There will be no Maidens chapter on the 6th of June; Maidens will resume as normal on the 13th of June!

This is an unplanned, irregular interruption; my apologies for that. I’m fine, I’ll be back soon as I can, nothing to worry about. If you want more details, I’ve written a little patreon post about it over here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/160083664

Content Warnings

Internalised homophobia

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My truce with Grimgrave holds steady through one full day and two quiet nights, brittle but unbroken, unfamiliar yet not unwelcome. We settle in to wait for the meeting; Grimgrave resumes the erratic routine of her life up here in Plato Base, while I repair my prosthetic arm.

‘Truce’ is perhaps unkind, unfair, inaccurate, inadequate. Grimgrave has done more than pledge her natural loyalty, she has proven it beyond even my propensity for doubt. She has promised to protect me from Willow, to come running if I scream, to furnish me with arms and allies. She has forgiven the worst behaviour of which I can conceive, accepted my wilted apologies, and then handed me a loaded gun. She has shown me the grave of her dead girlfriend, and put aside the weight of her own grief, in favour of the living. She’s got my back. She’s not lying.

But I dare not tread beyond truce. More than mere understanding has passed between us; how could it be otherwise, when I’ve had her back on my bed and my knee against her cunt? She should be wary of me, yet she isn’t, and I remain keenly susceptible to the more arduous aspects of her behaviour. So we are still short of explicit alliance, let alone a pact, a sisterhood, or more.

Grimgrave doesn’t think of it that way. She believes we are all in this together, we magical girls. All for one and one for all.

I fall short of such radical optimism. Twenty years in England, ten years trapped in Willow’s dreams, have left me incapable. Maybe exposure to Bright and Signal has coloured me too far; they came to my rescue on that hospital rooftop, but mostly for their own reasons. Or maybe it was the graveyard, all those dead girls in lunar soil. Our inevitable end.

Grimmy is on my side. But where exactly is ‘our side’?

And while Grimgrave may be trusted, she is still a challenge to endure. She simply cannot help herself.

We spend those forty-eight hours living in the Big Room, retiring only for sleep, surrounded by zoogs and the ever-present background chatter of the quad-screen television setup. At first I consider an honourable retreat to my bedroom, for the simple privacy to think, but realisation strikes swift — I don’t want to be alone. Ten years of false memories full of splendid isolation, with the single exception of Willow; always by myself, always preferring it that way, always such a struggle to make new friends. All to keep me hungry and vulnerable, all for Willow.

Grimmy’s jokes are stupid and irritating and spiced with repetitious profanity. But she is here, she is alive, within arm’s reach, and tomorrow we might both be dead.

So I stay, fingers tapping away at my laptop keyboard, fans whirring inside the 3D printers as I set them to work, on long print-cycles to build the necessary components for my arm. For the remains of the first day I tinker with CAD files, tack toward the more gritty design questions, while the CFRN of my replacement foot shell anneals in a filament dryer. After the gun, the graveyard, and Grimmy’s regard, I feel focused enough to work. By that evening the shell is ready, a beautiful wedge of matte black. I fill the inside with appropriate foam padding cut to shape, work my foot into place, and then walk circuits of the Big Room, trailed by a gang of curious zoogs.

Only a prototype, but my stride is even and my gait is correct. No pain in my hip, no awkward angle to my knee. And no need to bother with shoes, no more grotesquery of fake flesh to conceal from mundane eyes.

“Robot upgrade, yo!” Grimgrave laughs, heading up my zoog audience. “You should put like, a steel toecap on it. Hobnails. Horns!”

“I’d rather retain the capacity to wear shoes, at least outdoors. And it’s not a robot leg, it’s a prosthetic. I’m not a cyborg.”

“Sure you are! It’s cool as shit! Cyber-Occy!”

“Cyber-Octavia,” I echo with a sigh, “is going to put her cyber-foot up your cyber-backside. Grimgrave, stop calling me that.”

She giggles and goggles and dances away, scooping up a zoog. She does stop, but only for an hour. Then it’s ‘Robo-tavia’ and ‘Octo-foot’, until I am forced to glare, to which Grimgrave is stoutly immune.

The next day it’s all CAD files, preliminary prints started early, on the hunt for replacement wires among Signal’s cast-off parts. Every component must be accounted for, prepared in advance, measured twice, written down. After that, hours of internal debate — how much extra weight can my right arm bear? Scarlet’s sword severed the limb like empty air, because carbon fibre and foam do not make for good armour. But reinforcing it to turn aside a blade — let alone that particular blade — is likely impossible, not without compromises to function. Design, discard, redesign, over and over and over again. Ceramic ballistic plates weigh a ton, even if I could source them. Steel outer layers are too heavy, but what about a thin metal core, hard enough to catch a sword? Or what if I make the carbon fibre shell thinner, layer kevlar beneath it? What about the elbow and the upper arm, am I going to replace those too? When did a repair turn into a full overhaul? Since when was this my plan? Why am I losing control?

Because I can’t transform. Can’t protect myself.

The wall reveals itself that second day, but I resist the urge to slump back and scowl at unfinished designs, despite the mounting pain in my phantom limb; frustration sets missing flesh to ache and throb, acutely aware that its mechanical replacement is currently elsewhere. I cannot afford petulance, not with an unknown time limit. Sooner or later Burning Bright may decide to remove the object of her sister’s frustrated fascination. At any moment, Willow might step in through the front entrance of Plato Base. The weight of Grimgrave’s borrowed pistol in the pocket of my robe does offer some reassurance, but bullets will not put down a Dreamer for good, not even magical girl bullets. I need my arm. I need to be complete.

Instead of stomping off or alt-tabbing away, I watch Grimgrave.

On that second day she wears sheer white leggings beneath a frilled white skirt, flaring out and fluttering whenever she moves, a pixie dressed in a snowflake. Her top half is a cacophony of white lace and skintight sleeves, hair up in a ponytail. Sitting on the sofa, laughing at cartoons with the zoogs; lying on her front, reading a book, feet swaying in the air; playing video games while zoogs cheer and hiss, her teeth clenched, concentration tight.

In the corner of my eye I watch her smile, watch her flex and twist her lithe and slender limbs, watch her flick her ponytail, watch her spot me watching and shoot me a grin in reply, and then she gets up and canters over to bother me for a few minutes. About which, I am not truly bothered.

Refocus, refine intention, resist scope creep. Back to work.

Tissy keeps us fed and supplies me with plentiful coffee, though I’m convinced she switches to decaf mid-afternoon. Food appears evenings, lunchtimes, breakfasts, plentiful but plain. Grimgrave and I eat together at the big metal table, or she on the sofa and me at my laptop, though she still samples the chow at zoog feeding time. The first day’s dinner is curry, vegetables and chicken in vast quantities, mild and soft and filling, cooked so long it melts in the mouth, tempts you to eat more than you should; intentional, one suspects, because a full belly makes it impossible to keep working late, sends Grimgrave into a zoog-draped doze on the sofa, my head nodding before my laptop. We drag ourselves to bed sometime around eleven, wandering down the corridor together.

But not to the same room. Grimgrave uses jokes to gesture in that direction, stops just short of inviting me over the pink-painted threshold of her bedroom, throws me winks and grins and doesn’t mean half of them.

Or maybe she does. If she took me by the hand and led me inside, I would be powerless to resist, but she might not like the result. Neither of us would. I would fly to pieces. She would be ill-used.

The bolt on my door has been fixed, bed remade with clean linen. Sleep is long and easy and almost dreamless, both nights, despite the lingering phantom pain at my side. Willow lurks at the edge of nightmares, but I’m too focused to let her in. I have too much work to be interrupted by bad dreams.

Both mornings, Grimgrave greets me by probing my open wounds.

“Did Jack and Jill go up the hill and fuck the pail of water yet? Come on, Occy, you know what I’m talking about! Did you get in there and—”, “—you gotta do it, you gotta do it, you gotta do yourself—”, “—it ain’t gonna give you another heart attack—”, “Unjammed your clam? Strangled your juice-box? Flicked the bean and skateboarded the—”, “Maybe you do need to make a vibe!”, “Lemme see your browser history, come on! I bet you’ve been getting some good sluts in there—”, “Come oooonnnnn, you gotta, you gotta, Occy, don’t be a—”

Her maniac grin and vulgar gestures say she’s teasing; her persistence says she’s helping. She achieves neither.

I answer with silent glares or not at all. Try not to snap, do not even dream of violence against her. Don’t have the heart to say I simply don’t feel like it; I tried again the first night, tucked up alone in bed, hand between my legs, but nothing happened. The mood did not take me, so I did not take myself in hand.

Hands, that’s the problem. I’m focused now, on fixing my right. Once I have both back, then I can think about the rest of my body. For now I am still a corpse, scattered in pieces, animated only by Grimgrave’s borrowed spark.

Over those forty-eight hours I come to know Grimgrave more than I did, simply by observing her moods, her patterns, her habits, though two days is a very mean amount of time to know anybody.

When not following me around like a puppy, she’s all over the place — playing with or tending to the zoogs, watching television, playing video games, slumped on the sofa with an endless parade of dog-eared books, typing away on her phone keyboard, zooming off into the depths of Plato Base for one unfathomable reason or another. I am simply one additional stop on her manic circuit, as she bounces over to the table and shoves something at me. Hey Occy, this zoog wants to know what your arm is made of. Hey Occy, have you seen this game, this bit with the guy doing the thing with the stuff? Hey Occy, what do you think of this anime girl picture on my phone, would you suck those titties? Hey Occy, did you know whale cocks are ten feet long?!

On the afternoon of that second day, in the lull after the zoogs have been fed, Grimgrave sits down on a patch of empty concrete floor and spends a quiet hour cleaning and oiling her shotgun. She strips it barely looking, lays all the pieces out, tends it with incredible care. Doesn’t even look up. Doesn’t seem to know I’m watching.

Her long waterfall of permanently messy hair, the dark purple birthmark on her throat and cheek, her rotating selection of white-on-white outfits, the irrepressible bounce of mania behind her eyes. I can’t stop watching. Can’t help myself.

Despite all her kind words and her dog-like loyalty, I cannot forget the way she wriggled and writhed beneath me.

She’s backed off that for now, but would she do it again? If I rose from my laptop and threw her down on the sofa, would that break our truce? Or are we already skirmishing over my non-existent masturbation habits? Is she inviting another battle?

Late that second evening she puts on an anime series about animal girls trapped in a vast empty safari park. The animation is terrible, but apparently it’s a zoog favourite. They trickle in from all over Plato Base to swell the audience, hissing along with memorable lines, cheering certain sequences, hiding behind the sofas and chairs during a scary part. Grimgrave invites me to join. After a few episodes, I take the risk, perched awkwardly in an armchair, zoogs around my ankles. Grimgrave laughs and points, glances at me. I manage a smile, but I’m mostly watching her.

We spot Bright once or twice, but she doesn’t talk to us, doesn’t linger. She slinks off, eats meals in her room, shut away in private vigil for her sister.

I keep up a secret vigil of my own, carefully concealed from Grimgrave. One eye on magibooru, waiting for ‘4en4’.

Every hour or two I refresh the pages, check my re-uploads, hoping for a comment. Halfway through that second day somebody files take-down requests on both images; I receive automatic notifications, but the requests cannot be enforced. 4en4 has not posted those illustrations of me to anywhere else, so no ownership can be claimed.

“Nice try, Scarlet,” I murmur to the screen, heart fluttering; perhaps it really is her. “But you’ll have to come closer than that.”

Mid-afternoon on that day, it rains. Big heavy droplets like hammers tap-tap-tap on the concrete roof of Plato Base, great runnels of water sluicing down the mountainside above. Surprised, bewildered, I head to the front entrance and peer out across the Lunar landscape. Vast cloud-banks swirl and roil, the colour of mercury and pearl, flicker-flashing across black skies in stutter-step motion. Raindrops shimmer as they fall, each one a tiny inverted rainbow in black and white.

Grimgrave steps out, opens her mouth to catch the rain. Comes back in with hair and shoulders damp. Finds a towel, makes her hair a bigger mess.

Once the storm has passed, we hear croaking voices on the settled air, speaking no human tongue. Grimgrave says those are the moon-crows we saw earlier, temping prey to the moist surface soil.

Back to work on my arm. I spend most of that second day finalising the outer shell segments, leaving most potential reinforcements for the future; just get the arm back on, I can add a tungsten core later. My own hair gets in the way of work, longer than it should be, by far the strangest side-effect of magical girl-hood, so I tie it up as well, a ponytail I haven’t worn since I was child. The zoogs serve as excellent rubber ducks, good listeners for any plan, any question, any mad idea. They absorb and regurgitate novel words, looking up at me with their beady black eyes and floppy ears going from side to side. Toward the evening I have some of them repeating ‘tensile strength!’ before mock-ambushing each other around my ankles.

I work, I build, I try not to think about the future or anything else. This is not the shape of my life to come, not yet. I am adrift in a liminal space between, only to take shape once I’m whole again. A corpse, sewing herself back together, praying she will come alive once the work is complete.

