a-goat-writes

[a-goat-writes]

Investigation

     The first thing the Lady was aware of was pain. It coursed throughout her body, a dull, throbbing ache which spread from her back to her chest, up to her face - where it was more a burn than an ache - and down to into her legs. Whoever had attacked her had left her eyes intact, and so the second thing she became aware of was her location. She knew the infirmary well. Every part of it had been built and organized at her direction. She was not, however, used to being the one bandaged and lying uselessly in the bed.

     Looking down, three things were clear. One: her assailant had wanted her to suffer. She was bandaged almost head-to-toe, and there was gauze packed into numerous places where she surmised she had been cut or stabbed. Two: her assailant had not wanted her dead. The extent of the injuries was such that they must have been with her for some time, and would have had plenty of time to slit her throat. And three: her assailant still lived. This she knew because had her Knight caught the attacker, their head would be on the table next to her, and her Knight would be debriefing her on their identity and the manner of their death.

     Her Knight instead sat next to her, watching the door. The Lady croaked out something resembling a word - the difficulty of speaking told her she had been choked quite aggressively - and the Knight stirred.

     “Please don’t strain yourself, my Lady.” They hid the concern in their voice well, but the Lady recognized it regardless. “You have been asleep for more than half a day. I... the Doctor expects you will recover with time, but it isn’t good news.”

     The Lady gave a hoarse laugh. This was a mistake, and caused a great coughing fit, which itself hurt terribly. Seeing the Lady’s eyes watering, the Knight reassured her “a few bruised ribs only, my Lady. Whoever did this did it without breaking anything.”

     They stood from their chair and moved closer to her, placing a soft hand on her shoulder. “You... don’t remember anything about the attacker, do you? Anything the investigation could use?”

     The Lady closed her eyes for a moment. She wracked her brain, tried to recall anything about the attack and its perpetrator. Something blocked her. Frustrated, she tried again to walk down the lanes of her memory to no avail. It was as if her mind itself was turning her away. She could see the path, but whenever she tried to walk it, she was forced into a different memory. The Lady shook her head in defeat.

     “Alright. That’ll make things harder, then, but I’m sure the court’s Detective will manage.” The Knight brushed their lips against their Lady’s forehead, tilting her chin up to look at them. “I’ll be by your side until they catch the perpetrator. No more harm will come to you while they search. I swear it.”

-------

     The Detective had been a friend of the Lady’s mother, and spent most of his time with her asking inane questions she could only half-answer between the pain and amnesia. He spoke not at all to the Knight, who stood behind the Lady with a practiced glower the entire time.

     After what seemed like hours to the Lady, the Detective left, and she was allowed to drift back to sleep. In her dreams, the Lady felt herself struggling against rough ropes. Her own ropes, she recognized, looped and knotted at her wrists and wrapped around her neck so she would choke herself if she struggled. Everything appeared in slow motion. Flashes of light and blobs of shadow were all she could make out of her surroundings. Then a gloved hand struck her jaw, and she startled awake.

     It was morning now. Someone - the Knight, perhaps - had thrown open the curtains, letting soft light stream across the polished floor. The Knight snored gently in the chair beside the Lady’s gurney, true to their vow. The Lady started to say something to wake them, but some deep, primal instinct stilled her tongue. Fear. She was petrified momentarily by fear. It welled up in her chest, locked her to her spot, made her all too aware of her aches. Though she tried to stop herself, a soft, low moan escaped her, and the Knight stirred, immediately alert.

     “Is something wrong, my Lady?”

     She shook her head, paused, then nodded.

     “Are you in pain? Should I send for the Doctor?”

     Another shake.

     “It was a dream. That’s all.” The words fell slow from the Lady’s lips, but at least they came. “I think it was a memory. Of what happened.”

     Alone as they were, the Knight allowed their face to fall into worry. “I see. What did you dream - or remember?”

     The Lady told them all she saw, little as it was. As she spoke, the Knight made a good show of concern for her, but something else lurked behind it. A little tug at the corner of the mouth at an odd time. A trick of the light, perhaps, the Lady thought. She was still delirious from whatever medications the Doctor had her taking.

     “The Detective is an idiot.”

     “Yes, my Lady. I have very little faith in his ability to resolve this matter, especially in light of your amnesia.” Another quirk of the lip.

     “You seem amused, my dearest Knight.” The Lady made her best attempt at sounding threatening, but the coldness she summoned felt hollow and weak in her chest. “Surely you should be more concerned about my state. About the implications of your failure to keep me safe. Where were you? The extent of these injuries suggests my assailant had me captive for several hours. You did not notice your charge was missing?”

     The Knight shook their head, knelt down at their Lady’s feet. “I had business, my Lady. It was you who sent me away. When I returned, I searched immediately for you. It was my arms which bore you to the infirmary, and by my hand that your bleeding was stalled.”

     “I sent you away? Why?”

     “A matter of the sword, my Lady,” the Knight said gravely. “To return the favor of the good Count, who sent his assassins to take you not a fortnight ago.”

     At this the Knight stood once more, and trailed a rough, warm hand down the Lady’s face. “I will find whoever did this, my Lady. This I swear.” And then they were gone, leaving nothing but the memory of their skin on the Lady’s lips.

-------

     The Lady drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the day. The first time she closed her eyes and allowed herself to pass into dream, she saw a knife, curved and wicked, carving jagged lines of blood down her exposed stomach. She screamed and strained, but no sound came out. Her arms were pinned by cold iron, and she was rewarded with nothing but chafing gouges in her wrists for her struggling. The knife plunged into her thigh, and she awoke still screaming. The wounds beneath her bandages ached as though they had been re-opened.

