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concealed-carrie · 1 year

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First of her Name

Liliam Abraxis Nightcore starts her morning with wall-to-wall speakers blasting Gustov Holst’s Mars Bringer of War, yawns and stretches like a kitten before clawing her way out of a pile of stuffies. In the bathroom she pops two nano-laced designer estradiol tablets (formulated for D-cups, bubblegum-flavored sweat and maximum iridescence) and stares herself down in the mirror as her pupils dilate and shimmer. An attendant is kneeling outside with her dress, tiara, and a velvet lined box containing her crook and flail. He says she looks positively celestial today, your grace. She tells him thank you, calls him a hugboxer under her breath, and leaves him to do whatever it is he does with the rest of his day.

Her footsteps echo endlessly down coral-gilded palace halls. Mommy and Daddy were topiarists on top of everything else, and this place has been growing unconstrained in their absence. A while back she made a habit of sending expedition teams into the newest sub-basements and outer wings. They always came back wild-eyed and ranting, which made her laugh and helped take her mind off things. She liked listening to the really broken ones the most. When she sent them deep enough they all started to sound the same, coming back with these hysterical sobbing rants about the shadows that make up the world and the blinding light from nowhere that washes them all away. She likes to imagine that they’re right. If nothing else is real then that takes some of the pressure off of her. God, she misses that – should try it again, see if anything’s changed. With the way her servants talk about the job market when they think she’s not listening, it shouldn’t be too hard to get another team together on short notice. This is what she thinks about while perched atop another oversized courtyard statue, vaping and dangling her feet off of the epaulet of the glowering dead man and watching the cotton candy sky until someone shows up to apologetically drag her to court.

There really is something wrong with me, she thinks as the Lord Commander drones on about the state of the war, its supply lines and projected casualties and lack of popular support. She’s watching his sunken face move, wondering at what point in her life she tripped and fell and broke whatever mechanism allows people to enjoy beautiful things. Nothing can simply be good without bringing her own deficiency into sharp contrast. The palace, this towering crystal throne, they make her want to vomit. Seeing gorgeous people just existing feels like twisting a knife in her guts. She has no idea what she looks like. Staring into space, drumming her fingers on a bismuth armrest, each impact activating her nail polish’s procedural palette algorithm. Violet. Platinum. Jungle. Midnight. Ivory. Sunset. She makes brief eye contact with one of her red-cloaked security detail, imagining that behind their jade locust mask and relentlessly disciplined body language is someone just as bored out of their skull as she is. The old fuck’s trying to get her attention again, gesticulating in that overly-grandiose way that makes her shiver with revulsion. She imagines how much better he would look flayed and hanging by his ankles from the palace gates -- she could do it if she really wanted to, but then she’d just have to replace him with someone equally insufferable. Mercy it is, then.

She nods along and approves this initiative the Lord Commander is proposing, something about appropriating the biomass of enemy combatants. Sure man yeah sure okay sure whatever. He looks satisfied, gathers up his notes and bows deeply. Your grace. All she can think about is how much this man disgusts her, and now her brain is spinning up this whole narrative. What if he seizes power in a military coup? Pays off all her guards one night and waltzes into her chambers? She’d wake up with moments to live, fluid running down her face from where he’s buried a knife deep in what used to be her eye socket. A death deliciously unbefitting of royalty. He’s leaving now, and the next pathetic sycophant is taking his place. This one’s inviting Liliam to an exclusive cocktail party at her fortress-colosseum, but her grace is too checked out to even get excited at the hinted possibility of gladiatorial pits. It’s not worth enduring an airship full of plastic people kissing her ass and calling her gorgeous. The lady leaves, dejected, probably already planning some other angle from which to wriggle her way into the princess regent’s good graces. And so on, and so on, and so on. Everyone wants something and everyone thinks the thing they want is the most important thing in the world. All of them are scared and most of them aren’t even scared of her. Pearl. Mango. Teal. Gunmetal. Gore.

By the time the sun dips low enough to paint the throne room in hallucinatory pink-yellow-purple through its westward stained glass atrocity, Liliam has made up her mind to go clubbing tonight. She’s craving the release, and besides, what kind of ruler would she be if she didn’t mingle with the common folk now and again? So once the doors have been triple-locked and every would-be social climber has shuffled off back to their respective limos and carriages and luxury airships, she wastes no time slipping out of her glamourweave and into plain fabric and studded leather. Analog cosmetics are considered laughably anachronistic at her social stratum, but by the grace of heaven her improvised wings and eyeshadow turn out okay. Dagger at her hip, like always. 18 milligrams of experimental combat stimulants under the tongue and she’s ready to go.

Liliam has a standing order on one of her intelligence agencies to surveil every drinking den in the city and compile a list ranked by frequency of violent incidents. Her M.O. is to bounce back and forth between a few of the top contenders over the course of a night, thus maximizing her chances of getting some action. Tonight, though, her blood is already boiling. There’s tension in her chest and reverb in her skull. She needs this too bad to leave it up to chance.

She leans back and lets the chemicals inside her hold her aloft, sweeping her along on a tide of alcohol and anticipation and false starts to 2:00 AM, depositing her on this smoke-filled mezzanine where nothing matters but the present tense and she’s weaving through an avalanche of bodies towards the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. If the music were about twenty decibels lower you could have heard her gasp at the sight of this girl: a study in leather and mesh and steel, face smeared into something resembling divinity under the kind of multifractal strobe lighting you can only get by running a live current through a caged plasma-nymph who had plans for how the rest of her life was supposed to go. Close now, almost close enough to touch, Liliam sees gunmetal glint between layers of dark fabric accentuating the stranger’s thighs. Reticle-pupils tighten with focus as she turns to look at her. Implants like that in this part of town, she’s probably a combat veteran. A gleaming razor blade just waiting for something to slice apart.

