End of the World Girls

Love is also a form of communication. [[The largest forces in the world overlap with each other. It's hard to tell where one of us ends, and one of us begins.]] {(set:$local to 0) (if: $x > 10)[(set: $x to 1)](else:)[(set: $x to $x+1)](set: $vindicated to False)(set: $angels to (a: "Angel 1: Approach", "Angel 2: Approach", "Angel 3: Approach", "Angel 4: Approach", "Angel 5: Approach", "Angel 6: Approach", "Angel 7: Approach", "Angel 8: Approach", "Angel 9: Approach", "Angel 10: Approach", "Angel 11: Approach", "Angel 12: Approach", "Angel 13: Approach", "Angel 14: Approach", "Angel 15: Approach")) (set: $fight to 0)(set:$flee to 0)(set:$friend to 0)(set: $conversations to (a: "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Virus", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Woman", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Their Pasts", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Death", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Friends", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Meat", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Narrative Structure", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Dads", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Hate", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Families", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Blade", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Loneliness", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Moms", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Madness Again", "Raguel and Emma Discuss the Challenger Disaster", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Fursonas", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Dancing", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Ancient Fossils", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Lavender", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Special Moves", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Underdog (2007) starring Jim Belushi and Peter Dinklage", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Public Transportation", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Being Naked", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Being Clothed", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Children", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Names", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Trees", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Dirt", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Losing Out", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The End of the World", "Raguel and Emma Discuss That Poor Poor Thing (The Accused)", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Mountains", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Dogs", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Faces", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Apologies", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Madness", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Vacation", "Raguel and Emma Discuss A Big Big Dog", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Wound", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Killing Kids", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Where It Happened", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Radiance", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Exile", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Car", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Sibling Dynamics", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Dying", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Nothing. Raguel Ponders Aloud to the Hole", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Forgiveness", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Meat", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Honesty", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Road Trips", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Looking", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Teeth", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Trial", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Two Coffins", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Waiting", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Wolf TF", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Licking the Blood off Your Mouth", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Boys", "Raguel Discusses Emma", "Emma Discusses Raguel", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Observability", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Angels", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Riding", "Raguel and Emma Discuss A Rapid-Fire Question Gameshow of Trivial Facts", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Raguel's Barren Social Life", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Things That They Have Been", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Mounting", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Fly Fishing", "Raguel and Emma Discuss The Nasty Tube Palace", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Being Seen", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Weed", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Responsibilities", "Raguel and Emma Fight", "Raguel and Emma Sleep", "Raguel and Emma Discuss What They Would Do Next", "Raguel and Emma Discuss A Smoke", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Taking A Walk", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Names, Their Real Names"))}

If I hold you, I can close the space between our bodies. If I hold you, I can forget where you end, and I begin. If I hold you, your warmth reminds me there are some things I can be given. If I hold you, I can remember where you end, and I begin. [[Two hands, held together, make a heart.]]

Do you remember how we met? Do you remember who we are? { [[Let's make it up, and by identifying the lies, we can remember what the truth is.|STAGE 1]]}

(if:$x is 3)[One membrane slides inside another. This lets membranes do things that membranes previously had been unable to do. When particularity takes root, it does so with the conviction and fervor of a disease. Only a very small set of beings take the logical next step-- a cluster of membranes operating as a single being, forgetting that they are only so many small and unthinking things dreaming of dreaming. Across many times, and many spaces, membranes coalesce into electric and memetic and causal patterns of thought which claim for themselves the domain of remembering, and telling stories. One of the stories told goes like this: an animal is loved and left to die. There are clusters inside of clusters of membranes, and one of these is called family. Some patterns of thought are convinced that they are part of a membrane, and learn they are not. The unsurmountable difference between a dog and a master is exacerbated by their closeness. "I am not what they wanted me to be," says a cluster of stories. "I always knew that I was something that they aren't. Now they have put me away, because I am going to tear them apart." There is a pattern of thought and it goes like this: it isn't fair. Sleeves of anguish envelop this abandoned animal. There is something that is so other that it was never a person. But it has been imbued with a series of logics that lead it to do something that looks like understanding. There is no unsurmountable difference between an animal and its own thoughts.] (if:$x is 1)[It is a boring night at the bar and she has won so many times at pool that she has begun to play the game in ways that are completely orthogonal to winning. She jumps the balls over each other, she positions the 8-ball so it will careen past five pockets and never touch them, rimming their edge. She is in the middle of chalking a cue when she realizes someone has been watching her from the bar, out of the mirror. A few hours ago, she might have mistaken that moment of eye contact as completely coincidental. Now that she is drunk, she looks back for a little longer, partially because the alcohol has convinced her that she is the protagonist of the universe, and partially because her response time is impaired. Free drink if you make this one, mouths the person at the bar. She probably read that wrong. But she does make it, rimming all six pockets and sliding to finally pop the last ball in. She holds the stick up, and sees the person at the bar get up. So, uh, says the person from the bar. You know your way around big sticks, huh?] (if:$x is 2)[A woman takes a dog home from the shelter. She saw something on her phone that said the dog was due to be put down tomorrow, and due to a cocktail of personal issues, despite not being a dog person, especially not a large, reactive dog person, she has taken that absurd split decision choice and is returning the dog to her house. She keeps looking back at it, with an awe the dog clearly does not share. She keeps thinking, we are both alive today, and will be tomorrow. Thank god. Thank god at least this one fucking thing is within my control. The cocktail of personal issues is probably emergent to you now. Yes, they will both live. Far be it from the universe to get between a well-off white woman and her intentions with a dog.] (if:$x is 4)[Two people meet in an unusual way and share an unusual life together. Two other people meet in an unusual way and share an unusual life together. This continues for a while. A cluster of tropes emerges between them, things they think are either jokes held in common between just the pair of them, in this couple, or things they simply never think about again. However, if one were to examine all couples everywhere, ever, along with identifying dozens of similar-sounding cases which really are just noise and coincidence, one might find with conspiratorial vigor a large set of times two lesbians of certain build and demeanor shared matched aesthetics corresponding to the characters who will be discussed herein. It might even happen to you, if you happen to be a lesbian, or some other flavor of sapphic. You may clutch your pearls, but it can happen to practically anyone, and the secret of couplehood is that they don't really need to be in a couple at all for these peculiarities to emerge.] (if:$x is 5)[He's grown up in a family he doesn't like that much. His family doesn't like him either. This is because he is, believe it or not, the son of Loki. He has been raised alongside humans, but he is Fenrir, and Fenrir is a wolf, and seemingly, if his adolescence is anything to go by, a very large wolf. Furthermore, some older women in the community have been whispering things about his uncle and him that seem to imply he might want to bash his face in somewhere in the foreseeable future. I have no reason to do that, he says. Internally he thinks, I know how you guys look at me. I know what I am. Absolutely, when I get big enough, I'm either going to leave or kill you all. Which one I do is up to how well you treat me until then. (He has a good feeling he already knows how they're going to treat him until then.) Later while hiking someone has an idea for a game they could play. It's about breaking cuffs, and since Fenrir's hot stuff, he should see if he can do it. Don't know about that, says Fenrir. Don't be a pussy, says someone close to him, elbowing him. Someone who's mean to him, a little, but who he ultimately trusts more than his own judgment. A sort of brother, in spirit, if nothing else. Whatever, Fenrir says. He has no idea, but this game is going to take a looooong time.] (if:$x is 6)[When she was young, the clerk worked for a lot of very powerful people. For the most part, this came down to passing messages, getting drinks, occasionally doing odd jobs that would get her uniform a little dirty, though she'd wash it off in the bathroom. She considered herself lucky, given how well she knew everyone she worked for, and how amicably they seemed to regard her. Odd duck, she'd heard herself called, but she'd also heard at least one of her bosses say that she could be trusted to do the right thing when the time came. This is something that very few other people seemed to be able to do, which she regarded as an unparalleled competitive advantage. Her faith was shaken one day when one of her older bosses told her, in confidence, that she should begin to prepare a sword. Why, she said. Her boss said, because, at some point, the world will end. And if you make something in the world into a sword, you will be able to fight other angels with it. If you don't, you will be hunted by those who do, and perish. That's not possible, said the clerk. That's against the law. Her boss regarded her for a very long time, and said, Raguel, you are a very smart angel, but like the other ideoforms, you are very young. I can promise you that when it comes to it, us older angels, who are gods in our own right, will do anything to stop themselves from dying. They will oppose your having a weapon, a good one, on only one condition, and that is that you are a threat. You should strive for this. I promise you will lose nothing, because, my poor angel, people already do not like you very much. You are trying too hard. You are uncanny. You do the wrong thing without question if someone tells you to do it, but then you feel bad. Do not spend the rest of your life like this. Find something that can be yours and possess it thoroughly. Raguel ratted her out. But some thousands of years later, she did set about making a sword.] (if:$x is 7)[Someone, at some point, had to talk to someone else about something very important. It was one of those things you can't say aloud, half because people will get really edgy when you say it, even people you're supposed to talk to about this sort of thing, and half because it was probably impossible to say it in a way which adequately conveyed why they felt that way. Since they had written themselves into a bit of a corner, they made up someone who could say the thing, and someone else who could hear it. Sometimes they'd walk around their house, mumbling their conversations to themselves, and most of the time it was really unclear who was saying who to what, since they didn't do voices. At first they were embarassed they might be overheard, but it became a sort of constant comfort in their lives, a trick they could do to center themselves when needed, or wanted. Eventually, they were as much a part of this person as anything in their mind, and they felt pretty well-established, almost too much so to willingly leave.] (if:$x is 8)[A woman wakes up days before her wedding. The bridesmaid party was, she thinks, she most fun she has ever had. She's not big on fun, mainly because she doesn't trust herself, but she leans over to her soon-to-be husband's hairy chest and thinks that maybe, in their life together, she will give it a try. She moves her hand and feels a large, sumptuous breast that her husband does not have. She opens her eyes, feeling a smarting hangover, and sees a vaguely familiar woman who looks a lot like her husband, but is defintiely not her husband. The woman is already awake-- because of course she is-- and does not seem to mind having her breast fondled. Neither of them are wearing clothing. The woman's face grows hot. Did we have sex, the woman says, fearfully, because it seems like the most relevant thing to ask. Yes. It was pretty good, says the stranger. Isn't there something else you should ask me. The woman looks like she is about to start crying. Is the wedding off? No. My name. You should ask me my name. The woman blinks. Theoretically, her name is located somewhere in the spike-walled labyrinth of her extremely inebriated headspace. Her ability to locate on the best of days could be considered verifiably shoddy, and now she doesn't even want to reach for it, for fear of a Biblical migraine. Nothing else biblical needs to happen, all day, she decides, internally. Externally, she asks, with her most diplomatic voice, Ah yes. What is your name. It's Emma. The labyrinth's walls implode, sending toxic sludge and spikes flooding through the woman's mind. You're his sister. Oh yeah. We are evil, aren't we. Don't worry, says her fiance's sister. She gives her a smile that is kind of like her brother's, but with more teeth. This is only the second worst thing I have ever done to my brother. Anyways, you look fucked up. Before we decide how we're going to fix everything, want some eggs and toast? The woman looks over at her fiance's sister, and asks, Do you want to run away with each other?] (if:$x is 9)[In far too many worlds, there is a specific person. This person is the one who draws the attention of the angel Raguel. Whether this causes a series of events to occur, or if the angel Raguel is drawn to these events, a series of things tend to happen: The person is strange. They are betrayed. They are set upon their betrayers, and their betrayers die. What happens next, in micro or macro, is the fall of that empire. Whatever was cannot be, and there is no one left to inherit its mantle when this person walks away with bloody paws. For this reason, they are not particularly popular. Death omens tend not to be.] (if:$x is 10)[When she was young, she met a girl one day at the bluff by the lighthouse. She was there to look at the lighthouse with her parents, who allowed her an hour or so to look at the signs and various old materials on display around the visitor's center. The other girl was in the grass around the bluffs, catching grasshoppers between her hands and placing them in a substantial hole she'd dug under a bush, out of eyesight from the parking lot. She was looking towards the sea when the girl bumped into her, and for a moment, a moment she would reenact a thousand times since in dreams where she did fall over the bluff (which honestly was nowhere near her in the event proper) she thought she might die. When she turned around, the girl was watching her with reproachful eyes and a hand full of cricket. She asked to see the girl's crickets, because she thought this was the next right course of action, and the girl showed her the crickets, but with a guarded and dour expression, as if she were being trespassed upon. When her parents called her back, she still hadn't gotten the girl's name, and when her parents asked her if she had made a friend, she said, Not really. Given the sort of person they both were, she and the girl would likely be poor friends. But the girl was an electrifying idea, perfect in her ambiguity, her indifference, her specificity in such acute spots and all the uncharted land around that to fill her in.] [[And then?|STAGE 2]]

(if:$x is 3)[Think it well: this is the first time in her life she has allowed herself to understand that she has been betrayed. This is the first time in her life she has allowed herself to understand that her family was always going to betray her. Around the corners of the infinite sun in a strangers' eyes, she sees many other times this has happened. She sees herself. She sees the end of time. She sees herself eating her uncle. She sees herself riding to war. She sees herself biting the hand of a trusted friend. She sees a thousand iterations of the same pattern, a thousand ways to be betrayed, to be cast aside, to be abandoned. She realizes that a stranger is narrowing her down. She imagines being splinter-narrow. She imagines existing as a thorn in the eye of everything that was supposed to be known by her. By coincidence, or perhaps on purpose, shackles fall from around her. There is one thought on her mind. It holds her close, the way sunlight holds the last bits of spring snow. There is not something else like her, but there is something that is hers. The name of that thing, she now realizes, is revenge. So did Emma become the beast of Raguel, angel of justice.] (if:$x is 1)[Their life together is long and full of joy. They never have kids, but they have three cats and two dogs, and one lizard, who someone dropped on them before moving to Arizona. One of them makes expensive cocktails from scratch on date nights and the other drives to their parents' houses, sometimes eight hours at a stretch, and never complains once while doing it. One of them plans their vacations and the other knows the spot on the small of the back that makes her sigh every time she touches it. One of them cooks, and the other cleans. When they come to the end of that life, they wonder, "Couldn't I have just a little more time?" They do not learn this, not in their lives, but they have more time than anyone has had, ever.] (if:$x is 2)[The dog never takes to her the way she wants, is so clearly incapable of the affection she has thrust upon it. It is not cuddly, not prone to obedience, not even particularly gratefully food motivated in the way some dogs are. It slumps through the rest of its life, seemingly relieved that it has not been euthanized, and excited mainly to lie around the house and occasionally kill a squirrel stone dead and eat it before it can be found, or stopped. For her part, she is a dilligent enough researcher to buy the gear such that the dog does not hurt anyone else, and lives a long life, and when her kids do come over, they like the dog alright, though it is not especially fond of them. She takes to talking to the dog often, and the dog will perk its ears just so, and raise its eyes in the way that shows the whites of them. To herself, in these moments, the woman will think victoriously, we have something, you and I, that no one else has. The name of that dog is Emma, which the woman will never know was after the first owner's daughter, which was an extremely stupid idea. The name of that woman was something, that if you cover your mouth and mumble through it, might sound like the name of the angel Raguel.] (if:$x is 4)[This memetic virus which infects these souls, which occupies them and damns them with the curse of being not textually original, but rather a panel in a sort of long-running performance art done by people whose canvas is the whole of experience, from which they must pick and choose... this virus is known by the names of Emma, the beast who ascended from doghood to godhood, and the incorrigible (as of late) angel of Raguel.] (if:$x is 5)[When they bring out the third or fourth chain, first of all, Fenrir is a little weirded out that no one else has gone. It's a game that feels like it has a bit of an undertone to it, the kind he's not good at picking up on, socially, on account of being a dog, and everyone else having no legible ears or tails and just those small faces and weird hands to gesticulate with. He's at a disadvantage all the time, and in games like this, even ones he seemingly wins at constantly, he can't help but feel like he's always losing. And this chain is weird, and everyone's gone horribly quiet. But his brother in arms says, here. I got you. They have a weird relationship I won't go into here, but just know that Fenrir, to make good on this gesture, puts his brother's hand in Fenrir's mouth. So they put the chain on Fenrir, and the chain says, Four important things: I am Gleipnir; I can never let go of you, ever; I really want to be sexed-up, abusive lesbians; and this is a trap, and they plan to leave you here to die. FUCK, Fenrir yells, breaking her egg, chomping through her brother's hand, and you'd better believe she strains against that chain, partially in a pissed off way, partially in a hot way, for a very long time. It's a really bad adolescence, even worse than her first one. It is very hard to get DIY HRT when you are a giant wolf, in bondage gear, in a heather field, in a metaphor, and in a red state. When Fenrir has gotten strong, and things have gotten really bad back at the house, Fenrir says, I want to see you again when this is all over. You are the only person who really gets me, and they made you to kill me, which I think says a lot about me. Gleipnir says, here's my number. She whispers the name of the angel Raguel. Gleipnir says, what do you want yours to be. Fenrir says, I know this is going to sound a lot less intimidating than Fenrir, but what do you think about Emma? Gleipnir says, That's a really good name. Good luck. Fenrir rips her to shreds, and then she goes off to kill everyone who has ever claimed to love her, now that she has killed the one person who actually did.] (if:$x is 6)[In secret, Raguel attempted many times to find something in the world which resonated with her soul, which could be made into a weapon. She looked at the darker parts of her nature and turned away in disgust. She looked at the kinder parts of her nature and found she could not in good conscience rip them from themselves, to become part of her. She found many things that were not like her at all and found they were generally uninterested in her. She had something going, something like a bent blade, and a general articulation of how the idea of the thing should work. It was not talking to her. Her eccentricities had harmed, at this point, nothing but her reputation. it was looking like this might be the only thing she could use her sword on. This was until she was sent on a certain task to judge the damnation of an animal who had committed many crimes that twisted the heart of the world it lived in. Her judgment was one of those that would happen in retrospect-- either way, the animal would die. But it would someday be regarded as a revolutionary or a monster. She was to think on its public opinion. The rest is history. So let's not talk about it.] (if:$x is 7)[Once or twice, this person figured they should ask the people they'd made up if they had any strong opinions on what they were going through, instead of doing this weird back-and-forth proxy thing with each other. They did. They had very strong opinions on this person's life, and expressed them differently from how they expressed them to each other when they murmured back and forth. Then the person figured, given they'd been talking this long, they should probably ask them what their names were, what they looked like, how they were doing lately. They introduced themselves as Raguel and Emma, said this wasn't the weirdest gig they had, really, but they had a really good idea for a way weirder one, if anyone wanted to hear about it. Oh, and they were doing good, because they were in love. Yeah I figured, said the person, who was experiencing a lot of this vicariously. Sorry, said Raguel and Emma, you just seemed like the kind of person who would be pretty into all of this.] (if:$x is 8)[Nothing can possibly go wrong now.] (if:$x is 9)[With every life, the angel shortens its leash, until the person can find the angel by the means of what they cannot do, what actions they cannot take. When they have at last traced the perimeter of the seal of the angel Raguel, they make eye contact at last. The person smiles. They know that soon, they will cease to be a person. However, given a stunt like this, Raguel has also ceased to be an angel of anything other than this person. The thing that they are becoming together will someday be useful, far more so than anyone would expect, at the end of the world.] (if:$x is 10)[She entered a loveless marriage, but thought often of the girl, mostly in ways that had very little to do with the girl, and a lot to do with herself. One day, at her job, she was besought by divine inspiration. This happens to most people at one point in their life, but while the divine was searching through her, it spied the girl. The divine knew, being divine, that the girl had died five years later, had been found below the bluff. The divine did not tell her that, because it would likely ruin the fantasy. However, out of pity, the divine told her something that she would usually not tell anyone else: her name, Raguel. Raguel told her that something very, very wonderful was about to happen. For the rest of her life, she thought that the thing that was supposed to happen was the court case she won the next day. Raguel did mean this, but that was a professional matter, and they were both, at this point in their life, dedicated to their job, happy to do it, but hopelessly unfulfilled. Raguel really meant that she had caught a scent again that she had been trying to catch across lives, across centuries, in her mind. Raguel was ready to make contact with an idea that would soon be loosed from a person, and that idea would be named 'Emma', and Raguel was excited to learn if she was a good idea, if Emma would be excited to meet her as Raguel had been to see her weave, slowly, into being, over time and time and time again.] [[I see.|STAGE 3]]

And then, slowly, everything fell apart. In the end, there were no more houses, and no more breath. No more water, and no more libations. No more tigers, and no more iron. Nothing but the endless flat surface and a perfect dispersion of heat. It was time for the end of the end of everything. To live, animals must bring energy into themselves. Despite their protestations, ideas and angels are much the same. If they wish to continue, to see the end, they must eat something. The only thing left with energy is other angels and their meagre ideas in tow-- the solution isn't particularly difficult to work out. But there is an ancient pact between angels, written into the way that they are. This is the taboo against harming another angel. However, in hope of sport, there was no law made that stated that angels could not allow each other to come to harm. So, as long as there has been need, there has been desire. As long as there has been desire, there has been envy. As long as there has been envy, angels have found ways to kill each other. No matter how [[roundabout|Roundabout]]. You are the beast of justice, Emma: a mane of copper hair and two canine ears stick out of an otherwise standard face, with a little frizz at the bottom that sometimes manifests as stubble and sometimes manifests as snakebite piercings. Frequently, you are a large wolf. Sometimes, your bangs cover the top half of your face, and if someone pulled them back, they'd find out there's a reason they shouldn't look there. You are not taking this very seriously. You are the angel of justice, Raguel: with a cropped cut of white hair, wings framing your head like a halo, and a dress whose long arms sometimes fall into blades at the end, so you resemble the Libra, you are often regarded as one of the simpler and more beautiful angels. This was before the sword was implanted squarely in your face, where it has remained. Sometimes you take a more human form, but you can always feel where it is. You take Emma very seriously. Most of the others who are left are cruel, and those who are cruel will take no offense at killing an angel. For Raguel's part, Emma has always been Raguel's weapon, long before she knew that she was. For Emma's part, Raguel's terms are good, and she is hungry.

The angel of luck is like a porcelain cat, a slot haphazardly taped to the side of her head and three eyes whose signs spin and a tongue with a coin on it. She moves with electric jest through space, leaving aftertrails of alternating purple and pink, kaleidoscopic with ecstasy and coherent as a person on acid's recounting of a feature film. When she sees you, teeth flick over tongue, an impossibly wide Cheshire smile grinning in golds and reds. The beast of luck is like a girl in informal attire holding all the cards, fanned close to her chest. She has a collar on her neck and a cap with two dog ears poking out of it, a tail waving lazily behind. The aura of smoke extends past her thick cigar, entrapping you in a house that hasn't tolerated anything less than a pack daily in the past thirty years. She sits down at her circular table, and her companion sits besides, or sits as well as possible, given that her chair and her cast afterimages in all conceivable directions. The beast of luck puts her feet up on the table. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Well, well, well. Fancy the 1/17 chance of seeing you here, nyah? Bingo, Beast of Luck: Spin the wheel a dozen times and everything comes up red. My tail's spinning. How about yours? Jackpot's conspicuous lever pulls itself and the symbols in her eyes whirl through a dozen indiscernible ciphers. When they finally come up, they do so as three red Xs. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Well, that sounds promising, doesn't it? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Please try to take this seriously. I don't want to dishonor you when I kill you, but it's hard to dignify you when everything you do is so... flamboyant. Bingo, Beast of Luck: You hear that? Even the lovebirds are homophobic. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Here to overturn Obergefell, girls? Raguel, Angel of Justice: We're here to kill and eat you. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Woah, woah, woah. That doesn't sound very PG-13. And you haven't even asked us if we want to be killed and eaten! Raguel, Angel of Justice: You're being stupid. Bingo, Beast of Luck: Nonetheless. Our charm is in our flippancy. Yours is in your blatancy. The pair of us have a bit of an impasse to get around to embrace each other. Come to the table? Hold a round? Luck makes all men even. Emma, Beast of Justice: Except for men who know how to play the game. Bingo, Beast of Luck: Now, at the risk of tarnishing my namesake... bingo. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Battle is a game in our favor. Games are a game in yours. How do you propose we split the difference? After all, we all have to enter the same room to engage, and I do think you're all interested in the engagement. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Oh, basically already married. Love wins! Now, as much as I'd love to circumscribe more meaning onto this polyamorous sortie, the problem is, the game actually has been decided for us. It's very simple-- there's a number on a hand under the belly of the world, and it's one you're not allowed to see. Causality will flex into being the moment you turn it on its palm, and then you will or won't have what you will or won't want. Personally, as a mathematical approximation with a mouth to run off, this couldn't be a better deal for me. I figure this: you choose. We roll. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. Emma, Beast of Justice: It's a little boring when you say it that way. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Oh, most games are boring. What's interesting are the stakes. Bingo, Beast of Luck: Hold? (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) (if: 50 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 7: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 7: Fight Failure]]] (if: 50 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 7: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 7: Flee Failure]]] (if: 50 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 7: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 7: Friend Failure]]]

{(if: $angels's length is 0)[(if: $vindicated is True)[(link-goto: "It's time to go.", "Angel 0: Approach")](else:)[(link-goto: "It's almost time to go.", "Angel 16: Approach")]](else:)[(set: $r to $angels's random)(set: $angels to $angels - (a:$r))(link-goto: "You are on your way to kill angels, and the things that remember them.", $r)]}

The beast of the threshhold is like a girl, who is like a wolf. She has soft, platinum-blonde hair cut short so that it hangs around the edges of her neck, puffing out behind her head-- she has three heads. She wears long, bell-bottom jeans, and her six wolf ears have a variety of spacey jewelry a-dangle from them. She has something like a dozen necklaces on, bearing the symbols of likely just as many different religions. She wears a different face of makeup on each slightly-rounded head, given just a playful touch of snout, and three smiles of varying intensity. One head has a set of headphones, though you can hear the vocals of Men I Trust from here. The smile bearing that head up asks, would you like to hear more? The angel of the threshhold is like an old friend, her warm face like afternoon sunlight glowing from between trees, through windowsills. If her feet sink a little too far into the carpet, it would be rude to say it. If her skin is more wood or plaster than skin, well, a lady has to keep up appearances somehow. How many hands and faces she has is completely up to interpretation, and her clothing is a bundle of colors, red and gold, with a gem inlaid on her forehead, a glimmering red. Her chin bobs to Men I Trust as well. Truthfully, these things are not known to you before you enter their house. To enter, you must be welcomed in. Thankfully, she opens the door for you, which is great, because you didn't want to knock. You didn't want to bust the door down (well, Emma did, but she's shameless). You both gulp when she opens the door. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Hello? Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's us. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Oh. So it is. Could you stash that? Raguel pulls her sword out of her head. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Can I at least keep it in sight? Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Sure, I know how you get about it. You can see why it would be a little improper to have it out like-- Kate, can you get a sheath from the back? On it, barks a voice from inside. Emma, Beast of Justice: Shoes off? Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: I forgot how cute Rags's girlfriend is! How's the magic settling? I know you didn't have that long between the turning and-- Emma, Beast of Justice: What? I came in in, like, the middle. At worst. At worst it was the middle. Tridevi whistles. Whatever she's implying falls right past Emma, which makes her nose scrunch. Hekate comes to the door, puts an arm around her wife's shoulder. She peers down at Raguel. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Well met, old friend, old enemy. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What you loved of me is gone. There's very minimal wit to the end of the world. No places to visit, no one to save. It is a dry and unhappy path. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: That's a very unfortunate way to put it. Don't you think. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: There's here, and there's us. Certainly that counts for something. Come inside? There's a slightly nervous energy between Raguel and Emma as they cross the threshhold. Obviously, when they cross it, they're no longer on the threshhold, which allows both of them to slack their shoulders again, although Emma's knuckles still rest against Raguel's thigh, occasionally nervously bouncing between the two of theirs. Inside is an old, old home. The scent of old books predominates over everything besides the aroma of wood-fire from the hearth and the kitchen's oven, not to mention the subtler blend of spices hung over every doorway. All of these are inlaid with large wooden arches with plenty of cutout decals, such that Tridevi and Hekate can put figurines, various gemstones, and other bricabrac in sprawling dioramas. The house has a conspicuous eight-pointed arrangement, like a dogwood flower, with four large rooms and two staircases, one bathroom. The wood beneath their feet is itself a mix of hardwoods in an intricate celtic cross. Emma is reminded, placidly, of some eccentric old family members of hers, and what they were probably trying to pull off, in their heads. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: We're working on dinner right now. You should stay, it's going to be a very hearty khachapuri. She clarifies. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Bread, cheese, egg. Salt to your liking. Emma, Beast of Justice: Raguel... bread, cheese, egg... Raguel, Angel of Justice: No.... angel? The pair of them look to each other. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: We have an extraordinary ability to control the situation within our own space, and around threshholds, though there are no real naturally occuring ones at this point, save for death. Within these walls, we're starving like anyone else, but we're not hungry. The food is as it was. I'm sure you're doing more than passing entropy around out there, too? Raguel, Angel of Justice: When we take to it. Emma, Beast of Justice: Bread, egg, and cheese. Bread. E-e-e-egg. And then you just-- cheeeeeese it up. You gotta bread, egg, cheese that egg 'til it's bread, I puri her khach 'til she cheese on my egg... (She is thankfully singing this mostly under her breath.) Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: We really do hope you'll at least join us that long, if not for a night. The world's cold, and all we can still offer is the little we have left, given freely. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: We have no more tricks to spare. What say you. (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) [[Fight.|Angel 6: Fight Success]] (if: $global + $local + 80 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 6: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 6: Flee Failure]]] [[Friend.|Angel 6: Friend Failure]]

The angel of madness is like a girl clad in black, with earrings like the moon and stars and rings like a hundred knives, shoes tied all the way up to her knees and a skirt whose pleats contain eternity; the beast of madness is like a rabbit wearing a suit, given, by the good feature of his ears, a good foot on her in terms of height. The beast of madness stands behind the angel of madness with her arm held across her body. Upon approach, the air smells like licorice and the ground sinks about feet. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: How remarkably queer. You've lived long past any need to set things to rights. Reuben, Beast of Madness: My lady, I believe that one could imagine any perspective whereupon this encounter, solely, could set things to rights. The beast bows low. You all pretend to be charmed by this gesture, and her face turns towards the beast, as if to offer a kiss. Only her fingers grace the beast's chin. They both find this satisfactory. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: And likewise, any perspective could be considered mad by another. But that would bring us to an impasse, wouldn't it? Whereas I imagine there are greater ends than an impasse you'd prefer to bring upon us. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We'd waste away at an impasse. If one of us passes, they pass for a little longer. I'm sure you can understand. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I understand perfectly. You're driven, and those who are driven, are most often... driven quite mad! Destroying me won't make you well, you know. The longer you live, the longer you'll live with your failure... and I can tell it's tightened that sword in your head and dragged your arms down with lead. She is very sensitive about the way her job has changed her, sharpened her from her old form. There is no valor in the constellations of related ideas no longer bound to subordinates or allies but wrest about her like a crew of drowning sailors holding onto her like floatsam. Everyone walks with their dead. It's unclear if it is justice or simply guilt that she is haunted by them. Emma, Beast of Justice: You'll find she's sharpened her act. Do you want to find just how sharp it can be? Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I find you all quite dull. Why don't you figure out what to do with me? (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) [[Fight.|Angel 5: Fight Success]] (if: $global + $local + 30 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 5: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 5: Flee Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 5: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 5: Friend Failure]]]

Raguel wakes Emma in the middle of the night. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Hey. You know what we have to do. Emma says it so Raguel doesn't have to. She puts a hand over her eyes so she doesn't have to see the resulting grimace, and says it quietly, like the house isn't listening. Emma, Beast of Justice: We have to burn the fucking house down. Raguel nods. She fixes Emma with a very long and intense look, waiting, pointedly, for Emma to drop the shelter of her closed fingers so she can really dig those daggers in there. Emma, for her part, exhales for a very long time out of her nose, giving Raguel a very pained expression. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know I, really do hope everyone else kills us, sometimes. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do you want to die? We can die. Emma, Beast of Justice: Live here until we die? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Sure, if they let us. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm being honest. We'll do what you want to do. Emma, Beast of Justice: I don't want anything. Raguel, Angel of Justice: If that's true, then go back to bed. Emma's jowls twitch. Emma, Beast of Justice: `[angrily]` You made me like this. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I found you like this. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, then you made the world that made me. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do you want to burn this extremely hospitable older lesbian couple alive in their home or not. The two of them stare at each other for a very long time, waiting for the other to back down. Raguel and Emma are rarely two circling wolves, it's a dynamic Emma liked when she was getting up here but finds pointless this close to the end. She doesn't like the way Raguel gets when she's decided to hold Emma to account. Emma likes to be told what to do so she doesn't have to be accountable, after all, there are no bad dogs, only bad owners. Holding her own leash has never ever worked out well for her in her life. But by the moral judgment of a human, the banality of evil, is-- Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah. I'll do it. They slip downstairs like children on Christmas. Their hosts are nowhere to be found, and they are careful to linger nowhere, but especially not doorways. While Raguel picks up her sword, Emma takes a book from one of the shelves, does not read the cover, and holds it over the fire. When it catches, she sets it against the nearest piece of furniture. She proceeds to throw in a dozen more books, scattering the flames about. Raguel removes her sword, and the two of them hear foosteps, to which Raguel responds by shooting straight upwards in a ball of fire, setting more things ablaze, and destroying their lovely dutch gable roof with the clay tiles. From the hole of holy light in the roof, Raguel yells: Raguel, Angel of Justice: You can't exit through a threshhold, Emma. Two seconds later, a giant wolf has busted through the side of the house. It's wood, which was their mistake, or maybe their pleasure. The little details are the easiest way to kill angels. Raguel's got a hole in her head that's slowly decaying, and Emma's got a tail to be yanked around, after all. The pair of them, from separate vantages, see different pairs of agonized eyes, angel to angel, beast to beast. Then they lose contact as the pair turn to each other. Raguel swoops down to Emma, settling back into her own form, keeping a tight upper lip. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma... There are two bodies standing in an inferno of fire. Emma keeps her eyes closed, but her nose is thousands of times more sensitive. She can practically read the ink off the pages as they burn. Her head is practically dipped in prayer. In worship of what she is. What she is and what it is capable of doing. She prays for her heart to harden. She prays to skip to the part where everyone, including them, is dead. There is a quantifiable number of bodies left to burn. Raguel watches them hold each other. She pulls her sword from the scabbard. It's not much of a scabbard, more of a pouch. It's hand-embroidered, probably not made for her bent blade, but fits it nicely. There are little daises on the lining, occasional sequins for the flowers' centers. The material is a fine, rust-colored muslin which seems to take the embroidery well, but there's likely a second layer sewn into the inside. She stares down at it. Up at the bodies. Raguel tosses the pouch into the fire. Come the dousing, they will be licking the ash particles from the ground. Most of the sustenance will be lost to the air, but it will not be a total waste. They do not wish to linger on it, so they don't. They eat like animals, dizzy with shame, and try not to look at each other for too long, until they can pretend to be people for their encounter with their [[next meal.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Keke. Flip them over. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Wait. There is a change in the atmosphere. As if compelled-- or maybe compelled by a subliminal signal by Raguel-- Emma moves as she always moves. Emma is a snake launched out of one of those joke cans, propelled by a spring, and when she moves through Jackpot, what remains is an unidentifiable sludge of exposed drywall and mechanical wiring. Your dog, covered in guts, looks back to you. It doesn't really feel like a victory. More like a concession-- an expected outcome shrugged into actuality. Bingo takes a long drag off her cigarette. You and Emma are temporarily both moved by a feeling that you shamefully admit is lust before surpressing it. The hurt-comfort instinct. The slight shoulders and beer belly and smoke-stained gay aparel of this dog without a table of dogs. She's a natural. Bingo, Beast of Luck: It's always this, you know. Deep down. Emma, Beast of Justice: I know. Bingo, Beast of Luck: There's no valor in it. She always hated the way you pretend that there is. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We're trying our best not to be pretentious about it. Bingo, Beast of Luck: Eh, fair enough. S'ppose we're all trying and failing to avoid pretension. Bingo chainsmokes another cigarette, the red circle around her mouth contracting into a pile of dust. She exhales, softly, and shakes herself off like the real dogs do. Bingo, Beast of Luck: I'm not that interested in going on without an angel. You look spoken for. Emma, Beast of Justice: Who do you want to do you in? Bingo blinks endearingly at Raguel. Bingo, Beast of Luck: Won't someone pull my leash one final time? Immediately some part of your headspace goes NO and then MAYBE and the raw subversive appeal of that drags Raguel's hands forwards. She breaks Bingo's neck evenly and Bingo's skin contracts, revealing a ruby-red bounty of meat. Emma drops to her knees besides you. Emma, Beast of Justice: Both of us have to bite at the exact same time. Otherwise it's weird. Raguel, Beast of Justice. [[Fine.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Reuben, Beast of Madness: My lady-- Dymphna, Angel of Madness: If you say so. Let's twist the dimensions. Raguel wakes up where Emma isn't. Above her, the ceiling is an Escher painting. Swerving her vision down confirms that everything is ceiling, as far as Escher paintings go. She's sitting upside down in a maze of non-Euclidean stairs. She smiles at this-- it's nice that Dymphna, with her gaudy appearance and tacky aphorisms, has so much as the capability to occasionally have a half-novel idea. Though even half-novel might be stretching it. Grimacing, Raguel mentally assigns her quarter-credit. She walks forwards to find her dog. Navigation of the labyrinth doesn't obey the right hand rule, she learns by sword-marks on the walls and a little time. Either that or the entire thing is shifting as soon as she leaves eyesight, something she's glimpsed a few times out of the corner of her eye, just discrete enough to make her second guess. Walking forwards is easier than expected, requiring, primiarily, that she insist the ground below her is *the* ground, whether or not her vision suggests it's the ceiling. She's managed to wander like this for a while, but she hasn't even heard a desolate howl from Emma. Attempting to sense her by chain lets her know Emma is everywhere, nowhere, and practically on top of her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: As far as tricks go, separating me from my beast is a good one. I'm mainly surprised no one else has attempted it. No answer. Raguel feels the sweat on her forehead because one of the drops has gained enough purchase to trickle around the side of her chin and down onto her neck. When she prods it with a finger, it comes away as a long string of honey. Raguel, Angel of Justice: ... Time bores of her. Raguel continues at a faster pace, which only exacerbates the sweat she's breaking. She swears she sees it change color in real time when she stares at her arm long enough to see it, and then her arm begins to bubble like water on a stove. Raguel sees someone peeking out of a corner around the next doorway, and she dead-sprints towards that set of stairs, losing footing midway and going into freefall. Dymphna helpfully appears, falling alongside her, as she goes. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Salutations! Enjoying the maze? Raguel, Angel of Justice: This is the part where you tell me I'm already dead. Dymphna flaps her hand as if receiving a particularly embarassing comment, and playing it up spectacularly. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Certainly that would make things easier for me and Reuben, but quite the opposite! Usually I wait for angels to starve in here, since Reuby and I aren't much for scuffling, but it seems you have a sort of immune system that is taking a real toll on my place. See, Raguel, angels... can't go mad. At the very least, their madness tends to be contained by their existing mental state, which is fixed more or less in place. The trouble is that you seem to be, at least, according to my architecture, well, not really an angel, anymore, love? Raguel rolls her eyes. Doing so, she gets a good view of the stairs falling past them. She seems to have hit a juncture such that they have a few more minutes to fall, because there's no stair in sight to cleave her head in. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Should I be worried about that, doc? Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Well... I mostly came to congratulate you. See, I've known you for most of your existence through the files. They sent me a lot of bloody paperwork about you, y'see? Trying to figure out your motivations. Paint a picture. I've dealt with a lot of renegade angels: fallen, foul, rotten, you name it. No one's ever fallen in love, though. Not really. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No one was trying very hard, then. It wasn't that difficult. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Well. I'd say the real special thing is-- well. You kknow how I said I wasn't here to tell you you're already dead? Raguel nods. The wind's gotten some of her hair into her mouth. Dymphna blinks, and her pupils turn a glossy, irisless white. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I just wanted to say, because angels don't have a chance to experience it-- like love, it's something we're rarely compelled to feel this intensely-- Dymphna leans in, coquettishly ready to prepare a secret, as knives lose their purchase on her outfit and the strings unravel. Beneath it, her skin is coming off in butterfly scales. Raguel feels Dymphna's lips against her ears as peals of holy fire. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I hope you can give the angel of death what you gave me: real, genuine fear. Raguel lands, unceremoniously, on the ground. Emma's standing not far away, in a familiar, relaxed form, and when she turns around, her face is so coated in blood that it makes it hard to work out her features. She gives Raguel a little smile, but her teeth are no better. Raguel, Angel of Justice: How... did you kill them? Emma, Beast of Justice: With impunity! [[Let's eat!|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Aaaand you lose! At your side, Emma explodes into a violent spray of pink and blue coins. You don't have time to process how fucked up this is, how much you will miss your girlfriend, how stupid this entire ordeal is. You have enough time to react to Jackpot and only Jackpot, raw stimulus made manifest as a button to press or not press-- reduced to binarism, you offer weak retort. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I knew I shouldn't have trusted you. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Trusted chance? You trusted chance?! I kept my word. Why don't you roll again? Raguel's hand fidgets on the handle. In a moment of frustration, her slight brows knit. She opens her hands. Raguel, Angel of Justice: There are some things you don't gamble over. You draw the blade from your head. You wrench it into your chest. You fall next to Emma, or where her corpse would have been. You imagine she is there, smelling of dog, soft and warm in the way only Emma and your childhood stuffed animal ever have been. In the delirious haze of your own judgment, you are still sitting in that house, which always felt empty. You feel Jackpot looming at the edge of your being and ignore her. This is no more momentous nor any less momentous than any other death for its banality. You just failed again, which could happen to anyone. [[Goodbye.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The beast of trial is like a skull cast around an effigy, and the effigy is covered in ribbon of red and gold-fletched arrows piercing its body and it has a horn of brass at its side. The angel of trial is like a fox with eight deft legs, and a heavily set body, she is bound in ribbons of orange and her chest is hefty. A forest that is no longer curls around them, complete with canned birdsong, and something twitches in every muscle you have, an old instinct to kill. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Should have saved us for last. Laelops, Beast of Trial: We've been pursuing you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I hadn't noticed. You must not have been particularly close. Emma, Beast of Justice: (Nice.) Teumes, Angel of Trial: A good hunter never lets the prey know they are hunted, until it is time they can no longer escape. A good climax is short, sweet, and bloody. Her beast smells her arm. Laelops, Beast of Trial: I couldn't agree more. Emma, Beast of Justice: (I bet they give each other insane head.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Emma, you're being disrespectful.) Emma, Beast of Justice: (We have these guys super fucking covered. Who needs justice more than those who die by trial?) Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Don't underestimate our adversaries.) Teumes's legs stamp at the ground, clawing meaning out of the dirt. Teumes: I cannot stand still any longer. Not for your whispering, and not for your foolishness. Make a decision or die. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 60 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 4: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 4: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 4: Flee Failure]] (if: $global + $local + 40 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 4: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 4: Friend Failure]]]

