Content Warnings

Self harm
Internalised homophobia
Internalised ableism

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Raindrops drum on the roof of Plato Base, static seeping through stout concrete. The Big Room slumbers in restful repose, lights a dim and dusken glow, pillars webbing far floor with hazy shadow, corridor mouths sunk deep in lavish dark. Grimgrave lies curled up on one sofa, eyes closed, lashes still, breathing soft and slow and steady, surrounded by sleeping zoogs. A hundred pairs of tiny lungs whisper deep in dream. Signal’s computer setup ticks and hums to itself, screens an empty black, hidden heart in hibernation.

The fingers of my left hand slide across the keyboard of my laptop. A blinking green cursor heralds my words. Intent crosses the gulf between moon and earth, a bridge from Luna to England, from Octavia Carter to Scarlet Edge.

OC: Prove it’s me? How about you first? You could be a Dream Control agent. You could be anybody or anything.

You could be Willow, but I can’t type that. My fingers are already shaking badly enough.

Her reply comes quick.

SE: You first, or we don’t talk.

OC: You have the power of the British state at your back. I’m the vulnerable one here. Why would ‘SE’ contact me like this? Why go to such lengths? Who are you really? Who am I talking to?

SE: You aren’t vulnerable, that’s the point. I am IN the British state, while you have wisely placed yourself beyond reach. I am the one in danger for making contact. I am the one taking on all the risk.
SE: You.
SE: First.

I sit back in my chair, force several deep breaths down my shuddering throat. Heart going like the clappers, left hand all clammy and sweaty. Gut clenched up, spine curled from hunching over the laptop.

The green cursor blinks a steady beat on the black background, awaiting my response.

A sensible version of Octavia Carter would get up from this table and go wake the others. A better incarnation of me — less selfish, less libidinous, less of a cripple and a liability and a fool — would run to the bedrooms and knock on the doors, wake Signal and Bright, show them what I’ve achieved. Share the results with ‘the team’. Spread the burden. Limit responsibility.

This is the exact situation that Signal wanted us to exploit, potential individual contact, real communication, with no threat of being run through on a sword. I made promises to Bright, that I would not place myself between her and her sister. Grimmy is within reach of my raised voice, and what secrets or embarrassment do I have left to hide from her anymore? Nothing.

The others should be here, leaning over my shoulders, making suggestions, verifying, denying, backing me up. Or I should simply hand the laptop to Bright, let her have Scarlet Edge all to herself. After all, I don’t want Scarlet. I do not want her.

And if it’s not Scarlet, I may need all the support I can get.

Another message appears, announced by a soft audio ping from my laptop.

SE: I do dearly wish to talk with you.

A lump hardens in my throat. Get up, Octavia. Get up and run. Whatever this is, you need to run. Open your mouth and call out to Grimgrave. You cannot do this, you cannot keep this all to yourself. This is potentially lethal.

But my fingers are already in motion, typing close to truth.

OC: I need to be certain I’m not talking to Willow. I NEED TO BE CERTAIN. If you are who you claim you are, then you’ll understand why.

SE: The risk is too great. You first.
SE: I’m sorry. I cannot. I simply cannot. I understand, I do, please believe these words. But I cannot. If you go first, my own confirmation will follow shortly, I promise.

A tremor in my chest, a quiver in my breath. Press one hand to my breastbone, try to still my heart. Does the risk of contact with Willow outweigh the potential benefits of private communication with Scarlet Edge? More importantly, do I care?

SE: Octavia Carter. Please.

OC: What kind of proof would be enough? Are you expecting me to send you a timestamped selfie?

SE: That would be sufficient.
SE: I had not considered other options.
SE: Whatever you think is most fitting.

OC: Wait.

My current situation presents a unique opportunity. My lips curl with a kind of smile I’ve never felt before, slow and spiteful with mad mischief, spiced with a hint of well-deserved cruelty.

I stand up and rearrange the pieces of my prosthetic arm on the table, lining up replacement components next to the ruins of the bisected forearm, taking care to turn the outside of the shell so the damage can be easily seen. The long shallow cut in my prosthetic forearm, from my first meeting with Scarlet Edge, catches the dim light in the Big Room, no need for my phone camera’s flash.

Three photos with my phone, taken from above, frames the shattered parts of my arm on the grey metal of the table. I select the best one, send it to myself, then access it from my laptop. Scrub the EXIF data, crop the edges to remove any hint of Plato Base, zoom in on any potential reflections, make sure to blur those. As one final precaution I screenshot the image with a separate program, scrub the EXIF data a second time, and save it in a new format.

OC: my_arm_your_fault.png

Rain-haze washes across the roof, distant runnels of water sluicing down the mountain slopes beyond. Zoogs snort and snuffle tiny snores all over the domesticated corner, barely audible over the density of rain. Grimmy stirs softly, rolls a quarter of the way onto her back.

SE: give me a moment

Willow, preparing a method to tunnel to the moon? Or Scarlet Edge, fumbling with her own proof?

What if I’m wrong? What if I’ve just doomed myself with my own stupidity? Doomed all of Plato Base? Why did I even take the risk? A glance over my shoulder reveals nothing but empty shadows. No figure wreathed in toxic gold steps from a corridor mouth. No thump sounds against the roof. No whisper of my name creeps from the darkness.

SE: me.jpg
SE: there
SE: I hope this is enough.

Scarlet Edge has sent me a close-up — a pair of lips set in an unsmiling line, framed by skin pale as spent ashes, marred by a dark purple bruise.

A bite, a kiss, the mark of my hungry teeth, planted on a very specific pair of lips.

She is holding up a scrap of paper next to her mouth, date and time written in elegant black loops: 23/08/2025, 12.34am

Scarlet Edge is beautiful; this is not hollow orthodoxy, it is self-evident. Every housewife, teenage boy, and hormonal young woman knows that Scarlet is the living archetype of the English rose, as if she is not a magical girl like all others, but the avatar and incarnation of that green and pleasant land. She is unattainable and unassailable. To even suggest the merest hint of impropriety is to risk official censure and unofficial offence. She is beyond touch, shame, or guilt, the shining subject of a thousand newspaper front pages, the secret heartthrob of a million masturbatory orgasms, the obsession of entire websites worth of fanart.