I focus on my arm, on Factory-Oh when I can’t. And on Grimmy, from the corner of my eye, when I cannot resist.

~~~~~~~

On the morning of the meeting, our divine patron finally wakes up.

Nerys has spent days in that animal bed, with no motion beyond breathing. No food, no water, no apparent bodily functions. But then she is Dream-God, her body isn’t entirely real. She rouses herself in slow stages, snuffling and shuffling, clambering to her paws, peering out of her basket, black muzzle dripping ghostly ooze onto the tabletop, blinking her little obsidian eyes clear of sticky sleep.

She doesn’t speak much, but she does greet me, speaking in her usual slow rasp. “Octavia! Working hard, mmhmm? How very human of you.”

“I should hope so. I’m not entirely zoog-brained, not yet.”

“Haaaaaaa,” she purrs. “You will be.”

“Nerys, what happened to you? Your wounds, this fight you had, who was it with?”

“Later,” she rasps. “Repeating myself is such a bore. And I am still knackered. Later, later.”

The zoogs treat her as a war hero, licking her ragged scars, nibbling her ears, forming a constant honour-guard around her ginger tread. She requests to be placed on the floor, then returned to the table again, then back to the floor, then back to the table, all of which Grimgrave obliges without complaint, so Nerys can go amongst her kind, licking faces and sniffing fur.

“For a species that supposedly hates cats,” I say, “you certainly do act like them sometimes.”

That earns me a hissing rebuke from three dozen zoogs, and an abortive attack on my right ankle, deflected with a frown and a tut. I am forced to raise a hand, mouth an apology I don’t really mean. They are cat-like, like it or not.

About half an hour before the appointed time for the meeting, Tissy sets out late lunch. I spy a hint of glowing blue vanishing behind a pillar, a trail of silken sapphire slipping down a distant passageway; perhaps she’s too curious to sustain perfect stealth. Sandwiches, smoked salmon, a small landslide of sushi, great pitchers of fruit juice, and a fresh pot of coffee to lure me away from the culmination of my work. The biggest pieces of my prosthetic arm are annealing in the dryers. I’ve completed all the wiring, stripped down the damaged parts, everything is ready to be replaced. A few more hours and I’ll be done. But hot coffee and the scent of soy sauce is too sharp a temptation, especially when Grimgrave starts stuffing her face and feeding bits of fish to Nerys. Other zoogs have been summarily banished to the floor, apparently by Tissy, since I didn’t see Grimgrave move them. Nerys no longer requires her honour guard, perfectly capable of plodding up and down by herself.

Grimgrave sits on the edge of the table, apparently allergic to using chairs properly. When I sit nearby, I struggle to keep my eyes off her bare thighs and the way her buttocks pillow against the metal. She’s in white shorts and a tank top today, legs wiggling over the side of the table as she eats.

Bright shuffles into the Big Room a few minutes later. She drags herself past the domesticated corner and slumps down in a chair at the metal table, a nice safe distance from both me and Grimgrave. She stares at the food for a long, long, long moment, in danger of falling asleep, though she does seem a touch less exhausted than during our brief altercation. She glances at me with glacial slowness, half-frown half-squint, blank with easy contempt, as if confused to find me still alive. Then she grunts, drags a plate in front of herself, and starts slowly chewing her way through a sandwich.

“What’s the occasion?” she mutters around a bite.

“The meeting?!” Grimgrave laughs. “Fuck, you didn’t even know? Just came out here ‘cos of the smell, like?”

Bright scowls, then seems to decide the expression isn’t worth the effort. “Tissy left a note. Yeah, meeting, whatever. Signal’s thing.”

At least she’s relatively clean; Bright appears to have showered sometime in the last two days, though it’s a mystery how she didn’t drown herself. The longer side of her hair could do with a proper comb, but it’s not quite so greasy. She still sags in her chair, eyes ringed by dark bags, slow as mud inside her own skin. She’s swapped her clothes out for a pair of black pajama bottoms and a baggy old t-shirt, long sleeves with holes in ragged cuffs.

Why not drag her off and dress her in a big comfy sweater? New socks and a fluffy dressing gown? A hat to keep her head warm? Because she’d bite my other hand off if I tried, no matter how badly she needs it.

Signal appears at precisely five minutes to three, heralded by a quartet of grey-boned moon-skeletons tromping through the main entrance. Camera lens eyes stop and scan. Component-stuffed ribcages bulge with processors and wires and screens. Two skeletons head for Signal’s computer station, plugging themselves in via half a dozen cables. The other two take up station by the door. Signal herself follows, backed by a second quartet of towering grey skeleton-machines. The real Signal, her ‘core’, doesn’t spare even a glance at us, eyes focused somewhere past the walls, ears covered by massive headphones, still wearing the same heavy black hoodie as before, covered in pockets and pouches and sprouting with wires. Her fingers are already flying across the keyboard on the miniature computer strapped to her right arm.

She wanders over to her computer desk, steps out of her big boots, slips into her massive chair. Screens flicker to life before her, hundreds of camera views from inside Plato Base and beyond, dozens of different angles of our faces, of the food on the table, of Nerys, of me, of herself.

One of her escort skeletons squats down to pet some zoogs. Two more detach and come over to the table; one starts loading up a plate with sushi, the other has a rib-mounted screen already aglow with an emote.

(*ΦωΦ*)

“Oh my gosh!” Signal says, voice bouncing and bubbling from skeleton-mounted speakers, Scottish accent firmly in place, motherly warmth tuned just for us. “Everybody’s here, already? I really didn’t expect this, girls. I didn’t! Well done!”

“Heya Siggy-Sigs!” Grimgrave waves a slice of smoked salmon, eating with her fingers. “Tissy’s put on a fucking buffet, yo!”

“I can see, and I’ll be having some of that sushi, for sure. Nerys, good to see you up and about. You too, Octavia, and I’m glad the arm repair is coming along. You’ll have to show me the details, lass. And Bright! You’re actually here. Blow me down with a feather. Thank you, really, I mean it.”

Bright gives Signal a lazy middle finger.

“Signal,” I say, chasing a sip of hot coffee. “I’m using your 3D printers. I hope you don’t mind. There wasn’t exactly a way to ask you.” Except talking to the open air of Plato Base, within sight of your million hidden cameras. But let’s not say that out loud. Let’s all pretend to be human.

One skeleton departs with a plate of food for Signal’s core; the other turns to me with a new emote.

(*^ ‿ <*)♡

“Oh, don’t even mention it, of course I don’t mind, lass,” she says. “If I minded, I could have remotely disabled everything. But no, of course not, you’re more than welcome to use what you need, as long as you don’t touch my main setup. How are the repairs going, anyway? Smoothly, I hope? Found everything you need? I can always source more parts, if there’s anything specific you’re after. Just let me know.”

“It’s … going.” I awkwardly raise my coffee mug. No idea what I’m toasting. “Thank you for the use of your machines. They’re very high quality.”

“Awww, you’re such a sweetheart, Octavia!” Bubble bubble, put your head in mummy’s lap. No thank you, Signal.

“At some point I would like to pick your brains about the skeletons,” I say. “The material used to make them, mostly. Would that be acceptable?”

A moment’s pause. “Of course, of course! I’d be delighted. Not like I get a chance to talk much about it with these two.” A light little giggle, bouncing and tripping from the speakers.

A glance over at the real Signal shows me a slice of her panopticon. My face on one screen, seen from every possible angle, even the back of my head.

You see everything, don’t you, Signal? But not the inside of my mind. Not like Willow.

“So, hey, Siggy!” Grimgrave hops off the table, swaying from side to side, claps her hands in front of the skeleton. “What’s going down, yeah? We gonna blow some shit up? Kidnap some MPs? Take down a magical girl?! What’s this big plan from the Opposition?”

（>﹏<）

“Grimmy, my dear girl, do give me a moment. I’ve had a hell of a time these last few days. And I do want to sample this wonderful looking sushi.”

“Yeah, sure, like, but I wanna hear what we’re gonna explode!”

Nerys waddles down the table, goes up on her hind legs, and sniffs at the moon-skeleton. The chest-mounted screen flickers through a sequence of emotes and numbers to fast for humans to read. Nerys plops back down, peels back her lips with approval, and trundles off again. Grimgrave puffs and pouts, but Nerys offers nothing, so eventually Grimgrave flops into a seat next to me, wiggling her bare legs with impatience.

For a few minutes the Big Room echoes softly to the sounds of eating. I sip my coffee, pick at a sandwich, mentally recalculate how much time is left on the final 3D print jobs. Bright slowly munches through her food, eyes elsewhere, half-slumped in her seat. Grimgrave gets up again, giggles with the zoogs, feeds them stolen sushi. Signal eats at her desk, with a fork, fingers of one hand always on her keyboard, tapping away at high speed. Nerys munches on little titbits of smoked salmon, obsidian eyes heavy with the weight of lingering wounds. She sits herself down next to her basket, watching her magical girls.

Eventually one of Signal’s skeletons walks to the head of the table, a grey-faced machine with dark lenses for eyeballs. The rib-screen on the front lights up.

¯\_ʘᗜʘ_/¯

“Ladies,” Signal says, voice crackling from the speakers. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but our debut in the waking world has been a huge success. We’ve changed everything. The ripples of our reveal are yet to subside. I’m sure some of you have been keeping an eye on the news, but if you haven’t, then you really should. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but Britain is never going to be the same again. The world will never be the same. Millions of people — no, billions of people — watched us duel three of the most famous magical girls in the world, and witnessed Grimgrave shoot a Dreamer—”

“Woo, yeah!” Grimgrave cheers, throws her arms up. “Encore, let her do it again! Let that clown fuckin’ cook!”

Signal’s skeleton inclines a hand toward Grimmy. “We can hope,” she says with a little laugh. “We’ve changed everything, ladies. Where we go from here, that’s up to us, and that’s what I want to talk about today. Though I think something of a debriefing is also in order—”

“Ahhhhhh,” Bright growls. “Shut up.” She straightens in her chair, blinking as if woken from a bad nap. “Signal, what are you doing? Who made you … ” Bright trails off, brow scrunched hard.

“Chairwoman?” I suggest.

Bright scowls at me, then at the skeleton. “Yeah. That. Who made you chairwoman, Signal? If you’re gonna make speeches, then I’m going back to bed.”

The emote vanishes from the skeleton-screen.

“Very well, Bright,” says Signal, with no loss of bounce, no slip into robotic tone. “I yield the floor. It’s yours. Take it away, please, be my guest.” The skeleton gestures wide with one bony hand.

b(￣▽￣*)

Bright stares, squints harder, as if fighting exhaustion. Zoogs over in the domesticated corner begin to hiss with the low rasping chatter of zoog laughter. Bright folds her arms, looks away.

“Yo yo yo!” Grimgrave drums on the edge of the table, pushes her chair back, gets to her feet. “Bright’s kinda got a point, Siggy. What’s this op, hey!? I’m on the edge of my fuckin’ seat here, I’m gonna pop!” She glances at me with a big wink. “If you know what I mean!”

Roll my eyes. Don’t engage. Don’t smile. Difficult.

“Geegee,” Signal says, gentle warning in her voice. “First things first. We’ve got a lot to talk about, haven’t we?”

“Awwww, come on! You told Nerys already! You’re doing this on purpose, like!”

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ

“I most certainly am,” Signal says, a brazen tease in her voice. “And do you know why, my dear Geegee? Because the moment I explain something as exciting as an operation down in Britain, you are going to be bouncing off the walls, and you won’t pay attention to anything else I say. You can learn a little restraint for once. I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

Grimgrave rolls her eyes, slumps her shoulders, lets out the prototypical groan of an impatient teenager. “Uuughhhh. Fiiiiiiiine. Are we there yet?”

“Seems like an odd reason,” I say out loud. A lie, perhaps, though I can’t see why.

“Now, Octavia,” Signal goes right on, ignoring my implied question. “It’s so very good to see you doing better, lass. It’s great that you’re up and around and on the mend. Before we say anything else, I want to formally apologise to you, for missing the dream-parasite in your head.”

A cold shiver brushes the back of my neck. “I … uh … ”

“I missed it,” she goes on. “Nerys missed it.” Nerys lets out a soft little rasp, drags her tail across the metal tabletop. “Despite all our combined expertise. We failed you, Octavia, and because of that we nearly lost you, before we even had a chance to get to know you.”

Bright mutters, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Hey!” Grimgrave slaps the table, blazes at Bright. “Shut the fuck up, drag-on-deeze-nuts! You fuckin’ let her go down there—”

“We all let her go down there,” Signal says, volume up. “We’re all responsible. Nerys included.” Signal drops her volume back to normal. “We misread your behaviour, Octavia. We attributed it to shock, to confusion, to denial. A Dreamer is a powerful thing, and she hid that parasitic control well enough to escape the notice of even a Dream-God. But that’s no real excuse, we shouldn’t have taken your behaviour for granted. Let me extend an apology, from all of us.”

Grimgrave doesn’t need to apologise; she came after me when nobody else did. Nerys did her best to keep me here and keep me safe, even if her methods were incomprehensible. Signal and Bright, you two showed me the door to the scaffold.

“Apology accepted,” I say.

“Thank you,” Signal says. “And it’s good that you’re here now. It’s good to see you up and about. Good you’re with us, lass.”

One lie is enough, the next truth spills from my lips. “What am I supposed to say in response to that? It’s good to be here? Well, it’s not. My life for the last ten years is gone, revealed as a lie. My … best friend was a Dreamer, and I was her pet. Last week I was preparing for university, and now I’m an exile on the moon, living with a bunch of magical girl terrorists and revolutionaries. No offence, seeing as I’m one of you now.”

Grimgrave snorts. Bright looks at me, dull but curious. Signal freezes.

“But,” I add with a sigh. “It’s infinitely better than being a chew toy for a Dreamer. Thank you for fighting for me.” A glance at Bright. “Even you.”

Bright tightens with contempt, looks away.

(´∀｀) “If there’s anything we can do for you in the meantime, to help with your transformation—” Signal starts to say, but I raise my left hand.

“Just let me fix my arm. I can’t think about much else. Not about the future. Not yet.” Except Grimmy, who won’t leave my head.

“I understand completely,” Signal says, her voice oh-so warm and motherly. “There’s just one thing I do need from you, when you’re feeling up to it. I’d like to ask you about that woman you met. Winter, was it? Going by name alone, she’s part of my extended network of informants and sources. She’s on the periphery of the Opposition, but nobody’s ever met her in person before. I only know her through remote contact. I’m very curious to learn what she was doing.”

A shrug. “Okay. Not like I have much to tell you. She was an occultist, that’s about it.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Signal purrs. “For now, we need to—”

“Actually,” I say, “I have a question for you, Signal. For you and Nerys. And it’s more important to me than anything we’re going to talk about at this meeting.”

Grimgrave bounces on the balls of her feet, one hand in the air, then pointing at me. “Oh yeah, shit, yeah! Occy’s got important shit, for real!”

Signal’s skeleton shifts emotes: (•ิ_•ิ)?

I take a long sip from my coffee. Lukewarm now, sliding down my throat like engine oil in sunlight. A moment to brace.

“Willow,” I say her name. “My … the Dreamer. The Dreamer I … ”

“The Lucid Dreamer,” Signal says, so very gently, wrapping me in cotton wool. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about her for the last few days. Asking around my network of contacts, trying to figure out what happened, what we were up against. You must understand, lass, we’ve had plenty of contact with Dreamers, though almost all of them have been embryonic. Almost everything you’ve been taught about Dreamers down on Earth is false. Most of them want nothing more than to leave, to depart for the Dreamlands as soon as they change. We’ve helped plenty of them evade Dream Control—”

“No,” I try to say. “Signal. That’s not what I mean. I mean she was—”

“I know, I know,” Signal carries right on. “A full-blown mature Dreamer still present in the waking world. It shouldn’t be possible. Our debut on the world stage wasn’t the only paradigm shift. From everything we’ve learned, she’s working for Dream Control, for the British Government, somehow, whatever that means. We don’t have enough information to go on yet, but this changes everything, we need a way to deal with her, or find out what she represents, if there’s more like her, if—”

“Nah, not that!” Grimgrave squawks. “Siggy, listen, yo! Listen to Occy!”

“Yes, quite,” I say. “Not that. She … Willow, she … she was … my … ”

“Occy’s psycho bitch ex!” says Grimmy.

(-_-;)・・・ “Ah,” says Signal. “Certainly. How could I be so dense?”

My dark look bounces off Grimgrave’s forehead. She flashes me a grin: aren’t I helping, Occy?

Deep breath, another sip of coffee, a difficult swallow. “My question. Can Willow reach Luna? Can she infiltrate Plato Base? Can she just walk in through the front door? I already asked Grimgrave, but she said she didn’t know, not for sure. Now I’m asking you, Signal. You as well, Nerys. Is Luna proof against a Lucid Dreamer?”

More coffee, left hand shaking ever so slightly. Grip harder, don’t let anybody see. Quick glances at the concrete corridor mouths, but no Willow strides through at the culmination of the question. Very glad I didn’t pick a seat that puts my back toward the main entrance of the Big Room. I will not be ambushed. I will not be caged again.

More coffee. Breathe steady.

Signal goes quiet for a long moment, the emote-screen on her skeleton blinking to empty, though I can hear her fingers flying across her keyboard. Nerys raises her snout and tilts her head to look at me with one glossy black eye.

Bright grunts. “Scared?”

“What do you think?” I hiss. “Of course I’m scared. What an idiotic question.”

“Maybe we should hand you back to her.”

Grimmy explodes, slams both hands on the table, ready to vault up and over and put a foot in Bright’s face. “Fuck your piss-hole, smeg-breath! Don’t even joke about—”

“Joke?” Bright rasps. “Thought jokes were your department, chuckles. Go on. Joke.”

Grimmy braces for a pounce.

I grab a fistful of Grimgrave’s hip, half shorts and half bare skin. She squeaks in surprise, stumbles and rebounds, leap aborted by two of my fingers hooked into her waistband, fabric bunched tight between her thighs. She totters two awkward half-steps back toward me, half-laughing, half-shocked.

My coffee mug has fallen casualty to my quick reaction, toppled over on the table. Dregs form a little dark brown puddle against the metal.

Nobody speaks. Bright stares at me, blank with effortless aggression. Don’t push me again, dragon girl. You want me to kick your knees out from under you a second time? But she doesn’t turn aside or look away, just stares with eyes heavy-lidded by exhaustion, breathing the slow and clotted breaths of a terminal patient, mucus rattling in her throat and lungs.

“If you try that,” I say slowly, “I’ll think of something interesting I can do with your sister. Then I’ll film it and put it on the internet.”

Bright’s stare turns rancid.

“Ahem,” says Signal. “Bright, Geegee, no fighting at the table, please. Let’s not have a repeat of last time. Tissy will be very upset.”

“Who’s fighting?” Bright rasps. “Not me. How about you, chuckles?”

Grimgrave opens her mouth to bark; I squeeze her hip. She jerks, let out a squeak, subsides. Then she grins at Bright. “Yeah, no fighting, Bright!”

Bright drags her eyes from Grimgrave to me, then back again. “You and chuckles, huh? You move on fast, Patience.”

Fully expecting Grimgrave to break from my grip and pull Bright’s face off, I tighten my fingers. But Grimmy just shrinks away, turns aside. I let go. She busies herself petting Nerys.

“To answer your question, lass,” Signal says, emote shifting. (￣～￣;) “Can Willow breach Luna? I’m very sorry to say this, but I don’t know either. I’ve been thinking about that since we returned from the hospital rooftop, and the simple answer is that we just don’t know. Dreamers can visit Luna, that’s true, but the only ones who do so all used to be magical girls, and they come from the deep dream now, none of them are remotely human anymore.” Skeleton-speakers emit a soft sigh. “But Willow Finch, if that is even her real name, is the first confirmed example of a Lucid Dreamer. We need more data. I’m sorry.”

No more coffee. Nothing to grip to contain the shiver in my guts. I pick up the fallen mug and set it right. I’d rather be fixing my arm. Or under my bedsheets, not thinking of Willow.

“Nerys?” I say.

Nerys sways her snout from side to side, dripping black ooze onto the tabletop, each droplet vanishing into nothing. She blinks slowly, squinting beneath Grimgrave’s hands.

“Mmmmmmmm,” she purrs, a low raspy sound in her throat. “A human Dreamer. On Luna? Weak, weak, weak. Up here, in my house, she would be playing by my rules. Weakened.”

Grimgrave lights up. “No shit?”

“Nerys?” Signal says. “You know that for a fact?”

“Mmmmmhmmmm,” Nerys purrs again. She shows her teeth, lips peeling back along her snout. “Luna is no human dream. Never was. Can’t be made one. Luna belongs to Moon Beasts, to slugs beneath the rocks, to zoogs, to me. Our dreams rule here. Interlopers will find it hard to breathe.”

“You’re sure?” I ask.

Nerys grins. She rolls her head, indicating the Big Room, or all of Plato Base. “All mine.”

“So, if she does come after me, she’ll be weakened? How much? By what measure?”

Nerys does a little zoog shrug.

“Great. Thank you for such specificity. Very reassuring.”

Signal clears her throat, a little crackling sound down the speakers. “In my professional opinion — which sometimes doesn’t count for much, I know — if Willow was going to try for Plato Base, she would already have done so. She doesn’t know what she’d find up here, or how many of us there are, or where we spend our time. Remember, lass, magical girls are the one thing that can reliably and consistently combat a Dreamer. She’s vulnerable to us. If she’s not willing to run, we can kill her.”

“Yeah!” Grimgrave says. “Occy, for serious, if she tries shit, we’ll kill her stone fucking dead!”

Bright snorts. “Dream trash.”

Can’t quite bring a thank you to my lips, since none of this makes anything better. But I dip my head, bare acknowledgement best I can do. Slip my left hand into the pocket of my robe, check that Grimgrave’s gun is still there, solid, real, and loaded.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I say. “Until I can transform.”

Signal’s emote changes again: <(￣︶￣)> “And that is one of the many things we need to discuss. Right then, ladies, if we’re all done with the preliminaries—”

Grimgrave vaults up onto the table, followed by her mane of hair, white socks on bare metal. Puffs out her chest, thumps her breastbone with a fist, then throws it up high.

“I’ve got an announcement!”

Signal’s skeleton eye-lenses swivel to me; I reply with a shrug, as lost as anybody. Nerys peers up, curious and quiet. Bright just blinks.

Grimgrave sweeps one hand wide, indicates me. “Last time we was all here, I told you all that Occy, she ain’t no homo-sex-you-al! Well guess what?! I fuckin’ lied, whoops!”

My face turns to ice, then hot as molten iron. My teeth creak. Sweat on my brow, a shiver in my throat. My right fist, a phantom sensation against my prosthetic thigh, tightens so hard I feel ghostly nails dig into long-dead skin.

“See, I was wrong, right!?” Grimgrave grins wide, lost to total mania, catching every eye, even the zoogs. “Occy here, she’s just like us. She’s one of us! She’s gay as all fuck!”

Grimgrave ends on a cheer. Nobody joins in. Even the zoogs know better; perhaps they can sense the pressure vessel of my rage.

Bright stares, empty faced, uncaring. Nerys lets out a soft rasp, tail slithering back and forth against the metal. Signal shifts her emote: X_X “Geegee,” she says with a sigh. “First, get down off the table. Second, I think you’re going to have to apologise for—”

But then I’m on my feet. Not sure how I got there. Breath pounds in and out of my lungs like a bellows. Electricity crackles up my phantom limb, cramp and tension spreading outward from my stump, up my neck, into the side of my chest, reaching for my heart, tendrils of heat in my head, my brains, behind my eyes, pulsing hot as molten iron.

“Must you!?” I hiss, teeth clenched. “Must you do this, you—” Patience. “I thought you understood. I thought we— you and I—”

Grimgrave rounds on me, face split in utter delight. “Yo, Occy, hey, I told you, this is how I am!”

A furnace at breaking point in my chest, with nowhere to pour the molten slag. Fires pushing inside my phantom arm, burning and aching and twitching in my stump.

How could she? Tears of rage and humiliation spring into the corners of my eyes. After everything we shared, after I trusted her, she resorts back to this same base mockery.

So easy to forget what Grimgrave is.

“And it’s true, ain’t it?” Grimgrave says, no guile in her face, nothing but genuine joy. “Ain’t no fuckin’ joke! You’re a big fat bitch dyke with the rest of us, yo! Chin up high, eyes front, all that shit! I ain’t mocking you, Occy! One of us!” She starts to stamp, thumping her chest in time with the beat. “One! Of! Us! One! Of Us!”

Grimgrave is on my side. She isn’t lying. Just insufferable.

The worst of true rage — the wounded pride, the need for respect or fear or worse — subsides in a few deep breaths. Grimmy is just being Grimmy; I knew she was like this, what did I expect? And she is telling the truth. I am a lesbian, we all know it, we’re all the same, up here in our grand and desolate exile. She isn’t mocking; in her own bizarre way, this is congratulatory celebration.

But I’m still incandescent, at least on the surface. I wish she would not do this.

“Get down,” I hiss.

Grimmy sticks out her tongue. “Make me!”

Deep breath. Do not rise to that taunt, because once you start you won’t stop. Grimmy does not know what she asks for, to be pulled off the table by force and shoved to the ground, my hand around her cunt to make her behave. Angry flush turns to hidden blush, because I cannot think these thoughts, I cannot discipline Grimgrave, or we will fly past every boundary and off the edge of the waking world.

“When I have my arm back,” I say, though I shouldn’t, “I will … I … ”

Grimgrave flicks her hips out to one side and slaps her own right buttock. “Spank me? Punish me for being a bad girl?! All I’m doing is telling the truth, Occy!”

Wrestle you into submission and finish what we started.

“Perhaps,” I say, “I’ll put a leash on you.”

Grimmy goes wide-eyed, wide-mouthed, grinning with shock and delight. I stay stone-faced, force myself to sit. Should not have said that, should not have given in. I will ruin and destroy her if she lets me, or else she will break down whatever remains of the old Octavia Carter in a furnace that I cannot hope to control.

“Down, off the table,” I repeat. My voice should shake, but it doesn’t. “We’re already drifting miles off the original purpose for this meeting, and I want to get back to repairing my arm. Grimmy, down. Now.”

Grimgrave cackles. “Occy, Occy, yo! You gotta warn me next time before you—”

“Down!” I snap.

Not too hard, not gentle either. Heart racing in my chest, pulse pounding in my throat. What am I doing? What has come over me?

To my utter amazement, Grimgrave obeys. She laughs again, then hops down off the side of the table, right next to me. Biting her bottom lip, eyes aglow, looking like she wants to throw her arms around me.

“ … what?” I say.

“Nooooothing,” she croons. “Nuthin’! Just, you know. If you’re gonna start it, you gotta finish it, yo! Leaving me waiting. Come ooonnnn.”

A frown, dark and craggy, is all I can muster. My strange courage is all dribbled away, afraid of what she might mean. “Stop it. That’s enough.”

“Pfffffffffft.” Grimgrave pouts and shrugs and turns away, as if I’ve somehow disappointed her.

“Huh.” Bright grunts. “She’s got you whipped, chuckles.”

Bright, however, is not totally immune to my stare. She stares back again, neither of us crack, but she is at least forced to respond. Right back where we started.

“My girrrrrrrls,” Nerys rasps, ending with a tried huff, a little zoog noise of satisfaction. “You’re all perfect. You know that, don’t you?”

Bright wrinkles her nose at Nerys. I sigh, shaking my head. Grimgrave cracks a big shit-eating grin, bumps her hips against the back of my chair, springs away beyond range of retaliation. Signal changes her emote: LL_LL

“Right,” Signal says, voice bouncing with false lightness. Her emote switches again. (￣□￣」) “If we’ve quite finished marking our territory and establishing our boundaries? Yes? All done? Thank you. Because we have quite the agenda to get through, ladies. And I’m sure Octavia here has plenty of questions.”

Signal’s right. From my own half-finished transformation to the nature of Nerys’ wounds, from the limits of the Lunar Revolutionaries to the uncertain shape of our future plans; though I do not know what I will do with the answers to those questions. What am I trying to rebuild, up here on the moon, beyond my own right arm?

“Anyway,” Signal says before I can speak. “I’ve organised it for us, to make things easier.”

The big central ribcage-mounted screen on the skeleton at the head of the table flickers into lines of tight-typed black in tiny print. A bullet-pointed list. A literal agenda. Too small to read.

Bright groans, rolls her eyes, sags further in her seat. “Fuck’s sake, Signal.”

Grimgrave laughs. “Awww, come on! You can’t be serious, Siggy!”

The constant sound of Signal’s typing briefly pauses. The skeleton-speakers say, somewhat more robotic: “Logistics and bureaucracy are important. You all know that. If we’re not all on the same page then we’re going to trip over each other’s feet. Geegee, you especially do not have room to complain, not after going off on your own and bombing a crowd by accident. This is necessary.”

“We’re not like, fuckin, I dunno, in a boardroom!” Grimmy howls with laughter. “Gotta put on suits, get some line graphs!? I can’t fuckin’ believe it, you’ve done it again!”

“She’s done this before?” I murmur. Bright sighs, nods.

“But there’s so much to cover!” Signal snaps, voice a robotic blur. “Everything that happened last week, the implications, the Trio, Octavia’s transformation, all of it. How can we hope to—”

Grimgrave throws her hands in the air. “You told us the Opposition are gonna do some heavy shit! Don’t use it as fuckin’ bait to make us sit through a powerpoint!”

“Yeah,” Bright grunts. “Signal, just tell us. What are we blowing up?”

“And this is gonna be the first time we do shit after our big debut!” Grimgrave goes on. “I’m hype, I’m horned up, I’m ready to rock and roll! Come on, Siggy! Come on!”

Signal’s emote changes: (⇀‸↼‶) “Octavia requires—”

“The things I require,” I interrupt, “are beyond us. Signal, I want to know what this plan is as well. My concerns about the future are only getting worse. We can talk about the rest anytime. And I’d rather not sit through hours of a meeting when I could be repairing my arm.”

“Yeah!” Grimgrave shouts. She starts slapping the table, in time with her words. “Tell us the plan! Tell us the plan! Tell us the plan!”

Bright raises one lazy fist and joins in, thumping the tabletop. Half a dozen zoogs start stamping and stomping, the wave spreading outward. I raise my prosthetic heel and clack it against the floor, but we let Grimmy do the shouting.

“Plan! Plan! Plan! Plan!”

ヽ༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽ﾉ

“Oh for crying out fucking loud!” Signal shouts. “Fine! Have it your way, we’ll skip to the end. But don’t any of you three dare come crying to me if you get confused later. For pity’s sake, you’re all as bad as each other. Octavia, I expected better of you. Geegee’s a bad influence.”

“Yaaaaaay!” Grimgrave punches the air. “Love you too, Siggy!” She blows air-kisses. “Mwah, mwah!”

“I just want to get back to repairing my arm,” I say. “No offence meant.”

Signal lets out a crackly noise, some kind of grumble. “Alright. Fine. Now, pay attention.”

The central screen on the skeleton’s chest flickers black. The bullet-pointed agenda vanishes, replaced by a high-quality satellite picture — an irregular lump of round-ish island surrounded by deep blue sea. Mottled dark, brown and rocky, patches of green spreading like hardy mould. In the east centre of the island a series of grey rectangles have been stamped across the landscape, wired together by ribbons of road.

“This is the Isle of Rum,” Signal says. “In the Inner Hebrides. I’m not being uncharitable when I doubt you three have ever heard of it.”

Nerys rasps, “I have.”

“To be expected,” Signal says. “Thank you, Nerys.”

The satellite image flickers out, replaced by a closer shot of the structures.

Asphalt lakes, squat blocky buildings in dark concrete, concentric squares and rectangles of razor-wire and high walls and armoured checkpoints. Bunkers bristle with anti-aircraft equipment and protected radar domes.

“This,” Signal explains. “Is an I&O facility, believe it or not.”

“Bit much for one of those,” Bright mutters, her eyes a focused squint.

“Yeah, shit,” Grimgrave says. “What the fuck? That’s a lot for a prison, ain’t it? Fucking missiles and shit? Never heard of an I&O up there. Have I?”

“You wouldn’t have, it’s secret,” Signal says. “This is I&O Facility Seventeen. They don’t give it a name, just as extra precaution. That’s why it’s built on an island. Harder to escape.”

Bright sits up, draws a deep breath, blinks hard. “This is more than just an I&O breakout job, right?”

“Correct,” Signal says. “I&O Seventeen is some kind of research site. They’ve got Dream Institute people working in there. Only three hundred inmates, but each one is contained inside a specialised cell. Leading theories are they’ve got mature Dreamers imprisoned, or perhaps Dreamers who they feel they can use somehow, ones Dream Control didn’t execute. We know for a fact they’re performing experiments on the inmates, we’ve got images and footage smuggled out, but it’s doubtful that’ll cause much reaction. These are Dreamers, after all, or close to it. Hard to make the public care.”

“We?” I echo. “Who is we? Theories from who?”

“The Opposition,” Signal says. “They’ve been working this place for a while. They’ve got about half a dozen moles on the inside, and two of the facility directors compromised, one with blackmail, the other with a member of his family held hostage.”

“Hostage? The Opposition do that? You do that? We do that?”

Bright growls, deep down in her throat, a little taste of the dragon beneath her surface. “Better than they deserve,” she says. “Whole place should be burned to the ground. Signal, tell me we’re gonna burn it.”

“Not right away,” Signal says. The satellite image fills with arrows and notes and angles of movement. “The Opposition are going to hit I&O Facility Seventeen three months from today, on November 21st. They still have people and equipment to get into place. This is the biggest operation they’ve ever planned, and they intend it as their declaration of war. No more passive resistance, not after we lot revealed ourselves to the world. They’re going to crack that place open to free the inmates, and then deal with the people responsible. Probably field executions. They think they can get in and out in under four hours, and they’ve got ways to disrupt the response.”

My stomach goes cold. Field executions?

“They want us to deal with the Dreamers,” Bright drawls. “In case any of them bite.”

“Not quite,” Signal says. “The Opposition’s plan is solid, I helped with the details. They’re confident they can pull this off before the government responds. You are right, they need us on hand to deal with any Dreamers who might be … well, you know, complicated, you know what I mean. But they need us for something else first, otherwise none of this can go ahead.”

The picture shifts again — a grainy image of concrete and metal under fluorescent lights, heavy shadows in the background, cramped quarters, buttons and switches and glowing panels deep in the belly of some dark and horrible place.

“Before they can launch the raid,” Signal explains. “They need us to disable this, it’s the facility’s failsafe.”

“Eh?” Grimgrave tilts her head one way, then the other. “Fuck is it?”

“This,” Signal says with great care, “is a nuclear warhead.”

A beat of silence; then everybody starts shouting.

Grimgrave with wild laughter, Bright with an incredulous, difficult, effortful frown. Even Nerys, lips peeled and eyes wide, incensed in some obscure Dream-God way. Several dozen zoogs all a-chatter at once. Signal with the volume up, pleading for quiet so she can explain, please, everybody, just shut up, let me explain.

All except me.

Because I realise, with cold disappointment I had never anticipated, that whatever madness we are preparing to commit, there is no we.

A daring raid, an I&O secret research lab, the Opposition unmasked and unleashed, and now a live nuclear weapon to be disarmed or displaced by powers beyond the mundane. But without my transformation, I will not be going, I will not be assisting, I will be worse than useless. My place is here, huddled in lunar exile, hiding from Willow, from Dream Control, from England, from all the horrors of the waking world. My place is to shiver in crippled exhaustion, having crawled only inches beyond the bars of my broken cage.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

A magical meeting for magical girls to come up with magical solutions to magical problems; nuclear bombs count as a kind of magic, right?

There’s a surprisingly large amount of stuff going on in this here chapter, from Octavia settling into Plato Base, to Grimgrave proving she is genuinely just that insufferable even when she’s your friend. Bright is unhappy, her default state, but at least Signal is helping??? For a given value of help.

Anyway! Two more chapters until the end of arc 4. Storms (nuclear firestorms?!) a-brewing on the horizon? Or is Octavia just going to be left home while the real magical girls do all the work? I don’t think she’ll settle for that, no way.

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! Thank you so much for being here and reading my little story, dear readers. It is a delight to know that so many readers are enjoying this ride, with these lunatic girls and their strange scrungly patron. Thank you for all your support; Maidens is for you!

Next chapter, it’s time to discuss the benefits of atomic power.

Content Warnings

Grief
Discussion of cannibalism
Discussion of dead children
Internalised homophobia

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Plato Base is a baroque and broken labyrinth, haunted by dream-bound ghosts.

Concrete corridors branch and blunder, tumbling together in belligerent junctions before wandering drunkenly apart. Passages and hallways radiate outward from brief scuffles, plunging back into the petrified guts of the moon. Bare concrete stairwells invite curious feet up toward the roof, or threaten descent into the depths of the rock below, lined with naked steel steps and rusty handrails. Lights in the ceilings cast a cold and distracted glow, dimmed in many places, failed completely in others. Footsteps echo, tripping and tapping down side-passages and through empty vaults, soaked up by shadow-saturated corners; occasional replies scrape and skitter upward from the lower levels, furtive half-heard illusions, nothing more than mistaken moon-wind.

Doors and archways and access points stand open, rooms like old abscesses long drained of foul taint: dormitories and workshops and laboratories and meeting rooms and command bunkers and other places of which I catch only the briefest glimpse. Most were ransacked long ago. Some have been intentionally, rightfully, thoroughly desecrated. A few stand almost untouched. All bear the scars of certain symbols removed, idols cast down, rough patches in concrete where hammer and claw smashed apart the hooked cross.

Gold remains all over the place, both solid and leaf. Door handles and decorations, light fixtures and lampshades, scroll-work on chair backs, inset into tabletops. The people who built this place loved gold, but couldn’t take it with them. The ones who put them down had no use for it, so here it remains, glittering in the dark.

I had not appreciated, from the busy outpost of our domesticated corner in the Big Room, or the repurposed concrete cells of the bedrooms, just how wide and deep this ruin rambles. And this is only one floor.

Plato Base plays tricks on the mind, though not with ill intention.

When measured by the eye, every line pretends to obey the ruler of the mind, every angle a sensible and upright ninety degrees; but time and dreams do not obey our rules, so though every angle is right, any given crossroads has five, six, seven exits, a hallway never moves aside yet one cannot see the end, a corner is turned but a glance over the shoulder shows only a straight route back.

But there is no dreamlike inability to recall one’s path, no repeating rooms or endless corridors, no sudden dead ends. No pitfalls into the black.

I am not lost. Just over-matched.

More importantly, my escort isn’t bothered. The sextet of zoogs don’t seem upset by the journey, only by the prospect of our destination. They trundle along with unerring little paws, sparing not a glance for how the corridors misbehave, leading me straight to Grimgrave.

Scars mark every corner in this wing of Plato Base — the western side of the structure, if my sense of direction and moon geography are in agreement. Old wounds, inflicted during the last stand of the human monsters who built this place. Shattered blast doors, metal melted and twisted aside. Bullet holes pockmark many corners, some only a few, others chewed ragged, concrete crumbly beneath my fingertips. Cracked floor segments, soot-like blossoms, perhaps from blast damage. We pass several sections of roughly demolished wall, where something giant once smashed or strode straight through the concrete, crashing from room to room and out into the corridor; stubs of rebar hang exposed, buckled from massive pressure. Dark reddish stains lurk on many floors in both rooms and hallway, faded with the decades.