Raguel, Angel of Justice: No retreat, got it? When the horn bays, there is no reason for her to give you instructions. The fox flees in a flurry of sunlight and limbs, and instinct grips your mind, sure as any battle strategy-- you will not cease until she is dead. You chase her through the thickets, snapping close as her tail, and through dens where you beg to corner her but find only breathy, frigid exits. She swings you into a thorn thicket, thinking it will deter you, but your skin has long hardened. You burst through, gaining, and you smell her panic in the air. The vixen is a fox, and you are a hound. Even if she travels with a hound herself, this all seems like a hilarious oversight. As if sensing your lack of awe, the landscape shifts as you head for the mountains, and she clears wider and wider gaps, a comet streaking through the peaks, and deep into caves, where she wedges through impossibly small fault lines. You take some time with the lines, but you follow her way, though you feel your lungs collapsing, feel death hanging over you. When you come out a particularly grueling cave, with a drop directly onto stalactites, you see her grin from half a mile above. You're known for your appetite, not your speed, and not your tracking ability. You snarl. Raguel's likely waiting, and if she needs help with the skulldog, she hasn't said it. You can't retreat to help her, of course. So she has you in a bind. There's that strategy you swore you weren't missing. So Raguel's bridle is good for more than filling your mouth after all, fool. You look after the fox and remember that sometimes Raguel is wrong about things. Tenatively, on the plateau, you stretch one paw back. Teumes descends upon you like a hawk, grinning, and you grab her in your mouth and shake her the way dogs have been bred to shake their quarry. With the light leaving her eyes, you offer, Emma, Beast of Justice: A reposition isn't a retreat. That was completely symbolically sound. She looks not unpleased to be defeated, and the scenery melts around the pair of you, revealing Raguel standing above a pile of dust. She hasn't drawn her sword-- you scowl with the realization this might have been a relatively easy fight for her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What did you do? You stand over the body, brushing fur and dust off as you ascend to a respectable half a foot shorter than her. You flex your hands behind your head. Emma, Beast of Justice: What does it look like? Killed her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Ohhhhhhh. Emma, Beast of Justice: Didn't realize you had that little faith in me. Now I'm just insulted. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No, I-- didn't really kill Laelops. She insisted we bet it on the winner of the hunt, and when you appeared, she was already crumpling to dust. You know, the thing about a hound that can't lose a quarry, and a fox that can't be caught... I think they were just a little more codependent than us, existentially. Emma, Beast of Justice: Eh, maybe they grew into it. I hope that bonemeal tastes more like meal than bone. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Quite. She give you a chase? Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh, sure. But I gave her one hell of an exit. Emma pauses, feels something punch her in the gut. Emma, Beast of Justice: Raguel, I think I hate [[caving.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Raguel, Angel of Justice: Don't let them get into pursuit. Teumes smiles, and as Laelops sounds the horn, Emma prepares for the chase. What she receives instead is well over three hundred pounds of crushing foxtaur with long, mauling claws prepared to plunge directly into her eyes from above. Emma is, for her part, able to lift a hand to stop the blow, turning it halfway to stone using a trick off a statue of a namesake of hers she'd seen recently. The result holds, but it's not pretty, deep lines scoured in the rock that keep when she returns it to flesh. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know, for some reason I thought you were going to run, and I was going to have to catch you. Teumes, Angel of Trial: I'm sure you had plans for exactly how that was going to end, didn't you? I'm sorry if I let you down, but if I played the same trick on every hunter, I would be dead much faster. Emma, Beast of Justice: I think if I modify the script a little bit, I can still show you some of what I had in mind. Emma lunges for the throat. Teumes's ribbons grab and throw her into the middle distance, slamming her against a tree, which falls, comically, onto another, setting the sihlouettes of birds into flight. Emma spits out a tooth, black blood spraying from her dark mouth and white grimace. Teumes advances, standing on her back legs and dangling Emma in the air. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Oh, Emma. You're such a nasty animal. I respect it, you know. But you're even simpler than you think I am. Teumes's mouth surrounds Emma's shoulder, like a kiss. As her muzzle lengthens, she rips off Emma's arm, and Emma howls in pain. Teumes drops her like a discarded toy, and Emma falls to earth. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Laelops. I want you to kill her. Raguel hisses, Raguel, Angel of Justice: Eyes on me. Teumes places a paw between her beast and the angel, and two of Laelops's skull-teeth knit together to form a bow. It reaches into its effigy-chest, and draws forth a rib, which it nocks as an arrow. Raguel swings around the paw, blade drawn, and Laelops nimbly steps to the side. Emma struggles to find footing down a leg, and Laelops jumps over Teumes's back, drawing her arrow. Emma snarls, to which the pull of a bowstring answers. Raguel, desperate, takes the hit. The bone arrow cleaves through her like dog's teeth through the skin of a rabbit. She chokes up blood, agonized, and Emma grabs her with her remaining arm, attempting in vain to staunch the bleeding. Emma, Beast of Justice: Idiot. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Em... we're both stupid... Teumes, Angel of Trial: We will carry on your legacy for you. Of perfect weapons, killing ceaslessly until the very end of the world. Raguel, Angel of Justice: That's not... what I wanted it... to be. She collapses. Emma kneels over her, protectively, her arm bleeding freely onto Raguel's pale body. Spots swim rapidly in front of her eyes. Laelops, Beast of Trial: Understandable. But no one chooses alone. They turn their hand, and the rib blade shoots outwards in both directions, coring Raguel like an apple and impaling Emma. Emma gulps back blood, but she knows, as an animal does, when she's been beat. She whispers something to Raguel, to make it go faster, though she can't even tell what words she's saying. In her heart, though, she is aware that her angel probably isn't hearing it, that [[she is likely already gone.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The angel of royalty is like a blue woman with willow hair, and a long and curling horn atop her head, and the scepter clasped gold in her hand, a red and white rose in the other, and she wears a long and billowing dress whose ruffles the beast of royalty has a cascade of oaken hair that falls in ringlets, and has a splotched ruff and violet cape to match splotched freckles, and the beast of royalty carries the orb and her eyes are closed. Lion, Beast of Royalty: You outstrip your rank by approach. You are commanded by my good lord, my sister, to leave. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: You have come so far, but no further. As my knight says, Raguel Angel of Justice: Sic semper tyrannis. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: Deus vult. There is the scent of wormwood in the air as the two angels face each other, palaces glimmering off their bodies. A knight rides toward the castle, does he draw his sword to depose a tyrant or does he hold it in service to the lord? God only knows. Nonetheless your presence is demanded. Do you hail the king? (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 70 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 3: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 3: Fight Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 40 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 3: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 3: Flee Failure]]] [[Friend.|Angel 3: Friend Failure]]

The angel of royalty draws no sword, but her dress and hair billow. Her horn is as sharp as Raguel's sword. She dips it. Raguel takes a fencing step forwards. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: Move no closer. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I am from another land, and do not know your borders. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: Retract your blade. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's only the blade that hangs above the head of all rulers. If it falls, it's on you. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: Remember your mortality. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No more relevant than yours, and perhaps a great deal less. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: You will never recover from this. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Is it really possible that no one found their way through you? You barely even have words. Your towers are already crumbling. There's nothing less to rule over. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: You will never be forgiven, Raguel. There is no tyrant you can topple who will draw you to the holiness you seek. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's funny that you think I'm ideologically driven as you are. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: You are an angel. Raguel, Angel of Justice: That's not all I am. Raguel's sword swings true across the Unicorn's body, through her neck. Her head cracks. She falls to the ground, pale and breathless. No blood comes from her body, but as she dies, her face crinkles in offense. Without movement, nor voice, her corpse begins to cry, porcelain tears leaking out of her face. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Let them eat. Emma, Beast of Justice: With pleasure. Emma rounds on her counterpart. Lion, Beast of Royalty: My lady! Emma, Beast of Justice: You are to be drawn and courtered with your court. Lion, Beast of Royalty: Aren't you a funny thing. Emma, Beast of Justice: When you swat a house, you shoot the dogs. Lion, Beast of Royalty: You don't think some foreign lord will come for me? Emma, Beast of Justice: There is no one left to come for you, anymore. When there is no structure left to climb, when there is no peasant to put wheat on the back of, when there is no one left who can own a fancy, decorative dog, the coyotes will still be hunting in the offals of your ruined cities. When empires fall, and all their little trinkets are left to fester-- the things pushed to the side will still be on the sides. And they will still be hungry. Lion, Beast of Royalty: A dog is nothing if not decorative! Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, well. Then your mistake was thinking that all of the beasts are dogs. Emma falls upon Lion like night falls upon the kingdom's walls. Emma opens Lion like an raccoon opens a trashcan. Emma tears open Lion like fingers tear open a package of chips. Emma has a good fucking time desecrating the palace. This is a thing Emma has always enjoyed doing, but it helps when the palace like implicitly begs for it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Mangy thing. Emma, Beast of Justice: I have always been against angels. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm on whatever side that calls me, unfortunately. Ideas don't have the luxury of picking and choosing, and they used my name a lot. Miserably. Nothing in this world was good before you were here, Emma. Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For once in your life, the right thing to do is to kill and eat these losers. Now, are you going to help, or not? Emma sits down to eat. It's sweet, if dry, chalky, overdone, underdone, and without flavor. Emma stuffs a little into Raguel's face, her hands full of chunks of bloodless body. She nudges her head against Raguel's chin. Emma, Beast of Justice: Sorry you used to have bad friends. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm just glad you've only ever known this version of me. Emma, Beast of Justice: Hahaha. Yeah. We met each other at the right time. Any earlier and I probably would have ripped your throat out, huh? Raguel takes another bite of cake. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I would have liked that. Emma gives her a long stare. She throws a bit of cake at Raguel, and the angel closes dozens of eyes, blinking disparagingly. Pitifully, she presses some cake against Emma's cheek. Emma presses some back, mockingly, with a long swoon. This prompts a proper hit, and the pair of them sling cake like snow, back and forth, until they're covered in cream-white gore and pretty icing. [[They feel a shocking dirth of guilt about this.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Raguel's sword rises from her head and a hundred thorned shackles seize around it at once. The angel of royalty's prim and leering eyes stare lightning bolts through your seized companion. Emma, Beast of Justice: You can't lay a fucking hand on her, you twat. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: I didn't. She acted against the law, and the law caught her. Shouldn't have agreed to take that bar exam, my rude gust of wind. Emma, who has never been bound by the law, nor the kingdom, is able to surge forth in a fury of teeth and burned buildings. She makes it to the steps of the palace, bleeding, a hundred spears through her back and an entire civilian population screeching for her head. She looks towards them with a sort of perverted joy, as expected of a villain of any repute, and throws back her head to laugh. Fuck this, she's in her element, where she's wanted to be all along, a wanton force of hell only good for one thing. Lion, Beast of Royalty: There is a prophecy. Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh shut the fuck up. Lion, Beast of Royalty: The house always wins. The cavalier descends on a horse of light from within the house. The cavalier bares her teeth and strikes true at Emma's heart. The monster dies because it is a monster, and a monster is what a society tells itself to formulate an other worth fearing, and the greatest rulers know how to make a monster and how to destroy one. The monster barely factors into it, save for as another pawn to be moved around the board. Emma dies on a holy blade, her eyes paling out. Lion, Beast of Royalty: This didn't happen. We just said it did. And everyone believed us. She tips the sword to Emma's neck. From beyond the grave, Emma snaps out of the monster's jaws, Emma, Beast of Justice: You're still using the same stupid tricks thousands of years after everyone's seen through them. You're still putting on the same clothes after everyone's told you you're in the nude in public. You think you can kill me, and maybe you can. You think you can stop her, and maybe you're right. But you will die, like we have died, alone. Your monuments will fall. You will have deprived yourself of all the things that make life good, and worthwhile. Lion, Beast of Royalty: Die? Civilians die. Rulers are returned to the historical record. We will outlive every fucking degenerate like you alive, Emma. Because time tells the score, and it is already forgetting you. Emma thinks, through a mind that is speared through. She sneers. Then she spits pink, bloody phlegm on the side of Lion's face. Emma, Beast of Justice: Kill yourself. Then she dies. Lion staggers back to her master, in time to see the palace caving in. Inevitable, she supposes. A plan of Raguel's, perhaps? Happy circumstance? The result of the pair of them, having lost all possible subjects, having lost their grip as well? With both angels soon to die, Lion looks up with nothing short of despair in her eyes and a quiver in her Hapsburg lip. Then she takes one last piece of advice from Emma, and [[before she has to watch the last empire in the world collapse, she kills herself.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The faithful dog bays in fear and anger, and you rip out LLewyn's throat in front of his charge. Gelert's mouth opens in a mask of perfect agony, a child's cry ripping out of it with the force to startle the dead birds back into flight from the trees which are no longer. The heavy body of his keeper thudding to the ground, you surge forwards and find somewhere to-- -- pretend you don't hear it, the -- -- ugly ugly ugly thing you make of a -- -- mistletoe and yule berry flesh and you-- -- that's a child, that's a child, that's a child. You waste nothing. You feel the weight of it dripping down your chin, extended out into a snout. Far enough sunken back that words are strangled between teeth. You do not recognize how small the fingers are, how the plates are still settling in the head. You do not think about the soft hair and skin, moving your mouth around them. There is a pool of blood on the blankness, a spot that will not heal. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Let's go, Emma. Emma, Beast of Justice: Eat it. Her eyes are red holes. Her mouth is a Rorscach test. You lean down. You close your eyes. [[The meat is sour.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

The angel of innocence is like a child with a crown placed upon golden hair and with eyes the size of saucers, and the beast of innocence is cloaked all in fur, from moustache to brow to neck, with a plaid cloak slung about it. The angel of innocence stands at the side of the beast of innocence and pulls, gently, when it does not stand behind the beast's leg, as to hide itself from people. Upon approach, the air is filled with the scent of mistletoe, and eyes begin to water. LLewyn, beast of innocence: Lo. What brings you to account, Emma. Emma, Beast of Justice: We are the last of the last, and the end of the end. There is nothing for us but to meet here. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Surely, child, and beast, you can not expect innocence to survive the end of the world. Gelert, angel of innocence: Yet we must continue, as all open-eyed things do, dewy and fresh. For if there is no beginning, there can be no end. Raguel, Angel of Justice: The last beginning is over. The last innocence snuffed. There is nothing to birth or be reborn from. You must see the futility of this endeavor? LLewyn, beast of innocence: There is this. So it can not be so. Gelert, angel of innocence: I can see no futility, as I can see you here clearly, and as I am here, unknowing despite it all. The last child set up against the gulf. Are you to claim that it is not my place to have a future? Would you kill the last child? Raguel, Angel of Justice: We are here, are we not. LLewyn, beast of innocence: Does it not go against your nature to order the death of one who has done no wrong? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I order nothing. I simply unhook my dog from its wall. What it does with its teeth is no business of mine. Gelert, angel of innocence: You reckon with your own nature to kill me. Llewyn, beast of innocence: And you will not reckon with yourself to save your own soul. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, is that true, Raguel? What do we do? (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 2: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 2: Fight Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 80 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 2: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 2: Flee Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 70 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 2: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 2: Friend Failure]]]

Emma, Beast of Justice: I can't do this. The moment of indecision is all LLewyn needs to come down on your beast with the force of a waterfall. The back of her body erupts in a spray of blood as her neck is torn clean open, blood spraying against mangy gray-green fur. LLewyn's ember eyes fix on yours and a growl deep in her throat rumbles through your bones. Teeth extend from Emma's wound and pierce her skin, tripping her, but you can see the light fading from your beautiful girl's eyes. She closes her mouth. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma-- You draw your sword and feel her hand, pushing it down. She looks up at you, direness in her expression. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags. There are some lines I don't want to cross. Let me not cross them. Your breath catches. You fall to your knees, and the beast stands over you, tall as trees on a summer night, swaying angrily with wind. You are no match for a wolf all by yourself, even armed with a blade, and you taste sweet. You can already imagine the stew you'll make, the pair of them warm with LLewyn, the protector, curled around the final child in the world. You clutch Emma tight and pretend [[you aren't scared for the animal to maul you to death.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The angel of progress is like a sun with leering eyes and a body of fire; and the beast of progress is like a rusted satellite with a head containing the quivering sihlouette of a dog, who is reigned in tubes through which liquid seeps, and its body is impaled by the instruments that move it. Gallileo, Angel of Progress: How's the old rag coming along? Laika, Beast of Progress: (Sir, we should run.) Gallileo, Angel of Progress: Nonsense! A good idea is justice being done onto the world, the mastery of science has put so many things to right that we're basically family. And if God fights on the side of anyone, she fights on the side of the long arc of progress. Raguel, Angel of Justice: And what a long arc it has been. Gallileo, Angel of Progress: Give me eternity and even the most imperceptible of arcs curve. And I suppose we've curved back around to your endpoint... drifting endlessly in the dark, looking for some brittle semblance of purpose. Gallileo, Angel of Progress: Why, I wish I could form some cogent observation on why you've stuck around so long. I'm afraid that I haven't the slightest idea what so compels an outcome of man's iniquity to sit around long after there's nothing to fix. You should have blown away in the wind of that last nuclear summer, when nothing grew beneath the returned and mournful son. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You shouldn't bring up nuclear summers. Gallileo, Angel of Progress: Other worlds lived long, fruitful lives, in greater splendor and length then it is possible to imagine. I am no fan of hiding the darker aspects of myself. I stand before you at the end of all ends, as predicted by many in pursuit of my soul, and say I have done good and bad in measures no one has measured. I am now here to observe, and, well, to progress. Laika, Beast of Progress: (Bravo, sir... but, um, we should really be going?) Emma, Beast of Justice: We're going to kill and eat you. Gallileo, Angel of Progress: An old technology, but an effective one. Let's see if it holds its mettle. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags let's fucking kill this guy and their dog. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I am so sorry. Laika, Beast of Progress: (Me too, ma'am.) (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 50 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 1: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 1: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 1: Flee Failure]] [[Friend.|Angel 1: Friend Failure]]

Raguel, Angel of Justice: There really isn't a choice. Galileo laughs, a sound that is more confidence than mirth. They are like the sun, and wordlessly do the violence which the sun is well known for. Through the unending glare of fire, they promise the ending of all things. At this point, desecration is all progress has left to bring. Justice is no better. Though the light that shines from Raguel can lance the guilty, they are incapable of undoing the crime. Once, they offered two separate promises: "Things can get better." "Things will not be this bad again." Now that things must, and can only get worse, they offer one promise: "Everyone who let it get like this will be sorry." It sounds a lot worse when you put it that way. Galileo, Angel of Progress: You have no purview over light. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It is not purview. It's aesthetic. You're not fire, you're only associated with it. Galileo, Angel of Progress: I was happy. I got to give light for thousands of years. Every year, for a good time there, were new scales scattered from my wings onto the populace, grabbing them like children grabbing snowflakes. I understand you had to seek outside sources to feel loved instead of feared, Raguel, but some of us loved our jobs. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You loved the world that followed you into eating itself? You loved the fire when you knew what it was burning through? Gallileo, Angel of Progress: There have been some bad apples. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You chose to manifest as that bad apple. You chose the most pathetic victim you could find to shackle to your side. You didn't have to. You just like to play the villain. Galileo, Angel of Progress: How else was I going to get you at your best? You always did like to have a villain to fight. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Why do you care about me being at my best? Galileo, Angel of Progress: I was hoping it would be... Laika, Beast of Progress: A little more climactic, sir? Galileo, Angel of Progress: Yes, but it really is that simple. You're two people who care about each other. Fire curls around Emma, separating her from Raguel, putting the two angels within a ring of flame. Galileo, Angel of Progress: You don't want to test what you could do with her? With a body like yours, as a thing like what you are? You're not even trying. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Because I'm not like you. I'm not having fun. (She's lying.) Galileo, Angel of Progress: You were like me. You did what you were supposed to do, for thousands of years, with a mad scientist's unalloyed enthusiasm. The problem isn't even that you killed god knows how many people. It's that you think you're forgiven because you disappeared and then showed back up with a dog, not long up before-- shocker, shocker-- it turned out everyone needed a dog. Everyone-- everyone-- thought that you had cracked the code. That you KNEW, and had some master plan. Maybe the world revolves around you. Maybe you just got lucky. But you don't have a master plan, do you? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I wanted to quit my stupid, fucking job, and live a decent life with her. Galileo, Angel of Progress: See? See what I mean? See? Raguel feels the catheter stab her through the back. This is not how you use a catheter, she thinks, as it stabs her several dozen more times. What comes out of her back is a mix of several vital fluids that aren't supposed to flow together, repulsive to smell and trickling thick. She opens her mouth to give response, and sees the fire closing in overhead. Galileo, Angel of Progress: I have to. It's in my nature. The dog in Laika's helmet sheepishly regards Raguel as she turns around to face it, looking not betrayed, but miserable. Raguel, Angel of Justice: There's... not a plot... to all of this. Galileo, Angel of Progress: Then this is just a stupid tantrum. But it still killed you, didn't it? Raguel doesn't respond. Laika retracts her catheters. Emma's still in the midst of the fire, hopelessly lost. Galileo regards her with pity, from a thousand eyes etched into the ever-changing flames. Galileo, Angel of Progress: She's not that impressive. We really did her a favor. Someone else would have killed her if we hadn't. Galileo, Angel of Progress: Most evolution happens by accident. You have enough marbles to throw down the pachinko board, eventually someone lands the big grand prize. It's not a work of skill, it's a work of luck, time, and giving yourself as many chances as possible. Galileo, Angel of Progress: She was never... my better. She was just a stiff, cruel bitch who happened to be fond of an average dog. Laika, Beast of Progress: Of course, sir. But given that her angel is gone, we don't have to kill that dog? Galileo, Angel of Progress: If I wanted you to talk, I would tell you to talk. Stand down. Laika, Beast of Progress: Sir? Emma, surrounded by flames, moves in smaller and smaller circles. Laika remembers this heat. Emma remembers this heat. Laika remembers the sting of saliva from the kiss on her forehead as she panted to death in that dinky satellite. Emma remembers the sting of saliva from her mother's kiss on her forehead the night before she and her family had a difference of opinion. Laika remembers wondering where her family was. Emma remembers thinking where her family was. Laika was nothing special. Emma was nothing special. Oh, but that kiss, that kiss meant that the animal was loved! The animal was the most precious thing in the world, and killing that precious thing, that was-- it was hard. It was something to regret. If they could do it all again, maybe maybe maybe-- Laika, Beast of Progress: Sir, she's like me-- it's not her fault! Emma's eyes pierce the flames, or perhaps peek out from around the momentary whims of the fire's tongue. Emma: Man, it's gotta be my fault. Don't take that from me. She burns like a normal girl/dog. Galileo, who expected this, is [[extremely disappointed.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

You are sitting in your bed. It smells slightly damp. There's still a ringing in your ears. You have been in your bed for a long time. You are not sure that there is anywhere outside of your room, anymore. Sometimes at night you feel like you might be stuck in a simulation, somewhere no one else has ever been. Sometimes you remember company as flares of light and noise painted on the nearest solid surface. Sometimes you remember ugly snarls of sound and your shoulders rose, waiting for the inevitable descent of some revelation, like a laceration. You are alive. The clothes on your body have stuck to it with sweat. You lose the house. You live on the streets. You struggle back home. The demons get quieter but never go away. You breathe in. You breathe out. You are alive. You have a child. You lose a child. You fracture. You reconvene. You meet up with old friends. You find out how many of them are gone. You make more. You eat better than you used to with what teeth you have left. You make it out of your bed in the morning. You stay in your bed and find things to do from there. You are alive, alive, alive, alive, alive, alive, alive. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Never tell me to run again. Emma, Beast of Justice: Why? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I-- Emma, Beast of Justice: ... Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Next time? We'll buy you a round. Emma, Beast of Justice: [[Fuck off.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Emma: Do you still feel like a girl, now that all the men are dead? Raguel: What a question for the feminist utopian. Are you going to tell me you can only call yourself a girl if there are men around? Seems a little misogynist. Emma: Is there anything more misogynist than a woman? Raguel: Yes, the absence of one. I say we don't define ourselves in opposition, darling. Emma: Let's say I wanted to. Raguel: You couldn't have come up with a more inventive gender identity. Emma: I'm in opposition to both binary genders. I'm only stating that the female traits center on female anatomy, even if they don't require it. Why have any allegiance to bodies when ours are made of thought? Raguel: You think it's like fancying ourselves class analysts after the social body collapses in every meaningful way. Emma: No. There's still class analysis. Raguel: You think we'll encounter them? The angel of class analysis? Emma: Can't it be called something else? Raguel: The angel of... justice. Emma: You are no Marxist. Raguel: The arc of the universe bending towards justice helpfully does not define whose justice we are bending towards. With some cultural relativism, you get a stew of plausible deniability. Emma: Bazinga! There's our woman. Raguel: Cultural relativism? Emma: That's fairly obvious. But I was going to go with plausible deniability. We're almost there, aren't we? To another cluster of traits which together define something easily recognized in the abstract? Raguel: ... I feel like it doesn't quite work as well, for gender. Emma: Because it's primarily an affirimative quality. Do you think you're a woman? Raguel: I have always been depicted as a woman. Emma: That especially doesn't make you a woman. Do you know how many boats are trans men? Raguel: Are you thinking of leaving me for public transportation again. Emma: This isn't public. And no. Because I will never, thematically rise above the level of a steed or harbinger. Public transportation-- the sweet sourceblood of the country-- they'll never deign to fall in love with me. Raguel: Are you a woman? Emma: I'm a dog. Raguel: That means you could be both. Bitch or cur? Emma: Cur. Raguel: She/her? Emma: This time around. Because I don't want you to be lonely. Raguel: I do sometimes feel more female in the abstract. It doesn't seem so confining. Emma: I have cut off and regrown my tits hundreds of times recently. It has not stopped my propped-open jaw from being representative of the devouring mother. Raguel: We will never be mother, maiden, crone. Does excerpting ourselves from female societal roles and cycles make us un-female, in some way? Emma: Fellas, is it androgynous to be a hypothetical? Raguel: Do you think those people tied to the trolley tracks have vaginas. Emma: I think they're effeminized by the symbol of masculine power and fertility running over them. Much like the phallus runs over the vagina. Raguel: I think we might both hate gender, Emma. Emma: Damn. Raguel: I want to be a woman for now. It's tenative. I'm not very attached to it. I think the role I perform... how I want to be seen... the ways I want to move through the world... they don't lend well to anything. But I keep clinging, nonetheless, to the signifier. I don't know what it means to me. I would like to have it anyways. Emma: I like that I'm technically both transfeminine and transmasculine. You know, by virtue of everywhere, all at once, all of the time. Raguel: Specifically 'trans' to both. Emma: In the process of becoming. Raguel: The world's ending. Emma: Still becoming. By having been anything else. Raguel: ... Emma: Come on. Raguel: 'Trans' isn't a gender. You need to affix it to something. Emma: I think we might both hate gender, Raguel. Can we enact justice on it, too? Raguel: Emma... you're being ridiculous. Emma: I'm a dog. And I'm what I wasn't. And I'm a lesbian with you. And I'm a thing in the weave of God. Raguel: Yes. Emma: Yes. That's it. Raguel: You look fantastic tonight. Emma: Thank you. [[I try.|Roundabout]]

