Work Text:
It was raining in the Crown of Glass. It felt like every time Brnine had come here—not many, but more than they wished— it had been raining.
Figure had told them about the crash landing on Palisade; of the rending crunch of glass, of the deaths—none permanent, but still deaths—of the swamp pierced from the wound, and how it now fueled the rain that avidly beat upon their city. He had also told them of the Witch in Glass, sweeping off into the forests and leaving her wreckage behind.
Brnine had squinted up at their inverted pyramid of colors and tried to discern some expression. They had, in the way of getting to know a person you spent long days with, come to learn how to read their face. His mouth was calm, and he delivered the words how they imagined he once delivered history lectures, passion tempered for the sake of educating.
“That doesn’t seem very cool,” Brnine had remarked.
“Perennial needed her,” was all he had said, lowly, with an edge Brnine knew well. Resentment.
Hm, they had thought, less tempered now. It did that to you—the Cause, Millennium Break. It crept in and took roots, flowering up through the cracks you’d never known were there.
This rain felt like tears, now that they thought about it. A weeping planet.
If they were Palisade, they’d cry too.
But they weren’t, they were Kalvin Brnine, who did not cry if they could help it, so they followed Gucci Garantine, who followed Emaline, into the winding paths of the reflecting pool.
It was impossible not to think of Obelle, aflame. Past shattering in the dunes, Valence lighting up the sky. How different they had been, how little they had known. Then, a different sort of light in Oxbridge— fabric like burning in the sky; Valence gone, something like burning in their heart. This divine again, with its costly rescue. Always with a cost, divines. Brnine scrubbed at their eyes until dots swam instead of memories. They kept walking.
Murmuring people with vines splinting their limbs or crystals shivering out their sides hurried past to their duties. Brnine’s wet shoes squeaked on the glass. It comforted them, that shivering wail. At least something was disturbing the still, almost solemn air, echoing upwards and expressing how it truly felt.
Gucci certainly wasn’t. She chatted with Emaline about the city’s upcoming initiatives and the gloomy weather and anything, really, but their business with the Witch— which they still didn’t know the finer details of. Gucci had called them and asked for a ride, and that had been that.
In a lull, Brnine sidled a little closer to the alert line of Gucci’s back. She was wearing a deep burgundy blazer with proud shoulders that made their fingers itch to prod at and see if they were less rigid than they looked.
Instead, they muttered into their scouter, “You sure you want me here for this one?”
“You’re my captain,” Gucci’s voice, while in an undertone, was smooth and certain. Brnine felt themself loosen the grip they’d had on their pocket computer—they hadn’t even noticed it digging into their palm— and took a breath. Gucci didn’t look back at them. She kept going, walking into Perennial's heart.
It was strange, with the Witch, and all very Kesh. They stood in a circle of vases bursting with angry red poppies and Gucci danced around the reasons they were here with a practiced composure— as if every inquiry into minutia was a dance that was intentional and necessary.
Brnine did not have the patience for their careful sparring. It had taken years to even stomach being loosely allied with the former princess of Kesh, to stomach the sight of her, lounging on the dark wood of her throne like she deserved any of it. Asepsis had not developed this stomach, as the light dusting of drones lingering in their backpack grumpily crowded their monitor with cautionary notes.
THREAT DETECTED.
You’re telling me.
Brnine had connected a small keyboard between Asepsis and their headgear for ease of silent communication. Sometimes, they regretted this.
Dismissed, they typed.
THREAT DETECTED, it insisted, PURGE RECOMMENDED.
For the hundredth time, no purging. They considered for a moment and added: Unless I’m behind the wheel.
CLEANSE RECOMMENDED.
You wouldn’t be the first to try, they typed. I told you to behave if I let you come with me. Dismissed.
DIVINE PRESENCE DETECTED. THE INTEGRITY OF THE SUBJECT “WITCH IN GLASS” IS UNABLE TO BE VERIFIED. CLEANSE RECOMMENDED.
As they tugged on the leash, they tried to keep an eye on the conversation. Gucci was laughing. Brnine couldn’t tell if she meant it.