One of the largest rooms we pass — perhaps once a command centre, tables and machines around the circular perimeter, unreadable scraps of map pinned to the widest wall, a stepped depression in the middle — now hosts a great cairn. Moon rocks piled high and wide, topped by a ring of grey-white alien skulls. Strange markings loop and coil in concentric circles at the base of the stone pyramid, painted with greasy black ash, small smooth rocks placed at precise junctions, a ball of twisted metal scrunched up at the core.

The whole thing radiates untouchable dignity, even across the chasm of language and species and dream. A Moon Beast cenotaph.

Several other rooms are dominated by written graffiti on the walls, black and angular, sharp and curling, some chipped into the concrete surfaces. A language I cannot read, but I do recognise, from images and video illegal in England. Ghoul tongue, written with claw marks. Less gravity than the tomb of the unknown Moon Beast, but perhaps only because I cannot read the tale.

Finally I understand why the bedrooms and the domesticated corner are clustered so close to the main entrance of Plato Base. Cleared out, made safe, but never truly reclaimed.

The journey itself isn’t long, a few minutes easy walk through empty corridors, dense with scar tissue and war graves. Strange to walk so far on my naked right foot, steel clicking against concrete floor with each step. But it is somehow fitting, like this is the place my prosthetic limbs were always meant to traverse. My empty right sleeve flaps about too much, so I fold it inside, tuck it into my waistband.

As we draw close to our destination my escort of zoogs grow visibly nervous. They start to peek around each corner, hanging back behind my heels, winding their tails together, little claws clutching for each other’s fur. Unbothered by the strange noises earlier, the pools of deep shadow, the old bloodstains, but approaching the end makes them skittish and snapping, baring their teeth, not happy to go first.

I take over, step ahead, indicate our options. “This way? Or that way? Just nod, it’s fine.”

For the final two dozen feet I lead the way best I can, past a knot of two junctions and through an open pair of double doors, zoogs pattering along just behind.

We emerge into a chamber that was once some kind of machine shop, the scent of oil and grease still hanging in the air, engine pits set into the floor, buckets of tools left to gather dust, shelves crammed with spare parts, some of them overturned long ago. A massive pair of garage doors stands on the opposite side of the space, chained shut from the inside. I cross to a tiny access door alongside, propped open with crowbar, hinges rusted solid.

Grey concrete and dark skies loom beyond; fingers of moon-wind hesitate at the threshold.

The zoogs hang back, squabbling amongst themselves with little hush-hush hisses.

“You have no obligation to follow me out there,” I tell them. “Not if you don’t want to. You’re free to go back to the Big Room. You owe me nothing, do you understand that?”

They’re not really listening, focused on pushing and shoving and nipping at each other, beady dark eyes rolling with fear. But then they settle into a tightly-squeezed pack, snouts upturned, all eyes on me.

“Is it dangerous out there?” I ask. “For you, I mean.”

“Noooo,” one of them rasps. “No danger.”

“Is it dangerous for you to stay here alone?”

They share glances, scrunched noses, the zoog equivalent of a frown. “No no no,” one of them rasps. “No. Zoog big scary. Nothing fuck with us. Not with Nerys!”

A little chorus goes up. “Nerys! Nerys!” They do adore their goddess. But they don’t step any closer to the door. “Nerys!”

I try not to sigh, try to be patient. They are zoogs, they are very small, and they are trying their best.

“Well,” I say, gesturing at the little door to the outside of the base. “I’m going on ahead. You can go back if you want. Or wait here, if you want me to escort you back—”

“Grims!” one of them rasps. That sets off another chorus of chitter-chattering. “Grimmy!” “Grimsgrimsgrims!” “Gravegrims grim!” “Grimmygrave!”

“Okay, okay.” A sigh, count to five. “Okay, just … follow if you want, then? I’ll … protect you. If there’s anything to protect you from.” That sets off more hissing, wordless complaints. “Okay, fine, no protecting then. Just … come on.”

The whole zoog-mass moves forward as one, following as I turn and duck through the open doorway, stepping out beneath Luna’s inscrutable skies.

A semi-exterior courtyard, bracketed on two sides by high concrete walls, on the other two by deep excavations chiselled into the nameless mountain of the Montes Alpes. Above broods a dark and starless void, the Lunar sky. Sunlight dapples and dances across the silvery black vegetation on the mountainside, rustling and swaying in distant overhead winds, reduced to a mere whisper down here behind the concrete walls. Earth is not visible, lost over the horizon.

Left — a pair of massive metal doors stand rusted permanently open, watched over by empty guard towers and machine-gun posts; right — a series of massive tunnel-mouths burrow beneath the mountain, presumably leading to the lower levels of Plato Base, perhaps deep vehicle storage. The courtyard floor is wide enough for a tank regiment. Rusted-out hulks stand slumped in disorderly rows, barrels worn down to stubs, tracks collapsed, any rubber long since rotted to nothing.

A brief pang of sorrow stirs in my chest, grief for the poor machines. Still just barely recognisable as the tanks they once were, far beyond any restoration work.

Then I remind myself who built them, for what purpose. Perhaps it is better that they rusted. A few museum-piece Panzers are enough.

On the far side of the courtyard huge chunks of concrete floor have been ripped up and piled to one side, to expose a wide section of lunar soil, covered with low vegetation, dotted with gravestones.

Grimmy squats before the graves, a vague white smudge embowered by grey concrete.

Relief floods me, so strong I let out a sudden breath, almost stumble, left knee gone weak. Absurd, what was I worried about? That Grimgrave would be gone, that she would be hurt? I’ve known her a few days at most, and we’re hardly inseparable intimates.

But then I glance over my shoulder, though I’m not sure why. Past the zoogs now navigating the threshold, joining me outdoors, and into the machine shop, the far doors still open, the concrete of Plato Base quiet and still beyond. Shadows in the corridors. Old scars buried deep.

I’m — afraid? Of what?

“It’s nothing,” I hiss. The zoogs gather around my ankles, pressing close to my left leg, peering across the courtyard, lips peeled back. “Stop being ridiculous.”

Focus on solid things. Grimgrave. Grimmy.

Runnels of moon-wind rustle down the mountainside to tug at the tips of her hair, drawing loose strands away from the white of her hoodie, slim shoulders a tiny bulwark against the endless grey concrete. She is facing away from me, into the makeshift graveyard, distant, isolated, unaware.

Black skies, grey soil, lonely graves. Perhaps I shouldn’t be here, interrupting her privacy. No great leap of logic is required to understand what she’s doing, who she might be mourning. Polite feet would turn back, pretend they did not see. A nice young woman would avert her eyes, say nothing, accept that certain things are not mentioned out loud, some sorrows must be private, contained, untold.

But I want Grimgrave to come back indoors, out of the wind, away from this monolithic landscape of grey concrete and silver-black mountainsides and starless dark skies, no matter how beautiful it might be out here. She should not be dwarfed by any setting, not reduced to squatting in silence and staring at gravestones. She should be back in the warm with the zoogs, laughing and eating and playing.

Plus, I don’t want to go back by myself.

Pure selfishness. I’m not a nice young woman, never was. Murderer, dream terrorist, renegade magical girl. I cup my left hand to my mouth; don’t want to surprise Grimgrave by sneaking up on her.

“Grimmy!” I call, voice echoing out over the concrete, lost in the rustle of lunar vegetation, snatched away on the wind.

Grimgrave starts, twists to look over her shoulder, stands up and stares. Tiny face, eyes wide, mouth open in surprise, one arm sweeping aside her waterfall of hair. I raise a hand, wave; may I approach, or will you bite? You have every right to bite down until I retreat; you probably should, you should drive me off, because I do not fully understand why I am doing this, you are not safe around me, not safe to let me back in. I am a wolf and you are a lamb, turn your shoulder and tell me to go fuck myself.

Grimgrave waves back. “Heeeeeeyyyyyy! Occyyyyyyy! Come on over here!”

Across the courtyard I go, between two rows of rusted hulks, out onto clear concrete. My left foot grows a touch cold through the sock; my prosthetic foot clicks time on the hard ground. The zoogs stick close to my heels, hissing to each other, words too soft to make out. Grimgrave bounces on the spot, breaks into a grin as I approach.

“Hey hey hey, Occy! Didn’t expect you out here, yo!” She waves both hands at the zoogs, fingers spread. “Guys, guys, you didn’t have to come!” She laughs, then back to me. “Occy, hey, sorry! I like, lost track of time, you—” Her grin vanishes, eyes go wide, mouth falls open. “What happened to your face?!”

I stop a few feet from graveyard’s edge, alongside Grimmy.

“My face?”

“Yeah!” She points. “The great big fuckin’ shiner on your cheek!”

“Oh, that.” I touch the stiffening bruise on my left cheek, work my jaw, probe the pain. A slow and steady throbbing. Background noise, like all the other pains in my life. “Bright punched me.”

“What!?” Grimgrave yells, the concrete courtyard acting like a funnel, her shout at lunar escape velocity. “Fuck!” She hops to one side, looks past me, back across the courtyard, as if expecting Bright in hot pursuit. “I’ll knock her shit-packed guts out, I’ll fuck—”

Raise my left hand. “Don’t.”

“But—”

“Grimmy, it’s fine. I handled it. Handled her. Whichever. She’s not behind me or something. Nobody is behind me.”

Grimgrave boggles. Glances at the door again. Looks lost. “Eh?”

I had wanted to avoid tiresome repetition. But I do what I must, fill Grimgrave in on my little altercation with Burning Bright. I leave out the details of our conversation, especially the parts about Scarlet Edge.

Grimgrave’s boggling squint worsens. She tempts me to put my left hand directly over her face and command her to stop.

“You put her to bed?” she asks, incredulous and amazed when I finish. “You put fuckin’ Burning Bright to bed, tucked her in, all that shit?”

“‘All that shit’,” I echo. Rather satisfying.

“Fuck,” Grimgrave mutters. “And she didn’t like, transform or nothing? You’re sure she was like … I dunno … not like a doppelganger or a mimic or something?”

Frown, hard. “Can that happen?”

Grimgrave shrugs, flapping both arms out to her sides. “Fuck knows, search me! S’not like Bright at all. Shit, maybe it’s all that stuff with her sister, like? Maybe it really took it out of her, and she’s all messed up?”

“That would be the obvious cause. Whatever the reason, I’m glad she didn’t disembowel me or roast me alive. We did have a nice little chat, in the end, after getting off on the wrong foot.”

“Nice little chat!” Grimgrave laughs. “Hey, maybe she’s finally getting on board with all the teamwork stuff, like!”

“Mm.” Probably not.

The makeshift cemetery is separated into two distinct sections. On the left I count thirty six graves, all tiny plots, too small even for infants. No names, no dates, each one marked by a single upright stick of concrete rooted deep in gritty grey soil. Lunar vegetation blankets the spaces between the graves with pale silver mosses and tufts of hardy blackish grass; the graves themselves blossom with lunar flowers, great heavy drooping bells of argent gleam, shimmering silver cups open to the skies, glossy and healthy with new life. All except one, right at the front, with freshly turned grey soil.

On the right the graves are sized for full-grown human beings. Same flowers, same spread of lunar mosses, but capped by proper headstones, roughly cut from chunks of raw concrete. Names, dates, scored deep into the surfaces with inexpert hands. Twenty one graves, none new.

“Serious though,” Grimgrave says. “Soz, for like, leaving you alone. Didn’t think shit would happen!” She squats down, scoops up one of the zoogs; they’re all staring at the tiny graves, caught halfway between fascination and mortal terror. “And guyyssssss,” Grimgrave complains at the one in her arms as she straightens back up, hugging it to her chest. “You shouldn’t have come, yo! You know it’s not good, yeah?”

The zoog in her arms twists this way and that, hissing and rasping. “Grimmy graves grim-grim graves grim!”

She croons and cuddles it, until finally it settles down against her shoulder.

“They were concerned about you, I think,” I say. “They insisted on escorting me, though I told them they didn’t need to. I hope this isn’t a problem.”

“Concerned?” Grimgrave squints up at me, her grin half-false. “Pffffft, nothing to worry about like, just lost track of time!”

Grimgrave doesn’t look like she’s been crying in secret. Clear eyes, no flush in her face, no need to sniff back the aftermath of tears. But an undeniable melancholy lurks behind the green of her eyes, too much for the grin to conceal. My first instinct was correct; she should be indoors, with her zoogs, not out here by herself, brooding over the dead, whoever they were.

“Occy?” Grimmy tilts her head. “Occyyyyy, heeeeyyyyyy?”

“Sorry?”

She bobs her head from side to side, breaks into a fresh grin. “You hypnotised? Or am I just that fuckin’ pretty?”

“Grimgrave, are you … ”

‘Are you okay?’ What a futile question. What meaningless pablum. How would I react to that? I have not been okay for ten years. I will never be okay again. A shrug and a cold shoulder. A smile and a nod. A total lack of comprehension.

Grimmy raises her eyebrows, waits for me to finish, nodding along as if I’m an animal learning to speak.

“So,” I say instead, a poor recovery after an obvious fumble. “Plato Base has a graveyard. I assume the small plots are for zoogs?”

Grimgrave’s grin passes behind dark clouds. She lets out a big breath, cuddles the zoog tighter in her arms, buries her nose in its fur for a long moment. Trickles of moon-wind drag at her hair, catch on the hem of my robe.

“Yeah,” Grimmy says eventually, staring at the little graves. “I didn’t start it myself. There was a few when I got here. But I thought … like … it’s just better, you know? Better than leaving them to rot.”

The zoog in her arms is so wide-eyed it looks drugged. The ones around her ankles hiss and chatter, fixated on the graves.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I say. “I count thirty six? But there’s what, two hundred zoogs in Plato Base? I was under the impression they’ve been here a long time. Shouldn’t there be more … ”

Grimgrave turns big bright eyes toward me, mildly surprised.

“What?” I say, try not to sigh. “What now?”

“Occy, zoogs eat their dead.”

My face goes cold.

“ … what?”

“They eat their dead. Like, ninety nine times out of a hundred. But they’ve got like, a really really good sense of smell for sickness and stuff. If a zoog dies too sick to eat, they don’t know what to do with the body, ‘cos they can’t eat it, right? And if a zoog dies, like, alone, you know? Down there, on earth, in a gutter or some shit, nobody to care. Then it rots for a day or two, and then they can’t eat it either.” She nods at the rows of little graves. “That’s what this is for. Zoogs who ain’t got proper burial, not like they’re supposed to.”

My mind catches like a skipping record. “They … they eat their own dead? Zoogs eat their own dead? They eat their dead?”

Grimgrave straightens, tilts her head up, eyes gone wide. I almost step back, like she’s squaring up.

“Don’t!” she snaps. “Don’t be fuckin’ rude about it, hey!”

Raise my hand, half-surrender. “Grimgrave! You cannot tell me that zoogs practice funerary endocannibalism and not expect me to freak out a little! Give me a moment, bloody hell!”

But she doesn’t give. “There’s nothing wrong with it! And it’s their dead, it’s respect, yeah? It’s not like they pick off their own weak and wounded. Not like we fuckin’ humans do!”

The zoogs are all staring at me too. One gently gums at my left ankle. I gesture at them, address them. “Ladies, gentlemen,” absurd, but I can’t think of anything faster, “it’s not your fault, I’m not angry at you, not— not disgusted.”

“Yeah!” Grimgrave snaps. “You better fuckin’ not be!”

“Grimmy. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

That was easy.

Grimgrave pauses, then shrugs and smiles, transgression forgiven instantly. Her anger is like lightning, gone in a flash.

“S’cool, no worries,” she says. “Just like, it’s a respect thing for them, you know? S’what they evolved to do.”

Force a smile in return; Grimgrave eyes my grimace with vague suspicion, so I give up.

“What about … ” Clear my throat. “I mean this with the greatest respect, but what about diseases? Shouldn’t they be riddled with prions?”

“They’re from the Dreamlands, duh! Ain’t gotta worry about that. I don’t even think they have like, DNA. You got DNA, little fella? Hmm?” Grimgrave wobbles the zoog in her arms; he rasps and wiggles and thwaps his tail about, which makes Grimgrave laugh and boop his snout. “Nah, no DNA in you!”

“Deeany!” he rasps.

“Lucky for them,” I say.

A step back from Grimmy, a step to one side, the better to cast my eyes over the graves. The other zoogs detach from my ankles and cluster behind Grimgrave instead, sheltering in the lee of her legs, staring past her at the graves of their own fallen. Grimgrave puts the sixth zoog down among his friends, then ruffles heads and strokes backs and scratches behind ears. She makes a gentle shooing motion; the zoogs turn away with slow, morbid reluctance, little black eyes drawn to the graves as if by magnets, like children passing a terrible car accident, uncertain if they should cry or not. But eventually they shuffle off, crossing the courtyard, furry little rumps trundling between the rows of rusted machines, vanishing through the door, back inside Plato Base.

The fortress towers against the black lunar sky, only the tips of antennas and dishes visible from so close, whistling faintly as wind catches metal.

Grimgrave puffs out a long sigh, shoots me an awkward grimace. “S’not good for them to see this, like. At least, not the younger ones. Dead zoogs under the ground, it freaks them out bad style. I keep thinking, shit, maybe I should cremate them or something, I dunno. But I brought that up once and they hated it even worse.”

“Do they have … ” I feel stupid, asking this. “Religious beliefs? About death and burial?”

Grimgrave snorts. “Nah, not exactly. Hey, you should meet a ghoul sometime, they’ve got religion, they’ve got it bad, and it’s weird as shit. You think zoogs eating their dead is freaky, ghouls eat everybodys’ dead.”

“I’d rather not,” I mutter. Meeting a ghoul, face-to-face, for long enough to converse? I may be a dream-terrorist hiding on the moon, but that idea sends a shiver up my spine. I turn back to the graves, gesture at the larger ones. “Who were they?”

“Magical girls.”

“Oh.” What did I expect? “Right. Of course.”

Grimgrave squats down at the edge of the broken concrete, draws her hair up, pooling in her lap so it won’t drag on the ground. “Not all of them are actually in there, like,” she says. “Some are just empty coffins. Or just nothing. And there’s no graves for the ones who went Dreamer, they’re not, like, proper dead, I guess. I mean, I dunno about the oldest ones, the ones at the back. Some of them didn’t have headstones, so I just put up a slab for them. Didn’t know what to write. ”

I join Grimgrave at the concrete lip. My left hand twitches toward her shoulder, an urge I cannot countenance. I stick my hand into the pocket on my robe, to keep it from offending.

The gravestones at the rear are unmarked, concrete hardly weathered.

“Would Signal know?” I ask. “About the oldest ones?”

Grimgrave shrugs. “Don’t think so. Nerys has been doing this since the fuckin’ nineties, you know? Even Siggy’s only been a magical girl for like ten years or something.” She gestures. “The next six, all we got is the names. Fuck knows who they were, or who buried ‘em, or put their names on the stones. Nerys doesn’t tell much. Dream-Gods, you know?”

The six concrete gravestones she indicates do look a bit older than the others. Two of them have only names, magical girl names: ‘Symphonic Bloom’ and ‘Vulpine’. One has only a single date, 1999, with no name; I cannot help but wonder who erected that slab. The other three have both dates and names, deaths ranging from the nineties into the early twenty-tens; ‘Amanda Rainsborough’, ‘Mina Twitch — Spark Speed’, ‘Hannah Barrow, Iridescent Terminus’.

“Hannah Barrow,” I sound out that last one. “Two thousand and two to twenty fourteen. Grimgrave—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“That was a twelve year old girl.”

“I know.”

Moon-wind trickles down the slopes of the Montes Alpes, a distant rustling of lunar flora, whispers at the edge of the world. Grimgrave stares at the headstones. I swallow, with some difficulty.

“And we don’t know anything about her?” I ask. “Nothing? Just nothing? That’s it?”

“She died before Siggy joined up. Siggy didn’t like, get a lot of instruction, you know?”

“And Signal hasn’t tried to find out?” Heat stirs in my chest, rising into my face. “To put names, histories, anything, to these … concrete gravestones? I can’t— I can’t—”

“Siggy doesn’t like to come back here,” Grimgrave says, quick and sharp. “If you wanna know stuff about the girls before us, you gotta ask Nerys, but like I said, she doesn’t talk about it. It’s just how Dream-Gods work, yeah?”

“Signal has made no effort at all!?” I snap, almost laugh. “With all her resources, her skills, surely she—”

“Shit, Occy!” Grimgrave huffs. “Fuck! Look, I’m not supposed to fuckin’ know this, okay?” She looks up, over her shoulder, at me, eyes tighter than I expected. “So don’t fuckin’ repeat this, yeah? Promise!”

“ … okay?”

She points at one of the middle gravestones, more recent examples — ‘Shabana Tewari. Noise. 2001-2019.’

“What am I looking at?” I ask slowly.

Grimgrave grimaces, all teeth. “That’s Siggy’s twin sister in there.”

False fire snuffs out, turns to ash. “Ah.”

Moon-wind briefly changes direction, whistles through the dishes and antenna atop Plato Base, a sudden mournful wail trailing off to nothing. Grimgrave wraps her arms around her knees.

“Signal and Noise,” I say. “I see. Were they … I mean … they must have been close?”

“Dunno,” says Grimgrave. “Never met her, you know? S’not much actually down there in the box, according to Bright. Just some scraps. Bits of bone. Real nasty shit, you know?”

“How did she die?”

A shrug. “I dunno that either. Don’t know the whole story. Bright got bits of it, but not the whole thing. Before my time, before Bright’s time, you know? Anyway, Siggy’s kinda like the zoogs, she doesn’t like to come back here. Not even sure who put the headstone up, might have been … well, somebody else who’s either dead or dreamer now.”

I am struck with a sudden urge to squat next to Grimgrave and put my arm around her shoulders, tighten my grip, feel living warmth, body against body. But she doesn’t want that, that’s not why she came out here, and she’s not done yet.

Grimgrave slowly tells me about the rest of the seven known dead, pointing to headstones one by one.

‘Anislee’ — before Grimgrave and Bright, but known to Signal. ‘Lake Mercury’, a magical girl name, apparently once friendly with Bright, died shortly before Grimgrave’s time in Plato Base. Then there’s—

“Cece!” Grimgrave lights up, a smile growing on her face. “Cecilia, but we all called her Cece. Uh, ‘all’, I mean like, was a bit different back then. Though, wow, shit, that was only a couple of years back. Her magical girl name was Gorgon, which was cool as shit, you know? She was cool as shit all over. Helped Nerys when I got picked up. She’d been here a while, with Signal and a couple of others. Cece fuckin’ rocked. Miss that bitch.”

“And … 2023?” I read the date off the headstone. “She … ?”

“Yeah.” Grimgrave shrugs. “She got got, and that was that.” She moves on, points at the next grave. “Mahalia. We uh, never got a magical girl name out of her. She was here for like … six months, I guess. Then Alice, same. Iridice, same. Shit, this is nasty, right? And … uh … ”

Grimmy falters on the final grave, mouth open, words stuck. Her hand sags.

‘Haleigh Knight. Feast of Bones. 2000-2024.’

Need I even ask? What manner of memory and mourning would still even Grimgrave’s laugh?

“Grimmy?”

“Yeah,” Grimgrave says, speaking to the grave, voice thick and slow. “Uh. She’s like, not actually down there, most of her, anyway. Buried a— an arm. Pretty much. Her dress, it’s one of the ones on the wall in the base, you know? The one with the black skeleton bits, but you kinda can’t see much of that anymore, since it’s all burned and cut up and shit. She uh … she was one of us for like, a year. A bit more, I think. Yeah, thirteen months. Heh. Can’t forget that.” She swallows. Sniffs awkwardly. Wipes her nose on the back of one hand. “January sixteenth, twenty twenty four. That’s when she … you know. Around about seven in the afternoon. It was … raining, in England. Mm.”

Mid January last year; a particularly bad Nightmare incursion, three days of putrid phantasm roiling forth from London’s foul corpse, four distinct Nightmares and their attendant clouds of dark-dripping Dreamland detritus, drifting west and south over the London Wall. Three days in and out of the shelters. Sixty eight dead, over two hundred wounded. Halted and slain in the end, by magical girls, as Nightmares always are.

Plus Haleigh Knight.

How did she die? To the Nightmares, to the Trio, to the other magical girls involved in that particular defence of the realm? What hidden battles unfold beneath cover of Nightmares? What secret war is hidden from England’s eyes? Was it worth it, her death? Did she go down as martyr, worth all the pain? Or did she regret everything, wishing for one more day of life?

This was Grimgrave’s girlfriend. I’m certain.

My left hand twitches again, wants to reach for her shoulder, but that would be a worse intrusion. She sniffs a few times, won’t show me her face. Clears her throat. Takes a deep breath.

“How many became Dreamers?” I ask. Coward.

Grimgrave shrugs. “Dunno. Double this, probs. Easier to wander off than flame out, you know? ‘Course, this doesn’t include all the girls who Nerys picked up who never made it the first couple of hours, like. Nerys says there’s been lots. But, you know, no bodies, no names, nothing, no shit. She has to do it quiet, else the Trio and other bitches get riled up. We can’t barely help. Sucks shit.”

All of these girls, all of them like us. Why did they take Nerys’ deal? What did they imagine they were fighting for — or what horrors were they fleeing? Why did Haleigh Knight become a magical girl; was it worth her own death? Was it worth leaving Grimgrave behind? Or was it because of Grimgrave? What about the unmarked graves at the rear, the ones nobody but Dream-Gods recall, whose names cannot cross back into the waking world? What about the Dreamers, the ones who gave up and left, the ones who decided England and Earth and humankind itself not worth the effort?

Plato Base should be teeming with young women. Dozens of us. A hundred. More.

Here are the unquiet shades in whose shadows I stand.

Grimgrave takes a deep breath, straightens without rising from her squat, sweeps her hair back, tresses trailing on the concrete ground. She wiggles an index finger, imitates a claw. “We’ve got a ghoul claw for carving into the concrete. Could do it with a chisel, sure, but that baby goes like a hot knife through butter, it’s cool as shit. We keep it in the machine shop room back there, do you wanna see it—”

“I’m sorry.”

Grimgrave twists, looks over her shoulder. “Eh? Occy?”

One step back, give her space. Can’t meet those eyes, still damp with unshed tears.

“I apologise,” I repeat. Throat thick. Glued shut. “Grimgrave. Grimmy, I— I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Can’t find the words. “I’m sorry.”

Grimgrave goes sceptical in my peripheral vision. “Hey, what? What for?”

“For earlier. For … the way I … ” Pushed you down, jammed my knee into your cunt, when you have your own ghosts draped about your shoulders. “I-I can’t … I cannot impose on you. I can’t inflict myself on you, you don’t deserve, you … you should be allowed to … to grieve, to—” Take another step back, hands to myself, eyes aside. “I-I-I shouldn’t, shouldn’t touch. Not when— when—” Gesture at the grave, at Grimgrave’s dead girlfriend, at the shades who suddenly crowd the edges of my vision. “You should be allowed to remember in peace—”

Grimgrave explodes — to her feet, in my face, and wide, arms thrown out to her sides, eyes blazing with maniac fire.

“Fuck that!” she yells. “Occy, hey, yo, look at my fuckin’ face! Fuck! That!”

Grimgrave grabs my robe. I shake my head, mutter a denial, but she’s not listening.

“Yeah, they’re all fuckin’ dead! So what, huh?! We can’t change that now. Shit, couldn’t change it then, couldn’t do a fuckin’ thing! But you know what, hey? Occy, you know what? You know what!?” She shakes me by the robe, forces me to dig my heels in. “We’re not dead! Me, you, Bright, Siggy, we’re all still here, still fuckin’ alive! Tissy too, even Nerys! You get it?!”

“B-but—” I glance, helpless, at the grave of Grimmy’s lover. “But she was—”

“Yeah! Yeah, she was! Was! And now she’s gone. And you know what she’d want me to do? And you don’t, you fuckin’ don’t, ‘cos you never knew her. You know what she’d want me to do!? Anything I want!”

Grimgrave pants hard; I can smell her breath, the softness of her, her hair and her skin. Right about one thing, she is very much alive.

She lets go, steps back, cracks that lunatic grin, fifty, sixty, seventy percent power, still climbing. Eyes on fire. Springs in her heels.

“And you know what I want?” she says. “I wanna fuckin’ live, Occy. I wanna live, and I wanna win, and smash the chains on England, and all the rest of it! I wanna live, every day!”

I meet her eyes, no choice, like a bonfire on a frozen night.

She’s still grinning. Beside the grave of her dead lover, she still grins like a mad little imp.

“I don’t understand how you do it,” I say, voice on the verge of breaking. “Tomorrow, or the week after, I might not be here, I might be dead. You might be dead. So why … why … why even try? Why … ”

“Yeah, sure! We might both be in this ground. That’s why you gotta fuckin’ live!”

“All I’ve done is insult you. But you still won’t give up on me. Even when I … attacked you. It … it makes me feel … helpless?”

Grimgrave’s grin hits a hundred percent. “You’ll get used to it!”

A sigh. A roll of my eyes. Half a laugh and the memory of tears. When I wipe my eyes on the back of my hand, Grimgrave takes the opening to ambush me with a hug, darts in like we’re duelling with shotgun and fists. Quick and rough, a hard squeeze round my middle, warm as raw sunlight, small and wriggly, smelling like sweat and zoog fur. Doesn’t give me a chance to hug back, or stumble away, or even yelp. She just does it, then lets go, dances a step clear, wipes her own nose on her sleeve.

“Shit, Occy,” she says. “Thanks.”

I’m still reeling from the hug. “Uh … what? What for?”

“For coming out here!” She gestures at the graves. “I’ve been all mopey, like. Thinking about dead girls. People I miss. You know? But you’re here. You’re alive! Right fuckin’ there!” She frames me with her thumbs and forefingers, one eye closed, a pixie director on a set nobody else can see.

I almost laugh. A small laugh, to be sure, but a real one. “If you say so.”

“I do say so!”

“Well.” I glance out over the graves, at the empty grey soil yet to be filled, just so I don’t have to endure her irrepressible face. “Thank you again for facing down Willow. If she’d gotten me, I don’t think I would be under this ground.”

“Ah?”

“There are fates worse than death.”

“Ehhhh.” Grimgrave, doubtful. “Don’t think so. But hey, you do you. Or don’t, hey!”

A moment of comfortable silence lingers between us, my eyes on the graves, Grimmy’s on the mountains behind Plato Base, or perhaps on the side of my face, though I try not to think about that. Moon-wind teases the tips of her hair, runs fingers across the back of my neck. I look up at the mountains too, at the silver-black lunar forests, the Dreamland woods, beyond all waking reason. Small black dots detach from a handful of treetops, winging through the air in slow, lazy, looping arcs. A few cross overhead, alighting on the outer walls of the courtyard.

Ravens, but not those of the waking world. Ten-foot wingspans, beaks like garden shears, each one with a third eye in the forehead, glowing a dull red against the lunar sky. Heads twitch, consider Grimgrave and I from several angles, then dismiss us and turn to preening themselves.

“Ha, those fuckers,” Grimgrave says. “Don’t let ‘em fool you, they can talk, and they’re real shits about it if you get ‘em going. S’the other reason I don’t like the zoogs to come out here. Hey, you wanna go back inside? Wanna see that cool claw? Or like, has your foot finished printing yet?”

“Why ‘Grimgrave’?”

Away from the dead, back to the living. Grimgrave’s eyes light up at my question.

“Grimaldi!” she says.

“I’m sorry?”

Grimgrave rolls her eyes, sagging with great eloquence. “Joseph motherfucking Grimaldi? The most famous clown in English history? No? No!? Fuck!” She throws up her hands, bursts out laughing. “Fuck you, Occy!”

“I wasn’t aware clowns had history.”

“Well we fuckin’ do.” Grimgrave wiggles her head at me with mock offence. “And I’m the latest and greatest! Totally clown-maxxed! Grim for Grimaldi, and then grave ‘cos like … you know. Graves. It’s a cool name. Rest of my meat-bag family doesn’t deserve it. S’mine now, fuck ‘em.”

“You just put the name together yourself?”

“Nah. Dreamed it! S’how you’ll get yours, I reckon.”

Can’t help but sigh. “I do hope so. Perhaps when I finish repairing my arm.” Phantom pain tingles up invisible fingers, clenched fist reminding me with a deep throb of unplaceable interruption.

“Probs, yeah.” Grimgrave does her best to sound confident, but she doesn’t know anymore than I do, and I need to say far more than I have.

“Grimgrave. Grimmy, I mean. I … I need to ask … I—”

“Just spit it out, yo!”

I give her a nasty look, but she’s immune. “I don’t know how to phrase this,” I say. “But seeing all of these.” I gesture at the graves. “I … well … is it true?”

Though I’m well-aware my question makes no sense, I can’t get the rest of the words up my throat. Grimgrave waits a beat, then snorts.

“Nah!” she says. “Nothing’s true, everything’s permitted!”

Another dark look bounces right off her. “Isn’t that from a video game?”

“Nah. I mean yeah. But nah.”

Grimgrave’s foolery has loosened my throat. “Is it true,” I repeat, wet my lips, choose each word with great and terrible care. “What Dream Control says about … homosexuals?” About us. “Or, I suppose, what they imply. What everybody implies. Is it true? If Nerys chooses only … le-lesbians,” my voice drops to a whisper on that word. Clear my throat. Try again. “To become magical girls, then is the rest of it true as well? It is true that we—” We! “That we’re a risk?”

Everybody knows, though few say out loud, in endless twists and turns of insinuation, that homosexuals are more likely to become Dreamers. Nobody has a rational reason why, outside the carefully guarded secrets and clean-room laboratories of the Dream Institute. Yet, at the same time, everybody knows why.

To yearn is to dream; the yearning is what makes Dreamers. To go beyond the grey skies and grey concrete of old England, to break free of the rational round of the world. To believe that other things are possible, and to want those things with the whole force of one’s soul.

To dream is to be human, to be human is to dream. But some of us are more of a risk. And it’s true, isn’t it? Everything they’ve implied and insinuated, every last word is true.

Grimgrave shrugs. “Fuck knows.”

I blink at her, dumbfounded. “You … no. No. You’re serious? But … how can’t you … ”

“I dunno! I mean, like, maybe?” Grimgrave looks vaguely baffled. “But probs not. DC already lie about all sorts of shit, right? You believe everything else the fuckers believe down in England?”

“Well. I mean. No, of course not. But … ”

“Well there you go, hey! Decide for yourself, yeah?”

Shake my head, total disbelief. “You’ve never thought about this? You’re not curious why Nerys picks only homosexual women to become magical girls?”

“That’s just Nerys! It’s like, her thing? Dream-Gods don’t work like people, they got rules and systems and shit they gotta follow. And hey, sure as shit I’ve thought about it. Made up my own mind, like. I ain’t a Dreamer, I ain’t gonna become a Dreamer. And neither are you, right? Yeah?”

“Uh, yes. Of course not.”

But how can I avoid that fate when I don’t even understand the nature of the risk? Perhaps I should be asking Signal these technical questions.

Grimgrave cracks a nasty little smirk. “We’re both gay as all fuck though!”

Look away. Can’t respond to that. Not out loud.

I try to fold my arms over my chest before I forget the current lack of my right. Phantom pain crawls up the imaginary nerves of a ghostly limb, creeping into my shoulder as a clenching of muscles, spreading into my neck, burrowing deep. I’m left awkwardly massaging my stump.

“Grimgrave—”

“Gay, gay, gay!”

“Yes, yes, gay, whatever. Grimgrave, listen. This is important. More important than the whole gay thing. Alright?”

“Ah? All ears, Occy!”

“Earlier, after I put Bright to bed, when I was alone, I got … ” Why is this so hard to say? Shame does not matter, not in this case. “I got spooked. Only a little.”

“Pffffft,” Grimgrave makes a dismissive noise. “Ahhh, it’s fine, it’s fine! Plato Base ain’t like, super duper untouchable safe, but shit, it’s safer than anywhere down on earth! Especially for us magical girls.”

“Even for ones who can’t transform?”

“Errr … I mean … ”

“Anyway.” I sigh. “That’s not why I got spooked. Dreamers can go anywhere, right? They’re not bound by the same limitations as magical girls, and certainly not by any limitations of a mundane human being. So.” Swallow, throat surprisingly dry. Glance over my shoulder, at the open door back into the bowels of Plato Base. Grimgrave is right here, at my side; is this the real reason I came seeking her? How long has this thought been lurking in the back of my mind, disguised as something else, something less frightening? “So.”

“Sooooo?” Grimgrave echoes.

“So.” I squeeze my stump hard, phantom pain worse than usual. “Is there any chance, any chance at all, no matter how slim, that Willow might turn up uninvited?”

Grimgrave pulls a face, half-smirk, opens her mouth.

Before she can speak: “Grimmy, I don’t want reassurance, I want truth. Is it possible?”

Grimgrave shuts her mouth, scrunches up a difficult frown, stays that way for well over ten seconds. “Ehhhhh, I dunno? Not like, for sure? Fuck, this isn’t what you wanna hear—”

“Don’t tell me what I want to hear. Tell me what I need to keep myself safe.”

Grimgrave throws up her hands. “I dunno! I dunno, really. I mean, I would’a said no, right? Nobody else can make it up here. The only Dreamers who come here are ones who used to be us, and that’s pretty rare, like. And hey, nobody even knows about Plato Base. Unless you told her about it?”

There is no cold hand on the back of my neck. “I did. I mentioned the moon, when it was just her and I, alone together.”

“Shit.” Grimgrave goes quiet, then quickly rallies. “But like, she still can’t get here! Unless she gets in a rocket ship. But, yeah, I dunno for sure.”

“Thank you for the honesty.”

“She’s not gonna get you back!” Grimgrave says. “She’s not! I’m right here, Occy, and she’s not. She wants my shotgun all the way up her cunt again, she can fuckin’ try! Ha!”

Deep breaths. Do not shake. Do not look over my shoulder. Willow is not here. She is not here. “I think today has firmly established that you cannot be at my side twenty-four seven.”

“Shit, I could be.” Grimgrave smirks at the look on my face. “Until you learn to transform! You could sleep in my room—”

“Grimmy.”

“—and I’ll watch you shit! Hahaha!” She bursts into laughter. “Hoooooo yeah!”

Look away, hold onto dull fear. Try to fold my arms again, forget and fail. “I appreciate the attempt at levity, but it’s not helping.”

“Who said it was ‘levity’? I’m serious!” Grimgrave bounces in front of me, a dirty little smirk on her face. “You need somebody to keep your psycho ex away? I’ve got your back, Occy. Serious. I can take her. Did it before, didn’t I?”

“That’s not the part in question.”

Grimmy’s offer prompts sober consideration; if her presence at my side was the price of keeping Willow forever at bay, then I would gladly sit on the toilet and move my bowels in front of Grimgrave for the rest of my life. I would let her sleep at the foot of my bed. I would have her live in my pocket, at my heels, on a leash. I would sew us together.

But if Willow wanted me badly enough, she would be here. Dreamers have no rational limits, they are not subject to what we — mundane and magical girls alike — consider the boundaries of reality. The Dream is everywhere all at once, and even the great distance of Luna is likely no barrier, not to something like her.

So where is she? For all her pleading, all the dreams she crammed into my mind, she has not pursued me. Never loved me at all. Liar.

Or perhaps she cannot reach across the snatch of vacuum between earth and the moon? I know so little, my own lack of certainty is driving a fear of which I can barely sense the shape.

All I know is that I never want to see her again. Not alive, at least.

Besides, perhaps Grimgrave would not be able to protect me a third time. She shot Willow twice, but both were by surprise, a shotgun in the face and a shotgun to the flank. A Dreamer, a Lucid Dreamer, alive and active in the waking world, a totally unknown quality, forewarned and prepared. Would Grimgrave prevail?

I simply don’t know.

“I just … I don’t need you to watch my back around the clock,” I say, talking to a patch of distant concrete wall. “I just feel naked. Can’t transform. Don’t have my right arm. Even if I start work right away, which, yes, I am going to, but it’ll still be perhaps forty eight hours, maybe more, before I can finish repairs and get it back on. Until then I’m defenceless. If she showed up, I could only run.” Shake my head, bite my lip. Old anger, sealed deep down inside.

Grimgrave breaks into a grin, not what I expected. “Shiiiiiiit, Occy. You know what you need?”

Grimmy pulls the waistband of her jogging bottoms wide and jams a hand down inside. She sticks her tongue out and turns her eyes aside, like she’s rummaging in a sack full of goodies. Just as I pull a face, expecting a terrible joke, she extracts a chunk of brightly coloured polymer, spins it in one hand, and offers it to me, grip-first.

A handgun. A pistol. In bright pink camo-print.

“A helping hand from little miss Glock and her big bang girlcock!” She laughs, eyes aflame with mania. “Serious, go on, take it! Full load, no spare mags, but I’ll get you some soon. Forty-five ACP, none of that nine-mil pussy shit. Take it, take it!”

A tut. “Bullets don’t stop Dreamers.”

“Mine do!”

Can’t argue with that, I suppose. “I’ve never fired a gun before. Never even held one.”

“It’s easy as shit! Both hands on the boomstick, point it at what you wanna make dead, and squeeze the little clitty. Then she goes pop, woo!”

