nora-blake

[nora-blake]

Schism: A game about irreconcilable differences for two players.

Supplies: Yarn (a few feet) Index cards (2) Coin (1) Scissors A holepunch Each player defines their character and their relationship to each other. You will need: A name Some pronouns Three flaws A haircut Write this information on your card, leaving space at the top. Use a holepunch and make three holes in each card. Take turns tying cards together with three lengths of yarn. As you attach the yarn, recount a story from the happier days of this relationship. Ask your partner one of these questions on your turn: What did you think of me when I _ ? Where was it that we _ ? How long was it before _ ? Each strand represents a bond. They are the physical manifestations of your relationship. Once the cards are linked, hold them apart so that the yarn is taut. One player, the Cutter, puts the scissors to a string and names a flaw of the other character's. That player then narrates how that flaw is causing trouble in the relationship. They must make a decision: put in the effort to acknowledge their partner's needs, or power through and refuse to change. If they choose the first, replace that flaw with a new one and pass the scissors to them. If they choose the second, flip the coin. On heads, the Cutter describes how a compromise was reached over the issue and they pass the scissors. On tails, the strife grows like a cancer, straining the relationship. Cut the string. Continue until all strings are cut. The remnants of the strings hanging from your card represent the lessons and experience you carry with you into the next stage of your life. Describe what your partner left with you as you move on.

[nora-blake]

My Last Day as a Freelance Criminal

My feet glide nearly frictionless on the slick metal. The lights in the soles leave a trail of vibrant purple in the luminous dust my descent kicks up. Were it not for my helmet, my hair would be trailing as well. But you typically need a helmet out here. In space.

I can hear the radio chatter as they follow me. From the backroads of Kentucky to the low-orbit superspires of the Orbital Residential Block, one thing remained eternally consistent.

Cops hate it when you run.

Now, in my defense, If I don’t run they’ll probably arrest me for defacing public property. Not usually an arrest-worthy crime...unless either you’ve done it about a dozen times, or the shit you drew is particularly offensive to police sensibilities. I just happen to meet both criteria. Call me a goddamn overachiever.

So anyway. I run. Glide. Whatever.

The things I do aren’t exactly normal. Historically speaking, humans don’t have the ability to manipulate and shift their own gravity. But I’m untethered. It’s what we do. “Gravity” is a bad word for it. It’s really…well, it’s complicated. We all know better, but use the wrong word anyway. In my opinion, that’s pretty damn representative of us as a species.

I reach out with my mind and feel the metal beneath me. I hold my attention there, bringing it into sharp focus with a shiver that feels almost like interacting with a holographic interface though a glove with physical feedback. That’s a really specific reference, but it’s what it makes me think of. The gravity pulls me more firmly toward the ORB as the sloping metal transitions from ramp to floor for yours truly. I keep my momentum for a moment with a jog as I reach my destination--a maintenance hatch.

Once I get deep enough into the labyrinth of pipes, access tubing, and ventilation shafts, the cops pull away. They never bother chasing anyone this deep into the structure, and not just because their jetpacks are incredibly dangerous in cramped spaces. No, cops don’t come to the lower levels. If the powers that be need something done down here, they’ll send an agent or the military--nothing in between is worth the trouble.

Slipping down through waist-wide holes not meant for traversal at terminal velocity tends to be incredibly dangerous, which is why most people climb or walk through these mazes. I don’t have time for that. Not because of my pursuers, as they’ve long since given up the chase. I don’t have time because I don’t give myself time. People walk. Angels fall.

I’m being at least a little ironic in my usage of the word angel, I admit. As I already said, I’m a criminal. Still, it was evocative. It’s all about perspective, you know? No one thinks they’re the villain of their own story.

My poetic thoughts nearly get my head knocked off by a stray pipe, and I have to take a detour to correct my new trajectory. I come to a stop on the side of a massive sewage pipe to get my bearings. Turns out I didn’t miss my turn by too much. It’s just a six-hundred-meter fall if I angle it right.

I angle it right.

Another twelve and a half minutes of gradually slower slides, freefalls, and the occasional hurried jog bring me to the Shell. Faded orange paint on the metal surface lead me to the nearest emergency airlock. These are supposed to trip an alarm somewhere up above whenever they’re used, but this one has long been disconnected from the network.