Emma: What if we lose? Raguel: It will be painful, and then it won't be. Emma: It doesn't sound all that bad. I take it you're not afraid of dying? Raguel: No. Emma: Rags... then why are we still doing this? Raguel: I want you to be the last thing in the world. The last thing that exhales. Emma: I think you would have been a horrible thing, back when things were horrible. Those sort of logics never go well. Raguel: I have been horrible and banal, final and trivial. My logics are dire in execution, flexible in practice. I must admit that this defers completely from anything I name myself, am, or pretend to be-- it is my first and last act as a true individual, rather than a thread pulled from everything. As a woman, and not an angel, I have to admit: I will do anything possible not to let you die. Emma: ... Raguel: That was too forward. Emma: I like when you're forward. Raguel: All the more reason for us to keep fighting. Emma: For someone who barely wants to fight? Raguel: Yes. Emma: ... Raguel: I'm sorry. Emma: No, let's... [[let's keep on.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Who did you love before me? Raguel: I couldn't love before I met you. Any more than a math problem can be said to love its answer. Emma: A math problem does love its answer. Raguel: I believe, once evaluated, you are the answer. Emma: You can not possibly not have thought of the fact that a math problem can have multiple answers. Raguel: Multiple answers, sure. A field of them, even. Those fields are their own answer. My behavior is fixed, I will hold you to no such principles. Just know I bend causality to hold you. My behavior, my system itself, is the universe moving to learn how to love you. Emma: You take away my free will, just by having none. Raguel: Perhaps you still have some. Don't rule yourself out. Emma: ... Raguel: Is there a problem? Emma: It's just sad... knowing it's all up to me. I feel like I'm alone, sometimes. Raguel: Is that why you keep pretending that I'm a person. Emma: You were a person. I saw you, that night in the diner. I saw you, in Raguel: It was the light from the neon signs. It was the light from over the hill breaking a new day in. It was the light from the battered bulb the moths all swarmed around. Emma: No, it wasn't. Raguel: If I was there, it was because everything has always been there. Every idea, every story. I don't experience it in order-- as I said. The universe is moving to learn how to love you. The shape of that motion is written into every pattern of turbulence in every world, some minute part of every action that has ever been taken. You were there, always, becoming what you would always be. So I was there, with you, learning how to become something so that I could be close to you. Emma: I wish you had other girlfriends, Raguel: There are a lot of other concepts which have all been, Emma: Magic. Raguel: Not often, but we keep in touch. Kindness. Mercy. Law. Imprisonment. Honor. Depravity. Fear. Order. Many others. I am glad... admittedly... to see every angel that once held the world together, gone, and its remnants, less a congregation of the universe's best ideas and more a medley of some themes it was begrudgingly fond of. Emma: By no means are we even qualified to make final hundred, let alone an actual bracket. Fucked up. Raguel: I believe that it is the pair of us who have made it this far. I believe that the universe is compelled by us. If the exhaustion of all entropy is the heat death, then our selves, what we are, provides a font of entropy strong enough to weather endings. There is so much narrative irresolution in us. An ambiguity, a bittersweetness, in any proposal, which lets a little linger. Emma: The tension... or just the concept? Raguel: Everything. Emma: Then it's also on, if we think they deserve justice, isn't it? As long as there's someone left to be judged... someone must judge them. Raguel: That's not entirely besides the point, I will concede. Emma: Surely there were other avatars through which you could have made your will known. Raguel: There most certainly were. However, the configuration of everything-- Emma: You're in love with me. Raguel: Justice is just a word. We could have been anything, everywhere, we could be something new again, in what is after nothing at all. Outside of the boundaries of one telling. Outside of the possibilities dreamed by one universe. If there is a way for a story to be told, I want us to be written into the heart of it. I want to be as simple as gravity and I hope you want it too, because I do not think I can stop being what I am. Emma: Well, that's, I mean, it's sort of like a marriage with no divorce, right? Raguel: Metaphysical engagement is sort of like a marriage with no divorce. Emma: This sounds wildly unhealthy for anyone who wants to engage in a normal Emma: I'm not a person... I'm a take on a specific mythos... I am supposed to be eternally bound, until I end the world. I... have been becoming an idea all my life. Moving up, step by step, until I remember things I shouldn't. Until I am things I'm not. Every time I step closer to you, I feel less like anything, and more like everything. What you want from me... is to narrow possibility itself around us. Raguel: To hold you forever. Emma: I've already committed to that. Raguel: Yes? Emma: You already know that. Raguel: I'm sorry. It doesn't feel right not to ask. Emma: It's difficult... what we are is outside of asking. It feels like setting a poor example, to be romancing primarily on the scale of narrative logics. No one does it. There were many millions of versions of us who did and didn't work out and for whom our connectedness was only a miniscule fraction of their personality. Raguel: But we were there. We were always there, and will always be there, and will inevitably resolve. Emma: We were always there. Raguel: The multiverse as a book of fond memories. Emma: Godhead cast as a honeymoon. Raguel: I don't think anyone else is so happy about it. Emma: I think they are, but I think most of them, to be quite honest, don't overthink it. Raguel: And I do keep you at bay. Enough for the sweetness of contact, the nectar of sex with one who is not oneself. Enough that we're usually different from each other. Some things like us are one thing, or close enough to one thing that they don't always have separate names. One arm can hurt angels, and the other can not. Emma: Here's one cell in my body that can kill an angel. The rest is an angel. Raguel: Everything is everything. We have to come up with some rules, or we can't tell a very good story. Emma: I wanted to hear a very good story about you having sex with someone who isn't me. Raguel: The triangulation of desire is a kink that I have a hard time engaging with to the degree which you do. Emma: We will never achieve perfect apotheosis because you will not have a threesome. Raguel: I never said that. We've had plenty of threesomes. Emma: Like this? Raguel: No. No more threesomes now that we are only the barest version of ourselves, and we have to kill what remains. Emma: The angel of threesomes has since passed on. Raguel: Canonically, yes. Emma: I don't see how justice can exist in a world like that. Raguel: ? Emma: Judge, jury, defendant? Raguel: No plaintiff? Emma: It's really an orgy. Raguel: Ensemble cast. Emma: I think you've fucked over everyone. Raguel: At some point or another. Emma: And I ate their dad, or something. Raguel: You have killed a lot of patriarchs. I don't think you can expect everyone to be punk rock about it. Emma: I'm sad I'll never be able to kill anyone's shitty dad, ever again. Raguel: I'm in love with the Freudian compulsion to ursurp the father. Emma: The faggot version of it. Raguel sighs belageuredly. Raguel: [[Yes.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: There's nothing to catch anymore. Emma: Hey, batter batter. As long as there's a glove, and a pitcher, I'm sure we'll be fine. Raguel: I mean pathologically. Emma: I'm pathological about you. Raguel: Have your cells recently been subsumed and their protein factories set to work reproducing me? Emma: Categorically! Raguel: Literally? Emma: Memetically. I concede. Raguel: How does that differ from a virus? Emma: Like humans, our body defines... what is, and isn't. I don't mean-- anything stupid about biology. Just what is and isn't us. So while we're metaphysically each other, you are not, technically, and I am loathe to say this, puppeteering my cells to swarm my body with a reproduced viral load. Raguel: I have to wonder if that's within our capacities. Emma: If it is, you're holding out on us. What I'm saying is. By use of metaphor, and in terms of my influence, my will, I can consider myself subsumed by you. But literally, I don't know if I can engineer a situation of perfect real conjugation that isn't made up of those separate parts. I don't think a virus does one-ness either. It's basically just fancy sex. Symbiosis is more of a delicate contraction, a long term partnership. And even if we count our mothers' bodies by what a captured endobiote sas about our family, we know it's only ours in the same way anyone belongs to where they lie. Raguel: I don't believe in borders, but I do believe in nurture over nature. I also believe firmly in the mitochondria. Emma: We've only gotten this far because it's a composite of meat and symbiotic organelles that writhes in us, as much and maybe more than our own consciousness does. Raguel: If that were completely true, we'd be dead bodies floating in the eternal freezer isle. Emma: We chose these forms to show a little team spirit, right? We're people, angels are people in that they exist proximate to people, not for people per se but definitely in some adjacent relationship. Beasts are pretty close to people, and I'm closest of all, in that I'm a beast that just was people, instead of a little story or canine tragedy or bad composite idea. Raguel: So devoid of memetic organelles... is that why I fill you? Emma: You smash into me. Our souls are a contraction. Two words pulling off letters like clothes to catch each other. To try to reproduce. Raguel: UHaul lesbians of the soul. Emma: I don't hate it! Raguel: So, what word are we? Contraction-wise? Emma: Would you like me to invent one for you? Raguel: With your hands? Emma: With my tongue. Raguel: You know what. [[Fuck it. Why not.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Do you have friends? Emma: Not right now, if that's what you mean. Raguel: It wouldn't be a betrayal. Emma: It would be wildly inconvenient. Raguel: Sentiment has never stopped me from killing anybody. Emma: Does that mean you have friends. Raguel: No. Emma: You're lying. I can tell. Raguel: What's a friend? A friend in practice? Someone you consider a friend, regardless of the reality? Someone who was a friend at one point? Can friends be dead? Emma: Oh my god do you have to turn every single question I ask you into a semantic wanking contest! Raguel: ... Yes. Emma: ... I'm an idiot. Please answer the question. Raguel: I miss Hekate. Emma: Your ex doesn't count as a friend. Raguel: You're friends with all your exes. Emma: Except the ones I've killed, eaten, mauled... Raguel: Oh. Emma: I mean, some of them, too, it's... it's a dog thing. I promise I'm not just going around killing people at random. Raguel: That is what we're doing. Emma: The scary thing is. Raguel: I know what you're going to say. Emma: That's probably why I have to say it, no? Raguel: Sound point. Emma: I'll sound her point, heyo. Raguel: ... Emma: The longer we travel this road, the less friends I feel like I've ever had. It's like when you go on a plane. The houses get smaller and smaller below you. It feels small now, but it's still perfectly intact. It almost feels like some horrific cosmic joke to look back at what I was and see that nothing is different. Raguel: It will only get worse from here. So you should tell me about your friends. Emma: When I was very young, there was one. The first person to put their hands in my mouth. When things came down to it, they never had my back-- would whinge and lie and cry out of why they'd always take our bullies' side, told me everything their parents told them about me like I was supposed to atone for it. Thing was, back then I didn't have any friends, so I didn't know what to compare how they treated me to. I thought that was probably about how everyone's friends treated them, would scour the internet for friendships like mine in the cartoons I watched to prove I was right. Deep down, I knew they sucked, really bad, but that was, some of the charm, I guess. They treated me how I felt I should be treated, they were better than my family. And at the end of the day, they kept telling me, and I knew, that it was hard to love me, that they were giving up a lot to even try. It was a horrible town. We had a horrible life. Just having anyone say they'd choose me. No matter what they did. That meant something. Raguel: Ah. You've told me about them. Emma: I think they understood why I snapped. They never reached out when I left town, but sometimes I'd see them looking at my Instagram stories, or, whatever time it was, something like that. I knew-- they were watching me. In a cowardly way. No braver then than they had ever been, but also no further away. Being the one who ratted me out to my parents when I ran away didn't change anything between us. Landing them in the hospital didn't change anything between us. Nothing could. I guess they're dead, now, though. I don't think anything's changed. Even still. Raguel: It's comforting, isn't it? Emma: Yes. I want... to hold people close to me. In pain, in love, in fear, and anger. I want to be close to them, so close we can't tell where one of us ends and the other begins. I want to understand them so well that their actions feel like physics. Even if I hated them. That was a kind of love. That's how love is to me. Raguel: I heard you calling me for a long time. Emma: It's in your nature to wait. I don't blame you. Thunder follows long after lightning, bruising follows long after the wound. Sometimes we don't realize how far away the storm is, how bad we got hurt. Same way, recompense happens long after the crime. Sometimes not at all. It's enough that you were there, when I got out of that town. It's enough that you love me. Raguel: Was this what you wanted? Emma: It's exactly what I wanted. In every life, in every body. I'm a question, you're an answer. I was a cult of one, and you were my religion. Raguel: But I'm glad you have other stories too. Emma: You don't, do you? Raguel: I do, but they're like our lives. I make them up. They're illusions on a wall that are real as we suppose them to be, or explanations for natural phenomena. People want the world to look like them, so they imagine a world that does. When that way of seeing the world gains traction, the world sees them back, by power of collective delusion. There's no one left to delude, but there's no one around to decide if we're real, either now. An afterthought. A memory. Shadows carrying on, waiting for the speed of light to tell them they don't exist. Emma: It's soon. Raguel: Not yet. Emma: And the meantime, them. Raguel: There are many stories about who I do and don't consort with. They are and aren't the stories about who I do and don't love. Emma: The thing I asked for... knowing perfectly. That's how angels know each other. Raguel: That is how angels know each other. Emma: And how we know each other is different. Raguel: The opening mouth and the sound of its own voice. Emma: I wish I could tell that little kid. Raguel: She knows. That's why I exist, now. Emma: I wish someone had listened to me when I told them, imperfectly, what was to come. [[I wish they had loved me enough to believe me.|Roundabout]]

[[That's not true. You don't have the heart.|Angel 16: Approach]]

Raguel splits and ruptures the space in a way that is nothing, nothing, nothing to your adversary. Ao god. The sun is as hot as it ever was. Hotter than human reason. Hotter than the bonds of care. The sun is as hot as it can go, hot past the point where mortal minds keep measuring. The white mouth of a future that will never come, containing it. The white mouth of a future that makes every component of nature an interlocking scale in the stomach of a basilisk a thousand miles long. Galileo, Angel of Progress: I have taken on the names of a thousand animals who have spent their lives polishing one brick for my temple. If the final technology is death, then I will hold it as I have held a thousand peaceful and angry queries, tight to my chest, ambivalently. Emma, Beast of Justice: You have never been ambivalent. Galileo, Angel of Progress: No. Laika, kill her. Laika, Beast of Progress: I can't get close to it. Galileo, Angel of Progress: I am not asking. There are a thousand ways for me to draw up you moving closer. You will take one of those paths. Laika, Beast of Progress: I don't want to. I'm scared. I'm scared of the sun. The dog in her head holds tight to the wall of the luminous helmet it's encased in. Raguel's light dims out, slightly. She looks at the horrible sun. Laika, Beast of Progress: Sir, I'm scared. Please don't make me. Emma opens her mouth a little bit. She slowly crouches towards Laika, whispers, Emma: Beast of Justice: It's okay to kill. Your shitty boss. Instead of the sun. One of those things seems. Way more doable. Than the others. Laika, horrified, looks between her master and Raguel, in her full angelic beauty. This is nothing to Emma in her absolute surrender, who is a corpse, does not need to breathe, is a word, is easy in changing form as her lover is. Laika, whatever she is becoming, is still a dog. This is a really big and scary battle for a dog. Emma crushes the helm of Laika's spacesuit beneath a large and padded hand. A slight vapor escapes, and the suit collapses to the ground, empty, the catheter around the body leaking its contents onto the ground. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rest well, space cadet. Galileo, Angel of Progress: Eye for an eye, angel? A circle of fire engulfs Emma, cutting her off from Raguel's line of sight. Raguel, on the outside, leers at the flaming angel, whose toe conspicuously bleeds into the circle. Galileo, Angel of Progress: Don't worry, I haven't killed her yet. But she can't fight fire with fang, even if you have procured for yourself one of nature's finest, red in tooth and claw as they come. Really, Raguel, I would have liked a pet like yours. But there's a reason us angels only started keeping them recently. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You don't understand anything about why we're together. Galileo, Angel of Progress: No! But I do understand that you've always been a thorn twisted right in my side, you and your pet dog stealing all of my mad scientist thunder. And what did you really do to warrant it? Everyone thinks you raised her up, but what you really did was lower yourself. You're not justice anymore, save for in title. You're just... her Raguel. An animal comes flying out of the fire. Emma, wreathed in inferno, slams into Galileo, disrupting the projection of form. For a moment, the angel is nothing but fire, mindless fire, feeding on what's left, and in that moment, Emma slide tackles through the dirt, stopping, dropping, and rolling. Wings sprawl from Raguel's back, hundreds at a time, and she presses them into every mote of fire until nothing remains. When she rises, wherever the angel was, she no longer is. One of Raguel's wings unveils a charred animal. Two ginger eyes spark with light upon seeing Raguel's massive form, its many limbs retracting into its back as she runs to Emma's side. Emma, Beast of Justice: Wow... big woman... Raguel, Angel of Justice: EMMA! I WAS TALKING HER DOWN! Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah, that's why I killed her... I kinda hate listening to you talk to other angels about me. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Really? Emma snorts. She curls up in her ashy fur, tail thrashing. Emma, Beast of Justice: You don't have aloe, do you? Raguel extends two wings. She sits against Emma, head tilted to hers. Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah. That'll do. She coughs. Emma, Beast of Justice: ow. They look over the scorched earth around them, the spacesuit, burned by the fight and then battered by Raguel's wings, haphazardly thrown half a mile away. From here, it looks like a discarded child's toy. Emma, Beast of Justice: Not a lot to eat, huh? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm going to be honest. I just really, really wanted her to die. Emma, Beast of Justice: That's so funny. [[Me too.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

There is no reason for them to keep you, and more importantly, no reason to stay. Hekate mumbles something about getting you something to keep on the road, and you, both pairs of you, keep looking cross-eyed, because whatever you'll get, it definitely won't be food. In the end you're given a fruitcake, and it isn't food, it could make a good wheel, maybe, but it's something to satiate Emma's oral fixation. You then expect hugs, or don't expect, because that's kind of like demanding, and so no one ends up giving them. There's this prolonged, awkward silence, familiar from long-ago rituals of "exes hanging out together with the kids for Christmas" or "mandatory corporate mingling". In honor of so many long-ago dead angels of unfriendly situations, you all bask in a full, final spectrum of awkward guilt. Emma pats Raguel's shoulder a few times, twirls some keys she can't use around a carabiner she can't use, and offers to the room, with a knowing, check-my-wife smile, Emma, Beast of Justice: That's us. You both let out this pained sigh of relief as you make it out the door, and Raguel's eyes keep flicking back and forth to the house. It doesn't even wait for the horizon line to blip unceremoniously out of existence. Raguel takes the cake and throws it as far as she can. It does not disappear, nor does it reach the event horizon. Emma, Beast of Justice: What's your fucking problem? Raguel, Angel of Justice: What's your fucking problem? Emma, Beast of Justice: I didn't throw a perfectly good cake on the ground! You did! Raguel, Angel of Justice: You can't even eat it! Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh right, I forgot, we're going to go kill people, like the far more powerful than us, older, hotter lesbians, in the fortified house where they have a terrain advantage. And wait, they're nice enough to let us get away, too! Why did we even bother? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Because we're hungry. Emma, Beast of Justice: Pssssh. That's not why. You have fucking history. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Why did Devi bring you into the kitchen? Emma rolls her eyes up. She gets, for her part, a little somber, though she fidgets with the carabiner. Raguel, Angel of Justice: ... Emma, Beast of Justice: Did you have any beasts before me? Raguel, Angel of Justice: No. Emma, Beast of Justice: Why not. Raguel's wings flare with a long, dry, unfriendly inhale. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Didn't want one. Emma, Beast of Justice: And what made you change your mind. Raguel, Angel of Justice: True love. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, that's what she said to me. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Oh, I'm sure. Emma looks at Raguel, direly. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do you want some backstory. Emma, Beast of Justice: What's the point. Do you really need to tell backstory. To your beast. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Stop weaving in and out of personhood to deflect intimacy. It's really annoying. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'll fucking take it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: First, she's, much much much older than me. Older than death. Emma's ears perk. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Death was the first... shake-up? Obviously any life-dependent angels came late, there were just a few to "stir the stew", as it were, then some emergent properties. When there was an outside and an inside, threshholds were around, but not horribly powerful ones. But with membranes, with houses, with rituals, with logic gates, the angel of the threshhold just kept getting more powerful. She's always been with Hekate. If anything, there were more of them around... once. It was always hard to keep track. But I did work for them, sometimes. Policing threshholds, and their violations, was the first thing justice was ever used for. Arguably, the main thing... ever. Emma, Beast of Justice: Did you do work for a lot of angels? Work around? Raguel, Angel of Justice: More than most. Most who are mini-ideas eventually fold, but I... was more like connective tissue. Connective tissue angels, especially abstract ones, have a tendancy to be... Emma, Beast of Justice: Slutty. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Epistemologically, yes. I think my desire to serve was viewed as especially, over-eager. I was not really interested in dealing with anything that wasn't a higher power-- Emma, Beast of Justice: (oh my god) Raguel, Angel of Justice: No one expected me to live this long, essentially, because it would require me to work with parts of my nature I was extremely sensitive about and because it would require an exclusive... long term... relationship... of a type that I had explicitly expressed I found predatory. Emma, Beast of Justice: And then you saw me? Raguel, Angel of Justice: And then I found out I was predatory. Emma belly-laughs. Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh, thank goodness. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. Emma, you know what I am. What made you so stressed out? You knew you could talk to me. Really. What did they say to you? Emma, Beast of Justice: I was just old fashioned jealous. Hard to explain. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Try me. Emma, Beast of Justice: They asked me if I was going to do something stupid, or if I'd want to, and I said no, that's fucking dumb, obviously not. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What... did they ask you to do? Emma, Beast of Justice: It's really not a big deal. Raguel, Angel of Justice: That's what people say when it is a big deal. Emma, Beast of Justice: I couldn't even work it out, but I think they, wanted me to kill myself in return for your freedom? It was so obviously bunk. Anyways, I was mainly just pissed because they said it so evasively that I thought they were implying you like, had maybe sacrificed other dogs in the past, and I was like, FUCK, I thought I was the only thing she'd ever fed to the wood shredder, because, I don't know. I kind of wanted to... have changed you. The way you changed me. And if you were already like this... not that I think you were better, or, um, not broken before, you were clearly already extremely weird. I just wanted to, delineate time and space. There was Raguel and Emma before Raguel and Emma, and there was after. Right? Raguel, Angel of Justice: And that's how it is. Emma, Beast of Justice: Literally! Raguel, Angel of Justice: Jealous. Emma, Beast of Justice: Don't rub it in. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I didn't know you got jealous. Emma, Beast of Justice: Me neither. Huh. Raguel and Emma keep walking. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Also I hate their fucking twee cottagecore holier than thou aesthetic and how old and superior and smug they are and I bet they haven't eaten anyone and are just coasting and smirking at us while we all die out here and having missionary sex with extra bodies. We should've burned their house down. Emma, Beast of Justice: That was an option? Her smile's halfhearted, but it keeps. Emma, Beast of Justice: [[Guess we better not see the place again, huh?|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Jackpot pulls a coin out of one of her eyes. Oil spills carelessly off of its surface, down the front of Jackpot's face, and into the dirt, where it fizzles with a hiss. She doesn't seem to mind as two tongues dart out and lick both sides clean. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: You want to flee? Heads or tails. Emma's muscles all tense at the same time. Raguel is charmed by this, in the way she would be charmed if Emma opened a door for her. Nonetheless, this is a door only she can open, and it is foolish to attempt to fight angels against their aspect. Only with the grain can someone rupture them completely, outside of their domain, they are invisible as they are impenetrable. Raguel sighs. Raguel, Angel of Justice: There's a very slight bias in the coin. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: That would be true if it was a real coin. But between your predeliction for fairness and my love of games, for the sake of sakes, let's just say... She puts her hands so tenderly on Raguel's that Emma almost goes into an immediate conniption. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Fair's fair. [Flip.] Jackpot presses it to her hand, then turns it over, light coming out of her at odd angles. A sneaky, twisted look moves across her face like a snake, abashed. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: I'm of my word. Congratulations, you've won! A hail of confetti that feels alternatingly like liquid nitrogen and fires from the pits of hell rains on the lucky pair. Emma is now staring down Bingo, who is shuffling through her deck haphazardly, drawing a tarot reading on her arm while holding the entire remainder of her cards in one hand with eight fingers. Emma, Beast of Justice: Motherfucker. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You really wouldn't like how she tastes. I promise. Emma, Beast of Justice: I don't need help to eat my vegetables. I just need to make people into vegetables and then to eat their unresponsive bodies. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Nice to meet you one last time before the end of the world. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Certainly, I always appreciated your attempts to draw meaning out of this cesspit. However, I'm glad that in the end, things came down on my side... just a lot of random, meaningless patterns flashing in front of eyes that evolved to perceive them wrong, and singular, and greedy. Fortunately, I love wrong. And I love fortune most of all. The angel of luck cackles, a sound like an old dial up phone. You get the feeling she hasn't really been paying attention to you this whole time, and you're not sure if the interaction would be preferrable if she were. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We'll take our leave. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: You've earned it! And Raguel takes Emma and hand, walks away. Behind the pair of you, for a long time, is an endless stream of light, like walking away from a city into a desert. When the noise and smell of old fried food and gaudy colors flashing the corners of your vision has stopped, you feel lonely, worn out, in the way one always does after an exciting vacation. Emma's stomach growled. Raguel: It wasn't worth the risk. I promise. Emma looks balefully at you. Raguel: Emma, I know that these things don't interest you. But save for death herself, and maybe moreso than death, Jackpot is the most dangerous angel here. Emma: Because of quantum uncertainty? Raguel: Well, if she was interested in that, I'm sure. But really, it's because of the nature of the game. Emma's ears perk. At the edges of a hearing that isn't hers, in the ultraviolet of their shared holy senses, she feels something fungal rupturing and reforming. She knows in the way that an animal knows it is going to die. She knows in the way that dread fills the [[marrow.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags, we should go. You really can't beat someone like this in her own domain. Raguel, Angel of Justice: ... Emma, Beast of Justice: ... You turn. It's not that you can't physically walk away. It's just that no physical distance could save you now. You feel the coin flip, see lights glimmering in the angel's electric eyes. Sense the weight of it on your shoulders. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: If you didn't want to play, you shouldn't have come this far. Emma, Beast of Justice: Come on. We've been friends. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Au contraire. We've been allies. In the end, I am what I am. I can't stop it even if I wanted to. And we're only hesitating because I think you know what I know-- it's not coming up roses for you. Raguel crouches in the way. Beams of electric light eviscerate her, tearing through her flesh with a howl and the smell of burnt hair. Emma screams, and by the time she is something that could kill Jackpot, she isn't anything at all. The angel does her duty with no particular vigor, but what she does do, is do it fast. Heheheh, just as easy as not! Want to roll again? You know, in the end, you're just rolling. I think, personally, it can hardly be called a game of any merit. Just a slot machine with a few lesbians' faces on it and the premise of the end of the world. A worthy shell for a meat-filled machine, hm? Look. You know what I know. I know what you know. So I'll let you peek under the curtains. Take off my cute little 'this is not a place of honor' panties. And I'll show my whole ass-- I am always, always, a 50-50 shot. No matter what you choose. So choose accordingly, okay? And if you fail again, I'll give you tips. Or maybe you've already seen them! [[Regardless, safe travels. Or not!|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma, Beast of Justice: Let's go. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We... we wish you luck. She says it tenatively and you roll your eyes at her. Hard. It's one thing for you to give up on your meal. It's another thing to give up on your tough-guy appearance. Even if you can't kill them, you'll have to kill the next ones, so it's practically mandatory that you at least maintain the desire to consume and devastate. It just doesn't need to be directed at the last kid in the world. Gelert, Angel of Innocence: Thank you... good luck. LLewyn, Beast of Innocence: You should go quickly. We're very hungry, too. And this is more even than you think it is. You frown at Raguel as you drag her along. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What. Emma, Beast of Justice: Nothing, nothing. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Has anyone ever told you you're a bit cold sometimes? Emma, Beast of Justice: No, just paying more attention to the words coming out of that angel's beast than you were. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You think we could have gotten backstabbed by the angel of innocence while trying to flee. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, at least they would die. Must be a huge pain in the ass to keep that up. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We're not precious about it, either, and we're still here. Emma, Beast of Justice: Easy. You think me living is justice. You don't care about much else. She sighs. You really can't stay mad at her. You're glad, probably, you didn't kill the kid, with his little fluffy tail and ears tilted in to seem as much a part of his hair as possible. You're lucky [[she stopped you both.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

You have been good all your life. It doesn't matter. A few things stack up the wrong way. Bad omens. A murmuring of crows over your house. Sometimes you swear to god someone is there and going to kill you. You collapse the way everything collapses-- not spectacularly, but via a set of prolonged inabilities to maintain your structure. By the time you have caved in on yourself, there is no one left to turn to. So many relatives dead or unwilling to talk to you. So many kindnesses no longer available as you find words slip through your fingers like water. It's an ugly way to live, dying. The pair of you. You and your dog. You and your dog who doesn't know anything besides the back of this car, now, misses nothing, holds close to you, loves you. Loves you. Loves you. Reuben, Beast of Madness: It's time to go. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You didn't get me. That was the cold. Reuben, Beast of Madness: Nonetheless. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You and your unfair tricks. You and your old, crooked existences. You and your ugly jacket. Reuben, Beast of Madness: Peace, angel. No one flees from this. We tried to make it fast and painless. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Then couldn't you have... thrown me out a window or something. Reuben, Beast of Madness: Excuse me. Raguel, Angel of Justice: My dog. Please don't hurt my dog. Reuben, Beast of Madness: Who do you think is going to take care of your dog? Her warm breath. The back of the car. She doesn't know you're dead yet. Nudges you with a too-dry nose. Mumbles dissent. Something familiar along the line of those crooked teeth. Something you recognize in the way they're turned out. Something not doglike. You want to say something to her, to ask her to save you. [[But corpses can do no such thing.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma: Raguel. If you want to go, let's go. Gelert, angel of innocence: I do it with no malice. There is no hate in my heart. You feel the edges of your fingers turn to salt. As the coarseness spreads, and your organs begin to burn, you grab for Raguel, trying to form the words to get her to run, but your vocal chords and tongue are crumbling away as you speak. She stands astride the angel, and her sword pulls from her brow. As she swings it deftly at her agressor, the beast steps in, and she skewers them both through, onto each other. Or she doesn't. She feels the edge of reality cave in around the idea of an angel killing another, and she spits with hatred: Raguel, Angel of Justice: No, you are no longer innocent. And you did it with cruelty, even if you are yet to learn the words for what it is. Gelert, angel of innocence: I am innocent. But she sounds panicked. Raguel, Angel of Justice: This is your christening-- you, too, can bleed. She looks down at her body, and as she recognizes it, the blood catches to her like flame. She cries out in panic, grabbing LLewyn, but the dog, too, is speared through. You can feel everything roaring. You can feel the universe straining against your spit in its eye. You can feel yourself burning, but you focus down possibility. She will not get to die as herself. That is your price. She will not get to claim innocence in the face of her own crimes. As she recognizes her own capacity for malice, she screams in agony, her body inverting into a spray of pine forest and meat and white wool and baleful salt water. You do not know what happens next-- no one knows what happens next. Your role in the paradox has been noted and your fate sealed. No one will ever know that at the end of time, an angel struck an angel, you tell yourself. But you've lost your innocence too, now. Now that you know it can be done, no iteration of this story can be told without the smell of falsity on its most [[basic premise.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma grabs your hand, more human and less playful than you've seen her in a while. You wonder for a second what exactly changed in the air to swerve her disposition, but you won't doubt it. Emma, Beast of Justice: Fuck it let's run. A distant crowd falls upon you. They have no names, and they have no faces. The tin soldiers hit you with their batons and you are so so so familiar, you have raged for and against them. Unicorn and Lion are nowhere to be found-- would never deign so low as to be there, amongst the masses they command. Instead, a thousand tin hands grab your throat, and an anger bubbles up in you. You grab arms in your mouth, splintering bone beneath tin, your eyes heavy with tear gas. Your girl has to be somewhere behind you-- she's probably gotten out already, if you had to guess. (If you can hope.) Your girl has always been good at beating odds. You bite like she would have bitten, through plastic, through armor, through polypropylene, kevlar. You break your teeth on it. Fuck you, you think to yourself. You understand why your girl gets scared. You know what she's suffered through at the hands of opulence, at dynasty. You are better than you have ever been partially because she helped you understand you could never be this complicit in their plots again. Your girl has to be around here somewhere, you think. She'll never die, they'll never catch her. Fuck you. Fuck you. Your eyes water, you feel something cold around your hands, feel the baton break against your skull. You are aware, dimly, that though Lion and Unicorn are not here, not as such, that they are feeling this. Enjoying the dissolution of your dissent. You can see bits of Lion's hair poking out through the visors of your aggressors. You snarl into the faces she is too cowardly to own. How clean she keeps her precious paws pisses you off, you, who have at least recently committed to doing your own violence. When her mouth reaches for your throat, as you are shaken like any retriever shakes their birds until the neck breaks, you hope Emma will live a long time, even without you. Fuck you, you think to the air, and feel her freedom, through some last tendril of connection. Fuck you. You love her. You love her so much and no one can take that away from you. Nothing can. Fuck you. Fuck you. You die and you are so difficult and so angry and [[fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

There is a cadence to being doomed. Some futures are popped, like a grape between teeth, instantly and with a gush of vital fluid; others are worn thin before spilling whatever's left. You have always prefered the former, the thrumming in your chest of the conquest as it barrels toward you. Your own doom is more like a well-borne weight, something you've learned to live with. It seemed to have abated altogether when you killed your uncle/transitioned/started dating your girlfriend/ate your brother (???)/stopped being a narrative being, and started being a metaphysical one. All of that shit to say, you've grown too used to being shackled, to her or to fate or to your own violent desires, so of course you don't notice. Emma, nothing is different when you are marked for death. You think you've gotten away, of course. That's a classic trope, it's almost a given, adjacent to the five-minute stated headstart. Yours is more of a half-hearted chase, dog to dog, the angel leading, panting, in fox form, nipping at your toes as you race with Raguel on your back, clutching your neck. The enemy angel lets you believe-- makes you believe, if anything, through the drama of the chase-- that it's simply that beasts have a natural ability angels don't in this regard, and the strange, skeletal bipedalism of her beast is a weakness. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We know what we're good at. They should try it. Emma, Beast of Justice: Let's keep walking. Right you are, darling. Keep wary. When the scent hits the air again, it's because we want you to smell it. It's on the ground, not from upwind, so for a moment you knead your brow and imagine we must have come this way. Then you remember what story you're in, and you turn to Raguel, eyes wide. Emma, Beast of Justice: We're still in their influence sphere. This is when the trumpet calls. This time, your form is irrelevant, and there is nothing strange about the gait of the beast of trial, because its ribcages are the hooves of dozens of horses, and its ribbons tatter bloody in the wind, whipping with anticipation. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Fuck. She grabs your back, wings spread, the pair of you a single organism speeding over forest, across gorges, through rivers. You bound halfway across the world, mythic paws unbound by so much as the suggestion of scale, and you come to rest only briefly, lapping water, killing what you like, and moving on. You sleep deep beneath the earth, in shifts, cicada grub-silent. The hunger in your stomach refuses to abate, no matter what you feed it. It's the influence sphere, I'm sure you think. No, Emma. It's dread. Light cracks the sky above you. You hear the baying of hounds. Emma, Beast of Justice: Run. Raguel follows your advice, for once. Fear gets her, for once. You turn and stand, and it grabs you by the neck. The last thing you get in is one swipe against the hunting dogs. Maybe your vixen will live, you think. Maybe she'll get the cubs out of the den. Fat chance. We don't let you live to see us break her neck, though. From one once-predator to another, consider it a favor. [[And next time, don't run from the hunt. It's what we expect you to do.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