I promise you, I have no intention of letting her on my ship. Behave.
There were no new pop-ups. But it had been five years together. Five years, and they could feel the Divine’s dissatisfaction like skittering along their neck. Asepsis could be a problem when dissatisfied with someone. And Gucci wanted this to go well.
You trust the commander, right?
Green pulse in their view. Well, maybe more of a lime green. Yellow at the edges. It would have to do.
She vouches for her. I’ll show you.
“So you two have, uh, known each other for a while,” Brnine interrupted them. They could just imagine Gucci’s what are you doing? side-eye.
It was the first thing they had said since they’d arrived. They watched as the Witch was forced to acknowledge them.
“Oh yes,” said the Witch, “we go lifetimes back.” She paused, delicate, intentional. Was she aware of how infuriating this slow wind was? “She hasn’t told you about our Kesh days?”
Brnine shrugged. “We don’t really have… the old friend baggage type of relationship.”
“I’d hardly call it baggage,” Gucci’s voice sounded mildly amused, but Brnine could feel her attention on them, like a spotlight.
There was movement in the cluster of flowers on the face of the Witch in Glass that might have been the raising of an eyebrow. “Hardly,” she agreed, “We’re on good terms.”
Only once had Brnine been in Gucci’s private quarters.
Afterward, Gucci, looser than she had ever let herself be around Brnine, had only watched them brazenly snoop around the space after they dressed. Brnine tested the suddenly slack boundary like a bruise and ran hands along the shelves and turned up picture frames. There was little chance Gucci would even have let them in the door if there was anything too confidential or revealing sitting out, but still, they were curious.
They had found one thing of interest. Tucked into a copy of Pathways to Success was a single long stem of a plant, flowering lush and purple. Brnine knew this plant. And here it was in Gucci’s bedroom.
“It’s from Clementine,” Gucci had said. “It doesn’t die. Flowers every night. Strange world we find ourselves in now. Eternal flowers.” Then, amused, rolling closer to the edge of the bed, holding up an overall strap, “Forgetting something?”
Clementine, she had said. Not the Witch. Clementine.
Brnine shifted from foot to foot and stared between the Witch and Gucci, who had not broken eye-to-sage contact for several extended moments.
“Alright,” they said, as mildly as they could manage. Good terms, they emphasized to Asepsis.
She turned to Brnine then, and smiled with no teeth. “We were girls together before we started dabbling in sedition.”
“And you trust each other,” Brnine said hopefully.
“Oh, Garantine pretends she does. But we have a fruitful working relationship nonetheless.”
PRETENDS, Asepsis emphasized to Brnine.
Gucci waved it off. “You wound me. I’d say we’ve long passed the dabbling stage. The principality would sooner martyr us than anything else.”
“They’ve found the prospect rather difficult.”
“Crysanth would weep to see it.”
“My mother and weeping were an ill-made match.” Brnine watched as that strange copper key of a finger began to tap the arm of her throne.
“More likely she’d have had the Curtain sweep us away until we agreed.” Was that a crack in that sheer countenance? Gucci, swept into the past, didn’t seem to notice. “God— remember that rowing match when we were teenagers? The one when you dislocated your shoulder at the end and just barely got second. You probably don’t know this. She made me stop cheering for you when that was the only reason I came. Do you know what she said to me?” A jerk in the cheek, uncontrollable, like it had been stuck by small needles. Tap, tap, tap. “She said ‘Every clap tells the world that our houses honor failure.’ I mean it was intramural. I can’t imagine-”
“Well, she can’t say anything now.” The Witch cut in, grinning hard and sheer. “Your wolf blew my funeral up to make sure of that. I never did thank you.”
She wasn’t even facing Brnine when she said it. She had already dismissed their presence.
But Gucci's eyes had flickered over to them. Her gaze was as hard to read as ever, keen and shadowed.
Brnine did what they had done many times over the past five years, which was imagine within themselves a maw, Asepsis’ maybe, or one formed of Kalmeria Particles—they had no shortage of hungry mouths these days— and press the tangled wires of what Valence was to them inside of it. The rage was washing in, sweet in their mouth and cold at the corner of their eyes. That old adage— I don’t have to take this from you. The accompanying urge to say something they might be made to regret. They needed an out.