Another dark look for Grimgrave. This one penetrates. “Both hands?”

Grimgrave freezes, then snorts. “Shit, sorry! Like, just use your left hand double-hard!”

I sigh. I am defeated. I lie trampled. “Is the safety on?”

“Yeah! Sure!” Grimgrave tilts her head, looks at the side of the gun, then flicks the safety. “Now it is!”

“Fucking hell,” I hiss. “Grimgrave!”

“Take it! Serious! Take it! Willow comes around a corner, you put this in her face and dump that mag. That’s enough to make even a Dreamer flinch! Put her on her arse then scream like hell, I’ll be right there.”

“I can’t believe you had the safety off.”

She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter shit for me. Come ooooonnnnnn, Occy. Take it! It’ll make you feel better!”

With a sweaty hand and final moment’s hesitation, I accept the gun.

Heavy, too heavy, like a tiny contextless component of some vast machine, inviting me to infer grand functions from this single part. I check the safety myself, ensure I can operate it with my left hand alone; I eject the magazine against the base of my rib cage, no right hand to catch it properly, ease the bullets out so I can count them. Thirteen rounds, slid back with a solid click. Smooth polymer surfaces, textured grip, just right in a human hand. What a perfectly designed little device, extruded from the mouth of a deity. Like an extension of my body, within seconds.

Try to imagine the muzzle of this gun pressed to Willow’s forehead. Pull the trigger, watch her burst like ripe fruit. She’s a Dreamer, she’ll put herself back together in the blink of an eye. Aim at her centre of mass, yank the trigger over and over, fill her with holes, watch her fall.

I loved Willow once, or was made to believe I did. Could I point a gun at her? Could I pull the trigger? Do I want to kill Willow? Can it be done? Dreamers, yes, by enough application of magical girls. Lucid Dreamers? Who knows. Certainly not with bullets.

I want the answer to be yes. It might be no.

Aim at the wall with my left hand a few times. Discipline, finger off the trigger. Feels awkward. Incomplete.

Grimgrave whistles. “Thought you said you didn’t know how to use a gun, yo?”

“I’ve never handled one before, but I know plenty about firearms. They’re mechanically interesting.” A sigh. “Does it have to be pink?”

“Best one I got for the job. Suits you!”

“Fair enough.” Now I don’t know where to put the thing. Tuck it into my waistband? In the front, like a surrogate penis? No, thank you. I slide the firearm into the pocket of my robe, where it drags to one side. “Thank you. I think. Listen, Grimmy, if something happens—”

“Scream and I’ll come running,” she says. “Right?”

Have to turn my face away, vaguely shamed. “Right.”

“Oh, and don’t leave the gun where the zoogs can get at it.” She cracks a smirk. “Bad idea!”

“ … no, you’re not telling me they can operate a firearm. No. No way. They don’t have the hands for it. Grimgrave. Stop teasing.”

Grimmy snorts. I can’t decide if she’s being serious. “Yo yo yo, Occy, you should ask Siggy about all this Dreamer stuff, okay? She knows a lot more than I do, like all about overlaps and Dreamers and stuff. If she was worried about that dream bitch running up here and nabbing you, she probs would have said something, like. Ask her, for serious.” Grimgrave rummages in her pockets while she talks, pulls out her mobile phone, a chunky old thing which looks enough to kill a Dreamer with one blow to the skull. “Anyway, I told her—”

“Do you think I was Willow’s only woman?” I say, not to Grimmy, because I wasn’t really listening.

Grimmy looks up from her phone, deer in headlights. I look down, first cold, then flushed with sudden heat.

“Forget I said that,” I say, but it’s too late, Grimgrave is already cracking open a fresh grin.

“You jealous?” she snorts.

“No, just—”

“Worried she was a big old slut—”

“Forget I said it!” I snap. “Please. Grimmy.”

Grimgrave snorts again, then shrugs, gestures with her phone. “Aaaaaaanyways. I messaged Siggy, let her know you’re up and around and stuff. She said to tell you she’s glad you’re well, all the usual stuff she says, blah blah blah.”

“You didn’t tell her the rest, did you? How you … found me?”

Grimgrave grins like a demon. “Yeah, I told her you wanked yourself into a heart attack over some big titty bitches. Hahah! Course I fuckin’ didn’t!”

“Alright, fine.” I huff. “What’s Signal doing, anyway? Where is she?”

“Fuck knows. Same thing she always does, resistance stuff with the Opposition. She’s our girl on the inside, you know?”

“Yes, I gathered that, what with her skills.”

Is that Signal’s mundane life? Hiding out in the Scottish Highlands, deep in the Dream-afflicted parts of Wales, or in some rat-infested bedsit in a northern industrial city, working for the Opposition? A cog in the mundane revolutionary machine. Can’t imagine how she hides the skeletons.

“Anyway,” Grimgrave says, “Siggy’s called a new meeting, since our first one kinda fell apart. Day after tomorrow. Plenty of time to work on your robot arm, yeah?”

Can’t help another sigh. “Is that what you people do? Hold meetings? Or I suppose, what ‘we’ do?”

“Naaaah. Not often. But shit, there’s plenty enough to figure out, right? But it’s not all about that, she wants this one special.” Grimgrave holds up the phone so I can read her messages, a clashing mess of pastels on neon, blood-red and scream-pink and steel-blue. “See? Siggy’s always one step ahead! She’s already onto some new shit.”

The message is short and simple.

‘Strategy meeting. Thursday 15:00. Opposition has plans for a major hit. They want us in.’

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Even Grimgrave can be grim at times, especially when surrounded by graves; this really doesn’t seem like the sort of chapter about which I should be making jokes though, so I’ll leave that one there.

This was genuinely a little rough to write! But I’m glad we went there, these things cannot forever be avoided in such a story, especially with these kinds of themes. At least Octavia has learned something important. Gained some perspective. Knows the stakes. Maybe she’ll be a bit more understanding now, at least about Grimmy.

As for the rest of the arc, it’s three more chapters! Arc 5 lurks up ahead, peering from the shadows.

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! As always, I could not do any of this without all of you, the audience. Maidens of the Fall is for all of you, and I dearly hope you’re having just as much fun reading it as I am writing.

Next chapter, it’s time for a Magical Girl Meeting. Though these girls aren’t much for tea and cakes.

Content Warnings

Ableism
Medical horror
Chronic illness
Covid-19 (fictional references to)
Discussion of incest

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Burning Bright’s deceptively weak-wristed punch cracks my head to one side, wrenches the delicate muscles in my neck, and knocks me off my feet. A lurch and a flail, stars exploding behind my eyes, a one-handed grope for the back of the chair, the side of the table; two clean misses, and down I go.

At least this particular trip to the floor isn’t my fault.

My backside thumps hard, no cushion on raw concrete. Pain rattles my hips and zig-zags up my spine, blotted and blurred by the much more immediate shock of the hurt in my face, a blender taken to my thoughts. Left hand clamped to the slow-motion explosion in my cheek, heart slamming inside my chest, sweat boiling on my skin. Adrenaline screams through my arteries, everything shaking and quivering, muscles tight and taut and ready to go, go, go!

Not fear, just the raw chemical cocktail of animal survival.

Turns out I don’t know how to take a punch. No surprise there, it’s my first time.

Bright staggers back too, the blow bit deep into her reserves. Sagging and panting, dirty lank hair stuck to her face, eyes struggling and squinting to stay open. She clutches the table with one hand, her other held in a pose of tender pain, her poor bruised knuckles.

Our twinned breathing all ragged and rough, echoed by the distant rush of moon-wind down the mountain slopes, whispering out across the roof of Plato Base. The 3D printer fans carry on whirring, mechanism humming away, insensible to violence. The lone table-zoog Grimgrave told to look after me is up on her paws, ears back, teeth bared, tail stiff, shrinking from Bright’s proximity. Several dozen more zoogs in the domesticated corner are frozen in shock, tails tall, claws braced, ready to bolt — or fly to my aid?

Make like a zoog. Not a sensible option, but one’s mind is rather beyond sensible options so soon after getting punched in the face. And, contrary to popular belief, unlike their earthly cousins, zoogs rarely play dead.

My lips peel back, to show my teeth.

“I am not,” I hiss, “interested in your sister!”

If that is not enough, we shall proceed to bite.

“Get up.” Bright heaves the words out, chased by rattling breath. She swallows hard, dislodges a plug of mucus deep down her throat. “Get up.”

“No.” I take my hand from my cheek, flesh taut, tender, throbbing. “If you want to hit me a second time, Bethany, then you can come down here.”

Zoog-style courage lends me strange abandon. Beneath her exterior of chronic illness and exhaustion, Bright is still a magical girl, a big scary dragon girl, more than capable of shrugging off mundane missiles and tearing war machines apart with her bare hands. If she wants me dead then she could simply transform, pull me to pieces with razor-sharp claws, cook the remains in a breath of hot flame.

But she doesn’t. She’s not. She won’t? So I will get her on the floor and make her taste concrete.

“I’m not,” she labours to say, “gonna stomp on a one-armed cripple. Want you standing again. So I can knock … knock you down.” She struggles to straighten, pulling herself upright, inflating herself with every hard-won breath. Rakes her hair back out of her face. Blinks hard, trying to focus. “I’m gonna punch you again. And again. And again. And again. I’m gonna break your face. Until you learn what I tried to teach you—”

“Scarlet Edge attacked me!” I screech. “Not the other way around! Were you not paying attention!? Are you blind?!”

Bright shakes her head, not really listening. “I figured out where she got that bruise. The one on her face, the one that won’t heal. You put it there. You put it on her. You marked her!” Bright chokes up a fragment of a roar, wheezing and spluttering, then sags against the edge of the table. The zoogs half-scatter, half-advance, caught between rational fear and Grimgrave’s promise. “My sister is mine,” Bright rasps. “Mine, mine, mine. Nobody, nobody is allowed to do this. You can’t take her—”

“I bit her on the face, I told you that,” I say. “Scarlet had her sword in my gut, so I bit her.”

“You can’t take her away from me!”

“I don’t fucking want her!”

Duelling shouts echo off into the Big Room, followed by a chorus of hissing zoogs, tails thwapping the floor, claws scraping on concrete. But their threat display is lost on Bright. She looms over me, staggers forward, one step, then two.

“She’s locked herself in her room,” Bright spits. “For days. Days! She’s never done this before. She won’t see anybody, not even me, not even me! And it was you, you fucking dream-bait bitch, you did this. You did this to her, you took her heart from—”

Bright pulls a boot back mid-rant, to deliver a kick.

I lash out with my right leg. My naked prosthetic foot connects with Bright’s left knee, just below the cap; a wedge of naked steel digs deep into the ligaments. She yells in pain and surprise, gropes for the side of the table, the back of the chair, two clean misses.

Down she goes, an uncontrolled backward topple. Bright lands on her arse with a painful crack, air thumped from her lungs. Screws up her eyes, jaw open wide, clutching at her knee. An exhausted groan escapes her throat.

“Ffffffuck, ahh … ” Then panting, wheezing, gritting her teeth. The zoogs go silent.

“You hit me,” I say, voice shaking. “I hit you.”

Bright pants hard, saliva foaming between her teeth, hate in her eyes.

“Welcome to the floor,” I say. Almost laugh. Bright doesn’t find it very funny. She clutches her knee, rocks gently back and forth, whines through clenched teeth.

I grab for the chair, lever myself to my knees, then lurch back to my feet. Bright hauls herself upright too, unwilling to be beaten, staggering and stumbling until she stands opposite, though far from straight-spined. She’s even more bowed and hunched than before, a puppet with a lazy mistress at the strings.

She flexes her right hand, makes a fresh fist, starts to pull it back.

“Your sister seemed rather unconcerned with you,” I say. Best way to hit her, better than another round of two cripples wailing on each other. “Disgusted by you, even. She didn’t recognise you, refused to fight you. Whose fault was that? Not mine, I’m pretty certain of that much. Not mine. So I am not going to let you take this out on me. Next time you hit me, I’m going to bite you. I’m going to bite, and I won’t let go until I remove a pound of flesh.”

A few zoogs hiss their approval, “Biting! Biting!”

Bright’s fist loosens. Can’t raise it all the way. Lips shake, words trapped in her mouth. Her eyes tighten, glossy with tears.

Holy shit. Have I made her cry?

“So?” I spit, driven on by spite. “Are you going to punch me again? Why not transform? You can turn into a bloody great dragon, and I can’t even transform at all right now, maybe not ever again. I’m sure you could kill me with ease. Won’t be the worst thing I’ve faced today, not even the first time I’ve died. No? Not going to do that either?”

Bright turns her face aside, as if I’ve shamed her.

“Didn’t think so,” I sneer. “Burning Bright. Paper tiger.”

She blinks at me several times, eyes misted, half-shocked and half-offended, like my adrenaline-fuelled nonsense insult has cut her to the quick. Another blink and her face re-hardens.

She grabs the throat of my jumper. Opens her mouth with a fresh threat. But then — silence. Moon-wind and my heartbeat.

Bright lets go, turns away, staggers off with a limp. She crosses the domesticated corner, mostly ignores the zoogs, grunts with exhausted frustration when a few of them don’t get out of her way fast enough. She lurches into the mouth of the corridor that leads to the bedrooms. And then she’s gone.

A great breath goes out of me, purges my false courage. I start to shake. Hard pulse in my throat, hot buzzing in my head, pressure behind my eyes.

Burning Bright could easily have killed me. Or just as easily have beaten me black and blue, made good on her threats, left me to twitch and writhe on the floor, if only she wasn’t so exhausted. Now she’s gone, fear crashes back down, held at bay only briefly by the spleen of a wounded dignity that I no longer truly possess.

I collapse into the chair, panting for breath, massaging the stump of my right arm, phantom pain shooting up and down my long-dead limb. What was I thinking, delaying the repairs to my prosthetic by even a second? I am naked without my right arm, incomplete and vulnerable. In front of Grimgrave — Grimmy — it was unavoidable. Not pleasant, barely acceptable, but not total humiliation. But in front of Bright? Without my arm I am a worm on the topsoil, waiting to be eaten.

My face too; I probe the tender flesh of my left cheek, wincing through clenched teeth, the beginnings of a nasty bruise. Aren’t magical girls supposed to heal fast? Where’s my regenerating flesh? Why fix my heart but leave me with a bruised face?

The zoog on the table trundles over, tilting her head left and right, asking for pets. I reach out and stroke her, absent minded. Is this what it’s going to be like, living on the moon? Bright will come at me again, and perhaps next time she won’t be quite so drained; I must deal with her first, get the drop on her, show her that I’m too much bother to hurt, that I will bite and scratch and kick—

A scrape, a slide, the distinct noise of a heavy sack of flesh slumping to the concrete, all from the corridor to the bedrooms.

“ … Bright?”

A few brave zoogs venture beyond the domesticated corner and across the bare concrete, to poke their snouts into the corridor and peer at whatever made that sound. They start to chitter-chatter, lashing their tails from side to side, paws going up and down, claws clicking on the floor. A couple of them look back at me, with expressions of such incredible clarity, a way no being has ever looked at me before; they need an adult, they need help, they need somebody sensible and responsible, big and strong and clever.

“Bright?” I call again. “Bright? Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

If not for the zoogs I would suspect a trap. But now I’m thinking medical emergency, a heart attack, just like me. Maybe magical girls are especially susceptible to heart problems. Maybe Bright has been losing her mind for the last few days in a similar way to myself, clawing at Scarlet’s bedroom door, desperate for her return.

“Bright!” I shout, one last time.

Then I’m out of the chair and hurrying across the domesticated corner, a bee-line for the mouth of the corridor. I refuse to have Bright’s death on my conscience.

Zoogs part, scurrying out of my path, closing in my wake.

Burning Bright is down on her arse, slumped against the wall, body like a sack of rotten potatoes dumped beneath the rainbow graffiti. She rolls her head at my approach, eyes bloodshot, narrow with total exhaustion, but not the least bit distressed. Zoogs sniff at her boots, scatter when she waves a hand at them.

I stand over her. She makes no effort to get up.

“I take it you’re not dying?” I ask.

She makes eye contact, but she’s barely there. Dull topaz, fires burned down to cinders. The moment drags out and out and out; has she suffered a massive stroke, brain damage? Should I go wake Nerys, is this an emergency? But eventually Bright swallows, then inches a shrug with one shoulder.

“So fucking tired,” she mutters, almost inaudible. “Can’t think. Can’t … can’t.”

“Well you can’t sleep there,” I say. “You’re in the middle of the corridor.”

She eyes me again, tries for grumpy. One hand gestures, limp, vague.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “I mean, do you need somebody to literally pick you up off the floor? What is this?”

Bright closes her eyes, rolls the back of her skull against the concrete wall. “You were right first time,” she mutters.

“Pardon?”

“Dying,” she grunts. Holds up a hand, with great effort, thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart. “Always dying. Never there. Journey, no end. Blue-balled by death. Stood up at the altar. Whatever metaphor you like.”

Her eyes stay closed, limp blonde hair stuck to her forehead. Her chest rises and falls beneath her rumpled black hoodie, slow as a coma victim. Zoogs creep closer again, sniffing around her edges, biting at one of her shoes. This time she doesn’t chase them away.

“Bright,” I say. “Bright? Get up.”

No response.

I glance back into the Big Room, praying for Grimgrave’s swift return. Bright obviously needs help. Magical girl or not, she needs a week of good sleep, a month of calorie surplus, and a year of therapy. But I am not the one to deliver any of those things. I’d rather cuff her round the back of the head.

Several zoogs look up at me, waiting for me to do something relevant and sensible.

“I don’t know what to do,” I hiss to them. “Is she … well, yes, obviously she’s sick, but—”

“Oh Rose thou art sick,” Bright croaks. Her eyes crack open, clouded and thick. “The invisible worm, that flies in the night, in the howling storm, has found out thy bed … ” She trails off.

“Are you delirious, or just quoting poetry for fun?”

Bright drops her eyes, the only gesture she has strength for. I make another glance for Grimgrave, but I am steadfastly and unconditionally alone, except for the zoogs, and I don’t think they can provide anything except moral support. Perhaps if several dozen of them work together, they can drag Bright down the corridor, grinding her face on the concrete, but that wouldn’t achieve anything useful. Though it would be satisfying. I would take pictures.

Perhaps this is a chance to solve my problem. Bright can’t defend herself.

Deep breaths, take a moment, consider the next step with great care. Am I really going to do this? Bright seems helpless, but she is still a magical girl. Perhaps she can transform perfectly well, and simply chooses not to do so right now. Our only witnesses are a dozen zoogs.

Yes, take the opening. Might never get another chance. I need to follow my instincts.

“You can’t sleep here, Bright,” I say, trying to find a way in. “Do you have a bedroom up here? In Plato Base, I mean.”

The question seems to revive her somewhat. Bright squints at me, huffs and puffs and grits her teeth. “Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t need you to drag me to bed, dream-bait. Let me be. Leave me to my misery. I can’t get up. Fuck getting up.”

“No,” I say firmly. “I’m not letting you sleep in the corridor—”

“What do you care?”

“I don’t, actually, certainly not after you sucker-punched me.” One hand on my hips, rather unimpressive without symmetry. “But Grimgrave has made it very clear, I’m one of you now—”

Bright snorts. “Chucklefuck.”

“Grimgrave,” I repeat her name, with extra emphasis, “has made it clear. Either we help each other or we die unremembered, in pain. I’m not sure I believe a word of that yet, but I don’t exactly have any other options. I should probably just leave you here, yes. But … ” Am I really doing this, just for the respect of a bunch of zoogs? “I’ll ask again. Do you have a room up here? Grimgrave told me you don’t spend much time in Plato Base.”

But you’re here now. Fleeing your sister? Or the lack of your sister, rather.

“Mmmmmm.” Bright waves a vague hand.

“If not, I’ll put you in my bed. On my bed, rather, since there’s no sheets right now. I vomited on them earlier, after I had a heart attack and passed out.”

“Ugh.” Bright grimaces. “Not like you can help me up anyway. One-arm. cripple.”

“Mmhmm.”

I brace my legs, metal foot scraping on concrete, then reach down to grab Bright’s arm. She resists, tries to slap me away, but I get a good grip on her wrist, her forearm, then haul her upright with all my might, give her no choice but to help me or have her arm wrenched from the socket. She groans with frustration, stumbles to her feet, blunders into my side. I’m braced well, take her weight with ease.

“Arm over my shoulders,” I snap. “Over my shoulders. Over! Or I’ll drop you and you’ll hit your head. There, that’s better. Now come on. Walk. Walk! Raise your feet!”

Bright grumbles at my commands. She stinks of unwashed flesh, days of sweat, sour tears, all half-obscured by the faint undertone of astringent medicine.

We stagger down the corridor together, Bright half-limp, me carrying most of her weight. Zoogs trail behind us, cautious lest we topple backward. We round the corner and take a left, into the hallway with the doors to the private bedrooms, the corridor itself vanishing into darkness up ahead. My bedroom door stands ajar, the latch and lock broken when Grimgrave kicked it in.

“Which one’s yours?” I ask.

Bright nods at the dark. “Third down from chuckles. Opposite side.”

We drag each other the rest of the way. My prosthetic leg does ninety percent of the work, an iron pillar of infinite strength to which I cling for every step. Bright gets heavier, mutters to set her down here, let her rest, let me fucking rest you dream-bait joke, let me down, fuck you, fuck off, fuck.

The third door down from Grimgrave on the opposite side is totally unadorned, blank matte metal, just like mine.

“You’re sure this is the right one?”

“Fuck you,” Bright mutters.

After a moment of awkward fumbling I manage to depress the door handle with my hip. We stagger over the threshold together.

Bright’s bedroom is a concrete box, mine but mirrored, shower cubicle in the opposite corner, desk on the opposite side. Bare walls, bed smartly made with a mass of thick blankets, four stacks of clothes neatly folded beside the foot of the bed, draped with a spare coat, a hoodie, guarded by a pair of boots. The only evidence of personality is the desk, piled with used notebooks, some of them open on chicken-scratch handwriting, surrounded by little towers of books, paperback and hardback, palm-sized and leviathan and everything in between. More books are stacked on the floor next to the desk, organised by size, many studded with tiny colour-coded slips between their pages.

Sparse and spartan, except for the books. Is this the truth of Bright’s inner life, or does she simply not care enough to bother decorating her home away from home?

I drag Bright over to the bed, ease her down onto the mattress. As I step back and roll my left shoulder, she slumps sideways, head on the pillow, drawing her booted feet upward.

“At least take your shoes off!” I snap. “I am not doing that for you.”

Bright grumbles like a big sulky baby, kicks at her own feet until her shoes tumble free and flop to the floor. A handful of extremely brave zoogs creep over the threshold of the bedroom and bee-line for the shoes, sticking their heads inside for some unfathomable reason. Bright draws her feet up at last, head heavy on her pillow, weight of her body denting the covers. I flick on the bedside lamp so we’re not relying on the spillover light from the corridor. Bright blinks and squints and sinks into her sheets, topaz eyes dull as dirt.

“Are you comfortable?” I ask. “Need anything?”

“Fuck off.”

Roll my eyes. Why did I even bother? I cast around for a cup or a glass, find a mug by the sink, fill it from the tap, clack it down on the bedside table. Bright twitches, eyes the only part of her still capable of motion.

“I’m not going to force you to sit up and drink,” I say, “but there’s water there if you want it. Understand?”

Bright paws at the edge of the bed covers, gives up quickly. I sigh, step forward, grab the sheets.

“Roll.”

“Nn?” she grunts, eyes narrowed.

“Roll!” I demand. “Roll toward the wall. Unless you can’t move at all. In which case forget it.”

With much grumbling and huffing and pouting of lips, Bright rolls as instructed. I pull the covers back, hold them in place. She doesn’t need the step two, not from my mouth; she rolls back into place, over the edge of the covers, onto the bare undersheet, onto her side. I pull the covers up and over her shoulders. Her eyes flutter shut, lids like wax paper, greasy blonde hair tangled against the pillow. She breathes as if wheezing through a filth-clogged pipe. Her face, slack and pale and lined, seems to soften just a touch, easing toward sleep.

Silence and discretion would be the sane move now. That’s what I should do, my ‘duty’ discharged. Shoo the zoogs into the corridor, put out the light, shut the door without a sound. Let Bright sleep, let gratitude germinate, let her do the work herself.

Something stays my feet. Bright herself? The fragile beauty of her, that undeniably pretty face lined by care and sickness?

Knowledge, gut-deep and lower; I am on the right path to breaking this woman. Nobody has helped her to bed before, nobody has tucked her in, not like this, not in a very long time. She is too exhausted to process what this means, too preoccupied to raise her defences. She cannot resist, not in the ways that matter. Her walls are riddled with rot, her gatehouse is ruins, her drawbridge is collapsed into her moat. If only I walk into her keep, I will have her eating from my hand.

Would that make me too much like Willow? No, since I was never trying to break Willow’s skull. Or was I? Perhaps I’ll never know.

Bright’s eyes creak half-open again. Swivel, stare, narrow-slitted. “What?” she croaks.

“Can you sleep?” I ask.

Eyebrows twitch, parody of a shrug. “Nah.”

I fetch the chair from her desk; sitting on the edge of the bed would be too intimate. She mumbles an entreaty not to mess with her books, so I content myself with a glance. The open notebooks are crammed with poetry in a small, neat, loop-lettered hand. I know nothing about poetry, let alone how to judge it, so I don’t.

Set the chair next to her bed, ease myself down into the seat. Bright stares, blank, spent.

Raise my left hand and reach out, slowly, carefully, like approaching a wounded lion. Don’t bite, don’t claw, you majestic creature; and she is, isn’t she? Bright is a dragon, the red dragon of Britannia according to those with a little too much dream in them. She could snip my hand from my wrist with the gentle pressure of her claws. Never forget what I am dealing with, as I once forgot with Willow. I’m here to help, you must know that, deep in your body. You know that I am here to be good to you where all the world has been bad. A touch will prove my intentions, a gentle touch, an understanding touch. Bright’s eyes follow my hand, scrunching with incomprehension.

I must have lost my mind. But we all have to be mad up here on the moon, or die down there in England.

Contact. My hand on Bright’s forehead. I stroke her hair out of her face. Greasy, clammy, unpleasant. The shaved stubble side of her scalp scratches against my fingers and palm, but it’s not uncomfortable. She endures the first stroke, frowns at the second, pulls away after the third. Rolls back a little, stares at a point on the wall.

Say nothing, move slowly. Maybe she gets it now. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe she won’t attack me again once she feels better, once she’s back on her feet after a good sleep. Perhaps now I can herd the zoogs out and return to the Big Room.

“I was dying when Nerys turned me,” she says, a low and broken rasp.

Silence. Maybe that’s all. But then her eyes swivel to me, to check that I was listening.

“Turned you?” I echo.

“Into a magical girl.” She sniffs back a glob of mucus. “S’not some big secret. I’m not letting you in on shit. Signal and Grim, they already know. Everyone knows it.”

“Alright.” A pause. She wants the obvious. “Dying of what?”

But I’m wrong. She sneers, staring up at nothing. “What does it matter? Plague. The pandemic. Remember that?”

“Of course.” Months home from school, five years back. An unidentified nightmare-borne pathogen drifted from a Dreamland overlap somewhere in the world, never conclusively identified. Just another crisis, one among so many others.

“Most don’t.” She sniffs again. “Everyone prefers to forget. Pretend it’s all over. Millions of corpses. Who gives a shit?”

A long pause. “You caught it?”

“Mmhmm,” she grunts, eyes past my shoulder, on the concrete, far away. “Before they had vaccines. First it was like a bad cold, like the flu, just like they said on the news. Then it got better for a while. But then … ” She trails off, comes back with a dark bitter smirk, one corner of her lips raised in amused disgust. “Then it came back. Evil shit. Not like they showed, not like they said. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk, could barely talk. Riddled with blood clots. Lungs, legs, brain. Spine and hips started to crumble.” A big sniff, a wet swallow. “They didn’t believe in it, you see. Didn’t think diseases and viruses would dare touch us, oh no. Carry on, keep calm, all those old fucking lies. But as soon as I went down? Then it’s every bastard for themselves. Masks on, hands scrubbed, nobody breathing each other’s air. All so their fucking golden girl wouldn’t get sick as well. When all the time she was so fucking magical, she couldn’t have caught it anyway.”

“They?” At first I assumed she meant everyone.

Bright’s eyes swivel to me. “Parents.”

“Ah. Right.”

Bright falls silent for a long moment, dull topaz eyes blinking so slowly, sunken into the cradle of her blankets. Eventually her attention drifts away. She’s done, time to get up, turn out the light, leave her to—

“She and I, we were so close.” Bright’s voice, a slurred mumble; I would think her half-asleep if it weren’t for her open eyes. “Francesca and I. Closer than sisters are meant to be. You can’t even imagine it, nobody can, nobody knows what it’s like. And then … she started to drift. Kept secrets. I hated it, didn’t understand why she’d changed, where it was coming from. I thought maybe she’d finally gotten a boyfriend, after all our teenage years together, finally figured out she wasn’t … wasn’t like me, wasn’t real for her. I was just a … a toy, for her. All that time, just a toy. We had such fights. Screaming fights. Got bad, bad, bad. And then when I got sick, she looked at me like, oh great, finally, Beth’s just gonna fuck off into the grave. Huh. Huh.”

I would reach out, tell her I understand what it’s like to be used as a toy. But that might stop her story.

“They had me on a respirator,” she carries on after a moment. “Pipe down my throat, arms full of needles, the lot. Sedated, already had brain damage. Last thing I remember, last thoughts I ever had, they were all of her. Thought she might sweep in any moment, come save me, though it didn’t make a lick of sense. Wanted to feel her hug me one last time. Wanted her to kiss me goodbye, just say goodbye, just … just tell me that it all meant something. And if not.” A pause. A scowl. A gritting of teeth. “If not. I wanted her to catch it too. Die at my side. Next bed over. Hold hands as we go.”

Stay silent, try not to judge.

“Wasn’t meant to wake up.” A deep breath, a hard blink; sudden lucidity. “Nerys woke me up.”

A very long pause. The zoogs on the floor have fallen silent. Wind whispers against the roof.

“And … ” My voice feels too loud. “She made you into a magical girl?”

“Made me an offer,” Bright says. “Hardly could’a said no. Tube down my throat, swaddled in wires. Tiny white room, plastic walls. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe by myself. Nerys sat on my chest, told me people I loved had been telling me lies.”

“Lies?”

“My lying sister.” Bright’s eyes harden. “It was all lies. Nerys told me it was all lies, but I couldn’t stop thinking of her, even then. I thought if I’m a magical girl, then she’ll have to tell me everything. I’ll give her no choice. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, for her, yes, to get her back. Yes, yes, I said yes. Nerys bit into one of my drip bags, fed her gunk right into my veins.” Bright’s eyes swivel to me, a bitter smile on dry lips. “You know where I was? Where I woke up? Know what I saw, after I tore the needles out and broke down the door?”

Shake my head. Can’t quite follow.

“Guess,” she rasps. “Guess.”

“Not in a hospital?”

“Nah. Dream Control lab.” She spits the words, breathing hard. “Sister of a magical girl, you see? They had me hooked up and prepped for some sick dream institute shit, I still don’t know what. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I saw in that place, some of the shit Dream Control are doing. And when Nerys turned me, I remembered it all. Franny had transformed in front of me, not once, not twice, but over and over and over. I was scrambled up in the head, and it all came crashing back in.”

“I … I’m—”

“Don’t say you’re fucking sorry,” she grunts.

“Alright.”

Bright settles back on the pillow, her breathing slowing again, the fight going out of her. “That’s why I’m sick. That’s what it does to you, being a magical girl. Freezes part of you in that moment, the moment you turned. Forever.”

She finally subsides.

A few moments pass, of less than companionable silence. The zoogs gingerly resume their sniffling and snuffling at the edges of the room. One of them noses at my prosthetic foot.

Why has Bright told me all this? Not because she wants to open up, surely.

Bright doesn’t want sympathy, or at least pretends she doesn’t. I don’t hate her. Any anger has long since gone cold, and the anger of being punched in the face by somebody who wants you to stand up to get punched again is not quite the kind of anger that makes me wish I could transform.

“If you sleep,” I say, “will that help? In the short term?”

“Mm,” she grunts. “Gotta get my juice back. Sleep up here, in an overlap. Helps.”

“Grimgrave told me you don’t spend much time up here in Plato Base. You still live in England. With family?” She replies with her eyebrows, a shrug, not worth an answer. “With your sister?” A blink, a yes. “And you don’t regenerate much girl juice down there?”

“Well done, Einstein.”

“Just trying to understand.”

“You don’t understand shit,” she grunts. “Never will.”

I let her off with that one; she’s just opened her guts and shown me her wounds, though I can’t fathom why. A barb or two is nothing.

“Grimgrave also insinuated that your … ” Tread gently. “Interest.” Obsession. “In your sister, in Scarlet Edge, is … romantic, or sexual.”

Bright turns her head, looks right at me, both eyes. “She’s mine.”

No hesitation. No shame. Blank challenge.

“Mock me if you like,” she growls, means the opposite. “Call me a degenerate. But you get out of my way. You get out of my way or I’ll kill you. She’s mine. No questions, no conditions, no compromise. Don’t care what Nerys says. Some things are more important. I’ll kill you.”

Put my hand up, try not to roll my eyes.

“I’m not interested in Scarlet Edge.” I speak slowly, clearly, enunciate carefully. “Read my lips, because I don’t know how else to say it. I am not interested in Scarlet Edge. I am not interested in Scarlet Edge. I am not interested in Scarlet Edge. More? Shall I keep going? Do you want it in writing?”

Bright’s lips compress with muted anger. This makes no sense.

“Bright,” I say. “I’m not! I don’t care. I would much prefer if she left me the hell alone. She’s obsessed with me, not the other way around.”

Bright stares hard, no less angry. Can she read my thoughts? Does she dare guess that Scarlet Edge made an appearance in my dirty little fantasies, collared and barking alongside Willow? But that doesn’t mean anything; masturbation is not reality. I am not interested in Scarlet Edge. I am not. I am not. I am not.

My lips move; should I tell of my suspicions about the art I found?

No. Not right now. That would only complicate any uneasy truce.

“Let me guess,” I say at length. “You’re thinking you might kill me anyway, because then her obsession would end?”

A dark little smile creases Bright’s face. “Sharper than you look, dream-bait.”

“Octavia.”

Bright snorts, turns her face toward the wall, dismisses me with silence.

Mad impulse grips me in three places, head, heart, groin. A flutter of red-black at the periphery of my vision, in the back of my head, down in my belly. A single instant of clarity shows the way forward, the clear and obvious steps along an open path.

Straighten my spine, raise my chin, set my expression.

“Say my name.”

Bright turns her face back to me, squinting with disbelief, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. She breathes deep, starts to lift from the bed, flush with morbid energy. “The fuck did you say—”

“You heard me perfectly well. Say my name. It’s not a request.”

Bright manages to lever herself up onto her elbows, glowering at me, breathing harder, arms shaking. “You think because you helped me to bed—”

“Say my name. And I will make you an oath.”

A pause. “The fuck?”

“Acknowledge me,” I explain. “Then I will make an oath. Not only will I stand aside in all possible respects, removing myself as an impediment between you and your sister in every way—” A small promise to make, a nothing promise; I would be extremely happy to never set eyes on Scarlet Edge again. “—but I will also help to bridge whatever gulf exists between you and your sister, whatever form it takes, whatever your aims.” Bright’s eyes twitch. “Or,” I hasten to add, “if you prefer, I will simply do nothing, if you’d rather I not know. Your choice, Burning Bright.”

Negotiated courage does not come as easily as acting like a zoog. My words feel false, a child’s play-acting, though I’m not bluffing; if I could redirect Scarlet and Bright’s attentions toward each other, away from myself, I would have two problems less.

Bright can’t figure me out. She glares, squints, three wet breaths rattling down her throat.

“You’re mocking me,” she growls.

“I’m offering to help you.”

“You don’t understand anything, dream-bait—”

“You love her, don’t you?” I ask. “Or have I misunderstood that? Is it really so difficult to make peace with me, for her sake? If it is, then I don’t think that’s love.”

A big gamble, on a risky outcome. If I’m wrong, I’m probably about to get my throat torn out.

Bright’s expression crumples.

She sags toward the bed, slumps back onto her side, draws her knees toward her chest, starts to curl up, only gets halfway there. Her eyes mist with tears.

“I’m so fucking tired,” she murmurs. Tears trickle from the corners of her eyes. “I just … I want … want it to stop.”

“I know,” I say. “Me too.”

Bright’s tears slide downward without so much as a single sob, staining the pillowcase, leaving wet tracks on her face. She curls tighter, fists bunched in the sheets. I take another, albeit smaller risk, tuck the blankets around the back of her shoulders. She doesn’t resist.

“Octavia,” she mumbles. “Fine. Not even your real name yet.”

“My magical girl name, you mean?”

“Mm.”

“Can I call you Bethany?”

“No,” she grunts. Then, weaker, almost plaintive, “Why? Why you? Why is it you she’s so … so … ”

“Scarlet Edge?”

“Mm.”

Because Scarlet Edge thought me a cripple and a weakling, but then I landed a punch on her gut and took her sword in my belly and lived to tell the tale. Because I stole a blood-soaked kiss from her bitten lips. Because I refused to lie down and die.

“I don’t know why,” I lie. Bright doesn’t need to hear that truth. “I’d rather she wasn’t. I have enough stuff of my own to worry about.”

Bright blinks away her tears, buries herself deeper in the sheets. “Mmmm,” she grunts. “You do. You and your Dreamer.”

“She’s not mine.” I bristle. “Willow is not mine. I don’t want her.”

“You were hers.”

“Were.”

Bright’s eyes crinkle, as if she’s about to rouse herself to attack my one weak spot. But the flash of expression passes. She slips into a long silence, half-awake, adrift on the edge.

“What happened on that rooftop,” I say at length, “that wasn’t what I wanted. But thank you. For coming to help.”

“Wasn’t for you,” she murmurs.

“I know that. But you still did it.”

Bright says nothing. I harbour no illusions; she was not there for me. But the words form another way in, perhaps for later.

“I would happily have handed Scarlet over to you in a heartbeat,” I say. “Grimgrave had to hold her off all by herself, and you can’t blame her or me for that. If anybody, you should be blaming Azure Infinity, she’s the one who tied you up. You and her went toe to toe, and you couldn’t get around her. She bested you for a while. There’s your obstacle. Not me.”

Bright’s face twists with a pinch of anger. “Yeah,” she growls. “Yeah, her. Both of them.”

That’s right, Bright. Remember our actual enemies.

“Perhaps the three of you … ” No. “The four of us, I mean. Perhaps we need to figure out how to work together, so then you can have Scarlet all to yourself, next time.”

Don’t believe a word of it. Platitudes for the angry dragon.

Bright seems to hear the lie in my voice. Her eyes turn back to mine. “You still punched her in the face.”

“Scarlet?” I almost laugh. “Yes? And I would do it again. I did that to defend Grimgrave.” A truth, surprises even myself.

Bright snorts, weak and clotted. “You and chuckles. Both of you. Fucking idiots.”

“How many of us has she killed?”

Bright squints, like she doesn’t know what I’m asking.

“Magical girls,” I explain, as if talking to a particularly slow child. “Nerys’ magical girls. Us. How many has Scarlet Edge killed?”

Bright shrugs with one shoulder, an awkward gesture on her side. “Dunno. A few. Lost some good ones.” A bitter smile twists her lips. “Wish she’d kill you.”