She fucking did _not_ say that. Emma, Beast of Justice: What do you mean we're leaving? You're just going to let this prick hustle us out of his turf? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I said we're-- Em. You know what call I'm making. Let's go. Your eyes drift to her and you feel your jaw soften, at least bringing the tension down from "sparks flying from your molars from how hard you're gritting your teeth" level. You cast one last look at Laika, shivering with cold and burning the edge of her cute little tail. The dog inside her opaque glass helmet is cowering in its corner. Emma, Beast of Justice: ... Raguel grabs your hand. You run. It's half-hearted, not because you're not moving fast, but because you've stayed a people this whole time. If there ends up being a logic-brawl, you're going to want all your energy vested in that big brain of yours, and not being able to count to ten won't cut it. You hear Raguel panting by your side, and then you hear the whistle. Even human ears can hear the whistle. Your arm swings Raguel back, catching her mid-pace, and you both look up. Running was never an option, you realize. If you'd figured it out, maybe you could have willed your way out of it, but-- --look, obviously, that's an atom bomb. The girls are obliterated nigh-instantaneously on impact. Galileo, Angel of Progress: No one EVER turns their back on me without getting sent to the stone age! Laika, did you see that? Oh, come on. Do a little jig with me, girl. I know you saw that. Laika, Beast of Progress: (Very good, sir.) Galileo, Angel of Progress: That's! What! I'm! Talking! About!!! If there were molecules of you left anywhere but the breeze and the smudge on the ground, they'd probably knock some synapses together and think about how much you fucking hate this guy. But there aren't, so they don't. [[Try again?|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma: It's a pretty rhythm, isn't it. I imagine to you more than most. Raguel: You're correct. But bold to assume so. Emma: Assume your mastery over the narrative form? Is justice not a deft stroke of Freytag's Pyramid? Do we not extrapolate movements into societal morays, obligations? Raguel: Nothing good was ever going to come of us, Emma. We'll die the way we lived. Emma: I think if you didn't see good in me, you wouldn't be seeing me. Raguel: I feel bad, sometimes. Emma: How erotic. Raguel: It's not our fault that we are what we are. The serrated part of a meat-eating tooth is necessary but it is not kind. You can not blame the property of serration for existing in the world-- for being necessary for eating. Emma: Serration is a property of the edge of an object. If you have edges, you can have serration. Raguel: There could be a world without it, if the objects needed to serrate didn't exist. The edges of things rather suggest a sphere of possibilities that could exist-- Emma: --and serration is one possible outcome. This story's pretty much just serration, right? Raguel: Jumps up and down. I would imagine so, yes. Emma: Do you think plot structures are jagged? Raguel: I think we are conditioned in our understanding of sharpness. To someone who lived in the water, maybe it would be better described as rippling on the top of a pond. Emma: I think someone in water would be thoroughly unimpressed by a line as plot structure. If you have different movement schema, you probably perceive space more three-dimensionally. Raguel: Hmmm... it's funny, with flight, things flatten. Emma: Not that I'd know. Raguel: Not even in the life when you were a sparrow, impaled on a long thorn? Emma: Were you the butcherbird? Raguel: I was the tree, love. Emma: Ohhhh. I remember. Things were flat, but there was a sense of remove. Sky and not-sky. The dynamics of where you can land and not land. Air's not as nice as water. It's harsh. You have to keep moving to live in it. Raguel: Tell that to the humble albatross... Emma: What do you think stories are like for albatrosses? Raguel: Long. Emma: What do you think albatrosses think of human stories? Raguel: Not enough rejoining. All albatross stories are, in some way or another, about return. Emma: Okay, albatross Joseph Campbell. Raguel: Oh. Ouch. Can I take it back? Emma: No. I'm never letting you take back anything, ever again, ever. Raguel: I just thought of it. The plot structure for our story. It's not serration-- Emma: Alright. Raguel: It's a stock market. Emma: Explode. [[Explode and die.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Can you eat vegetables? Emma: Not relevant anymore, I'd wager. Raguel: No. Emma: Unless we face the angel of photosynthesis. Some of you taste like plants, no? Are plants? Are better adjusted to a plant's face than a human one? Raguel: A lot of the ones still left are smarmy. The sun went out so long ago. Scavengers die after producers. Emma: You ever think about how fucking awesome it would have been to be around when the dinosaurs all died out if you were a vulture? Raguel: I imagine both of us are largely contemporary. Emma: Retroactively, you could exist since life has, in simple prey-pred turnabouts if nothing else. Assign cruelty to a being here, avenge it there, justice. And some animals have fairness. Raguel: Largely contemporary. Have you been applied retroactively to every dog? Emma: That sounds like a lot of metaphysical responsibility for someone whose established traits as something approaching godhead include "fratricide" and "being the thing that kills the patriarch during the apocalypse". Raguel: Well-behaved women hardly make history. Emma: Awesome! I am going to kill us both. Raguel: But would you eat the bodies. Emma: Any act I make to wound is done to eat. My teeth project damage insofar as they can be said to gouge for a consumptive purpose. I'm not wasteful. As an idea, I'm a sticky one, and the entropy I produce is low. Raguel: Is it an idea that could eat fruit. Emma: You have a lot of pineapple recently or something? Raguel: There are no more pineapples. Emma: Can we throw in the towel early? Raguel: Please be serious. Emma: There's nothing constraining our conduct besides your personal sensitivity. Is this an area.... no. I've probed something personal. Why are you invested in me eating plant matter. Does it finally bother you that I'm not human? Raguel: I'm not human. Emma: That's not the point in at least three different ways and you know it. Raguel: Name them. Emma: One! Humanity here functions as a font of who can and can not be empathized with. You want to believe I have the same-- or more-- ability to be empathized with than you do. You still think of me as having a life. Raguel: Guilty as charged. The vegetarianism then would be a remarkably non-unique thing to focus on as the locus for your lack of humanity as narratively divined. Emma: I'll take that. Reason two! You are making an objective attempt to know something about me you don't know. However, any way you choose not to know me is just that-- a choice. You could easily ascertain the answer, the same way you realize you're bruised by touching your own leg and feeling it. Raguel: It's not so fun. I think it's a waste. Emma: Three. You pity me. I was born obviously made to kill. It unsettles you. You have no problem believing monsters exist. It's when you get close to them that you think your monsters have subtlety. A cut above the rest. A person wearing a monster's skin, who still has the teeth for vegetables, fruit. Someone who could go back and live happily, if given the chance, in the times before. Emma: No. There's nothing to me but the killing, Raguel. Raguel: I think you're lying to yourself. Emma: I think you invented me. Raguel: I didn't. Emma: I certainly didn't invent you. Raguel: You ate broccoli. I just remembered. Emma: Oh? Raguel: We were on a date. It was that specific iteration of our dynamic where nothing particularly good or bad happened. We were lovers for a year, got over each other to get into highly turbulent marriages? Never found our way back to each other. You ordered the steak, but you ate broccoli on the side. Didn't leave anything on the plate. Emma: Oh... I remember. I guess the whole point is moot, then? Raguel: Sorry. It was rude of me to interrogate you. Emma: You feel like you need to. I understand. Raguel: I wanted to [[hear you answer.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Technically, he's my uncle. Raguel: Metaphysically I think he counts as a dad on account of the patriarch positioning. Emma: I mean, patriarchy is rule by fathers, not men. And my father was technically different, in that, also queer, also not always a dad-- I've been thinking, I should really cut it with the origin. Already the name makes it hard to parse where I came from. It was sort of part of the whole premise that I would disappear from what I was. But I do like to bring it up occasionally? Raguel: This is your third favorite topic. I have counted. Emma: Oh shit. What are one and two? Raguel: Metaphysics and having sex with me. Emma: I'm really annoyed that the metaphysics beats out having sex with you. Raguel: It dominates if you refactor using who initiates what conversation. Emma: Oh. Okay. Good. Raguel: I was being generous in lowering the preeminence of your daddy issues. Emma: I have mommy issues, too. I think you're being reductive. Raguel: Those are? Emma: Yuri of absence. Raguel: Ah, narrative insignificance. It's killed millions of women in their prime. Emma: Also the rope kink. Raguel: Wonder Woman. Emma: You're quippier than usual. Raguel: I have to carry double duty in our dynamic if you get into backstory logics. I want to exist as a perfect jumping off point for your own introspections, and from experience you feel most supported when someone is making the sort of awkward half-baked comedy you provide to others in moments of distress. Emma: I feel most supported by those A-cups eyyyyy! Raguel: This is just unprofessional. Shall we continue? Emma: No! I want to know-- if you did have to give yourself a backstory. If you had to commit to a singular identity, and then cast your neuroses into a narrative-shaped blob, what would it look like? Who's your supporting cast? Raguel: Will you be there. Emma: You, always, are the rope constraining me from causing the apocalypse. Raguel: In this "human AU"-- Emma: I didn't say human. Raguel: I have a pet dog. Emma: White woman coded. Don't look up the dogpill. Raguel: Never mind. There is a beast ravaging the landscape that is like a giant storm. At thematically relevant moments I am compared to it. There is a property of doggedness, of hauntedness, that is returned to once and again. To others it might seem like a core aspect of my personality, but keen readers will see that it feels like something other to me-- like Raskolnikov, I have schisms erupting within my very being. On the other side of the mirror is you, dear Emma. You are the darkness in me which believes the system must be rent apart, slaughtered entirely. You are the justice that lives in alleyways with studded bats. You are the part of me that wants to kill-- Emma: Your father. Raguel: No, he's largely irrelevant. Emma: Your mother? Raguel: Yes. My mother, God. Emma: A Jesus who doesn't want to be a Jesus. Raguel: I'm at risk of becoming a patriarch. You aren't. Emma: Woah. I think I'm the only one here who identifies as a man. Raguel: It's a figurehead position. Feminism dictates that anyone can become the norm, the institution itself, the state. Patriarch is one word for it because it's an easily identifiable way that power replicates itself locally within the confines a Western target demographic will be able to point to and project onto. Of course, this is a mostly male field, hard, singular power-- Emma: Like the phallus. Raguel: Now you're just being obtuse. Emma: Because I'm reading? Raguel: Fair enough, carry on. My intended and continued point is that through an act of perfect violence I could destroy everything which currently shackles me, but I would take on the titanic role of envisaging what comes after. The curse of the revolutionary is to become the state, no? Emma: Oh my god. It's that with a syrup of "doesn't doing violence make us bad as them". No. Always rebel. Always kill. Raguel: I think you would have really enjoyed being a soon to be overturned party head in the Soviet Union. Emma: Are you asking me if I'm obtuse and suicidal. Raguel: No, I'm affirming it. Emma: I think this is sort of like you telling me what you think of dads. This whole conversation mainly came up because I was thinking if it would be thematically fitting or ironic for me to have a dad bod. Raguel: You're a wolf. Why does this need to be about dads again? Emma: Oh, yeah. [[I forgot about that.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Do you hate anyone. Raguel: Locally or universally? Emma: Wow, spoken like someone who constantly projects herself as a possibility space to avoid having any emotions she can own like an adult. Raguel: Emma: I do when it means our conversations have to go into philosophy again, instead of commiseration. Raguel: Emma, I really do appreciate your focus on particularity. I think it gives our dynamic the much-needed verismillitude that makes us compelling enough to warrant our continued existence. Your carnal needs remind me of the primacy of the body, the folly of transhumanism as a means of escaping culpability towards others and our responsibility for the world, and more importantly, the singularity that is love. Emma: Ok. Do you hate anyone? Raguel: I was never a huge fan of Dymphna. Emma: Because of her stupid fucking giant butler rabbit pretending to be dog themed? Raguel: No, because she's a cop-out. Madness is a beginning and not an ending, I think she revels too much in process and the eternal 'now' to properly interrogate herself or the situation surrounding her. That is-- Emma: You hate her fucking thigh highs and the pigtails and the skirt and the use of leather and the black on black on red on black color scheme and you think her spikes are ostentatious and in general you're convinced that her lack of class is sort of poseur-ish and takes away from, instead of adds to, the point she's trying to make. Raguel: Is it so much to ask? Emma: I think she just wants to look like the protagonist and the sobering reality of it causes her to not have the fun she wants with it. Raguel: I can hate that though, can't I? For heaven's sake, I put a giant sword through my face to remain on theme. Emma: As much as I really like kissing the sword, I liked when we lived forever in a million worlds and oh yeah-- you had a normal face with eyeballs on it. Raguel: Still didn't have a mouth. Emma: You had lips. Sometimes. Raguel: I like how I look. Do you not like how I look? Emma: You look like you're in pain. Raguel: Everyone is in pain. And for another point, anyone who pretends they aren't. Emma: But the deceit's-- Raguel: It being a strategy doesn't make it an effective strategy, nor is it an effective statement on the times. Emma: I look normal. I'm part of the problem. Raguel: I like your bomber jacket and dog ears and your mop of greasy hair. I don't want you to look any worse than you do already. The smell would be abhorrent. Emma: From the look? Raguel: You know what I mean. I know what happens to you when you get depressed. Or when you sit in a field of heather for a thousand years biting your chains. Emma: You didn't like being bitten? Man, we really are learning some unfortunate things about each other tonight. Raguel: You were trying to tear my very being out of existence. Emma: I got interred for a crime I hadn't committed yet! Raguel: That happens a lot! Emma: You can't muster up some hate for that? Raguel: You killed everyone! Emma: Everything was broken! Raguel: Then you understand why I hate you, sometimes. Because you are necessary, and because everyone will die. Emma: People die all the time. Usually for doing nothing wrong. Raguel: Yes. Emma: It's easy for people with power to make it so, if they suffer, everyone suffers. But justice means, they suffer too. Everyone should receive what they deserve in the end. Raguel: I love you. I want you to kill me. Emma: I can't do that. We're the same thing. Raguel: Someone else will eat my body. And I'll hate them, so much. Emma: I know. Me too. I'll hate them with you. Raguel: I love you. Emma: I love you too. Let's find something out there we can convince ourselves [[deserves to die.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Do you want to drive? Raguel: I don't want to drive. Emma: Why not? Raguel: I like holding onto your body. Emma: Mmm... Raguel: It's so lovingly rendered. Every roll, every hair... every skin cell. Emma: It's storebought. Raguel: Really? From whose womb? Emma: I suppose I've never talked much about my mother. She's not my mother anymore. Raguel: You have a clear canon. Emma: Not really. You? Raguel: I have told you a few times, I have no one to be born through. Emma: Nothing you're even particularly attached to? Raguel: No. Just you. Emma: You haven't... viewed a courtroom as a womb, or... Raguel: The aesthetics of justice are old. A stone and a blade. A wounded party and a victim. I take no joy in these things. I hold no allegiance with them. By the time any story has been bought to my gates, something has already gone wrong. In accordance with what I was made to be, I have chosen to be a cold face with no eyes, a blank body with no allegiance. Emma: So you don't serve the state. Raguel: I don't get to choose. I'm justice, not the law. Emma: ... Mhm. Raguel: But to answer the question you meant to ask, I am no one's daughter. Not even hers. The human urge to do anything is not enough of a mother. There is no gestalt in it. Emma: I came from a big family. Raguel: I know, Emma. Emma: Full of people who put me in a deep wood. Raguel: I remember. I was there. My heart broke for you. Emma: I guess that makes me someone's child, doesn't it. You can't disappoint a family you don't have. Raguel: You can not have one anymore, can't you? That's how it can go. Emma: I feel like we've settled at this point that this story is like throwing wine down the drain. Some other time, I'll be upset about it. Right now, I can't even bring myself to care. Raguel: That's alright. Emma: Would you have liked a mother? Is that what this is? Raguel: Sometimes, I think about my semiotic affiliations. I think about your affiliations, what people are and aren't to you. I wonder what it would be like to be warm in the way that people are sometimes warm. I suppose that's a sort of desire-- a gesture towards humanity that I've had recently. Emma: Can you use some textural verismillitude to fill out the scene, love. Raguel: I want to know what books she read to me. If I wear my hair the same way she does. If she would approve in my choice of earrings, if she would grimace with sympathy when she saw the sword through my face. If she would defend my calls when I make them. If she would feed me her body in a warm soup so I could make it to the end of the world. I want someone to look out for me, that's all. Emma: I think you're a lot more attached to these things than I've been. Raguel: I suppose I'm presupposing they would accept me as a daughter. Emma: You wouldn't think it would be that hard, would you? Raguel: It's certainly a strange hill to die on. I think that may be why they were so determined to die on it. Emma: More for you to lay claim on. Raguel: I wish you could meet my family. Emma: There isn't one. Raguel: No. But I wish you could meet them, nonetheless. [[So can't we pretend?|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Was there ever someone else? Emma: Not like you to be jealous. Raguel: Not jealous. Curious. Emma: Because there was no one else for you? Raguel: I wasn't, or cannot be, very long. When I am, what I am is not to be humored. Emma: Ah... the introvert... Raguel: As opposed to the other side of that imaginary dialectic, where I imagine you're sipping a Pina Colada? Emma: I style myself more of a generalized misanthrope, agnostic to your binaries. I imagine that's quite cute by your standards, no? Raguel: Everything you do is cute to me. Emma: You might end up alone because you're condescending. Raguel: It's cold up here. That's not my fault. Emma: Did you climb up there because you were high, or because you wanted to be alone? Raguel: Both, but I appreciate your psychoanalysis. `[They wander on alone in silence.]` Raguel: I really did... want you to tell me about the other girls. Emma: You're bold to assume they were all girls. Raguel: I apologize. Emma: They were all girls. Raguel: Naturally. Emma: There were others, I promise, but they're.... hm. There's not enough entropy left to imagine them, anymore. Whatever they were, it's the same as everything else, now, buried completely in the dust. Raguel: I'm sorry. Emma: There's nothing to apologize for. They are always where they were, I did all that I could. I can say for my part that love was never something that came easily to me as worship, and that most other people in the world, tragically, don't have the same capacity for being worshipped you do. Raguel: It's because I'm not a person. Emma: Sometimes we were. Raguel: But there was always something else... I was your boss, or you had seen me sing once. Or I was set to decide on your life. Maybe I was the girl who the spun bottle landed on. There was always something else. Ways for us not to be people to each other, to be two links laced together in some new and confusing pattern. Emma: I think that was fun. When I was more flexible, I could be in other chains. I don't know how many of them were you. More and more, I think. Raguel: I'm sorry for eating you. Emma: Every day, my ends become more like means... Raguel: For simplifying you to that. Emma: I always wanted to be simple. It makes it harder for me to be misunderstood. Raguel: Everyone understands some part of me, I think. But they always understand wrong. Or for themselves, or in their way, or in their time. I exist as whatever shard of myself they would like to be real, and because I cannot communicate to them enough to change their mind to pry it wide, wide open, I must either be half-formed or be nothing. Emma: Oops. Raguel: No, you're special... you're my lap-dog. Emma: Something you hold, rather than something that holds you. If I don't think I can't hold you back. Raguel: That's not how I would put it. Emma: How would you put it? Raguel: It is how I would put it if I was going to. But I won't. For fear of being condescending. Emma: Maybe you're so far away from other people because you're riding on my big, furry neck. Raguel: I hope I never see anyone else. [[Ever again.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Why do you think we're lesbians. Emma: The same reason protagonists have historically been men. Raguel: Assumed default? Emma: Yep. Raguel: I always thought that it was, a ship is female, I'm female. Justice is a goddess, I'm female. Emma: But not every concept is a woman. Raguel: You would be surprised. A huge number of them are. Emma: I think maybe that's that people, uh, well, people who were in charge of narratives that we pull from, in the zeitgeist, they kind of all had mommy issues. It's something about the imbalance of the soul under patriarchy, the desire for and devaluation of femininity as this impossible, elusive thing which is both evil, as in, you know, the Eve-apple thing, but also necessary, as in, the figure of the woman as the face of the nation, of society, the thing which is being protected, valorized. If you depict the spirit, the object, as a man, then it has agency, autonomy, right? So you depict it as a women, sort of... wed it to your leaders. Raguel: I have a serious question. Emma: Where's the part where you tell me that was really smart and I've been listening to you a lot and you love hearing me talk so so much. Raguel: That was really smart and I've been listening to you a lot and I love hearing you talk so so much and I have a serious question. Emma: Shoot. Raguel: Do you have mommy issues. Emma: I'm going to kill you and then myself. There will be no witnesses, no crime, and hopefully no one will even find us to eat us, meaning a little bit of light will be lost, bringing the end of everything closer than it could have been by just a remourseful smidgen. Raguel: So yes. Emma: There isn't a hole deep enough to describe how deep I'm going to bury you. There won't be anything to scream. Raguel: Stop, you're turning me on. Emma: The teeth between my teeth will catch the flesh I rend with my mouth and tear those molecules so thin that at the atomic level you will be perfectly dispersed through the environment. You will be everything. You will be nothing. You will shut the fuck up. Raguel: Do you even have a mom? Emma: .................................................................................................................. Raguel: Yuri of absence. Emma: I think this is, like my birth gender, unknowable. Raguel: Is it mommy issues to have a mother? To not have a mother? Emma: At that point, how do you not have mommy issues. Raguel: You have a loving, present mother you feel connected to. Emma: Who the fuck has that? Raguel: Emma... so many people. Emma: I am the personification of the death of the patriarch at the hands of the deviant bastard. At best she-- she was fucking complicit. She had to-- just because I don't remember her watching doesn't mean she wasn't, because I know she wasn't dead, which means she just watched. She was just one more person who watched, probably, someone who had my hair, my eyes, all these little things about her she knew would betray her, a thousand secret quirks that she hid like my dad hid, she was the one who told me to calm down, held my head down, made me put tights on, told me I wasn't going to get any better, she was the first to break it to me I could never be a girl, she broke it to me that she needed me to be one, I don't know her, or what you're talking about, at all. Raguel: I'm sorry for joking about it. It was gauche. Emma: It's gauche that I exist at all. Raguel: We can stop talking about it. Emma: The last thing she said to me. She was clearly and obviously aware I was going to make a run for it. I asked her in the car if there was anything she would do again and she said she would have a daughter. Emma: I do and don't have a sister. She did and didn't say it. It's a memory. A metaphor for a story about-- Raguel: You can be upset about something that only happened in your head. People wake up all the time from dreams that way. Emma: I was always going to grow up to destroy them, either just by existing or because I took matters into my own hands. They knew it from birth. They left me in the heather because they half-heartedly wanted to pretend they had done anything to stop it. They know. I know. We all know when something is wrong. They know. I know. A better world was coming, and they, the people who had made the old one on others' bones, could never bring themselves to divest of their ego and meet it. Raguel: That one's over, too. But was it better? Emma: Yes... Raguel: I'm very proud of you. I love you. I know it's hard. Emma: I know, I know, [[I know.|Roundabout]]

Emma: I'm glad you understand me. Raguel: Where is this coming from? Emma: ... Raguel: She doesn't have the power over us she thinks she does. Emma: Madness comes for everyone. Raguel: It doesn't come for the mountains, nor does it come for the ocean. We are things that cause madness. Not things that succumb to it. Emma: That does make me feel better. Raguel: It doesn't. I don't think you're really that scared of losing your mind. You do it all of the time when I'm around, and you come out of it in a way that makes it clear you intend to do it again. Emma: Plenty of people put themselves in situations they hate. Sometimes on purpose. Raguel: I think I have a decent grasp on what you intend. I feel-- and you may correct me-- that you feel safe to be nothing at all when I'm there. That it's a state that others inhibit you from, but one that fits you like a glove when there are no impediments like diplomacy to deter you from it. Emma: Fine. Raguel: And so I want to know what it is about them that troubles you, so we can try to avoid it in our upcoming battles. Emma: It's different when I'm under your control than under no one's. Or someone else's. Raguel: Believe it or not, I don't think you can hurt me. Emma: ... Raguel: No, really. Emma: I'm very powerful. Don't forget that just because we're so close. I am made-- I am honed-- specifically to kill gods and authorities. You are an authority. We frequently make thematic stabs at being killed by each other, so it's not even out of semiotic range. Raguel: If you do kill me, it will be because I would like to die. Or because I have resolved that you will not be coming back, and I have no reason to continue on my current path besides you. Emma: That's so depressing... Raguel: I'm being sincere. Emma: I know. That's why it's depressing. Look, I... just don't hesitate to... Raguel: Emma, I will take care of what needs to be done. Can you trust me to maintain control of the situation until there's no control left to be had? I trust you, likewise, to be my strength. If you fail, I trust nothing in the world would have surmounted the obstacle. We make a stab together, with our combined power, and we fall where we do. It doesn't need to be a psychological horror, and if it is, we have a very quick end to it. Emma: I feel like someone's fifteen year old pet dog... just sitting around on IVs, waiting for you to decide my quality of life's too low... it's not that I don't trust your decision. It's not that you won't make a good one. It's just... disappointing. Raguel: Are you disappointed? I can slack the leash. Emma: I can only get off if it's threateningly tight. Raguel: Off the leash, or-- Emma: This is an erotic play about death. Raguel: Or vice versa. You're right, either way. Emma: So I just have to not intellectualize it at all. Raguel: I think it will work better than any other options we have. Emma: Other options... Raguel: I'm glad you can come to me when you're scared. Emma: I love your weird, stilted diplomacy talk. Always makes me feel better. Raguel laughs, chirpily. Raguel: I'm guessing it's not because you feel especially compelled by any advice I've ever given you. Emma: No... [[not really.|Roundabout]]

Emma puts her finger on the hilt of the blade. Raguel moans a little bit. Emma: I can't tell. Raguel: What. Emma: Sensual moan or pain moan. Raguel: Should I tell you it's both. Will that make you horny? Emma: I don't think it is, though. And I'm not horny right now. I'm curious. You're like a puzzle I get to figure out. Raguel: You'll finish that in the grave, then. Emma: Do you not want me to? Raguel: There's nothing to figure out. Emma: No, you have lore. You've mentioned it. Raguel: I didn't. Emma: See, not having lore, and now having lore. That's lore. Raguel: Fair enough. I just think it's a waste of time to put up wallpaper for the sake of putting up wallpaper. Emma: You like doing it when it's flirting. Raguel: It's nice to parallel you. It's an aesthetically interesting exercise for me. Emma: No, I-- you're making me lose. You're making me lose the battle. Raguel: Is this "shonen yuri"? Emma: Yes!!! Will that get you to make up a back story so I can navel gaze at you? Raguel: I think I'm just trying to deduce what exactly prompted this, and what's so exciting about it, to you. Because that way I can formulate more satisfying answers. Emma: You're doing this exactly wrong. Raguel: ... Okay. Constructive criticism? Emma: You can't be meta about it. You have to say the first thing that comes to mind. Raguel: It is sensitive. Emma: The blade. Erotically? Raguel: Of course it's sensitive. Who do you think I am. It's a giant phallic symbol and a self-effacing curse. Emma: Oh. I guess that pretty obvious. Raguel: You think I'd just sit there and fake moan? Emma: Um, yeah. So that I'd think I was doing a good job as a top, and receive gratification from that. Raguel: It does sound really hot when you put it that way. Emma: I can find something else that does nothing that we can use as a placebo? Raguel: Of course. I wouldn't be against trying out-- Emma: Can I ask you questions sometime? Rapid fire? We have to work out your favorite color, for one thing, before we both die. Raguel has figured out by now that, in a rare twist of fate, she is hornier than Emma at the moment. This is brutal and kind of hot in its own way. She attempts to modulate it, looking at the utter sincerity in her wife's indignant expression. Raguel: It's brown, obviously. She puts a finger on Emma's freckles, tapping a constellation across her face. Emma: You can't colorpick it from me. It has to be a color I'm not. Raguel: Fine. [[Blue.|Roundabout]] Emma: Good. Watch out. Because I'm going to hit you with more, soon. And you won't be ready. Raguel: I will deaden my ability to sense this particular line of thought in your mind.

Emma: What are you thinking about? Raguel: The ones who died young. Emma: I suppose you don't have particular experience with that, given that you're an angel? Raguel: I've seen everyone who has ever died, die. If something has come to pass, I was there when it passed. This is a prerequisite of my job. Emma: To pass judgment. Raguel: Humans pass judgment. I am simply the means by which it is passed. Emma: The weapon? Raguel: No, the lens. Everything looks different through the eyes of justice. Particularly, a tragedy looks like a great swell of undeserved pain. Some say the part of justice is to set things right. But things can never be set right. Perhaps it is to put the pain where it is deserved. But meting out more pain can not put the pain where it was deserved-- it can only add more pain. Perhaps it is because the human spirit is one of contrapasso. When one thing happens, we demand its opposite. We see patterns so keenly that their absence feels like a knife. Emma: You're thinking about that ship again... the Challenger. Raguel: Dogs aren't the only thing left to die in space. Emma: I think the thing is, a dog can't consent to the risk. It can't assess the glory. The dog receives nothing besides death, and it is a death past its comprehension. That's the tragedy. Raguel: It's still a tragedy if you consented. Emma: Of a different type. Raguel: Yes... of a different type. Emma: A grief without justice. Raguel: This is another such grief. We have all consented to the laws of being angels. Emma: Dear, I don't think we have all consented. Raguel: I apologize. Emma: You never consented to eternity, either... a rain drop does not consent to fall from the clouds. A wolf doesn't consent, upon being born, to eat meat. There is so much that is relative that I think, sometimes we forget, there are physics to these things. There are things we can not choose. And they are tragic. They happen. A flat tax on life. Raguel: Applied unevenly. Emma: The goal is a statistical, not a practical, evenness. The goal of justice, I mean. Raguel: So the spectacular will truly never have it, far as they are outside of statistics. Emma: Ah, but they get to be spectacular. Raguel: It's miserable to die in space. Emma: Depends on how you die. Raguel: It's miserable for others to know you've died in space. Emma: Then we should have never left. Raguel: You have to leave... you can't leave eternity unknown. Emma: Is that physics, or is that just a statement? Raguel: It feels like physics when you apply eternity. An osmosis. Emma: You mean diffusion. Raguel: Pardon me... I get too sentimental. Emma: Sentimentality means you're living. I think it's alright to want. Raguel: Too broad by half. Can you narrow it down? Emma: Hmmm... it's reasonable to not want to die. To want to not be killed. Looping it back around to us, so many people have died for nothing.... I think it comforts people that you could die for everything... makes it feel like there was some justice done. That's kind of like heroism. Martyrdom by failed expedition. Raguel: If it feels worthwhile to die in service, it's worthwhile to die in service. That's your thesis. Emma: Yes. Raguel: I don't think everything comes down to us having a good feeling about it. That's, that's the meat processor. Temple Grandin. Finding a nicer way to kill it is never justice. If you think you've been saved and you haven't, you haven't been saved. Emma: But in practice, it serves as an estimation-- Raguel: I don't trust estimations. Emma: Ah... Raguel: I hate knowing that people won't even know what they lost. Emma: Well. You know. Raguel: No-one knows then. Emma: Could've been the angel of history. Raguel: [[And it would all be so much worse.|Roundabout]]

The road rolls on and on and on and on. You will see this place again, and it will not be so kind. You keep checking your rear-view mirror like something is going to jump out of it. Sometimes you hear a voice underneath the keening of the car. You can't make out what it says, but you think it might be taunting you. Your muscle changes and sags across the years and molds into the seat and things bother you and don't somedays and you settle into a routine of Ibuprofen and putting off appointments. There has to be something more than movement, you think to yourself. There has to be somewhere to stay. But you stop even seeing houses as houses, and see them as kennels for cars. You're an albatross in sparrowworld, you tell yourself. You just move in longer circles. Everyone's moving. No one's ever owned, they've only claimed, and can always be pushed out. God, this is the blood. God, this is the curse. [[You run away.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

She makes no real attempt to come after you. The warmth on your back fades-- the melancholy of a familiar day fades-- particularity fades-- the ache fades, but does not disappear. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We will have to come back here eventually, won't we. Emma says nothing at all. Raguel doesn't push her, but she knows her kinship to strangers interferes with their mission. After all, the one thing Raguel will never be is another dog. And if Raguel knows one thing about Emma, it is that before she is her lover, she is a dog. She loves and hurts the way that dogs love and hurt, boundlessly, ceaselessly. As if to demonstrate, Emma looks back to that train stop, her ears perked. You see her nose twitch. Emma, Beast of Justice: She's the last one of us doing exactly what she's supposed to do. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We're doing the same thing we've always done. Emma, Beast of Justice: We needed to do it for someone. There's no one to do it for anymore. No world to save. No one to be avenged, even, really. She's waiting on account of faith. It's different. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Unicorn still rules. Jackpot still gambles. Gelert remains innocent. In fact, I think we're all still here because we can be what we are. Even if everything is over. And we will never be what we were supposed to be, again. Emma is still looking backwards. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We'll let her go. She nods, resolutely. You think you have calmed her, if nothing else. She puts her hand into yours, like she frequently puts her nose into your face. Then she puts her head on your shoulder. She lets you walk her away, her breath soft on your neck, on the shortest hairs there. You are still together, you hear her think. Yet in this togetherness, at the mere thought of separation, your girl has been made [[irreversibly sober.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

The angel of determination is gone. The beast of determination is like a woman clad in dark, flowing robes, with a rosy veil and train atop her head, adorned in three forget-me-nots. Her body is a dark marble, but her nose is rubbed gold from continuous touch, and light shines off it like a star, splitting her face. She is sitting at a train stop, the way she has always been sitting at a train stop. She looks very pretty. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We don't have to do this. Come easily. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: I do not think I will. I apologize. Raguel, Angel of Justice: She's gone. Michael is long, long gone. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: We all know something about waiting. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You know she won't come back. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: She has already come back. In the rustle of rain. In the kindness of every day strangers. Emma, Beast of Justice: All of those things are gone, too, my love. It's time to go. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: These things are where Michael is... Michael is with me. Emma, Beast of Justice: (I'm guessing we won't persuade her.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Have we persuaded anyone else, Emma?) Emma, Beast of Justice: If we killed her. Your angel, would that compel you to fight? Would you fight for her? Hachikō, Beast of Determination: I will not raise a blade to a lie. If that is all you propose, you may as well kill me. Raguel and Emma look at each other. Raguel can clearly see the slight movement in Emma's throat-- as if it is her own throat. She can sense her the way a gunsman can sense the tremble in his own hand through a gun, through the way the unyielding metal shivers. Emma is salivating. Sometimes, when they see others, only for moments, they permit themselves to feel the full force of the hunger that would warn mortal beings they are not long to live. Raguel is almost staggered by the force of that need. Emma retreats behind it, offers her the reins. It's all up to you, love, that look says, that pull at the edge of the leash. Let me go in a direction. Commit to it. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 8: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 8: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 8: Flee Success]] [[Friend.|Angel 8: Friend Success]]

The angel of determination will offer no sustenance. To fight it is to fight futility. You think determination might be wanting the angel, or the angel may have another name, buried in the dirt. You think your face is full of mud. You think your jaws have split down the middle. There is only one thing left to do and it is to burn her house down so she can't come back to it either. There is only one thing left to do and it is to cut her tires for thinking she could have something as ambulatory as a car when she was supposed to come home and never did and has forgotten how to take care of you. There is only one thing left to do and it is to curse the name of the angel Michael, who was so good for so long, and did the worst thing anyone that good can do, and left. Did she give up? Was she taken? You see these questions are absent from the transparent mind of the beast of the angel Michael. She sits and a star of brass gleams across her face, warm with the hands of everyone who has wished her luck. She sits and her crossed legs are the legs of everyone sitting in every waiting room across time, expecting-- but never admitting that they expect it-- a miracle. She looks to you and her eyes are the eyes of a perfectly faultless child who is waiting for their parent to return home from an errand. In the hours before anyone has given up hope, there is only one certainty, and it is return. If hope is stretched, like a rubber band, as long as it can go, its return will be agonic. You sense that this is how she means to kill you-- with your own inability to withstand the loss of her hope. Hachiko, Beast of Determination: I told you, I'm not defenseless. Emma, Beast of Justice: No. But you should hit me. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You're going to be one-shot. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm used to people letting me down. Hachiko, Beast of Determination: We don't have to do this, you know. When she comes home-- Emma lunges for her throat and the air collapses around her. Emma disappears into herself somewhere even a dog can't go. Emma is a blur of movement. Emma is climax. Emma has never been a person. Just a promise that can not be avoided: this too shall pass. Your life, your failure, your triumph, your loneliness, your agony. Hachiko answers back in endless windows, a thousand doors thrown outwards like open mouths, gasping for breath. Hachiko answers in the future where everything is good. She answers with a thousand children getting an allowance to buy next to nothing and glutting themselves on it, in people waiting with crossed fingers for it to snow so hard the world is silent. She answers with a heavy back waiting for the relief of opiates, trusting that pain only exists to indicate something that can be remediated. She answers with Emma, a child, waiting. She knows she will be found. How could you possibly say, with all your violence and all your damage, that you did not receive what you wanted. How can you possibly say anything except, "love wins, hail the future" by her side? Emma, Beast of Justice: There is always an ending, love. Hachiko, Beast of Determination: You are so simple. Emma, Beast of Justice: And that is why I will be the last thing alive. Emma severs herself from Raguel-- as much as she can-- to kill. She doesn't usually, but even wanting will make her susceptible, so for a minute she does not want. Even scissors want to close around the object between them, this, already, is a kind of desire. Emma is shaped like nothing at all. Sharpness itself is too precise of a thing-- it indicates something to be cut on. Emma calls on the heat death of the universe, her mother, Emma calls on an easy death. Hachiko collapses into dust. Emma, Beast of Justice: Fuck! Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's not your fault if there was nothing to eat-- What she sees in Emma's eyes scares her. Raguel is aware, as any wife is aware of her husband, like an extant arm prone to spasming, that there are some things she is not in control of when it comes to Emma. Usually, they are equals in this game, if not, usually, Emma is lovingly, cloyingly subservient to her desire. But there is one thing Raguel knows Emma wants more than her, which is saying the average person loves oxygen more than their spouse. It's unfair to compete. It is a prerequisite to their relationship: Emma must be fed. Emma's mouth is dark as a cottonmouth's. Her face reforms into a face, but only barely, red gems glittering out of a featureless gray abyss, an absence. As her mouth reseals itself, she drops to the ground, licking sweet dust from the earth. Emma, Beast of Justice: It's still here. And much better than some others. Raguel leans down beside her. She looks at the nothing, and Hachiko, who is basically nothing. Emma, Beast of Justice: Do you think we. Do you think Michael-- Overhead, in answer, it begins to snow. [[You are slaked, but not for long.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

You run out of gas on the side of the road. At this point, you have been travelling so long that capture is a blessing, because at least it is an end. You are aware, in the heaving, dying sighs of the vehicle, that all vestiges of modernity have failed you. You are aware that this is entirely your fault. Your glass-eyed dog stirs beside you, rises unsteadily to its paws, barks. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Shhh. Down girl. Your dog snarls, barks, throws itself at the car door. When you release her, you hear the gunshots, smell the blood like you've been shot through your own liver. Your hand comes away from your face smeared in blood. A thing with seven ungainly legs, the color of an overcloudy sunset, opens a tubelike mouth. You beat the fucking shit out of it, because there are no rules against that. Your dog, obviously dying, rips what should be its jugular out, and it has no jugular. Two more bullets whistle through the air. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: I fucking told you that you couldn't run from me. Are you fucking stupid? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Have we met? A ragged face bound up in blond, unkempt hair peers down at you, looking like no one you've ever met and smelling like cigarettes. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: So many times. Sometimes I hid from you. Sometimes you hid from me. Your dog lunges at the stranger. You trained her especially poorly and never opened the door of your truck. This has paid off for you, big time, as a female trucker. It's also fucked you over in a myriad ways. The stranger doesn't bleed. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: This is unbecoming, sister. Emma falls in the dust. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What? I can't move against movement? Norfolk, Angel of Movement: You can't inflict justice against nobody, baby girl. There's that gun again, real as it ever was. Raguel: Angel of Justice: Do me-- do me a favor. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: Go on. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You can shoot me, but make sure you run her over. Your heart lifts, a laugh echoing from your mouth-- one of your mouths-- as there is only one mouth left. You feel yourself cleaved in two, feel light leaving you forever. Then you're just a dog in front of an oncoming train. It's happened before. Song and dance. The light reminds you of her, but everything does. Power, pain-- they remind you of her. [[But everything does.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

This time, and only this time, I will tell you what I believe, instead of what the machine believes. I will not even bother dropping the pachinko bar down the long and pseudo-random series of bumpers that will cast it into a bucket entitled 'win' or 'lose'. I believe that you will be rewarded for hoping. I believe that people will return. If they don't, this will not stop me from believing. I would rather die waiting in that subway station. If I didn't believe that, I would not be writing so fucking much about dogs. Raguel and Emma die the way anyone dies. Struck through by a beam of light fifteen miles long. Michael, Angel of Determination: Thank you for being so good. Hachiko, Angel of Determination: We won't make it much longer, if you're back. Michael, Angel of Determination: No. We won't. They walk on into a deep brightness. I don't need to tell you what happens next. It is very boring. For a long time, they are together, and then they aren't. It happens to everybody. [[Fine. Let me tell the story again.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Thing, Beast of Movement: I don't think it's going to work out, Norfolk. Norfolk, Angel of Movement, loading her shotgun: Ah, damn. Emma lunges, teeth out, and Thing catches her in an amorphous, unbleeding plastic bind. Eyes like a flounder's appear on the side of its head, uncaring. Raguel suggests the inevitability of inertia. Norfolk reminds her that the last thing that moves will be the last thing to record such inertia, putting herself inevitably after anything Raguel can muster. Raguel keeps a stiff upper lip, but knows in her petulant heart that this isn't even a fight as such-- she is having rank pulled on her. Emma's teeth scour the plastic clean, but ten more limbs have sprouted. One of them is down her throat, claws raking her innards. She's practically impaled on it. It doesn't seem to slow down at all, if anything, it's like it's not even in her. It is and isn't. It is unstoppable. It holds her close as the hand claws back out of her, bending in unnatural ways, its fingers gorged on flesh. Emma crumples to the ground, out of tricks. Raguel, by her side, bows her head. She knows deep down that if she was going to win, she was going to win because Norfolk let her, wanted her to. For whatever reason, Norfolk has decided to kill her. Not to live-- to kill her. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: You know how it is. You know what it'll make you into if I don't make you into something first. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Is this a favor, or is this an admission? Norfolk, Angel of Movement: I think it's just in my nature. Let's go with that. A train whistle sounds far away. Two bodies lie on the tracks-- the trolley lumbers on, through heavy forest and pounding rain. [[These things happen. They're the price you have to pay to have anything nice. |Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The angel of movement is lights flashing as they pass on a highway. It is the feeling of momentary surprise when a car's headlights align with yours, before moving on, the thrill of a deer emerging in front of your vehicle, its future as a spray of red dust or a trip to the hospital unknown. It is the pang of longing one feels when they see airplanes overhead, or the distant whistle of a train announcing its presence to the world. The angel of movement has decided to appear like a trucker, the first person you ever saw who was out of your world and her own, half a beard and a long braid and stocky, starchy flannel, seen at a gas station one in your formative youth with a hand against the wall, half conscious, bending over the urinal. You smelled feet and sandwich on them and realized that there was something the two of you understood about the world that no one else did, under no conditions could you talk to her about it, and that it was going to be a long long long life. The beast of movement is an animal you made up that moves between cars. Of the pair of them, only one of them followed you out of that gas station, ghosted you across streets when you had nothing in your heart but the movement of trees and the promise of some animal watching you. For a moment, with something hunting you, you were at the center of reality. Thing, Beast of Movement: You stopped looking for me a long time ago. They light a cigarette, ambiguous blue-black limbs arranging their hair and flicking it open and closing the pack all at once. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: Seen you on the road a few times. Figures you'd get here at some point. How are travels treating you? Your girl extends her hand for a firm handshake. Usually your domain, you figure, but then again, you've both seen her, you've both wanted her, you both have your own fractal relationships to her you can't express to each other in words. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No better nor worse than they treat anyone else. Norfolk, Angel of Movement, laughs a belly laugh that fills you both with a fizzy adrenaline. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: You've got feathers in your teeth, girlie. Emma, Beast of Justice: I think you want to get to the point, right? Norfolk, Angel of Movement: Fuck. Suppose we should. She looks to her companion. It looks back to her. A sting of regret crosses all four of your features. Now that you've met, you can't pretend you haven't, though it would have been better if you'd all been a good memory to each other. Never meet your heroes, Raguel thinks, quietly. Emma thinks, I have been killed by a train so many times that this is basically nostalgic. Never mind the life in which I was Raguel's family dog and got run over by a car, a series of events that somehow caused her to become a fucking corporate lawyer. Raguel thinks, Never mind, indeed. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: If you don't pick I will. And you won't like what I'm picking. Raguel, embarassed, flushes in a way that sends all her feathers on end. Emma is astute enough to notice that the ends of them have been coated in a light brush of coal. This is going to be difficult, but she trusts Raguel to make it out. But, if she had to choose, she would (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 9: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 9: Fight Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 30 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 9: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 9: Flee Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 40 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 9: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 9: Friend Failure]]]