In a few hours she won’t remember which one of them dropped the opener, which one made the other laugh first, who offered to buy the next round. Sense-memories dominate. As they talk, the noise of the club forces them close enough to feel each other’s breath. Liliam’s heartbeat outpaces the relentless double-bass of the pre-war industrial metal pouring over the speakers. Need burns white-hot through the core of her being, but the particulars of that need keep changing with the strobe light. She needs to strip for this mystery woman or needs to gouge her eyes out or run home and change into a hoodie or get taken back to her apartment like a hunting trophy and tied to her bedframe. She needs her ribs cracked open or her dick sucked, she needs to fall asleep tonight in this stranger’s arms, or with her arterial blood drying on her face.

And she’s watching those vantablack lips, struggling to make out every third word, but the contents of the conversation are just pretense, right? This is two strangers establishing first humanity, then cordiality, then desire, until one of them asks the other if they’d like to step out back for a breath of fresh air.

Now there is cold stillness crisp on her tongue and in her sinuses, bags of trash in haphazard piles, decaying brickwork crusted over with graffiti: Redcloaks killed husband, love you too Tessa, fuck the crown fuck the war fuck Liliam. Another couple is out here too, going at it like there’s a way out down each other’s throats. Liliam fills her lungs and howls at the sky, hoping it carries past all the holographic pastel infojunk to the stars beyond. Her razorgirl glances back at her, eyes dancing.

“So, sweetie, what are you waiting for?” Perfect pitch, perfect resonance, perfect delivery from a perfect face. It wasn’t just the lighting. Secrets of the universe written in the sacred geometry of her cheekbones.

A split second non-decision later and Liliam’s dagger is in her hand. She plunges forward, letting stimulant-buzz and artificial muscle memory take over. There is motion, then impact, and then tearing fabric accompanied by the spine-twisting screech of sharp metal glancing off military-grade porcelain.

Then, after an interminable microsecond, the telltale ping of a spring-loaded blade being reflexively deployed from somewhere inside the other woman’s body.

Liliam thinks, okay, so I guess I’m the one who doesn’t get to go home tonight. Better this girl does me in than anyone else. An honor, really. Her only regret is that she won’t be around to laugh at the ensuing succession crisis. She braces for a retaliatory strike, but instead of slitting her open like she ought to Razorgirl just takes a few steps backward, one hand over her mouth. Her other arm is at her side, thirteen inches of wickedly curved sigil-etched hellsteel hanging limply from the elbow.

“Okay okay okay okay okay-” Razorgirl is muttering to herself like a sample on loop, face carved into a mask of shock. Liliam risks an embarrassed glance down the alley. The only other sound is the low thrum of a royal warship passing far overhead. The other couple hasn’t even come up for air.

“Go on,” Liliam offers, gesturing to the blade,“Show me what that thing can do.” No response but more of that vocal white noise. “What’s the matter? I just tried to kill you, don’t you want some payback?”

The other woman shakes her head no.

“Are you serious?” she says, impatience creeping into her tone, “I know you have enough hardware in there to splatter me across that wall. Just fucking do it.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt you.” Razorgirl’s eventual reply is small, unsteady. Infuriating.

“Fine. Whatever, you fucking tease. Maybe don’t flag like that if you’re just gonna pussy out.” Liliam slides down into an intersection of brick wall and dumpster, suddenly acutely aware of how much the world is spinning and how much her head feels like it’s being crushed in a drill vise. Through the haze, she sees the other woman’s posture change as she carefully folds her blade back into her arm. She looks down at her with, oh god, is that pity? Lilium feels bile rising in the back of her throat.

“Sweetie, are you… okay? Can I-”

“Go. Just go. Get the fuck out of my sight.”

Neon paints double-images in puddles of filth as she sits alone, a heavy fog of rejection settling over her shoulders like a weighted blanket soaked in piss. It hasn’t fully hit her yet, but she knows that once she gets into that four poster bed and pulls the curtains closed she’ll crumble. Trills of laughter drift over to her. Joyful. Mocking. Right, of course, those star-crossed lovers from earlier. She fumbles in the half-light for a moment before her fingers find sweat-slick ivory. She takes her dagger, holding the slender blade tight against her chest. Then she staggers to her feet, face breaking into something that could be mistaken for a grin. Maybe she will end up having some fun tonight.

Halfway back to the palace and there she is, cresting the skyline: Liliam Abraxis Nightcore, first of her name, rendered four hundred feet tall in solid light. The skyscraper princess smiles like an angel, like your mother or your daughter, flashing a photoshop-perfect set of teeth. On one arm she bears a golden aspis, ready and willing to protect the innocent citizens of the realm. In the other she holds a blazing torch, lighting the way to a better future. In lieu of a halo, her head is crowned by a smattering of ten thousand point sans serif text which reads: SHE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU. WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR HER? followed by a toll-free number that redirects to the nearest recruiting station. Back at street level, flesh-and-blood Liliam doubles over. She tries steadying herself with her hands on her knees, smearing blood all over her pants and soaking them through. Her stomach contracts, but only alcohol comes up.

#story #old writing #not really empty spaces #but kinda?#ES-adjacent

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