Asepsis. Remove custom priority filters for Blue Channel status reports.
Instantly: HORTICULTURAL EMERGENCY. Their antenna flashed a hot red strobe.
“Duty calls,” they tried to declare, unsure how much confidence they were mustering. They gave Gucci a sharp nod and did not look at the Witch as they turned on their heels and left.
Gucci frowned at Brnine’s back. The urge to call after them tickled at her throat. She had no intentions of following it when the Witch was warmed up and ready to parlay, but the presence of it was surprising. She had grown worryingly entangled.
“Sensitive, that one?” The Witch seemed to have recovered from the instability her mother's phantom still wrought after all this time. Meanness as a balm. Foolish. Don’t bring her up. Don’t get caught up.
She shook it off, straightened herself, and turned back to the Witch. “They’re a good captain,” she hedged, instead of answering, so much more than they’d ever want you to think. “Just as well. I have something I need to speak with you about in private.”
“Of course you do,” the Witch said, amused—and curious. “I don't understand why you even brought them.”
“I already said they’re a good captain. And it's good for morale.”
She sniffed— a bit of that old petulance. “No, it isn’t. They never liked me. It makes them think they have more control than they do. I would know, people used to do that to me.”
Had she become so predictable? “Not anymore.”
“Not anymore.” The Witch did not hide her smugness.
“Let’s cut to the chase, then. We’re planning something. Something big. Blue Channel will be targeting this Lost Duchess on her way to the coronation. If all goes well, that will divert attention from our true goal.”
“Which is?”
“Taking Bontive. Full control of its routes and resources.” Even just saying the words made excitement spark. Finally taking back something significant. Something that would matter to people. “We need ground support and auxiliary supplies, but this mission is too confidential to risk a leak from one of our arms. Even the Blue Channel doesn’t know.”
“And now I know, instead of them.”
“We voted,” Gucci said, trying to keep the grimness she felt out of her voice. That Brink girl was trouble.
The useful thing about working with the Witch was she tended not to inquire into the morals of your requests. Nor the feelings of other parties involved. “There’ll be a price.”
“Within the bounds of our terms.” Gucci reminded her. “Must we still get in the weeds about cost?”
“Considering your crew,” she intoned the word with distaste, “it’s best to be sure. Fairweather rebel or not.”
It was playful. But it rankled Gucci, made her pride itch at her nape. “It’s not like that for me.”
“Oh?” Her shining finger was tracing idle patterns on the arm of her throne.
Gucci clenched her jaw. “It’s never been like that. From the day I got in my mech— from the day I knew my history. This has been my path.”
The Witch scoffed— a very familiar sound. “Paths are malleable.”
“You know that as well as anyone.”
“I suppose I would.”
There was yet another reason Gucci had come to the Crown of Glass. One that she had been rolling smooth in her mind for months. Since she had been stolen away by willful Véronique and her Divine, like a phantom wrung in starlight and gold hair, now the leaders of Rose River.
Through the glass ceiling, Gucci could see dark clouds swirling as she made her move. “Alright then, indulge me in a thought.” The Witch waved a hand. “The way I see it, as long as we’re in Principality space, there are two options. With them, or against.”
“Seems like a simple way of seeing.”
“Is it? I’d say the Principality works hard to make it true.”
“Hm.” The Witch acquiesced. “Where am I on your scale?”
“That’s not something I can answer.”
“At this point, it would be hard to say with. That bridge burned when my name did.” Was that bitterness? When had she gotten so hard to read? Her eyes had always said so much. Now, she supposed, they still did. “What’s your play, Garantine?” The Witch demanded, frowning. “Why this turn of conversation? You have what you want, don’t you? Our lines are clearly drawn.”
“They could be clearer. You said that paths are malleable. Like it or not, provisionary or not, you’ve helped us for so long. You took Icebreaker.”
“That was a long time ago”
“Even still. The Cause was born there. We’re all here, because of that moment. There’s nowhere on this planet like this city— your city.”