“Oh? I thought we had a truce.”

Bright snorts, half-closes her eyes, drifting off toward the edge of sleep. No answer. Leaves me to wonder.

Moon-wind whispers against the distant roof of Plato Base. Down in the deeps, unseen things rattle and scrape, perhaps mere imagination. Nearby, the zoogs pad closer again, exposed claws tapping on concrete.

“Bright.”

“Fuck off,” she grunts. “Let me sleep.”

“Would you fight for Grimgrave?” I ask. Her eyes open beneath a frown. “Would you have done what she did, up on that roof? Would you die for her? Or Signal?”

“I couldn’t even die for myself, dream-bait.”

She stares me down. Dares me to press.

Half a shrug, half a nod, stand up from my chair, ready to leave Bright in peace for her much-needed sleep. But then I pause, taken by a perverse impulse. I lean down, over Bright’s bed, so I’m half in her face. She recoils in slow motion, lips peeling back to admit a reproach.

“One last thing,” I say before she can speak. “Don’t ever sucker punch me again. If you want to fight, tell me, and then we’ll fight.”

“Or what?” Bright spits.

The perverse impulse peels my lips back from my teeth, a hint of a laugh trapped in my throat, an echo of how I felt standing before Bright’s sister. I have been humiliated, but you will not do so again, or else I will cackle in your face as I break your bones.

“Or you’ll find out what,” I say, “when I’ve got my right arm back.”

Before Bright can muster a response, I straighten up, reach out with my left hand, and pat her on the head. Once, twice, three times, pull back before she snaps at my fingers.

“But neither of us want that,” I say. “So be good, go to sleep.”

Big scary dragon girl. Pat her on the head and put her to bed.

Bright watches me with a suspicious squint as I back away from the bed and scoot the chair toward the desk. She watches me the whole time, perhaps finally aware of what I’m doing to her; though that would come as a surprise, since I’m not entirely aware of what I’m doing either. Some of the zoogs move toward the door, but others linger, a couple of them close to my ankles. I wave my hand toward the corridor.

“Come on, out, out,” I say. “Bright needs her sleep. If you don’t move, I’ll close you in with her.”

That gets the rest of the zoogs moving sharpish. I follow, closing the door behind me, turning to look.

Bright watches. One arm snakes out from beneath her covers and switches off the bedside lamp, plunging her into deep gloom. Her arm slithers back into her nest, a whisper of cloth on linen.

Her eyes glow a dull topaz, even in the dark. They narrow, grow thin, never stop watching.

Close the door, step back. A tightly clenched bolus of tension finally leaves my throat. Have I successfully negotiated with a dragon, or merely put her off for a time, until she rouses herself to renewed fury?

Hopefully by then I’ll have my arm back.

A dozen zoogs follow me back down the corridor, oddly subdued. Perhaps they didn’t expect to witness an attempted taming. Perhaps the way the wind is picking up outdoors makes them want to huddle down somewhere snug and warm. Perhaps they just want to be picked up, but I’ve only got one arm.

Back in the Big Room, Grimgrave has still not returned. My zoog escort rejoin the others in the domesticated corner, most of them dozing or lazing around after their big meal. I cross to my makeshift workspace, nodding absently to Gregory, suspended in his glass tank of thickly clouded fluid.

The plate and coffee mug are both gone, replaced with a note printed on blue plastic. Smooth, wafer-thin, warm to the touch.

Not plastic, after all. Does Tissy extrude these?

Pleased that lunch was to your pleasure. The besmirchment of your bedsheets is being mitigated, but much time may yet pass before they are readied again. New fittings will be fitted, new softness ensoftened. Locking the door will take longer; metals are not my favourites. If you require additional vitalities or intermediate bedclothes, speak your needs aloud and they will be provided for.

No sign of Tissy herself anywhere, peering from behind a pillar.

Is this how Plato Base continues to function, with servant labour from the Dreamlands? I struggle to imagine Grimgrave or Bright doing laundry, let alone cooking. Signal should be more than capable though, what with all those skeletons.

Revolutions are built on the back of such things; but why would a Dreamland native care? Maybe it’s all for Nerys.

“Thank you, Tissy,” I say out loud, at a normal speaking volume. “I can cook, just so you know. If you want any help, I would be happy to.”

Sit down, check my laptop.

My new foot shell still has over an hour left to print, but then it’ll have to be annealed, so I’m not going to be testing it anytime soon. I settle down with the CAD files for the replacement parts of my prosthetic arm, go through the rather pathetic notes I made earlier, revise many assumptions, form some new ones. At some point a fresh mug of coffee appears at my elbow, along with a clean glass and jug of cold water; I thank Tissy out loud again, but still she makes no appearance.

Caffeine, CAD files, new thoughts. What if I reinforce the arm, rather than just replace and repair? What if I make it so Scarlet’s blade can never do that again, transformation or not?

As I work, I can’t stop looking up. Fifteen minutes, Grimgrave? More like fifty.

I’m not truly alone though, not when surrounded by zoogs. The zoog Grimgrave placed on the table is still at her post, though with her eyes closed, settled down very comfortably on the cushion, fast asleep and snoring softly.

But Bright walked in here, straight through the front door. What else wanders the Luna overlap? And didn’t Grimgrave tell me to watch out for anything which wasn’t one of them? What might slink in through the open doors of Plato Base, to surprise a one-armed magical girl who can’t even transform? My confrontation with Bright has clarified certain risks.

“Nerys is right there,” I mutter. “Stop being stupid.”

But Nerys is wounded and fast asleep. Grimgrave hasn’t returned. Bright is shut away in her room.

Moon-wind whispers against the roof, little eddies and gusts scraping along the concrete, setting the antennas and dishes to wailing at the edge of one’s hearing, a far-away chorus of injured banshees, the faintest half-heard whistle. The deep parts of Plato Base seem to flex and moan, a creak and a clatter more felt through the soles of one’s feet than heard with one’s ears. Phantom pain aches in my long-lost right arm. A fresh bruise slowly stiffens on my left cheek, throbbing to the beat of my heart.

My eyes drift to the Big Room’s main entrance; what would I do, right now, if in walked Willow?

“Stop,” I hiss at myself. “Stop.”

Eyes on my laptop screen. Work is not working. I distract myself with another visit to magibooru, another refresh of the front page, a scan for new art, a self-indulgent glance at the pictures of me, the two masterpieces by ‘4en4’.

They’re gone.

Not just the one on which I left a comment, but the other one too, the illustration from days ago, of me facing off against Scarlet Edge. The tag for 4en4 shows nothing. Navigating back to the original urls shows why: ‘Removed by uploader.’

The account still exists. 4en4 has not entirely scrubbed her presence. But the pictures are gone.

“Huh.” I sit back. “Huh!”

The hurt is strange, subtle and difficult to name, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Those two pictures were beautiful, they were of me, and now they are gone.

Good thing I saved them.

I run both the pictures through a reverse image search, to confirm that ‘4en4’ has not uploaded them elsewhere on the internet, at least nowhere notable enough to be indexed. Then I return to magibooru and reupload them myself, under my own account. Spend a couple of minutes re-tagging them correctly, including with the artist tag.

You’re not getting out of this, Scarlet. How dare you? How dare you cut off my arm, then flee when I find you? You put these images of me out into the world. They’re mine now. You want them? Come take them.

When I’m done, a strange tremor has entered my chest. Hand sweaty, clammy, cold. Eyes hot, head heavy.

Have to take several deep breaths. Look away from the laptop, across the dozing zoogs. Listen to the distant whisper of wind across Luna’s surface. If ‘4en4’ really is Scarlet Edge, and Bright told the truth about her being locked in her bedroom for days, then perhaps I’ve just provoked a change.

But I’m still up here, and she’s down there. Which is good.

Grimgrave has been gone too long.

She told a lie, didn’t she? A little white lie, so she could get away from me without guilt or tears or a confusing argument. I’m supposed to pretend there’s nothing wrong; that’s the polite, sensible, civilised thing to do, the thing done by nice young ladies who understand and accept that sometimes these matters unfold in such a way. A gentle, silent, easy decoupling of stillborn friendship. Next time we see each other, later today, I am meant to pretend that I noticed nothing amiss. She has left, and I am not to raise complaint. I am to understand. In silence. Alone.

Then I snort. Out loud.

“That’s not Grimgrave,” I say. The zoog on the table cracks one eye, looks at me. “It’s just not. If she wanted rid of me, she would … I don’t know exactly, but it would probably involve calling me a cunt and hitting me with something.” Deep breath. “I’m projecting. I’m being a child.”

Stand up, stretch my left arm, massage the stump of my right, probe my bruised face. Before I can think twice, I walk the length of the domesticated corner, out beyond the end of the big metal table, eyeing the blank corridor mouth where Grimgrave went. Check my phone is in my robe pocket, check the time. Grimgrave has been gone just shy of an hour.

The corridor mouth tells me nothing, not even up close. It simply stretches off, branching left and right, more grey concrete. The inside of Plato Base is a maze.

I turn back, walk to the zoogs, address them all. “Do any of you know where Grimgrave went?”

A few look up. The zoogs on the table, Nerys’ honour guard, raise their snouts. Nerys sleeps on. Nobody offers an answer.

“She said she would be fifteen minutes. She’s been gone a lot longer than fifteen minutes. I’m getting … ” I can say it. Nobody’s here but the zoogs, and they understand. “A little worried about her.”

Lies. Lying to myself.

Some zoogs share odd looks, swinging their snouts aside. All of them avoid my eyes.

“Alright then. Is it somewhere you’re not supposed to go, or somewhere you’re afraid of going? Or did she specifically instruct you not to follow her? Is that it?”

A wave of hushed mutters passes through the zoogs. A few snap and hiss at their neighbours. A tail is pulled here, an ear bitten there, an argument lurking just beneath the surface.

Finally a little scrum of zoogs breaks free from the general pushing and shoving. Six of them, ones I vaguely recognise, the same ones who led the way when Bright collapsed, a half-dozen from the twelve who ventured to Bright’s room. They stop a few feet shy, eyes upturned like children who know they’ve done something against the rules.

Heart rate rising, sweat under my armpits. Phantom limb clenched tighter than ever.

“Did Grimgrave go somewhere dangerous?” I ask. “Is she … ”

“Mm—mmmmm.” One of the zoogs shakes their — his? — head. “Not danger danger,” he rasps.

“Then what?”

Another zoog raises a snout, looks me in the eyes. A female? Still can’t tell the differences.

“Graveyard,” she rasps. “Don’t like it. Don’t like!”

“You don’t like it, or Grimgrave doesn’t like it?”

A shared look between all six zoogs. A hissing of low zoog voices, claws scraping on concrete. They don’t like it.

“How do I get there?” I ask. “I’m not trying to force you to come with me. Can you give me directions?”

The six zoogs confer a little longer, nipping at each other in a cycle, the rules and purpose of which I cannot figure out. There’s no structure to it, they just shove and hiss and bite and whap with their tails for a few seconds. Then they’re done, just like that, and move forward in a solid furry blob of grey, trundling right past my ankles.

“You don’t have to lead the way,” I say, walking beside them. “I told you, I’m not trying to force you to—”

“Shut-shut!” one of them snaps. “Shut fuck up!”

“We lead you follow,” another one rasps. “Follow close, close close close.”

With no idea what to say, I do as I’m told, approaching the mouth of the concrete corridor, where it plunges deeper into the structure of Plato Base, kinking off into grey shadows.

“Like Grimgrave,” one of the zoogs rasps. “Like her too.”

“Look after you!” another says.

“Grimgrave looks after you.”

“Like us?” another suggests, briefly confused.

“Shhhhhh-shhhhh!” another hisses. “Shhh.”

“Graveyard graveyard.”

“Graveyard grim.”

“Grimmy yard.”

They all fall silent as we pass beneath the archway, huddled close in trepidation, forging onward and ahead with each tiny paw-step. They keep glancing back and aside, little black eyes rolling upward, to make sure I’m following close.

Which I do, because we all want to see Grimmy, and I’d rather not get lost in the bowels of Plato Base.

Home, one day. But not yet.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Dragon: tamed(?). Zoogs: gathered. Cheek: bruised. Unwanted homoerotic rivalry: unresolved. That’s right, it’s magical girl time. *Cue anime OP*.

This chapter was weird to write; Octavia and Bright both would not do any of the things I had actually planned for them, and managed to make everything worse. Hooray! I’m not complaining, I’m cowering before them. I’m not big or scary enough to tell them no when they wanna go off and do whatever this was with each other. And now Octavia is going to do a little exploring and hopefully not stumble across Grimgrave in the same way Grimmy stumbled across her. You know. Hand down underwear style.

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. If you want to support the story but you can’t subscribe (which is fine, by the way! Please only consider it if you can afford to) then please leave a rating or a review here on Royal Road; it helps a great deal to get the story in front of more people who might enjoy it!

And thank you, dear readers! I know I say this every week, but I mean it none the less. Thank you all for being here and reading my little story! I couldn’t do any of this without all of you!

Next chapter, Octavia goes to find Grimgrave in the graveyard grim. As the zoogs so clearly said. That is, if they have a good sense of direction …

Content Warnings

Alcoholism/alcohol abuse
Internalised homophobia
Mention of sexual assault
Sexualisation
Transphobic stereotypes (this is a real edge case warning, I’m not even sure it’s needed in this case, but I am erring on the side of caution.)

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Grimgrave’s words are no empty rhetoric. She really will not leave me alone.

We decamp, in stages, to the Big Room, at her eager suggestion and my mumbled acquiescence. Grimgrave insists on helping; I no longer possess the basic dignity, personal credibility, or independence of thought required to refuse, so that cuts three trips down into two. She carries my laptop, charging cable, the borrowed mouse, easier and safer with two hands. I cradle one half of my bisected prosthetic arm in the crook of my left, expecting to trudge back alone for the second piece. But Grimgrave accompanies me with nothing to carry, simply for the sake of being at my side, bouncing and chattering down the concrete corridor, a train of curious zoogs at her heels, each hoping to get scooped up in her embrace.

She recovers so quickly, as if nothing has happened between us, as if I did not pin her to my bed and grind my knee against her cunt. The screams, the chair I threw, the rejection, all is forgiven without apology. She rights the chair herself, places it back before the desk, like it was her fault. She is a loyal and hearty hound once again, our intimate altercation just another bad dream.

Between headache and hangover, I start to doubt my memory. But one thing cannot be false — Grimgrave’s face after she declined to leave, a kicked puppy beneath my boot.

Can’t meet her eyes. Can barely look at her.

There are no more tears in me, no weeping or screaming. The pus-filled boil of my tantrum has been lanced and drained by Grimgrave’s preposterous grace. What right do I have to further self-pity, when she refuses to abandon me? So I obey her laughing suggestions and little touches, speechless and numb, though I do not understand how she can bear to touch me.

We take one additional trip back to my bedroom, so I can change my clothes. Grimgrave doesn’t complain at my vague gesture for her to wait in the corridor, but I don’t think I could resist if she wanted to watch. Nothing left to hide, not from her.

Fully dressed seems pointless overkill. Nobody in Plato Base cares, least of all me. I drag clean underwear up my legs, beneath my pajama bottoms. Can’t be bothered with a bra. Dig a jumper out of my sports bag, pull it on over my pajama top. A fresh sock on my left foot. Robe back over my shoulders, right sleeve still flapping empty.

Back to the Big Room, Grimgrave at my side. She offers me a zoog on the way there, holds up the confused creature like a loaf of fresh bread. I pet it on the head a few times, elicit some raspy little purrs, make Grimgrave giggle.

Knock her down and she bounces right back. Appears to.

Have I hurt her? Have I ever hurt anybody before this? How do I apologise? What am I even apologising for? I cannot begin to voice it.

In the Big Room it is apparently feeding time for the zoogs. Metal animal bowls have appeared in orderly rows on the bare concrete beyond the domesticated corner, each one filled with a mixture of wet dog food, dry kibble, and boiled oats; the air smells of hot meat and liquefied gelatin. The entire zoog population of Plato Base has assembled, a lake of greyish furry bodies becalmed by the meal, tails limp and relaxed, sharp claws gripping bowl rims, heads tilting back to chew with big wet mouth-smacking sounds, so much like their earthly cousins. Here and there a few zoogs come to brief hisses over whose food is whose, clambering over each other, paws shoving aside fuzzy rumps, jaws widened in warning. But no misunderstanding breaks out into scuffles, subsiding always into friendly coexistence. No scarcity here, no competition for scraps, no struggle over leftovers, always more bowls of meat and oats beyond the scrum, framed by rainbow graffiti on the walls, bracketed by the soaring columns of concrete dressed as marble.

Nerys’ honour guard up on the metal table have bowls of their own, but their share seems no greater than the zoogs down on the floor. Nerys herself is still sound asleep in her private animal bed, despite the chaos of munching and slorping and claws on concrete.

The zoogs who’ve been following Grimgrave skitter off at high speed to join the feast. The one in her arms squirms to be let down, drawing an amused squeal from Grimgrave.

“Want din-dins, eh!?” she laughs at it. “Want your din-dins!?”

“Yeeeeeeeeeh-ahhhh!” the zoog rasps, claws whirling in the air, tail whipping at Grimgrave’s flank.

Grimgrave sets it down with an affectionate ruffle. “Off you go!”

It skitters off to join the rest, claws skidding across the floor.

Latecomers have no trouble securing their meals. Among zoogs there seems no pecking order, no hierarchy of feeding, no proper way of doing things. The smallest and weakest happily shoulder in next to the boldest and oldest. The lone are not rejected by established cliques. The strongest do not necessarily eat first.

Spend a moment, try to count them; keep my eyes fixed on the spectacle, rather than acknowledge Grimgrave at my side, or poke at the tender bruise of my own thoughts. A seemingly impossible task, cataloguing and numbering zoogs. Crammed cheek-to-jowl and rump-to-rump, many of them shifting position, stopping to chitter and chatter. Some are already finished, licking their chops, departing in little clumps, heading for the other hallway-mouths of bare concrete which lead out of the Big Room. Others settle back down in the domesticated corner, finding their favourite spots. Some of the younger ones start to play-fight, rolling on the floor, gumming at unguarded tails, darting around the columns.

Two, maybe three hundred. A poor estimate.

“Three square meals a day!” Grimgrave announces. I try not to flinch; she must have seen me thinking. “Tissy keeps ‘em well-fed, like. They’ve even got vitamins and stuff mixed in. Healthiest zoogs anywhere, on earth or the dreamlands, for real!”

Tissy is nowhere to be seen. I cast about for a hint of blue ribbon or sapphire frill, slinking away behind a marbled concrete column.

“D’you want some?” Grimgrave asks.

Blink, frown, almost make eye contact, can’t quite get there. “Want some? Sorry, what?”

“Zoog chow!” Grimgrave blossoms with a mad grin in my peripheral vision.

“Ha ha.”

“Nah, for serious! Zoog chow’s some real gourmet shit, no joke. Tissy works miracles.”

Am I supposed to say yes? Is this my punishment? Grimgrave’s rapid recovery is only because she had planned on hazing me by forcing me to eat dog food? It is no less than I deserve now, is it not? If I was in her position, rejected and humiliated, would I not want to grab the back of her head and shove her face into a reeking bowl of cast-off meat?

Perhaps she’ll get violent if I refuse. The other side of Grimgrave will come back out, a shotgun muzzle pressed to my skull, down on my knees, until I bark and whine and eat my ‘din-dins’.

“No,” I mumble. “No, thank you.”

A shrug. “Whatevs. Your loss, Occy.”

Grimgrave braves the bank of the zoog-lake, departures flowing around her ankles. She grabs a metal bowl of her own, then produces a spoon from some secret pouch within her clothes, sticks it straight into the steaming mass of mashed meat and boiled oats. I try to brace, for either the punchline of an increasingly strained joke, or for her to skip right back to me and say ‘eat up!’

Instead she takes a huge mouthful of the stuff, cheeks bulging, chewing with relish. Sees me looking. Shrugs, big smile on her face, digging into her bowl of animal feed, ambling off to observe the other zoogs at their meal.

Dog food. Grimgrave is eating dog food.

Not my place to say a single damn thing, let alone criticise. For a long moment I can do naught but stand and wonder.

Over to my makeshift workspace, past the sofas and the corpse of Gregory the Moon Beast, floating in his tank of cloudy fluid. Grimgrave has helped clear off one of the many jumbled tables near to Signal’s computer station, adjacent to the 3D printers and CNC machines, wide enough for my laptop and the two halves of my prosthetic arm. I potter about for a few moments, doing automatic things, plugging in the laptop, locating spare USB cables, commandeering one of the many battered old computer chairs that lurk among the debris. Getting hooked into the wired network for the 3D printers and other machines is simple enough. Eventually I sit, try to settle down, install drivers, open my CAD software, poke through the files. Within a couple of minutes I have all the schematics and designs laid out, each relevant matter in a separate tab. My arm, my WestEuro Bionics XMR Model 4, along with all the changes and modifications I’ve made to myself over the years.

I take inventory. First, my severed arm. Note down and organise the damage. Which pieces will need replacements, which can perhaps be reused, which wires have to come out and be re-laid, what volume of foam must be discarded. Remove the battery, perform visual inspection for bulges or punctures or deep scratches. Unscrew the hand, detach the wiring, place it to one side for proper cleaning.

The rest of me is almost as bad. Headache and hangover still mounting. Gut queasy as the sea after a nasty storm, churned up with murk. Mouth vile, fuzzy, tastes wrong. Left shoulder aches from when I threw the chair. Right arm, invisible, intangible, clenched hard with phantom pain, long-dead joints of my fist so tight; real nails would have long ago torn through my palm.

Stare at the schematics. Stare at my arm. Stare down at my body. Assumed clarity of purpose dribbles out through bullet-holes in this tattered thing that passes for my soul.

Grimgrave brought me back to life and got me out here. But I’m the one here.

Repairing my prosthetic arm is self-evidently the correct option, the only option, the only thing of any value I can do right now. As long as I remain in several pieces the phantom pain of my tight-clenched right fist will never abate. Sleep will be impossible. Thought will be muddled. I certainly won’t be attempting masturbation a second time, not without more alcohol or sufficient painkillers, and neither of those are advisable. If I am to continue existing as anything other than tenderised meat, I require my arm. Skills, software, hardware, materials, I am master of all. This task is fully within my power.

And Willow wanted my prosthetics gone. She has almost gotten half her wish, but I will never give her the satisfaction.

Plus, if I choose to do anything else right now, Grimgrave will be there. If I go back to playing video games, she will sit on my bed and watch. If I try to sleep, she will linger in the room and make sure I rest well. If I wander around Plato Base, she will wander at my side. And I cannot face her eyes.

Only by beginning the repairs on my arm can I spare myself her gaze.

Grimgrave wanders over to the table more than once while I pretend to work — measuring the damaged parts of my arm, drawing up potential variations on 3D printed replacements, making lists of wires to strip out and re-lay. Munching her way through zoog feed, she still manages to talk incessantly—

“Woooaaaah, the innards is real complex, like—” “—sure you can do it all yourself? Siggy’ll help, she’d probably love to get a look at—” “—you could give yourself racing stripes! Or speed lines in red, or cool swirls or—” “—so wait, like, you just twitch the muscles in the stump and the hand moves? Holy shit, can you show—” “—expensive, right? Don’t wanna say? Bet it cost a mint. And here you are fixing it yourself! You’re cool as shit, Occy—” “—sure you don’t want some zoog chow? There’s tons of bowls left, they never eat it all, Tissy collects up the rest—” “—the hand comes off?! Haha, can I hold it!? Can I— “—we’re gonna put the telly back on, Occy! If you want a break, come sit down! Yeah? Nah? S’cool!”

—but I can’t reply.

Grunt, nod, make polite, technical, accurate responses when required. Lift my eyes from the laptop screen, watch her playing with the zoogs, helping to clear away and stack up the bowls now licked clean. Dozens of zoogs filter off into the depths of Plato Base as the meal finally draws to a close, slinking away in little groups, their claws clicking on the concrete. Several dozen also follow Grimgrave, clustering around her heels, trying to help with carrying the bowls, then returning to the domesticated corner, spreading out in post-meal torpor, leaving a space for Grimgrave to throw herself down on one of the sofas. She pets them at random, carries them in her arms, rubs her cheeks against their soft grey fur. Her wild mane of brown hair lies beside her on the sofa cushions. She slides down, gets comfy, legs splayed out wide, white-on-white-on-white.

I don’t know what to say to her.

Grimgrave has made her position clear, but I find it incomprehensible. Can’t decide if I’m an idiot, or if she’s insane.

She will accept anything, any indignity, any attack. Insults of the lowest kind, insinuations that she is a sexual predator, grumpy unjustified violent tantrums. Sexual assault, screaming hysteria, hurled chairs. She takes it all, and remains my ‘friend’, no matter the indignities I inflict. She won’t even run away. She speaks to me with gusto, helps to carry my things, grins with all her undimmed lunatic energy. She tries and tries and tries, even when I spit poison in her face.

If I led her back to my room and pushed her back down on the bed and carried on where we left off, she would accept that too.

That thought makes sweat break out at my hairline, forces my eyes to Grimgrave on the sofa, to her slender arms in her white sleeves, the way she flexes her spine to stretch a muscle, the lucky zoog pillowed on her belly.

How many magical girls has she lost before me? How many magical girls dead or dreaming? How many fast friends so quickly made, so suddenly gone?

I cannot take advantage of that. No better than Willow. I would rather die.

Back to the laptop screen. Focus on work.

Yet I cannot bring myself to finalise any design for the replacement outer sheath of my prosthetic arm. Once the process is started, the end becomes inevitable — my own repaired body, the conclusion of my convalescence.

And what then lies beyond?

Once I am whole again, what will I do? The wailing and weeping of the last few days has obscured that uneasy horizon, but now the storm of tears has been blown out by Grimgrave’s fresh breeze, and I am forced to measure the uncertain ground revealed. Will I be able to transform? Will I be a full and true magical girl? Will I fight for Nerys’ humanistic optimism, Grimgrave’s revolution, Signal’s resistance? Is this the rest of my life, hiding in a moon-base, with only other exiles and hundreds of zoogs for company, mounting raids on England for the sake of some ever-distant utopia? Will I face the Trio over and over, until we’re all old and wrinkled? Will they defeat me, kill me, forget me in haste? Will I stand victorious over them, stomp their skulls into the mud? And why, what for? To free England? What would be the result, what would the country be like? What would the world be like, if we were to win?

Will I have to face Willow again, on the way there?

I have been kept half my life in a gilded cage. Now I’m free, but what is freedom without purpose?

Grimgrave and the zoogs are channel-hopping on the quad-screen television, volume down tolerably low. Nature documentaries, daytime soap operas, reruns of Japanese cartoons. They settle on some kind of how-it’s-made program, great rolls of steel being stamped and cut into widgets. Half the zoogs sit up, hypnotised. Others ignore it, snuggle down with their friends, drift off into post-meal doze. Grimgrave looks heavy-lidded, ready for a nap.

She lives up here, doesn’t she? Is this what she does all day, when she’s not blowing up crowds of people or sparring with Bright? Grimgrave is a fellow exile, she can answer my questions, she knows what it’s like. How does Grimgrave give herself purpose, how does she stay sharp? Does she spend all her time with the zoogs? Does she practice or train? What about the rest of Plato Base, my new home, should I explore it, with a guide, with her? Is this ‘home’ now? What about for Grimgrave? Has she made it her home? What’s her bedroom like?

Dangerous question. Don’t go there.

Forearm on the table, forehead on forearm, close my eyes. Shut out the light from my laptop screen, embrace the dark. I am a corpse risen but not yet stitched back together, and perhaps it is better that I stay in pieces. If not for the phantom pain, perhaps I could. Sleep forever, curl back up in bed. Have a dream of my own. Forget the rest.

Don’t want to think anymore.

Time drifts aside.

“Occy?” Grimgrave says, up close. Taps my shoulder. “Occy, hey. Heeeeey? Wakey-wakey?”

Sit up, clear my throat, blink the gathering sleep from my eyes. The Big Room swims back into focus, laptop screen still a-glow. I only drifted off for a few minutes.

Grimgrave peers down, quizzical, curious; I peer up, back at her. Our gazes meet, stay met. Not courage, just groggy.

“Didn’t mean to take a nap,” I mumble. “Just … ”

Grimgrave snorts and smirks, then points past me, eyebrows raised. I follow her finger and almost flinch.

A plate of food has appeared next to my laptop, deposited in perfect silence. A pair of sandwiches cut into neat halves, great thick slabs of melted cheese and hot tomato between toasted brown bread, accompanied by a very large mug of gently steaming coffee. The scent grips my throat, kneads my gut.

I scan the Big Room for signs of Tissy, hoping for a glimpse of blue ribbon or deep-sea frills, but she’s long gone.

“Tissy, I assume?” I croak, clear my throat again. “When did she … ?”

Grimgrave shrugs. “Don’t feel bad, I didn’t see her either! Tissy’s real good at being sneaky.”

“Will you thank her for me? Please?”

Grimgrave cracks a grin, raises her head, and cups her mouth. “Occy says thank you, Tissy!” she yells, voice echoing off into the depths of the Big Room. I flinch and wince. Several zoogs scramble upright, then subside when they realise it’s just Grimgrave; a few join in, warbling thank yous into the concrete void.

“Will she hear that?” I ask.

“Sure!” Grimgrave says. “She knows!”

I push my laptop back and drag the plate over. Can’t eat and work at the same time, not with only one hand. I sip the coffee. Hot, rich, dark, very good. The sourness in my gut begins to settle. The razor edge of my headache begins to blunt.

Grimgrave lingers, a snowy fairy at my left elbow. I look up, manage eye contact a second time.

“ … yes?”

She shrugs. “You like, doing alright now? Feelin’ any better?”

Not a hint of awkwardness behind those glittering emerald eyes. Shouldn’t you be afraid of me now, Grimgrave? Aren’t you worried I’m going to launch myself from this seat, bowl you over, pin you to the floor, assault you? I jammed my knee between your legs, felt your cunt grind and give against my prosthetic. How are you not blushing like crazy? How can you look at me without sweating? Speak without stammering? Like I am, like how my heart rate is rising and my skin prickling with heat just looking at you.

Can’t keep my eyes on her. “Not really. But I’ll live, I guess.”

“Yeeeeeaaaah.” Grimgrave laughs. “That’s the important bit, you know? Keep on keeping on. Keep breathing. Gotta keep going!”

“Mmhmm.”

Still she lingers. Her throat bobs, a swallow. Her lips part, a wet click. It’s coming, I can feel it, like a seizure. Ask me why I held you down. Ask me why I threw a chair at you. Please just ask; please, Grimgrave, please do not apologise. I will shake myself to pieces if you apologise.

But the words don’t fall. When I glance up a third time, Grimgrave is peering at my prosthetic, in pieces on the table. She starts, as if caught staring.

“Oh shit,” she says, a grin creasing her face. “I’m not like, ogling it or nothing! Just curious, wondering like, if you’re, like, having any success and all?”

“I’ve made a fundamental error,” I say. Surprised at myself, being honest with her.

Grimgrave’s eyebrows perform the most fascinating climb. “Oh shit. For real? Like, something you can’t fix? Fuck, we can get Siggy on it, serious.”

Sigh. Almost smile. “Not a mechanical or technical error. Not something Signal can help with. A … project management error, let’s call it that.”

Grimgrave wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Ain’t no fucking ‘project managers’ up here in Plato Base! You do what the fuck you want!”

“Doesn’t that mean I’m my own project manager?”

Grimgrave looks sceptical. “Fuck. Whatever. I guess?”

I take a long sip from my coffee. “Metaphors aside, then. I have attempted to distract myself with work.” Gesture at the laptop screen and the 3D printers. “But the work forces me to face questions from which I would also prefer to be distracted.”

“Eh? You mean, like, about your robot arm?”

“No, I … I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Once my arm is repaired, what will I do with myself?”

Grimgrave squints with the effort of comprehending me; must I spell it out step-by-step? For her, considering what I’ve done, I will, if I have to. But then her eyebrows shoot up, her mouth makes an o-shape.

“Ohhhhhh. Oh. Shit.”

“Yes, quite,” I echo. “Shit.”

“Shit. Huh.” Grimgrave perches on the edge of the table, only a couple of feet from my left elbow. The fabric of her loose white jogging bottoms pulls taut against her backside, pillowing outward against the table. Just a product of the way she sits, not on purpose. I stare for a heartbeat, then jerk my eyes away, hoping she didn’t see. “Shiiiiiit. Shit.”

“Half my life so far was lost to a Dreamer,” I say, as much to distract myself from Grimgrave’s arse as to explain my mind. “I was caged, I suppose, in some respects. Now I’m free. But I don’t know … ”

Grimgrave smirks. “Don’t know how to fly?”

“Terrible metaphor.” I sigh, sip my coffee again. “Don’t start finishing my sentences for me, that’s … I don’t know. Weird.”

Grimgrave leaps up again, sparing me the temptation of her bum, arms in the air, grin on her face. “Occy, hey, whatever happens, you’re one of us now! You’re one of Nerys’ magical girls. You’re with us, and we’re gonna smash England to all fuck. Dream Control, the Trio, whatever! We made a huge splash, gigantic, and we’re gonna keep going and going until—”

“Don’t!” I snap. Then, quickly, softer: “Don’t. Don’t. Please. I’m sorry … sorry I snapped.” Can’t snap at you, not when you’ll take every abuse I hurl your way, not when I’ve touched you like I did. “I just … don’t.”

Grimgrave tilts her head. Unhurt, how? “Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk about ‘revolution’, about being one of you. I don’t know what that means.”

Grimgrave puffs out a long breath. A big shrug, flapping her arms. “Alright then, how about you like, start with something small?”

Close my eyes, try to fight the headache, soaking in the caffeine. “I’m really not up for listening to revolutionary theory, Grimgrave, no matter how elementary. Please, just—”

“Naaaah, not that. I mean with this!”

Open my eyes. Grimgrave gestures at my laptop and the 3D printers.

“What do you mean, something small?” I ask. “Working on my arm at all is making me think about things I would rather … I don’t know. Avoid? Put off? Have an answer prepared for, before I blunder into them? But what can I do except fix my arm? I need it, I need it so badly, the … the phantom pain and the … I can’t stop. If I stop, I may as well be dead.”

“Then make something unrelated, like!” Grimgrave says. She squats down, scoops up a stray zoog which has wandered over to nose at her ankles, cuddles it to her chest. The zoog paws at her shoulder, twists its snout to look at me. “Some doodad or something, you know? Siggy’s got enough feedstock to last forever, she won’t care if you print something for fun, like.”

I’m lost. “Such as?”

“I dunno!” Grimgrave shrugs. The zoog in her arms rides the motion, tail wrapping around her forearm. “A doorstop? Nah, okay, that’s boring. How about you print one of those 3D models of one of us, a magical girl! There’s tons out there on the internet, right? Still nah? Whatever, I dunno! A thing, a thing.” Her eyes light up, a maniac grin ripping across her face. “Heeeeeeey, you could print yourself a dildo!”

I give her a long look, as withering as I can muster, but Grimgrave is wither-proof. The zoog in her arms chimes in, “Dildoooooo!” A brief chant goes up, rasping from half a dozen nearby throats. “Dildooooo.”

Roll my eyes, turn my face away.

“Or maybe build a vibe!” Grimgrave carries right on as the zoogs quiet down. I try not to flush. “Oh shit, like, you’re actually thinking about it!”

“I am not,” I say. “What a waste of feedstock. Plus, if I—”

If I needed that, I’ve got you, right, Grimmy? What do I need a sex toy for when I’ve got your fingers and your tongue, when you would so willingly donate the use of your body if only I asked?

Unspoken thought all but chokes me. Burns on my cheeks. Prickles my skin, a sheen of fresh sweat. How could I think such a thing, let alone begin to voice it without care?

Grimgrave snorts, none the wiser. “Chill, Occy. Chill, chill. S’just a joke, for serious, just a joke. Print something random and cool, hey? Go grab a model off the internet or something, something cool to put in your bedroom. Shit, I dunno, you into any cartoons? Anime? There’s tons of those. Print a figurine. Anything you like.”

“ … I’ll … give it some thought. Maybe a … a model tank or something.” I pick up one of my toasted sandwiches and stop my mouth with a bite before I lose control, before I say something obscene.

“Cool! Just, you know, do something fun for a bit, yeah? Something for yourself, like.”

“Mmhmm.”

Grimgrave makes the zoog in her arms wave bye-bye for now, wiggling one little paw. She trots back over to the sofas and the quad-television, leaves me to chew my food and my thoughts together.

The sandwiches go down slow, careful, with surprising ease. The first half begins to settle my queasy stomach. Coffee seeps through the walls of my gut, into my bones and up my spine, smothering the ashen flames of my headache. Grimgrave has settled back on the sofa, a trio of zoogs in her lap, pointing and laughing at some vintage slapstick film that sends the zoogs into fall-about fits of chitter-chatter hilarity.

Design something for fun. Grimgrave’s advice feels woefully under-educated. Design what, why, what for? Designs have purposes, and right now I have no purpose, other than bare survival. What am I supposed to design and build, Grimgrave? Will you answer me that, if I get up and stomp over there and shove you back against the sofa?

A thought takes advantage in my moment of unspoken frustration. Slips through the unguarded gate. Edges in sideways, unctuous smile on its face, rubbing its hands together, presenting me with such a reasonable argument.

I would think so much better, so much clearer, with so much less lingering pain, if I had another drink.

Just one shot of vodka. Lubricate my mind, sand off the edges, take away the doubt and the second-guessing and the rancid self-loathing. I’ve recovered now, past the worst of the accelerated hangover, and I’m a magical girl, aren’t I? One or two shots can’t hurt. Grimgrave can keep an eye on me, make sure I only drink a couple, stop me at three, take away the bottle. She’ll do anything I say, won’t she? So why not ask her for the vodka again? Tell her the truth, you need it to clear your mind. Just a drop. Hair of the dog. You’ll be responsible this time. You’ll be safe. And you need it, because you need to think, and she’s put you up to this task in the first place, hasn’t she? She saved you, dragged you out here, made you face these questions. You deserve a bit of mercy, being stuck up here on the moon, your arm in pieces, feeling like shit. Just one drink. Can’t hurt.

Grimgrave would do it, if I asked. Pleaded, cajoled, threatened, begged. She’ll say yes.

I start to rise from the chair, still chewing the last bite of my sandwich, mind crawling with plans of what to say to Grimgrave, Grimmy, please, I’m okay now, I’m fine, just one, I promise, just one—

But then my gaze is yanked aside, by the most unexpected intervention.

Gregory, our dead Moon Beast, floating in the murky fluids of his big glass tank. A pair of massive dark eyes buried deep in a mire of tentacles. Slabs of dark grey muscle, pickled in brine. Rings of lamprey-like teeth. Grey claws in clusters of seven.

Dead eyes see through my justifications. Gregory tells me that I am an alcoholic. My excuses are pathetic.

Gregory knows, because he’s dead too.

I thump back down, cold sweat on my brow, a hard quiver in my throat and my gut, blinking away a sudden sheen of moisture in my eyes. Pour the rest of my coffee down into my stomach, better caffeine than alcohol.

Gregory seems to recede into his tank, though the corpse doesn’t even twitch.

“Weakling,” I whisper to myself. “You’re … you can’t. You can’t. Never. Never again.”

Perhaps the only thing for which I will thank Willow; then again, it was likely her dreams that drove me to drink in the first place.