I step out of the airlock and find myself faced with the dual oppressions of mass poverty and the ORB’s artificial gravity zone that holds it. The neck of my suit protests with a snap-hiss as I pull the helmet off and shake loose my ponytail of black hair. I suck in a lungful of that sweet smog-filled air that you only find in the bowels of the Core.

I’m home, or at least in the right neighborhood. It doesn’t take long to mix into the hustle and bustle of the streets. All around me I pass my people. In the fifteen minute walk from the airlock to my street, I see people of at least twelve different races and half as many genders, and more than a few who simply defy such categorization. Some people have stopped noticing those details, but I never could get on board with that. People aren’t uniform. That’s how Uppers live, with their perfectly gengineered ethnostate bullshit. Fuck that, and fuck them.

I turn down a cramped alley marked by a white tarp and duck through a sundered chain link fence, arriving at last. The door is unlocked, as most are down here. No one in this neighborhood really owns any wealth, so the only things worth stealing are tools, which usually end up trading hands on a nearly daily basis anyway.

Ivy is busy when I show up, as usual. I wait for her to finish seeing her patient, who turns out to be the uniquely hobbly Veronica. She’s upward of sixty now, though she refuses to let it slow her down, and thanks to some of Ivy’s drugs she won’t have to for a long time. I know for a fact that some of her hobble is from the seemingly endless supply of weapons hidden under her rags. She walks past me and we exchange a quick smile. Veronica always has time for me. Always has.

Then I look back to the door she came out of and I see her. Ruddy lab coat, decade old shoes, calloused and steady hands, and bags of sleep deprivation under the eyes. She’s beautiful. A bit of dull red hair covers part of a steely eye that I can’t help smiling at. But the creases in her face aren’t from smiling. I’ve never seen a doctor smile down here.

She’s twelve years my senior, but that’s never stopped us. I smile, hurrying into her examination room and out of my clothes. I’ve never been religious, but there are times when I sound as devout as a choir on Sunday. She likes my boobs, but they’re hurting today and I find another place to direct her mouth. Turns out you can’t just start hormones and instantly get the chest of your dreams.

Afterward, when I’m pulling on my suit and she’s locking her desk drawer, she broaches a subject I’ve been putting off for a while now.

“Someone like you…your talents…you’d be appreciated.”

“You were gonna say I’d be useful. That you could use someone like me.”

She shrugs. “You prefer other words, but the meaning is the same. You can move around this place faster than any of my people, even Jorn’s drones.”

“You can use me all you like as long as you cuddle me afterward.”

I grin. She doesn’t. My flirtations are usually either rebuffed or ignored. I wonder sometimes if she’ll ever be interested in anything more than our ephemeral trysts. When I ask she doesn’t answer, but…call it wishful thinking on my part, but I see something in her eyes. I sigh.

“…Alright. One job.”

And…God Almighty, have mercy. Then she smiles. The worried lines, the weariness…it all melts away and my heart skips a beat and holy shit, I’m so fucking gay.

“I knew I could count on you.”

“I’m not part of this thing.”

“No? Then your life of crime was…just for fun?”

I search for the words. I fail. “That…”

“Is different from a war.”

“You could say that, yeah.”

“Not so different.”

I still can’t find words. I sigh instead.

“Sooner or later they’ll catch you.”

I know it’s true. Eventually I’ll slip up and get caught. Or worse, slip up so bad that they won’t have to catch me at all.

“Wouldn’t you rather be part of something?”

The implications run wild in my mind. Part of something. Part of a movement. A revolution. A family. She’s offering me what I’ve never had. Stability. Foundation. A solid bedrock to build a life off that doesn’t rely on doing odd jobs or collecting money for loan sharks or stealing from Uppers.

It’s tempting.

“Let me be clear.” She interrupts my thoughts with a sharp tone. “I’m not fucking you because I want you to join my organization. What we have is good. I…like it.”

There’s strain in her voice. For the first time I can hear real emotions in her voice.

“But I’m going to have to relocate soon. I want to take you with me. We can get you papers if you’re with us, but otherwise…”

I catch her eye. I have to know.

“This is real?” I ask, gesturing between us. “More than a little fun now and again?”

There’s fear in her eyes. Fear I haven’t seen except when she’s about to put someone under the blade.

“Yes.”

It’s a whisper. All at once the stern, disciplined façade slips and I see the vulnerable woman beneath. My heart skips a beat. I don’t know what happens between then and when we kiss, but it can’t be a lot. We hold each other for a while. When I finally speak, it’s a whisper that barely makes its way past the lump in my throat.