“Get to your point, Garantine.”
Now or never. “My point is that we could be more than wayward allies. In fact, I think we should be.”
“And why would I want that? How would that even get approved? Half your people hate me!” But she was tilting in just a bit, and her snap was too soft. Gucci forged ahead.
“We disagree all the time. That’s all we do some days. Half isn’t all and I have influence.” She could see it now. Secretive hubs shooting off Crown of Glass’ wetlands, shielded by its perceived neutrality— tenuous but valuable. More fighters like Figure maybe, loyal and bold. Her value to the Cause, as the primary intermediary with its temperamental despot. It would be tricky. But Gucci could handle it. She was sure.
“It’d look good. We’d look good. Come off the throne a little, Clementine.” Gucci edged closer as she spoke and trawled the Witch’s bouquet, for a sign. She had always been able to tell when her full attention was on her. It felt like a hand clutching tight on her collar. Crude, but purposeful, incensing. Hard to ignore.
“That hasn’t been my name for a long time, Gucci.” A jolt— she didn’t remember the last time the Witch had called her something other than Garantine— “That woman... she was a step. A necessary one. All to get me here, to the throne Perennial has gifted me. Whatever you think I need, I don’t. We will make a third option.”
It was like trying to tame a river with only your hands. Illusory closeness then, always, high tide. Gucci choked back a sound that was scornful and growling. “You speak of her with such reverence. You used to call her the adversary.”
“Do you think I scratched about the soil for a year for— for fun? For laughs? I believe in something.” Clem— the Witch’s— Perennial’s face was turned down towards her, airy clouds of purple. “It was always going to be this way. I didn’t know it, but she was reaching for me. Even then.”
“Don’t you ever wonder? Why she chose you? What she wants?”
Laughter, tight, all throat. “For what?”
“She’s a Divine. They always want from us. You could stand to be more curious about the thing stealing your face.”
Gucci had gotten too close. Her voice was low and intent, but the flowers rustled and murmured as it hit by a gust. And quite suddenly, looking into them, she could see—less see than feel—the presence of eyes. Dark orbs, drowning in sage, far too many to belong to the woman before her.
The Witch’s voice was cold. “You could stand to be more careful with the person you’re begging help from. Keep calling up ghosts, and one day you will not much like what answers.” The eyes were gone, and the flowers were still, but Gucci felt their specter skittering up her spine. “Trust me.”
Gucci pulled back, unsteady and trying not to show it. “I've long wished I could.”
The Witch sighed and slipped down to a slouch—just enough to lean to her side and pluck up the nearest poppy. “The story you told me earlier. About my mother. She was right. Clementine Kesh was a failure, and that’s why she’s dead.” The Witch dragged her nails along the petals until they were in tatters, and with a twist of her wrist growth ignited again, purple snaking between the wounds. “This is who I was meant to be.” She held out the flower.
What could Gucci do but take it? Their fingers brushed and parted. “We’re still on the same side, Garantine. The side may have changed names, but we are.”
She took the blow and survived it. The stem was frigid in her hand. “Then I'll have your supplies. There is much to do.”
The Witch inclined her head. Stinging from rejection, from an overplayed hand, and feeling far more tired than before, Gucci retreated.
In her absence, the room flushed periwinkle, and the wind whispered of keys and concrete coffins.
Coriolis was gazing up at Brnine brightly and chattering away when Gucci arrived— though it would be more apt to say she clouded— into the Blue Channel, scarcely sparing them a glance.
The anger had tumbled its way down the vents once they had boarded to find the blessedly distracting problem. Unfortunately, as always, more emotions lurked in wait for the moment the work was done.
Over and over they had been finding themselves not just helping Gucci— for profit, for necessity, for the Cause— but wanting to help Gucci. Cast away the thoughts of the last time they had felt this insistent tug in their palms. Cast away the curve of Gucci’s proud shoulders dropping slightly, heavier. Brnine groaned.
Cori, ever indomitable, didn’t slow. “So, yeah, might need to hire a mech rigged up with some sort of flamethrower from the city. And I don’t care what Midnight says, who knows what that stuff could do to the hull! She’s too stingy, and you can tell her I said that!”