Attention returns to my CAD software. Focus on work, distract myself, at any cost. Phantom pain ramps up, so my left hand occupies itself massaging my stump. Make something fun; more like make something functional. Doorstops to dildos. Maybe Grimgrave’s joke isn’t such a bad idea, maybe I really should design and print myself a vibrator, but there’s no way I’m doing that while she’s still in the room, even if she’s not watching. I would choke and blush and splutter and she would run over to see why.

All the other options are pointless. Little statues to put on tables, decorative nonsense, purposeless experiments. The only thing that interests me right now is the potential for repairing and replacing—

My own body parts?

I scoot the chair back, extend my right leg, examine my foot.

My prosthetic leg terminates in a complex curved joint of lightweight steel and carbon fibre — a dynamic-response energy-storage-and-return artificial ankle, painted black to protect from corrosion. This ‘foot’ alone is more than enough for walking and even a little running, though it’s not quite as expensive, complex, or heavy as some models. But walking directly on the exposed ESAR foot would wear down the underside over time, and it’s very difficult to wear a shoe without some kind of additional padding or layer. Thus, the beautiful machine-curves of my prosthetic are encased in a cheap polymer shell the shape of a real flesh-and-blood human foot. Off-peach plastic for skin, ridges for toes, the convex bulb of a heel and a concave arch, none of which I actually need.

I’ve always hated the necessity of a foot shell, but it’s not as if I have to see the thing very often. Usually it’s inside a shoe.

Removing the shell is not easy, especially with only one hand. I lever and wiggle and wince, pin it in place with my other foot, dig and pull and yank. Several nearby zoogs look up, to watch me disassemble myself. I almost laugh; doing this in view of anybody would have been obscene only a week ago, and now here I am, pulling my leg apart before an audience of zoogs.

Eventually the shell comes free, along with the foam padding from the inside. My true foot is revealed, an elegant curve of metal and carbon fibre. Gingerly, as if it might feel the cold, I place my naked foot back down against the concrete.

I stare for a long time. Try to imagine the result.

A problem presents itself. A solution begins to take shape, first in my imagination, then roughed out in a sketch, then painstakingly pieced together in a CAD file. I measure, re-measure, take dimensions from my existing foot-shell, guess how much foam I might need for the inside. Eliminate the toes, re-shape the outline, estimate the weight. Try a few different shapes, discard a dozen as unsatisfactory, settle on one that might work. Iterate, iterate, iterate.

Almost an hour later I have a first prototype ready to print. Angular, sleek, machine-like.

My mind is buzzing, alive, active in a way I’ve not felt in too long. Did Willow’s dreams suppress this part of me too? Couldn’t stop me forever, Willow. I will build a better foot and shove it so far up your arse you will taste the carbon fibre on your tongue.

Out among the 3D printers, the cables, the wires, I get everything plugged in. Signal has a vast array of feedstock filaments, enough carbon fibre reinforced nylon to print a thousand drones. Perhaps I should use the same lunar regolith that Signal uses for her skeletons, but I suspect the process is more complicated than 3D printing; if the prototype works I can ask her about that later, or perhaps play with the CNC machines, but they’re not well-suited to a rough draft. First I need proof of concept, the CFRN will do for now. Fiddle with one of the printers, get it loaded, get the machine warmed up. It wakes, aglow and buzzing, ready to remake a little part of the world, a little part of me. I stroke the matte grey shell of the printer, beautiful little minion.

Back to the table, start the process, confirm, print. The 3D printer comes alive, cooling fans spooling up, dual print-arms clicking into place, nozzles switching and loading from an internal rack. Breathless, flushed, like I am the machine and the machine is me. It begins to lay foundations.

Time to completion, 2 hours and 35 minutes.

Sit back, take a deep breath.

That felt good.

Perhaps this is my future. Building drones and spare parts for Signal’s Opposition people down in England. Designing ambulatory skeletons. Making bombs.

Do I know how to make bombs? A little. The knowledge surfaces, always there. Another of Willow’s many suppressions.

Grimgrave is playing a complex game with some of the zoogs, but I cannot intuit the rules. They’ve set up a board on the concrete floor just beyond one end of the big metal table, dotted with brightly coloured plastic playing pieces shaped like other animals. Grimgrave makes most of the actual moves, taking direction from the zoogs; every now and again they all leap up and run the entire length of the Big Room, claws skittering over the concrete, Grimgrave always in the lead, winding around the columns, the zoogs braying and hissing. To my eyes Grimgrave always appears to win this ‘race’, but I don’t think it’s actually a race. Several times she flops on the floor afterward, zoogs piling onto her as if in victory. More moves are made. Zoogs chew on dice. Grimgrave laughs, that hitching hyena cackle.

Impressive when she runs, slender limbs flying through the air, messy brown hair streaming out behind her, face split wide by a mad grin.

So.

I’m a lesbian.

There, I said it, if only in the privacy of my own mind.

Now I’ve had a few hours to adjust, it seems so obvious. A naked fact, staring me in the face all my life, hardly some great revelation that recontextualizes everything I’ve ever known. Magical girls and Dreamers have done that already. Yet at the same time it seems impossible, a dislocation greater than Nerys and Willow and being lost on Luna. I am the thing I feared; the thing I feared was me all along. The monster lurks in the mirror, and she wants to fuck me. Would I fuck myself? Probably not.

I never thought about men, never had the faintest glimmer of boy-craze, never considered that as a prospect. Willow had a hand in all that, of course, suppressed parts of me in ways I will likely never understand. But the result, sitting here in Plato Base, shorn of comforting lies from a Dream, is all me. Hard to deny it after my session in front of the laptop earlier.

But what does it mean?

Down in England it would mean hiding, minimizing myself as much as possible, and wasn’t I already doing that? Willow was doing it for me, rather. Being a homosexual is not exactly illegal in England, not by the letter of the law, but it is so much more likely to bring one to the attention of Dream Control. Isolation and Observation must be full of people like me.

People like me. All those terrifying dykes. What a thought.

But up here? What does it mean on Luna, as a magical girl? Grimgrave clearly said we’re all like this, that’s why Nerys picks us. Magical moon dykes, every one. Maybe she lied about the orgy thing, maybe they all fuck each other on weekends. Makes me shudder, I don’t want that. Not interested.

Another form of freedom which I don’t know what to do with.

Turn my eyes from Grimgrave. Cast my mind — back to Willow? Did I ever truly find Willow attractive? Too raw, too recent, my mind shies from that question. So it’s back to Grimgrave, sprinting up and down with the zoogs, lying on the floor all flushed and sweaty, laughing as she loses to her tiny friends.

She would do anything I ask her.

Do I want that? Do I want — face the words now, Octavia, don’t flee from specificity — to have sex with Grimgrave?

Turn the idea over in my mind, think back to that moment on the bed, her face looking up at me, my knee between her thighs, the softness yielding. Imagine my lips descending to hers. My hand gripping her cunt. Her fingers sliding across mine.

I huff, shake my head. It seems unreal, impossible, an offensive presumption. A dirty little fantasy, only achievable if I overpower her again. The reality would be messy and painful and we’d both weep in the aftermath, wouldn’t we?

And I would be like Willow. So, no.

Whatever Grimmy and I are to each other now, lesbian sex will improve nothing about my personal situation. Probably it would make everything much worse.

Best stick to pornography.

Little to do and plenty from which to distract while I wait for my new foot to finish printing, so I go back on the internet. Thankfully the screen is angled so that Grimgrave cannot see from all the way over there on the far side of the domesticated corner. Yet, all the same, after a few moments of idle clicking back and forth on the same site I used earlier, I feel only vague disinterest. The girls are just as pretty as before, their boobs just as implausible, their outfits just as terminally slutty, but I’m simply not interested at the moment, in a room full of zoogs, food in my belly, my own sexuality a dull and distant irritation.

Instead, straighten my spine, fill my lungs, clear my thoughts. To magibooru, to see the fruit of our adoring public.

The fan-artists and meme-makers have been exceptionally busy in the days since The Battle of Oxford Holton Hospital, both illegally English and freely foreign. I already downed a good dose of this stuff while languishing in the depths of my tantrum, but that was mindless scrolling. Now I set out for systematic observation, paging through the last few days of new posts, mulling over what the international public thinks of our debut on the world stage.

Our? I suppose so. Like it or not.

All participants in the rooftop battle have been graced with artistic attention, but for once Scarlet Edge’s popularity has been collectively eclipsed by the novelty of not only three new magical girls, but the tantalising potential of their status as rebels and outlaws. Grimgrave, Bright, Signal, all three have been depicted not just as they were, locked in the duels that really happened, not only in dashing isolation, studies of their poses and outfits and what little the public have gleaned of their personalities, not merely as stylised cartoons, but also more than a few times as champions of places or identities or ideologies which have little to do with England and Dream Control.

Here is Grimgrave the mad terrorist, her clown outfit augmented with the balaclava and AK-47 of a thousand insurgencies. There is Signal, guitar riffs and death-metal growls knocking crowds of armed and masked police onto their backsides, to be rushed by the mundane riot at her back. Burning Bright the Dragon-Girl breathes fire on flags of distant nations, melting battle tanks, smashing jets from the skies; there is even one crude drawing of her on the side of an actual, physical, real-life explosive drone.

But not all depictions are so serious. Most are either vaguely sexualised, awestruck at their arrival in the collective imagination, or just bizarre and inexplicable. Realistic dioramas of the fight sketched from below the hospital. Character studies of Burning Bright’s duel with Azure. Strangely stylised illustrations of Scarlet Edge locked in battle with Grimgrave, some that are clearly a bit too enthusiastic about Scarlet’s wild blood-lust. One artist has drawn six full-body versions of Scarlet cackling and covered in blood. I run across a drawing of Signal wearing a Dragonball Z t-shirt and giving a thumbs up alongside Goku, the reason for which I cannot fathom. Many artists really enjoy Burning Bright, from more angles than I had considered possible. One particular artist has drawn thirty full-colour images of Azure Infinity burned and bruised from the fight with Bright, a sure sign of obsession. I squint with scepticism at one total nude of Dawn’s First Gloaming, chased by a conga-line of Signal’s armoured skeletons.

Precious few have dared draw Willow. Artists don’t seem to know how to respond to a Dreamer caught on camera. They depict her as a screaming banshee of dripping toxic gold, her real face not at all in evidence. She was lucky — or perhaps just clever — to somehow avoid the good focus of Signal’s cameras.

Though, to my secret delight, there is one very good piece of Grimgrave blasting her off the side of the roof. I save it on my hard drive, in case I need a smile.

Octavia Carter has garnered more attention as well, though less so than the three full-blown, authentic, rebel magical girls. Mundane eyes do not seem to have processed or understood the dark corona of my half-aborted transformation, but there I am, more than a few times, being protected by Grimgrave, menaced by Scarlet Edge, or else staring her down with electric tension.

A few artists have gone further, drawn the moment I punched her face apart, but that subject seems even more taboo than Willow. Most of them are just gore, not to my taste.

I try not to look at the porn. Grimgrave does not have breasts like that. Even if she did, she would likely not be at all embarrassed by them.

“Occy?” The genuine article wanders over, face flushed from all the running up and down. Most of the zoogs are all puffed out, sprawled on the floor by the game board, but a few trail along behind her heels. “Occy, yo, hey!”

“Hm? What?”

Grimgrave pauses at the edge of the table, grinning, surprised. “You’re smiling!”

“ … oh.” Control myself. “I suppose I am. I mean, look at this.” Gesture at the screen. Let her see. No harm in that.

Grimgrave comes around to my shoulder. I try not to stiffen. She bursts out laughing.

On the screen is a drawing of Grimgrave and Scarlet Edge, super-deformed cartoons. Grimgrave, in place of her shotgun, wields a gigantic comedy mallet, and is using it to hit Scarlet Edge on the head. Scarlet’s limbs are splayed, tongue dangling out, eyes replaced by big black Xs.

“Fuck yeah!” Grimgrave cheers. “Real Looney Toons shit, yo!”

“What do you think of this one?” I close the tab, pull up another.

Grimgrave goes quiet, lets out a low whistle. “That’s me? Fuck yeah that’s me. Damn!”

Grimgrave the murder clown, blood-drenched and dripping, grinning with razor-sharp teeth, lurking in the depths of a back alley, lit by the flicker of late-night street-lights, muzzle of her shotgun toward the camera.

“You like it?” I ask. “Seems unrealistic.”

“Yeah! Well … fuck, I wouldn’t dress like that for real,” she says. “Too edgelord for me. But it’s cool to see!”

“You don’t look at this stuff?”

Grimgrave shrugs. “Eh, sometimes, I guess? Not like we’ve been on there before. We made a hell of a splash, Occy, we really fuckin’ did, you were right! You were totally right, your debut idea, fuckin’ brilliant!”

“Mm. I suppose so.” Close the tab, forget what I had in the next, try not to avert my eyes.

Grimgrave bursts into hysterical splutters, almost doubles over, clutching her stomach. She laughs so hard that the zoogs at her heels skitter back in alarm.

“Phwoarrrrr!” Grimgrave says. “Look at the size of her! Occy, is that what you’re into!?”

A sigh. “No. I was researching. I’m curious what people think of us.”

Burning Bright, in full transformation, dragon claws and muscular tail and flame-wings and all, not a single scale missing, a perfect study of her real appearance. Except her breasts are bigger than her head and the artist has gifted her with an impossibly large and startlingly erect penis, also covered in scales, with a biologically implausible flared tip.

“Awww shit,” Grimgrave wheezes, still laughing. “I can’t fuckin’ breathe. Aw fuck. Wow. Wow! Hey, hey, don’t let Bright see you looking at that, she’ll shit an egg!”

“I didn’t plan on it.” Close the tab, return us to the front page. But there’s two more examples of similarly endowed pictures of Bright in the thumbnails, recently posted, extremely popular.

“Oh they fuckin’ love her!” Grimgrave says. “They love that dragon dick!”

Another sigh. “She’s the only one of us … ‘modified’ in that specific fashion, at least so far. I mean, yes, there’s a few of the Trio, going back a long way, but … why Bright? Why not anybody else?”

Grimgrave sobers a touch. “Big dragon girl, you know? It’s just, like, what people think. Half of them probably want her to fuck ‘em, you know?”

A third sigh. “Great.”

“Do you like it?”

Grimgrave should guffaw and chortle with that question, but her face is strangely serious, eyebrows raised, waiting politely. I give her a dark look; she mistakes it for incomprehension.

“You know,” she says, shrugs. “Girls with dicks. Girlcock. All that.”

Roll my eyes. “Apparently I’m a lesbian now. Or I always was. So … no? I don’t know. What a ridiculous question.”

“S’cool,” Grimgrave says. “You know. Whatever, hey?”

Why be gentle with me now, Grimgrave? Why not poke me again, make jokes about Bright’s impossible phallus? But she doesn’t, just stands there at my elbow in expectant silence, waiting for a return blow, a verbal riposte.

I disappoint her, say nothing, no good at these games. Refresh magibooru’s front page, load a handful of new thumbnails. More exaggerations to laugh at. Perhaps together, Grimgrave and I, perhaps we can laugh.

But the first thumbnail, the most recent upload, is in a style I recognise. Even in miniature. My heart stutters. Mouth goes dry. Head blanks out.

Grimgrave leans closer, a hand on my shoulder. “Oh heeeeeey, what’s that one? Is that you, Occy? is that—”

Alt-F4, quick as I can, but I don’t know why. The browser window vanishes, reveals the naked CAD design for my replacement foot.

“Nothing!” I snap, can’t look up at her. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I don’t want to see it.”

Don’t want Grimgrave to see it; but why? It’s just an illustration, who cares?

Grimgrave snorts, baffled confusion. “Eh? Occy? What—”

“I don’t want to see it.”

Lies. I love it already, and all I had was a glance. Shrug Grimgrave from my shoulder, turn my head away, afraid my eyes will betray the truth, afraid she’ll see — what? That I’m a slut? She already knows; she is too, we revelled in it together, almost ‘did it’ without thinking. But now my face is burning and my heart is racing and I can’t look at Grimgrave because I don’t want her to see what I saw.

Grimgrave straightens up. A beat passes, a horrible frozen heartbeat. I’ve hurt her again. It’s what I do. Covered in poison spikes.

“Soooooo,” she says at length. “What’cha printing? A new foot?”

Swallow, clear my throat. “Yes.”

“Cool.”

“Mm.”

Can’t be rude to her, can’t talk to her like this, because she’ll just take it, she’ll take it all, whatever horrors I heap upon her head. I cannot become that monster. I cannot be like Willow.

Turn my head, raise my eyes, meet Grimgrave where she stands. An awkward smile, to draw the sting from my words.

“Printing a new foot, yes,” I say. “An experiment, I suppose.”

A gesture I would never have made before: I pull back on the chair, show her the exposed mechanical ankle and foot at the end of my prosthetic leg, my metal claw. Grotesque, uncouth. But Grimgrave’s seen worse from me.

Grimgrave grins. “Woah. Robot foot!”

“I suppose. Anyway, yes, I’m printing a new cover for it. That’s all.”

“Yeah, yeah, real cool.” Grimgrave nods, but she’s not all there, eyes darting up and elsewhere, teeth chewing at her bottom lip. Have I finally hurt her too badly? Does she know what I’m trying to conceal? She swallows, looks away, at the far side of the Big Room, half-back again, can’t meet my eyes. “Occy, hey, I was wondering, like.” Here it comes. “Would you be okay on your own, for like, I dunno, fifteen minutes?”

And there it is. A straw has shattered the camel’s back. A final insult, a last indignity, and now Grimgrave wants to slink off to be a kicked puppy in private.

Something. Undefined. An excuse. To get away from me for five minutes, away from my sour looks and filthy thoughts and dreary, dead-end eyes.

She takes my moment of guilt as confusion. Brightens a little.

“I mean like, hey, you could come with if you want!” she says. “No probs, serious. Just didn’t think you’d wanna, with your foot off an all. So like … you gonna be like … okay? On your own here, for a bit, I mean. I’m coming right back, really! I just gotta go … uh … Just don’t go anywhere, okay? You just stay here. Be safe, like?”

Oh.

How many times has she done this before? How many girls has she lost, the moment she turned her back?

A sigh — half-performance, half-relief, half for her and half for me. “Grimgrave.” No. “Grimmy. I’m not going to go hunting for more alcohol as soon as you take your eyes off me. And my heart is … well, I assume it’s healing properly now.”

Grimgrave’s awkward grimace turns to a proper grin. “Ahhhhhhhh, I’m just worried, you know! Sure you don’t wanna come with?”

“I’m sure. I’ll be fine right here. I’m going to keep an eye on the printer, in case anything fails partway through the process. And frankly, if you need to go take a shit, I’d rather not listen.”

“Haha!” Grimgrave bursts out laughing, punches me gently on the shoulder. “Alright, cool! Back in a bit, okay?”

“Okay.”

Grimgrave turns away as if to leave, then turns back, a sudden spark in her eyes; she darts over to the sofas, grabs a cushion, and places it on the table, near to me. Then she squats down, selects a baffled but excited zoog, and deposits the zoog on the cushion.

“There!” she announces. “Look after Occy for a bit, okay?”

The zoog — older, heavyset, I think female — lets out a raspy ‘yahhhhh’, then settles down on the cushion.

Grimgrave shoots me a grin, then finally turns to depart. She skips across the Big Room; I cannot help but note she is not heading toward the corridor full of bedrooms, but in the opposite direction. Half a dozen zoogs peel off to follow her, but she turns, squats down, says something in a low voice, pets a few of them behind the ears, so finally they shy away from her destination. Framed in the mouth of a concrete corridor, she looks back, catches my eye, waves.

“Back in a few, promise!” she shouts.

Raise a hand, wave her off, smile to absolve her of any guilt. And then Grimgrave is gone, swallowed up by Plato Base.

I’m not alone, however, as she promised. I am surrounded, if not by friends, then at least allies. Dozens of zoogs are scattered all over the domesticated corner, a formidable backup force. My table-zoog quickly slips into a light doze on her cushion, eyes open but heavy-lidded, head on her forepaws, watching me with disinterest. I reach over, show her my hand, receive no warning hiss or shuddering recoil; I stroke her head gently, scratch behind her ears. One rear paw shakes with pleasure. She lets out a raspy purr. But she can’t see my laptop screen, not from that angle.

With Grimgrave safely beyond sight, I reopen the web browser, restore the previous session, back to magibooru.

The most recent drawing is by an unmistakable hand. I click on the thumbnail, view full screen.

It’s me.

On the roof of Oxford Holton Hospital. Charging at the viewer, fist pulled back, loading a punch. Haloed in red-black light, the ghostly outline of armour flickering and guttering about my limbs and torso, head half-obscured by a semi-transparent mask of void-dark metal. My face wears an expression I’ve never seen in the mirror, iron-and-steel in my jaw and brow, molten rage behind widened eyes.

My aborted transformation, unrequited transcendent beauty, the moment I almost crossed that abyss.

A shiver goes up my spine, crawls across my scalp, settles heavy and leaden in my heart.

The artist has captured me precisely and completely. Not how I looked on a thousand phone cameras from ground level, fuzzy and distant, nor even in the high quality footage from Signal’s close-range skeletons. Art captures how it felt, how I felt. And I’m all there, the slit of my right eye, the exact jagged ruin of my scar, the exposed joints of my prosthetic hand. My hair whipping out behind me as I rush toward the viewpoint. Rage in my eyes, the hint of a mad laugh at the edges of my face. About to break into a cackle.

Nobody else has been included; a half-finished sketch in the foreground corner might be Grimgrave, ducking from the path of my charge, but that’s all, as if the rest of the melee was of no consequence. Sky behind me a roiling cauldron of storm, a tempest about to break over my shoulders, as if my punch heralds a maelstrom.

I’m beautiful in the picture, impossible in a mirror. This is not the Octavia who wept and wailed for three days, or masturbated herself into a heart attack. This is Octavia Carter astride the world.

Who sees me like this? Not truth, that’s for certain.

Quickly I confirm my suspicion; this piece is by the same artist who drew the illustration of me facing off with Scarlet Edge, outside Dream Control Oxford Headquarters. Same attention to detail. Same realism. Same me.

The artist tag is ‘4en4’.

Click the tag, only two uploads, this picture and that earlier one. I save both, just in case. Search for a source, but both images are direct uploads, not taken from a social media account or artist page. Self-uploaded, by an account on the site with the exact same name.

The drawing of me on the rooftop, charging at the camera, is too real, raw, and realistic to be pure imagination. The artist saw me with their own eyes, not through footage. Not Willow, I already ruled her out by instinct with the previous drawing. Grimgrave would not be able to hide something like this. Bright has no reason to adore me in this manner. Signal, it’s possible, but why hide it?

How about one of the trio?

Only one of them saw me like this, from this angle.

Magibooru has no user-to-user direct message function, no way to contact ‘4en4’ outside of comments beneath the picture itself. I create an account, name myself ‘OC’, should be obvious enough. Open the comment box beneath the newest illustration.

I dither over the exact wording. Is this too much, too obvious? Will she delete the images and purge her presence if she knows I’ve seen these?

“Absurd,” I whisper. “This is insane. It can’t be her. Can’t be.”

In the end I decide to keep it as simple as possible. An invitation to engage, easily dismissed as a non-sequitur if she would prefer not, or if it’s not her at all. Post new comment. Done.

‘Scarlet?’ That’s all.

I lean back, stare at the single-word comment beneath the picture, listen to the whirr of the 3D printer fans and the distant whisper of moon-wind against the exterior concrete of Plato Base.

Scarlet Edge — Francesca — won’t reply straight away, if at all, if I’m right.

Insane. Can’t be her. It’s the only answer, but it makes so little sense. She’s tried to kill me twice, first as ‘vermin’, then as some kind of mercy kill. Why would she draw me in such resplendent beauty, to capture the truth of what it feels like on the inside, all my rage, my scars, my truth. Because I left a purple bruise on her mouth, a permanent mark on her lips? Because I bit her in a way she cannot forget?

“I’m being silly,” I say firmly. The zoog on the table looks up at me. “I’m being silly,” I repeat to her. “I am. Really. It’s simply not possible, it—”

A familiar figure shuffles in through the front entrance of the Big Room.

Sallow face framed by half-shaved limp blonde hair, shoulders heavy, eyelids heavier. Baggy jeans, baggier black hoodie, stained and creased. Dirty topaz eyes smoulder like fires banked with dung.

Burning Bright stops after a few paces. Sways with effort, turns her head, neck joints creaking. She looks right at me, hate in her eyes.

“ … Bright?”

She gathers herself, takes several deep breaths, musters her powers. Bright still looks like a woman two paces from death’s door, skin waxen and sweaty, deep dark bags around her eyes, every footstep a herculean effort against the bonds of her failing body. She plods around the edge of the domesticated corner, laceless boots scuffing on concrete. Zoogs look up, back away, open their jaws in silent hisses. Burning Bright’s eyes never leave mine.

“Bright? Bright, what is it?”

Slowly, as if trying not to provoke an animal, I get to my feet; my right foot scrapes, bare metal on concrete. Put the chair between Bright and myself. She moves slowly too, but doesn’t stop now she’s gathered steam. Rolls her shoulders back, each breath inflating her chest, pulling her further upright with every inhalation.

Suddenly I’m painfully aware that I still have only one arm.

Bright reaches the table, swaying and sweating. She looks even worse than our first meeting. Eyes bloodshot, days of sleep deprivation or hours of weeping, narrowed tight with the effort of keeping them open. Breath rattles in her chest, snagged on webs of sticky mucus, clotted and congealed in her throat. Skin greasy, unwashed, reeking sour of body odour and medical antiseptic.

She needs help, not whatever aggression she’s trying to provoke. This woman desperately needs to be spoon-fed medicine and then tucked into bed. She needs eight hours of sleep and a big meal. She needs a soft pillow and warm blankets. I know, like I know that fire is hot or clear skies are blue, that she would melt like wax in my hands if I could find a way to provide her those comforts.

Though I wouldn’t get far into such an offer; she’d bite me in half before I could finish.

“Bright,” I say, very slowly. “Are you … okay?”

She rounds the corner of the table, steps past the chair. One hand on the edge, steadying herself. Croaks at me.

“Finally crawled out of your hole, have you?”

“Yes. I mean, no.” A sigh. “I mean, it doesn’t matter. I’m here, aren’t you? Are you—”

Burning Bright raises her right hand, makes a fist. Slow enough to dodge, weak enough to knock aside. But I don’t, because she’s so unwell, so ready to be undone, so I struggle to believe that she’s really going to hit me.

Her punch crashes into my left cheekbone like a cannonball.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Tip number 35 for surviving on the moon: don’t forget about the jealous dragon girl and don’t let her get too close. Elemental mistake, Octavia! Now you’re getting beaten up!

Ahem. Anyway! Hello everybody! Arc 4 rushes toward its own mid-point with all the shocking clarity of a sudden punch to the face. And it is almost the mid-point, because behind the scenes I’ve now confirmed 100% that it’s going to 8 chapters. Octavia is … well, she’s … struggling, a bit? More than a bit? She’s made peace with Grimgrave, sure, but now she’s got a new unhinged magical girl on her hands, and this one probably never had hinges in the first place. Let’s hope she can dunk Bright in some water before she transforms.

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! I know I say this every week, but I seriously cannot thank you all enough; none of this storytelling would be possible without all of you, the audience. Maidens of the Fall is for you, and I’m delighted that you’re enjoying it. Thank you!

Next chapter, is it time for a fight?! I don’t think Octavia can put up much resistance right now, not without her arm. Oh dear.

Content Warnings

Suicidal ideation
Alcoholism/alcohol abuse
Vomiting
Internalised homophobia
Sexual content
Toxic sexual dynamics

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Grimgrave resuscitates me with a kiss.

Raw lip-to-lip contact rips me back from the brink. A sudden dose of magical energy, a gush of white-hot flame squirted directly into the failing furnace-mechanism of my soul, an injection of ‘girl-juice’ like a shot of adrenaline into the twitching half-dead muscle of my shrivelled heart.

Consciousness gutters back, an engine struggling to fire, pipes clogged with silt, combustion chamber flooded. Grimgrave’s lips move against my own, velvet-soft, skin-warm, urgent. Her face fills my vision, eyes squeezed shut, ragged curtain of messy hair swept aside, grey concrete a blur beyond, splashed with a riot of writhing blue. Despite the heart attack and the aborted orgasm and the lake of vodka in which I have attempted to drown myself, my rebooting brain is fully aware that Grimgrave is not sexually assaulting my still-warm corpse. She has just saved my life. Again.

I gurgle and groan, a strangled scream, half-panic, half-disgust, half-bewildered dismay, too much in excess of a hundred percent to keep inside. Lash out with my left arm, shove Grimgrave off — or rather, try my best, flailing weakly at her face and shoulders, barely strength enough to part a burial shroud.

Grimgrave jerks upright, breaks the kiss. Eyes wide, cheeks pale, birthmark down her throat standing out like blood on snow.

“Occy! Occy, hey, hey, can you hear me!?” Hands feather-light on my shoulders, afraid to shatter me like spun glass. “Don’t get up, don’t move, hey? Just lie there, let me—”

Sensible suggestion, but no. I bolt upright, almost knock skulls with Grimgrave, stopped by the tangle of my bedsheets, the horrible roiling in my gut, the blinding throb in my head. She scrambles back, a splotch of white against swirling grey.

Gagging and gasping, spluttering for air, as if I’ve been dredged from deep water. My fingers find the concrete floor but fail to find a grip. I’m going to fly apart, disintegrate into my constituent atoms. Chest shuddering, heart juddering, breath heaving hollow as magical energy fixes my insides with imperfect enthusiasm. Retching and choking and whining, head spinning like the world is going too fast and the doorway is filled with blue slime and ribbons and giant dark eyes and Grimgrave is babbling on and on about oh shit she’s gonna hurl and—

A liquid plug of vodka and stomach acid boils up my throat. I vomit into my lap, all over the displaced bedsheets. Once, twice, the third a dry heave.

Three deep breaths to match, vomit dripping from my lips. Pressure eases off my chest. Head begins to clear.

I actually feel better.

When I raise my sight to meet Grimgrave’s eyes, she’s poised on the precipice of action, ready to leap forward and grab me by the shoulders, stop me from stepping backward off the cliff a second time. But then she sees that I am going to live, whether I wish it or not. She lights up with a mad little grin.

“Ayyyyyy, Occy, there you are! Better out than in, right? You back with us, yeah? Yeah!?”

“ … you … ” Rough croak, throat aflame. “Grimmy … you … ” Doesn’t seem worth the effort, but it’s all I can think. “Kissed me. First kiss. Took it.”

First kiss? No, that went to Scarlet Edge. If Willow only ever kissed me in dreams, then Scarlet was my first. Unless that counted as a bite. Point to Grimgrave? Victory for Grimmy?

My face must look like murder; Grimgrave raises both hands and shakes her head. “No no no no! Occy, you were having a heart attack again! You were fucking popping off, I had to do it! I was giving you girl-juice, right?”

Nod. “I know. I … I was … I … I was trying … ”

And then the tears arrive.

Clear and clean at long last. No sobbing, no screaming, no shame, no rage; not even sorrow, just total defeat. Crying for myself, not for Willow, or what I’ve lost, or things which never happened. For me, right here and now, because I’m drunk and pathetic and have managed to masturbate myself into a heart attack; because I’m covered in my own vomit and I’ve ruined my bedsheets and there’s vaginal mucus on my fingers and pornography on my laptop screen; because Grimgrave the bright and cheery moon jester has witnessed every last pus-filled wound and festering wart of what was once Octavia Carter.

Grimgrave pulls a toothy grimace. “Ahhhh shit-balls. Tissy, can you, like, help? With the sick?”

A flute answers, slick and bubbling, a woodwind instrument submerged in warm oil. A mass of diaphanous blue glides from the doorway to render assistance.

Good thing I’m still drunk and weeping; Tistis is quite shocking, but I’m too preoccupied to recoil or scream or otherwise offend, which I certainly do not wish.

Tissy is humanoid, but too far from human for any mistake. Semi-translucent flesh, mottled and in motion from cerulean to indigo. Two legs, four arms, a curved torso, shoulders, and a head, budding into great limp snakes of thickly jellied tentacles in the place of hair. Wrapped in frills and ruffles of shifting blue membranes, like the skirts and petticoats of an impossibly complex dress, but these are not fabric, she doesn’t wear clothes; the lace-like folds and ribbon-structures are part of her body, extruded and flowing, rippling and shifting, like the outer layers of a huge jellyfish or the foot-fringe of an exotic mollusc. Darker blues lurk within her body, solid structures in spirals and helixes and ladders of flexible material, glowing with muted luminosity, anchors for the mass of ever-shifting gel-like flesh, but without the interconnections or outline of a human skeleton.

Massive eyes, each the size of my fist, the colour of sapphires at dusk. Lips a vague sketch, darker structures lurking within like a barrage of coiled tongues. No ears, no nose. Her head bristles with a pair of massive feelers — rhinophores, wide in the middle, narrowed to fine points, feathery and delicate at the edges.

Tissy looks like a human being crossed with a sea slug. Pure Dreamlands, doubt she could survive long outside an overlap. The kind of truth so ruthlessly censored in England, the kind of esoteric beauty the waking world can never know.

Grimgrave and Tissy work together , get me cleaned up. Grimgrave coaxes me from my soiled cocoon, which I have neither the dignity nor the willpower to resist. Tissy silently unwinds the tangled sheets from around my body, balling them up and scooping them into a pile with her four arms; her hands have no joints, no fingernails, just flowing triads of elongated jointless fingers. She says nothing, dark lidless eyes flickering over me and back again, jelly-fleshed face impossible to read. As soon as she’s got the sheets secured and the vomit hidden away she turns and heads for the door, floating footsteps silent as the ocean floor.

“Thanks, Tissy!” Grimgrave calls after her. “Laters!”

A moist and oily fluting sound echoes down the corridor. Then Tistis is gone.

Grimgrave gets me sat down on the edge of the bed, wets a flannel at the sink, wipes my face, dabs at my lips. Sniffs my left hand and wipes that as well. I’m too exhausted to be mortified.

“Tissy’s real shy, like,” she explains. “Don’t get used to seeing her or nothing. Only showed herself to me ‘cos you was having a heart attack and all. Still, hey, kinda a big deal for her, coming so close like that. Guess she likes you.”

Tears trail off. Throat feels worse. Still drunk, but rapidly sobered by adrenaline and cortisol, despair and defeat.

“Head hurts,” I croak. “Thirsty.”

“Yeah, no fuckin’ wonder!” Grimgrave fetches a glass of water, then another, then another. I grumble, turn my head, reject the third, tummy too delicate, so she leaves it on the bedside table. “You’re like, speed-running a hangover,” she says. “It’s all the girl-juice. It’s flushing you out with the excess after it fixed your heart. You’re gonna feel like mega super fucked up shit in record time.”

“Can’t be much worse than this.”

Grimgrave inhales through her teeth, a mechanic about to deliver the damage. “Yeeeeeah, fair do’s. You got real cunt-blocked there, huh? Bad fuckin’ luck, that’s all. But hey, at least you were having fun at first, right?” She thumbs at my laptop, at the anime girl still on the screen, collared and dog-eared, perfect tits spilling from pajamas and bra. “Wouldn’t’a guessed you liked them juggs so big though!”

She breaks into a cackle, mimes cupping a pair of gigantic breasts, two feet out from her own flat chest.

My eyes slide off and away, beyond shame.

“Ahhhh it’s cool, it’s cool!” Grimgrave says. “I like ‘em too! Who doesn’t? So you like big sloppy bimbos, whatever. Who gives a shit?”

No point to denial. Grimgrave was right all along, about me and more. Freed from Willow’s brain parasite, my true colours have been so quickly revealed. Any defence now would be pathetic self-incrimination.

Grimgrave steps over to the desk. She’s going to look through my browser history, isn’t she? Cycle back through all the pornography which led me to my inevitable act of shameless self-pleasure. She’ll comment on anime girl boobs and lips and pretty faces and skintight bodysuits and buttocks exploding from tiny shorts. She’ll ooh and ahh over shiny skin and erect nipples and girls making out with other girls. She’ll turn to me and grin and say ‘Hey Occy, this is what you’re into?’ She’ll know me better than Willow ever did, better than I know myself.

I don’t brace for humiliation; suddenly, dizzyingly, in a moment of numb exhilaration possible only in the depths of utter defeat, I want this. Grimgrave’s approval and attention. I want her to rake through the twisted, blackened, carbonised scraps of what passes for my sexuality, and find the bits she recognises, hold them up, say yes, yes Octavia, here you are.

But she ignores the laptop.

Grimgrave picks up the bottle of vodka, twists the cap back on, shakes it. Almost empty.

“Shiiiiiiiit, Occy!” She snorts. “You downed all this!? Damn, I should’a drunk it myself before you got to it.” She pauses, passes the bottle from hand to hand, a little frown on her face. “Eh? Why’s the side sticky?” She sniffs it. “Oh!”

“That’s me, yes,” I croak. “Vaginal mucus.”

Grimgrave bursts into a cackle. “Drinking and gooning! Jacking and jilling!”

Shrug. Can’t even blush.

Grimgrave wipes the bottle on her sleeve and makes it disappear somewhere, though thankfully not up her skirt. She’s not dressed for Oxford streets, nor for producing weapons from unlikely locations. Loose white jogging bottoms and a tight white thermal t-shirt with long sleeves; she looks like a pixie who has waded through too much snow. The great messy mass of her long brown hair hangs loose down her back, all curls and up-flicks and thick stray tresses trailing behind as she moves.

She sits down on the opposite end of the bed. Nothing but the pillow and a fitted sheet now. She leans forward, one knee up on the mattress, white sock dangling over the edge, jiggling her ankle to a silent rhythm.

“Sooooooo,” she says at length. “Do you wanna like … you know. Talk about it?”

Raise my head. A bowling ball stuffed with bruises. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m done.”

Grimgrave snorts. “Ain’t done ‘till you’re dead! And you aren’t dead. Come on. Serious.”

“What is there to talk about?”

“I’unno.” She shrugs. “You tell me, yeah? You’re the one who locked yourself in here for three days and spent half that time all screamin’ and shoutin’. And then drank yourself into a second heart attack, like.”

Frown. Forehead aches. Grimgrave has an irritatingly good point; I’m not dead, and if I don’t want to be dead then I probably need to avoid having another coronary event.

“Second heart attack,” I echo. “Why?”

“‘Cos you’ve been in here for three days having a massive wobbly! Why the fuck do you think!? Not that like it’s your fault or nothing. Shit, I ain’t blaming you. Just like, you’ve been going bananas in here, Occy. Stress doesn’t help with girl-juice. Burns you up. Bad.”

“ … the tantrum gave me a heart attack?”

Grimgrave rolls her eyes. “You had one heart attack, right? Back on the hospital roof, ‘cos your transformation got cock-blocked. Nerys says that’s never happened before, so like, whoops, just bad luck. You were already primed for another, then being so stressed kept you right on the edge. Rest up for real a bit, make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Right. Okay. So it wasn’t the masturbation?”

That word comes out like nothing. No stutter, no blush, no shame. What’s happened to me?

“Hahahaha!” Grimgrave laughs, waves that down. “Naaaaaaah. If you just let the juices do their job, you’ll be fine. Let ‘em fix you up.”

Silence settles. Stare at the floor. Nothing more to say.

Grimgrave shifts on the bed, rakes her hair back. “So hey, like I said, you wanna talk? About locking yourself in here and stuff?”