“I’m in.”

[nora-blake]

Rejection of Fear in Autumn

A brave knight named Lacrima ventured into a dark cavern. It was autumn, and everywhere you looked you could see leaves falling from trees. Lacrima did not enter this cave seeking glory or the rescue of a monarch as other knights did. They did it because it had to be done and no one else could face it.

As they first put their foot across the threshold, a foul wind issued from the cave–a deep release of breath? A sigh of submission? The wind carried on it the cries of their own mind. They were urged to turn back. They were told they were better off turning back than facing what lay beyond. They pressed on as the voices grew to shrieks. The voices called to them. The voices heckled them. The voices derided them. The voices grew so loud that was nearly impossible to hear the clinking of Lacrima’s armor or the faint flapping of their cloak.

When it became clear that the voices could not dissuade them and the wind could not stagger them, it all stopped. The voices were, after all, creations of the mind, and the mind can be defied quite firmly by that which is more powerful: the heart.

And then brave Lacrima found themself face to face with a dragon. It glared down at them, its eyes bright rubies in the darkness. They knelt, placing the sword on the ground.

The dragon laughed a cruel laugh. “You would cast aside honor and name? You would shame yourself and your family and your king?” Lacrima closed their eyes. 

“I am the one who bears no shield. My name is dead and buried. I have no more concern for this world or its shackles. I am myself, and that is all I can be.”

The dragon reared back, drawing in a mighty breath. When it let it out, flames burst out of its mouth. The flood of heat and fire washed over Lacrima in an instant. But when the smoke cleared, the knight remained. Unharmed despite the embers that surrounded them. The dragon, now enraged, blew wave after wave of fire down on Lacrima. But no matter how hard it blew, no matter how brightly the stone around them glowed, Lacrima was unharmed. Finally the dragon found itself winded, its fire spent but for one final ember. Lacrima looked up at it.

“Your death is meaningless and your judgement is false. I know your name, drake.”

In a mighty rage, the dragon poured out the last of its fire. Lacrima could see nothing but the flames, which burned hotter and hotter until all the world was white.

All at once, the cave and the dragon and the fire vanished. They found themself standing at the mouth of a dark cave as the brown leaves fell from the trees around them. The sky was grey and overcast. Their burden was gone. Armor and blade, title and name, all gone. Their fear, for that was of course the dragon’s name, was vanquished and burned from their veins. For the first time since they picked up a blade, a smile tugged at their lips and a song sprang to their heart.

“Inward and outward it goes on under the feet to the world beyond. As the first step falls on the open path, gaze e'er onward to bed and bath.”

They set off down the road. No longer as a knight, for they had cast that off with the fear. No longer as Lacrima, for that name was dead and buried. They were themself, and that’s all they wanted to be.

[nora-blake]

When I Can Be So Much More

The moon sunders the midnight gloom with a blade of stolen light, piercing the dusky carapace of reverie. Footsteps like raindrops fall in puddles of mud in the park. The horn is blown. The scent of blood in the air calms my nerves. I am this.

Sand flows like water and drowns a wayward sailor in its waves. A noble bulk emerges from its slumber to feed. Blades and stones harrying an implacable god. The shifting masses bellow underground and echo in stone. I am this.

The sky weeps. The wood creaks and yawns. It finds its rest despite the crash, smothered in an icy bosom. Cries are silenced. Eventually, everything is silenced. The shadow is absolute. Nothing moves. Nothing breathes. I am this.

I am the pounding feet and pounding heart and the speed, the rush of euphoria. Raw animal instinct pressing on and on and on. The twisted spear in the boar’s gut, snapping under the weight of a dying wrath and drowning in viscera. I am this.

I am the gentle hitch of breath as the arrow is loosed and finds its mark and leaves a red trail as I flee the inevitable. The subtle bliss, the weakness of limb and dizziness. The fading dimness of finality come at last. I am this.

I am the creeping nothing as the fire fades and the shouts subside. I am the void, the empty. Yesterday and yesteryear. I am the warmth, the nurturing, the fullness and revelry in the night. I am tomorrow. Ever a promise, never a guarantee. I am all of this.

What worth is there in a name?

