Seven Season's Widow
Nama Bi speared a piece of fish with her fork and gestured with it at Surata. "All I'm saying is, after what we went through down there, you have no right to complain. Three words: lifesize holographic pornography. Okay?"
Lyssa leaned back in her chair, her eyes squinted shut from the laughter. "And that... that... red drawer... do you remember?"
The two women leaned towards each other in a laughing fit, wiping tears from their eyes. Bi Xi watched them with wonder, smiling in sympathy while silently praying that they would stop talking about the Halls of the Moon. "Well, it is good to see that you've manage to keep your spirits up, at least. I couldn't handle living down here day in and day out. I mean, certainly the accomodations are fantastic..."
Nama Bi almost choked, whispering to Lyssa, "Accomodations..."
"...ahem... like this apartment, for example. It's just a little hard to get used to."
The four amalgams were seated in Lyssa's quarters, eating breakfast together to celebrate Bi Xi's arrival in the city. Few were the visitors permitted to visit the secret factory warren, and thus few were such events. Surata, the newest amalgamated resident, glowered while he tried to bring the subject back to his original complaint.
"Well, you don't have to deal with her professionally. Every time she takes over the watch, every single time, she somehow manages to sneak up on me. I think she likes to hear me scream, to be honest. She enjoys the sound of my suffering."
Nama Bi rolled her eyes, "Well, she is a deathknight. Maybe she eats pain?"
"It's embarrassing. I'm supposed to be our protection against people like her. Why is she here, anyway?"
Lyssa spread her hands diplomatically. "She is here because she wants to give up being a deathknight, and we're going to help her."
Nama Bi took a sip of her tea and shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I just can't give her the benefit of doubt. After all the people she killed... and the Mask is an expert at spymaster, isn't he? This is such a ploy! How can he be so gullible? What will it take to make him realize that their kind and our kind can't coexist. We can't give any quarter to the dead."
Bi Xi put a finger to her lips. "Be careful what you say, Nama Bi. If Rivers knew that you felt that way, how long do you think it would be before he would order us to trust her?"
Lyssa shook her head. "No, he's never given us orders on how to think."
"And even if he did, that's not such a big deal. I'll trust her just fine... when she's all the way dead." Nama Bi stabbed another piece of fish.
Outside, in the corridor lit by inset fixtures in the ceiling, the Seven Season’s Widow paused in her stride. In the quiet of the Infinite City, inhabited as it was by a scant dozen mortals, sound carried far in the hallways, and her charms only amplified this effect. She whispered faintly, "So that's why you're late for your watch, Surata."
As if on cue, he stood from the breakfast table. "I should be getting back to my duties before she comes and finds me. Be sure to stop by before you leave, Bi Xi."
The Widow moved on, as silent as a ghost.
Here she had essence, and she felt the guilty pleasure of reveling in her abyssal powers. She passed unseen through the residential complex, drifting past herds of automata on their way to the factory and shadowing a scullery maid preoccupied with a breakfast tray. It was easy to pretend that she was already dead, or perhaps she alone was the only one living in a vast necropolis peopled by ghosts. She made her way through lift tubes and skyways towards the tallest tower, where she knew he would be sleeping. Why there, she didn't know... or wouldn't let herself know entirely. She paused on a crystalline bridge that overlooked the nearly empty city. Could it be that she cared about the thoughts of those sorcerous constructs, beings that had, like herself, given up their free will for power? And what comfort could she find in seeking the twilight, when her every thought of him was meticulously recorded in the litany of her sins by the unblinking eyes of the neverborn.
At last she reached his room (the door was open; did he never consider security?) but was forced to adopt a cautious posture... the light was already on inside. This in itself was strange... he had been getting up later and later, it seemed. She risked looking in through the frame. Yes, he was awake. She could see him through another internal door, and in fact he was practicing his snake form. The hypnotic motions had become more disciplined; he was approaching mastery quickly. She pulled back from the window, confused. He only practiced his martial arts before he slept, using the ensuing exhaustion to force himself into unconsciousness, never when he awoke, for the strain would make his studies fruitless.
Crouching in the doorway, looking out through the adamant walls at the trees that were not trees, the vines that pulsed with raw power, she shook her head. He had become entirely nocturnal now, like herself. She bowed her head, feeling once again the rush of guilt that always threatened to overwhelm her when she remembered the night she had last kissed him. "Am I rising to the light, or am I pulling him into darkness? Do I even have a choice in the role that I play?" Her whispers flitted down an empty hallway and did not echo, vanishing like ripples in a still pool.
The light inside went out, and dreamtime began once again.