I manage to sigh. “Is it really such a mystery?”

“Nah, not the why part. Just … you know. Talk?”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Grimgrave shrugs. “Told you I’m no good at this. Can’t leave you alone now though, can I, hey?”

“You could.”

“Sure. But I’m not gonna.”

Time oozes by, every second an hour, my head a drum, my guts a clogged sewer. Grimgrave rocks back and forth on the bed, twiddling her thumbs, playing with the ends of her hair, refusing to give up and leave me alone. I might not be a corpse anymore, not now that Grimgrave brought me back, but that doesn’t mean I’m truly alive. Octavia Carter is just a poorly reanimated memory. To sit and not think, that is what I wish. I don’t want to talk about any of it.

Furtive claws slowly scrape along the corridor outside; tentative grey muzzles peer around the doorframe. A trio of zoogs slink into view, sniffing at the threshold, freezing when they see Grimgrave and myself, thawing when I stare back and decline to chase them off. Grimgrave gets up and goes over to them, squats down, ruffles their fur, scratches behind their ears, strokes their backs.

Lucky creatures.

“Is … ” I croak, realise my throat’s gone dry. We’ve been sitting here for almost ten minutes, perhaps longer, in creaking silence. I reach over, take the glass of water, drink half. “Is Nerys okay? I saw her in the Big Room.”

Grimgrave answers without looking up from the zoogs. One of them paws at her legs. “Yeeeeeeah, she’ll be fine. Siggy thinks so too.”

“What happened to her? She said it was a fight, but then she fell back asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her again.”

Grimgrave shrugs. “Dunno. She doesn’t tell us everything. Dream-Gods gotta fight Dream-Gods, I guess? She took an opening while the Trio were distracted, something like that. Siggy knows more, if you wanna ask.”

“Mm. Okay. Did she win?”

Grimgrave looks up, blinking, almost surprised. One of the zoogs rasps, “Yaaaaaah! Yaaaaaah.”

“Good.” I nod. “Good. That’s what matters.”

Grimgrave smirks, approves, something we can agree on. She selects a lucky zoog and scoops it up in her arms, carrying it over to the bed, settling back into position. The other two start grooming and washing each other, licking at each others’ faces, venturing no further than the doorway. The third zoog gets comfy in Grimgrave’s lap, snuggling down, one of her hands stroking it from skull to tail. She smiles at the zoog, her lips a neat little bow; I still cannot believe how soft they felt.

Does she know that I was thinking of her with my hand on my cunt? Does she know that, sitting on my bed, inches from the spot where her name was trapped behind my clenched teeth, her phantom weight in my lap, her imaginary tongue down my throat?

I raise my left arm, wipe my lips on the sleeve of my robe. “Can’t believe you kissed me.”

Grimgrave shrugs it off. “Shit, Occy, I wouldn’t call it a real kiss, you know?”

“You put your lips on mine—” A shudder passes beneath my belly. “—what else could you call it?”

“Medical stuff! And hey, I’m not even sure it did anything.”

“What do you mean it didn’t do anything? It revived me. You revived me. And … well … thank you.” I mutter the words, but I do say them. “I would be dead. If you hadn’t. I’m not … ” My turn to shrug. “Thank you. I’m not trying to make it weird.” Am I?

Grimgrave pulls a lopsided grimace. “What I mean is it’s not like putting petrol in a car or jamming a plug in a socket. You don’t, like, slam faces together and girl-juice flows. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.” She snorts. “Nah, it’s more like everyone’s gotta be into it, you know? And I wasn’t, really, cross my heart, for serious. I just panicked, thought you were done for. I wasn’t like, turned on. So it probably didn’t actually work, see? It was probably just your own reserves kicking in after you passed out. So like, hey, it wasn’t a kiss, didn’t mean shit! Don’t worry about it!”

Grimgrave didn’t feel a thing; but I did. I was still riding the tail-end of my almost-climax, clinging to the fading tatters of my dirty little fantasy, in which Grimgrave was snogging me to orgasm. That’s why the transfer worked, why I’m still alive. Saved by my first kiss. Second kiss. Whatever.

“Saved by being a slut,” I murmur.

“Eh? Occy?”

“Nothing.”

Now she’s got me talking, the process cannot be halted. So many sensible subjects I should raise, practical questions and speculative questions and inquiries as to the probable shape of the future. So that was Tissy; what is she, what’s her role in this, why does she look after Plato Base? Have you seen the footage in the news — who am I kidding, of course Grimgrave’s seen it, we’re at war with the Trio, with England now — and what’s the fallout of our debut on the world stage? What does Signal think, what does she predict? Why haven’t I heard Bright outside my door, raring to cave in my skull as revenge for her sister’s attention? What happened after my first heart attack, can you tell me more? Did you bury that one dead zoog you found? What’s for dinner? When are you going to leave me in peace?

Can’t voice any of those, can’t pretend this moment is normal. Dressed in a robe and pajamas, my right arm in two pieces on the desk. I’ve never been this naked and vulnerable in front of anybody, except in dreams of Willow, and those were never real.

I curl inward on myself, hunched and tight. Desolation takes hold.

“Why am I still here?”

Grimgrave takes a moment to answer. “Beats being dead.”

To my own incredible surprise, I almost laugh. “Look at me.” I gesture with my stump, inside my sleeve, a half-hidden half-shrug. Grotesque, not something I’ve ever done in front of anybody else. My other hand waves at my prosthetic. “I’m in pieces. Literally. I don’t understand why I survived any of this. Not just the last few days, but the whole last ten years. Why drag myself through all that, with all the pain and struggle and hate, if this was the result? If it was all lies, all a dream? And now I’m left dismembered.”

Grimgrave glances at my prosthetic. “You can repair your arm, right? Siggy’s got all those 3D printers and stuff, I’m sure she can figure it out.”

Shake my head. She doesn’t get it. “I’m broken. I can’t even transform. She took that from me. Took away the last piece of reality I had.”

“You’ve been trying? To transform, I mean?”

“With no success,” I murmur.

“Not forever!” Grimgrave says. “When you started it, back on the hospital roof, what did it feel like?”

“Feel like?”

“Yeah.” Grimgrave sits up, her eyes so untroubled, face an open book. “Like, for me, it feels like being freed. Free to laugh, free to jump around, total freedom to go in any direction, at any speed. You know what I mean? But it’s different for each of us. What’d it feel like for you?”

Stare at the floor. At my knee. At where my right hand should rest. Phantom pain creeps back as the alcohol wears off. Dead muscles clench tight, an imaginary fist.

“Powerful,” I say.

“Well hey, there you go!” Grimgrave says. “Focus on that. And hey, I bet repairing your arm will help loads! We can start with that, right?”

I sigh. “I’m an exile, stuck on the moon. What’s the point in starting again, starting over? I can’t ever go home, either. Everything’s gone.”

“Yeah,” Grimgrave says, suddenly a little softer. “Me neither. Home’s up here now, you know?”

I glance at her, at her half-smirk, at the dozing zoog in her lap. Plato Base, home? For her, maybe. For me, Willow was home; even if I do successfully transform, there is no going back to her, not ever.

“Why would Willow treat me like this?” The words take me by surprise. “Why would she do this to me? Any of this? Kept me like a pet. Kept me in the dark.” A great shuddering breath flows down my throat; if it wasn’t for the hangover, I might start crying, but I’m too spent for tears. “Why.”

Grimgrave tilts her head to one side, messy curls of hair sticking up from her scalp. “Maybe she loved you?”

Hate stirs behind my eyes, trapped between my teeth. “What? What? Repeat that. Grimgrave. Repeat that.”

“Woah woah!” She puts up a hand. The zoog in her lap stirs, eyes snapping open, ready to leap clear. The pair by the door stop licking each others’ fur. “Occy, no, I mean like, love comes in all sorts of fucked up forms, you know? I’m not saying it was good, just maybe that’s how she saw it?”

Hate boils off. Can’t hate Grimgrave. “What would you know about love?”

She shrugs. “I know you gotta love yourself.”

We trail off together, an oddly comfortable silence. The zoog in Grimgrave’s lap goes back to sleep. Three more zoogs appear at the door, sniffing the ones who’ve been here a while. A long time trickles by until I can find words better than an empty grunt.

“Thank you for shooting her,” I say to the concrete floor.

“Ha,” Grimgrave barks. “No probs! Not like she’s dead, which sucks shit. Dreamers are like that.”

“Still. I wish you’d been there, ten years ago. I wish you’d blown her head off before I’d met her. A Dreamer. A Dreamer all along, all my life, all of it was a lie. She was a lie. Everything with her, all of it was a lie. She and I, we were … we were so close, and none of it was real. And now I’ve got nothing, nothing left. There’s nothing left of me. I’m a walking corpse. I feel dead.”

“Bullshit,” Grimgrave spits.

“Ah?” Lift my head, meet her eyes, grin cracking across her face.

“‘Nothing’ doesn’t filch my bottle of vodka and wank herself into a heart attack to some big-titty anime babes!” Grimgrave cackles. “Come on, Occy! That’s real, that’s you, right!?”

“Alcohol and regrets. Nothing more. Doesn’t mean a thing.”

Grimgrave gives me a sceptical look, like I’m being an idiot. Which I suppose I am. Not like I can blame the pornography on anybody else.

“I … ” I swallow, take a breath, unburden myself. “I think I might have been an alcoholic. Before. Maybe. But I don’t know. I can’t know, because Willow overwrote any memories of that, filled my head with nothing but her. Do you see what I mean? I don’t even know who I am.”

She thumbs at the laptop screen again; it’s gone dark now, screen switched itself off, but we both know what she means. “That’s real. That’s who you are. A little bit of who you are, whatever!”

I snort, hollow, empty. Shake my head. Subside into silence.

Grimgrave tilts her head the other way. “Did you cum?”

I expect a shit-eating grin accompanied by half an invitation to punch it off her face; but Grimgrave is dead serious, guileless, genuine. I stare, dumbfounded. Even in the aftermath of a heart attack, totally numb, I am stunned she can ask such a question.

“Shiiiiit,” Grimgrave says. “No? You didn’t? I thought you went once and then tried again or something! Shit, you’d probably feel better if you did. Want me to come back in like twenty minutes, give you time to—”

“Grimgrave. Stop.”

She snorts with muffled laughter, then waves me down, as if I was about to lunge at her. “Soz, soz! Serious though, you wanna finish up, let me know, I’ll fuck off for a bit.”

“Just stop.”

Grimgrave bites her lower lip, the only way she can contain herself; I have to look away from how her teeth dimple her pale flesh. She can’t know, can she? She can’t possibly know I was thinking of her right at the end. She’s not trying to seduce me, that’s all my fault. All of this is on me.

Arousal doesn’t return, for which I am deeply thankful; a headache is ramping up behind my eyes and my belly is a ball of rotten nausea. A fumble for the glass of water almost knocks it to the floor, but then Grimgrave is there, catching it before it falls, pressing it into my hand, waiting to take it after I drink the rest. She puts the zoog down gently on the floor, where it rubs against her ankles, begging for more lap-time. Clever thing. If only I could be so shameless.

“Ugh,” I groan, belly full of fluid, eyeing the toilet. “Feels like I’m going to be sick again.”

“I’ll hold your hair back, if you need it!”

Another empty snort. “Don’t need my hair held, it’s not long enough for … ” My left hand rakes back through my hair — past the nape of my neck, still going. I hold up a strand, black hairs longer than I recall, well past my shoulders. “What?”

Grimgrave lights up. “You ain’t noticed ‘til right now?”

“I don’t … what?” Time wrenches out of joint. Have I been in this room for months without knowing? I haven’t been paying attention to my body or my appearance, not even when I showered; I try to think back, and realise that my hair was already like this when I left the room. How hard was I dissociating, for how long? “How … I don’t … ”

“Girl-juice does that sometimes!” Grimgrave says. “Hair, nails, sometimes other stuff too. Everyone reacts to it different, like. Stuff gets all out of whack.” She holds up a thick lock of her own brilliant brown hair. “I got sick of cutting it every week. Gave up, let it rock!”

Such mundane strangeness sobers me up further. I run my left hand down through my hair, testing how long it’s grown; far past my shoulder blades, the longest I’ve had since I was a child.

“I can cut it, if you want?” Grimgrave says. “No joke, I actually know what I’m doing with a pair of scissors. Serious like, serious offer.”

I shake my head, which hurts a lot, because now I’m more hungover than I am drunk. Grimgrave’s hands in my hair, stroking my scalp, grooming me? I couldn’t handle that even on a whole bottle of vodka. I’d die, or I’d kill her, or worse. But she would do it, wouldn’t she? She would touch me in all sorts of ways, and all I would need to do is say yes. She would do what I dreamed of. The notion sets my heart shuddering.

“Grimgrave.”

She picks up the gravity in my voice, bounces on one foot. “Yeah?”

“Sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”

Grimgrave perches on the edge of the mattress, leaning down to give the forlorn zoog another few pets, scratching it behind the ears before it trundles off to join the others. The group lingers in the doorway, not really watching us; perhaps they like being close to Grimgrave, what with her petting them all the time. I understand, I really do. Grimgrave waits for me to gather myself, bobbing her head from side to side, like a puppy who knows she’s going to get a treat, but isn’t sure when it will arrive. I force myself to look at her, at her sparkling green eyes, her neat little lips, her smooth hands, the subtle lines of her body beneath her clothes. She’s so tight and lithe, I wonder what she feels like to touch and—

“Occy?”

“Why did you fight for me?” I ask. “On the roof. With Scarlet Edge.”

Grimgrave shrugs. “‘Cos she was coming at you? Coming at all of us! That bitch needed a good slap-down, any of us would have—”

“No. That’s not what I mean. I saw. You were going to die for me. I saw.”

She doesn’t have an answer to that. Blinks like a rabbit in headlights, brilliant green eyes shining against the grey.

“I don’t want you to die for me,” I say, low and rough. “I don’t want that. I don’t … I don’t get it. I don’t get you. I’m nothing, I’m nobody. I’m just leftover pieces of a girl who died ten years ago. And I don’t understand it, I don’t get why you’re like this. Why do you keep trying and trying and trying? Why are you so nice to me, when you barely know me? Why break my door down, save me, offer to hold my hair back? And no, I haven’t forgotten your previous answer, all that stuff about how people like us have to stick together. But that’s not enough to make somebody like you do this, that’s not enough. I don’t believe it. Not enough to throw yourself away for me.” I pull myself up, because I know the truth, a nasty little thing I must turn to and look at on purpose, force myself to see, swallow the bitter medicine. “And it’s not because I’m me. It’s got nothing to do with me. You would do this for any new magical girl, wouldn’t you? Because you’re a slut.”

Grimgrave is rendered, for once, speechless.

“No offence,” I add, because I’m an idiot and I said it all wrong. “I guess. Since now I’m a slut too.”

Grimgrave bursts out laughing.

Big loud cackles, rocking back and forth on the bed, bright green eyes alight with hidden fires behind her face. She reaches over and slaps me on the shoulder, makes it clear she’s laughing with me rather than at me, which makes no sense because I’m not laughing.

“Occy! Occy, yo, hey, shut the fuck up, bitch!”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” I try to say. “Really. I mean, I—”

“Shut the fuck up, for real!” Grimgrave can’t stop laughing, a maniac grin spreading from ear to ear. “Occy, you dumb fuckin’ bitch! I fought Scarlet for you because you were there, duh! I’m in here with you now because you’re the one here! You’re here, right here.” She reaches out, grabs my left shoulder, squeezes hard. “Flesh and blood and spit and piss and ‘vaginal mucus’ and all, yeah? Yeah!? You’re no fuckin’ ghost or zombie, Occy. You’re here.”

She leaps up off the bed, stands tall before me, the brightest smile I’ve ever seen on her face, a lunatic glittering behind her eyes.

“Fuck yeah I’ll fight for you,” she says. “Fuck yeah I will!”

For one filthy fleeting moment my sordid heart hears exactly what it wants, filtering Grimgrave’s words through rotten tissues of desire and lust and worse. She did it for me, for Octavia Carter, because I am, to her, in some way I cannot comprehend, special. Her shining green eyes and her fluffy riot of hair and her mobile little lips and the petite curves of her body under that skintight t-shirt, and it’s me she fights for, me she defended, me she wants.

Cum-brained and pent-up, her body right before me, her presence in the room where I was trying, for the first time in my life, to actually masturbate. The memory of her lips against mine. All too much.

I twitch forward, lean in, start to stand, the first inch of going for a kiss. Because I’m still just about drunk enough to try.

But only the first inch, because Grimgrave carries right on.

“Same as I’d fight for anybody who joins us!” she says. A bucket of cold water on my disgusting desires. “Same as I’d fight for Siggy, or Bright. Don’t like, let me and Bright fool you, yeah? If those bitches went for her, I’d fight for her too. But even if Nerys had like, I dunno, fifty magical girls, a hundred magical girls, whatever, you’d still be here, and I’d still fight for you. Get it? You’re here and I’m here, doesn’t matter how. I’m with you, Occy. Kay?”

Nod. Swallow. Ease away. She didn’t notice. None the wiser.

Grimgrave doesn’t want me in that way; we established that before. If she was privy to the contents of my dirty little fantasy, she would recoil from me. Or maybe she wouldn’t, and that would be worse, because it’s all just perversion, nothing like love, nothing special, nothing personal, and then I would lose whatever purity is left in my false memories of Willow.

Grimgrave doesn’t want me. She just wants her revolution.

How many magical girls has she seen die? How many times has she done this before? How many has she fucked prior to me? How many has she lost?

“And hey,” Grimgrave rattles onward, words pulling me apart, “I didn’t get a chance to say this before you bolted yourself in here, but Occy, shit, the way you went up against Scarlet?” She cracks a fresh grin, like the first breath of spring while I’m trapped underground. Mimes a right-handed punch. “You rocked her! Like, you get that, right? She’s never been hurt that bad, let alone on camera. She’s not shown up on telly or a press conference or anything, not for days. The other two bitches have been out there, but you fucked Scarlet up real good. Hey? Yeah? You should be proud!”

But I don’t want to punch Scarlet to death; I want her dressed in dog ears and a collar with her face shoved between my legs.

A shiver passes through me. Want to call it nonsense, deny it all, say it was just the vodka.

“All that shit that went down at the hospital,” Grimgrave says, “Siggy and I’ve been talking it over a bunch, asking Nerys too. Your transformation, I mean, and Willow, and all the other stuff. Dream Control working with a Dreamer, I mean, wow, shit’s fucked, you know? Anyway, Signal’s got a bunch of theories, and Nerys needs to rest up, but she’ll be cool soon, and then you should really ask Siggy, ‘cos she’s got some ideas and stuff. Like, when you’re feeling better, yeah?” Grimgrave rocks side to side as she speaks, shifting weight from foot to foot, hips swaying in a hypnotic metronome. “And those three girls we saw in the hospital, that bitch who tried to stop me getting in the room? Siggy thinks they were—”

“I’m never going to feel better,” I mutter. “How can I?”

Grimgrave snorts. “No more booze, for a start! No booze, get some proper food in you, and ask Siggy about her 3D printers to get that arm fixed. Occy, you ain’t dead, you’re just injured. Your robot arm is the coolest thing ever, and it’s gonna get fixed easy—”

“Not that.”

Grimgrave pauses. “Yeah? Then what? Hey, Occy, what—”

“This,” I snap. “This.” Gesture at the blank screen on my laptop. “You. This … I can’t … I … ” Squeeze my eyes shut. Say it now or forever be silent, because I’ll never get another chance. “All my memories of … of … s-sex with Willow, they were dreams. I’ve never … this was … this was my first time.”

Silence. Shivering. Open my eyes.

Grimgrave is beaming.

“You got uncorked!” She cheers. “Yeaaaaaaah!” The zoogs by the doorway all look up, trying to figure out if they should join in. “Well, like, not all the way, like you said, but you know what I mean.” Her grin widens. “Hey, I wasn’t joking about me buggering off so you can finish. Might be just what you need. Get all that tension worked out. No joke, not even being dirty—”

“Stop”.

“—just biology, yeah? And hey, Occy, if you need some help, a helping hand, two hands, I got two hands right here.” She raises her hands, wiggles her digits; my chest tightens, twinges inside, an electric current running down low into my guts. “And I’m pretty fuckin’ expert, if you know what I mean—”

“Stop!”

A shout, so loud it echoes down the corridor outside. Sends the cluster of zoogs at the doorway scurrying and skittering off into the darkness, claws scraping on concrete, hissing and chittering.

Grimgrave’s grin won’t cease. “Shit, Occy, I’m just messin’ with you. A joke, yeah!? Cranking one out’s nothing to get worked up about, it’s funny, like, just laugh it off—”

“I am not a homosexual.”

Grimgrave stops, grin frozen.

“I told you before,” I carry on, hissing through clenched teeth, telling a lie neither of us believe. “If you keep making this joke, if you keep mocking me, then we will never be friends. I will not tell you again.”

An absurd lie. I’m a dyke slut pervert and denial is useless. If only I could go back, if only I could pretend, if only I could keep Grimgrave out beyond the crumbled walls of my ruined fortress. But she’s already inside, and the only weapon I have left is ridiculous denial. How can I ever back up a threat to reject her, when she saved my life so completely, when she pulled me from Willow’s clutches? How can I ever say no, when her imaginary shade almost kissed me into my first orgasm, and then she brought me back from a heart attack with the real thing?

Grimgrave’s face crumples with amazed incredulity, looking at me like I’ve told her that up is down and black is white, a full-bore idiot-squint.

“What!? Occy, come the fuck on!”

No answer to that. Look away, avert my eyes, stop digging.

Grimgrave springs over to the desk. She wiggles the mouse, wakes the screen, reveals once again the pair of gigantic cartoon breasts and sunny submissive smile that inspired me to put my hand down my pajama bottoms to grope my own cunt.

“What’s the fuck’s that then, huh!?” Grimgrave gestures at the screen with both hands.

Heat in my cheeks and neck, first sign of life since my revival. Can’t meet Grimgrave’s eyes.

“Drunken foolishness.” My voice shakes, can’t grip the lie. “A failed experiment.” Only because I got interrupted.

“Oh, failed, right, riiiight,” Grimgrave croons, mocking. “Only wanked yourself so hard you popped your heart again!”

“It wasn’t—” Truth catches in my throat. “It wasn’t like that. It was—”

“Oh yeah!?” Grimgrave bounces back over to the bed, towering over me, hands on her hips, grin splitting the world. “What was it like then, huh? Miss not-a-homo-sex-you-al!?”

Shoot to my feet, now I’m the one towering; Grimgrave is so small, so petite, if only I had both my arms, I could pick her up, make her stop, make her squirm. Lump in my throat, anger stirring in my chest, a potent cocktail with outrage and pent-up lust and the way Grimgrave’s tongue flickers out to wet the edges of her grin.

“I couldn’t— she was—” Willow was in my head. “I had to— couldn’t—” So I couldn’t do it. “You can’t understand, you can’t—” Can’t tell you, because it was you, right at the end, you in my fantasies, with your tongue down my throat, and it makes me want to be sick and grab you and bury my head in the pillow and tell you all about it and have you slap me for being wrong and I’m going to be sick, I’m going to vomit, I’m going to curl up and die.

Grimgrave won’t stop laughing, snorting, giggling, swaying her head from side to side as she mocks something that will never leave my lips. Grinning up at me, teasing me, that maddening and maddened smile from ear to ear.

“Can’t believe you’re still doing this!” she says. “Occy, you’re gay as fuck! We all are, it’s part of how Nerys picks us—”

No way out. Raise my left hand. Make a fist, make her stop.

Lacking the benefit of my prosthetic arm and the clarity of clean anger, the strike is not even a real punch, just a loose-handed flail, too weak to wound wet cardboard. But it overbalances me, takes me off my feet, blunders me into Grimgrave’s front. She squeals like the little fiend she is, mounts a counter-attack, cackling in my face, tackles me around the middle. We go down together, glance off the edge of the bed, roll onto the mattress.

Grimgrave has the advantage, two arms, well-rested, not wrapped in a robe. Her weight on me is so slight, a slender wriggling warmth as she tries to pin my left arm, narrow thighs straddling my hips, messy waterfall of hair all in her face.

I buck, kick, grunt, levering her up and off, bouncing her off the wall, rolling her onto her back. Grimmy squeals again, high-pitched between her giggles.

My turn on top, heavier and meatier; she wriggles like a greased weasel, slipping out of my one-armed grip, head jerking every which way, teeth snapping and clacking, closing once on the side of my palm but only gumming against my flesh, chewing and moaning around a mouthful of me. She bucks too, but she’s smaller and lighter, just jerking and thrusting against my hips, heels drumming on the mattress, squealing and yelping and laughing, pushing and shoving and twitching.

Finally I get a good grip on her right wrist, pin it to the mattress over her head, but she still won’t stop twisting and squirming in an effort to throw me off.

Jam my knee — my prosthetic knee — between her legs, grinding hard up against her groin through her jogging bottoms.

“Unnnnh!”

Grimgrave goes tense, lets out a high-pitched squeak, lips parted, eyelids heavy, fluttering. Stops wriggling, gives up, submits.

We’re both panting, flushed, red-faced. Grimgrave’s slender chest rises and falls beneath her white top, messy curls of hair spread out across my pillow. Heavy-lidded eyes meet mine, an intoxicating moment, lost in the sensation of my knee between her thighs.

“Trying for a third heart attack?” she breathes.

Then she grins. White-hot maniac intensity rips her wide from ear to ear. I’m on top, but she’s won.

Like snapping out of a trance. I jerk upright, pull myself off her, scramble from the bed. Stagger sideways, almost fall, catch myself against the smooth concrete wall. Shaking and shivering all over, covered in boiling sweat. Heart racing behind my ribs, strong as an ox, all better now.

Grimgrave sits up, drags her hair back, flushed, breathing hard, still grinning like a lunatic.

“Hey, Occy,” she purrs. “If that’s how you wanna play—”

“Stop … ” I murmur, so weak I’m surprised she hears.

Can’t slow my breathing. Can’t stop quivering. Now I’ve violated Grimgrave with my hands, not just with my mind. Maybe Willow was right, maybe I should have been kept as a pet, where I couldn’t hurt anybody real, locked in a dream. Or worse, maybe Grimgrave wants to keep going, and I’m going to lose myself.

Grimgrave bounces to her feet. “Keep trying to tell you, Occy. We’re all raging lesbos up here! It’s part of Nerys’ criteria, why she picks us! You ain’t no different. Shit, it’s nothing to freak out about, you’re not in England anymore—”

“Shut up!” I shriek. Whirl on her. Raise my hand like a claw, nothing with which to punch, nothing to throw. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Grimgrave’s grin fights and loses, flickers out, eyes wide, creased with sudden hurt.

“Occy? H-hey, I thought we were playing—”

“Get out!” I scream. “Out!”

Can’t pass her to grab the pillow, so I stumble two steps aside and close my fist around the back of the chair, the first thing to hand. Swing it with my whole body weight, wrenching something delicate inside my left shoulder, spinning the metal chair up and over.

I hurl it in Grimgrave’s general direction. She leaps out of the way, a standing-start full-body bound into a forward handspring, cartwheeling back to her feet, hair trailing behind in a whip-wave of brilliant mess. The metal chair crashes into the wall, chipping the concrete, clattering to the floor in a clamour of clanging steel.

“Get out, get out, get out!”

I lunge for the bed, scoop up the pillow, throw it at Grimgrave’s retreat as she slips through the doorway, out into the corridor, beyond my sight.

Silence.

My own ragged breath, my dry and dusty throat. My skin prickling with sweat, unshed tears in my chest. My heart, at least, now firmly intact. A ghost of arousal lingers in my head and down low in my groin. My body still feels Grimgrave pinned beneath me, her slight wriggling form, the heavy-hooded look in her eyes, her parted lips. Lips that kissed me back to life.

Seconds trickle by. Sweat grows cold. Silence goes stale.

“Grim … ” A weak murmur, too little, too late. That look on her face as it fell, as I screamed at her to leave. “Grimgrave?”

She’s gone. I’ve chased her away. I was defeated and dead and done, but she brought me back. I pinned her to the bed, driven by the abortive first orgasm of my life, and the comfort and confusion she offered, and then I screamed and threw things and drove her out.

Stumble toward the doorway, but there’s only silence beyond. “Grimmy … I’m … I’m sorry—”

Burst out into the corridor.

There she is.

Grimgrave stands two doors down from my own, safe distance in case I picked up the chair again. Chewing her lower lip, feet firm on the floor, eyes aslant, head tilted aside, braced for a backhand blow.

We eye each other for a moment. I’m speechless.

She shrugs. “Apology accepted.”

“ … why … why are you still here? Why? After I … ”

Another shrug. A quarter-power grin, false flame, no heat. “Told you before. People like us gotta stick together, no matter what. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

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You ain’t getting out of this so easy, Octavia. Wouldn’t it be so much cleaner and tidier if you could just drive Grimgrave off and stew in some nice juicy unadulterated self-hatred? But she’s still here. Why not try some ‘wrestling’ again? Ahem.

Well well well, out of one crisis and into another, that’s our Occy. At least her heart is physically intact, if rather ragged emotionally. Amusingly enough the ending of this chapter did originally call for Grimgrave to run away, but during drafting it became blinding obvious she wasn’t going to do that. No escape, Octavia! Not from Grimgrave or from me.

Anyway, looks like the rest of arc 4 is still going to be 7-8 chapters. Things are on track, terrible nightmares are a-brewing, and Octavia is still a mess. Better get that arm fixed, o’ magical girl.

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 all for being here and enjoying my little story. Thank you for reading it, following along with Octavia’s rather terrible no-good bad embarrassing time. Thank you all so much!

Next chapter, Grimgrave’s not going anywhere.

Content Warnings

Alcohol abuse / alcoholism
Internalised homophobia
Ableism
Suicidal ideation
Sexual objectification (not even sure if this is accurate, I am struggling to come up with the right warning for this.)
Sexual content
Self harm

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Plato Base is well-suited and well-situated for rest, recovery, rehabilitation.

Two hundred and thirty eight thousand miles distant from England, far beyond the reach of the British government, GCHQ, Dream Control, the Trio of Albion, or any other magical girls who fancy their chances. A hidden fortress on the moon, a forgotten leftover from an obscure dark age, tucked away in the shadows of the Montes Alpes, dug into the side of a nameless peak, deep in the pan-lunar Dreamland overlap. Property of a Dream-God from beyond the human collective subconscious. Spoils of a just war. Solid, stable, insensible.

Quiet concrete halls. Dull secluded rooms. Soaring ceilings and monolithic walls surfaced with rainbow-mad graffiti. Murals snaking down into darkness and silence. Distant whispers of moon-wind against the roof, creeping through the silver-black forests on the mountain slopes above. Creaking, pattering, scraping in the deep, half-imagined dream-things slinking through the black levels beneath. An ever-present chitter-chatter hish-hush rasp-rush of zoog voices, exposed claws clicking along the floors.

Nobody’s around. At least no humans. Moon Beasts aplenty, a far-off abstract. Dozens or hundreds of furtive zoogs, but zoogs don’t judge, zoogs don’t ask. Tissy, ‘Tistis’, unseen and unheard except when she knocks, perhaps not real after all.

Occasionally one must endure unwelcome interruptions. Those can be safely ignored, with the door to my cell shut and locked and bolted up tight.

I’m doing plenty of what passes for rest, precious little recovery, certainly no rehabilitation.

I am a widening gyre of madness and rot.

Sleep has occupied as much of the last three days as it can bear. Crying claims the lion’s share of all else, when I’m not staring at the ceiling or wrapped up in a reeking cocoon of blankets, my waking hours disjointed and decayed. My tears are neither clean nor pretty, not the kind one might expect from a so-called ‘magical girl’; I am ugly as old sin when I cry, but I cannot bring myself to care. Weeping and wailing, so quickly turns to screaming. Sobbing into my pillow, raking at my face, then hurling the offending mass at the wall, just to have something to hurt. Stripping the sheets from the bed in one-armed, wordless, screeching rage; crying on the floor, squeezed into a corner, big sodden full-body wracking sobs, trying to make the world go away. Piling the bedclothes back on the mattress, a disordered heap, lying atop the mess, wrapping myself within, passing out, spent, exhausted, done, dead.

Thus is all that’s left of Octavia Carter. Embarrassing, yes; mortifying, even. But corpses have no dignity.

Dreamless sleep would be a blessing, but I’m cursed. Nightmares lurk in ambush just behind the wall of sleep, with knives for my gut and cudgels for my skull and cleavers to take off my limbs. Mundane nightmares, picking over the remains of my shrivelled carcass every time I close my eyes.

Mostly I dream of Willow.

Normal things, everyday nothings, half-remembered events, all gone grey and ghostly, because in truth they never happened. Willow’s face, contours in perfect clarity; Willow’s smile, beaming bright and wide and happy for me; her hair in my hands, her scent in my nose, her touch against my skin, her lips on mine. The slow, soft, sighing sibilance of her voice, whispers in my ears, words running together, meaning everything and nothing. The Willow I’ve known for half my life, my best friend, my only friend, a canvas for my self and a beacon for me to follow, proof that the world is not all evil, that good things can exist, that I am not alone. But then she turns in the shadow of toxic golden light and the other truth makes itself undeniable. The Dreamer I never saw, a mask of human skin stretched over something that has forgotten how to be a person. My lost Eden collapses into a cold jagged hell. Willow laughs and points and bites off pieces of my dwindling body, chewing at the ragged stumps of bleeding limbs, my flesh turning rotten, falling from my bones, sliding through my fingers.

Then I wake. Back to crying.

The other dreams refuse to return — the red-black dreams. Transcendent visitations that I mistook for violation. A mirror of myself in black steel armour, molten furnace where a heart used to beat, masked by a slice of the void, fists clad in ageless metal. She’s not coming to rescue me from Willow anymore. As if she’s grown shy, now I’ve figured out that I am her and she is I.

Transformation is further away than ever. In lucid moments between unquiet oblivion and uncontrolled weeping, I stare into the little mirror above the sink, watched by the slit of my right eye and the sunken, dark-ringed, bloodshot socket of my left. Visualise that mask, that other face, my own face. Strain and focus and grit my teeth. Scream and shout and pull at my hair, bite my lips until I taste blood, hit myself in the head with my left fist.

Willow has taken everything. The last ten years of my life. Who and what I believed I was. And now even the cold consolation of transformation. She has hollowed out the means of my escape.

Octavia Carter, the scraps of a girl who died ten years ago, has been scraped up off the concrete, and pronounced dead.

For the first day I have no idea what time it is, either up here on Luna or down there in England, because I don’t particularly care to find out. Days, weeks, months, years, all could pass, and I would continue to rot, so what difference does it make? My mobile phone waits on the little desk, but crossing the distance seems impossible, not least because of the grisly accompaniment I must face when I arrive at that desolate and mocking shore. But eventually the crying and the screaming and the sleeping abates long enough, so I embark on the voyage, stumble over to the table.

My prosthetic arm lies on the desk. My own right arm. In two pieces. Bisected and broken. Carefully arranged. As if for inspection.

That’s me! Entrails spilled out, skin peeled back, ruined on the inside, cut apart on the outside.

A spasm passes through the naked stump of my right arm. Phantom pain tingles and throbs and aches and burns down a limb long-gone, intangible fingers squeezed into a rock-tight fist, invisible muscles clenched hard, cramp creeping into my shoulder, my chest, the side of my neck.

My mobile phone sets off a fresh round of torture. Willow’s still in there, the main subject and devoted centre in a decade of photographs, peering from behind the digits of her number, smeared all over the call logs and text messages. Rip her out, purge the whole lot, it’s the only solution, the only possible act which makes any sense.

But I sit in bed and rock and cry and grit my teeth and try not to scream as the phone weighs down the blankets like lead shot, because I can’t bring myself to do it. I cannot make myself delete all this evidence that I once loved her.

Can’t bear to let her go. She still has me, because she’s all I had.

Another long sleep. More dreams of her.

When I wake again, I’m numb enough to use my mobile phone for other things, to confirm that beyond my concrete tantrum, the world still turns. I lie on my side in bed, face lit by the glow from the little screen, lips slack, eyes hard to focus.

We’re all over the news, British and international, informal and official, sober and irreverent. We are the current event, the main event, the only thing anybody is talking about down there. ‘We’ — myself and the girls from Luna, along with the mandatory heroics from the Trio of Albion. Too many phone camera videos to suppress them all, too many livestreams that caught most of our fight, too vast and ragged a rupture with the last four decades of assumptions and natural order and common sense. The first time magical girls have fought magical girls, anywhere in the world, at least that anybody knows about. And it happened right there, on the doorstep of London’s sealed casket, in the benighted and blasted isle where the crisis first began.

The whole world has seen the footage by now. Culture shock is a palpable thing, thrumming through the bold print of a hundred thousand headlines and the words of a million internet discussions. Threads on every imageboard and forum that I care to glance at. Hundreds of videos picking apart the footage, filled with speculation and commentary and total nonsense.

Grimgrave, Burning Bright, The Locus of Lost Signals; clever minds have divined their titles, first from snippets of badly filtered audio, then from the full and supposedly ‘unedited’ video released by none other than Signal herself. The collective internet has it all by now, organised and timestamped, subtitled and highlighted.

Pixelated phone camera views of Grimgrave shouting at the Trio. The stutter-step optical illusion of Bright and Signal arriving via translocation. The awe-inspiring whirl and chaos of open melee.

Me, ‘Octavia Carter’, haloed by a faint smudge of paradoxical red-black light, all the earthly evidence of the purity of purpose I felt in that moment. A flickering, stuttering, half-glimpsed ghost, that was all I amounted to. My fist crashing into Scarlet’s face.

My failure, my collapse. A thousand speculations about what it all means.

Willow, a scrap of toxic gold, tossed from the roof, bleeding mad dream-light as she falls.

Analysts and arguments dissect us from every angle. The Battle of Oxford Holton, a watershed in world history. Where are these new magical girls from, and what do they want? Are those the real words Scarlet Edge spoke, or clever forgeries made with generative artificial intelligence — as the British government claims? Japanese imageboards blossom with thousands of drawings of Grimgrave and Bright. Social media hums with OSINT speculation about Signal, wandering what lies under the armour of her strange minions, and the precise nature of the aborted attack run on the hospital. Fanbases have sprung up overnight like mushrooms, debating the finer points of the duel between Grimgrave and Scarlet, insisting that Scarlet was about to finish things, or that Grimgrave is invincible because clowns and jesters work under special, unique, different rules. Gun nuts from America have analysed Grimgrave’s firearms down to the smallest available detail, spilling forth lists of specs that mean nothing. Azure Infinity’s personal defenders have logged on, cooking up 3D depictions of her slaying Burning Bright; the less invested ones have gone further, more interested in what may have happened if the fight had been more intimate.

BBC news is crammed with talking heads. What does this mean for national defence and Dream Control? It was the Russians, the Chinese, a secret plot by terrorists, these girls aren’t who they claim they are, the public must remain calm, the woman seen toward the end of the footage is unknown, not a Dreamer, not something we’re currently concerned about. Yes, we’re still looking for Octavia Carter. No, this changes nothing. Yes, we’re still in control.

Nobody’s in control of this. They need to change the narrative; they’ll pull something over the weekend, perhaps something mundane, distract the papers and the news with some shiny bauble or fresh scandal. Won’t work.

