The scent of lavender. Blades of grass waved with the wind’s caress. The sun shone brightly in the middle of the sky, the heat should have been oppressive, but right here, right now, it felt more like an invisible blanket. Lulling me to sleep.
“Here again, I see?”
In the sweltering summer heat, she smelled like the first day of spring.
I rose to my feet, but in my haste, I stumbled just as quickly. I looked up, and she was smiling at me. But there was no malice beneath that smile, only mirth.
“No need to stand on ceremony on my account, little goddess.” she said. “You are welcome here, Luna Invicta. I don’t recall ever taking that back.”
She knows my name? Then she…
“Yes. I know why you’re here.” Though her smile never left her face, her gaze seemed to soften. “But it can wait, yes? Let’s just stay here a little while longer.”
We both looked at the deep blue sky, clouds slowly drifting away, carried by the zephyrs to parts unknown.
I wanted to stay here. Just laying down, right next to her. Freeze this moment in time and just live here forever.
But this could never last. I already know how it ends.
I rose to my feet and met her gaze. I held out my hand and introduced myself properly. Not as the child laying on a grassy meadow. But-
“I suppose there’s no escaping it.” she said as she took my hand with her own. Her grip was firm.
“Very well, Herald of the Western Mountain. Let us speak of war.”
My eyes shoot open. I look at the unfamiliar ceiling above me, the tacky chandelier waving about like a pendulum. I brushed away the wetness in my cheek.
“Another dream, huh.” I spoke to no one in particular.
My voice resounded throughout the confines of this room, which was quite spacious. All the comforts of home were here, from a dresser with an overly ornate mirror, to a queen sized bed with scarlet silken sheets. There was even a wooden shelf filled with books. Anatomy and You: A Primer, So You Wanna be a Sailor?, Blade Works Monthly, and… The Essential Melville?
Huh. Never figured Tabitha would be much of a reader. Her tastes leave much to be desired though.
I stood quickly, only to stumble as my entire room seemed to wobble. Oh right. With how big my quarters were, I had completely forgotten that I was still at sea.
I laid back down, the glass diamonds of the chandelier twinkling in the electric moonlight streaming from my LCD window, and my thoughts drifted back to what had happened earlier.
*
The midday sun shone brightly upon the sparkling ocean. The salty sea spray our boat left in its wake was enough to wash away the iron stench of our pitched battle. Well, almost.
“And that should do it.” Tabitha said flipped switches on the ship’s dashboard. Each movement, each rustle of clothing splattered a new coat of stains all over her boat’s instruments.
Tabitha was still absolutely covered in blood. Her once white hair now an ugly shade of crimson, her coat was like a sponge overburdened with water, steadily releasing droplets into an ever expanding pool at her feet. A pool that was steadily making its way towards me.
“-una? Oi, Lulu? You still with us, mate?”
“Huh?”
“You seem a bit rattled.” she said, getting closer, the scent of blood beginning to rot assaulting me. She was dangerously close to dripping all over my favourite top. What remained of it anyway.
“Take your clothes off.” I said.
“At least take me out to dinner first.” she said.
“Obviously not what I meant, you thrice damned-”
“Ladies. Well, lady and savage-” said Junogloris, still leaning in the corner where we left him.
“I’ll be your savage anytime, love.” Tabitha said, as she fluttered her eyes at Junogloris. He looked like he was about to vomit at the mere thought.
“We were trying to kill each other but a few hours ago.”
“I know.” She said in a husky whisper. Was- was she actually purring?
“By the seven hills, I cannot be bothered. Mistress Luna.” Junogloris turned his gaze to me. “I do not wish to be rude but I think it would be best that I recovered in a bed.”
“Right, and I’ve got a bed below deck, multiple in fact.” Tabitha said. “Now how about we open that there door and just go, yeah?”
“Not before you take off your clothes.” I said.
“Look, mate. I’m not into that, yeah?”
“Women?”
“Dumpy virgins.”
“Wha-?! I’ll have you know that hymns have been sung about my beauty! HYMNS!”
“And no comment about the virgin thing, I see.” Tabitha said with a smirk. “Tells me everything I need to know, ain’t it?”
“Oh you unbelievab-!”
“Mistress Luna.” said Junogloris, averting his gaze. “Please do not debase yourself.”
My cheeks grew hot.
“Right.” I looked Tabitha squarely in the eyes. “Listen, Tabitha. This boat looks barely big enough to hold all three of us. I’m sure the deck below is cramped beyond belief. I am not, under any circumstances, getting messenger blood all over me. So, for the last time, take off your thrice damned clothes.”
“Oh is that what it was?” said Tabitha. “No worries, mate. There’ll be more than enough space below for us. So come on already, there’s several bottles of beer below deck with my name on it.”