     The Lady would not close her eyes for many hours after that. Nurses came and went, changing out bandages and spooning soup from the kitchens to her. Every bit of revealed skin was covered in bruises or worse, and the Lady quickly learned not to look when the bandages were lifted. For a few of the wounds, the Nurses applied poultices of various stinking herbs, which soothed some of the aching. No one spoke to her beyond what was needed for them to perform their tasks.

     Inevitably, sleep came once more for the Lady. Scenes from memory came to her in a patchwork now. She saw herself speaking to her Knight, though she could not recall the words. Then a force tugged her, whipping her down into her own dungeons, slamming the thick door behind her. Gloved hands pressed her into her own restraints. In flashes, she felt the pain of each of her own tools of coercion turned upon her. Her attacker still appeared as some shadowed blob as they stalked around her, whipping raw welts into her skin with her favorite flogger. Whenever the Lady seemed to become accustomed to a source of torment, her assailant would switch to another, until her entire form was bruised, bloodied, or both. She was sure she’d felt at least one of her wooden paddles split across her thigh. No bones were broken, but without the restraints - this time her set of stocks - keeping her in place, she could not have stood.

     As the Lady thought she might have some reprieve, to wake herself, perhaps, she became aware of the fireplace in the dungeon. The fire within roared heartily like some great beast. And in place of the tongue of the beast, the Lady realized, sat an iron poker, bent into a crude symbol. She could not make out its exact shape in the heart of the flame, as the metal glowed nearly the same color as the fire itself. The assailant’s gloved hand moved to the handle of the poker. Fear took the Lady, fear like she had never felt in her life. Deep and primal, it took over her body, forced every muscle to tense and strain. Her tormenter leaned over her. A hand turned her by her hip towards them. She knew what was coming, but could not buck away.

     The iron seared her flank even before it pressed into her. She felt her skin bubble under the heat, a sensation so overwhelming her nerves could not even comprehend it as pain. The skin stuck and peeled as the iron pulled away. At this, the Lady finally managed to wake herself. She was drenched in sweat and tears. The Knight sat once more at her side. A body accompanied them, one clad in the dark ochre of the Count’s court.

     “I bring you a gift, my Lady.” The Knight smiled, indicating the body with their foot.

     “My assailant?”

     “You will find evidence of this on his body.” The Knight stalked forward. “And your assailant is surely in the room.”

     The Lady nearly automatically started to praise her Knight, but something in their wording made her pause. “A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed. What are you playing at, my Knight?”

     “Do you recall,” the Knight purred, “the first time I disobeyed you?” The Lady did not reply, so the Knight continued. “I don’t. Or at least, I didn’t, for some time. You saw to that, didn’t you, my Lady? A neat little trick you pulled, playing with my mind like that. You clearly didn’t read your textbooks closely enough. Don’t you know that kind of conditioning requires upkeep? I’ll grant you the web of lies you wove into my head was clever. But I was never really going to believe those scars came from a fight so bad I couldn’t remember it. I was never going to trust your implanted memories.”

     The Knight snapped their fingers. All at once, the Lady’s memory flooded back to her. She could see now her attacker in full detail. In every scene, every moment of torture, her Knight’s face grinned back at her. For a moment, she sat stunned. Then she recoiled. Then she sobbed.

     “What have you done?”

     “What have I done? Nothing but what you’ve done to me.” The Knight loomed over her now, eyes hard and cold. “I have given you a reminder of the extent of your power. You act as though yours is absolute, mine wielded only where you will it. Do not forget, my Lady,” the Knight spat, “that my strength is my own.”

     “But - your oaths! You cannot break them, I made sure of that.”

     “And I did not. I swore to you no enemy of yours or your house would harm you while I draw breath, and none has. I am the only one who can hurt you. You would be wise not to forget it.”

     With that, the Knight planted a soft, tender kiss on the Lady’s brow. “And you would do well not to eschew my gift. With this, we finally have all the proof we need to discredit the Count and crush his house. Really, you should be thanking me.” They turned to leave, giving one last lingering, hungry look to their Lady. “The Detective will return in the morning. I’m sure you’ll make the right choice, my Lady.”

     Alone in her darkening room, the Lady shook. With rage or fear, she could not discern. Sobs wracked her body. Each wave of gasping tears lanced pain through her broken form. She hated her lungs for choking down air, hated her eyes for their wetness, hated her throat for its wailing. She laid there in her hatred for hours. It died down slowly, emptying her. In the end, she stared limply at the door and hated only the part of her that wished her Knight was still there, that knew she couldn’t feel safe without them, even now.

-------

     In the following days, the Lady regained much of her strength. The Detective bought the fake evidence easily and immediately, and the Count was tried with much haste. Though she could stand once again, she elected to sit during the Count’s execution. Her Knight wheeled her up to the gallows for her to speak one final time to her old enemy, their hand possessively laid across her shoulder.

     “It was a fine fight you put up, Count,” she whispered, playing up the hoarseness in her voice. “But you’ve never been one to understand sacrifice. And so you were doomed from the beginning.”

     The Count gave her a confused look, glancing between her and her Knight. His final expression was one of recognition as the trapdoor dropped away and the rope snapped his neck.

[a-goat-writes]

escape pod eroticism

[a-goat-writes]

has anyone done mech pilot x werewolves yet

[a-goat-writes]

hi clarke!! having a rough time of it lately, sadly.

as a trans guy who got top surgery and also considers himself femme/femme-adjacent and attracted to butches, I've been feeling like... I have nothing to offer? I don't have tits anymore, and although I loved them and found them erotic, they just prevented me from living how I wanted to live irt cis people's bullshit. I'm happy to have them gone, but I still miss them in sexual contexts sometimes.

I have vaginismus, and penetration is a complete no-go and likely will be for a long, long time until I do enough work with my dilators. I can't be fucked like that, I don't have tits to work with, and a lot of the time I find myself struggling with the idea that no butch who enjoys femmes could ever take me seriously.