Everyone’s really into Burning Bright. Big red dragon-girl breathing fire. The smarter corners of the internet are picking up on what she said to Scarlet Edge, words that Signal didn’t edit out of her footage releases. The darker corners of the internet are drawing her in ways I can’t believe, ways that make my eyes pop out of my head, equipping her with muscles in excess of reality, or body parts she doesn’t possess.

The open secret parts of the internet are talking about Y Ddraig Goch, the red dragon of Wales, omens and signs and the imminent collapse of the British crown.

None of it means a thing. Why is anybody still talking? How does the world carry on, when mine has stopped so completely?

Tissy keeps me fed. Metal carts appear outside my locked door three times a day, announced by sudden triple knocks. Protein-rich breakfasts, thick sandwiches for lunch, dinners hearty and simple, multivitamins on the side. I eat on the floor, limp and unwashed, cry into my food more than once. On the second day my stomach and lungs and throat are so sore that I vomit it all back up, then fall asleep curled on my side next to the toilet, can’t be bothered to move.

When I do keep it down, sleep comes without dreams, blissful oblivion, no tears when I wake. Tissy might be drugging my food, but I don’t give a shit. She could dose me with opiates and gin for all I care. Drown me in chemical haze. Make me forget.

Tissy isn’t the only one who visits my door, but she is the only one whose gifts I will admit.

Signal makes two attempts. Denuded grey skeletons lurk in the corridor, waiting for me to open up after Tissy leaves the food. Signal babbles at me through her speakers. Are you alright, Octavia? Are you sleeping, are you washing, are you doing okay? It’s not a good idea to isolate yourself like this, Octavia. We’re all here for you, Octavia. We’ll respect your privacy and right to be alone, Octavia. But. But. But.

You can break down this door any time you want, Signal. And why not? There’s nothing in here but a corpse.

I slam the door in her face.

Grimgrave doesn’t ambush, doesn’t try to coax me out, doesn’t even complain. She bangs on the door with the flat of her hand, shouts through the metal.

“Mornin’, Occy! It’s me! As if you couldn’t guess, haha—” “—how’s it rockin’ in there? Tissy made you curry, the good shit like, with the coconut—” “—still kinda sore? Yeah, I getcha. Fucks you up, using a ton of girl-juice like that—” “—miss you, Occy!” “—got that laptop set up in there yet? You got games on it, right? Wanna try—” “—Tissy’s doing cake or something, you like chocolate or—” “Night, Occy!” “Occy!” “Occy!” “Occy!”

I don’t reply, but she never stops. Doesn’t even slow down. Three whole days.

Why did you try to save a corpse, Grimgrave? I never deserved such kindness. You don’t deserve to see the result.

I have no memory of how they got me back to my new bedroom in Plato Base, unconscious before Grimgrave finished the translocation. Signal probably carried me, slung between a pair of skeletons like a sack of wet ashes. Equally a mystery who removed most of my clothes or took the intact half of my prosthetic arm off my stump, but none of the possible answers are palatable ones, so I avoid the thought.

But I do recall stumbling to the door as soon as I was able, turning the lock, bolting myself in, screaming for everyone to leave me alone.

According to Grimgrave’s cheerful trans-doorway yelling, I was in no state to be left untreated after I passed out. She and Signal were not certain if magical girl physiology could shrug off that particular malady, because they’d never seen it before. They guessed it was the reason I’d collapsed on the hospital rooftop, after Scarlet Edge had cut my prosthetic arm in half.

Apparently, I had a heart attack.

Body catching up with my soul, that’s all. Now it knows I’m dead.

After three days of sleeping and crying and screaming, my tantrum finally dribbles out.

Alone in my concrete cell, sitting upright in bed, staring at nothing. Dry, numb, empty, done. Another unfair nightmare cobwebs the back of my mind, Willow’s face and Willow’s lips and Willow’s soft hands. But I’ve got nothing left to give, no matter how bad the torture. I consider lying back down, but my body lets me know that’s not an option any longer. I’ve slept enough.

Not quite clear-headed, but closer than I’ve been in a very long time.

Check my phone. Still there.

11:38 in the morning, on the 20th of August, 2025. A Wednesday.

Phantom pain needles dead nerves, pesters me to massage the stump of my right arm. Can’t unclench those intangible fingers without my prosthetic. I kick back the bed covers, wobble to my feet, pad over to the desk.

My prosthetic arm waits right where I left it, neatly cut into two pieces, right through the forearm. The edges of the wound are melted from the internal heat of Scarlet’s ruby sword, carbon fibre warped out of shape, foam blackened and burned, wiring severed and fused. A limb of flesh and blood would be bisected through the ulna and radius, at the exact midpoint of each bone, arteries cauterised shut, meat cooked and charred.

All the most expensive and delicate components are undamaged. The battery and myoelectric pickups in the upper arm are thankfully intact. Repairs are possible, difficult, costly, but not entirely beyond my skills.

I pick up the forearm, inspect the hand. My hand. The fingers are a bit scuffed and scraped from where it fell to the concrete, but the complex joints and miniature motors are probably fine, built to withstand a bit of knocking about, though I’ve no way to tell without repairing the wires first.

Greyish residue still stains the palm and fingers. Willow’s brain-slug.

“If you were a Dreamer all along,” I murmur, “why didn’t you remake my limbs? Why, Willow? Did you prefer me as a cripple?”

Tears threaten a storming return; now I’ve finally stopped, I don’t want to start again.

I put the hand down and pick up the rear half of my prosthetic, everything from the socket to the back half of the forearm, elbow joint hanging limp. Press it to my stump, hold it in place. Try to unclench my phantom fingers, relax the invisible muscles. Doesn’t work.

Awkwardly, knowing it’s absurd, I half-crouch, press the two halves of the wound together, will my arm to remake itself. I’m a magical girl now, aren’t I? Shouldn’t my wounds close by themselves? Where’s my regeneration, my healing, my replacement parts? Or is it only the beautiful ones who deserve that boon? The ones who were intact and whole in the first place.

Nothing happens. Blink back another wave of tears. Leave the arm on the desk.

I strip, shuffle over to the frosted glass shower cubicle in the corner, turn the water on high and hot, then sit on the floor underneath the stream of steaming heat. Hair sticks to my face and neck. My chest shudders and quivers, like my heart might mount a second rebellion. Water pools between my legs, around my backside, sluicing along the dam of my prosthetic leg. Water-resistant, but not waterproof. Don’t care if it breaks. May as well finish dismantling myself.

Soap and shampoo seem utterly superfluous, but habit carries me through. Half-clean, half-washed, half-dried on the towel by the sink, I locate my pajamas, the ones Tissy brought to the room on my first night in Plato Base. Don’t bother with underwear, it’s filthy anyway. Slip the robe over the top, big and fluffy, almost too much. Right sleeve hangs limp, so I tuck it into the soft belt on the robe.

“No more sleep. No more crying,” I croak, staring at myself in the mirror. Corpse face, drained, pale. “Do something, you child. Get up. Prove her wrong.”

My sports bag sits just inside the door, filled with the debris of a lie.

Clothes. Should have remembered these before I eschewed underwear, but I’m not getting back out of the pajamas now, though I do put a sock on my left foot. My two old furbies go on the bedside table, for later, for never. My diary stays in the bag, a record of nothing but false memories and somebody else’s dreams. Perhaps I can burn it?

Out comes the waterproof Faraday bag with my laptop nestled safely inside. I shake it free, extract the charging cable, get everything laid out on the desk, next to the remains of my arm. The cable is long enough to reach the power strip on the other side of the room. Plug it in, both ends, wait for the little light to come on. Battery’s still good.

Sit down. Pull the chair toward the desk. Open the laptop. Routine begins to take over, familiar and comfortable, more solid than any dream. Hit the power button, wait for the blank screen with the blinking cursor. Input the password to peel open the encryption on the drive. Wait for the Arc logo. Log in to the operating system. Wallpaper blossoms with the fractal perfection of interlocking tessellation.

At least this place was real. A little rectangle of my private world.

A few moments later I’ve got wireless internet connection. Plato Base boasts three networks, to my mild surprise. One is a string of numbers that I can’t wrap my head around. Another is just called ‘Pirate Radio Antenna Uplink – PRAU’. The third has been recently renamed to ‘OCTAVIA FEEL FREE TO USE THIS’, and requires no password.

“You watching, Signal?” I murmur. “As if I care.”

Boot up Steam. My account still exists. Not sure if I should be surprised by that.

I stare at the names of my favourite factory games for a very long moment, with a decision to make, strange fear in the back of my throat, a taste like iron and rust.

What if this part of me was also a dream? My skills, my passions, were those all Willow’s make believe? I half-recall showing her all of these games, my favourites, something I’m good at, something I know. Memory tells me I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into some of these, thousands into a few. But what if that’s all lies? What if I’m not an engineer, what if I know nothing? What if I don’t enjoy the things I thought I did?

My hand hovers over an easy option. The shallow end of the pond. Stellar Uplift Program or Satisfactation.

“These are mine,” I hiss. “This is mine. You can’t take this away.”

Factory-Oh it is, right in the deep end. And not one of my half-dozen ‘completed’ worlds either. I don’t want to tinker with the vast virtual machines I’ve built. I want to prove that this was me all along; I want to lose myself in this, to stop existing or thinking for as long as I can manage.

Five minutes later, in a fresh world, I realise I can’t play with one hand. Trackpad, clicking, keyboard shortcuts, they’re not impossible with only my left, but everything takes more than double the time. I’ve played hundreds of hours of Factory-Oh; I know the game inside out, or so memory says. But I can’t lose myself when I’m a cripple.

“Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck … ” Gonna cry again. Bite it back.

I need a mouse, then I can play with one hand. And I know just where to find one.

Nobody’s waiting in ambush when I crack open the door and step out into the cold concrete hallways of Plato Base.

On my right the corridor stretches off into darkness, where the lights have failed. On my left there’s no skeleton this time, just the empty junction back to the Big Room. No zoogs, no Grimgrave, only a distant whisper of wind against the far-off roof, muffled by layer upon layer of concrete.

I wait one step over the threshold, eye the clashing pink door to Grimgrave’s room. ‘FRONT TOWARD ENEMY’, not quite toward me.

She might have heard me emerge. Might burst out and make noise at me. Might accompany me to the Big Room.

My lips part. Against my will. “Grimgrave … ”

No. Don’t want to see anybody.

“Grim … Grimmy … ?”

Seconds ooze past. Grimgrave’s door stays shut. I turn my shoulders away and pad down the corridor, sticking to my plan. Dressed in a half-open robe and pajamas, no underwear, no shoes, no right arm. Plastic right foot on full display, scraping with each step. May as well be stark naked.

Down the concrete corridor, shuffling footsteps echoing off the ceiling. A turn to the right, more concrete hallway, a knot of tension in my throat. If Signal’s at her desk, this plan is worthless, because then I’ll need to ask her for permission. Perhaps I can do so via a series of wordless grunts. Maybe I can just ignore her. Ignore me, Signal. Just a dead thing walking.

But I’m in luck. The Big Room of Plato Base is empty. Of humans and their analogues, at least.

After three days of internal exile in my blank concrete cell, the brilliant rainbow graffiti and open vault of the Big Room is like stepping into raw sunshine. I pause, blinking, blinded, running my gaze over the rainbow-hued walls, the gigantic murals, the cartoon-encrusted columns. Zoogs are scattered about the domesticated corner as they always seem to be, dozing in little huddles, piled in the big animal bed, rooting through the mess; many of them look up as I enter, pausing, tails gone stiff. But then they ignore me, a harmless swaying corpse. Zoogs are smarter than humans.

The quad-television setup is tuned to some kind of nature documentary in the jungle, sound turned down to a whisper. A wide cluster of zoogs are glued to the action, watching a tarantula hunting among the leaves, their eyes wide with rapt fascination, jaws open in anticipation, claws clutching at the rugs.

No Grimgrave on the sofas, no Signal at her desk, no Bright at the big metal table.

Gregory the dead Moon Beast is present and correct, floating in his glass tank of cloudy preservative; I half-nod to him, one corpse to another.

I shuffle deeper, along the edge of the domesticated corner, tempted to sit down in one of the armchairs, join the zoogs. Their simple attention feels so real right now. I could sit in a chair and watch the television and stop thinking for a while. Think like a zoog and everything becomes easier.

Yet I know my mind would wander. Something so passive won’t work well on me. My eyes trail up the walls, to that slogan I finally understand, in big red letters.

‘HOME IS DEAD TO ME AND I AM DEAD TO HOME’

A loose circle of zoogs are asleep on the metal table as well, lying on cushions and a mess of blankets, surrounding a separate animal bed, a smaller one that I haven’t see before, with high sides and a plush bottom. I shuffle closer, shaking my head, a laugh in my mind but not on my lips.

“All you things do is sleep,” I say. “Sleep, sleep, sleep. Just like me. Given half … a … chance … ”

Nerys is in the little animal bed, curled up on one side, all by herself. Hard to tell through her black-on-black colouration and the miasma-aura of phantasmal goop that makes up her form, but her eyes are closed and her jaw hangs open, tiny ribcage rising and falling in deep sleep.

She’s covered in wounds. Scratches, bites, claw-marks, grazes; they’re hard to make out, a darker black instead of the red blood of fresh injuries on a real zoog. The bottom of the animal bed has been lined with a towel, stained with black splotches and smears, the shape of bloody residue from her tossing and turning.

“Nerys?” I step closer. “Nerys? Are you—”

Her honour guard of zoogs rouse themselves at my approach, scrambling upright, jaws open in silent hisses, backing toward the basket, tightening their ring of protection. The biggest of them shoulders to the fore and bares its teeth at me, tail gone rigid, prepared for a fight.

I stop, raise my left hand. “Sorry! Sorry, I just … I … Nerys, what … what happened to Nerys?”

The zoogs slowly relax, not quite all the way. The big one up front eyes me like I’m trying to pull a scheme, jaw working silently, little flappy ears going back and forth, fur bristling, nose twitching.

One of the others, further back, hiss-chatters an answer: “Hurt hurt hurt.”

“Yes,” I sigh. “I can see that she’s hurt. But how? What happened?”

Nerys stirs, lets out a clotted snore, cracks open one glassy obsidian eye. “Octavia,” she rasps, soft and exhausted. She curls her claws, a feeble motion. “You had your fight, I had mine.”

“ … do you need … help? Or … is there … ”

Is there anything I can do? For a zoog. Anything.

“Already had plenty of that,” she says, very slowly. Her eye closes again. “Don’t you worry yourself. Signal and Tistis have taken good care of me, got me all fixed up. Just need a little more sleep. Be right as rain in no time at all. Hmmmm.” She grumbles, a tiny frown in the blackened fur of her forehead. “What’s right about rain? I never got that one. Human idioms can be so … well … mmmm … you know … mmm … ”

Sleep carries her off.

The regular zoogs settle back down into their sleeping positions, following her lead. Half of them eye me for a moment longer, but I’m not worth much more. The big one stays upright for a while, as if to ward off any further attention, any more interruptions of Nerys’ much-needed sleep.

Nerys seems so vulnerable. So small and wounded.

“I didn’t … ” I whisper. “I didn’t think this was possible.”

The large zoog lets out a raspy little hiss. No words, but I nod anyway.

“What could even do this?” I ask, pure rhetorical question. “What could hurt a Dream-God?”

On a mad whim that I could not explain if I was placed in front of Willow and promised all the restitution the waking world has to offer, I reach out with my left hand and pet the zoog. Once, twice, three times, gentle strokes from the head to the base of the tail. Amazed I don’t get bitten, didn’t even think of that.

It — a she, I think? — closes her eyes, lets out a soft huff of satisfaction, bares her sharp little teeth.

“Who did she fight?” I whisper.

“Catssss,” the zoog hisses. “Nasty-hate cats.”

“Cats?” The grey cats from the graveyard? “For … because of … ” Me?

If the zoog understands my unvoiced question, she doesn’t show it, likely doesn’t care. She lowers herself back to the blankets, leaves my petting behind, snuggles close to her companions, closes her eyes. I am once more alone.

Did Nerys fight the Dream-God master of those cats in the graveyard? And why? For me? A walking corpse? Look at her prize. Not worth the spilled blood.

Tears threaten fresh assault. Crush it all down. Carry on with the plan.

Easy enough to steal a spare mouse from Signal; I don’t touch her actual computer setup, that would be beyond rude, a violation that even I’m not stupid enough to mistake. Instead I cross the domesticated corner to peer through the various computer parts and machinery piled up on the tables, adjacent to her row of 3D printers and CNC machines and server racks. The drone she’d been working on is gone, some of the tables clear for the next mechanical autopsy. Locating a mouse takes no time at all; I find a relatively clean one and put it into the pocket on my robe.

“Just borrowing it,” I say out loud, facing Signal’s empty chair, the blank screens of her computer setup. “For video games. I suppose you know that already, though.”

Tissy won’t bring lunch for another couple of hours yet. I pad over to the weird slice of cobbled-together kitchen, the mismatched pieces of countertop and sink, the ripped-out island covered in food wrappers and empty takeaway boxes. A massive chrome fridge hums away to itself, cold air pours out when I pull it open, but as far as I can see it’s not actually plugged into anything.

Slim pickings: the half-finished remains of half a dozen takeaways, a massive jar of whole pickles, a carton of almond milk, a single shiny red apple in the middle of a shelf, all by itself, that I would not touch for a million pounds.

Big sigh. I can wait. Not like corpses need to eat anyway.

A bottle stands in the door, catches my eye as I close the fridge. Clear glass, clear liquid, red cap. Florid design on the label.

Vodka.

The bottle of vodka Grimgrave and I shared. Still three quarters full, which doesn’t seem possible; surely I must have drunk almost the whole thing? The way I remember feeling back in the abandoned house, the way I kicked and whined like a grumpy child, the way I fell asleep. But there it is. Three quarters full.

Salivary glands tingle. Chest flutters, almost painful. Skin breaks hot, light with sweat.

Grab the bottle. Slip it into my pocket. Close the fridge quickly.

Signal likely sees everything that happens in Plato Base, whether she’s present or not, but the zoogs aren’t paying any attention, and they matter more than Signal. I glance at her desk and shrug, dare her to say something, wherever she is. Not like this is stealing, Grimgrave stole the vodka in the first place. Gregory watches me, of course, and he understands, because he’s a corpse too. I hurry past the cloudy waters of his tank, judged by a long-dead Moon Beast.

“Don’t,” I hiss at him. “Don’t.”

Back to my bedroom without incident. Door shut, locked, checked, secured. Sit at the desk, plug in the mouse. Works first time.

I take out the vodka and place it on the desk. Stare at it for a moment. Imagine the scent in my nose. Sharp taste on my tongue.

Then I push it away, next to the broken pieces of my prosthetic arm.

“Right,” I say, a little too much force in my voice. “Right, right, right. What are we doing? Let’s pick up where we left off. Left off. Left. Ha. Haha. Funny. Not.”

An hour later I have proved conclusively that I can play Factory-Oh with only my left hand, with the aid of a mouse.

My fresh world is now nicely advanced, little pixelated mining equipment shunting raw ores to lines of smelters along tightly organised conveyor belts, all sorted via splitters I’ve rebuilt from memory, pumping resources into the beginnings of a beautifully bootstrapped initial factory, churning out plates and rods and wires and more, combining them into components of greater complexity, creeping toward stepping-stone goals between greater achievements.

“Didn’t dream this up, did you?” I hiss at the screen, a savage satisfaction, words I wish I could spit in her face. “Probably don’t even know how to play. You can dream, sure, but I can engineer. This was all me. All me. Fuck you. Fuck you, Willow. Fuck you. This is real. And mine.”

Slower than my best, but probably not because of working with only one hand, and certainly not because of Willow.

Mostly it’s the cramp in my phantom limb, pain smearing the edges of my concentration and calculations.

I lean back, massage the stump of my right arm, grimacing and grunting, trying to work out knots in muscles and tendons that exist only in my head, projected into empty space. Factory-Oh ticks along like clockwork on the screen, everything in the right place, pieces locked together. A mirror of the universe, a machine set in motion by my will; I could work on all sorts of little details, or get started on the next stage of expansion, but the machine will run itself for a while now, no need for active attention.

So. Right.

Why did I take the vodka?

The glass is cool and smooth in my left hand, so different to everything else in the dregs of my life, in this room, in my head. The liquid clings to the inside of the bottle as I tilt it from side to side. The cap twists off with a light metal scrape. Sharp, astringent, repulsive scent punches into my nose, makes me recoil, almost gag.

“Ugh.”

Willow didn’t want me to do this, doesn’t like it when I drink. Because it damaged her control, because it suppressed the literal brain slug she put in my head.

Or maybe because I have a history of drinking? Because I was a teenage alcoholic? Because she really did care?

“I don’t remember,” I mutter. “Not a single thing.”

Whatever the truth, Willow has taken it from me; I have no memory of drinking alcohol before that fog-drowned afternoon with Grimgrave, holed up together in an abandoned house. The scent of vodka stirs no other neurons to re-tread old pathways. No memories float from the dreamlike swamp of the last ten years.

“Liar,” I say out loud, no more whispering. “Liar. You lied to me about everything, Willow. You lied to me about myself. Liar. Liar. Liar.” Shout it! “Liar!”

Raise the bottle, touch the rim to my lips, tilt it back.

Two swallows of raw vodka go down like cold fire before I cough and splutter and almost heave it back up. Lean forward in the chair, panting for breath, eyes watering, throat burning. Why oh why did I do that? It tastes vile, like cleaning fluid or machine oil or worse. May as well drink petrol straight from the pump. I’m going to be sick, I’m going to bring it back up, this was stupid and I didn’t want it, didn’t want this at all.

And then.

So slowly, like home coming into view over the brow of a hill.

Like a warm fire in a freezing room in the dead of a long, dark, winter.

Heat spreads outward through my chest, like my heart expanding to fill all my flesh.

“Oh … mmmm. Hello.”

I wasn’t able to fully appreciate this sensation when drinking with Grimgrave; my mind was occupied by more urgent matters. But now there’s nothing left of me, I can give myself over to it completely.

Factory-Oh ticks along all by itself. I tinker around the edges for a few minutes, re-orienting buildings, laying out rows of machines, clearing some trees.

Muscles relax. Eyelids grow heavy. Try to smile.

A third swig of vodka goes down easier than the first two, but still sharp, still not a good taste. “Ugh. How does anybody drink this?”

Five, ten, fifteen minutes pitter-patter past. Alcohol settles on my eyes and limbs and chest, a heated blanket, a sagging of my neck, rolling my head from side to side. Everything gets easier, smoother, quieter. My brain stops going so fast, gives up bouncing off the walls, sits down and shuts up for once.

“Mmmmmm. Right. Well. I’m getting drunk. I should … do something. With this. I mean.”

Know what I need to do. The thing I’ve been putting off, not thinking about, because thinking about it is hard and makes me angry and upset and sad and bad. But now thinking is easy and smooth and light. My phantom limb still hurts, clenched up like a motherfucker, but I care about the pain a bit less, and if I don’t care then who cares. Nobody cares. Least of all me.

I fetch my mobile phone from the bed, with funny wobbles in my left leg. Sit back down at the desk. Lean back, take another swig of vodka. “Uuuughhh. Vile.”

She’s still inside my phone. Willow. Willow Finch. Willow Bitch. Willow liar and cheater and betrayer. She’s all over it, in the screen and the speaker and the circuits, and I didn’t have the courage to solve that problem, not before lots of heavy anaesthetic in my bloodstream. A girl like poison, like nerve gas, like neurotoxin, and only now is my body fortified against her. Walls of vodka to repel her siege.

Text messages go first. “Delete, delete, delete.” Have to close my eyes, try not to read them. “Delete, delete!”

Next, her number. Easy. I never want to hear her voice again. Or I do, but I never heard it in the first place. Never never! Never never.

Hardest for last. Lastest for hardest. Another gulp of vodka does the trick, pushes me over the edge, puts the walls back up that she knocked down, and nobody is allowed inside, nobody but me, safe and sound inside my heart. No Willow, no traitors, no betrayers, no Dreamers.

Pictures. All the pictures of her. The pictures of us together.

At first I almost can’t do it, sitting and rocking and panting in the chair. But the alcohol sinks deeper, soaks into my organs and muscles, starts to decompose the rot in my veins, cleaning me out, clearing me up. I open the first picture, stare at Willow’s face, her smile, her beautiful eyes, the soft pads of her cheeks, the fluffy expanse of her hair.

“All lies,” I mutter. “Lies lies lies.”

Delete, delete, delete. Delete, delete, delete! I jab the screen so hard my left index finger starts to hurt. Select, delete, confirm. Select, delete, confirm. Over and over, burning her out, purging her reeking remains. Tears run down my cheeks, free and clear and clean and bright, but I’m not sobbing now, it’s all so quiet, so empty.

“Die, die, die, die, die, die,” frothing through my teeth.

Until only one picture is left, my old favourite. Willow and I, her arm around my shoulders, a big smile on her beaming face, hair up in a ponytail. I look oddly afraid in that picture. Now I finally know why.

“I hate you,” I say. “I hate you, Willow. I hate you so much.”

And I delete the picture.

She’s gone. I feel better, worse, neither, unchanged. Drained, buffered by booze, kept in the chair by vodka, my stupid moron brain stopped for once from running away with another weeping fit. Strong, clever, decisive Octavia. Drunk Octavia, and you bloody well know it you absolute degenerate. Smart Octavia.

“Smart,” I say out loud, a nasty rasping grumble, because I don’t feel smart.

Factory-Oh’s been running a bit too long without my attention. I remove some depleted miners, slap down some new ones; terrible orientation, bad spacing, worst I’ve ever done, followed by a big mess of spaghetti conveyor belts to compensate. Look, I can be an idiot too! I can choose to be a dumb fucking bitch. Don’t need any help with that, Willow. Don’t need your dreams to help me be stupid. Fuck you.

Willow told me so many lies. Everything she said, did, implied, knew, all of it. Everything we’ve done together. Everything about me, about what I think and feel. How much did she dictate, how much did she dream up, how much was left to me, or to chance, or beyond her attention? My interests, my values, my decisions, my—

My sexuality?

“No,” I say. “No way. She didn’t … I mean … she never … not really.”

Willow and I never really kissed. No kisses, maybe no hugs, certainly nothing more. All just a dream. Never happened.

I pause Factory-Oh. Glance over my shoulder at the door, double-triple-quadruple check that it’s locked. Point at the lock. “Locked. You are locked.”

Back to the computer. Heart rate going up, up, up. Breath growing ragged. This is silly, I’m not even doing anything. Yet. Alcohol isn’t helping, I need more. Another swig of vodka hits my stomach, but the flutters in my chest are trying their hardest to sober me up, and there’s no way I can do this sober. Do what, hmm? Do what? Do I even want to do this? Can’t even name the act. Can’t even put a word to it. My chest will explode if I do. That’s how they’ll find me, burst open and rotting in front of my computer, dead of embarrassment.

Sweaty palms and shaking fingers minimize the game. Pull up an internet browser. Change the settings, activate the function to clear all data when the browser closes.

“Ridiculous. Nobody’s gonna see this anyway.”

But still I stare at the fresh browser window for a long, throat-tightening, gut-clenching moment. Mouth going dry. Left leg numb.

“I’m twenty years old, I can … I can do what I want. Fuck you, Willow. Fuck all of you. Fuck off.”

I navigate to a well-known website, one that requires a VPN to visit from within England, relatively benign to the rest of the world. The sort of place everybody knows about, even if they pretend otherwise. Can barely type the name into the address bar. I certainly don’t know the url. But there it is.

A porn site. Admit it, use the word. I’m visiting a porn site. I am looking at pornography.

Flushed, quivering, hardly able to breathe.

Click.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, the jitters ebb away, souring into simple sordid disappointment. I spend a few minutes scrolling through video thumbnails, snippets and snatches of human flesh on display, objects going in and out of holes, women caked with makeup, shiny and glossy as a new car or a wax doll.

“Huh. Is that it?” I mutter. Draw myself up. Victory. “I don’t know you people.”

A few more minutes of scrolling and clicking and backtracking and I’m thoroughly done. Was that all? Was this supposed to impress me?

“Ha. Uh … hm … ”

What about an imageboard? Or a ‘booru’, one of those sites where people upload fanart of anime girls? Not magibooru, absolutely not; the idea of seeing art of Scarlet Edge or Grimgrave or any of the others right now turns my stomach, makes me want to be sick all over the floor. But I may as well establish the baseline, rule out all possibilities. Doubt I’ll be able to do this sober. One shot, girl. Shoot it. It’ll be a blank.

I pick a booru, the most popular one. Front page, recent posts, no filters.

A wall of anime girls greet me. Not all pornography, at least not obviously so; much of it’s entirely non-sexual, though some of them are in various stages of undress, or engaged in acts that make me swallow, my cheeks heat up, my bum shift in the seat.

“None of you are real,” I mutter, words trail off.

None of them are real. That’s the point, right? Clean fantasies, no reality to get in the way, no actual person who was filmed with their clothes off. My breathing picks up, sweat prickling on my skin, heart rate climbing again. All these cartoon women, nothing between me and them but the thin barrier of the screen.

Where do I even start? How do I know what to look at? What to feel? What to do?

I choose a name I vaguely recognise, one of the big popular gacha games, one you can even play in England. All the characters are personifications of firearms, or something like that, or whatever, doesn’t matter, who cares, I don’t, because I’m not here for the scaffolding of excuses, I’m here for the meat. The browser window fills with tiles of absurdly well-endowed women wearing deeply implausible outfits. Tits like water balloons squeezed into skintight bodysuits. Hips wide as buses, inside skirts far too short for anything but showing off. Tiny wasp-waists that couldn’t possibly contain any organs. Eyes like great big shiny insect-lenses.

Not all of them are that bad though. Some are closer to real. Still absurd. But it’s all about the style, right? All about what it makes you feel?

I’m feeling something. Maybe it’s just the vodka.

“You’ll do,” I mutter as I pick a girl. A buxom blonde beauty with a big happy smile and boobs spilling from a dress shirt. She looks ridiculous. The kind of woman from whom I would flee in reality. Would probably call me a cripple. Spit on me. Worse. But now she’s mine, on the screen, and I can do whatever I want with her, because she’s not real. I snort, sit back, get comfortable, flick through images, one after the other. Different outfits, poses, looks, moods. One artist seems to like drawing her as a dog-girl, with floppy ears and a big fluffy tail. Sometimes she’s doing things with other girls. “Yeah … yeah, you’ll do. You’ll … ”

I freeze.

Why am I not looking at men?

It’s not like I tried and decided they weren’t for me. I simply never made the attempt. Didn’t even think of it.

“Oh … oh f-fuck … ”

Throat goes dry. Head spins. Hands shake harder than before, heart racing, eyes hot, chest tightening. I take another drink, to steady my hands. Am I really going to do this?

Can hardly breathe as I settle on a picture. Can’t decide, swapping back and forth; another task rendered infinitely more difficult with only one hand. Eventually I choose. She — the anime girl who’s name I refuse to learn, with the big shining blue eyes and tits bigger than her head and blonde hair too perfect for reality or dreams — is down on her knees, gazing upward, collar around her neck, floppy dog ears sprouting from her head, ridiculous breasts spilling from a pajama top and exploding from a white-lace bra, about to face-plant into the groin of the nondescript viewer. Me. She’s going to faceplant into my groin. Make me—

I’m shaking so hard I can barely get my left hand under my waistband.

No underwear. Huh. Good thing you didn’t put any underwear on. Like you planned this. Slut.

And then I’m doing it. Cupping myself. Touching myself. Rubbing. Breathing harder. Making weird little noises. Carried away on a wave of alcohol.

I start slow, staring at a girl who doesn’t exist. A dream rendered in pencils and pixels. She’s not real and that makes it so much easier, plenty of room to lose myself in a nonsense fantasy, unconnected to anything, as dissociated as I already am. That’s a good excuse, right? I can tell myself that later, so right now just give in and do it. Spread my legs out a bit, slide down in the chair, press harder. Can’t believe I’m doing this, jilling myself off to anime pornography.

Settle into a good rhythm. Panting, rough. Stare into those eyes. She’s so happy to do it, slam her face into my crotch. Stupid slutty tits. Fuck, listen to yourself, Octavia. Slut.

Faster, faster. Grit my teeth. “Yeah. That’s … yeah … you big stupid slut, big stupid … s-slut … unnhhh, gonna—”

Then it hits me.

Have I ever masturbated before?

In front of Willow, yes. But by myself? All those memories were false. Her dreams, not mine. Never happened. We never kissed, certainly never touched each other in all the ways I dreamed about. I’ve never had an orgasm before.

And I’m not going to have one now, because the mere thought of Willow crashes the whole process to a cold stop.

I gasp, jerk upright in the chair, panting, heaving like I’m going to vomit, sweaty and flushed and sticky and nauseated and dry and sick.

Keen through my teeth with frustration. “She won’t let me fucking go!”

Grab the bottle, probably smearing it with fluids, who cares? Toss it down my throat, one, two, three gulps.

Lurch from the chair, stagger away from the unreal beauty on the screen, so clean and happy and bright, more than I can endure, too much for this rotting corpse of a girl. Octavia Carter, can’t even fuck herself!

I try to make it to the bed, but my legs give out, both of them, flesh and prosthetic alike crumpling in rebellion as I claw at the edge of the mattress. Crying now, clutching the covers, screaming into the sheets. She’ll never leave! She’ll never get out of my head! Willow, Willow, Willow, her face is all I can see, filling my mind, her smile that was never real, her skin against mine, her mouth on my cunt — never happened! None of it ever happened! She drowned me in orgasms but it was all a dream and she didn’t even dream it with me, didn’t want me that way, didn’t want anything like that. I was a pet fed on lies and kept in darkness and she never even touched me.

Sobbing, whining, I drag the sheets off the bed, huddle against the side, hide myself in a cocoon.

“You know who did want it?” I murmur, slurring, half-sobbing, tasting tears on my tongue, tripping over the words. “Grimgrave. Slept next to me. Slept against me. Fucking … dyke.”

My left hand slides back into my pajama bottoms. I’m still slick and wet, but cold now. Close my eyes, remember what Grimgrave felt like against my side, back in that abandoned house. The warmth of her body, the smell of her skin, the way she moved, adjusted, shifted against me. Hugs with Grimgrave, petite form in my arms.

Not enough. Can’t make Willow go away. Kneading myself like dough, gritting my teeth, muscles pulled tight, but she won’t get out of my head.

I need, I need—

Scarlet Edge, her face twisted in sadistic pleasure, the moment she ran me through with a sword? No, no — better! Scarlet Edge done up like the anime girl on the screen, dog ears and a fluffy tail, collar round her throat, leash in my hand. Much better. Perfect. And — and Willow too, fuck her. Fuck. Her. She can be a dog girl as well, a stupid one, big dumb tongue hanging out of her mouth, slobbering all over me. Scarlet and Willow, rutting like animals for my amusement. And Grimgrave can curl against my side and hold the other leash for me. Maybe she can yank Willow’s collar, choke her a bit. Then Grimgrave would turn her head and kiss my lips and shove her tongue down my—

“Unnnghhhh—”

I’m almost there, when something important snaps inside my chest.

Can’t breathe, can’t lift my limbs, can’t even stay upright. The echo of Scarlet’s sword, burning through my core. I crumple to the concrete floor, eyes rolling, hand still down my pajamas. My heart clenches and flutters, breaking all over again.

A knock slams against the door, open-palmed urgency.

“Occy!” Grimgrave shouts through the metal. World’s going dark, lights out, bye-bye. “Occy, hey! You alright in there?! Tissy says you ain’t!”

Oh. I’m having another heart attack. Maybe this one’ll take me all the way. Whee.

Grimgrave hammers on the door again. Fist, not palm. A high fluting sound follows, like a wind instrument filled with oil, drowned out by Grimgrave’s voice. “Occy! Shit, Occy, you best not be sleeping! I don’t wanna break the door, but— yeah, yeah, okay, Tissy, okay! Fuck!”

The door rattles, shakes in the frame. Once, twice, three times.

Can’t keep my eyelids up. Everything’s all heavy. Sleep is so much easier.

Sleep. Grimgrave. Hand on my cunt.

Dead all along.

Dead—

Last thing I hear is the door smashing open. But I’m already gone, down and dreamless.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

One step forward, one drunken heart-attack back. Octavia can’t deny certain things about herself anymore; like, for example, that she might have an alcohol problem. But oof, that’s gonna sting, in several ways. At least Grimgrave is there to break the door down, right? Not the first time she’s come to the rescue.

Anyway, here we are, arc 4! We are finally out of the beginning of the story, and into the meat of the middle. Octavia’s got some, uh, recovery(?) to do, some repairs to make, and, you know, in a way it also feels like we’ve barely even begun scratching the worldbuilding so far. Perhaps now she’s up in Plato Base for good (for now) she can begin to dig a little deeper. I mean, once Grimgrave administers magical CPR, or whatever Octavia requires in order to not die from a masturbation-and-booze-induced heart attack.

Also, I have some art to share with you all, from over on the discord server! First up we have Maidens Club, in which Scarlet Edge (non-transformed) and Willow discover they have something important in common (by sporktown heroine!) And then we have Scarlet Edge looking, um, pathetic? Pleading??? Pleading. Ahem. (By Cera!) I’ve also recently updated the memes page, which is absolutely full of stuff, for those who might enjoy it. Thank you to everybody who has drawn fanart so far, it’s so very flattering to see so much fanart for the story already!

 

And finally, but absolutely not least, I have another shout-out this week.

Fans of my other big story, Katalepsis, might remember Vora, author of Feast Or Famine (which was partly inspired by Katalepsis) and This Magical Girl Is Mine, (which you should also go check out if you’re enjoying Maidens!) Well, Vora has just started a new story, called Flirting with Death, and … look, I’m just gonna post the blurb. Anything I can say is not gonna do it justice.

Catherine Bird had nothing to live for. A bookstore cashier with dead dreams, twisted desires, and an otome villainess addiction, she doesn’t much mind when Truck-kun finally comes for her. And then, to her disbelieving delight, she wakes up in another world.

It’s the world of the MMO she played with her years-gone almost-girlfriend Momo, and now Momo is right there beside her. They’ve been promised an eternity together in that world, reunited by the hand of a benevolent goddess.

Or not so benevolent, as it turns out, because that goddess is Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, and she’s found a new set of girls to torture for her amusement. The price of her patronage is putting Cat and Momo through a checkpoint-based time loop where they’ll have to die endlessly to conquer Nyara’s game and win their happily ever after.

You can probably see why I’m shouting this out! Anyway, if you like the kind of things I write, you might enjoy Vora’s work too. Go check it out!

 

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, as always, thank you all so very much, dear readers. None of this would be possible without all of you, the audience and readers. We’ve barely even begun exploring Maidens of the Fall, and now we’re finally getting stuck in for real. Thank you so much!

Next chapter, is Octavia dead, or just dreaming? Let’s hope Grimgrave’s got an air horn up her sleeve.