“It’s the middle of the day.”
“And that’s relevant, how, exactly?” she said.
“Fine. But If any of that gets on me, I swear.”
“Oh you won’t have to worry about that. Trust me, mate.” She walked towards the door that connected the bridge to the boat’s interior.
Junogloris looked at me. I simply shrugged. Tabitha might be full of surprises, but there was no way she was-
Tabitha opened the door.
Junogloris and I stared.
And stared.
And stared.
It felt like my brain had frozen. I refused to believe that what I was seeing was real.
‘Well what are you two waiting for? Get in.” Tabitha said.
*
“What. The.”
Junogloris vomited blood.
“Oh yeah, my bad. Really should’ve told you that regen potions have a fair bit of a kick to them. Especially when you use that much.” she said, seemingly oblivious to the impossibility that we were in.
“Explain. Now.” I said.
“I just told you that he needs bed res-”
“Not about that, you utter maniac! Explain this!” I said waving my arms around when I really shouldn’t be able to.
“It is what it is, ain’t it? You wanted space? You got it.”
I stared at her. Then at the light fixtures that belonged more on a luxury liner than whatever this boat was. Then at the hallway with glossy, lacquered wood panelling. A hallway that seemed to stretch infinitely into the horizon.
Tabitha had pulled yet another impossibility. The boat we were on? It was bigger on the inside. Much bigger.
Tabitha shifted her weight to her other leg. She crossed her arms at me, and stared down at me. I crossed mine right back at her.
“You gave me your word, mercenary.” I said.
“Tsk, Fine.” she said. “But first let’s take care of Lion boy, yeah? He’s not looking to well.”
I looked to my shoulder, and saw that Junogloris had long since passed out.
“Let’s take him to the infirmary, yeah?”
“The interior’s large enough to have a dedicated infirmary? Just how big is it?”
“Easily the size of an aircraft carrier.”
“What the fu-”
*
I watched over Junogloris as he slept. Draped in several of the infirmary’s sterile white blankets, he looked less like a warrior of legend and more like a child. That he was lying on a makeshift bed made of pillows did nothing to take away from that image.
“And the infirmary is officially out of pillows.” Tabitha said as she shoved one more under Junogloris’s left foot.
I looked over at the infirmary, twenty or so completely functional beds lay in view, none of which could even hope to fit Junogloris.
“Bloody hell, why’d you have to be so goddamn huge…” she said as she made her way towards a desk and sat there. Not on the chair the desk came with, but literally on the desk, scattering reams of paper as she did.
“Talk.” I said.
“Straight to the point as ever.” she said. She picked up a sheet of paper and a pen and started doodling. “Ever heard of a bag of holding?”
“I have.”
“Well there you go-”
“And I also know that they’re completely fictional.” I said. “I may not be a mage, but neither am I a fool, Tabitha. I know what the first law of magic is.”
“The more natural laws you break, the greater the mana cost.” she muttered, not even deigning to look up from her paper.
“Never actually heard it put that way before, but yes. Creating matter from mana is relatively simple, you’re only violating conservation of mass, and even then, there’s a clear conversion of energy for matter, though much less than what it would normally take. But creating space from nothing, forcing that space into a tiny container without compressing it, or destroying said container, and then maintaining that space indefinitely? That would require more magic than there exists on this Earth. The only way to pull that off was if this ship’s interior was located within the more malleable space of the Thoughtstream. And since I’m not currently hemorrhaging anima from every orifice, that’s obviously not the case. No more lies, Tabitha.” I said.
“It’s a fair cop.” her pen stopped, and she met my gaze with her own. “Tell me, Luna, what do you know about dimensions?”
I tilted my head. Did she mean those things found in science fiction? Because I’ve played a few of those on stream-
“Let me stop you right there, mate.” she said, an amused expression on her face. “I don’t mean parallel worlds or any of that bollocks. I mean physical dimensions. Like height, width, so on.”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“So I don’t have to explain that we live in three dimensions, yeah?”
“Four. You forgot time.” I said.
“Hm. Fine let’s go with that.” she then held up her piece of paper. On it was scrawled one word: “2D.”
“Let’s say we have a theoretical space that only exists in two dimensions, represented by this sheet.” she said. “As it is, the only place that two dimensional objects can exist on this sheet is right here.” She pointed at the paper’s surface.
“However.” she reached into her coat and pulled out an orange. “What if an extra-dimensional object, were to, say, warp this 2D space?” With that she wrapped the paper around the orange.
“From an outsider’s perspective, the space looks completely bonkers, but from the perspective of the objects within said space-” she pointed at what could be seen of the scrawled 2D “-things haven’t really changed all that much, yeah? They’re still existing on that space, it’s the space that has been compacted a bit. But the distortion creates a sort of space in its own, yeah? Or at least it reveals the underside of the space that the objects are on.”