And she has sent me a picture of her lips. With my mark still on her.

A subtle ache runs slow from low in my belly to the top of my back, grazing my spine with the ghost of a blade, filling my core with a flush of remembered heat. Scarlet’s ruby sword, echoing up through my guts, pushing aside my organs. Her hands fumble down by my abdomen, slippery with my blood. Her whimpering face, flushed with pleasure, hovers inches from my own.

My body remembers her well.

SE: Octavia? I know it’s you, I believe you now. Do you believe me?
SE: If this isn’t enough, I will find more, I can find another way.
SE: Please say something.
SE: Are you there?
SE: Octavia?

Scarlet Edge has neglected to remove the EXIF data from her photograph. The image was taken a few moments after the time on the scrap of paper, with a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, one of the most expensive phones on the market.

“Totally unsupervised internet access,” I murmur, lying to myself that I am learning important things about the Trio. “And money enough for a swanky phone. Figures you’d be rich.”

OC: Why do you still have that bruise?

Can barely type the question. Not sure I want an answer.

SE: I bruise easily.

OC: Oh come on! We both know that’s a lie. That’s where I bit you.

Your lips are not what I expected, not what I remember; are you untransformed, Scarlet? If so, why has my brain accepted this is you? A thin little bow of pale pink flesh, pressed too tight, so much prettier than the million versions of your mouth stamped on every official image and photo-shoot promo, a mouth that can only smile when prompted, but usually does not. These lips one can imagine twisted with anxiety, bitten in pain or fear, trembling with sorrow or mourning.

The bruise suits you, purple and dark, marring your skin.

Why can’t I say this, even over text? Because it’s insane, because my breath is all tangled up in my throat and I can barely breathe. Because I must glance over my shoulder at the corridor mouth which leads to the bedroom-cells, in case Burning Bright is looming there in the dark to witness my madness. Because you tried to kill me, twice. Because you would do so again, without hesitation.

Because I would bite you again, in the same spot.

Make you squeal with a kiss.

OC: Scarlet. Why do you still have that bruise?

SE: I did not mean to destroy your prosthetic arm. That was a cruel trick played on both of us, entirely unworthy of the fight we should have had, the one we would have conducted if left to our own devices. For that I apologise, and I hope you will accept that apology in the spirit it is given, though I have no expectation of forgiveness. I am glad to see you are repairing the limb.

OC: You tried to kill me, you odious psychopath. You suggested I should let it happen. Now you care about damage to my arm? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Silence again. Two entire minutes. Raindrops intensify against the roof.

SE: It is important to me that I apologise.

OC: Well it’s not important to me. I hope it hurt when my fist crashed into your face over and over. Next time you won’t get lucky.

A flush of righteous anger, but nowhere to pour the molten slag. Scarlet is several hundred thousand miles away, all I have is the screen and this picture of her lips — which I quickly save, just in case — and one cannot strike a screen, unless one is an idiot. Signal was right, this is an unprecedented opportunity. I should be pumping Scarlet for information, digging for whatever I can get, making true contact.

But every breath tugs at that phantom wound deep inside my torso, from my guts to my back, as if it never truly healed.

Scarlet doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t go offline.

Where is she right now? Tucked up in bed with her phone? Sitting at a desk? What’s her home like? If she’s using a Galaxy S25, her family must be wealthy. Some rural manor house far beyond Oxford? It’s the middle of the night in England, is she in her pajamas?

OC: Are you alone?

SE: Yes.
SE: It’s just me. I’m in my bedroom, by myself.
SE: I will not betray your confidence, Octavia Carter.

“Yeah, but you’ll try to cut a hole in my guts,” I whisper. A glance at Grimgrave sprawled on the sofa, still fast asleep, simmers down my anger. “Tch.”

OC: Your bedroom? Does the Trio of Albion have a secret base or something?

SE: I’m at home. I promise. There are no cameras and no other recording devices. I promise there is nobody here with me. You are speaking to me and only me. This program is end-to-end encrypted. I am not an expert but I believe that makes the content of this conversation safe for both of us.
SE: What about you? Are you alone? I will not resent it if you aren’t. I will understand.

OC: I’m alone.
OC: Well technically I’m not, but everyone else is asleep.
OC: So you’re talking to me by myself.

SE: I won’t ask where you are.

OC: You couldn’t reach me here anyway. I’m beyond you.

SE: I do not doubt that.
SE: It is a sensible strategy.

I consider my next message carefully, twist it the right way to hurt the most.

OC: Do your handlers know about this?

SE: No.

“Well, that answers more than I hoped.”

OC: You actually have handlers? I was sort of joking. Sort of not really, but mostly joking. Do they keep you on a short leash?

Scarlet doesn’t answer. I give her the silent treatment.

A minute stretches into several, creeps past five, reaches toward ten. Screwing my eyes shut, rubbing the sockets, and opening them again does not make the blinking green cursor go away, nor banish the conversation with England’s number-one magical girl. This is really happening, whatever ‘this’ is, though it feels not remotely real.

My left hand is clammy and numb. Throat dry, guts clenched, head a hollow hole, both too hot and cold at the same time.

“What’s the matter, Scarlet?” I whisper at the screen. “Can’t take a joke?”

Back to work. Scarlet can wait, my prosthetic arm won’t, and neither will the phantom limb clenched across the front of my body like an invisible bar of iron. I organise the pieces of my new forearm all over again, get them lined up and ready, with the preexisting elbow joint at one end, the hand and wrist at the other, ready to be bonded and resin-glued and sanded and finished with carbon fibre tape.

Check the wires one more time, confirm everything is in the right place; my design should allow relatively easy access to the interior, via the battery compartment, just like before, but I take no chances, leave nothing unconfirmed, write it all down in a text file as external reference. Set up for a dry run, make sure all the new pieces of CFRN are ready to be fixed and bonded into place. Remember this is only an initial replacement, to get my arm back onto my body ASAP. Reinforcement will come next, in the days and weeks ahead. Kevlar first, I think, slotted beneath the structural work I am about to complete.

