and left just as images?

A second later, in the stairwell, sweat twinkling in her hair... she reached into a pocket and grabbed her little pair of golden pince-nez, mounting them on her nose with slight relish. It was odd, but... but she was feeling a bit glum, and having something to invite luck, it... well, she could see how that odd little man was necessary for the boat, how that engine had done very well thus far and wasn't likely to explode, how she'd slept with it beneath her bed for two days now without any trouble... the glasses were almost a kind of mental mnemonic, they helped remind her of the right patterns that her thoughts should take. Optimistic, not pessimistic. Contented, not cynical. More willing to see the best in the world, once filtered through golden spectacles. She'd had a good day, overall. Perfectly standard. No reason to become excessively irritated with anything. Mahar Jovan was coming, and she had every reason to enjoy herself a little, have some good food, enjoy herself before she went off to the north and promptly had to live on... whatever they lived on up there. And, ultimately, it was interesting to learn a little of Rekida. Optimism wasn't a natural trait, it was a habit, something practised over and over until it became natural, even effortless. She found it much easier to slip into the habit of optimism when she... well, when she had her little glasses, her gloves, her rituals, her routines. The world was meant to be rosier when she filtered out the bad luck, and so it was. Expectations weighing on reality, plain and simple.

She wanted to lift something. Wanted to go out into the cool night air and haul things. Be useful to someone or something.

Because right now, she didn't particularly want to go to sleep, not with the low thump-thump of the engine, reminding her of twisting pipes, roaring grilles, yellow whale fat swallowed by a hungry, hungry machine.

Wanted to haul something. And if she couldn't find something that needed hauling, she'd have to improvise.

...even as a part of her wondered how she'd started to enjoy manual labour so quickly. How easy it was to fall into the old habits of her childhood, where she thought herself destined to be a sturdy dockworker. Habits she'd tried to break while being a judge.

Some people didn't change. Herself included.

Manual labour ought to take her mind off that statement. She didn't particularly enjoy it.