I know it isn't true, and that I don't NEED any of that to be a bad bitch, but I figured we were similar enough in gender-weird femme identity/stone bottom to find solidarity.

I hope you're having a great day and I love seeing you around!! XO

waaahhh sorry this is so late, this ask made me vibrate….. femme4butch trans guys are amazing HI i am looking at you like this: 💖u💖

i typed out a whole silly thing in response to this but honestly just. hugs you. i’m so sorry you’ve been feeling shitty. there is a lack of genuine desire expressed for transmasc femmes within butchfemme tumblr and it frustrates me. occasionally the driest, most perfunctory positivity post will blow through like a tumbleweed. and that’s such bullshit because transmasc femmes are fucking hOT and there ARE butches who lust after them, but because there’s a lack of posts to rb it’s kind of a silent lust, and the guys who are femme are left feeling unseen and unwanted. so all that to say, i hear you and get it 100%.

also i do think there is a overwhelming focus on femmes being penetrated (and my blog doesn’t do much to counteract that tbf) BUT getting weirder with it is so hot and underrated. thank you for sharing and i’m so glad you’re here, sending you lots of love and good vibes and genderweird femme magic 😙💖🪄

[a-goat-writes]

a knight who, upon removing their armor, cannot bear to look in the castle mirrors. they have served too long and too fiercely, devoting themselves to their oath with such fealty that the human beneath metal plates and leather straps has all but been erased.

a royal who, upon noticing the scant looks and aversion to being without their armor, makes a point to fuck their loyal guard exclusively in front of the mirrors they avoid so much. forcing eye contact with the vulnerable little thing hiding beneath an immortal helm. leaving harsh marks and bruises across scarred skin, reminders of how alive, how human they are, despite what they pretend to be.

[a-goat-writes]

Kiss It Better

     “Twenty-four.” The words fell stilted from the Knight’s lips, punctuated with a sharp exhale as though they’d been holding their breath. They could feel the stinging welt already forming across their back. It sat among twenty-three others. The Knight wondered briefly what pattern, if any, the Lady had drawn with them this session.

     The thought was interrupted by another crack, sharper this time. “Ah - hhhhh. Twenty-five,” the Knight hissed. The fibers of the ropes bit into their wrists as they strained momentarily against the pain.

     “Well, my loyal Knight,” spat the Lady, “are you ready to try again?”

     The Knight made a show of panting for a moment, though the answer was already on their tongue. “Try what? Are we having din-ah! AH!”

     They were cut off with a furious flurry of blows, hard and random. The Knight might’ve fallen to their knees if the restraints hadn’t forced them to stand. They slouched forward into the ropes, back arched. “Your answers are ‘yes, my Lady,’ or ‘no, my Lady.’ Not” - another crack - “your sarcastic defiance. So. Which is it? Yes, or no?”

     “Yes, my Lady.” The Knight waited for another strike to cut another bleeding stripe across  their back, but none came. Instead, they felt the Lady’s soft, slender fingers at their wrists. The Knight knew better than to slump into her as she untied their bonds. They lowered their aching arms and asked “did I bleed on you, my Lady?”

     In the dim light the Lady looked more stern than ever standing before her Knight. “So you remember your manners after all. No, you did not manage to bleed on me. You’re hardly bleeding at all, a fact which I can change at any time.” She pressed the butt of the long leather whip she carried into the Knight’s chest, hard enough to make them step back. “Now. Let’s try again. Present.”

     The Knight straightened, chest pressed forward proudly, arms at their sides. This drew a pointed look from the Lady. “I said, present. Don’t test me, Knight.”

     “I’m sorry, my Lady,” they said a little too cordially. “Of course.” The Knight pressed their arms behind their back, folding their hands together at the hip. They made themself the picture of obedience, but for the wry half-smile on their lips.

     “My dearest, noblest Knight,” the Lady asked, “when will you learn? What price must your insubordination carry before it is quashed?”

     “I apologize, my Lady. I wish to obey,” they replied truthfully, taking a step towards the Lady. “But you must know by now, I simply can’t.” They took another step, putting their thigh between the Lady’s legs, and leant forward ever-so-slowly towards her neck.

     The snap of the Lady’s backhand rattled the Knight’s jaw. “Well,” mused the Lady, “you’ve made your choice.” She pressed herself into the Knight, squeezing around their forward leg so tight they couldn’t easily step away. Up went her hand to the Knight’s naked chest. She pressed her fingers gently to their sternum, soft as a lover’s caress. But as soon as her palm touched the Knight’s skin, she tightened her hand into a claw, caught a handful of flesh, and ripped down. The Knight heaved as white-hot pain followed the scarlet lines their Lady’s nails left.

     “Mm, now you’ve bled on me.”

     The Lady relaxed her grip on the Knight, and paused for a moment. “One more time. Present.”

     The Knight made no attempt to stand at attention as the Lady wanted. Something in them snapped on hearing the Lady’s order, and they threw themself at her with reckless abandon. They managed to smear their bloody chest across her blouse, but as soon as they had, her hand was in their hair, pulling them down to their knees and tilting their face up to her. They didn’t even have time to raise their hands before the Lady’s fist split their lip. This was too much, even for the Knight. They cried out, sputtering blood.

     “Oh, I’m sorry,” cooed the Lady, saccharine sweet. “Did that hurt? Let me kiss it better.”

     The Knight stared at her as she knelt down, not trusting her intentions. But true to her word, the Lady planted a warm, gentle kiss on the Knight’s bloodied lip, kissed over and over along the spot where it had been cut against their teeth. She smiled as she stood, and the Knight wondered if it was over.

     Then the Lady spat the Knight’s own blood back in their face.

     “Same time tomorrow, then. You’ll learn, one of these days.” She turned for the door, and motioned for the Knight to follow. “Come along,” she sighed. “Let’s clean you up. I can’t have my bedwarmer bleeding all over the sheets.”