Ten minutes later a soft ping sounds from my laptop.

SE: I shouldn’t be talking to you about any of this. I know I shouldn’t, yet I am still here, and that makes me a kind of weakling. I do not know if I hate or love myself for what I am doing. Yes, we have handlers, of a kind. No, I will not tell you more.

Down tools with a hiss through my teeth. I type without thinking.

OC: The Dream-God you tried to kill, the one who saved my life, she likes to heavily imply that you and the other members of the Trio have sex with animals. Mostly dogs. I’m assuming that’s not literally true?

Green words shine on black. The abstraction makes it unreal, opens a space for me say something I could never speak out loud.

OC: I would keep you on a leash though.
OC: It would suit you.
OC: Woof woof.

Something slips between my lips, halfway to a giggle. Face flushed, abdomen warm, eyes hot.

Out of my chair. Out. Out, up! Have to move or I’m going to explode. Over to the little kitchen corner, pour myself a glass of water, down it in one. Fill another, take smaller sips. I pace away from the domesticated corner and then hurry back, because I’ve left Undernote on display and Grimgrave might wake up and bounce over and see it before I can stop her and then she’ll know—

Know what?

That I’m talking to Scarlet Edge in secret? That I’m hiding things from the others? Or that I’m—

Flirting?

With another woman?

Scarlet still hasn’t replied, so I minimise the window, walk a circuit of the domesticated corner, sit back down. Can’t stay still, can’t concentrate on my arm, can’t stop glancing at the laptop. A growl of frustration propels me to my feet again, carries me across the domesticated corner, past Signal’s computer setup, all the way back to Grimgrave.

Grimmy is angelic when she’s asleep. Tucked up beneath her blanket. Small, warm, soft, surrounded by all this cold concrete, this grey vault daubed with rainbows, in the big empty void of Plato Base.

If I had both arms, I could probably pick her up and carry her to bed, tuck her in, bid her goodnight.

Whatever moment just passed between me and Scarlet — or, more realistically, between me and my own imagination — means nothing compared to what Grimmy has already done for me, what she continues to do. I am a Grimgrave loyalist, if nothing else.

Back to the table, back to work.

The work comes to me automatically. I sand down the edges of each new piece of my forearm, position them twice, check and re-check the alignment. Signal has various half-used cans of superglue, welding polymers, and more; I have selected a two-part methacrylate adhesive. I would rather have fasteners and clamps to hold the whole thing together in the short term, but sourcing those would take more time, and I want my arm ready as soon as possible, so sacrifices will have to be made. The carbon fibre tape will achieve some greater integrity. Brush the adhesive on the edges, hold the pieces together, slot the results into place.

Scarlet is still online.

After about half an hour, I break down and give up, turn to the laptop, punch the keys.

OC: Alright, Scarlet. Why are we talking? Why is this conversation even taking place? Or not taking place now, if I’ve offended you so much.

She answers right away.

SE: You tell me. You reached out first.

My fingers explode across the keyboard. No more games.

OC: Because you drew art of me!
OC: You drew two illustrations of me and I cannot figure out why. Because you drew two of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever seen, and they were both of me, and that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t look like that, I don’t look that beautiful, that wasn’t me, but it was me, and I don’t understand how YOU of all people could see that, from what, a few minutes of knowing me? A fight where you put your sword through my gut? Help me to understand, Scarlet. Why did you draw that art of me? And then you deleted it when I found you. Are you a coward, or just self-conscious, or what???
OC: At first I thought it was Willow’s art. Before the hospital, before I discovered my whole life has been a lie for the last ten years. I thought it was her, that only she could see so much beauty in me. But then I knew it wasn’t her, I knew it was somebody else
OC: but you??? it doesn’t make any sense
OC: you called me a weakling for wanting to live, you insulted me and humiliated me and I FUCKING GOT YOU
OC: I
OC: GOT
OC: YOU
OC: I put my fist in your gut and made you bleed, you pin-up wank-bait bitch and very few things in my life have ever felt as good as making you spit blood and cry out in pain
OC: and then you see me? you see me for what I am, what’s under my skin? what the FUCK, how did you do that?
OC: it’s alright for you, little miss perfect, on every newspaper and every tv channel
OC: do you have any idea how many people must be jacking it to you every single day? ever looked at fanart of yourself? maybe you should
OC: so why make art of me? why?
OC: explain

Rage pours from me through a vector I had never considered before. Shaking, shivering, flushed with heat, sweat all down my back. I stand up and strip off my robe. The robe is still stained with blood on the left from my wounded hand earlier, so I toss it over another chair, hope I can communicate to Tissy that it’ll need washing. I fish Grimgrave’s borrowed handgun out of the robe’s left pocket and put it on the table, next to the laptop. My jumper comes off too, freeing the sudden heat of me, down to my pajama bottoms and tshirt.

For a long moment I stand there, eyes closed, breathing slowly, amazed at the depth of my own anger, struggling against the steel cables of my phantom limb. The fridge is behind me, to my right, about forty-five degrees, but I know there’s no alcohol in there. Even a glance and Gregory the dead Moon Beast would know, and I don’t want to disappoint him again.

I pick up the handgun, check the safety is on, and aim it at the screen, at Scarlet Edge’s name.

“Bang,” I whisper. Juvenile nonsense.

The green indicator next to Scarlet’s name turns grey. Offline.

“Oh, fuck you,” I hiss, half amazed and half incensed. “Can’t take a few pointed questions, Scarlet?” A huff, a sigh, but I put the gun down, on the far side of the laptop.

Back to work I go. But it does not help me avoid my mistake.

“I was totally in the right to say that,” I whisper. “I had every right. She tried to kill me. Tried to kill Grimmy.”

On the dozenth glance at the laptop I hiss with frustration, reach out, and type.

OC: The art was very good though. No critique about your technique. You captured me perfectly.

Forty five minutes later, Scarlet Edge logs back on.

Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. She doesn’t stop. Must have composed this offline, cut it up into segments, no delay between the messages, racing up the screen in one giant mass of green on black.

SE: We are having this conversation because I cannot get the bruise on my lips to go away. I cannot get you out of my head, and I do not understand why. You beat me, though I doubt you understand what that means. Nobody has ever beaten me before, neither Dreamkind nor waking mortals, and certainly no other magical girls. I am the best, I am the only one like myself. I have never failed to slay an opponent before. I have never retreated or given up or backed down. And you made me do all those things and more. I do not comprehend you, Octavia Carter. I do not understand what you have done to me, or what you are still doing to me. I am half-convinced it is some form of magic, but I have been assured of my own purity, that I have not been externally tainted or affected by any outside force. But you are an outside force and I cannot comprehend you.

SE: You are wrong about yourself. I have never been brought so low, and at first it made me furious. The thought of you made me sick with rage and disgust. But the more I thought the more I saw I was wrong. You are beautiful beyond my wildest imagination. I could not have imagined you before meeting you. That is why I was compelled to make art of you. If only you could have seen yourself through my eyes. You stood when you should have crumbled. You charged when you should have fled. Nobody has ever done that to me before, nobody has faced me and lived, nobody has deserved to do so. You were beautiful in triumph and equally beautiful in pain.

SE: I have a third piece that I have not posted anywhere. It is of your face in close up, when my sword almost took you. Your face was exquisite, beyond anything I thought possible.

SE: I should not be saying these things to you. I should be content with the flies that buzz around me. Do you know that? It is a secret we keep, one we are not meant to share, but it is an open secret all the same. I could have my pick of any young thing I wanted, male or female or otherwise, and there would be no questions asked. They practically throw them at me. But I have never accepted, because it is disgusting, the weakness of it disgusts me.

SE: I do not know why I am doing this, but I know I have to. You have ruined something inside me and I cannot get it back. I cannot make it right again, and I am never wrong, so that means this new way of feeling must be correct, and everything up until now was mistaken.
SE: But I think I am glad it was you, Octavia Carter. I believe you are my equal.
SE: I have never said that to anyone before. I can scarcely believe I am saying it now.

SE: You are my equal. I have found you.

The blinking green cursor invites my response.

If Scarlet was standing in front of me, I would be speechless.

A hole opens up deep inside my chest, the echo of her sword, empty, hot, filled with flame beside my heart.

OC: Okay.

A long silence. My fingers twitch, hesitate, type a word then delete. Mouth dry, head empty. What does one say to such a wild confession, from such a person as Scarlet Edge?

She gets there first.

SE: I do not agree with what was done to you. It is an obscenity to feed you to a Dreamer.

Bile rises up my throat. Willow, Willow, she had to bring this back to Willow.

OC: Then defect.

SE: Excuse me?

OC: Defect.
OC: To us.
OC: You disagree with all of this, so defect to us.

A shot in the dark.

Time stretches like tar. Deep breaths do not help. My head feels light, my chest tight, my eyes hot as fever. Minutes trickle through the air of the Big Room. Zoogs twitch and stir in their sleep. Green text mocks me, steady and still.

Driven by some mad need I dare not question, as I wait for her reply, I alt-tab back to the browser and open magibooru again. I click on one of the most popular tags — ‘Scarlet_Edge’ — and fill the screen with thumbnails of the woman I am speaking to.

There she blossoms in red and white, a cup of gore cradled within the petals of a pale lily.

Sort by top rated, I don’t want any old sketches, only the best. Safe, questionable, explicit, give me the whole lot, illustrated in a dozen different styles. The single highest rated image of Scarlet Edge is a nude, the imaginary landscape of her body draped over a log in some idyllic forest glade, one hand trailing in a pool of water, the curve of her hips wide against the greenery, red hair whispering down over perfect pale shoulders, eyes heavy-lidded, one pert pink nipple exposed to the viewer.

Could be anybody. Any magical girl. Any woman.

I click through the rest. Some feel right, those stern eyes staring at the viewer, a sword hilt-deep in some fragment of Nightmare, her face caught in sharp and twisted profile. Others are just more nonsense, not remotely anything like her, not the face that was so close to mine before I bit her, not the face I shattered with my right fist. I go hunting for images with her clothes torn, or in which she is momentarily pinned by some monster she has not quite defeated. I try not to scoff at illustrations of her embracing her comrades in the Trio, though I linger over one of her and Dawn engaged in sexual intercourse. Preposterous, probably illegal to publish in England, badly drawn too. Nobody who has heard the two of them talk would think this credible.

The real Scarlet Edge is too perfect for such filth.

Ping. A reply, at last.

SE: I am afraid I have failed to communicate the import of my true feelings. Defection is meaningless, that isn’t what I want. Besides, I cannot leave. Things walk abroad that ought not to tread waking soil. Myself and my sisters-in-arms are the only thing that stands between England and the yawning abyss of dream. You must know this, you are against us but you are no fool. But I feel as I am tripping over my words, which I am not used to. You have made me tongue-tied and I cannot make sense of what I wish to say.

OC: Then what do you want?

SE: I felt a frisson when we duelled, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I want to feel it again.

OC: I bet you say that to all the girls you murder.

SE: Didn’t you feel it too?

OC: You can hardly call what we did a duel. I punched you, you ran me through, I bit you. Second time, I smashed your face apart.

A long pause.

SE: You truly felt nothing?

I’m about to type ‘no’ or perhaps ‘fuck you, you deranged psychopath’, but my fingers hesitate.

Scarlet Edge is correct, though perhaps not in the way she means. Our first confrontation did make me feel things I’d never felt before. Clean anger, pouring forth as if to cleanse an infected wound with fire. A desire to stomp her into the dirt and make her cry. Mad laughter. True freedom.

On the second time we fought I came within a hair’s breadth of transformation.

OC: I felt something. I’m not sure what to call it.

SE: What we did was perfect. I didn’t see it at the time, I was blinded by assumptions. But it was perfect and I want it again, without the interruption of that monster who had you enslaved. Do you want that feeling again, Octavia? Because I don’t think anybody but you will do. Please tell me you understand.