[nora-blake]

Cloak and Dagger

I'd never been one for confrontation. Standing up and facing something just never seemed as smart as running away from it. Eventually, it was really my greatest skill. Running, sneaking, hiding--hallmarks of a thief, yes. But also the hallmarks of a coward. That used to bother me, but I've come to accept it. I am a coward.

For a long time, I leveraged this quality to gain an advantage. In my line of work, subtlety is greatly appreciated and I have that in spades. I did alright on my own, but eventually there comes a time in a thief's life when they realize that they can't be alone against the world anymore. Usually that time comes when they settle down and marry, get caught and imprisoned, or worse. For me, it came when I met Felix Thane.

We met on the job. I was breaking into a local lord's manor to lift a very valuable set of earrings from his daughter. Felix had been hired to kill that lord. I should mention, Felix was an assassin. Anyway, there I am about to finish picking the lock to the girl's room, when suddenly six guards come rushing around the corner--swords drawn. Luckily I have more than one trick up my sleeve, and with the corridor's torches snuffed, I made a quick escape.

He followed me. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was fate, but he followed me. No one had ever tracked me before. The heat from the assassination fell on me as some kind of accomplice, as the guards in the hallway had gotten a glimpse of me earlier when I had snuck in--in plain view of course, not because I mucked it up. I was posing as a noble. That's not important. The important part was that I was being hunted for a crime. That was normal. The un-normal thing was that for once it was a crime I hadn't done!

Anyway, he cornered me in an alley and scared me half to death before explaining that he'd gotten me mixed up in the shit and he was real sorry and...god, those puppy dog eyes. You wouldn't think an assassin could be so...well, sorry. But Felix had a Way To Do Things, and if things didn't follow his plan, he became quite cross. He all but kidnapped me, really, when I think back on it. Not physically, but...you know. I was wanted and scared--remember that I am a coward. I went into this survival mode and followed along.

He wasn't that much older than me, but he acted like he was. Took me under his wing, in a way. Together we hopped on one of those new trains and headed off to find new lives beyond the Crown's reach. Ended up in a tiny border town near elf country. Ruddy cold place, being in the mountains and all, until you entered the walls. Something in the environment made this little valley more than cozy (Felix said something about a microclimate caused by some variety of subterranean creature, but I was only half listening).

And so Felix swept me up into his life of higher-stakes-than-I-cared-for crime. The town wasn't large, but it had plenty of wealth. Lots of exotic stuff people back in the civilized world craved. We lived like kings. We stole, we sold, we stole again. And when we didn't steal, we drank. It was around that point, when we would drink the night away and sleep to the crack of noon, that we started waking up together. It started as just some extra fun. Stress relief. But after a few months I realized it was more.

We got married in stolen suits by a bribed priest in an abandoned chapel, and it was the happiest day of my life. If only I had known, back in that dark, rainy alley, that I was meeting my soulmate...

By now you're likely wondering where this all is going. Yes, it's a lovely story, I know. I lived it. But you're wondering why you're reading it. After...god, fifteen years of not writing you? Lords above, it seemed much shorter. Anyway. I'm getting to the grim parts.

It was a simple job, you know? Bust into this old tower, watch out for magical shit, get the goods, and leave. But that was a wizard's tower. You know what that means, you probably own half a dozen by now. But even for a wizard, the bastard living there was paranoid. I am very good at my job, and my job is finding things that don't want to be found. But this one was different. He got me. Tricked me right from the start with a mesmer. I spent three hours disarming traps that weren't there, clearing a path for Felix.

Then the one I didn't- couldn't- see. The tower had this set of tubes running through it, and occasionally wind spells would ferry items from one floor to another. Usually books or vials or reagents--except the last one, which spat out a bomb at us. It was a crude contraption--I doubt our wizard was an engineer--but the shrapnel cut all the same.

Felix, my dear Felix, always was a flash faster than me. He took the blast. By this time the authorities were coming. There's a particularly adroit warden out here, and he has quite a few tricks up his sleeve. I guess he owed the wizard some minor debt. The point, though. The point is, I left him there to die. I ran away and just barely escaped. Felix was hurt, but he went down fighting. He always said he would.

They took him to the stocks for a while, and I watched from afar. For the first few days he'd look around,peering into shadows and hoping- expecting- to see my face. I stayed hidden. Remember that I am a coward. Just yesterday they found out who he was. He's still wanted for that lord's death, of course. They're going to ship him back there for execution. I can see in his eyes that he's given up on me. For a time, so did I.