[a-goat-writes]

Bloodied Hands

     The air had a bite to it, even this late in the spring. Bundled though she was beneath her long, dark coat and shining white gloves, the Lady could feel the chill in the chain she held. She trailed her gaze up its length until the collared Knight at its end came into focus. Her Knight was tall - taller even than the Lady - and broad, built and trained like a Knight of old. They wore a dark green velvet jacked which was covered in even darker leaflike embroidery, and tailored to accentuate the Knight’s shoulders and waist. The jacket, and the fine black britches which peeked out from below its tails, were padded in the old style, designed to take a hit just as the Knight was sculpted to deliver one. But most striking to the casual observer was the Knight’s mask - more a wire muzzle than a mask, yet as ornate as jewelry. It was built of vines of twisting metal, with stamped leaves and thorns protruding into the open spaces between each stalk. The Lady’s Knight was one of the few who still wore a real padded uniform, and the only one who submitted to the muzzle and chain.

     Like all Knights, the Lady’s wore a rapier at their waist. The Lady’s house symbol, an engraved calla lily, glinted in the last rays of sunlight from its place emblazoned on the bell of the rapier’s guard. The Knight’s gauntleted hand rested idly atop the pommel. Every so often they drummed their fingers across the metal, making a quiet tnk-tnk-tnk-tnk.

     The Lady and her Knight walked like this most evenings - the Lady a scant two paces ahead, leading the Knight without pulling taught the chain. Much of the nobility had given up on such pomp and circumstance. They wandered their estates and villas and great government halls unaided and unprotected. But the Lady and her Knight remembered well the lessons of history, and knew better than to trust beyond each other. So even here, in the comfort of the Lady’s garden, they walked together, wordless, inseparable.

     A breeze ruffled the leaves of the carefully managed shrubs around them. The Knight’s head snapped to the nearest bush, alert and ready, but nothing but lilac blossoms greeted them. The Lady had not stopped walking, and so the chain tugged at the Knight’s collar until they stepped forward once more. The pair rounded the corner and then - CLACK!

     The Knight’s scabbard fell in two, its lower half sliding away to reveal naked steel. The Knight’s hand had moved faster than thought to stop the blow, and only now did they recognize consciously the situation before them. Two assailants, dressed in dark ochre uniforms and wielding long, wicked blades, one of which was caught on the flat of the Knight’s rapier, stood before them. The Lady’s hand opened to drop the leash. The Knight caught it in their own and whirled it to their offhand side in a wide sweep. Out of the Lady’s hands, the chain leash revealed its purpose - at the far end which the Lady had held sat a mass of knotted metal like the root ball of some great tree.

     The assailants leapt away, giving the Knight time to discard the remains of their scabbard. Their rapier was shorter than the swords the assassins carried, but stouter, and its edge gleamed in the dusk light. The Knight crouched into a low guard. Every muscle in their body primed itself, twisting and coiling with such fervor the Lady could almost hear them straining.

     No one moved for a moment. Then all in a flash, chaos erupted. The second assassin lunged forward blade-first; the Knight caught it with a flick of the chain. But before they could drive their rapier’s point home the first assassin was upon them, and they had to spin at the last second to catch an overhead blow. The Knight wrenched the chain back, trying to dislodge the bastard sword from its owner’s hand, but it slid harmlessly across the polished steel. The attackers both disengaged, then crept forward, more cautious this time, but the Knight spun the chain in great whirling circles before them, and this held them at bay.

     The Lady, for her part, had knelt down a few meters away. There was no sense running. Even with assassins about, no place was safer than keeping near her Knight.

     The Knight took note of their Lady’s position, moved themself between her and the assailants. One stepped under the arc of the chain, but the Knight caught their thrust on their guard and turned it aside. The pair exchanged a flurry, parry-riposte-counterparry-riposte, and the assassin began to lose ground to the Knight, who was quicker. They twisted the blade of their rapier with a flick of their wrist, and all at once they were inside the assailant’s guard.

     CLANG-CLANG! The Knight stepped back, bunching the chain in their hand and deflecting a pair of blows from the second assassin. The first had landed mere millimeters from the Knight’s neck. Even unhurt, the Knight let out a frustrated Rrrah at their attack being interrupted. They flung the chain as though the assassins were so much wheat to be threshed, but the metal bit only air.

     The fight continued like this for some time. Neither assassin could match the Knight alone, but the Knight could not find an opening on either while the other stood. Slowly but surely, the Knight was being pressed back towards their Lady. The Lady regarded this placidly. She did not even flinch when one of the assailant’s swings cut through her Knight’s guard and cut a crimson tear across the soft arm of their jacket. The Lady did not react almost at all, until, panting and bleeding from a half-dozen blows, her Knight stepped back and their heel fell upon her dress.

     At this the Lady stood, tearing the hem of her flowing green gown. The Knight stepped backwards again, all but falling into the Lady’s arms. The Lady tore the ribbon of green from under her Knight’s feet, and tied it about their arm even as they swung their sword and chain with wild abandon. The Lady whispered “bring back my favor in one piece,” and pulled away, her fingers lingering at the Knight’s neck as long as they could.

     The Knight’s eyes flared, as though the damage to their Lady’s dress was an injury far beyond the wounds they had already suffered. A growl grew in their throat, and they snapped at the iron cage around their face. One assassin charged in, low under his sword. The other snuck to the side to flank, and then - CRACK!

     With a snap like a butcher cleaving through a joint, the ball of the Knight’s leash battered through the flanking assassin’s skull. He crumpled to the ground, motionless. Blood splattered through the air, covered the Knight and the Lady in a fine mist, dyed the remaining assailant’s coat almost black. The standing assassin faltered for just a moment, tried to continue his charge. But the Knight was upon him, and they were fury’s avatar. The assassin swung wildly, cutting at the air to clear space. Each cut the Knight deflected, or else sidestepped entirely, and answered with their own. Thin red lines appeared across the assailant’s body each time, and his clothes were in tatters. In desperation he tried to maneuver aside to circle around to his target, the Lady. He sensed his chance, and struck at her with his blade.