OC: I don’t understand, no. What are you saying, you want to fight me again?

SE: Yes! And I want to give you a clean end. The Dreamer wants you for a pet. She says she will stop at nothing.
SE: You are wanted for the Dreamer. It has been made very clear to us.
SE: The Dreamer. It sickens me to mouth her name.

OC: Then keep her name out of your mouth.

The words spill from my fingers before I can stop myself, before I consider what that means. I’m the only one allowed to hate Willow, I’m the only one who’s been hurt by her. Scarlet Edge has no idea what she’s talking about.

SE: You deserve a proper and honest ending, Octavia Carter. You should not be made into a toy, you deserve to face me again, in the way we both want. I know you want it as much as I do, I can feel it. I want to feel you again, I need to feel you again.

Grit my teeth, hot disgust in my throat.

OC: You’re delusional!
OC: You know what I want?
OC: I want to live. I want to smash your face in and watch you bleed through a mask of tears. I want to put my foot on your head and grind you into the dirt. I want to see your ‘perfection’ ruined. I want you to weep and beg.

SE: not perfect. i’m not perfect

OC: I want to put a leash around your neck and drag you behind me. I want to ruin everything that ruined me. And that includes England.

SE: i am england

“Oh, you pompous blowhard,” I hiss.

Though she has a point. Scarlet Edge has been crafted into a symbol of England, as much as any Churchill-faced bulldog or good old John Bull. Our shining English rose, our perfect pure maiden, our lady of the skies with her ruby-red sword in hand. If only they knew her secret sadism, her pleasure in causing pain, her disdain for the weak, her secret obsession.

OC: I AM ENGLAND TOO
OC: I AM ENGLAND AS MUCH AS YOU
OC: AND I AM FULL OF WRATH

SE: i only want to give yuo a clean death

OC: YOU WANT TO FUCK ME

I lean back from the keyboard, steaming and sweat-drenched as if from a fire, blinking in shock at what I’ve typed.

“I … I didn’t … didn’t mean … ”

Lies trail off. Even I don’t believe them. I meant every word.

A well has opened up deep down inside me, to a deep aquifer of some occulted resource, sticky and black as cold tar, produced in the pressure vessel of my soul. Akin to the clean anger that Scarlet provoked before, but so much more potent, a drug that cleans my brain of all doubt. A shuddering catharsis, a release I had not known I needed.

Is this what orgasm feels like? I press my left hand between my legs. Hot, flushed, aching.

SE: sorry

OC: For what?

SE: I don’t know what to say. I’m so confused.

OC: You want to fuck me. How hard is that to understand?

SE: I don’t
SE: that’s not true
SE: you are mistaken

OC: Kill Willow for me.

SE: What?

OC: Kill Willow for me. Magical girls are one of the few things that can kill Dreamers. Kill Willow for me.

SE: i cant

OC: Can’t or won’t?

SE: Everything would fly apart if I slew the Dreamer. Concealing such an act would be impossible, even if carrying it out was within my lone powers. I told you I will not be a traitor to England, no matter what you have done to me. I will not be a weakling.

OC: So, you won’t.
OC: Scarlet, what do you mean ‘everything’ would fly apart?
OC: Is Willow the only Lucid Dreamer? Or are there more?

OC: Scarlet.
OC: Answer me.

Scarlet Edge lapses into long silence. The green cursor blinks against black. Steady raindrops fall against the roof of Plato Base.

I alt-tab back to the art of Scarlet, look for something, anything good. A drawing of her with her tits out, topless and swinging her sword. An illustration of her looking at the viewer from above, a haughty set to her eyes, as if about to pass judgement. A more cartoony version of her, seen from the side, curves emphasised, unrealistic sizes.

I stick my left hand between my legs again, but it does nothing. None of these pictures are what I want. None of them are her.

Perhaps I should commission art of Scarlet Edge myself, down on her knees with a collar around her neck. Just like in the fantasy that gave me a heart attack.

I am a feral animal.

Twenty five minutes later, Scarlet still hasn’t replied, though she’s still online. The small hours of the night weigh heavily on my eyelids and limbs; but how could I possibly sleep with my arm incomplete?

Outdoors, the lunar rain grows heavier, mounting toward a storm. Gusts of wind send torrents of water washing over the concrete roof of Plato Base, a dull and distant roaring far beyond the half-buried structure, sheltered by the mountains. Millions of trees up on the mountain slopes creak and moan, a far-away chorus howling across the lunar skies.

I lock my laptop, just in case Grimgrave wakes up, then stand and stretch, determined to shake off this tight tension down in my belly, this unscratchable itch.

Not that I didn’t try to scratch it for Scarlet before.

Past the domesticated corner and the hundred sleeping zoogs, I glance back at Grimgrave, satisfy myself that she is still dreaming quiet. I walk the width of the Big Room, passing in and out of shadows, letting my eyes rove up along the walls and their mad multi-colour murals, trying not to think too much, trying not to picture Scarlet Edge and her delicately bruised lips. Don’t think about her rubbing that bruise. Don’t think about her lips pursed, puckered, or parted in pain.

At the main entrance to Plato Base, the air is all a-shimmer with whirling gusts of silver-tainted rain. I hang well back from the ruined golden doors, though the wind seemingly cannot reach within, as if the structure is protected by a positive pressure differential. A gentle chill dusts my left arm with goosebumps. A cluster of bedraggled-looking moon-ravens is perched just beyond the doorway, sheltered from the worst of the rain. Larger than vultures, wing-to-wing, huddled close, stretching out talons like little black knives. A few shoot sullen, drenched, three-eyed looks back toward me, red orbs glowing against the negative light of the storm. But they dare not venture over the threshold.

My eyes close, shutting out both sense and self. Raindrops drum thoughts into sand.

Scarlet Edge deserves more bruises. Purple blotches mottled down her neck, peppered on her collarbone, trailed across her breasts. Easing lower, crossing her belly, hard enough to make her flinch and whine …

My eyes snap open; I’ve left the handgun behind, firearm unsupervised, myself unarmed. My shoulder blades crawl as I hurry back, the memory of fingertips brushing across the nape of my unprotected neck. Moon-ravens watch me go in sulky silence. Rainstorm fury muffles itself behind concrete.