“Also,” she took her pen and drew an ordinary dot on the crumpled paper, “Adding new objects after the fact doesn’t distort said objects. So long as the space is stable, that is.”
“Now see what happens if I do something like this.” She took a fresh piece of paper, and tore a strip from it. She eyed the strip carefully, then twisted it in the middle, took both ends of the strip, and joined them together in a loop.
“Watch carefully.” She took her pen, and began drawing a line on the surface of the looping strip. Her pen deftly glided over the looping surface, until it stopped where it began. She then unfurled the loop, and showed me both sides of the paper.
Without ever lifting her pen, she had managed to draw a line on both sides.
“And voila.” she said. “What you just saw me make was a Möbius Strip, a shape that has one single, continuous surface, no undersides to be found.”
I stared at her, wide eyed. The insides of my mouth felt drier than surface of the sun. Surely she can’t be suggesting-
“Now you’re getting it.” she said. “Here’s the thing, we may only live on four dimensional space, but what’s to say that 4D’s all there is?”
“Dimensions beyond the fourth are just theore-”
“Not anymore, Lulu.” she said with a smirk. “You see, you were right. Creating space from nothing? That’s beyond me, beyond anyone, really. But creating an object in the fifth dimension, taking hold of the edges of a particular region of four dimensional space, warping it around that fifth dimensional object to increase the amount of usable space, then contorting that space so that it has one continuous ‘surface’? Still not easy, hell it took me centuries to pull off. But it’s doable, ain’t it? Oh yeah, and you want to know the best part? Unlike 2D, you can fold 4D space into way more efficient shapes than just Möbius strip. Like, hundreds of times more.”
Madness. This was utter madness. This woman spoke of things that would break the minds of lesser men with a complete lack of care.
“Our senses are built for three dimensional space. The fifth dimension should have been incomprehensible to you.” I said.
“What can I say, I’m just that good.” she said, as she slowly stood up.
“Taking hold of the edges of space using magic. The amount of precise control you’d have to have over your mana output…”
“Like I said. That good.” she said with a strained smile.
“And you said you’ve been working on this for centuries. But theories about dimensions beyond the third and fourth have only been around since the 20th century. How did you-?”
“Well now, girl’s gotta have her secrets.” She idly shifted her weight on each leg, her impatience clear. “Now how about I show you to your room? You should find clothes around your size in the closet. You can ask me about my coat tomorrow, yeah?”
“Hold on, I completely forgot about tha-!”
*
And so here I was, staring at a chandelier faintly glowing in electric moonlight. Seven hills, what a day this has been. It’s going to take a lot of wine to take the edge off at the very least…
I stood up from my bed with renewed resolve. Tabitha may have forgotten her offer, but I haven’t.
I opened the closet. No. Too drab. Too fancy. Not my colour. Why would she even have this?
Oh. Ohhh. This is good.
I took off what was left of my old clothes and slipped into my new ones, a tasteful purple hoodie emblazoned with a golden crescent moon, as well as some comfortable jeans.
“Hopefully she has something better than beer.”
*
This was a mistake.
I was pretty sure I’ve passed that light fixture multiple times by now. Tabitha said that this boat, no, this ship had an interior as large as that of an aircraft carrier, and my aching feet feel inclined to believe her.
I had been wandering for at least half an hour now, feebly feeling my way in the darkness of this seafaring labyrinth, and of the many rooms I had wandered into, not one of them resembled a cafeteria. I did stumble upon a vending machine though, a shame that I didn’t have any money on me, on account of barely surviving a plane explosion. And an assassination turned fight to the death. Twice. And a galgalim.
By the seven hills, if I survive this, Hydrargyrus is going to murder me. And if he doesn’t, Vanafreya certainly will.
I could just see it now, the triumphant Luna Invicta, wielding the power of all the gods that humanity has ever dreamt of, annihilated by Vanafreya’s ultimate weapon; her puppy dog eyes.
In spite of myself, I couldn’t help but a smile. How long has it been since I last saw her? Three days? It felt so much longer.
As for why Tabitha has a vending machine, I decided not to question it. I’m pretty sure the answer would be something patently absurd, like that vending machine dispensing philosopher’s stones and other assorted relics through some mindbending application of magic, or prodigious use of violence. Likely both. I’ve had enough of that for one day, thank you very much.
Hm? A faint light in the distance, a beacon to guide me out of this gods forsaken maze.
The light streamed from a door barely cracked open. A wooden sign was on the floor, and from the rusty, bent nail in the middle of the door, it would seem that it had fallen off. Someone must have slammed this door, and then simply forgot to check if it was properly closed. I picked up the sign. “Captain’s Quarters”? Must be Tabitha’s room. I should leave-
A sickening squelch stopped me in my tracks. In the silence of the ship, all I could hear was heavy breathing from within Tabitha’s room. What exactly was she doing in there? I leaned in close, peered into the door.