“Uh, I think she prefers thrifty. We shouldn’t be here too much longer anyway.” Brnine rocked back a little on their heels. “And hold the rest of that thought, Cori. I'll be back. Tell Figure he’s probably good to go in and see her.” They winced. Hopefully the two of them hadn’t made Figure’s check-in worse. They didn’t know the details, but he hadn’t seemed excited.
“Yes, Captain!” she chirped, seeming pleased at the assurance her favorite audience would return. One of her wings—the little ones curled about her head— gave a flutter that Brnine had come to realize was the closest to a salute they could configure.
Gucci was in the rec room shuffling papers with a passion but no clear purpose. They leaned on the doorway, audibly, and watched her. Gucci did not look up. They frowned.
“Come in, Watershed.”
She looked up and frowned too. “There’s no need to call me that. This isn’t a mission.”
There was new tension everywhere, running along the dapple of her neck, resting fitfully between her eyes.
“How’d it go, Commander?” Brnine asked. They had aimed for consideration and it had come out closer to wary. Being a supportive captain was no picnic.
“As well as any business with the Witch goes.”
“That could mean a lot of things.”
Gucci said nothing, and went harder at shuffling the papers in her grip.
“Hey, what’s up? You’re clearly mad about something.”
“I'm not mad,” Gucci muttered crossly.
“Angry and lying. You never want to talk to me.” They said it easily as if it were a joke, though it didn’t feel like one.
Gucci looked up, finally. Like lightning in the cool mud, those eyes. “I tell you a lot, you know. More than I’m supposed to.”
“Gucci-”
“When I don’t tell you things it’s because I can’t.”
“Hey, hey, I know. Part of the job.” Brnine had slipped into a soothing tone without realizing it. Even more astonishingly, it seemed to be working. The tense exclamation of Gucci’s back softened.
“It works. We’re a good team.” There was a lilt of question there.
“We’re a great team. Always are.”
Brnine had found their way closer, closer, and sat on the couch next to her. They tugged the papers from her hands and set them on the card table. “I know you’re not on the ship very often, but there’s a strict no-work policy in this room. Heart to hearts only.” They cocked their head. “Now about the witch.”
Gucci creased her lips over an answer. “What was the emergency?”
“Oh, uh, nothing too serious. It gets twitchy when we’re docked here. There was some off-putting wildlife.”
“Affliction off-putting?”
“Carnivorous plant offputting. Midnight and Cori took care of it. Made enough of a mess on the hull to keep the guard dog busy.”
“Mm.” Gucci considered them. “I’m sorry about her. She gets meaner when you hit a sore spot. I should have known better.”
Brnine shrugged. “S’fine.”
“It's fine,” Gucci laughed, a little wildly. “It’s fine.”
“Didn’t... go well, then?” They ventured slowly.
“It went adequately. We’ll have the supplies we need. These days, results with her are never really the issue.”
Gucci worried at her lip, staring past Brnine and then focusing. “Why’d you call me ma’am over comms, that time? I've been thinking about it.”
Brnine blinked. Hunched their shoulders. Tried not to feel defensive. “I don’t know. I was just trying to be professional and shit.”
Gucci held their eyes. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“I mean, probably. But that’s always true. A moral compass didn’t come with her flowers.”
“Not the Witch.” She paused. “Probably the Witch. But I mean…” She looked between them meaningfully.
“You mean?”
They knew what she meant. And it probably was a bad idea.
They ruminated on their situation with an intensity that defied category. Confusion, maybe. Frustration. The itching thing that bordered resentment. Want. Did Gucci do the same? Or were they alone in thinking about the first time—how Gucci had spent the sortie murmuring directions in their ear and they had argued with claws pulled in, like an act of pleasure instead of strife, and in the evening they had fallen together mid debrief. Or the third time, how Brnine had spent the day with the hollow ringing in their head that still came around sometimes, how they had their lips to her throat when they thought they died for us and you only sent flowers and it had scared them so badly they didn’t call her for weeks.