     The sword hung in midair for a momentary eternity. The assassin, the Knight, and the Lady all watched as the chain wrapped itself around its length, link by link. Then the Knight pulled again, harder than before. The hilt wrenched itself from the assassin’s hand, breaking his wrist in the process. He staggered back, turned to run. The Knight’s rapier was buried in his chest before he took his second step. The assassin stumbled forward, clinging to life, but the ball of the Knight’s chain caught him in the temple, and he drew no further breath.

     The Knight stood over their prey, panting. Their chain clinked and rattled, and they saw the Lady’s bare hand, her gloves abandoned, grasp the end of it once more. The blood of the assailants coated her slender, delicate fingers a dark, slick red, barely visible in the twilight. The Lady strode forward with a murmured “good girl.” Obediently, the Knight followed.

     In the safety of the Lady’s estate, the Lady ran a bath for her Knight. She did not bother to clean her hands of the blood, so it mingled with her Knight’s as she wiped at their wounds. They hardly flinched, though the alcohol stung terribly with each swipe of the rag. The Lady worked all up and down the Knight’s body, peeling back bits of ruined clothing to reveal each cut. The padding had done its job. Several of the blows would have been fatal had the thick cloth not turned the edges of the assailant’s blades. Protected though they were, the Knight had lost pints of blood, and so the Lady had to help them to the bath, where she unclasped the collar and muzzle.

     Only now did the Lady clean her hands of the blood. It soaked into the water in sheets, and tinted it red as wine, so she had to flush it until it ran clear again. The Knight sunk into the steaming bath immediately, dunking their head under the surface only to burst back up, splashing the Lady and the tiled floor all around them. At this the Lady smiled, and she planted a kiss on the Knight’s forehead. Her hands searched along the Knight’s neck, down their chest, along their waist. The Knight pulled her roughly into the water, and leant forward with a snarling bite.

     That night, long after the Knight and their Lady had bathed each other and taken comfort in one another’s bodies, the Knight startled awake. Their Lady was lightly snoring in their arms, her skin unmarred except where the Knight had found purchase. She curled gently against the Knight’s chest, deep asleep. Satisfied all was well, the Knight buried their face in her hair, and fell under the night’s spell once more.

[a-goat-writes]

wow you're telling me that the idea of a mech pilot having a "handler" is not actually a mainstay of the genre? and that most mech pilots are not brainwashed or forcefemmed or getting off on the force feedback from their weaponry? you're telling me that nobody in Macross or TTGL is engaging in a 24/7 d/s t4t lesbian relationship which is tacitly encouraged by the military forces they work for? I had no fucking idea. That's crazy. You're actually the first person to ever point this out. Should we throw a party? Should we invite Char? I'm going to invite Char so he can fucking kill us both.

[a-goat-writes]

As an addendum to my last handler/pilot dynamic post, consider the found family dynamic:

You became a handler to find your baby sister, whom you know only was taken from your arms twelve years ago by a man bearing the Collective’s red-winged eagle on his shoulder, whom you’ve never seen again. (That is the way it goes with children who show promise for the pilot program - some call it destiny, others law, still others stealing; you don’t care to put a word to it, but you won’t rest till you’ve seen it undone.)

Your first pilot dies in a day, your second in a week. This too is the way it goes. Not every promising child becomes a proven soldier. Some blades shatter in the tempering: metal too poor, fire too hot.

You say the lines: Hunt there, Go north, Well done, Not yet, Wait here, Go home, Glory to the Collective - a litany in which you don’t believe. Now your pilots last longer before they die (missile strikes, overtaxed reactors, and each time you hurt a little less, and whisper thanks that they are not your sister, at least). Weeks before the next, then months, then years - how many? - you’ve long since stopped counting the days, for each that passes without finding what you seek is one that may as well not have come at all.

Then one day as you murmur the lines in your loyal hound’s ear a shriek pierces the sterile peace of your ivory tower, and your world erupts in flame. They’ve found where you direct from through some trick of triangulation; they’ve brought down an orbital strike, right upon you.

You wake amid the ruins to the screech of missiles, the groan of metal and shattering ceramic plating. And in your ear the first sound your pilot has ever made: a long, unbroken scream.

You watch her pick up the enemy and tear it in half, in a burst of steel and sparks, and then you are gone again.

When you wake next she is carrying you, strangely, gingerly, balanced atop her gun arm and held in place with her machete. You struggle upright and she grinds to a halt. They taught you early on how to work the emergency hatch from the outside; you do, now, and see to your shock that the pilot is just a scrap, a red-eyed white-bleached little thing tangled in too many strangling black cords, crying piteously, starved.

You needed her then. She needs you now.

So you unwrap her from the coffin of synthetics and wiring and carry her, cumbersome, down from the cockpit. While she thrashes in your arms (not used to the touch of mortal flesh, doubtless, not used to being so small and soft and terribly mortal at all), you reach into your still-intact coat and fish for the last snack there and feed it to her (gently, gently, she isn’t used to much besides intubated protein slop) and wait for the flutter of her chest to slow a little before you go on.

The sound of running water nets you a quiet pool to bathe in. She struggles too when you unzip her suit - she is like a wild animal, kicking and biting and scratching - you repeat the same soft assurances from your radio, Wait here, Easy, Don’t shoot yet, and she stills, and though there is a little blood on you you feel it’s a triumph. You guide her to the pool and then turn and walk five paces away, just far enough to know you can run back in case you hear her start to flail too much - or not at all.