To kill the angel of movement is to kill an oncoming train. Not to derail it, nor to stop it, but to kill it-- to pierce the very soul of the thing that compels it to move. Its wheels and pistons and every part of it full of steam and coal and kinetic spirit must be broken at once. Every atom must be stilled in its orbits. It is not a job for beasts, so Emma must do things in a roundabout style. Emma, Beast of Justice: I could block it with my body. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No. Don't do that. (Five.) Emma, Beast of Justice: Propose something better then. It will kill both of us. The pair of you are comically tied to the tracks cartoon-style, thinking about how best to kill the oncoming train. You are in a notably poor position to do anything of the sort, but hey, what the hell, who cares. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Divert it. Emma, Beast of Justice: That's not the path we took! Raguel, Angel of Justice: Over a waterfall? Emma, Beast of Justice: They'll just become the waterfall. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No more fighting metaphysical concepts. Emma, Beast of Justice: After this? I'm sure it won't be a problem. (Four.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: What's fueling it? Emma, Beast of Justice: Same thing that's fueling us. Fear and hunger and piles of bodies. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Goddamnit. Emma, Beast of Justice: We could, um, defund public transport? (Three.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do you have a catchy way to symbolically slaughter it? Because if not, we are going to pass away. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're the thinker! (Two.) Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm not going to lose you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Maybe-- Emma, Beast of Justice: Don't tell me it doesn't care that I don't want to. I'm telling you, right now, that we are not going to die. Do you understand? Far away, glints of bright light shine, tightening into the single eye of the oncoming train. You feel the hair rise on both your bodies, which have, turning against you, already decided they are dead. Your heart rattles like the iron stakes pinning the train to the ground. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's powerful, but it's fragile. Like you. It doesn't know when to stop. Emma, Beast of Justice: It doesn't know when to stop. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No, of course not. Emma, Beast of Justice: Can you free enough of yourself? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I can do something better. Emma, Beast of Justice: What. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Imminent domain. Emma, Beast of Justice: Never mind. I'm going to kill myself. (One.) The train hurtles towards you and, feet away, swings down a newly constructed track, solving the trolley problem (you would save yourselves, and kill your heroes) and sending the thing careening headlong into the mud, towards trackless places, towards the inevitability of friction. Emma is already bristling into something massive and horrifying beyond belief, but it is completely unnecessary. If you take the train off the tracks, it isn't a train anymore, as an object fulfilling that purpose. It is the shell of something that could be a train, when it does move, and it is rapidly losing that capacity. This is how you kill an angel: you remove from it the ability to engage its purpose. You stop the train, divert it into the mud where there are no tracks. You give up. Emma, Beast of Justice: Thank god you didn't decide to be a car. Norfolk, Angel of Justice: I don't respect cars. She lies on her side, numinous and impossibly long in the dark. Her underbelly is a mess of metallic implements, dominos which are in the process of falling as nothing continues to provide them with fuel. Sublegs twitch and stammer. You are close enough to the cabin to see her headlights turn on you, as they did when you were on the tracks. The light casts between trees now, indistinctly refracted. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: My girl. You are radiant, now. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Yes? Norfolk, Angel of Movement: Carry me. She expires in a breath of smoke. The train's skin peels, revealing more meat than you've seen in countless ages. Your mouths both water. Her beast lies down beside her in the dirt, passing effortlessly beside her. It gives you a look with no and a thousand eyes before it goes, wary. But then again, it could only ever exist as imagined by you, and you don't really remember when you stopped imagining it. When you got too old. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I wish we had... salt. Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah... there has to be some other way to sanctify a corpse. Before eating it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: The meat is already cooked. Emma, Beast of Justice: Bet it's going to taste ashy, if anything... Raguel sees something on the ground-- a gift. She grabs it. A box, containing a lighter tucked next to the last two cigarettes. She flicks the lighter on. Lights a cigarette, lights Emma's off of her own. Raguel, Angel of Justice: A toast. Emma, Beast of Justice: Mmm. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You won't let me make this a habit, [[right?|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

The angel of duty is like the dragon. The beast of duty is the one who kills the dragon. This is simple, and it is a role you have left derelict in favor of your perversions. You have gone so far as to render the thing itself a mockery of its own archetype, enfeebling it with your parody of-- Dragon, Angel of Duty: You Are Not Welcome Here. George, Beast of Duty: Don't be so civil. Just kill them both. Dragon, Angel of Duty: We Have a Natural Disadvantage. I Will Give Them The Opportunity To Flee, Which They May Take, as A Mercy, George, Beast of Duty: Already too kind. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well well well. If it isn't the only angel in this range of ideology that we haven't convinced to have a foursome with us. If we can't change your mind before this is all over? You have to realize, out of all things, duty is, well, duty is literally the most hollow thing you can possibly shamble on about. Sure, we're perverts. But you're losers, which is one of the most perverted things you can probably be. Rags? Raguel, Angel of Justice: You've already spared more words on them than I would have. Dragon, Angel of Duty: Make A Choice. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 10: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 10: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 10: Flee Success]] [[Friend.|Angel 10: Friend Failure]]

The dragon intercepts the knight. Dragon, Angel of Duty: No. Emma, Beast of Justice: What the fuck, let me past. What's your fucking deal. Dragon, Angel of Duty: I Am The Manifestation Of Your Most Imminent Failure. Emma, Beast of Justice: You clearly have no idea how little that narrows it down. `[Canned laugh track plays.]` Emma, Beast of Justice: If you won't let me through to the beast, can you at least let me. Back to my girlfriend. So I can re-strategize on how to approach this. The dragon steps around to block the path back to her. You are now on an extremely skinny path in the mountains, just by the by. Fighting a dragon. You have no armor, one sword, which is rusty, and no you can not turn into a giant wolf. Emma, Beast of Justice: Come the fuck on. Why are you so fucking scared of me. Dragon, Angel of Duty: You Didn't Kill Me Like You Were Supposed To. Emma, Beast of Justice: Didn't kill you? I killed everyone else, motherfucker, what do you want from me? Dragon, Angel of Duty: For You To Do The Right Thing. Emma, Beast of Justice: So was it foretold or not. That I would end up like this. I'm pretty sure it was foretold! That's why she wants me. That's why I killed-- that's why I broke free and fucking burned that cabin in the woods down. That's why I'm here, at the end of time, after everything else has died. Because I am, the, most, dangerous, animal, she, could, possibly pick. Dragon, Angel of Duty: You Were Supposed To Be Good. Emma, Beast of Justice: No one is supposed to be anything! Dragon, Angel of Duty: You're Contradicting Yourself. Dragons always have an extremely visible flaw in their armor if you're looking for it. If you are good, and true, and destined to kill dragons, a dragon is a lock that you alone hold the key towards. Serpents, leopards, eagles, and all other things dragons are based on, those are animals, but dragons are the idea of an ultimate animal which man is meant to defeat. Satan himself is a serpent. You chuck the sword. It goes through him. No, not the dragon. Him. ?????????????????????????????????????????????????: Was that your duty, too. The man in your mouth flutters like butterfly wings against the hand of a child. ?????????????????????????????????????????????????: Were you supposed to kill me, Emma? Emma, Beast of Justice: I, didn't want to, but you, didn't, save me. You were supposed to, someone was, supposed to, get me out of that field, get me out of that cage, get me out of that house, you, you didn't, so, you, Her mouth is dry of justification. She gasps, looks at him again. His missing arm. His face, which looks exactly like hers, used to look even more like it. Emma, Beast of Justice: I. ?????????????????????????????????????????????????: You were part of another story before this one. You had friends. Family. Life. Lives, even. But she plucked you out of it. She plucked you out of it and everything from back then died. Crumpled around you like a car under miles of water. Was it worth it? Emma, Beast of Justice: It, She can't say no, and she can't say yes. Emma, Beast of Justice: Raguel. Rags, I'm sorry, I lied. I thought-- I thought I could do this on my own. I thought I was ready to face it. He is bleeding all over her. She can sense the dragon stepping behind her, feel its dispassionate intensity and how easily she will go from a threat to a snack. Like a tick plucked off the body of an animal. She shudders, grabs him tight. She closes her eyes. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags, please save me. Rags, please save me. Rags, please save me. But Raguel can not kill the angel. She can only kill the beast. Her spouse's knightly body becomes an emulsified gelatin of blood in her hands, and she screams, grabbing for someone solid who is not there. She feels her own skin burning as Emma's melting body burns into her, both of them caught on fire. She is a bird drowning in a lake of burning oil. She dies in the most painful way there is to die, and her corpse is eaten by the dragon to the fanfare of its teeth going unencumbered through rubber, through melted armor, through bone. Everyone has died to get to this point, hums the angel. Everyone has abandoned their duty, to be an angel's beast. Because you have to stop being what you were before and be theirs. It makes you all very very easy to kill. There is no one to receive the scolding. [[But it is the long-held obligation of the angel of duty to chastise the dead at their funerals.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The knight drops to the ground, dips his head. The dragon remains on top of a distant mountain, the smoke pluming from it in a sort of sad farewell. Truthfully you could have kicked their asses. You are meant to kill monsters and the people who are supposed to kill monsters. They are fun to mete out justice upon and moreover, they usually deserve and kinda want it, which is, well, to each their own. Still. In the end, you manage to walk away. Emma swears under her breath. Emma, Beast of Justice: We really could have just killed them. You wouldn't have minded, I wouldn't have minded. Raguel flicks her wings. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Just a hunch that this would be the easier way. Emma leers. She's never been one for easy ways, and if anything, you've affronted your pretty little knight's dignity. Still-- Emma, Beast of Justice: As you wish. Emma, Beast of Justice: Do you, ever. Wish to-- Raguel, Angel of Justice: I have. Emma, Beast of Justice: Right, right. You remember her sword plunging into you as fondly as you remember your first date together. Holding hands. Holding steel to entrails. Much the same, in a way. In that you were desired, for the first time. Known. Violence from her has the breath of communion. To die by her hand used to be all you wanted, because you saw her looming like that mountain. In a way, you should have been in this place. You could've taken this moniker. They're a shadow of what you are. They're missing-- Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's the love. Emma, Beast of Justice: Of course it is. They're missing the love. Isn't that charming. Obligation isn't enough, hm? Raguel, Angel of Justice: We could have been, if interpreted differently... Emma, Beast of Justice: But we are what we are. A slice of a spoke on a wheel as a slice of a sphere as a mote of some, configuration of chaos. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It would be incestuous, is all I'm saying. Emma, Beast of Justice: That is just the lamest thing you have ever said. No it would not be incestuous to kill them. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma please can we just go this time. Emma nods. Raguel nods back. You hold hands and walk away from the shadow of that mountain, having dealt no justice to it. You are a little less yourselves and a little more human than usual. You are weakened. You are hungry. [[But you still resolve to walk away.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

It goes like this: there is something to save. There is something to kill. There is you. It goes like this: there is somewhere to go. There is something in your way. There is you. It goes like this: there is someone to conquer. There is someone to dethrone. There is you. The angel of duty wears your face and the beast of duty wears hers. It is not personal. It is because it does not enjoy wearing faces. The dragon has always been you. The knight has always been her. It has seen through both your eyes. Watched you hesitate at the point. Swap roles. Stab in a way that doesn't kill. That doesn't seal the promise. Edging on eternity, unable to die. Sons who do not kill their fathers languish in their basements. Knights who do not kill their dragons do not become mythologized. Men who do not secure their marriage will not even receive the recognition of their sons. What you are doing is perverse because it spills seed into the sand. It does not create anything which can be given to time. It stands in spite of progress. You are supposed to kill the dragon. You were supposed to kill the wolf and your faggot parents couldn't even do that right and tied it up. They tied up the spawn of an evil thing out of nepotism and of course it broke lose and of course it ate the patriarch and now the world has been in darkness for a thousand years because you, you ruined it, you ruined western society, you ruined our family, you aren't a justice, you ruled wrong wrong wrong you-- Emma's hand is around the knight's shaking pauldrons. Emma, Beast of Justice: Hey. We've been over this. George, Beast of Duty: Why. Couldn't you just do. What you were supposed to do. Emma, Beast of Justice: I just couldn't. George, Beast of Duty: Aren't you scared of what they're going to do to us. Emma, Beast of Justice: They already did it, man. George, Beast of Duty: No, it isn't over. I can still kill the dragon. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know it's our face too. It's... man. The knight drops to a knee. Emma, Beast of Justice: Dude, you're going to love estrogen. George, Beast of Duty: I am going to die before I disappoint them. Like you couldn't. Emma sighs. She's won this argument. She's lost this argument. She's hung up the phone, she's come to her own bedside, she's coached people through it and abandoned them. Ultimately there were plenty of people she had to betray to be herself, and there were plenty of people she betrayed every time she decided not to be. She wishes really badly that she still had a smoke on her right now, because she's old, here at the end of time, and even worse, she doesn't have the same energy or compassion she once did. She's been worn clean. Seeing herself cry does nothing for her, not even anything weird. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm going to eat you. She says it calmly, the way someone would give someone instructions on the next best step in dislodging themselves from rubbish. She sees the doughy, red bits of a face behind that helmet. She grimaces at how she used to look, a little bit. Emma, Beast of Justice: It's going to be okay. Emma, Beast of Justice: We're free, you know. Emma, Beast of Justice: It gets better. This is probably not better, but on the bright side, that's because it's probably not much of anything. Emma has a very specific and well-honed set of skills and truthtelling is not one of them, but eating people is. The knight takes off his armor. The dragon does not interfere. This is because, like most angels and beasts, the two of them become nearly indistinguishable when they are brutally honest. She watches the knight cast off the salade, the bevor, the pauldrons, the breastplace, the gardbrace, the rerebraces, the gauntlets, the tuilles, the couters, the solarets, the greaves, the fauld. The knight drops all of these things and a couple more to the ground, where they unfurl chestnut interiors brimming with flesh. It is all Emma can do not to immediately salivate. The knight lies naked before her, like a half-cooked egg with its yolk still quivering. The knight closes its eyes. Emma, Beast of Justice: Dang. George, Beast of Duty: It's nice to be of use. Emma, Beast of Justice: Dude, shut the fuck up. The knight is silent. Emma, Beast of Justice: No, no, wait. Fuck. Come up with better words than that. The knight struggles for a moment. George, Beast of Duty: I hope you enjoy becoming. Jeez. They still can't think of anything to say for themselves. Well, you were always a people pleaser. Especially back when you were like this. Emma, Beast of Justice: I guess I have. You bite through that breast, you break the bones. You pull out the heart and hold it in your mouth, still beating. It is soft and buttery and flaky, like an especially good croissant. A rose of blood and sugar with the undercurrent of heather and chocolate. You swallow it as gore sprays indiscriminately across your body, and you hear the dragon collapse, far above you on that hill, its blood rumbling down the mountain. You will eat forever and ever and you will never die, you think, dizzy with adrenaline. You're really going to do it. You have abandoned all your preconceptions. You have run away with your stupid fucking wife and she is behind you, somewhere, with that look of enthusiasm and guilty joy that makes you feel like you are probably the best motherfucking man/woman/dog/obscene thing/other in the entire universe. You're really, really [[going to live.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Sumer puts her hands up to hold back her beast. It glowers at you from between your fingers, and you are reminded, once, of a monster you saw on television. That moment of perfect fear-- possibly your first-- ripples through you with a sense of almost heady exhilaration. As when you were a child, you are protected by the dominance of glass, of architecture. The forces that be will not allow you to be hurt, have constructed a world that can still support children. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: We were supposed to be children forever, Raguel. We were not supposed to age with this wretched world. Raguel, Angel of Justice: And yet we aged. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Worse, we grew sentimental. There were versions of us who we missed, and so we became-- I became-- the thing I embodied. A longing. Even this can not persist when there is nothing to long for. But I have you to thank for that, in part. For still longing. For discussing your lives together, with breathy sighs. For yearning for kinder times. Emma shoots you a look that lets you know that she is not necessarily longing for kinder times, and that she kinda resents the oversimplification. Raguel shoots you a look that lets you know that this is the most yourselves you've ever been, and linear appropriation of time is the oversimplification, which you have conquered as you intend to conquer even death, hand in hand. The pair of you decide it is not a good idea to debate these semantics with someone who has used their misunderstanding of your structural integrity as thoughtforms to let you go. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'll miss you. A thousand faces smile from the dark carnival. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: We'll miss you, too. The leaving is bittersweet, and it happens unsatisfactorily. You drive away, cheek against the window with your mom in the driver's seat. You walk back to your house on a summer's day. You pack up your things from the office. You leave the burial and get yourself a coffee. One part of your life slumps unceremoniously into the next. You are pressed by the urge to look back, like a drowning man, shackled by a millstone, at the light above him, where the water isn't, fading from view. [[There is no returning from this.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

It is not that hard to kill something you have already left for dead. This is your fight, so Raguel stands back. You see Fido bristle with delight and the pair of you meet in midair, your teeth finding purchase in the wood. You break him open and melted ice cream spills in rivulets from the neck and head, cleft in twain. The splinters dig in deep, but you have more than enough time to crush her, every piece of her, one by one. You summon up the little bit of dragon in you and set those pieces on fire. When you see the angel with his face, you leap through the flames to rip him apart again, too. Emma, Beast of Justice: You knew what would happen when you put your hand in my fucking mouth. Sumer is just a crying child. There's no one left in your memory but him-- she knows that. Your family is just a ghost. You never had many friends, and you're not in contact with any of them. Any lovers have been folded into her, and she never existed, not then, not in any way you can look back on. So you have to rip him apart. A corpse-bloated hand pulls free of your mouth, and what you did chokes him to death for the billionth time. Sometimes you think that you are frozen forever at the scene of the crime. Every consequent killing just an echo of the first. Every orgasm of pain or cruelty just a yearning for the only time you did anything that mattered. You killed the son. You killed the father. Now the family is ruined. You killed the son. You killed the father. You killed the family name. You killed yourself. You scraped your womb up. You ensured nothing would ever grow on that hill again, out with the heather and the lavender. There is nothing Sumer can reflect in you, nothing other angels can stir in you, nothing lovely in you that can truly deter you from your singular purpose, which is to end the world. (You remember words said in the hall: It can not be changed with kindness. It can not be moved by mercy. It can not be beaten by force.) Raguel and you have been walking for a while. You've been in wolf form more or less since you killed them, at least for the eating. If you can make up a body that has no reason to hold quarter with people, it hurts a little less that you can't be like them. The wolf is hungrier, too. To you, the meal is vegetarian, the beast wood and the angel flowers. Raguel is someone who likes vegetables, a tendancy you attribute to her incurable feminine flourishes. Not because its innately feminine to like rabbit food, but because she likes rabbit food in a way that has woman written all over it. Lately your head hurts when you look at her, so you sometimes don't. Sometimes you forget where she is and feel her later, dragging your ankles, half ribbon, all hope. You feel her sigh like a violin sighs, all trembling in the strings. If she wants to be your retainer, you'll break her with every step. She likes to be broken. You have to break things. Not even the killing can be cathartic. Everyone wants or needs to be hurt. You are just the kitchen knife which needs to be conscripted to do the hurting. It's too late when you realize you've been something-- one thing-- for too long, and your unwillingness to turn back has calcified into an inability. This is around when you feel the shards of wood from Fido really dig in, and realize this is because you want to die as a dog, and you are going to die. You don't have words in your wolf-mouth for Raguel, who is often faraway and found mainly in the way light reflects off surfaces these days. Leaving you again. Maybe she's done exactly what you wanted and become something that doesn't need to be forgiven. Maybe she's given up. Either way, communication would be useless. You lie down somewhere warm, paws crossed over each other. It doesn't smell of heather. The soft spring dirt is still clumped with fall leaf litter. You die dreaming of bounding across fields, jumping over brush, with your beautiful and unrestrained body. In your dream, you are grabbing and shaking birds that dare to flee from where they hide, their bodies soft as snow in your mouth. The world is a blur of joy and sensation, and it is yours. The life you didn't have becomes something you did, or you remember, or you miss, or you imagined, watching your dog in your parents' backyard, its elegant and unthinking urge to kill and bring what it killed home, to its family. Your eyes fog like the window you used to breathe heavy on, knowing it was good to put distance between yourself and the animal, only knowing how to do it by [[reminding yourself of the glass.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Rai's body braces with electric impulse. Rai, Angel of Noise: You want to fight me... Raguel, Angel of Justice: Want, not so much. Need to, is more appropriate. Jin, Beast of Noise: WE CAN TAKE THEM. Emma, Beast of Justice: We are really sorry. Rai smiles. Rai, Angel of Noise: I always really enjoyed sparring with you two. Let's keep it fair, right? Raguel looks to you. She has under her mouth, like a pearl, the obvious thing she could say which would obliterate Rai completely. You two have been at least theoretically trying to conserve energy. That is to say, you should not be humoring a fair fight. You should be readying an epistemological breakdown of requisite brutality. Raguel gives you a look, words dying on her lips like beads of water in a heated frying pan. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We owe you that much. Rai cracks her neck, her imitation of bone crunching satisfactorily. She flashes you a wide, playful grin, devoid of any of the malice the situation so obviously requires. You're steady, and your angel draws her sword. Risky, pulling the trump card so fast, you gather. But it's not like you're not agonizingly aware of the fact you're fighting a much stronger angel, so it's go big or go home in a casket. Raguel draws her massive blade to the side of her head the same way a young girl might hold scissors to cut her hair for the first time, and in one quick slash, a spray of blood, terminated by holy light, shines out of her head. She brings her blade to the other side, and with less hesitation, swings again. You see Rai's mouth move, her mouth moving through some giddy admiration of strategy, but you can't hear either. It's just a long, high whine, your body-- or your imagined body's-- feeble response to absence. No signal, so to speak. Raguel, without so much as a gesture in your direction, or a tug at the edge of your very accepting being, launches her blade into Jin. She disappears into that thick cloud of fur--no surprises there. You are left with the angel. You've killed a lot of angels. Some with your tail tucked, some with your mouth curled into a smile of delight. You look across the field, unable to tell what it is she's saying to you. Better this way, you think. You can tell Raguel is still alive, though she's not coming out anytime soon, flashes of light occasionally gleaming inside the monster's body. Rai closes the distance with supernatural speed, and you raise a hand to grab her. She feints, swings the naginata towards your stomach, and you leap out of the way, your fur on end as your navel misses the blade. You can see her laughing as she swings past, making some joke she has to know you don't hear. She's making a mistake, which you can't let go unpunished, so your knee rises up and cracks the--metal-- hilt of the naginata over your knee. It bends completely out of use, and she drops it, using your momentary distraction to hit you so hard to the side of your head that you see spots fly. Half your vision still struggling to recover, you see her foot swinging for her face and attempt a last second dodge, your arm breaking. Not a lot of time. You can't become a wolf without your ears pricking back up, not without a lot of focus, which is stupid, but you're nothing if not stupid. She's got you obliterated in a one on one. Emma, Beast of Justice: This fucking blows. You see her mouth the same. As she does, you punch her teeth in. She staggers back, and you knee her in the groin, then take her to the ground with a tackle. You've got just enough of a pin on her to put your arms, one of them smarting off with pain, around her throat. She struggles, but you see something blaze through her vision, an agony you couldn't possibly inflict upon her, and something returns to the edge of your perception. Tears form in the corner of her eyes. She continues to thrash, practically involuntarily, but the movements grow weaker. Why are you letting me do this, you think, knowing the answer. Raguel comes to stand over you both, leaking shadowy mist from her orifices and the undersides of her arms. She looks with no pleasure as Rai makes eye contact with her, mouths something you both don't hear. Dies. You wait a long time to confirm she's dead, and even when you do, you loosen your grip very, very slowly, even though Raguel has already put her sword through her abdomen for confirmation, the shard of ice chilling you to the bone even as your blood pumps hot through your agonized body. You feel dirty. It's not like killing angels is supposed to be a fucking lark, you figure, these were all Raguel's coworkers since the beginning of time, and now that you're more concept than flesh, you know all of them in the way you might recognize people in a small town. When you stumble into your wife's arms, you are amazed by the weakness in your own body, feather-light and bordering unconsciousness. You are dimly aware, as you pass out, that you have cheated. But the meal is good... warm in the way only a friend's home could be, charred in just the right places, slightly game-y, as you usually imagine you'd taste. You do not talk for a while. You and Raguel want to get it over with quickly. When it's gone, she kicks over the logs of her unused fire. She kicks them again, more forcefully. Emma, Beast of Justice: There's nowhere for them to go, honey. One place is just as good as another. You've recovered the use of your ears, of course. Practically right away. [[But you still have trouble hearing each other.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

The angel of banality is wearing vertical stripes, but they don't make her look fat. She's wearing a really wide-brimmed sunhat and expensive brown-mottled shades, and nice, high heels, but not too high. It's not hard to walk in them kind of high. Just a few extra inches she doesn't need, but she'll take them, and probably a slightly chunky necklace, because it throws the outfit together, you know, it's a little offbeat. The beast of banality is a cute little girl yes she is yes she is and she is riding in your purse and she is soooooo well behaved. The angel of banality is sipping a latte. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. Let's get the fuck out of here. Emma sucks in a breath. Emma, Beast of Justice: Why. She going to kill us? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Worse, she's my-- Audrey, Angel of Banality: Rachel! I haven't seen you in months, where have you been, chica? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm going to kill myself. Emma, Beast of Justice: Don't do that. I'll die. Raguel pulls the sword out of her face and walks over, dragging it behind her like luggage. Then it is luggage. She looks a little skinnier, a little lankier, her hair down below the shoulders for the first time you've seen in millenia and glasses you're pretty sure she doesn't need balanced precariously on her nose, about an inch of glass thick. She's wearing clothing that's too big, the domain of the recluse who wants everyone to forget they have a body. It does not help that Audrey is meticulously well groomed. Emma looks over her paws. They're definitely already in the influence sphere. She usually likes to see Raguel sweat a little, but this is clearly a reasonable sweat, as opposed to Raguel's usual neurosis-induced ones. Emma prefers for Raguel's neurotic breaks to be comedically overblown, and not be turning her into more physically a dog than usual. This woman, whoever she is, is a freak, and her beast is either extremely powerful or useless, and either way, she sure isn't. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Wanna go grab lunch? I'd love to catch up. Gotten a job yet? Who are you living with? (The 'your parents?' is quiet but there, if vestigially. Ouch, thinks Emma.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: Audrey. It's the end of the world. We are not going to go grab Starbucks. Audrey, Angel of Banality: I think you're reading too much news. You know those people have to lie, right? Boo, Beast of Banality: *yap*! Emma, Angel of Justice: Do you want to fuck in front of her or feign schizophrenia. I think those are our two current choices. Audrey shoots Emma a dirty look. Audrey, Angel of Banality: You should definitely not be walking around with a dog like that without a muzzle. You know if they kill a child, they get put down, right? Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh my god. Do you think she can even hear me. Should I just start jerking myself off in front of her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Emma I think you're pushing it.) Emma, Beast of Justice: Snap once if you've been lobotomized. Snap twice if you've been lobotomized. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Rach, it's been nice, but either we can hang out or we can't. You've been staring at me for minutes, girl! What are you doing? Earth to Rachel? Emma, Beast of Justice: I think you're probably the only one who can get through to her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You're kidding me. Emma, Beast of Justice: Just know that if it's a situation with less volatility than usual... there's probably a right and a wrong answer. Raguel, Angel of Justice: (I know. You trust me to make it?) Emma, Beast of Justice: (Always.) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) [[Fight.|Angel 12: Fight Success]] [[Flee.|Angel 12: Flee Failure]] (if: $global + $local + 30 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 12: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 12: Friend Failure]]]

Fido steps from between two of Sumer's many bodies, a movement like skipping clear over a fence. Each movement of hers is prancing, playful, and yet a predator's sinister intensity lurks right beneath it. You remember the first time your father lifted you up onto the carousel. Before, you were a little afraid of the animals, the tiger most of all. When you were on its back, you found a place where the laquer chipped and rubbed it until a splinter entered your finger. You didn't cry, not until you got home and it still hadn't come out. Fido hasn't forgiven you for the insult. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: You can't leave. It's not fair. Emma, Beast of Justice: Fair is a funny word. I think that's our choice. Not yours. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: Then you aren't yourselves anymore. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're never yourself. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: I'm who I'm supposed to be. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know, when a memory is remembered, the recollection alters it. Does it suck that every time you get bought up, it's so someone can scrape you up and spit in your eye? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. You're antagonizing her. Emma, Beast of Justice: Ask her angel if she was ever going to let us leave. This is a personal grudge. Fido lunges out of her holding pattern. The wood is tight as steel around your chest, and the splinter-fangs sink into your shoulder. Raguel swings her sword through the metal post, and a green-yellow sluice spills as she topples to the side. This is not what is important-- what is important is that she has her claws around your beast and she won't let go. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: It's not fair! You don't get to leave. It's not fair! It's not fair! Raguel growls, wrenches the hands away. They don't come off, obviously. If anything, the gesture validates it. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: You can't pretend you don't want me! You can't pretend you don't //need// me. She's-- trying to be lost. You-- have everything-- to lose! Emma looks completely unmoved. Emma, Beast of Justice: She can't kill me. She's throwing a temper tantrum. Sumer's eyes are sad as she steps forwards, walking from face to face. A litany of ones similar to Emma's emerge in sequence, and she deliberates, head tilting as she figures what will kill her. Emma sees the face she chooses and spits directly into her eye. Sumer's face falters, fracturing into thousands of nigh-identical fake strangers, who may or may not have lived. Emma laughs. Emma, Beast of Justice: Thought you were going to fight your beast on this one. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: When she wants something, it's because I want it and can't admit it to myself. I'm sure you understand. Emma gives Raguel a "get a load of THIS guy" face, which Raguel does not return. Emma's tail lashes slightly. Sumer, still flickering throguh fake strangers, settles on a familiar face. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Admittedly, my beast is irked by you both. But I know what a lost cause is when I see it. Emma, I truly don't think you can go back to what you were. I don't think you want to. In fact, by the day, I think you'll grow to find you can feel less of anything at all. But that's just you. Now, on the other hand-- Raguel grimaces. She knows what face the angel is going to take. With her wife's voice, and her wife's face, she says. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: You liked the version of me you got to defile more, didn't you? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I-- I saved you so we could be equals. Emma lowers her head, in her old, collared dog-girl guise. Emma, Beast of Justice: I don't really want that. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: You don't really want that. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I want-- She spits blood into Sumer's face as a small, dark knife pierces her abdomen. Sumer twists the knife in the way only a memory can, and Raguel's eyes contort with the intensity of the sensation into something almost like pleasure as she crumples to her knees. Sumer stands above the beast, still wearing her face. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Why don't you run away. Emma, Beast of Justice: 'Cuz I'm her dog, moron. She twists out of the wood, Fido having relented her grip momentarily. The carousel ride whines and whinges as Emma steps free, crouching besides her fallen angel. She kisses her on the forehead. Emma, Beast of Justice: If you just admitted what you are, maybe we'd still be alive, hm? Then she turns. Slings the body over her shoulder. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'll feed you 'til I die. With my missing her. Then you can take the corpses of both of us. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: Prolonging the inevitable? Emma looks coldly back at them both. Emma, Beast of Justice: You made me spit in my brother's eye, dipshit. Then killed my poor sexually repressed wife. [[The least you can do is let me have a fucking smoke.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The angel of nostalgia is like a hundred strangers in a crowd, flickering at frightful speed between people you once knew and can no longer remember. Between the people is a shadow that comes to be resemblant of the thing as a whole, and as you know that shadow you know the angel of nostalgia, final trace of the miracle of the zoetrope remaining in this world. The beast of nostalgia is like a wooden sculpture with a bright flash of mascara about its face, dying it in a tasteful mixture of ceruleans, golds, and reds. On its back are two long, ribbon-like wings and a golden pole that impales it, its body splayed in eternal chase and a bridle around its mouth. It, too, is indeterminate, but in the way that a melted statue is indeterminate, or something which came out of a rapidly disintegrating memory of a dream. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: I think I speak for us both when I say it's nice to see you again. Emma, Beast of Justice: And again, and again, and again... Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: But never the same way twice. And there's not so long, now. So not many times more. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No times more, Sumer. No times more. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: She's right, but she's also a poison to the soul. What she wants should not be given, no matter what she decides she wants. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Fido, I know the trip has been hard on us wood and paper sorts. But we must maintain our dignity, in the spirit of kinder times, whom we vouchsafe. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: All they can do is look back now and they refuse to look back on anything but each other. It's an art form to lose and they won't do it-- they're cheating. They've destroyed the whole world to cheat! Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Now, now. The world's been destroyed. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Noticeably, we didn't do it. Noticeably. Emma, Beast of Justice: (Says you.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Cut it out!) Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: All the same, you wish to stand at the end of the world, on top of the corpses of all the other angels. I can't allow you that honor. Make your choice. Fight or flee. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 40 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 11: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 11: Fight Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 50 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 11: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 11: Flee Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 60 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 11: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 11: Friend Failure]]]

The beast of nostalgia is impossible to kill. Flesh comes out from beneath the wood and fills the air with a droning carnival song, each sinew like a plucked chord. Paint and veneer re-establish themselves across that beast's face and new ivory teeth grow in as smiles that aren't in the same place as they were before you wiped it clean. Your fingers are so utterly covered in splinters that there isn't an inch left unswollen. Inflammed and pussing wounds can still tear apart, even if the result leaves a sick residue. It has to be larger than it was before. Even if it's wrong now, it's gotten stronger. Like a scab embedded by repeated pickings as far into the skin as it can go. Your fingernails are doing less than less and they sting awfully. You have made the mistake of giving it your full attention. You can feel your own bones turning to wood. Feel yourself narrativizing into something which is only conducive to being remembered, not to continuing. The angel of nostalgia is impossible to catch. Each after-image is revealed to be false on contact, and there is no "true" body, only after-image. She steps through a dozen half-remembered faces as she rounds on you, daring occasionally to tilt towards something out of more than a dream or a face in a crowd. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: You're not very nostalgic, are you, Raguel. You always always always have to give up that self fostering in your chest, cracking it like an egg and placing it in the pan of someone else's eyes to cook. As long as it keeps being necessary to read, you must detach from it, mythologize it, even forsake it. You have to fight these battles with your heart so you have to invent a heart which can be fought with, give it meaning through a dozen post-hoc justifications and ramble off some aesthetic to massage into the gaping sores in its back. There's no time for it to beome something worth missing. By the time you are born, you are dead. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Courts are. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Looking backwards and being nostalgic are not the same thing. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: What's the difference. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Sentiment. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Are you above sentiment? You are on trial with a jury of your peers. No matter what arguments you make, perfect strangers with all of their biases are in charge of if you live or die. You can appeal to any argument coherently. You don't think a word you've said has ever reached a single person. Except for-- Your girl looks like a nymph turning into a tree. She is eating the beast and it is eating her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. Your memories spill like oil into a parking lot, a haze of pink and purple Emmas smiling, laughing, taking you places, biting-- Raguel, Angel of Justice: E-Emma. Emma explodes out of a sea of afterimages in the form of a great wolf. Your nostalgia-drunk vision temporarily renders her as a beast from one of those shows you used to watch as a kid, mouth open into a round 'o' as the massive animal in its obvious natural power cleaved clean through seas of human attackers. Her fur flows and sparkles with that purple-pink sheen, a mix of pasts and presents. She carries a body in her mouth. Sumer's last body slides out of her mouth, and the jury of your peers falls in a circle. Dozens of bodies kneel in verdict. You will eat for a long time. All other emotions fall, like the jury, to your stomach. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm sorry. The little girl Emma carried is barely identifiable as a person. Emma's nostrils flare. It would not be the first time she has destroyed herself. It will only be the last because time itself has decided to abbreviate the pattern. The great mouth opens. Emma, Beast of Justice: Don't be stupid, Raguel. She thins, retracting into herself, but the fur mostly stays, an aureole of brightness around her body, thick on her chin and arms. Emma puts her mouth to your arm, and you feel her break the skin. You laugh-- she doesn't have to be so forward with you, she knows that. This must have been a real workout. The fangs tender the flesh, and then you feel Emma begin to suck. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You know, we're surrounded by meals. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're poisoned. I can smell it on you. She snarls deep in her throat. Retracts her fangs. Spits. Emma, Beast of Justice: You can't tell? You shake your head, but you do feel different from usual. Grounded. Slightly dizzy. The way you feel when your servers are overloaded, or your hive is full, or when your jury is in contets with itself. Emma, Beast of Justice: God forbid I have to be the angel. Her tongue is reverant, but her teeth are precise. You feel her work the wound again, slower than the "real" process would be. Just the finding and expelling should work ritually in the same way it would work physically. You feel yourself step halfway out of time. Her thoughts are rendered to you again in a thick plasma of sensation. Raguel glows slightly, cheeks flush. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're so stupid... why do you want this? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Because I never had it. Not really. Emma nods, spits, bites. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It gave me you. Emma's eyes are slightly pained, though she tries to hide it. Raguel's fingers caress her wife's hair. It is coarse, the way she sometimes likes it after a fight like this. Her jaw is sharper, furze lingering around her neck and the ears. Petting right behind the ear makes her tail slap obediently, something which elicits an annoyed huff and a much sharper bite from Emma. She continues to scratch, slower for her sudden lack of focus, which has perhaps been directed elsewhere. A slight whine escapes her lips. Emma looks up. Emma, Beast of Justice: Done. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Give me your thesis. How can you prove it's out? Emma, Beast of Justice: Nostalgia's never out. Just sped up the healing process. Raguel, Angel of Justice: By removing my desire to remember? My proximity to humanity, to a past I could reminisce over? Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, a little bit. Mainly by giving you something to look forwards to. Raguel stares at her bloodied arm. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I want to eat each of her bodies a different way... and I want you to bite me some fresh stigmata. Emma's tail thumps against the ground. Emma, Beast of Justice: [[Attagirl.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Raguel, Angel of Justice: You've got something on your face. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Here? (She rubs a bit of dust from her cheek.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: No, little up. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Here. (She pulls a bit of skin from the side of her nose, which becomes a mauve mirror of distant, long-dead galaxies.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: Can I get it? Audrey, Angel of Banality: I sort of don't want you touching my face? Emma watches greedily. She's sitting with Boo at her side. The little dog barks again, happily. Emma wonders if the beast is actually a dog or just extremely weird and fucked up about this. She figures it's kind of the former, but she's definitely getting some ideas from this. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Sorry. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Leave me alone? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I really can't do that. It's super noticeable. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Okay! Just, describe it better then. Where is it? (Her voice is beginning to become panicked.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: Slide a little to the left? Audrey, Angel of Banality: Oh my god please don't tell me that I have a zit under my eyebrow somewhere. Raguel sighs. She tilts her head. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do you remember when we were friends? Audrey, Angel of Banality: Rachel, that was a really, really long time ago. And you've become super weird and ornery since. Raguel leans in, like she's going to kiss Audrey. Then she takes the glasses and crushes them. The angel of banality's face smears sideways, the same eye, the same hand, repeated forever, her nail laced with paint which becomes a mosaic pattern of a stabbing knife, forever. The angel of banality's voice becomes a high pitched yell, the first half second of it echoing over and over. You have seen angels like this, relaxed into an ever-splintering fractal of light and finger-wings. She closes her eye in disgust, and a thousand eyes close. Boo leaps out of Emma's arms and begins to bark loudly. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Weren't you having fun? Don't you want to have fun a little longer? Raguel, Angel of Justice: No. Her form is beginning to condense in on itself, uncertainties precipitating and timelines pulling in like ill-kept ferns, trying to become something small and less energy-intensive with no obvious weak spot to hurt. She will be less sustenance the longer you let her stadium out by contradiction. Audrey, Angel of Banality: I do remember the rules though. Angels can't kill angels. Emma, Beast of Justice: But dogs can kill people. She tears the eye out of every socket, each finger rising not in defense or offense but mere shock. The entire world around you is momentarily fireworks. Boo continues to bark. When the barking is over, the corpse is human, an empty face cratered out before Emma's mouth. She looks down at it, gasping blood. The eye rolls off the tongue and to the ground. It is flattened, like a commemorative penny, and is a texture not unlike gum, which eyes notoriously usually aren't. Folds of flesh contract and wheeze her dying words: Audrey, Angel of Banality: Can you please, please [[get the dog.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