Back in the Big room, the handgun is right where I left it, next to my laptop; no gang of zoogs has woken up and worked together to drag the gun away. But the weapon has been joined by a surprise — a small tray of refreshments. A plate of sausage rolls, hot from the oven, pasty flaking at the slightest touch of a fork, accompanied by a tall mug of steaming coffee.

A blue plastic note is propped against the plate.

Sleep eludes you in the best of times, but in the worst it must be held back by force of will and want. Bed would be preferable, but understanding is extended. In absence of rest I offer the next of the most best options: expedience and fortification. You are wished the most prudent of all speed and the most perfect of accuracy.

A glance at the corridor-mouths and nearby columns shows no sign of Tissy, no blue shadows, no wafting ribbon of dream-flesh. Can’t call out a thank you right now, not without waking dozens of zoogs. I press the note over my heart.

“Thank you, Tissy.”

She’s sweeter than anybody here deserves.

Sausage rolls fill my stomach. Caffeine banishes the cobwebs. Ambient arousal dribbles away, flushed out by concentration.

Pieces of carbon fibre bond together, slowly but surely. An hour marches past, bathed in a steady wash of storm from the lunar skies beyond the ceilings of this concrete cocoon. Grimgrave shifts in her sleep, cuddles a lucky zoog to her front. A few zoogs wake, stretch, move around, swap sleeping partners, ease back into slumber. Signal’s computer setup flickers to itself, a lonely screen waking once or twice to record some deep-time memory before sinking back into black.

By four o’clock in the morning my prosthetic arm is almost ready. Two more joins remain, the hand must be locked in place, and then it will be part of me once again.

I study the scar on the old parts, the scored line in pale carbon fibre left by Scarlet’s sword on our first meeting, now bisected by the severing, by her unwilling amputation. The black CFRN of my new forearm will be clean and unblemished. I line them up on the table, run a finger along the old, then the new.

Perhaps I should cut an echo of that scar into the new forearm. Just a line. Decorative.

Ping, from my laptop.

SE: francesca fairfax

Didn’t think you were still awake, Scarlet.

OC: I’m sorry?

SE: my real name. mundane name. whatever you want to call it. i am francesca fairfax. you’re not talking to scarlet edge, because she doesn’t really exist, she’s a fiction. i’m francesca.

OC: Okay?

What did she expect? Hello there, Francesca, let’s be friends? My fingers trace the bisected scar on the old components again, irritated in a way I do not know how to release.

SE: i want to meet you
SE: in person i mean
SE: i can’t get this out of my head. i don’t understand what you’ve done to me

OC: You tried to kill me. I’m not going to meet up with you alone, Scarlet. I’m not an idiot.

SE: francesca

OC: You tried to kill me. You almost killed Grimgrave.

SE: who?

OC: Grimgrave.
OC: The magical girl you duelled on the rooftop.
OC: You don’t even remember her name???

SE: the clown?

OC: My clown.
OC: She’s my good girl.

An insane urge sweeps me off my feet.

I’m out of my seat, phone in my left hand, halfway to Grimmy before I realise what I’m doing. But I can’t stop myself, like the clogged breath in my throat pulls me on. I stop a good distance and line up the shot. Make absolutely double certain that the flash and shutter sound are off. Can barely breathe; what if Grimgrave opens her eyes right now? My left hand shakes so hard I almost can’t take the picture.

When I have her — three times, just in case — I scurry back to the desk, struggling not to trip over sleeping zoogs.

SE: what does that mean?
SE: what does that mean???
SE: octavia, what does that mean. please explain. what do you mean she’s your good girl???

OC: Be patient.

I send the photograph to myself and open it full-screen on my laptop. There she is: Grimmy, Grimgrave, Patience Graves. Geegee, Grimgrim, Grimmygrave Grave Grims. Sleeping in perfect peace, haloed by her own messy brown hair trailing out over the cushions, attended by a cluster of zoogs. My picture has managed to capture the livid purple of her birthmark, trailing down the left side of her throat like a kiss from the gods. Her sleeping face is more beautiful than Scarlet Edge could ever hope to be.

Scrub the EXIF data. Crop the picture, remove any sign of Plato Base. Blur the zoogs, just to drive Scarlet up the wall. A double-check for reflections. Then I copy it via a separate image editing program and scrub the EXIF again. Carefully, carefully. Dangle the bait, but no real risk. A nasty smirk tugs at my mouth.

OC: grimgrave.png

Scarlet says nothing.

OC: Recognise her from the rooftop now?

No reply.

OC: Like I said, she’s my good girl. She’s right there, not far away. I can take another, if you like.

Nothing.

OC: Be objective, Scarlet. She’s pretty, isn’t she?
OC: Admit it.
OC: She would have won.
OC: Against you, I mean. Probably didn’t even need my help in the end.
OC: Afraid to admit you were beaten? Coward.

Minutes trickle by.

“Tch,” I hiss. “Won’t give me the satisfaction, will you?”

My strange ardour drains away, replaced by cold disgust creeping sticky fingers up my throat. What have I done? Taking pictures of Grimgrave without her permission, sending it to another girl — to Scarlet Edge, to the Trio! — just to prove some obscure point? What point? Am I bragging? Showing off something that isn’t even mine? Trying to make Scarlet Edge jealous?

“Oh. Oh fuck.” I feel sick. “I’m trying to make her … jealous? I’m trying to make her jealous. Oh … oh I’m going to be sick.”

Rampant dyke, to whom self-control is an alien concept. Nothing even resembling a sense of dignity, just rutting and snapping like a hound in heat, like I’m the one who should be on a leash.

I need to delete the picture, at least on my phone.

Ping.

SE: me2.jpg

Scarlet Edge has sent me a selfie. Full body, tip to toes, feet to crown.

No, it’s not Scarlet Edge.