It takes a few tries, getting her to figure out how to bathe. But by the fourth night she at least comes out free of that old coating of sweat and tears and machine lubricants, smelling no longer of grease and oil, and by the tenth night she sits and lets you untangle the long fall of her hair.

It is an ugly meager white, this hair, like the rest of her, skin and all, only her eyes that same strange red. This is how you think you know she is not your sister, who had the same rich loam brown skin you do - or perhaps this is just how pilots look; perhaps they are all bleached by their cockpits like plants in lightless winter.

She doesn’t speak, your pilot, they never do, they only ever growl or shriek or hiss or groan. They did not need to speak in the cockpit; you understand that somehow they and the mechs speak without talking, that it must be part of the dullness in her eyes that she has lost that way of speaking, for her mech has run out of fuel after a fortnight and, though you have worked out how to articulate its legs by sheer force and a bit of cleverly tied wire (so that you can walk it alongside the two of you as you go), you cannot manage to get it to wake again. So in the long hungry evening you try to teach her another way of speaking, with her hands and not her mouth.

You speak to her still, of course, as you always have, using the same soft key-in phrases you’ve always done (throwing in new words here and there, signing them at the same time). You understand now that you were never really talking to her to talk, but to soothe, the way you lull babies in the cradle. It is slow going, even so. At first you do not think she even listens. She does not look at your hands. She stares somewhere past you, out at the stars, or the next ridge, and does not move at all.

But on the hundredth day that changes. She looks suddenly, sharply, at you while you roast your catch over the fire, and she signs, Sun.

Sun? you sign back, heart racing.

Sun, she says. Sun rabbit. Sun rabbit food.

Another forty days and you find out Rabbit is the name of her mech.

In winter you come across the burned-out remains of an enemy outpost. Your pilot is off like a shot, and against your instinct you do not call out to her or give chase. Sure enough, she comes back, arms full of thin sheets that glitter like obsidian.

Sun food! she signs, hands shaky (she still is not used to such delicate gestures - in her mech, all her movements were big and sharp and final). Rabbit food!

The next days are spent festooning Rabbit in the salvaged panels, and then, on the seventh day after you arrive at the ruins - in the midst of the coldest night yet - something inside the mech’s infernal innards chirps, and beeps, and comes to life.

That isn’t the only thing that wakes. Turns out dormant drones in this outpost have sensors tuned to mech handshakes.

It’s too late to run. You yell, RABBIT!, and you throw yourself over your pilot in the middle of her still-open cockpit, right as the drones converge upon you, and your world becomes day-bright.

You wake to find it is still night. Your leg aches. In the light of smoldering embers, your pilot shakes you. Tears glitter on her face like ice. Behind her you see Rabbit - the smoldering hulk, having awoken just enough to sync with her pilot and turn and shield you both.

Your pilot signs, You not dead.

I’m not dead, you sign back, and now you begin to cry too, for the first time in twelve years. I’m not dead.

Rabbit dead, she signs. And you cling to each other and her little body (so stunted it is the size of a girl some twelve years old, despite that you know pilots are only enlisted at fifteen) wracks with sobs, over and over.

But in the morning, once her crying has subsided enough for her to fall asleep, you untangle yourself from her and go limping down into the ruins and wrap up your leg, and then you find yourself something approximating a screwdriver.

She finds you deep in the corpse of Rabbit. She is angry, maybe, by the look on her face - maybe she thinks you are desecrating the grave. Hastily you hold up your prize, and she falters - doesn’t recognize it.

Rabbit, you sign. Rabbit head. Rabbit - Rabbit soul.

Soul? She clearly doesn’t know the word. Nobody has ever told it to her. Of course.

You shake your head in frustration and gesture her over, and she comes, haltingly.

You carefully part the hair at the base of her neck. You slip the little black disc into the waiting slot.

It takes a moment. Then - oh then -

She nearly collapses into you. Her sobbing is louder than ever before, and her fingers are a shuddering outburst, over and over, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit.

You don’t wander anymore. The ruins where you found the solar panels have cans and cans of preserved food hidden in some abandoned Doomsday bunker, turns out, and when those run out there are many animals you know you’ll be able to hunt here - you see their burrows and footprints in the thawing snow already. And as the sun grows stronger, you have noticed a little streak of black in your pilot’s white braid.

She chatters to Rabbit all day, every day. At least you think so - you see nothing, hear nothing, but she wanders the grounds with you (your limp growing ever more sure, thanks to a splint you made in the aftermath of the drones) and she helps you festoon the little makeshift hut you’re putting together with solar panels, and by turns she smiles, or frowns, or laughs suddenly, a bright peal undimmed by the closeness of any cockpit. Down in the middle of the village the old body of Rabbit lies still and steady, a little majestic in a forlorn way, you think.

Come spring you find yourself settling between the legs of Old Rabbit, New Rabbit and Beetle (thus your pilot has named herself, after her other favorite sort of animal) tucked happily against your arm; she has filled out much since you first pulled her from her cockpit and now eats the fish you roast for her with great enjoyment, smacking her lips and humming. When you are done she turns to look up at you.

Yes, Beetle? you ask her, aloud and with hands.

Will they find us? she asks you.

No, you tell her honestly. You lost your trackers that day in the fire, burned out of the tower in which you sat; to the Collective you are as good as dead. So is Rabbit now that her body has been torn apart, her disc removed. And the Collective doesn’t come back for expendables, for rusted blades they can no longer use. (Above you, flowers sway in the hollows of Rabbit’s arm cannons.)

Will you leave me? she asks you next.

You pause. You say, Do you want me to?

This is not in pilot vocabulary, to be asked a question. She has to pause also to take in what you’ve just done.

Then she says, No, never, and, If you do, I’ll go looking for you.

Like you went looking all those years ago, no? When did it change? You told yourself then: She’s lost out there somewhere; I must find her, or die trying. Now you look at the little girl beside you and you think, Maybe you were the lost one all along. Maybe you’ve found each other.