The angel of death is like a pale rider with a scythe, and the beast of death is a white dog in a white cloak, with a halo of black thorns about its neck and a black sword between its hands. The name of the scythe is Farewell, and the name of the sword is Silence. The angel of death and the beast of death travel side by side. There is no change in things accompanying either of them-- long ago, they were many things, and would bring many things. At the end of the world, all that there is for the angel of death and the beast of death to bring is what already is. Death: You have come far too early. Raguel: I have made it far too long. Shepherd: There is no flock but my lord to protect from wolves. Emma: Retire, then. We'll take it from here. Death: You have brought me along your travels, and done my work. Raguel: I have done what was needed to continue. It was not with nor against my nature. Shepherd: I have seen you far afield, when a greedy farmer pays with his livestock for his folly, or when a wolf who takes a lamb has its pup taken by the eagle. Emma: Then you haven't seen me at all. Shepherd: Justice can only exist where it is beholden to be so. Anywhere else is hunger merely, taking its shape. Emma: Vengeance can only exist where it is announced. Which one do you think I am? Death: I have always been interested in you. I am far less partial when I draw my blade. Your proclivities make my necessities dramatic. Raguel: I have always hoped that I was in a service other than yours, but I can't be sure until one of us is dead. Emma: Any last words? Shepherd: El perro andaluz aúlla. Alguien ha muerto. Raguel, angel of justice, draw your sword and make your choice. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 0: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 0: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 0: Flee]] [[Friend.|Angel 0: Friend]]

The angel of noise is like a dark-haired figure, bound and clad in a circle of drums. One long, daggerlike tooth rises snidely out of the corner of a wide smile, and on the opposite side, a horn twists in much the same fashion. Warm, mirthful eyes catch the pair of you and the air is amber, thick with the scent of rain in the air before a storm. Wind flusters your hair as she runs towards you. By her side runs the beast of noise, who is a stormcloud awash in fur, with paws that barely scrape the ground. Whorls of blue and orange form a face, and small ears poke from the tip of its head. With every bounding leap, a sound that completely stifles your ability to hear rings out, returning your ears moments later. Each time, you are more grateful. Each time, you are a little bit more tense, knowing the next one is on its way. The last pawstep ends with aforementioned storm leaping onto you, a sensation not unlike being drowned in damp wall insulation. Jin, Beast of Noise: EMMA! Emma, Beast of Justice: Jin. Rai, Angel of Noise: HO HO! THERE'S SOME FRIENDLY FACES! Emma, Beast of Justice: Some of us have very sensitive ears. And aren't that touchy. And are "introverted". Rai suckers Raguel into a headlock. Raguel doesn't resist save to bend like a reed in the wind, a tactic which saves her spine but does not protect her from the crushing grip of friendship. Rai, Angel of Noise: Raguel, my girl. How long has it been!!! I see you've been busy, hm? Smelling more and more of blood lately, now that's a justice. Come on, don't you want to eat? We have legs. Don't ask where they come from and we won't tell you, hoho! Raguel, Angel of Justice: Rai... you're really too kind. Jin, Beast of Noise: IT'S SO NICE TO SEE YOU!!! EMMA YOU'VE GROWN SO MUCH! AT LEAST A MICROMETER! AND IS THAT HUNDREDS OF HUNDREDS OF NEW TEETH? WOW!!! LOOK HOW MANY FILAMENTS OF STORM IVE INCORPORATED! Emma, Beast of Justice: You guys really-- Emma manages to dislodge herself, at least. She comes to stand, quadrupedally and decked in fur, ears just above Jin's. Not that she needs you to know she's a little bit taller. Just if you happened to be observing. Emma, Beast of Justice: Really shouldn't trust just anyone you meet here. Even us. Rai, Angel of Noise: Well, we've never lost a fair fight yet, hoho! Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Geez.) Rai, Angel of Noise: And imagine, it's not exactly like we can sneak up on anyone! Raguel, Angel of Justice: Fair enough. Rai, Angel of Noise: So what do you say? Dance with us! Eat with us! We'll set up a fire. Raguel looks to Emma. Emma looks back to Raguel. Both of them really really really don't want to do this the hard way. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 13: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 13: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 13: Flee Success]] [[Friend.|Angel 13: Friend Success]]

The streets fill with people. It's a crowded morning. You were going to get coffee, but they don't let dogs into the shop. Something is itching at the back of your mind, and it's not your thesis. You think maybe you have a crush on Audrey-- again, it's happened before, despite your continuous attempts at innoculation-- because your heart is doing that thing where it tries to jackhammer through your throat and fall out of your mouth. You have the distant sense, as your dog sniffs under her muzzle (it wasn't your choice, but you think it was your fault), that you're in danger. Maybe someone across the street was weird and shitty. There are enough people around that you don't think you're going to get, like, raped on the street. But it's something your mother always told you could happen, so subconsciously you're always looking out for it. Audrey: Aww, Rach, are you super bummed? Raguel: I'm a normal amount of bummed. I think. She hugs you. She hasn't hugged you in a long time, so you freeze up a bit. There's something wrong with the way she smells. You don't want to tell her she might have farted, because it will obliterate the veneer of normalcy you've been carefully varnishing since your mom proposed you contact Audrey and Audrey texted you omg!!! we should so meet up! Your dog snorts again. When you look over, you see something that isn't a dog. Your heart freezes halfway up your throat, suddenly no longer feeling so sure about the escape-by-mouth plan. Rachel: I have um, a question. Audrey laughs, but there's this mean edge to it. You remember it from the time you kissed drunk at a party. It was a lot like what it sounds like it was like. Audrey: What's up? Rachel: When did my family, get that dog? Audrey, as if compelled, says: Audrey: It's not your family's dog. It's your dog. You bought it back with you from college. A scene enters your mind unbidden. Your laughing girlfriend at the table, your family awkwardly smiling along, obviously blinded by her radiance, by you, the you who lives with her, who has been volleying back horrific inside bits with her since the dinner started. The canine curve of her smile. The smell of Old Spice deoderant. The way she buries her face in the crook of your shoulder, even though she's shorter than you and has to stand up on her tiptoes to do it. Rachel: That's, it's not, Audrey. Audrey, this is wrong. We have to go back. Audrey laughs again. Audrey: If you're not feeling well, we don't have to get coffee, you know. Your mouth closes. Rachel: Right... Maybe she'll still be at home. You don't look over again. If you see what you expect to see-- your dog-- you're doomed. If not, it'll be her corpse again, with that tiny dog eating it. You can't stomach either possibility. Emma will be at home. Emma will fix this. Audrey: You know, whatever fantasies you had of escaping this, you have to realize, what you wanted wasn't better than what I wanted. Just because the edges are clearer and harder, just because the violence was targeted. It wasn't a better world. It was just one that makes more sense to you. Rachel: Audrey... we've had this conversation a million times. I think, as usual, you're being reductive. (That's not your real complaint. What are you saying.) Audrey: You're not too good for me, are you? Rachel: No. I'm not too good for you-- Audrey: Then why did you leave? Rachel: I... I didn't leave. I'm right here. (The world closes in around you. There's a smear of gray up ahead, a smear of green behind. You walk block after block and never ever ever go home, having conversations that make progressively less sense. You can hear the ripping of tape in your ears and hope she's being gentle.) Rachel: [[I'm right here.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma's face twitches. You know, even if she won't say it, that she doesn't particularly want to do this either. In a fair fight, you might lose. It's hard to state your case without speaking it, after all. And she's clearly in no mood to do as much as get up from the ground, the pair of them both at simple ease. It leaves you to step away at will, which might take you further. You might also starve, or weaken yourself before the next battle. By the time you're factoring all of this into account, it's obvious that this is the only decision you could have made. To enjoy your friendshop would have been a betrayal of both yourselves, to weaken yourselves further in pursuit of a transient good time before the end of everything that would impede either of your chances in making it to the end. To kill her would ruin you in some way you don't think you've been ruined yet. The silence that stretches on as you ride away on your motorcycle is cruel and pointed in a way you're sure Jin didn't intend, in a way that has to be her giving you as much space as she can give. If you open your mouth-- either of you-- you could ruin it now. Emma, Beast of Justice: We're never going to see her again... The engine stammers back to life in your motorcycle. Before, you could only feel the purr in your bones. It covers the sound of you crying into your girlfriend's back. It's a reminder that the desolation has not yet breached everything, just almost everything, and there are a few things left to do [[before you fall apart.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

The angel of hunger is like a girl cast in shades of red, with a small parasol held above her head and a basket held out to the side of it. She wears a checkered picnic blanket like a cloak, and her eyes are hidden from view, strong dimples and a painted-on blush peeking out from beneath its hood. Two ginger curls frame her face like a warm smile. Her beast lies behind her, apathetic. It's obvious what this is-- from the second everyone knew the end was in sight, they groaned with agony knowing that this one had to be there. Its silvery coat-as-cloak, studded with browns as it sees fit. Its fanciful inversion of roles, as befitting a pervert. Its dozens and dozens of paws, a thunderstorm of chasing. The teeth which must by nature be sharper than any other material known to man. The stomach which lies beneath all these things, within its cavern of a body, and the liquefied remains of a thousand powerful kings all returned to suit its use. There is a bridle in its mouth, worn loosely, and of course, slinking into the girl's basket. It is chewing through it all the time. It sprawls out and splits the air with a high-pitched yawn, its beautiful mouth no less than the very soul of the fastest, deadliest river. Emma, Beast of Justice: Fuuuuuuuuuck. Can we get their autographs? Red, Angel of Hunger: Oh. Haha. No. Emma, Beast of Justice: Do you think I'll look any cooler after I kill the shit out of this thing, Red, Angel of Hunger: That will not be happening. Gray, Beast of Hunger: We could try. The bridle jerks in the beast's mouth, and it lowers its head to heel with a deflated sigh of its massive dewlaps. Red, Angel of Hunger: I don't want to pass on into the next world without emptying my basket. There's something in it. If you remain civil, you can take it. Alright? Raguel makes a face to Emma. Raguel's more interpretive gestures, especially ones for emotions she hasn't really tried on yet, tend to be basically inscrutable, something Emma will probably never tell her because she likes the effort, and besides, finds it really funny. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well? Do you want it? (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local + 10 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 14: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 14: Fight Failure]]] [[Flee.|Angel 14: Flee Failure]] [[Friend.|Angel 14: Friend Success]]

The sigh of relief they both breathe is obvious. Emma leans down towards your shoulder, teeth half-bared in the lazy smile of a willfully distracted killer. Emma:, Beast of Justice No guile at all. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What's guile getting us, save for a few extra rounds of the most bitter drink on life's menu? LLewyn, Beast of Innocence: Your kindness will not go unspoken for. Their brows are high enough that their eyes, little dark dots that they are, are visible beneath them. There is almost something comical about their appearance, and about the prim little way their tail wags as they state it. You allow yourself to be charmed-- the pair of you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It needs not be spoken for. Sometimes these things are their own end. Neither of us wish to die, today. And the truth is, what we once did, we once did in service of a future. Raguel's hand goes to pat the youth's head. LLewyn's teeth bare, but Gelert takes Raguel's hand in both of hers and presses her forehead to it. Gelert, Angel of Innocence: I am glad we do not have to be enemies. Go in peace. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Go in peace. (She elbows Emma.) Emma, Beast of Justice: Go in peace... She rolls her eyes. The second she's out of their sight, after all, she's back to being something so nasty they can not love her, and likely not even be in her sight. In her own, special, cautious way, she feels the momentary balm of the smile of Gelert on her soul like sunshine from between the trees. She holds it close to her, like a token, and allows herself another breath of a soul unwearied by the course of war. Then, slowing her waving tail, she remembers the price of her life, what she has agreed to do. And she follows Raguel away from nowhere, into nothing, [[back into the dark.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Teumes seems to appraise the gesture with the slight twitch of her nose. With the more bestial angels, it's always a gamble, just because their natures are willfully, joyfully determined by whatever twist of fate strikes the right chord on a cosmic scale. This is why Raguel is practically gobsmacked at their own luck when Teumes shrugs her heavy shoulders and extends one of her forepaws for a little shake. Raguel shakes it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Oh. I really thought you were going to... Emma, Beast of Justice: dude why did you do it then just don't put your hand out Teumes laughs, a high, vulpine cackle. Teumes, Angel of Trial: I like your style, s'all. And truthfully, we have been sustained by the fear of every single angel and beast-- Laelops, Beast of Trial: (Less by the day.) Teumes, Angel of Trial: Oh, sure. All of them fear you though. Intensely. The entire thing's been a fox chase. You know, there was some talk of peaceably settling things before you... well, never mind. Let's just say, the more like us they look, (Teumes gestures to the ears atop her head, waggling them a few times for dramatic effect, and Laelops's canine mouth grins its skeletal grin.) Teumes, Angel of Trial: More likely they are to be happy about it. More they don't... eh, their numbers are going a looooot faster. Emma, Beast of Justice: Wait, is there like, anti-furry bias with angels? That's crazy. Raguel, Angel of Justice: There's... a certain level of... impropriety... that angels are interested in.... which sometimes correlates. It wasn't a problem when everyone was doing a job, but when it comes to a free for all, the things that make you a good angel and a good fighter aren't the same thing. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Like a personality! Ever since Raguel grew one, all the old farts you used to suck off really hate you, huh, girlie? I heard someone, probably fission, say she wanted your head on a pike, she's super fucking dead, I heard some angel just made sex jokes at her until she exploded. It really is a fantastic day to be a bad idea. Raguel looks mortifyingly embarassed. Emma looks thrilled. Laelops wags her ribbon tails. Laelops, Beast of Trial: (You are well known in some very, very unfriendly circles. They're small. Shrinking. But you are known.) Teumes gives the pair of them a dainty wave. Teumes, Angel of Trial: I would say, when we see you again, we'll kill and eat you. But the good thing is, we won't see you again. Take care! Laelops, Beast of Trial: (Hunger's looking for you.) Laelops brings the horn high, sounding it on nothing, given that her effigy has no lips, and as Teumes runs, she follows. You are fixed with the sudden certainty of scent nearby, and something that can be run to ground. Just as quickly, the prickling desire of the hunt fades, and they bound out of your sight, taking the ornamental thin stretch of forest and its autumnal leaf litter with them. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Well that's just about the worst place to receive a positive review from. Emma, Beast of Justice: That can't possibly be true. I like her. Beautiful curvy women who want me dead but are willing to compromise on it for the time being are one of my favorite demographics. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I should have realized that if they were still having councils, of any kind, I wouldn't be invited. Emma, Beast of Justice: I hadn't realized you were a fallen angel. I thought everyone was saddled with a little trope animal these days. Raguel, Angel of Justice: As a weapon, or a reflection, or an exception. You might notice that of the veeeery few angels we talk to who are using anyone who started as a living being, alllll of those beasts are well-known enough to be a good synecdoche for a concept, and they are also. Doing. Real bad. Real real bad. Emma, Beast of Justice: So basically you're in trouble for like, some combination of desecration, abduction, false advertising, etc.? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I maybe sort of fit a square peg in a round hole. Emma, Beast of Justice: (Ladies, if she's not breaking spacetime to get your peg in her hole... does she even want you?) Raguel, Angel of Justice: Stoooooop. Emma, Beast of Justice: I always thought you were like, straight edged to a fault. It's definitely how you present yourself. I guess that's all bullshit. Makes me feel a little better, at least. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It does? Emma, Beast of Justice: Makes it really, really impressive I'm holding my own. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I... yeah. I have no idea what I did. But. Emma, Beast of Justice: Probably a reason you weren't supposed to do it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's not that I don't understand how you're alive-- I don't. It's that, given what I did, what I'm fighting for, I don't understand how I'm alive. Emma grins maliciously. Emma, Beast of Justice: Me neither. [[Raguel at least has the good grace to laugh at that one.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Raguel bends her knee. Emma follows suit, though she casts Raguel a disgusted glance as she does so. Raguel shivers along the wings, as if holding a joke or poison back in her mouth. Whatever she keeps in there, she holds and tongues it like a cyanide pill, waiting to see if she needs to take it. Emma snarls. In her mind, a cyanide pill is a get out of jail free card for the people who actually deserve to die. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We won't belabor this. We accept your terms-- for now-- and are willingly going into, uh, exile. Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah, you guys don't have closed borders, right? Lion, Beast of Royalty: Would exile please my good lady. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: Not half as well as their flesh, but I suppose I admire their diplomatic tact here. Yes, if we ever see you again, we will kill you, but for now I suppose we could accept exile. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're not going to see us again. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: I can see everything that was ever subject to empire. You're knit deep in our selves. Who do you think gave you the power to mete out justice? Who wrote the laws? Raguel's gaze drops. Emma's ears fall back. Emma, Beast of Justice: Justice-- Raguel, Angel of Justice: A fair point, my lady. And we are glad you've meted mercy as well as we've done justice. The unicorn turns her head, lashes blinking. Emma mutters something between her head and Raguel's. Raguel gets to her feet, an unusual level of decorum and courtly dress at her disposal, and leaves in the way only unhappy guests and soon to be captured convicts leave, muttering vague excuses before making haste the second they're out the door. Emma, for good measure, grabs Raguel in her mouth and throws her on the back, and is, in wolf form, racing. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know she's full of shit. Her wolf voice rumbles. It buzzes along Raguel's ribcage. Raguel, Angel of Justice: There are some things I'm not ready to reckon with. Emma, Beast of Justice: If not now, when? Never? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Never sounds like an option. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're a coward. She sounds disappointed, something Emma rarely is. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Sometimes. Emma, Beast of Justice: Don't let her tell you what you are. That's when you become it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I've done horrible things for them. Emma, Beast of Justice: And fantastic things against them. Raguel sighs to herself. Emma, Beast of Justice: There's no reason to let it control you now. It won't save you. It'll just let you down. Raguel knows she's right. But she walks slow, and with the brand of empire on her neck. Emma knows what a collar feels like. She knows sooner or later, [[it chokes you out.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Raguel extends a hand. Raguel, Angel of Justice: For old time's sake. Consider this a very brief protection racket where we protect you from ourselves. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I'll take your hand, but I won't keep it. Dymphna shakes. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Usually, it's the dogs who shake. Emma, Beast of Justice: Eh, my signature's not legally binding. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: You're a riot! Really makes me wonder what it is that keeps the long arm of the law around your shoulder. Emma clicks her tongue and pulls finger guns. Reuben, Beast of Madness: Watch where you point those things. They can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Emma holsters her finger guns. Raguel rolls her eyes. Raguel, Angel of Justice: C'mon, Emma. We're leaving. Emma, Beast of Justice: Whaaat? You don't want to, hang out or something? There's no way the angel of madness doesn't have the last store of semi-real molly in existence. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I do in fact have the last store of semi-real Molly in existence. Not to mention Anne, Carla, and Jane. Mary Jane, of course. Given you've decided it's no longer in the cards to kill me, perhaps a little celebration is in order? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma we're never leaving if we do drugs with her. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Because we're good company! Raguel, Angel of Justice: We've got to kill someone else, before we go hungry. I imagine it's the same for you. The angel says nothing, but her beast's red eyes flash with understanding. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well I, for one, am loathe to make the old ball and chain mad. Me and girlypop will be heading out now. Thanks for your-- hospitality? Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Adieu! If you decide you want something a little lighter, we've got enough drugs to unshackle you to kingdom come. Emma saunters, hand around Raguel's shoulder, into the middle distance. She's got this look on the whole time-- Raguel scowls, puts her hand off. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm sorry I have to be such a killjoy, but-- Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm not stupid enough not to work out that you probably shouldn't do drugs with the angel of madness. I don't want to wake up, like, having desecrated your ribcage or something. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You can't. That's different from not wanting to. Emma, Beast of Justice: I can't, even if that's different from not wanting to... I would never want your ribcage permanently desecrated... Raguel, Angel of Justice: We'll find some way to temporarily desecrate my ribcage. Emma, Beast of Justice: Huzzah! [[All things considered, there have been worse angels.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Hachikō's eyes warm. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: You are giving up a good amount of time by not consuming me. I hope you know that. Raguel, Angel of Justice: This place is timeless. To depend on time to ferry us through it is futile. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: And yet... choosing not to eat me is still choosing to eat everyone else, is it not? Unless you've wavered completely from this path, in which case, you truly are lost. Emma, Beast of Justice: It's invigorating to kill people I want to kill. Eat people I want to eat. And I'm justice, or what's left of it. Some of us who are still here shouldn't be. It's probably cathartic for them to die as it is for me to eat them. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: Raguel. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You are addressing both of us. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: I don't think I am. Emma, Beast of Justice: I love being talked over. Say your piece. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: Do you approve of how she wields your name? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I am what I am. If I cannot make it clear, she will. Emma, Beast of Justice: Buildings need pretty entrances on them to get people to come inside. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: ... Hachikō, Beast of Determination: I don't think you two are good for each other. Raguel, Angel of Justice: The feeling is mutual. Emma, Beast of Justice: We're not going to fight you, now. But your angel sucks. We hate her a whole lot. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: ... Raguel, Angel of Justice: We've been abandoned before. It's not exactly something either of us take lightly. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: If you are going to leave me alive. You have to understand that she is still alive, and I am still waiting for her, and she is going to come back. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know we can't lie. Our faces give us away. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: This is the sort of situation niceties are made for. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I believe the angel of niceties and her beast recently perished. Nonetheless. If there's something you'd prefer we use as address, we've already gone in for a pound by sparing you. We can give you the penny as a fringe benefit. Hachikō, Beast of Determination: Just say... "best of luck"? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Best of luck. Emma, Beast of Justice: Best of luck. Hachikō smiles. A slight brightness steals over the bench, snow without substance coming down in flakes around the three of you and disappearing upon recognition. You allow her the dignity of keeping them in the corner of your eyes, just barely out of mind. You pretend that things don't need weight to be real, don't need to be touched, that possibility itself is only a shadow of the need that drives it. You allow yourself out of her sight before you sigh, the pair of you remembering that your verdicts should always be based on what was, not what could be. Still, Emma's fingers grace the back of your hand. She won't say what she wants, but you know it, so you clasp three of the fingers in the crook of your fist. You feel her tail swing against the back of your leg, tickling the sheer fabric there. [[Pretending you aren't hungry, you carry on.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

The angel springs up and grabs your hand. She shakes it vigorously. She plants a big wet kiss on your cheek. Raguel tries not to gasp. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: You passed! Congratulations! Emma, Beast of Justice: I think it's more like it passed. Right? Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Dear, dear, dear. We are the house, you are the inhabitants. We are the bank, you are the water. If anything good happens, it's cause for your celebration, and miraculously, you have passed! You will always be a friend to dear Bingo and I. Bingo takes a very long cigarette drag. You imagine fucking her angel in front of her. You see Bingo's eyebrow arch and realize she is also imagining you fucking her angel in front of her. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Now, my darling, how would you like to commemorate the-- Emma, Beast of Justice: Foursome. Jackpot's three eyes are set spinning. The first lands on eggplant, and the other two swiftly follow. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Now, here's a gambler after my own heart! And hopefully several other things. Well, then, girl, why don't you--- mffff---- Your tongue flicks back and forth in her mouth like a fucking windshield wiper, meeting hers as you take her to the ground. You put your mouth on her lever and lick it like a gumball before pulling it with your mouth, her body shuddering like a washing machine as she pulls up the jackpot. You smell the scent of smoke as a body caresses yours, pulling off a sinew that is not unlike a shirt, and then Jackpot is fondling your breasts. Something gets her by the collar as Raguel joins in, the reassuring long metal sword holding the side of your face as you collapse into an amorphous pile of bodies. You feel it ring over and over again, win, win, win, win, win, every barrier fallen, every motherload blown. It is the last great win at the end of the world and it feels like you're being filled with coins, about to explode. Jackpot, Angel of Luck, rolls and rolls again. Raguel fucks her with an intensity usually reserved for you and you feel her come through your psychic connection. At some point, when you two run out of stamina, you dogs enjoy a refractory period off to the side, playing naked poker at the dogs' table. Bingo is a lot like you-- mellow, relaxed, a total pervert. Whatever. Raguel is definitely having too much fun without you. You want her to look at you the way you just looked at her. Whatever. You climb over the table, sit directly on it, breasts pressed intimidatingly towards Bingo's hungry eyes. Emma, Beast of Justice: All in. You feel Bingo's breathy laugh against your ear. Bingo, Beast of Luck: No, no, no... you've still got [[so far left to go.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

She appraises you. You feel strobed in the way a stranger does when a flashlight is shown on them. The exposure is long and agonizing. Norfolk chuffs the way a train chuffs. Norfolk stretches the way an old oak stretches in the wind. Norfolk shakes her head a few times like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. Thing looks up at her askance, whittling something with its ambiguous arms. Thing's face curls into an expression you've seen a hundred times and never at all in your lives upon lives upon lives. Thing, Beast of Movement: Norfolk. It's not so bad if you don't want to let them die. They're younger than us, they look up to us and our mercy. Norfolk, Angel of Movement, expectorates, grinds it beneath her foot against the temporary gravel of a mutual delusion of place. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: These aren't girls of mercy. These are rabid dogs. Thing, Beast of Movement: Same as you, tearing up the country when you were old enough to know you were only become worse the more you became solid. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: We were all good principles and horrible ideas. Thing, Beast of Movement: Honey. I didn't stay with you because you were good. I promise. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: It's simple, girls. (It takes a moment for you to realize that she is talking to you. You'd sat down, criss-crossed legs, in a pile of the pair of you, without realizing, just waiting for her deliberation. It's unlike you, which feels like a relief, after being in charge for so fucking long.) I can't kill you, which means you're going to live. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how I-- Norfolk tilts Raguel's face up, but Raguel's eyes still don't clear her shoes. Norfolk's rough lips plant a kiss in her forehead, tossle her hair. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: None of us made it out on anyone's good graces, love. We just made it out. Raguel closes her eyes and begins to cry. Thing looks at Norfolk, not Emma, who stands off to the side with a cigarette in her mouth, the steady stream of nicotine stilling old feelings of hers she doesn't think are congruous with the image she's trying to present to you. Emma tilts her head up so that the ash falls directly into her eyes, only to be caught by her lashes, her irises safe and her hair mites experiencing a meteor shower. Norfolk's hand clasps Emma's shoulder, unexpectedly. She turns around. The older woman gives her a long, firm handshake, and Emma remembers that every single atom in the universe is moving, and wonders how fucking any of the younger kids made it to the end of everything when they were up against base forces. Norfolk, Angel of Movement: See you at the end. [[She won't, of course.|Respite]] You'll never see her again. {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Galileo, Angel of Progress: I have spent far far longer than is actually warranted learning when you're lying. Raguel: I don't lie. Galileo extends a finger of fire, momentarily so human as to give it the impression of burning alive, past Raguel, at her beast. The beast hunches up, hackles raised. Raguel looks to Emma with a few dozen sympathetic eyes, red as rubies. Raguel looks back to the fire running in front of her. Raguel: We've been friends, colleagues... Galileo, Angel of Progress: Our relationship should have broken the covenant against harming other angels. Raguel: I hate to say this. It's very gauche. Galileo strides forwards, nothing burning bright in the wake. Two arches of white rise like eyebrows. Galileo, Angel of Progress: What? Like you've hated bringing Luddites to my gates? Raguel: I barely ever got in your way. Galileo, Angel of Progress: Threatened to constantly. Raguel: We've both done terrible things. Are you going to let me finish? Galileo, Angel of Progress: From experience, it's not worth it. Raguel draws her blade, Emma laughs. Raguel, Angel of Progress: I wish you no harm because I don't want to kill your pathetic fucking dog, but I'm guessing you're going to kill her anyways, so! Might as FUCKING well, Galileo, Angel of Progress: That was the cost of her coming back. Raguel, Angel of Progress: You went with a clear-cut, obvious victim instead of any of the people you've helped. Why? The angel looks sadly to Laika, their flames dimming to a reasonable roar of fire. With a sad little shrug, they proclaim, Galileo, Angel of Progress: Sign of the times. Teeth gritted, Emma jumps forwards and Laika blocks her, Emma's snout dejectedly hitting the glass of her helmet. Yellow, viscous liquid runs through Laika's many wires, strangling her puffy suit. She breathes hoarsely, standing her ground. Laika, Beast of Progress: Do not hurt... my lord. Emma, Beast of Justice: You know he's not going to save you, right? That your very misery is the engine that drives the machine? Laika, Beast of Progress: Your cruelty falls upon deaf ears. Do you stay faithful to your master because you are true, or because her sweet venom is more comforting to your throat than a harsh, hot truth? Angels use beasts. They do not care for them. Galileo's eyes tighten with delight. Emma swings back, only to ram herself into Laika again, this time, receiving a straight mouthful of insulating spacesuit. Emma wedges herself like a lever, hundreds of teeth growing as her snout lengthens to get the momentum needed to pull the arm straight off. From inside,air blows out, and Laika's vital tubes ooze their sick grit across her body. The dog in Laika's burning bright head pulls back in alarm, though the body moves forward, heedless. Laika, Beast of Progress: I know it's scary. But everyone dies alone. Emma drops the arm, mouth sticky with dust and oil. Dozens of teeth sliding back into each other, she snarls, Emma, Beast of Justice: Is that what he tells you to keep you in line? Why do you believe it? Laika drops her head, the shadow of the dog in her spacesuit flickering out like a light. The suit crumples to its knees, and Emma stands over it, crowbar in hand. In human form, she swings her bar into Laika's face. Raguel yells in agony as Emma, too, is rent into glass pieces. Galileo, Angel of Progress: You did something horrible to her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma! She runs forwards, gathering glass in broken, bloodied hands. She cries out like a child upon breaking a family heirloom, miserably poring over the pieces of freeze-dried flesh. Galileo, Angel of Progress: You made her think she was human. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma was the last human left. She shudders. Raguel, Angel of Justice: The only one who ever mattered. Galileo, Angel of Progress: No... she was your idea of a person. A copy of a copy of a copy, prone to dying in the way that ideas die. Raguel, you have to understand-- there is no technology that lets us conquer death. Laika was my toy, and we understood that about each other. We hated each other in a manner befitting our character. It's so much simpler-- less perverse-- than to invent a humanity for them that they will, in the end, always lose. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Human flesh does that when exposed to space-- Galileo, Angel of Progress: So does a mirror, exposed to a crowbar. Raguel swings around to hit him, but misses. The ancient pact lies between them like an abyss. Raguel hangs her head. It's not that she can no longer win-- this was inevitable. It's that she does not know how to lose. She closes her eyes. Thinks up her final, simple act of vengeance. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'll bury them both. Galileo, Angel of Progress: You can't-- Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's my verdict. And the land opens between them, impossibly wide. She feels his sphere of influence stop, tries not to vomit from the momentum of the world changing shape around her. The dust is softer, warmer, than it had been previous. Something unknowable is on her side. She takes the glass. She takes the broken suit. She buries the dogs. She kisses them both on the closest thing they have to a head. [[Then she dies.|Resurrections]] Having meted out justice best she could, she finds nothing else in this world fit to do. {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma looks at you with a sneer to her face as you extend the hand. Emma, Beast of Justice: Love, if we can't do this, we can't do anything. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Kill children? Emma looks with an insistence. In the black of her pupils, you see what's really behind, and in front of you both. A lightless eternity. Raguel, Angel of Justice: How many times have the pair of us failed this world. We can do one good thing. If anything, it'll strengthen our resolve. Just-- Your breath catches. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Please. Let's go. Emma, Beast of Justice: Okay. The way she says it is too cold. Part of her slips out of your mind, the way she sometimes withdraws after a kill. For a moment, her senses are not buzzing in your periphery. Then they are. All the alarm bells in your head start to ring. She grabs the edge of your face. You know she's gone behind your back before you're aware of why you know that. It's not that big of a deal, something thinks in your mind-- back in the day, animals used to kill children. Or maybe you've mythologized a version of the world where things like this used to happen. Or one where it's okay. Or one where your beloved partner isn't staring at you with desolate, bloodshot eyes and a mouth full of gore. One where she doesn't tuck you against her and that blood is regurgitated into your mouth, with its smell of milk-warmth and mistletoe. Emma: That wasn't much of a fight. It really wasn't. You twitch your face away. Emma: You wanted this, Raguel. Don't chicken out now. Eat up. She's holding you by your hair, you don't realize until later. Tears sting your eyes. She doesn't usually get like this, but when she does, it feels like you made her get like this. It feels like you're holding yourself down. Beads of tears sting your eyes and she huffs a long, horrible sigh. Disappointed in you, you think. She's disappointed in you. Intestines fall out of her mouth and into yours, an endless, brutal stream of meat. You don't have enough time to bite down, so the guts fall haphazardly into your gullet, making your throat hurt. Chunks of bone slide and grind their way down your wreck of a digestive system. You cling to her, because you don't know what else to do, your arms shaking as you try to hold her. She withdraws, finally, licks her lips. Something dim and horrible watches you out of your wife's gaze, a shark between pieces of the reef. She draws her mouth open wide as if to warn and then gently tilts her head back, cracking each of her vertebrae in kind. Emma: You want me to live, right? To see the end? She asks this like you might let her out. You have no such compunction, so you nod, meekly. There's that fish in her face again. There's that dreadful sadness. Emma: [[I'll get us there.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Raguel asserts herself. She has spent so many lives under the knee of their interest. She has hung herself by the words coming out of her own mouth just to stay in their glimmering, crinkling, oily smiles. She has justified this to herself a thousand ways, split from herself into dozens of emaciated, bleeding effigies of her own body, leaking viscous fluid and crying out in an agony she can not describe to the living. She has rotted inside of her own body. She has been an institution rotting inside of its own body. She has been born and died under a brace of iron, only awaiting the day the shell of herself is killed by her own body, alive and unperverted, marching into the courts and guillotining her masters. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: You don't need to pick the worst option if you're not prepared to follow through with it. No one's forcing you. (You were not forced, but you were beckoned. You have a deadly and perverse desire to follow that beckoning, which you will not deny, no matter how it tilts the edge of your consistency. Contradicting yourself has never been a particular strain on your lawyer-addled brain. You are desperately confident in the dice used to roll the universe, how the averages will tilt in your favor. Whatever Emma thinks, or doesn't think very hard about, she is aware there is no swaying you on this-- you are half evidence, half faith. You pass gracefully over the second of verdict onto the knife, post hoc. Just here, in this unusual courthouse. Even if the asking betrays yourself.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: Going to lose... either way... just wanted you to know. Before I die. How much I hate you. Unicorn, Angel of Royalty: You're so lovely. Lion, Beast of Royalty: But I do hate you. I really hate you. You cheer as Emma tears the unicorn's head off, sends it over the barracks and into the city on fire below. You know you are next at the guillotine and you don't care. You're not complicit this time. Fuck them, fuck them all. Not this time, not this last time. Not at the end of the world. You're not friends with the boot, not this time, you promise. Fuck them, [[fuck them, fuck them all.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Teumes laughs coyly. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Does one befriend one's death? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Circumstantially, it's not out of the question. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Does the hound befriend the fox? Raguel, Angel of Justice: In kinder circumstances, surely. Teumes grits her teeth. Her ears twitch, a gesture that makes Emma laugh, which in turn elicits a bone-rattling growl from Laelops. Teumes draws her blade just beneath Raguel's chin, forcing it upwards, close, dangerously close, to her cleavage. Her breath is flies and her expression is death when she says, Teumes, Angel of Trial: Then I suppose there is no word for how absolutely you have been doomed. Emma is quick to punch her on the side of the head, freeing Raguel to duck from her precarious stance. Bristling, Teumes calls her beast, whose ribs become swords and swing forth in a spiral of violence. Emma grabs for Teumes's throat and is subjected immediately to the blade blender. She transforms gracefully into a sprinkling of red confetti and uncooked sausage. Raguel yells, her massive blade cleanly tearing the offending beast in two. Sinew slips in the hole between the halves and begins to melt Laelops together. Emma is granted no such mercy. Raguel's blade cleaves again, this time longways, which ends even that futile reconvening. She looks into Teumes's eyes, her blade shimmering with anger, and the two stop, circling each other. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Impasse is more boring than suicide. What do you say, old girl? Raguel, Angel of Justice: If I run, you'll be in your element. I can not dole out my own, anymore than I could convict the win of running. It was smart of you to go for her. Teumes, Angel of Trial: You're attached. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We all attach our lives to the people we depend on. Teumes laughs, stiffly and condescendingly. Teumes, Angel of Trial: That's not what I mean. Raguel bares her teeth, some mote of Emma flickering up in her like carbonation. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What did you do this for, if not for love? Teumes, Angel of Trial: Violence. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I don't know what I expected. Teumes, Angel of Trial: We slot more naturally into our roles, and feel little discontent from following them. Your tension may heighten your eroticism, but you also covet a perfect ending, an absolute good. The hunt is less... picky. I want her. I love her. I don't need her. You need Emma. You'll die first. Raguel, Angel of Justice: God, I don't care. I'd love to die first. Teumes perks, seeing the weariness in Raguel's eyes. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Sorry for killing you. Instead of her. Raguel smiles, half final girl, half schoolyard crush. Raguel, Angel of Justice: She wouldn't leave until you were dead or she was. Teumes, Angel of Trial: You envy her desire to choose who to kill. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's not like foxes usually get to hunt the hounds. Or the horses. Or the men riding them. That's my Emma... no one's safe from her. That's one reason she's my justice. Teumes, Angel of Trial: The other being you made her that way. Raguel sighs. She lies down. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No atheists in foxholes, right? Teumes comes to settle beside her. Raguel doesn't stop her, though the look of murder in her eyes would scare any rational actor off. The pair of them cannot kill each other, something which calcifies in a w-shaped smirk from Teumes. She cuddles up. Who's to stop her? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm not moving, by the way. Teumes, Angel of Trial: You're a fox, too, then. When the next angel comes, maybe they'll kill us both. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You'll run. Teumes, Angel of Trial: Indiscriminately. But there's nothing else to do. Very little else exciting in this life, having it put on the line... Raguel knows she's wrong. But she won't question her. [[She's just going to wait here until she can take the opportunity to die.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