There were moments when they would confront her about it. All in their head, of course. Never spoken, only felt. Or perhaps felt only because it was never spoken. Either way, Brnine spent a lot of energy capping their teeth.
The silence between them had grown legs and hopped around gaily. Finally, Brnine broke it, “We can always stop. Shit is getting busy anyway.”
“Sure. Yeah.” A beat. Gucci looked up to the ceiling. As someone who had spent long nights doing the same, there wasn’t much to see. “I tried to recruit her. The Witch. Not fully, just… get something more real. Tug on our past. It used to work, sometimes. Fluster her, and get a foothold.”
“But not this time? That sucks.” Silently, they thanked everything that it hadn’t.
“It always feels so shaky. Everything, everything on this planet feels so shaky. Even this, now. The Witch. The Witch!” Gucci was flexing her wrists, agitated. “She used to run from me at parties.”
It was so unexpected that they snorted, “Run?”
“Once when we were really little, she bit me.” She chucked softly. “I bet she doesn’t remember that.”
“You’re kidding. Clementine Kesh, a child.” They shook their head. It was hard to even imagine.
Gucci leaned in conspiratorially, whispering. “She really didn’t know how to have friends. If I could catch her, we would do each other's nails.” Her face faltered. “And now…”
“She’s pretty terrible.”
“Yeah,” Gucci sighed. “But you didn’t know the Clem I knew.” She pulled something out of her jacket. A poppy, inlaid with purple. “She always wanted attention so much, but could never admit it. I thought it was sweet sometimes when we were young. When I thought I could fix just about anything. But then we grew up, and we got power, and…”
They were rarely soft in front of others, but now, in the cool lights, Gucci’s eyes were. Gucci didn’t talk about her childhood much. Brnine felt fingers itch for more. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “You two liked each other then.”
“Yeah,” Gucci admitted, twirling the flower in her hand. “She wasn’t very good at it, but she did. And I did too. We got close a few times, but nothing came of it.” She pursed her lips, considered. “Nothing much. We were young. It's just hard to shake, you know? It was a constant for a while and then it was… in the past. Suddenly. Irreversible.”
Brnine’s face felt dry. Inside, jaws lolled open. Terrible, vulnerable, wolf smiles. “I, uh, know a bit about what that’s like,” they said. It was maybe the closest they had ever come to saying they had been in love.
They could hear their heart in their ears. Why had they said that? Why, looking into Gucci’s open face, did they not regret it? The only thing to be done was to deflect. Once again, they mustered confidence. Playfulness. “And now, she’s the Witch. You really know how to pick them.”
Merciful, she let them shift. Headstrong, she narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t so easy yourself. Your pet Divine causes me no end of stress.”
“C’mon,” muttered Brnine. “I'm being nice.” A pause. “That only proves my point.”
Gucci laughed. She always found the strangest things funny. Mission points named after condiments. The problematic Divine of her ill-advised fling.
“You are being nice, aren’t you?” Her voice was oddly warm. Brnine bristled harder at that than they had at the lecture, felt embarrassed at the instinct, and looked away.
Gucci reached out and took them by the elbow. Firmly at first, like she had been set to squeeze it, but then relaxing, collecting Brnine towards herself. It felt more intimate than anything they had ever done. Brnine felt a burning in their chest and eyes, and let their head fall on her shoulder.
Gucci could be like this, but not often. Brnine had seen it a few times, only when they were alone and nothing was urgent— a rare combination. Gucci Garantine, loosening.
After a while, she spoke. “I hate coming to this city.” They could feel the words being intoned softly into their hair. “It’s… good. That we have a place like this. Where people can feel normal. But I wish it were anywhere else. I think about Kesh too much here. And it’s always fucking raining. Makes my body hurt.”
A lot of vulnerability there. Brnine quickly sorted to what would be the easiest to tackle. “Let me check your aids.”
Gucci huffed. “What happened to no work in here?”
“I could do maintenance in my sleep!”
Dryly, “Please don't.”
They wiggled up a little in her grasp and peered at her chin. “C’mon. At least the knees.”