That's why I'm writing you now, sweet sister. You will hear of me in the coming days. You will know what has become of me. I regret the way I treated you. The way I treated mother. Nothing I say will make that up, but I hope my actions prove my sincerity. Take the train to the mountain borders. Find the old chapel and show the priest this letter. My wealth I leave to you, whether justly or unjustly acquired. I won't need it after tomorrow. I'm going to him. I don't know whether I'll escape with him into the night or die with him on the gallows. Either way, I'm not leaving him. I'm done running.

My name is Gilderoy Blackridge, and I was a coward.

[nora-blake]

How Do You Kill a God?

the branches of gold the empires old the soldiers with boots on the ground in the end it turned out the hopes that we clung to were taking the long way around

[nora-blake]

Communion

The fire was dying. Many knew it, but many chose not to see. Not him. He did not gaze into the flames, as the young zealots. They had cast their eyes into the flames and had been blinded. Neither did he watch the glowing embers and ashen remains--that was the province of the old and frail. His eyes moved about the Hall, sweeping over the countless faithful.

The faces he saw were uplifted, contorting in adulation, or downcast in grim stoicism--he knew almost all of them better than his own. The faces of the diggers, marked with the sigil of the Flame to protect them, the Mantric with their smooth faces and clean hair--but it was the children that he hated to see. They alone were healthy. In a way, he envied and pitied them both--even with food supplies growing shorter, none of them would ever know who had given up their ration for the good of the young. 

Someday they will, he thought. Someday their eyes will be opened, and then they will understand. And then their childhood will end.

No matter what station in life, one thing resonated in the face of every man, woman, and child present. All the same, the droning worship escaped their lips. He wondered often how worship could bring such a multitude of voices and cadences and twist them into something inhumanly uniform. The same sounds left his mouth to join the cacophony, but he had long ago forgotten the words.

[nora-blake]

Virtuoso

The Omen of Io strode in measured step through the enemy ship. In the distance, he heard klaxons and alarms, and if he tried, he could see the thousands of radio waves blasting back and forth as the crew of the TES Casanova scurried about their stations. The flare of a debasal emergence would send the astrogators into a panic as the instruments indicated a foreign vessel popping into existence inside their own. Some would recognize the truth, he knew. He could taste it--recycled air full of recycled fear.

He rounded a corner and the sparse, gray hallway extended out before him. It terminated in a heavy sealed door guarded by two soldiers. They snapped to face him and raised their weapons as he walked toward them. He paid no heed to their warnings and orders to surrender. Instead he reached out to touch their minds. 

Their surface thoughts swam in a kaleidoscope of senses, vibrant thoughts swirling like mixed paint. His fingers slipped deeper, under the surface, finding the thin strands of thought that wove together in the deep. In the murky grays of the involuntary, he dragged his nails down the threads, sending vibrations thrumming back up through the gray and causing ripples on the surface. The guards screamed, guns abandoned as they cradled their heads. Their hands came away from their ears red with blood and they slumped to the ground.

He stepped over the blood. His immaculate white uniform contrasted his dark skin, and there was no need to risk staining it. As he approached the door the soldiers had been guarding, it opened without a sound. He continued his measured, even pace through the halls. Five men and three women fell as he slipped from one thread to another, nurturing chords that sheared through thought. All throughout, his face was an impassive mask. There was no joy in his killing. In fact, those that fled usually escaped his touch. He was a man on a mission--if you could call him a man.

At last he came to his destination on the fourth deck. The final door opened as silent as the others, and he entered. The bridge of the Casanova was sleek, if drab. It was a long T-shaped room with a captain's chair at the crux. He strode down this last hallway, and as he did, holographic displays flickered and winked out as consoles burst into sparks and smoke. The officers manning the systems turned, rising from their swiveling seats to draw sidearms, but he held their strings taut, and the men and women froze in mid-motion. The captain's chair slowly turned to face him as he approached, revealing a stern, worn old man in a uniform speckled with more medals than there were people on the bridge. There was no fear in the old captain's eye. Young men fought and bled and fled from death, but an old man accepted it gracefully.

The intruder and the captain shared a moment there as the lights flickered and the ship rumbled beneath them. Then he reached into the captain's mind, slipping hands of grace past memories and thoughts and dreams to grasp a tiny fragile string at his core. A sharp tug, a soft snap, and the captain's eyes closed.