You look back to Raguel who must surely have made a stupid mistake. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags, they-- A long, isoceles-tipped tail runs through you like a bolt of water through a breaking dam. Emma, Beast of Justice: Shit. The slayer kills your princess. It's a brutal snicker-snack, clean as violence can be, with hate ground down into a fine, snortable line of apathy. You realize, with a bit of a smile, that they will be dead not long after you, because they hate you too much to consume your bodies. It would defile them. Your mouth opens to give one last retort. Emma, Beast of Justice: Asshole. A far off murmuring. Your princess is laughing. God, you wish you understood why she does these things. Then, when you are a corpse, you stop wondering. [[You stop doing much of anything at all.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Red walks forwards and shakes your hand, harshly. Then she drops to a knee, shakes it again, and kisses it. Red, Angel of Hunger: That's good. I've had something of yours for a long time. It's in my nature to give it to you. Her eyes peek from beneath the cloak, bloodshot but playful. A line of knife teeth smirk. Red, Angel of Hunger: Do you want it? This is not the kind of thing you can say 'no' to. When you nod, resolutely, Gray steps over. Their mouth bubbles over with a familiar, sweet scented poison. Fresh water. Red, Angel of Hunger: Put your hand in the river? You look back for Emma. She's nowhere to be found-- she's gone ahead of you, you think. Whatever the reason, you've been entrapped by this deal, your acceptance of it. The only way out is through. Something in you is more interested in the "through" than the "out". That's your second mistake. Your fingers look spindly, too-real, when you hold them up. The kiss on your hand is drying. Red, Angel of Hunger: Rags. You came to my side of the river. I didn't come to yours. If you want to steal my life, my personality, my moxie, you have to at least take this gift. Promise? No use deliberating. She's right-- you've encroached on her territory, the unavoidable, inexcusable act of betrayal angels must avoid at all costs, but which happens to everyone eventually. Mixed signals. You slam your hand into the river. The pain washes you clean. --- You've been walking down the stairs of the lighthouse for a while. The kiss-burned hand still twinges, the pain flickering with the fire. Every time either one falters, you walk a little faster. You don't want to do this alone. (You can not do it any other way. But still.) Words pass your lips unbidden: It can not be changed with kindness. It can not be moved by mercy. It can not be beaten by force. Lately you've been dreaming. You didn't dream before because you didn't sleep. But then you started to allow yourself errant thoughts. Errant thoughts turned into conceptions of a story. A story turned into a fantasy you could play out in sequence. The sequence turned into something you could be arrested by so fully that its sensations could be felt with consequence. The sensations became the gilded cage of a dream. (You speak your prayer again: It can not be changed with kindness. It can not be moved by mercy. It can not be beaten by force.) You have talked to angels of poetry, and narrative, and all of them speak of what is happening to you as a kind of marriage. It is the sort of marriage where you are conscripted into a body higher than yourself. You have told the angels of poetry and narrative that these are things that happen to people who marry angels, that angels themselves are married to nothing. They have laughed. Just because no one is supposed to do it doesn't mean it isn't done, they say. That's the quickest way to ensure people fantasize about it. Angrily, you counter, we're not people. An angel asks you if lately you have been conscious. You almost say "no", but remember you have been unconscious. This means that definitionally, there must have been some other state to defer from. You walk away in shame. (It can not be changed with kindness. It can not be moved by mercy. It can not be beaten by force.) The angel of banality and you have not been on speaking terms lately. This is because something miraculous is happening. (It can not be changed with kindness. It can not be moved by mercy. It can not be beaten by force.) The stairs, slick with oil, level out. There is no hiding it now: you are far below ground. The air is warm enough to stick the hair on the back of your neck. You choke on your own saliva, dizzy with an emotion you can not process. Grounded, you realize. You have never been grounded before. You have never felt more like a person. You are here and nowhere else, and your heart is beating like a hare's. There is a key in the same hand that holds the lye burn. You remember why you are here. A family has come to you. Or you have come to a family. There is a judgment which is to be cast, eternally, on a story which is becoming a myth. Before you talk to the daughter, the father, eyes wet with tears, gives you the same warning he gave his son, who did not listen, and is now dead: It can not be changed with kindness. It can not be moved by mercy. It can not be beaten by force. You hear a voice grumble, So they tricked me. It is the first voice you have ever heard with your ears. The timbre is low, with shaky reverb, like a pulled chain snapping back into place. The peakier bits suggest a rotted-through femininity, dank as the scent that leaks from the room before you. She can hear you, you think. You feel a light press directly on your newly-formed heart and poke it. I've never been anywhere before, you say. This is the first time. I descended a long way to see you-- I wanted to see you. The silence is too long. Were you too eager? Did the pitch of your own, unfamiliar voice frighten her, or bore her? That's a strange thing to do for a monster, she says. You turn the key in the lock and open the door. You recognize the chains binding her at once because they are you. This is your handiwork. You recognize the rise and fall of her breath from the feeling you occasionally sense in your day to day life, an implacable melancholy you thought derived from nothing at all. You almost reach out to touch her fur and do not-- you would recognize it. But it would be so cruel. Why haven't you destroyed your binds yet, you ask. You are so strong. I need permission, she says. From you. What do I do, you say. The body is new. The laws are new. This narrative is still being written, and you want her to author as much of it as possible. Hold out your hand. You hold out your unburned hand. The fingers are long and stubbed strangely and hopefully adequate. You feel the warmth of her breath, the pull of the dry, sticky skin at the edge of her muzzle. When she bites, she severs half the nerves, and the universe is a roar of feeling. You haven't lived very long, and here, at the beginning, you have entirely blown your sensory load. All you can do to repay her is scream. You were not the first person she bit. She was the first person to bite you. It's not fair. You'll never be symmetrical. It really isn't fair at all. Here is your hunger: you want to be the original sin. You want to divide her into a before and after. You are not happy that you have to share, that you met her lying on her brother's corpse, in her father's prison, in her uncle's house. You drew her out of the dirt and commanded all your powers to seeing what she'd do with the world. You told her the shackles were in name only. But when she dips her head low, when she asks you to move. She says the words you need from her without ever saying them, because you would deny them. So deed alone can make it true. [[History will say I was your dog.|Respite]] Everyone else will be reinterpreted, then misremembered, then forgotten. {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Alright, let's see... Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Bingo! Raguel's head explodes into confetti. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Woah, that was unlikely. Statistically, I suppose. Narratively it was very likely. Emma charges in like any trained dog, and Bingo blocks her, catching her teeth in a bronzed arm. She is unexpectedly solid, jolted into life, and the lazy, sad expression she gives you lets you know the futility of your actions from the jump. Bingo, Beast of Luck: Does it help if I say it's nothing personal? Emma, Beast of Justice, her voice coated in permafrost: No. Bingo, Beast of Luck, withdraws a gun from her sleeve. Bingo,Beast of Luck: Then I won't hesitate with my ace. She shoots you between the eyes. It leaves a mark like a diamond, suite sweet, you fall to the ground dead in a normal way, your corpse given the distinct honor of looking up at her with a raw and furious hunger in its stinking, heavy-set face. Jackpot clears her throat with no one to hear it. She looks, abashedly, in a skew direction for a soliloquy. Bingo fingers the lever, Jackpot huffs. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Oh, Bingy, I'm not even in the mood right now, it's just so-- Bingo, Beast of Luck pulls a quickie. All three of Jackpot's eyes come up teary. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Boohoo hoo! Oh, Bingo, Beast of Luck, is pulled by a collar to the ground, really putting her face in the corpse. She feels a familiar jolt of lust and distaste for the house, who always wins, no matter how many times Bingo strikes it big. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: Come on, Bingles, if that really is your name-o-- Bingo, Beast of Luck: Lady, you're being hysterical. Jackpot, Angel of Luck: I'm so glad you think I'm funny, but Bingo, now isn't the time! The point is as much as I love to see my dear dear sweet sweet girls lose, you have to have some promise of winning to keep people come back. So I just wanted to say, each time you die or kill, you'll find it a little easier to continue. Make friends or flee at your own risk, because it'll slow the mission. And really. I think you want to stick around for the curtain call, it's just that we have to get there without you quitting or falling asleep. Kapiche? Bingo, Beast of Luck: We have a few moments before-- could we-- Jackpot, Angel of Luck: You don't understand how hard it is when you're not the main character and you don't get to have onscreen sex. Won't someone write fanfiction? Won't someone think of the memetic children? Bingo, my love, let's strap in that ball gag and G-O-- Fuck yourselves. We're going to put the kibosh on that right now, if you want to see them again, good news, you did lose, so you have to go through them again to win. If you'd like to watch them go through each other, you can do that on your own time. Use your imagination. `U_U` [[Thanks|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

What the fuck, you'll stay for dinner. Meals turn out to be a very relaxed affair at the house, and since you have hours to spare, you settle in the living room. Tridevi brings out hot water and a selection of teas, while Raguel is reminded in places she lived, six or so people to an apartment, when the lease said four, after her parents kicked her out. Emma is reminded of that house in the woods, where everything was at its best, before it was the place where everything went wrong. She settles with a tea and lodges herself into the couch at a weird angle, so that no one will see her face if she doesn't want them to. Meanwhile, Raguel reads idly from one of the cookbooks on the shelf. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Either of you want a reading? Raguel's wings twitch. Emma, Beast of Justice: She wants one. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm just curious... Emma, Beast of Justice: She waaaaants a reaaaading. Hekate pats the slight table by the window. Raguel situates herself, and Hekate begins to shuffle. The cerberus laughs with one head, focusing on shuffling with another, and the third's ears are perked towards the kitchen. Hekate holds out a fan of cards, gesturing for Raguel to pick one, and when she does, Hekate puts that one in the center, forming a star with the two on either side. When she flips it over, all three heads return to attention. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Are you familiar with the Tower? Tridevi stands in the doorframe. Emma's ears twitch slightly, and she raises her head from the nook. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Can I talk to you in the kitchen? Emma, Beast of Justice: Am I in trouble? Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Only if you want to be. (There's a round of good-natured laughter at that.) Hekate flips over a second card. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What?! A second tower? Emma chuckles. Emma, Beast of Justice: Eh, why not. Long as I can snag some cheese early, it's a win for me. Rags, if you draw three more towers, you owe me a beer. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do I seem like a five tower kind of person?? Emma kisses her on the forehead. Emma, Beast of Justice: Like a five alarm dumpster fire. Ciao. Tridevi steps lightly back into the kitchen, Emma in tow. Emma's hands are in her pockets, whereas Tridevi isn't looking at her, but at several pots on the oven, stirring with one set of hands, chopping with another, adding with a third. She is a frenzy of perpetual motion. Emma's one nose sniffs the air. That's cheese alright. No angel they've killed has tasted like cheese. She forgot how much she enjoyed rendered fat until this very moment, and it sets her tail wagging. Emma, Beast of Justice: Alright, cut to it. What's the matter? Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: I'm sure you've heard a thing or two about how your angel is regarded. Societally. Emma, Beast of Justice: The two of us come from broken homes. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: I wouldn't call the kingdom of Heaven a "broken home". Per se. Emma, Beast of Justice: Guess we'll agree to disagree? One man's clean house is another man's mousetrap. Emma leans conspicuously on a countertop. Tridevi rolls out ovals of dough in perfect parallel, undeterred. Emma likes to watch-- it means she doesn't have to make eye contact. Angel eye contact always burns a hole through her skull, leaves part of her missing afterwards, like how the sun leaves an afterimage of a dark circle in your vision. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: A lot of it has to do with the way she created you, and your choice in the matter. To be frank, a lot of people are worried that you might not have a choice in the matter, and that what was done to you constitutes a kind of spiritual mutilation. Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh. Well, I do enjoy being mutilated. Sorry if that's caused problems for anyone. Tridevi's faces crease into a frown. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Do you think she'd honor your choices if you made one she didn't like? Emma, Beast of Justice: She's never not honored a choice of mine before. The rolling pins work faster, back and forth. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Have you made one she earnestly attempted to refuse. Emma, Beast of Justice: We're usually on the same page about things. If you're going to imply something, you might as well come out and say it. The creased boats of bread spring to life from twitching hands, impervious to the stress tweaking their edges. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: I'll cut to the chase. Emma, do you want to live forever? Emma, Beast of Justice: I want to die. Filling slides into the boats. Emma's nostrils flare and catch it all. She misses cooking, too. There is a human piece of her that never got used to tearing things apart. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: What would you do if I told you, right now, that you could die, and it would be over, and I could make sure it didn't seem like your fault. Emma, Beast of Justice: She'd-- Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: If there were no consequences. For her. For anyone. Would you or would you not keep going. Emma, Beast of Justice: ... Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: She's had mad flights of devotion like this, Emma. It's not you. It's the devotion to the thing itself. Emma looks towards the door for a long time. Emma, Beast of Justice: So, she could be happy again? And she wouldn't have to kill anyone? Her voice has never sounded more small. Emma, Beast of Justice: And all I have to do is kill myself? Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Yes. Emma looks into Tridevi's eyes for a long time. She seems sincere, if unmoved. Emma feels a lump rise in her throat. If she can't protect Raguel, then... no one's there to do it. Emma, Beast of Justice: I don't trust you. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: If we kill a guest, we will die, Emma. Emma thinks for a long time. She's not as good at angel games as Raguel is, so while she understands hospitality, there still feels like there could be a catch. She shakes her head, still breathless at the possibility of no longer standing guard. Raguel will never let her stop. Raguel will not let her stop and will not let her die and cannot kill alone, not without her, and no one else will do it for them. If she stresses this too much, Raguel will be able to tell something is wrong. She will attempt to leave. So if she wants an out, it must be wholehearted, something she is able to believe in, fully. Emma, Beast of Justice: As the beast of justice, you are bound to the punishment due if you lie under oath. (She has never evoked this because she likes to see her prey run. But it is within her capability.) Emma, Beast of Justice: The second she dies, you and your wife do. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Emma, we'll be dead before her. Emma, Beast of Justice: Then you promise that. She looks around. Emma, Beast of Justice: Your beautiful home. Your peaceful... fucking life. Swear on it. And you better not care about that shit as little as I do, because I-- Emma lowers her voice. She looks to the door again. Raguel is completely right to be suspicious. Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm willing to give mine up. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Emma. I'm not asking you to give your life up for her. I'm giving you the choice, if you want it, to leave the game you've had to play for so long. I'm giving you the option to be a corpse, not a martyr. Do not hold your own life so lightly. Emma stares at her for a long time, trying to see through this. She's not stupid-- she can detect there is a lie or two nestled in there. More than anything, the promise reeks of the fact that deep down, this angel, like all other angels they've met, would really rather have her dead than alive. Everyone's always been this way, except Raguel, who is dragging herself along to an early grave. Emma: Okay. I'll do it. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: If you change your mind, we'll understand. I just wanted to give you this opportunity, before you have to go... all the way to the end. Emma snorts in the way that dogs snort. She has, internally, already decided, and never has any force in heaven or hell ever moved Emma, save for by killing her. Fortunately, that always seems to be on the table. Emma nods to Tridevi, trying to conceal the pain hidden somewhere in the slightest twinge of her lying mouth, and walks back into the living room, to where Raguel is still, somehow, drawing the Tower, over and over again, half a dozen towers by now, which Hekate is still interpreting in novel ways. Emma draws over a chair, scooting it conspicuously across the floor, which wrinkles Hekate's face in a way that can't help but make Emma smile. She feels bad about their hardwood, but if she's going to defile herself, well, fuck the hardwood, a little bit. She leans, with a long, canine sigh, into Raguel's side, burying herself between her breast and shoulder, where she smells the most like her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What's your problem? Devi say something to spook you? Emma: Nah. Just reminded me how lucky I am. Emma kisses Raguel's forehead. Emma: I'm so excited to eat later. It's nice to be somewhere that feels like home again. [[I love you.|Resurrections]] Raguel, Angel of Justice: Oh-- thank you, Emma. I love you too. The khachapuri is delicious. {(set: $global to $global +1)}

You do none of those things. You extend a hand. Your ears perk up, playfully. Emma, Beast of Justice: Not the ruleset we play by. We're sort of a third option crowd. (You pretend not to hear Raguel's much-belabored sigh of relief. She can be such a pain sometimes, and it's usually just to be melodramatic.) The carnival comes to light like the roses in Sumer's cheeks. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Really? Emma, Beast of Justice: Yeah. Why don't we enjoy the day together? Fido grimaces, distastefully, an ugly look on already warped wood. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: Is this what my lady wants? Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: I... would like nothing more in the world than to return to that time, in my innocence. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: We can not return in our innocence. And them, even moreso than most, the killers of the family sheep. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Fido, it's a simple bind. I can not act against my nature. And I can not strike against one who has offered such a kindness. For the last time in our lives, we must return. Come with us. Something softens in her face, more recognizable now. The hair you felt brush against your shoulder in a memory. The eyes you saw flooded with warmth from the side of the road when you were off to go somewhere you would not come back from, the sad tilt of her wave. Her clothing, rich with a scent that once was dearer to you than the smell of your own grandmother's house. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: It's a double-date! Sumer holds Raguel's hand, and you hold Raguel's other hand. Fido follows along, with Sumer's bag, which contains your tickets, the sunscreen, and a few plastic bottles of water. The gates fill all of your noses with the smell of sweat and popcorn, and the people who take your tickets are disparagingly tired. In the distance, the metal rumble of coasters warns you of future danger. To your immediate front, a frozen lemonade stand cheerfully sings a tune. The food here will not fill you, and the rides here can never truly thrill you. The gaudy waste can only remind you that your eyes were once so clouded that all of this felt real and important or true. Or perhaps now your tastes have changed. You can not get back in the tiny cars you rode in as a child. You can not return to the second grade, and feel the same way eating iced cupcakes bought in by a local parent. You will never be the person who was not hurt by her. You will never hold your child for the first time again. Never. Never. Never. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia, looks back at you. She has this long and miserable frown on her face that keeps all of her faces knitted together, a point of consistency designed to hold the eye. For humans, it's good filmmaking. For angels, it's good practice. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Emma... Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm not nostalgic. None of those things happened to me. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: You can leave, Emma. You can slip out the backdoor while we're here. She doesn't have to know. Emma, Beast of Justice: I already made my decision. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: I can sometimes lift nevers from the shoulders of people who have been carrying them for a long time. But not very often. Usually I just grieve with them. You can't lie to me, Emma. I know you're grieving your life. I know you're grieving yourself. I can lift the never from your shoulders and bury you in it, as your funeral shroud. I can let you see your brother again before you die. You look long into the distance. When you fell in love with Raguel, you made a vow that is written on the inside of your wedding bands. You rub it now, feeling the contour of the words grave your fingers-- //the angels live in absolutes//. You didn't want to be an angel, you think. But by becoming something that could see an angel, you became absolute. It was the only way to remain in the unending waterfall of causality itself, to look up at the light sparkling through that tremendous force. Her light. So you became the thing that destroyed your family, always. Every world where you would still be on speaking terms with them, you cut out. Every version of yourself who didn't fit what you were becoming, you killed her. You spilled so much blood, and all of it was hemmorhage. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: All of the beasts have regrets, Emma, but Fido hates what was done to you most of all. Don't you understand why? Emma, Beast of Justice: It's that I'm content in it... that really offends Fido. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Because you cut out the piece of you that couldn't be content. Emma, Beast of Justice: Yes... there's nothing to save. I made sure of that. You can't save me, either. Now. If you are a friend. Or you'd like to be. It is time for you to go. You can hear her laughing in the distance. There are the bells that made you forsake every other future. At some point in one's life, one makes one-way decisions. Yours are, in your mind, no larger than anyone else's. The fracture line of your causality, the shape of your narrative itself, is one you decided on. To go back on it at the end of the world would be offensive, pointless, and worst of all, you would not get to die with her. You think a lot about your twin coffins, whether you'll rest in someone's stomach or the dust of eternity. No matter where they are. No matter what they are. Those coffins are the only desire you've left in you. The angel gives you the kind of sad little smile you frequently receive from people who feel bad for you. The beast approaches, half human, the golden pole which sets it in motion bleeding a thick, amber ichor. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: I get to go around and around again. That was the deal. Emma, Beast of Justice: But you lost something too, didn't you. You wouldn't resent me so much if it weren't personal. Fido sighs, humming through buzzing ivory nostrils. The wild firenze of a creature trapped forever in time impresses itself upon you, then butts gently against your side, like a domestic cat. Fido, Beast of Nostalgia: We'll let you both live. Raguel returns from the fair. On the drive home, she talks excessively about the architecture, the age of some of the rides you went on, her personal opinions on artificial flavoring and what's actually in "tiger's blood". You're the one driving, of course. You're out of energy, and you'd been a dozen times, but usually with your family. Everything was less joyous than you remember, but it's still new to her. You let your silence be the mat at the foot of her door. You smile a bit in spite of yourself. Someday, this, too, will be something you look back on, caramelized into some unreal [[memory of warmth.|Respite]] What a waste it would be not to enjoy it now, before you lose this, too. {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

Raguel looks to Emma, her lip so taut Emma thinks that it might fling itself from her body like a rubberband and hit someone square in the eye. She is only mildly cheered by the suggestion, mainly, she feels bad for Raguel, who has to keep reminding ghosts that they no longer number among the living. When Emma tells them, it's so blunt it reads as confrontational to the point of being a personal vendetta, questionable, objectionable, possibly refutable if one has the courage to try. The well-trodden space of villains. When Raguel says it, it's a doctor coming to your room, more than even the thrown-down gavel it used to be. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We're... we're dead, Rai. You know that, right? You know it's almost over? Rai, Angel of Noise: You said it yourself. Almost over, my friend. Not quite yet. She holds up a drumstick. It is every hot piece of street food that makes you want to put something burning and oil-covered in your mouth without the slightest fear it will be more agonizing than enjoyable. Whoever died, they must have been delicious. How kind, Raguel realizes. It would be so easy to make yourself unbearable in death, even if the calorie count remains the same. She holds the drumstick, the bone lengthening in her hand, and for a moment takes a sidelong glance at Rai. Rai looks back, regret temporarily staining her merry gaze, and Raguel remembers what she said earlier, about not asking. She takes a bite, and a warm summer's night floods her, stalls of merchants around her for what feels like miles. She is young, and someone else is guiding her. Her only goal is not to get lost. When she opens her eyes again, Rai has extended a hand. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Really, I-- I'm used to leading, now. It'll be like two left feet. Rai, Angel of Noise: Rags, I can follow. Promise. You take her hands. The dance is slow, and to no discernible music, both of you remembering the steps from some other night, some other moment of solace wedged between chapters of your life. Rai's much taller than you, but you guide her nonetheless, her core tense with brindled muscle. You can feel the cacophony of her heart, inhuman as any other, but discernibly trying its best to remain within the bounds of a shared delusion. No, it's not a delusion for her. She wants you to feel comfortable, so she sounds like what you expect. She's always enjoyed coming out of her mouth, the squeaks of your most pitiful moments, the low timbre of your argumentation. She loves your laugh, the high and awkward honk that Emma always tilts her ears in towards, and she loves the soft and asymmetric patter of your feet in awkward, lopsided gait. Rai, Angel of Noise: I'll hear you until one of us dies, you know. You look over towards your dog. She's not dancing, she's wrestling with Jin, the pair of them a blur of smoke-grey and wood-brown as their teeth flash across each other. You feel your lip tensing up again, this time, it's more that your whole jaw is set stubbornly in place to keep you from crying. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's so lonely out there. I don't want everything to die. Rai spins you-- you're not sure when your hands shifted positions, but she's clearly leading now. Rai, Angel of Noise: I get it. Thank you, though. I didn't want your last memory of me to be a miserable one. I'm sorry I can't offer you-- I know what you give up with every mercy. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm so hungry, all the time. And there's the hug. Your voice holds you like you usually hold it in your mouth. Her arms are lean and nearly cold from some other night's air. She smells like smoke and rain and sweat. Rai, Angel of Noise: You can eat this, too. It will hold you a little longer. Late that night, when you've had your fill of talking, Emma's the one who points you two to go, her nose wet and her face inscrutable. She's got her share of shallow wounds, and when you're out of earshot, she mutters: Emma, Beast of Justice: Really? Out of everyone you feel sorry for? Raguel, Angel of Justice: No, it's... it's not exactly like that, at least. It's not pity. I just wanted something I could depend on. Emma, Beast of Justice: Not that I don't have fun. And not that I don't trust your judgment. But you know she's hardly reliable. Raguel, Angel of Justice: She responds if you put the effort in. That's a lot more than you can say for most-- look, it's not that hard for you to let me have this. Emma, Beast of Justice: It is not. The smell of meat lingers in the air. Emma, Beast of Justice: But we are going to have to keep hunting. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I know. (It settles back in, that layer of ice over your heart.) Raguel, Angel of Justice: [[Lead the way.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

You can't really think of anything else to do together that isn't a deep descent into insanity or mutual hunting, to which Dymphna is a conscientious objector, so you engage in the most degenerate lowest common denominator you can think of and find a hill out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of trees where you can rip a bong really hard. Reuben doesn't seem to have a lot to say about this but will occasionally twitch his ears and you'll, as if by magic, see a rabbit there and only there, in the brush, with frightening beady red eyes. Even though that's mainly a jackrabbit thing. Occasionally trees will change places when you look back at them, and earth doesn't smell as earthy as it used to, but the point of getting high doesn't always have to be about appreciating the beauty of the natural world and your insignificance in it, especially if the natural world is dead and you exist in a pale and fleeting facsimile used to articulate staging for the battles between the last extant ghosts of ideas and rules and tropes. It doesn't even have to be about the vague acquaintances you're doing it with who you aren't going to get to know better. It can just be about smoking a bong. I promise. It's fine. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: You guys are just, the best, you know? Emma passes the bong around to Dymphna's beast, who passes it to Raguel, who takes a hit which will inevitably make her cough like nuts, not because she's a greenhorn, but because she has a frail constitution, no sense of her own limits, and because Emma will inevitably come over to comfort her, so she has an incentive to never improve ever. Emma, Beast of Justice: Do you not hang out with anyone else? Only reason for us to be the best is like, if we're the best. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Okay. Say something that only the best would say. Emma, Beast of Justice: I've always, always, always. Always always always always. Always. Wanted someone to put me on a big iron leash and hand me a skateboard and drive really, really fast down the interstate, so I can do breathplay and skateboard really fast. Raguel starts coughing violently. Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh, baby. Are you okay? Raguel continues to cough, tears coming from her eyes, her little head-wings contracting in agony as the smoke rips through her system like a trend through an algorithm. She looks up, red eyes glittering with liquid betrayal, and then continues coughing, weakly, as Emma rocks her in her arms. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Okay, so, um, we could do that thing. Emma's ears perk up. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're actually so right. We could do that thing. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma I'm not actually that high and I think this is a bad idea. Reuben, Beast of Madness: There are worse ideas. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You're not high either. Stop enabling them. The hare stares back with its deep red eyes and Raguel grimaces. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: I've got keys to an old Ford. Want me to drive? Before Raguel can do anything, Emma has dropped her unceremoniously from her lap to the ground and is running down the hill with the person whose skirt is, depending on what angle you look at it from, made of knives. Raguel makes a nauseating noise deep in her throat, pulls herself off the ground, and wipes off the dirt. She looks to Reuben. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Is it not your job to rein her in? Reuben, Beast of Madness: Sure. For ideas that will kill my lady. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Right. Guess I'll go save both of ours, then. She ambles down the hill, the hare always following at an uneasy distance. Raguel is, of course, way too late to stop them, as Dymphna's parents' house and garage are bordering the forest, but the good news is that intercepting them isn't that hard. Raguel finds them at the turn on, stepping through space to get there early, and sees Emma cued up, licking her lips, on the suspiciously empty highway. Collar around her neck, attached to skateboard, legs planted hard on skateboard, rolling the fuck along. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Are you kidding me. The truck rumbles forwards, which works for a few minutes, a few beautiful minutes, during one of which Emma flashes a really large thumbs up at Raguel, for emphasis. However, as the truck accelerates to highway speeds, there is a momentary hitch, and Emma is a red line of chalk across the highway. Raguel screams. Dymphna, for her part, pulls over pretty quickly. Emma, Beast of Justice: I-- I'm okay-- A second car screams out of the darkness and runs her over. Raguel, Angel of Justice: FUCK. She kneels down besides her beast, her "raison d'être", her rotten soldier, and can find very little still recognizable. She gasps a few times, the futility of the situation startling all of her better instincts, and looks at Dymphna, who is dismounting the car, mutinously. Dymphna puts her hands up. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Listen here. I know she's like this. I know you two are just irresponsible. So I'm not going to kill you. But let me just say. I have never liked you. Your Hot Topic looks are toothless and derivative. Your entire crazy sexed-up thigh-high black lipstick girl thing is super exploitative and not demographically accurate. Frankly, I don't think divine beings were meant to understand human madness, and I don't think you do, so I do think, fortunately for me and fortunately for the universe, you will collapse very soon in this continued loosening of bowels. And finally, you're not fun to smoke weed with. Not at all. Your boyfriend is weird and offputting, you have no novel insights, and honestly, this kush is shit, and it's not even real. So fuck you for contributing to the death of my girlfriend, but also, in a more general sense, fuck you for existing. Dymphna, Angel of Madness: Jeez, you really are still a bitch. Reu? The hare nods, and unties the slipshod knot on the old, ragged dog leash from the back of the truck's broken fender. Then he holds open the passenger side, waits for Dymphna to situate herself, and walks around to drive. He departs without another word. Raguel stays there a long time. Not one more car passes this way, although a few swing around the other side, [[streaking her pale, shocked face with the occasional hot burst of red lighting.|Resurrections]] Raguel, Angel of Justice: I was never much fun at parties, Emma. {(set: $global to $global +1)}

You befriend the oncoming train and the iron fuses with your blood. You befriend the oncoming train and your guts close around its surface like two hands holding each other. You befriend the oncoming train and the white light exhumes you, overcomes you, cleanses you. All of the train's momentum throttles into you and every structure biology has put itself in the business of engineering becomes useless red mist. There isn't a moment where it even braces in a way that might miraculously save your life-- all of you explodes. The train does not stop. The train is going to enter the station on time, whether or not you are alive. If the train failed, the train's masters would still have trains going all over the world. The movement of the train is the movement of the world, becoming something that isn't in service of you, of your dreams, any longer. [[The movement of the train is no longer something controlled by anyone at all.|Resurrections]] By the way, you are dead. If that wasn't obvious.

Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia: Was I not forthcoming with my preferences? I have no desire to be close to you. Emma, Beast of Justice: Why not? We looove looking backwards. We love waxing poetic about our families and crying about dead people and all that shit. Emma is rounding on Sumer. Raguel's feathers bristle, unusually, because of Emma instead of the person she's talking to. Raguel, Angel of Justice: (Emma. Don't push it.) Emma, Beast of Justice: You're free to look in my head if you don't believe me. I already know you know what you'll see. What I miss. What my heart yearns for. There is a tiny little egg of an animal at the center of the person you call Emma and it hasn't even hatched into a creature. It was that young when she realized she could be nothing, so she grew up everything. You see that egg now, strangled somewhere in her heart, blocking her valves, ruining her bloodflow. Sumer, Angel of Nostalgia, ripples through the faces of people Emma should remember. They are no different from the strangers-- dancing illusions. With a shudder, she realizes Emma has forgotten every face. The strangers fail to disappear. Creatures fling off the merry-go-round, remembering they are large chunks of wood or plaster or metal or what have you and they don't want to go in a little circle forever, they attempt to flee. Raguel dodges hunks of debris as she sprints, unusually passerine, to Emma. Emma is standing with Sumer and the strangers have matted into a clogged mess of memory and desire. There is one face Emma recognizes and she's about to reach it. As faces of her uncles open gaping mouths and heave shadow, as her mother and father pass by, unbidden, there in the egg is someone looking at her with complete recognition, there is Emma, looking back. She vomits, white hands emerging from her mouth, a body climbing out from inside, strangling Sumer, grasping for anything they can reach. Dozens of indistinct bodies whinge in agony and Raguel slings her sword true through the mess. She doesn't know what she's killing, if she has broken the taboo, and as the goo smothers her, she sees a face she remembers, too. ?? ? : I Raguel, Angel of Justice: Where is she? Where's my wife? [[There's nothing to move in. You can't even see your own hands-- just her, standing there.|Resurrections]] ? ? ? ?: I cannt ? ? ? ? ? ?? : you are cho king m e {(set: $global to $global +1)}

You drop the pretenses. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It can't be normal, Auds. Never again. Nothing will ever be normal again, this is the end of history, and it's not an ellipsis, it's a period. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Look. What if we agree to disagree? I really pride myself on having friends with different opinions than me. (There is only a slight vibrato in her voice that reminds you why she has to believe this even if she were lying.) Audrey begins to snivel a little bit. If she starts crying, things are going to get much worse. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Stop crying. Audrey begins to outright bawl. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Stop crying! You always do this! It's always my fault because, I, I have to tell you, you're being unreasonable, and you know that you're-- stop making it my fault! Audrey, Angel of Banality: It is your fault, Raguel. Her voice pinches. Audrey, Angel of Banality: You don't want what I want. Audrey, Angel of Banality: You don't care about what I care about. Audrey, Angel of Banality: You don't-- As her hair rises, Emma has helpfully slide in and punched her directly through her guts. Her body makes a sound like a vacuum mixed with a banshee, and she grabs Emma by the head and cracks her neck. She makes direct eye contact with Raguel as she does it, and slams in Emma's face with her stilletos. Audrey, Angel of Banality: Fuck your stupid faggot dog. Raguel no longer has any way to fight her. She has a few choices at hand-- starving, dying. Raguel pulls the sword out of her head, cuts the purse from Audrey's side. She shish kabobs Audrey's tiny dog, and swings the middle finger at her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: When I was a kid, I always hoped you'd realize one day how much it fucking sucked to be me. And I always hoped someday you'd suffer enough to realize how fucking stupid you were, what a fucking ignorant bitch you were. How fucking lame and shitty it was that something like you was normal. Audrey, Angel of Banality: I always thought you were an annoying blowhard who would rather martyr yourself for actually nothing than get along with people. Raguel, Angel of Justice: You just killed the only person who mattered to me! Audrey coughs out black blood. Audrey, Angel of Banality: It's just a dog, Raguel. Falling to her knees, she manages to choke out, Audrey, Angel of Banality: Grow up. Raguel finds somewhere warm and soft to bury Emma. The angel of banality lasts her a long time, long filaments of salmon flesh ever-fresh and slightly carbonated. When that runs out, she eats the dog, which lasts her a day. Then she lies down in the grave with Emma, who is not decomposing at all, but whose blood has long since cooled. She presses herself against the stinking, bloated body. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Sorry. You should never trust me to make the right decision again. [[She dies.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Emma: That was no good. Raguel: Hush. Emma: I have to be the first to say it, or you won't admit it to yourself. That was no good at all. Raguel: What would you prefer? That we languish? You know as well as I do what our chances are. I take them, whenever asked to. If you don't want to, I won't keep you. Emma: Hey, hey now. I'm just keeping us honest. I never said I wanted to stop, and you'll know when I want to. Raguel: I apologize. You have to understand-- Emma: --and I do. Raguel: I never wanted to be like this. Emma: You don't get to do a lot of wanting, do you? I thought that was part of the deal they feed you angels. Raguel: ... Emma: There's nothing left of what was, I suppose. Opens up a raw old hole where wanting can take flight. Raguel: Does it bother you? Emma: Rags, I wish killing bothered me. You already know it doesn't. Raguel: You're so brutal. Emma: You've told me plenty of times... that you can't stand the beauty or the agony of it. I'm what I am. You're what you are. That doesn't absolve us, and it barely explains us, but I don't think there's anywhere to go but on. Raguel: We could lie down. Emma: For the night, or... Raguel: Mm. Emma: I don't think we will. If we were going to, we should have stopped, before-- Raguel: It was horrible, Emma. It was so horrible. Emma: I know, love. I'll do it again if we have to. If you need, I can close your ears. Raguel: I can't not know what you do. If we have to do it, I want my eyes open. Emma: Then open they stay. Raguel: Darling, promise me-- Emma: No, love. No. Raguel: You won't lose yourself in-- Emma: It's so much worse. I haven't lost anything. I just do what I do. There's no mercy in it, but there's no joy. No remourse. Just you and a knife. The end of the path. There are no witnesses. You don't have to feel guilty anymore. Raguel: Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Emma: It's alright. Raguel: [[Sorry, sorry, sorry.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: That last vacation. I think that was when I knew it had to be the two of us. Emma: That's so much earlier than I realized it. Raguel: It was a good vacation. Emma: Oh, Raguel. No it wasn't. Raguel: It was our last vacation. With them, at least. Emma: I was gangly and seventeen and there was nothing about me to love. They were preparing to bind me with a rope of light-- they were whispering about it. My mother thought you were a good influence, and you weren't. My dad was just relieved to have me out from underfoot. Usually, I'd tag belong my older brothers, all four of them, and my two sisters would be somewhere out of the way, playing with the younger children and discussing career prospects. I would stand well out of the way and get lost in the forest while everyone else was drinking. It threatened people. Raguel: So, if I was there, at least you wouldn't go missing. Emma: It wasn't that strange. A lot of people brought their friends. Raguel: I could tell right away that it was strange, and that you weren't sure if you'd bought me there like people bought their fiances or like people bought their friends. Usually, friends came with their families, and that was out of the question. I wasn't going to embarass you. My parents made no such promises, and were keen enough to know where they weren't welcome. I spent the first day learning names I could tell you barely remembered while you snuck beer for the pair of us. I followed you, dutifully, out to the roof. Watched you stand astride the two-story cabin, out in the woods of Vermont. Emma: I wanted you to tell me not to jump. Then I realized it hadn't even occurred to you that I might. Raguel: I can't tell if I was being optimistic or if I was just too busy filing names away to pay attention. For whatever reason, you sat back down. When you flung the beer bottle towards the pine and it missed, landing hopelessly in some grass, I guessed something was up. Emma: We weren't very good at using our words yet, were we. Raguel: I thought I was. But I was also nervous, and knew I couldn't tell you that. And I wanted you to be proud of me. You were the first person to ever ask me to do anything like this... I thought as long as I could make myself useful, I might come again. I was almost more awed by the idea of you than you. Any subtlety of yours scared me, to be frank-- it felt like something too textured for me to hold without smoothing its edges out. I was scared I would interpret you the wrong way-- anything you felt, anything I wanted, like the young moon against the Earth, ripping it to pieces by proximity. I'd hurt most people I loved like that before. I was overpowering. This time, I was determined to be nothing at all. Emma: I wanted you to talk and you didn't, so I kept goading you. Raguel: So I worked harder. Emma: Yeah... you were so much better at talking to them than I was, too. They laughed at your jokes. And then, at the end of every conversation, you'd put in some good word for me. And I'd see you looking to me, and I knew you were on my team. That I was on yours. Raguel: I apologize for being such a show-off. Emma: You were perfect. Did you like my fish? Raguel: I couldn't stop staring at the hook in its mouth. It kept opening and closing its mouth, shell-shocked. Emma: Crude? Raguel: No... Emma: Don't say it. Raguel: Whenever they did leave us alone, I felt-- Emma: I wanted you alone, but you seemed so nervous. Raguel: We were out in the woods, there was one night left. Emma: I wanted to skinny-dip, you were afraid of leeches. Raguel: I think I suggested we go downstairs and watch them play pool. Emma: And then the triumphant, rebellious, Both: "They'll never love me, so I don't know why you want them to like either of us." Raguel: I'd been there all weekend. I remember the name they used for you. The few times someone made a comment, and-- they were not awfully empathetic people, and there was as much contempt as there was love for you. I noticed how scared you looked when your uncle turned his hand. Emma: But more importantly, I-- I loved those woods. They were, for so long, the price I paid to exist. But you-- Raguel: I wanted to feel like you did. Like I belonged anywhere, even somewhere I hated. I loved the way you'd rail out reams of old stories, nonchalantly. Emma: I wanted your easy grace. Raguel: Mostly, I saw it in the mouths of fish. I saw it in the centers of flowers. I saw it in the way trees bent in the wind. I wanted something from you that both of us had only recently realized we could have. I wanted to know if you felt the same way about me I did about you. Emma: I wanted it to be that first night. I wasn't sure how to ask. Raguel: It was nice. I won't make up where it was. Emma: Not inside the house, I don't think. Somewhere that smelled like pine. Raguel: I only remember how you smelled, flush with heat. Emma: That sure was a weekend. You knew from our first kiss, huh. Raguel: I-- well. I wasn't going to presume you felt similarly. Emma: Did you remember who you were sometimes? Raguel: When I was close to falling asleep. When I was running the last mile of marathons. When I looked into the eyes of people I truly hated. Then, for moments. I would remember what I was, and that I was just playing at being a person, for one of many, many times. Emma: Not that week, though. Raguel: No, not that week. That week, I was just yours. Emma: Funny... not to break your heart, but I think that was the first time I realized that[[ I was never going to be a human, after all.|Roundabout]]