A pinprick of pressure insists upon itself in the centre of my head: this is not Scarlet Edge, this is some other young woman. This is ‘Francesca Fairfax’; but that is the same name Bright used for Scarlet, and this young woman has the same bruise on the same thin, pale, unsmiling lips, the same mark of my teeth upon the same flesh.

She — Scarlet or otherwise, as my mind rejects the connection — has censored the image, with a thick black bar across her eyes, a digital blindfold to deny identity.

Perhaps that anonymity is what unlocks the seal of my perception. The pinprick of pressure pops.

This is Scarlet Edge; I can accept that.

She’s dressed in red and white, though she must be untransformed, with loose blonde hair, imperfectly brushed, framed by bare shoulders. A long white pelvic curtain hangs between naked thighs, barely covering her crotch, high side-slits exposing the jut of her hipbones, implying an obvious lack of underwear. Her legs are silken with red, sheer thigh-highs squeezing too hard. Her upper body is all skintight lace, layers of red and white, a low neckline, pale shoulders, exposed forearms. Upon her head is set a crumpled paper crown in shiny red, the kind you used to get in Christmas crackers.

She has looped a length of cloth around her throat, tugged it tight, gripped the end in one neat fist. A crimson necktie, repurposed as a leash.

Scarlet Edge, half naked, trussed up for display, showing off a makeshift collar.

She does not look like herself, the idol and icon of Scarlet Edge discarded. Skinny and scrawny, too narrow and wiry for conventional tastes. Slender hips, modest bust, sallow cheeks. The skin of her thighs is pasty and mottled. Old scars lie in pale parallel lines up the inside of her wrists and forearms. Her chin is rolled back, her chest thrust forward, presenting herself and her leash to the viewer. One can almost see the tremble through the still image.

How many people have dreamed of this? How many teenage boys — and more than a few girls — have fantasied about being swept up and carried off by England’s living saint of severe flame? How many have spilled themselves raw to what they imagine this moment must be like? And how many would guess the reality is nothing like they imagined? How many would be disappointed by the trembling thing before me?

The sheer revelation of Scarlet Edge’s pathetic sexuality would be enough to rock the country. The English Rose, a common slut. A dyke. A lesbian. A deviant who puts a leash around her own neck and offers it up to her foe. The scandal would crack England into pieces. It would destroy Scarlet Edge.

Francesca Fairfax is beautiful; I will never let anybody else see this picture.

I save the image, just in case. Put it inside an encrypted container.

SE: woof

I almost choke. Eyes bulging. Jaw hanging open.

SE: i’m shaking
SE: please say something
SE: you wanted to put a leash on me, yes? you want me to be a doggy. please
SE: please
SE: please

My fingers scramble. How can I refuse now? How can I say no to this?

OC: Good girl.
OC: Bark again. Bark for me.

SE: woof
SE: woof!

SE: oh fuck this feels
SE: i don’t know
SE: why does this feel like this?

SE: woof! woof! pet me and call me a good doggy please please please i’ll be good

OC: Good girl.

My left hand goes between my legs, drawn by magnetic flesh. But I cannot stay there, because I only have one hand with which to type. If only I had worked on my arm faster, if only I had known. But how could I have predicted this? How could anybody?

SE: i don’t understand how you’ve done this to me
SE: i‘ve never felt so fucked up
SE: they’re going to do terrible things to you if they catch you
SE: if the dreamer catches you
SE: please just meet me, one on one, just us
SE: i need
SE: i don’t know what i need
SE: need you not to end up hollowed out by that thing
SE: and i can’t stop her now
SE: i do not think you have long before the dreamer makes a play for your heart
SE: i can’t stop crying

OC: Do you want to be a good girl for me, Francesca?

SE: i’m so fucking drunk

Lucky you.

SE: gonna be sick
SE: i came so fucking hard and now i feel sick
SE: disgusting
SE: hate myself

Scarlet Edge ‘came’?

I push that little discovery down for now, push it away and aside and ignore my own throbbing need.

OC: Francesca, I need to know what Willow is planning. If you want me to duel you in the future, I need to know. What’s her ‘play’? What is she going to do?
OC: Francesca?
OC: Scarlet?
OC: Scarlet?

“Fuck,” I hiss, whisper all a-quiver. “Fucking hell.”

I’ve never felt this aroused before in all my life, flushed and hot and coming up with a dozen justifications for why I can totally shove my hand in my underwear right here, in the Big Room, surrounded by zoogs and within hearing distance of Grimgrave. I open the encrypted container and look at that picture of Scarlet-Francesca again, the collar lovingly kissed around her neck.

No, not true. I felt aroused like this once before, with Grimmy.

Scarlet Edge is on the other side of a screen, but Grimgrave is right here, warm and soft and sleeping. I rise to my feet, unsteady and breathless, staring at Grimgrave, a lump in my throat. If I woke her and asked, she would say yes. She would say yes and my whole world would come unravelled but I need it more than I’ve ever needed anything in my whole life and I’m going to do it, I’m going to take this tension and hand it to her and—

Red light explodes from Signal’s computer setup, a dozen screens alive all at once.

An alarm, low and loud and heavy, blares from whatever hidden speakers she has wired to her machines, echoed by distant sirens deep within Plato Base.

A hundred zoogs lurch awake and scatter in surprise, leaping off the sofa, burrowing beneath cushions, skidding on the concrete. Grimgrave’s up, slumped to her feet, then springing upright, sweeping her hair out of her face, sleep-addled eyes blown wide as she stares at the red-dyed screens. Signal’s displays blossom with warnings and alerts and a zoomed-in map of the southeast of England, centred on the corpse of London and the cordon of the London Wall, covered in lines and angles and a creeping cloud of deepest black.

“Yo!” Grimgrave shouts, breaks into a grin, then spots me. “Yo, Occy! First Nightmare, yo!”

“Wha-what—”

Signal and Bright burst from the corridor mouth that leads to the bedroom-cells. Bright’s already transformed, a corona of heat and flame flickering from her dragon-tail as she stomps past the domesticated corner, heading straight for the front entrance of Plato Base. Signal hurries over to her computer set-up, flanked and trailed by twelve of her massive moon-skeletons.