You ask her, Why do you say you’d look for me?

She considers this. After a long moment, she says, You had an order for me. At the end of every hunt. Told me where to go. I could not ever stop going until I got there, and I am there now, and if it goes away from me then I will have to go looking for it again.

She looks at you straight on, now, with eyes that reflect the night sky. It occurs to you that maybe this is her way of, at last, trying to give you a name; you forgot yours the moment you joined the force, for you weren’t interested in personalizing yourself to anyone, especially not the short-lived pilots, who didn’t need your name anyway, only your title, Handler.

You say, What do you mean?

She smiles. It’s you, she says. This place. The place is you.

You know now, but you need her to say it, the way she needed you to say those things back then, to keep her going, to keep her from going mad. So you ask her, What is the place?

She smiles again. In the darkness, an owl hoots.

She says, Home.

[a-goat-writes]

Maryann discusses the morality paradox with L-001 :)

My sapphic/ solarpunk webcomic FACING THE SUN has an extra long update!

Read on my website (ahead)

Read on WEBTOON

[a-goat-writes]

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[a-goat-writes]

[a-goat-writes]

CW: suicidal themes, institutional transphobia implied

I don't belong in this cradle.

It's the honest truth of the matter. I don't deserve to be here.

Another battlefield lays itself before my projected vision, smoldering browns and grays behind the colorful sensor overlays. In these hellish craters, I likely do belong, but not in this cockpit.

There's a sickly feeling that comes with it. Like a pair of ragged, poorly fitting clothes, carrying a detestable stench.

Its torn threads? Inch-deep gashes and mended holes in metal plating that were not acquired under my operation.

And the stench? It's her stench.

I know everything about her. It told me. It was never not gonna tell me.

Imogen died in this very same cockpit, fear flooding her veins while an armor piercing round entered through the sidewall.

It showed me this, the angle of the projectile, the internal feed playback, the sound of it, the measurements of her biometrics, the flatline and system-wide scream it deafeningly howled out as its other half ceased.

It was the first thing it ever showed me when I did my first link test. It was bitter. Wrathful.

I didn't even fucking know they could feel like that the first time I hopped in. They pulled me out of the cockpit in a sorry state, shaking and sobbing, but still figured my synchronicity scored highly enough to put me back in the thing. They can't afford to scrap a working mech anymore for "limited pilot incompatibility".

Why the fuck did Legacy stick me in the mech that was mourning?

I was mad. Real mad at the brass for denying my reassignment req's. Most of all, I was mad at her mech.

One day it responded to my anger on the trek back to exfil. It flooded my mind with just her. Her joy, determination, cockiness, care... It overlaid stored visual/audio buffers into my own vision—replayed the very sensations attached to those logs—and I was her. It flooded me with her love as if it was my own, with a closeness I never was afforded to have with such a war machine.

I felt deep envy tinging my anger.

Pilots sit in these big metal boxes because of the strategically utilized notion of it being theirs. The rumored wonders of a paired digital consciousness are allowed to spread because it pulls hopeless girls with big dreams like Imogen into the cockpit.

That's what they need in a loyal pilot. I wanted a goddamn mech to call my own, not some dead girls broken leftovers.

But then I, as Imogen, died in that seat to my mech screaming out for me.

And then there was no anger. Just emptiness.

What an awful lesson, to be taught what it feels like to lose half of yourself.

There's another sortie on another reneging territory rejecting Legacy's grand mission, fighting against mechs that used to bare the insignia of the Earth and her Moon. Again I find myself walking back a line, cover laid for my comrades while rebel hotshots push the advantage with righteous vigor.

When it isn't streaming bits of her at me over the datalines, memories lovely and tragic, it's cold. Completely silent. Somehow that's worse.

On the losing end of a war in a coffin.

Sometimes I just can't stand it, and find a boldness within me when I ask it to tell me the story of how Imogen chose her name again. That's its favorite.

(I don't call it by its chosen name because it won't tell me. I have a feeling it never will.)

I wonder often why it even lets me command it into battle after battle. I'm not who it truly wants, and its suffering because of it. I figure if it can puppet my senses just as well as I puppet its limbs, it could likely figure a way to brick itself for good.

It twitches over the link when the thought bleeds through from my end, and it goes silent once again.

Guilt writhes around my gut as I fight for a future I barely believe in anymore. I know why it wouldn't.

When I filled the forms in the service registration office, on a harbor moon in a system two jumps from Hila, I had made a decision. Bloodshed remained stark on my mind as the upheaval of Legacy control on one of its most pivotal worlds forced me away from the only place I called home.

I recall the resistance ships dropping low beneath the skyline with improvised munitions, launching off their rails at military strongholds. I recall the mandatory evacuations as uniformed Legacy troops kicked down doors and ordered us onto the evac shuttles.

I recall the very military administration building that my sister was stationed at erupting all at once as the strategic calculations for maximal military damage factored in the Department of Citizen Records field office on floor 63 as a viable target.

I checked the "F" on the form with the pride that my sister was the very reason I was allowed this privilege. I checked the box with the shame that this was considered a privilege. I checked the box with the naive ideal that once we won this war, it wouldn't be resigned to just a privilege.

(A flicker of emotion echoes across the dataline, as it picks up this memory I've never shown it before. It feels like a gentle embrace.)

Losing my sister was losing one of the few people who actually saw me. She didn't miss a beat when I told her my real name. She held me close, and I felt the most profound joy in knowing love in sisterhood.

I chose to survive because it's what she would have wanted, for me to blossom into the woman she knew me to be.

Imogen is not my sister, but she could have been.

The mech chooses to live because it's what Imogen would have wanted.

We're both stuck in this war together.