She turned her face down. Their noses flirted at touching and in an effort to not look elsewhere, Brnine traced the arch of an eyebrow and noticed for the first time it bristled upwards thickly and tapered until it just touched the path where a pale splash met ochre. “Okay,” she said.
They unfolded from each other and after digging around the room for tools, Brnine began to lower themselves to the ground. Gucci interrupted with a “Wait!” and shushed the fresh protest off their tongue. She tugged up one of the couch cushions and held it out to them.
“You might be needing this.”
“Right.” Was she smiling? Brnine coughed a little. “Thanks.”
They knelt on the cushion and looked at her significantly, hands hovering. Gucci made no move to help.
“You’re the one who wanted to check them.”
Definitely smiling. It was better than the melancholy, but only barely. She could be a real ass.
Her pants were wide-hemmed and loose. Brnine rolled them up briskly.
Mechanical braces that offloaded pressure from the joints with a small computer chip that adjusted support for shifting impact. They were low-tech but still an occasional risk to wear with the Wave, so they had been called in to work on similar models when they were freelancing for bread and ship parts.
They talked while they tinkered. “I learned a few tricks from Agon when I worked with her. It won’t do much when you’re still, but should absorb shock. It takes more energy, though, so mind your levels. I can shift back if you want.”
“No. Show me how.”
They did. It wasn’t especially complicated, and she was a quick study. They let her keep the tools
“Thank you, Brnine.”
“It’s no big. I got a dozen of these hanging around.”
“How much do I owe you?” An old question.
“On the house. Blue Channel special.” Brnine was still kneeling in front of her, caught in the scrutinizing gaze she was giving them, and had settled on resting their awkward hands where their thumbs brushed her ankles.
“I'm a different person than when we were still on Partizan.” Startled by the change in subject, in her serious tone, they straightened their spine. “You may not think so, but I am. I’ve learned more than I thought I would. There were,” she admitted slowly, “more right ways than Horizon. And ways that were more right. But what else can we do?”
She wanted them to understand. She was trying to be honest. It was good enough, for them. It would have to be.
“Sure,” said Brnine, “like you said in your book.”
Gucci stared at them as if she were surprised, or attempting to ascertain the meaning behind their words— which were pretty straightforward. Leave it to Gucci to find a puzzle in a placation— and then relaxed.
‘Yeah,” she sighed, “just like that.”
They started slightly as Gucci reached down and swept her hand through the low tangle of their hair, and fluttered her fingers gently atop the piercings, across the iridescence on their cheekbones, cupping them. Brnine wavered into it.
Her hands felt calloused—mech-burn. How long had it been since she had piloted? There were some things the flesh wanted to keep.
You could almost see her from this angle, bigger than everything else in the room. The woman Gucci had been, confident, and daring, donning the mask of Saint Dawn. She was solely the strategist now, inside the trusted rooms, but Brnine had seen her on the ground, in another life. It was quite a sight.
“We should go,” Gucci murmured. “Before the Witch changes her mind.”
Outside the hold’s windows, the rain had stopped and the sky was amethyst, crystalline, and lavender. The mirage was lapping at their skies, and in that light, they saw something else. Something they hadn’t been wanting to see perhaps. The sum of them, selfish and self-centered, gritted-teeth brashness and closed-eyed boldness, changed and changed and trying to change a world that would just as well keep them where they were. A bitter weapons manufacturer marking up bombs, looking to the stars and not the rubble behind them. A rebel noble replicating history instead of shattering it. And now both of them here, years and wars and deaths and planets later, melting together with only the dull eyes of arcade cabinets to witness them. Heart-to-Heart.
Brnine wanted to stretch up and kiss her then— something they had never done without clear intent to further it, and never sweetly. Something they shouldn’t do when they had all but called off whatever coiled between them. It was impulsive, like walking over to see if she was alright. Like Gucci, running her hand through their hair as if tenderness was something that should be allowed to live between them. Instinctual. Dangerous.
Instead, they bumped their chin clumsily into the cup of her grip. Gucci let out a breath. It felt like giving and taking.
“Let’s go,” Brnine said. Their lips brushed her palm and fell away.