I slam my laptop shut. Don’t think anybody saw.

“Yo yo yo, Siggy!” Grimgrave bounces on the spot, then clicks her fingers. Her transformation blots her out with a wash of chaotic colour, but then she’s back, pink twin-tails and clown outfit, already drawing a shotgun from under her skirt, quickly racking shells into the chamber. “Where we at, where we going!?”

“Nightmare just crossed the London Wall,” says one of Signal’s skeletons, voice flat and robotic. “Bearing almost exactly due west. This one’s fast, heading directly for the south end of Oxford. Standard … ” A hiss of breath from the real Signal, from her ‘core’, as if stung. “No, non-standard debris spread. There’s all sorts of stuff up in the air, and already down on the ground. Polyps, hangers-on, unknowns. London Wall segment garrison has buttoned up. Sirens are sounding in Oxford and Reading.”

“We’re go, yeah!?” Grimgrave spins her shotgun. “Siggy, come on—”

“Yes, we’re green,” one of Signal’s skeletons says. She steps away from her computer set-up and hurries after Bright, who has already left the Big Room. A single skeleton turns to me, blank eye-lenses reflecting my bewildered face. “Octavia, stay here, for your own safety. You’re perfectly safe alone in Plato Base. Please don’t try to follow us, please don’t put yourself in harm’s way again. Just sit tight, this shouldn’t take more than a handful of hours.”

“What— what are you all doing—”

Grimgrave makes her shotgun vanish somewhere, then barrels into me at higher speed than I expected, grabbing me in a sudden hug. She stares up at my face, a huge grin plastered across her lips, her chin against my chest. Paralyses me, confusion dipped in arousal. Grimmy’s face, shining with anticipation, upturned for my gaze.

“Nightmare hunt!” she says.

“W-what, Grimgrave—”

Grimmy lets go, giggling and dancing back, no idea what she just did to me. Signal’s gone, hurrying out of the room. Distantly I hear a roar of flame over the sound of the rain, like a volcanic vent opening in the moon’s surface — Bright translocating? The last skeleton out blurts: “Geegee, now or never!”

Grimmy winks at me. “This is how we get juiced-up, Occy! I told you before, right? You gotta be near a Nightmare when it goes down. Even better if you help out a bit, knock some stragglers back to the Dream! The Trio and the other bitches do the clean-up, we siphon what we need!”

The logistics click into place. The magical girls from the moon have been piggybacking off regular Nightmares for years, taking what they can get around the edges, lurking nearby for the windfall of ‘girl juice’.

But to be exposed, out there in the open, as a Nightmare shudders upon the surface of the waking world? I can’t imagine it.

“What about me?” I say. “I need girl juice— tch. I mean I need magic, too! I need it more than ever. I need … ”

Grimmy shoots me an apologetic smile, already backing toward the main entrance. “You can’t take it down there, Occy! Not like you are! Please, yo, hey, don’t get hurt, okay? Just sit tight!” Her grin turns manic. “Hey hey, when I get back, I’ll swap some girl-juice with you! Hahaha! Joke, joke! Joke, for serious, yeah!?”

Maybe she doesn’t see my expression, on the verge of saying yes, oh god yes please yes.

Grimmy turns and sprints for the short corridor to the main entrance. I follow, almost tripping over my feet, stopping far back enough that the rainstorm cannot touch me. Bright and Signal are already gone. Grimgrave bursts out into the rain, untouched for a split-second as she turns back, shoots me a wink and salutes with her shotgun, then pratfalls backward off the front steps of Plato Base.

Reality opens like a bursting water balloon filled with rainbow paint.

Grimgrave vanishes. Translocated down to England. Off to nibble the edges of a Nightmare.

Rain drums on concrete. Static haze clouds my mind. A few moon-ravens flap grumpily out of the storm, taking up their former positions on the damp concrete, shaking off sodden wings.

I trudge back to the Big Room. The alarm has stopped, and the red light has dialled down, though Signal’s computer still shows a blown-up map of the southeast, tracking the Nightmare as it floods across the sky toward Oxford. How many Nightmares have I sheltered through in my short life? Four or five annually? More some years, when the Dreamlands boil and bubble beyond the shattered remains of the wall of sleep, and things that should remain in dream leak into the waking world.

Zoogs creep from their hiding places, nosing into the dim light. Some approach my ankles, gather at my heels. Nerys’ oil-black head pops up over the edge of her little bed.

Left behind with the animals and the god. A one-armed cripple who can’t protect herself. A helpless exile.

I cross back to my laptop, open the lid.

Scarlet’s gone offline, but she has left me a final message.

SE: i don’t know when or how, i’m sorry, but i think the dreamer is coming for you
SE: she’s coming for you soon
SE: i have to go
SE: don’t let her get you, octavia carter
SE: please don’t let her get you
SE: you deserve a better end

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Enemies to lovers? Nay; enemies to pet-and-owner. Or at least the first step toward such an arrangement? Naaaah. What’s a bit of drunken late night sexting between two girls who’ve beaten the shit out of each other and have spent every moment since mired in growing obsession? Doesn’t mean anything.

Ahem. Oh dear, Octavia. Whatever happened to that promise not to get involved with Scarlet? Now she’s sending you dodgy selfies.

Well. I’m not sure I can say anything down here that does justice to the chapter; I always had this planned, but I didn’t know it would happen in exactly this way. These girls looked at my plans and said “that’s not enough” and took everything up to 11. And I’m very glad they did, no matter how unhinged!

And, with that, this is now the end of arc 4! Arc 5 lurks just around the corner, ready to spring out and grab our heroine by the throat.

Meanwhile, if you want more Maidens right away, you can always:

Subscribe on Patreon!

Right now my patrons have access to three chapters ahead! For the moment I’m going to try to keep it as three; in the future I hope to push this out to more.

And thank you, dear readers! Thank you so much for being here and enjoying my little story. Without you, there would be no Maidens, Luna would be Maidenless, and Octavia would be shouting into a void. Thank you all so much!

Next chapter, alone on the moon, what rough beast slouches closer to Octavia’s neck?