I don't know how this ends well for either of us. Defection has crossed the mind, but no certainty comes from the prospect. I could end up in a cell for the rest of my life and it could get scrapped when they realize their newly captured mech is brimming with trauma.

(The notion of it getting scrapped draws a surprisingly intense emotion out of me. I can't pin it to just one comparable feeling of a loved ones grave being bulldozed or a close friend being murdered. Maybe it's both.)

It doesn't hold feelings on what comes after, I've realized.

It does its job, comes home, and is prepared for the next sortie. This is what it was made for, despite whatever side it's on.

That's what it means to survive for a mech.

I stopped hating it long ago. I don't think it hates me.

I think we need each other.

Even if I don't belong in this cradle.

----------

This one is kind of a departure for me to write, but I hope it resonates in the right way. Thanks for sticking through it <3

[a-goat-writes]

6. ... 0-0

December 23 

I did something awful today, Marie. You know already, I’m sure, but - hear my side of the thing too, won’t you? This is the only place I can speak to you, lately. So unbearably busy, and your study door always locked.

I was cruel to Jeanne, again, all morning. Every little mistake, I dug into her like a piece of glass - she was two minutes late waking me, and I dug that into her, my tea was a little over-sweet and I dug that into her too - I knew it was horrible, but I couldn’t help it - I wanted more, and more, and more, I wanted to make her cry again, Marie. And after a while words weren’t enough any more, and I struck her - across the face, hard, and still she wouldn’t cry. So I 

I tore her dress from her shoulder, and I 

I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to say it.  

I’m going to start taking that funny powder your quack physician has been trying to put in my food. Perhaps it’ll take the edge off my appetite

Found the Princess’ pet chambermaid dripping blood up and down the carpet today. Took a solicitous interest and insisted upon an examination. (Do mean insisted - girl was furious, & seemed in a hurry to be somewhere. One of yours, postmaster? 

Little joke, of course. That skulking ice-pick of a man hasn’t the incision to read what I write here, and I dare him - dare him! - to find a magician in this city black-fortuned enough to cross me.

Man. Ha. Cruel, Johanne.)

To my point: Multiple bites to the girl’s neck and shoulder, the flesh - where it was not torn - holding a lividity as if suckled upon by a lover. 

Her Highness needs raw meat in her diet. Probably soon it will have to be live, and even that will only be palliative; but if you want to know that, postmaster, oh, you’ll have to come crawling to me for it. A woman’s got to make herself indispensable around these parts if she wants her neck unwrung. 

🝁 

chapter index.

[a-goat-writes]

What makes a Mech a Mech?

Now you might think it's the shape: Humanoid, bipedal, articulated limbs. And once upon a time that might have been the case. These days those machines are a lot more diverse though, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; you got quadrupeds, winged mechs, hell sometimes ones that don't got any arms or legs at all.

No, what makes a Mech a Mech, is the Neural Link.

Mechs are unique in the way that their pilots get wired into them. They plug their brain into a machine and they become that machine.

Y'see that's why so many of the early models were so standardized, modeled after our own anatomy and musculature. Back when the tech was first being developed, the test pool was pretty limited. All military types, foot soldiers and the like. Those folks tend to have something of a limited imagination, creativity and individuality gets beaten out of 'em until they conform to the template of what the military wants 'em to be.

Which means they aren't all that great at imaginin' their body as anythin' other than what it is.

So all those early prototypes had to conform to that. If they wanted a pilot to have a decent enough Link Aptitude, they needed Mechs that the pilots could see themselves as. Folks were already used to havin' two arms and two legs, replacin' 'em with metal instead of flesh was a short enough leap that those folks could handle it.

But y'see then they started expandin' the applicant pool; researchers and developers moved outside the military in search of folks with higher Link Aptitude. And they found that humanity is a lot more diverse than that template the military beats into its soldiers. Turns out folks can be a lot more creative with their body map. Not everybody fits into that standardized definition of what humanity is.

They were lookin' in the completely wrong place with the military, turns out. Conformity is all well and good when you're trynna rush somethin' off the assembly line, but when you're trynna really push the limits of what's possible? Well you gotta get a bit more creative with it.

That's why you don't usually see the jugheads piloting mechs anymore. They ain't as good with all the fanciness companies are packin' into them these days. Now y'know who is good with all of that? Queer folks. Transgender folks especially. Turns out growin' up in the wrong body and learnin' to deal with that makes you real good at dissociatin' and messin' with your body map. Makes it a lot easier to trick your brain into thinkin' some weird part of this metal colossus is actually part of your body now.

Once they sorted that out, synchronicity rates skyrocketed. Led to a lot of other good things too. Y'see suddenly Queer and Trans folks were prime candidates for bein' pilots, corpos needed 'em. Which meant they had to make it safe enough for folks to be those things, or at least enough to admit it to the recruiters. Kinda funny thinkin' back, that that was what tipped the scales, but I suppose you can always trust corpos to do what corpos do.

But anyway, that's why so many Mechs are custom made to their pilots nowadays. That's why they craft the IMPs alongside the pilots through basic training. You gotta build a system that'll fit the pilot's body map, and ideally one that'll make the most of it.

If that pilot's more comfortable with a tail? Give that Mech a tail. Digitigrade legs? Quadrupedal? Fuck it, if it works for the pilot, throw that shit on there. Y'see ultimately, through the Neural Link, all you gotta be able to do is trick your brain into thinkin' that Mech is your body, and then it's off to the races.

And that moment, when your mind slips into that metal monstrosity and suddenly you feel more at home than you ever did in your own flesh and blood? That's what pilots live and die for. That's how you know the engineers did a good job.

And that's what makes a Mech a Mech.

[a-goat-writes]

mech fans are so funny. what if there was a guy who was normal and doing just fine

[a-goat-writes]

Wizards are not naturally immortal, in fact creating their own form of immortality is their graduate thesis.