Tabitha was sitting down on her bed in nothing but an athletic bra and shorts, the jet black, form fitting fabric a stark contrast to her pale, sweat covered skin. She must have taken a shower some time ago, no trace of blood could be seen on her. Her body was laid bare, and it told the story of her eternal battlefield.
Countless scars marred her otherwise flawless skin; some deep, some shallow; some long winding gashes, others precise indentations, each a mark of triumph over blades, over guns, over every weapon known to humanity. Her muscles rippled with each movement, and I could tell, even from where I was standing, that they were rock solid, but never to the point of obstructing her motion.
Tabitha’s form was slim, lithe, graceful; but it still oozed strength. Her body was unmistakably forged in the crucible of war, she was, without a doubt, the pinnacle of martial might.
Another pained breath escaped from her clenched teeth, Tabitha squinted in pain as her molars cracked against the strip of leather that she was biting down on. Sweat poured profusely down her neck, drenching the sheets which she sat upon.
Her legs were surrounded in ethereal, emerald strings, holding them in place. The stench of blood mixed with sweat. I followed Tabitha’s gaze. Down to her shins.
A shard of sharp, white bone jutted out from each gaping hole in her leg. Spongy, exposed marrow spurted blood, a grotesque mockery of a water fountain.
Tabitha breathed deeply. Closed her eyes tightly. Her left hand reached over to her right shoulder, which I now saw was hanging limply, too far to her side to still be in its socket. Emerald threads of magic materialized, holding her shoulder in place.
In one vicious motion, she shoved her arm back in.
A squelch and a pop, the sound of bone forcibly grinding against bone.
My hands flew to my mouth, trying to stifle my gasp.
“…” Tabitha tilted her head slightly. Maybe she didn’t hear me?
“Take a picture, mate. It’ll last longer.” she said, even as she spat out a wad of blood and spit. So much for that.
I slowly opened the door, the light from her room engulfed me as we stood face to face.
“Told you we’d run out of elixir.” she said, as she rotated her shoulder, the sound of cracking bones was all I could hear. “Have to heal the old fashioned way.”
She held a hand out, and from her dresser flew a green potion, the same colour as the one she used on Junogloris.
I could feel her gaze boring into me, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. I looked away.
I realize where she’d gotten those injuries. For all her peerless skill, no matter how much long lived she was, Tabitha was still human.
And no human could jump as far as she did earlier and expect to continue walking afterwards. No amount of rolling can completely mitigate the damage of being thrown by Junogloris towards the unforgiving surface of this ship.
“You know-” Tabitha began, even as a pained hiss escaped her lips as the threads holding her legs in place tightened. “- my legs are right busted. Even if I were to puppeteer them using these-”, she gestured at the threads, “I wouldn’t be able to move nearly as quickly as earlier. And would you look at that! I don’t have my guns on me, or my dagger.” She uncorked the green bottle. I continued to stare at the ground.
“What are you planning on doing, Luna Invicta?”
My heartbeat threatened shatter my ribs. All I could hear was my breathing. All I could smell was salt and iron. My hands clenched and unclenched, fingernails digging deep enough to draw blood.
Seconds passed. I stood stock still.
I heard Tabitha sigh.
“Guess that answers that, then.” I looked up, and saw that she had gone back to work. She gingerly pressed on the exposed bone on her left leg. I heard her take a deep breath and then-
She savagely shoved the bone back in.
Tabitha gripped the edges of her bed hard enough to crack the bed frame. Blood was now freely leaking from her mouth as even more of her teeth shattered. Muffled screams escaped from her throat. Emerald threads held her leg in place, aligning bone with broken bone. She hurriedly poured the green potion over her wound, and the threads enclosed it completely, her leg looked like it had been caught by an emerald spider.
In the dead of night, Tabitha suffered.
“Why?”
I couldn’t take it back. The word had slipped out unbidden.
“Why?” I said once more.
Through a curtain of dishevelled hair, through sweat and tears, Tabitha’s steel gaze held me in place. Daring me to continue.
“If you’d just sacrificed us to the messengers, you could’ve escaped easily. You’d still be hunted down by Lacan, you’d still get your constant supply of divine blood. But instead you do this. Why? To what end?” I asked, my voice broke with each syllable I forced out. “Why go this far?’
Tabitha looked me dead in the eyes. And then she simply smiled.
“Figure it out yourself, yeah?”
The door slammed in my face. In the darkness of the ship, all I could hear was Tabitha’s agonized breathing.
Shade's Corner 