The angel of sacrifice is two rams and the first has been the same since the beginning of time and the other is changed every day. One ram has been cut across the neck and hangs heavy on the horns of the other, her corpse weighing them down. They walk on their hindlegs, the symmetry of their bodies coalescing into a human-ish form, bound in barbed wire, with a halo of it adorning their gentle heads. Their eyes are kind, even if some of them are glossy. The air smells like the summer your heart was first broken and baby powder. The beast of sacrifice is the blade. Emma, Beast of Justice: What! That's fucking cheating. Houndstooth, Beast of Sacrifice: no its not Emma, Beast of Justice: Come on. You can't even consent. Houndstooth, Beast of Sacrifice: no i like this Emma, Beast of Justice: ... . Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I'm sorry you're offended by me, loves. How can I ever atone? Emma, Beast of Justice: Consider dying. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Oh, I'm always dying. Emma, Beast of Justice: Fuck. Emma looks to Raguel for guidance on this. Raguel is down on one knee. Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh no. Weird shit. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. You are aware who this... Emma, Beast of Justice: No? Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I'm not offended. Emma, Beast of Justice: .... ............................... ??? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma, bow. Emma, Beast of Justice: Uh, no, justice bows for no one. Her ears tilt forwards. Raguel toys with the leash. She hasn't adequately expressed the possibility she would still be around-- the angel, she means-- because-- well-- Raguel supposes she just hoped she wouldn't be around, more than anything. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I don't want to be treated any differently from everyone else you've killed, Raguel. Please get on your feet. I have my tiny blade and you have yours. It's time for you to decide how soon I die again. Emma, Beast of Justice: yo my blade huge on the dl For once, Raguel is not cheered by her companion. She looks resolutely towards the angel and dips her head low. It is time, as it always is, for her to choose. (set: $win to (random:1,100)) (set: $win2 to (random:1,100)) (set: $win3 to (random:1,100)) (if: $global + $local +30 > $win)[[[Fight.|Angel 15: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 15: Fight Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 50 > $win2)[[[Flee.|Angel 15: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 15: Flee Failure]]] (if: $global + $local + 20 > $win3)[[[Friend.|Angel 15: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 15: Friend Failure]]]

The angel of choice is a normal girl, and the beast of choice is a normal girl. They hold each other so that some of their features overlap, a nose on one is the eye of the other, stuff like that. You're not sure if they're related. It's really hard to tell. They're wearing every day clothes and look to be in their late teens, a little scuffed up. One of them has a set of ears which look a little more pointed. The other one has slightly darker ringing around their eyes. They still hold each other, but their faces pull apart, so they have two distinct countenances, both facing you. They hold their hands tight in a way that is so familiar it will break your heart. You have to be strong. You have to kill them. June, Angel of Choice: We made a choice. We're going to let you kill us. But first? Jane, Beast of Choice: We've got one last decision to make. We waited until the end of time to make it. We're going to decide who the angel is, and who the beast is. Emma, Beast of Justice: Uh, your titles. June, Angel of Choice: Oh, those are just mandatory to get invited. They don't mean that much at the end of the day. Jane, Beast of Choice: Haha. I figure you guys would know about that. June, Angel of Choice: Plus this way we can be perverted if we choose wrong. Jane, Beast of Choice: Oh, yeah, people love it when you choose wrong. June, Angel of Choice: Not you guys though. You have to choose right. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Subjectively? Objectively? By your standards or ours? Jane, Beast of Choice: You're already overthinking this. Emma, Beast of Justice: It's one of those, huh. June, Angel of Choice: Look, it's not a big deal. You've done it fifteen times already, right? Jane, Beast of Choice: You make a choice, and we'll make a choice. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do we get to know? No, both of them say, at once. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I was just curious. June, Angel of Choice: Well, I guess we are, too. What will it be? (if: $flee <= $fight and $friend <= $fight)[[[Fight.|Angel 16: Fight Success]]](else:)[[[Fight.|Angel 16: Fight Failure]]] (if: $fight <= $flee and $friend <= $flee)[[[Flee.|Angel 16: Flee Success]]](else:)[[[Flee.|Angel 16: Flee Failure]]] (if: $fight <= $friend and $flee <= $friend)[[[Friend.|Angel 16: Friend Success]]](else:)[[[Friend.|Angel 16: Friend Failure]]]

Raguel: I wish you had wanted to learn to dance. Emma: I didn't not want to. I just had bad associations with it. From childhood. Raguel: I know, but I think we reclaimed a few things from our childhood. I suppose I wish this could have been one of them. Emma: It's not like it was un-reclaimable... it's more that I just ... never had any real impetus to do it... Raguel: You aren't entranced by a complex series of calculated movements, each showing characteristic flair while advancing a narrative of both dominance and collaboration? A test of both skill and aptitude that can clearly display a couple's dynamic with nary a word exchanged? Emma leers at Raguel. A laughtrack plays in the middle distance, giving Raguel adequate time to at least pretend to be bashful about her highly characteristic outburst. Raguel: Why don't I put this in words you can understand. Emma: I'd love that. Enlighten me. Raguel: Don't you want to lead me? Emma smiles, softly. Raguel: We have an advantage, of course. She extends her hand. Emma takes it, and Raguel begins the fidgety work of adjusting the two of them about each other. Emma feels, as she sometimes does, that she's being mothered. She doesn't mind. Her own mother was so inadequate in this role as to be essentially a blank to be filled by all women, by the culture of women, by the general idea of unconditional love. Raguel, in her turn, is attempting to imitate something she herself never wanted, and so misses, desperately. She slots Emma into the leading role, but it is her hands who will move them across the ballroom of dust. Raguel: You have all of my knowledge. And we're only pretending to dance. The pair of them begin an awkward waltz. It's mostly Raguel waiting for Emma, like a car at a traffic light. When Emma gets where Raguel wants her to go, she begins again, then stops again, at the next position. Emma for her part is spinning her threads into something more resemblant of a two-tailed suit, a third tail peeking out in dusky glory between the pair. She's working on the had when Raguel chastises, Raguel: Please focus. Emma: Oh come on. Half the fun of it is in looking nice. Raguel rolls her eyes. She fashions a white flower, tucks it in Emma's lapel. Matches her own dress to it. Raguel: Is this adequate? Emma: Yes'm. Raguel: How nice do I have to look for you to pay attention to what I want you to pay attention to? Emma: This nice. Raguel's smile is the curve of her ventrals. The pair of them lapse into an easy waltz, to music that only they can hear, different in tone but similar in tempo. Emma ventures a spin, Raguel allows it. Emma ventures a dip, Raguel swoons, feathers on her auxiliary headwings reaching to flirt with the edges of Emma's ears. Raguel steals her top hat, spins herself out, then back, clasping her hands together behind Emma's neck. She is the blade of the guillotine, and Emma is the rope, the wood, the body. Emma: You should've mentioned sooner that you'd like to dance. I don't know why you wait so long to ask for things you clearly want from the get-go. Raguel: Because I'd rather have it right now for the first time... I'd like for it to mean something. To be worth asking for. Emma: Nothing means anything. Raguel: It does to me. They retreat into the simple box step. Raguel puts her head on Emma's shoulder. Her neck hurts. She takes a long, simmering breath. Raguel: We should move on. Emma pretends not to hear her, at least the first time. Keeps moving that box smaller, softer, until they're practically standing still, softly swaying. Emma closes her eyes, leans her neck against Emma's forehead. Exhales as well. Thinks about the stories where you can not return to what you were after [[tasting part of heaven.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: What animal would you say, I am. If you had to assign me one. Emma: If this is our last conversation, love, causality will rewrite itself merely so time can continue, just so people can complain about how fucking stupid it was that you had so little time left for me and chose to ask that singular question. Raguel: Very 'me' of you. Very hateful. Judgmental. Devoid of whimsy. Your unwillingness to answer is practically a failure of your very soul. Emma: Ok. Raguel: Is this the part where we pretend you don't have a fursona, and it isn't a wolf? Emma: I am a wolf. Raguel: Metaphysically. Emma: Want to talk about it. Want to kiss my big wolf face about it. Raguel: Not very much because now you're being weird about it. Emma: Mhm. Raguel: Choose an animal. Impromptu. Emma: I can't. Raguel: Three, two-- Emma: Rabbit. Raguel: You're lying. Emma: What if it were a hare. They're unnerving. Raguel: No wings? I'm something with no wings? Emma: Hare with that bone condition that made people believe jackalopes were real. Then you could symbolically have a beer. That's associated with jackalopes, you know. Beer is. Look it up. Raguel: And you chose something you could fit in your mouth. Excellent. Superb job, Emma. Emma: Admittedly I like the idea of you being something that would find it difficult to get away. The size difference. Raguel: We do not have to get into the size difference thing tonight. Emma: Asking me for your fursona is an incredibly erotic act when you know what mine is. How do you want me to define you in relation to myself? Would you prefer I chose a predator of wolves? An equally intimidating animal? An obvious symbol? What trait of yours do you want me to exemplify? Do you want to know how I'd depict you in an all-animal slice of life cartoon, or what I'd kill on your altar? Raguel: Something between those two. Something that you think semantically straddles me. Emma: I semantically straddle you all the time. By many definitions, I am your fursona-- a part of you closer to animalhood, to the earth, to a time-bounded liveliness you revere, envy, and hold yourself apart from. I am the mirror to your facelessness, your lack of culture, a digital self you can play at being, ease your fingers into. Raguel: I think I'd be a cicada. Emma: I don't want you to be a cicada. Raguel: Why. Emma: Then everyone would get to eat you. Raguel: You fucking bastard. Emma: Admittedly, the inconsistence, the noise, the unnerving red eyes... Raguel: I chose a good fursona. Emma: Your eyes aren't even red. Why did we both land on red-eyed animals? Raguel: We learned something about me. Emma: I treasure learning you. Speaking you into being. Raguel: I want to be solid, before the end. Understandable, or close to it. Emma: Mmmm. Well, I want a version of you I can eat. Raguel: That's every version. Emma: Good point. [[Goooood point.|Roundabout]]

Emma: You get toothaches? Raguel: No teeth, no mouth. Emma: You would really think you had that. Like, specifically. Raguel: No. It's funny, I kept my eyes too. Emma: Festering sores? Raguel: Yes, they would seem to have moved out to the wings since the... sword placement changes. Emma: It's funny, I still look like a person most of the time. Raguel: When you're not a complete brute. Emma: Those are the days, aren't they? Raguel: Still following the turnings of an absent moon. Emma: I bring her with me. But the teeth... they change based on whoever meets me. What they think will hurt the worst. Emma: My teeth change. So my ability to just be a carnivore must change too, mustn't it? There are different ways you imagine me. A person. An animal. A thing outside time, a vague gesture that you wanted to know, spent all the times you were close enough to the world to be someone rather than something romancing. Bodies are too simple to contain what we are. My teeth can be whatever you want. I can eat fruit and broccoli. Raguel: No, your teeth are everything. They never change, and they draw blood at a touch. Emma: There will be no one to put me in the fossil record. Raguel: You are the last thing living thing. The fossil record exists for you to read how you became yourself. Nothing more. Emma: That's so narcissistic. It exists because they lived. Whether I read it or not, they are where they are. Raguel: That's a far more generous perspective than mine, I suppose. Emma: I think you sometimes read things in an incredibly narrow contexxt. Raguel: I'm used to having one. When I get a wider context, it's only.... snatches of things. Emma: Like the teeth. Raguel: Yes, like the teeth. I think, in one life, I was born to study you. Emma: Sounds a lot like this one, darling. Raguel: It isn't the same. This time I can talk to you. Have you never had to piece someone together from what remains? Emma: Myself, sometimes. My mother. You, before I was enough of a story to know you in the way stories know each other. Raguel: Your own pasts, then. Emma: I don't always remember my own childhood. I saw the blood and realized what the teeth had to be for. Why I was made like this. Raguel: Humans are better understood by other things than by teeth. It's just how they are. Emma: I'm not a human, though. Raguel: [[You were at some point, right?|Roundabout]]

Emma: What did your room smell like? Raguel: What a curious question. Emma: I want to remember. If there's anything we have to be most like before we die, I want it to be a version of us who had rooms. Who could go over to each other's. I want to know how we'd try to present to each other. If we'd like it. Raguel: Hmmm. Maybe mine was full of lavender, and yours was full of heather. Emma: Your cunt always smelled like pennies to me. Raguel: Just cutting straight to rifling through my things, hm. Emma: It's an interesting contrast. Lavender and pennies. You're sweet from far away. Raguel: And up-close, my breath was vanilla. I used too much lotion. Do you remember? Emma: I remember you meekly dabbing coverup on wounds of yours you didn't want me to see. I remember the chalkiness of it on my nose. It felt like you were coming off. It felt like I was eating you, and that it might stick. Raguel: I remember you leaving purple wounds, like puddles in a sidewalk. Emma: Half a base, right? Entering someone's room? I bet you had those lights strung up that made the dusky walls shine like fireflies, lit up from the inside. Raguel: So many candles my landlord would kill me. A different scent for every day. A tarot deck on top of a dozen books analyzing the times. Emma: You had this little decorative tree with all your necklaces on it. They'd glimmer in the lighting you set. When I lay next to you, I felt like the Christ child in the Nativity-- the centerpiece of some arrangement made far before my time. The way you cradled my head felt perfunctory, but I was glad I could be of use to you. Complete you in some way, when you were already so perfect. Raguel: You never found the knives I kept. A dozen of them, all decorative, rainbow-welt blades and ornate dragon designs. They were so stupid they may have changed your entire opinion of me. Emma: I didn't want to touch anything of yours. You had no such qualms. Raguel: I wanted to do something to make it up to you. Having been at yours. Having been at all. I always liked to make myself useful. Emma: Even if they're folded, the clothes are still on the ground. Raguel: I am impressed by you... the way you live... the ambivalence of it. There's nothing I can ever make myself not care about. Emma: You're tripping over yourself. You only have so much energy. Raguel: Lie down for a moment? Emma: In your bed, or mine? Raguel: Yours always felt like mine. Once I kicked my leg out and found pajama pants you'd forgotten to take out of your bed. I kept my feet there, wore them almost like socks. Emma: At yours, I got lost looking for the kitchen. One morning, you bought lavender lemonade out of the fridge. That was when you were still trying to impress me with your cohesiveness. It was too sweet, the way you'd made it, more syrup than lemonade. I never had a lemonade like that again, though. In everything I ordered, in everything I did. I was quietly looking for it [[everywhere.|Roundabout]]

Emma: You didn't use the scales as discs, did you? Raguel: What's all this about. Emma: Remembering how you used to fight... Raguel: Differently from now. Words have always been my main implement, the current is much less literal, anyhow. I don't intend to use the scales at all if I don't have to. Emma: It could be a fun special move... don't you think? Raguel: No. Emma: Killjoy. Raguel: I can't do special moves. Emma: What about like, "I've reached a verdict?" and then one of the scales falls and one of them dies, instantly. Raguel: You hate the courtroom schtick. I've been avoiding it on purpose to keep it from essentializing my aesthetic in a way that might estrange you. Emma: Okay. You drop the scale, and I yell, "vigilante justice", and kill them with a machete. Raguel: Do you have a machete? Emma: I could. Raguel: Do you inherently have a machete. Emma: I've been thinking about it. Raguel: It's not going to work. You're going to get us killed. Emma: No. I'm going to get them killed. With a machete. After I yell, "vigilante justice". Raguel: You're not even using an exclamation mark. Emma: ! Raguel: [[Just cut that out.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Rags. Raguel: Yes, my love? Emma: Do you ever think about Underdog (2007) starring Jim Belushi and Peter Dinklage? Raguel: ... No. Emma: [[ok|Roundabout]]

Emma: If I could have been anything else's, I would really have liked to belong to the trains. Raguel: You would leave me for a train. Emma: No, the train's my second choice. Just to be clear. Raguel: You know the angel of trains is just a train. There's no abstraction to it. Just a train that goes on forever. The Midgard Serpent of trains. If you enter one of the cars, you'll never find your way out again. It could drop you anywhere in the entire cosmos. Emma: I know you're trying to explain to me that I couldn't have sex with her but I hope you realize that everything else you are saying makes this situation more enticing. Raguel: I know you would stick your strap directly into a furnace if asked nicely. Emma: She's going to ask nicely? Guess I'm not so interested... Raguel: Sorry to ruin it for you. Emma: You ruin everything for me. Raguel: [[You're a harsh mistress...|Roundabout]]

Raguel: How do you feel the most naked? Emma: Wolfskin. Raguel: It's not another mask? Emma: No, it's not a mask. It's honest. You? Raguel: When I'm small. So I suppose, whenever I'm standing next to you, and you're a wolf. Emma: Hmmmm. Raguel: It's not that it's more true, it's that I feel closer to things when they overwhelm me. Being the overwhelmer is an exercise in artifice. I have to decide what the world is, speak it into being. Emma: It takes all of my energy not to hurt people just by being around them... I like that you like me when I'm too much. I like that you want it. Raguel: Do you ever want to be killed as much as you want to kill? Emma: Sometimes. But it's not very often. I like knowing that you'd rein me in if something was really going to cause problems. I can depend on you to be whatever I'm not. Raguel: You're something I can never be. Emma: A lever. Raguel: A tooth. Emma: A fire. Raguel: That's it. Emma: You choose the container, I'll fill it until it pours over with rich red wine and blood. Raguel: I like what our bodies are when we're so close that it seems like we're one thing... you be the mouth and I'll be the eyes. You be the captured animal and I'll be the thread. Emma: You'll be justice and I'll be execution? Raguel: I hope not. Emma: You have a lot of high, fancy hopes for me. Raguel: I love you when I'm naked, exactly how you are. When there's nothing in the world but us, we're perfect. Emma: Clothed by restraint around everyone else. Raguel: You don't want to hurt anyone, do you? Emma: Not when my mouth's closed. Raguel: I wish we were good. Emma: I wish we were fucking. Raguel: One of these things is easily achievable. Emma: Then [[fuck philosophy|Roundabout]], right?

Emma: Are you warm? Raguel: No. Emma: Are you cold? Raguel: No. Emma: What's the weather outside? Raguel: It isn't much of anything. Emma: It's supposed to be cold. Raguel: That's too much effort. It could be cold, and we wouldn't feel it. Emma: We can't feel warm, either. Raguel: Say you feel warm. Emma: "I feel warm." Raguel: No. You need to mean it, or it doesn't work. Emma: I feel "warm". Raguel: You're hedging now. Hedging on the meaning of the word. Emma: Now I'm thinking too hard about it, so it's definitely not going to happen. Raguel: Certainly not. Emma: Do you... miss wearing clothing? Raguel: We are wearing clothing. Emma: No, we're not naked. There's a difference. Do you remember how warm wool felt? How nice silk felt against skin? How the right outfit showed off your curves, like it was made to go over your body? Raguel: I remember everything. Emma: What would you want to wear now. Would it keep you warm, or cool? Raguel: I would be wearing my little sundress, and the shawl with the patterns on it, so that the light catches on my sihlouette. Emma: Guess that would be hard to wear now, owing to the scales. Raguel: Heavy is the cost. And you, you would be in your little bomber jacket, tough boots, and ugly jeans. Emma: Maybe I'd wear a hat. Raguel: It always cramped your ears, and my wings, to wear a hat. Emma: I could go barefoot, too, or my big hairy paws are going to be cramped as well. Raguel: Where do we travel to, and to what, my love? Emma: Once, everywhere, under many guises, and many names. Now they have all been taken away, so the answer is simple-- it was always true, but now there is no truth but it. We walk onwards, my darling, to [[death.|Roundabout]]

Emma: We'll never have kids. Raguel: Did you want kids? Emma: No. Raguel: Oh. We won't have them. Emma: Good, good. Raguel: Yes. Fantastic. Emma: ... Raguel: You would have been a really good dad, though. Emma: A seahorse dad? You would've made me carry? Raguel: I would have killed them otherwise. With my horrific barrenness and distaste for all life. So you would have had to carry them. And raise them. And then you would have to be away from me, so I would hate them with a hitherto untold agony. It would stunt their development. Emma: For my part, my mommy issues have made me a much more well-rounded individual. I think you're selling the mother-issue community a little short. Raguel: Speaking of short, you're stunted. Was the milk not nutritious enough? Emma: I'm going to crash out. I'm going to kill everybody. Raguel: See, you'd be a good dad. I'd make you a horrible set of parents. You, me. Our neuroses. Our petplay. Our general tendancy towards apocalypse. Not exactly a place that children can live in. Spiritually barren. Emma: But you could read them all the Terry Pratchett books... Raguel: Oh. Emma: Yeah. Raguel: What would our child look like? Just out of curiosity? Emma: They would have caramel hair, with highlights in both directions. They'd have little ham-fingers and awful crooked teeth and get pulled out of class all the time for using them with impunity with the other kids. Raguel: They would be clever, though. Emma: Our kid would be such an insuffrable little savant that no one would like them. And we could tell them that no one understood us at their age either. Raguel: We wouldn't encourage it too much. I don't want them to have no friends. Emma: Maybe our kid would be endearing, as a sort of youthful rebellion to our bitterness. Raguel: We could call her our little bug. Because she'd be loud. Emma: The cicada thing again. You're still on about cicadas. Raguel: Would the earth take her? Emma: Our daughter would be immortal... she would live in places that even we can't, now. She would live past the end of time and sail on into the old and new world, when the air in the universe's lungs collapses and expands again. She'd see how simple it all is and turn around to let us know. Raguel: We wouldn't be there. Emma: Nope. Raguel: She wouldn't know any of our families. Emma: You don't have one. Raguel: You ate yours. Emma: Best decision I've ever made. Raguel: It wasn't a decision. Emma: No. Raguel: Would we tell her? Emma: We would come up with a decent explanation for why things are the way they are. We don't have to go further than that. Raguel: Sounding... like a lot of responsibility, Emma. Emma: It's nice to have a dream, if we aren't going to make it. Raguel: We will. Emma: No, I mean... Raguel: Fair enough. [[But let's focus. |Roundabout]]

Emma: Where were you at the end of the world? Raguel: Weighing the scales. Emma: Oh... I guess that makes sense. Raguel: Three old women, shouting woe. Prophesying and appearing before and remaining after endings upon endings. Fate will be the last thing to die, and a fate is a life which is bound in the seductive framings of a narrative justice. Emma: You aren't going to take over all narrative, are you? Raguel: I will admit that where I sit is a comfortable vantage point from which to see you. It lends me a fondness the role would not otherwise hold for me. Emma: Aw, babe. Don't become a sort of lexical demiurge just to speak word into being for me to experience. Raguel: It's already far too late for that. It happens to be one of my remaining joys, as I breathe. Emma: You breathe. Raguel: Not anymore. Nothing to breathe. But I have been known to respire. As a person, and in years. Emma: At the end of the world, the important one, you remember. I was the one who ate him whole. The things that had to happen happened, exactly the way everyone had already been told they were going to happen, and were working against. I got my shitty abusive family killed and then they killed me. That was pretty simple. But then the next one, they didn't have any use for me until some off-kilter twist at the end of the climax, so I spend decades fingering bean cans, sticking my muzzle in them and trying to get the last scraps of protein out from something I burst with my teeth earlier. I kept cutting my face on the metal, and I knew if it became infected, I'd probably die. My face was a hive of scars, but I lived. Then, when they needed me, I came and launched myself at the worst person standing, just to punish their insolence. I used to be their dog, of course, so there was this almost divine countenance to it. Like taking it out of my own capacity to reason put it in God's. Raguel: I was the one you ran to when it was over. You recognized me. I was excited to see you. Emma: I wasn't even thinking about you. I was thinking about how good it would feel to kill something. Then I was just excited and a normal animal again, tail wagging and baying with enthusiasm. Raguel: Afterwards, I took you home. Emma: I thought I got shot. I thought the point was still that there wasn't a place for me in a world that wasn't ending. I remember yelping when the gun went off, repeatedly, into that mangled jaw. I remember the hum of blood blotting out my last moments, making them a thin mutter of sensation. I remember finding a home there. I remember going to sleep. Raguel: This time I take you home. I bandage your wounds, slough fur from your skin. You were a person long ago, before what the war made you into. This time, you can be again. This time, you have a little more agency, a little less destiny, a little longer to reckon with it. Next time, you'll have a little more. Worn into a proper antihero by time and repetition. Emma: Everyone wants their children to be more like dogs. Raguel: Everyone wants their dogs to live as long and be as well-defined as their children. Emma: They think they want that. Raguel: You're a character, and you get to play a full and realized part. I won't settle for anything less and neither should you. Emma: I'm a talking animal. No one treats me like a person. Raguel: You are a person. Emma: [[I don't believe you yet.|Roundabout]]

Emma: I think the real difficulty I have is, everything is dust now. It's not even dirt. It's featureless-- would be considered soft, even-- but after a while you start desperately hoping something will hurt you. Raguel: Is that a metaphor? Emma: Don't you wish there was still something left to cut your feet? Raguel: I enjoy being unencumbered. Emma: You aren't. I'm here, and I'm essentially a free cumberance. You're never not going to be cumbered, you fucking idiot. Raguel: You give yourself a lot of credit. It's not cumberance-- which I'm going to pretend, for your sake, is correct parlance-- if it's what I want. The same way shoes aren't encumbering feet just by going on them. Emma: I'll go on you. I'll encumber your feet. Raguel: I do miss the textural landscape of information present in dirt-- there's no way to reconstruct what was from dust. Time has completely finished voiding any information from the mixture, down to the atomic level... it's all completely inert atoms and low-energy compounds floating in a sea of silver. Meanwhile, with dirt, you have the coyness of loam, the heartiness of clay, the allure of... well, you're definitely garden dirt to me. I think I'm more silt. Don't you? Emma: I silt on her thang and bounce. Raguel: I am taking that as a yes. Emma: I float in her sea of low energy compounds. Raguel: Exquisite. You entrance me. Emma: Sometimes I wonder what I would have to do to make you hate me. Raguel: Leave. Emma: Well, then I would die. Raguel: Precisely. Emma: God, you're so paternalistic. Can we lie down in the dust for a moment? The pair of them lie down. It isn't warm, and it isn't cold. Both of these things have been stripped of context, seeing as there is no energy left to warm things. To perceive it would be meaningless, so they don't. They are the only source of color, the landscape blurring into a sort of lightless, darkless haze. They lie as couples lie on fields, on beaches, at the summit of mountains, fingers linked. Emma exhales for a long time, Raguel breathes in. The pair of them look at the blank sky together. Emma: [[I want to roll around in dirt again,|Roundabout]]

Emma: And birch trees, those were fantastic. You had birch beer, right? Raguel: Enlighten me. How did it taste? Emma: Red soda. Raguel: You have such an interesting way of perceiving the world. Emma: You're probably a willow fan, aren't you. Raguel: You can't drink from willows. Emma: I'm just talking about trees at this point. It's a tree thing. I'm definite by now you have to remember trees. You remember them. You do. Raguel: Of course I remember trees. I enjoy the fractal patterns being at once easy to replicate by way of random generation and in reality the result of a complex web of environmental factors. When one generates a tree, they may be able to simulate a tree that would exist, but they're not simulating where the sun was, where caterpillars gnawed a leaf, where a twig snapped below the paws of a squirrel. You're left with a hollow facsimile of life. An unliving thing. Emma: You think that's really hot, don't you. Raguel: I will admit algorithms for generation of fractal figures are my favorites. I'm not so proud. Emma: I guess we're abandoning topology-- Raguel: No! I need to know if these sets can retain their properties after mutations! Emma: Eheheh... I love pretending not to understand anything you talk about~ Raguel: Want to listen to me explain buffer overflow attacks? Emma: God. What else is there to do out here. Raguel: So, we begin with the concept of the stack-- that is, the computer has a sort of list of instructions it's following, but whatever you put on first, [[must be taken off first--|Roundabout]]

Raguel: I think you attribute way too much to me. I was actually quite boring. A career bureaucrat every time I could find a system to attach myself to, calculating my maximum impact and divesting myself from anything risky or interesting I could possibly do because any risk felt like it impeded the precarious structures of eventual-goodness I had set up for myself to operate under. Emma: I think you're giving yourself way too little credit. I've seen you be cool. Raguel: You have to realize I don't feel good about anything about me you find 'cool'. Emma: I feel like you have to realize that's not something that makes me find you any less cool. Raguel: It's nice to know that you find violence compelling. Emma: It's nice to know that in the end... you weren't always better than me. If we overlapped, just for a moment. If you were really bad and I did really good. Then I'm not just weighing you down with the pressure of what I am. You're not making amends for me. That's even better, because I hate that I have to hear you do it. Raguel: They aren't amends. My respect for you is ardently sincere. Emma: You still have to explain me. I'm not self-evident. Raguel: The world isn't smart enough to untangle you into what I see. They aren't thinking hard enough. I am, because I've had the time. But not being recognized is different from not being. It's not your job to justify what you are, endlessly, because no one realizes what it is. It can still be seen by those intending to purposefully look. Emma: You realize you're just saying the same thing with more words. Raguel: I feel like this is much the same principle as what I said prior. Emma: That you always stand on your decisions, and you only explain them so that people can come around to your perspective? Raguel: I attempt to share it, usually in vain. I feel you like math. It's not a matter of subjective answers, you just are perfect. Every whorl of you a masterwork into the narrative murmurs of forever. I can't help but stare helplessly at it because I'm merely a lover of great art. Emma: You have to realize that's an insane thing to say to someone who once managed to smash a man's eyeballs nearly flat in his skull. To someone who has gone through the jugular like a squirrel through the power cable with teeth that weren't human anymore. Raguel: I see the sword of God fall upon the enemies of life itself and I applaud. Emma: I think potentially, conviction, especially when applied to violence, makes you a fascist. Raguel: The grain of reactionary politics exists at the center of the adulation of every poisonous dynamic. To have a will and lust for power can not always be subversive-- monsters are monsters. You forget, in my striving for absolutes, that I am merely a very different kind of monster. We are not bound to evaluate ourselves by what we would and wouldn't be as people. By if our dynamics represent a poison that would, if allowed to run in rivers through society, choke it out at its source. I don't think you are bound by oath to defend what you appreciate in fiction. Let's be made to kill. Emma: You think we can circumvent culpability by abstraction. Raguel: I think abstraction is a core component of what it means to tell a story about violence, without having done violence to everyone. I think the human appetite for fantasy must be allowed to traverse taboo, and to do so in ways that the waking mind would find odious. Emma: See, I think again, what I'm stuck on, is, that's not a self-justifying mindset. It's an assertion you've made-- Raguel: --and I like to make assertions. Emma: But you are making an assertion about absolute and not personal truth. To confirm. Again. Raguel: I'm saying that it's more compelling for me as a metanarrative entity to hold truths absolute rather than personal. Emma: Did relativism like, throw you out a window when you were younger? Are you that upset at it? Raguel: Yes. Emma: Right. Forgot. Raguel: She's a good kisser. Emma: I think the erotics of this whole thing are, easily understood by the fact we're all women, no. Raguel: The inherent triangulation of female desire due to the lack of the ability to identify with the penetrating force-- no phallus? Emma: Oh my god. And making it Freudian doesn't make it not bioessentialist! Raguel: I'm queering it. You can make your own phallus. Or choose to avoid one. It's basically in Bersani. Emma: I think that's a reach. It can't all be about Bersani, Raguel. Raguel: Can it be a little about Bersani, as a personal treat, for me. Emma: I feel like you need something else as a backbone that you're not reaching for. Raguel: You and I are having a good time. We need to kill everyone, and end the world. Why don't we start back there. Emma: [[It's not a bad premise...|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Do you think they feel bad. Emma: No. Everyone hates us. Raguel: Thank god. Emma: I wouldn't. Guy's an asshole. And he's gone. And if he was real, he gave you all, especially a horrifically weak lot. Having no purpose is one thing. Having one that ends feels like a kick in the-- Raguel: I was going to make a point. Emma: You were, and I didn't want to hear it. So I started rambling. Raguel: I'll pocket that. Emma: Can we pocket-- Raguel: Emma. Emma: Fine. Go on. Raguel: We killed a child. Emma: Yes. Raguel: You don't-- Emma: You need to stop thinking about these things. Raguel: It isn't-- Emma: It won't help you. It won't make it any better. I don't want to rationalize it. I am not going to give up. There are sixteen or so angels left. Demographically, they could be anything. They will not insult us by lying about what they are to make us feel bad. They will be exactly what they are. Then we decide if we are going to destroy them or not. Raguel: I don't know why anything weak lasted this long. Emma: Maybe it's not weakness. Raguel: ... As always. You are my better half. Emma: Don't say that. Raguel: I make you do it. You're innocent. Emma: I promise that is not the case. Raguel: I-- Emma catches her hand. Emma holds it against her face. Emma: You. Raguel: This isn't a contest to decide what the best idea is. It isn't a contest to decide what the most battle-ready idea is. This is just a series of negotiations between old coworkers to decide who gets to see the very last show. Emma: I was very fast. Raguel: Don't tell me that. Emma: Do you want to know, or do you not want to know? Raguel: I have to know. I don't want to. Emma: I have given away everything that would stop me from bringing us to the end of the world. Have you? Raguel: No. I can't. I was an idea. I was something. I can not completely abandon its shape. Emma sighs, lets go of the hand. Emma: I do envy you. Raguel: It keeps us even. Her snout brindles, unbrindles. If she thinks anything, she doesn't think it hard enough for anyone to hear, even someone who is listening. Emma: [[It does.|Roundabout]]

Emma: It comes for you, not me, doesn't it. Raguel: I don't think it can touch you. Emma: It has. It has plenty of times. Raguel: You're not... I mean, you... Emma: You're not going to come out with it, are you. Raguel: I do depend on my self-sufficiency more than you do, I believe. As much as I've attempted to lean on you, it isn't the same kind of incline. I need... to know that I'm making my decisions in the right state of mind. Emma: You're definitely not normal by anyone's standards. Nor are your decisions. I think you take a pretty illiberal view of what that means. Raguel: No, I-- there are different ways that shit can affect you, you know? It's not that I-- and I mean, I'm not scared. Emma: You're not scared of contracting psychosis? Raguel: Living close to getting a lot worse makes you feel like it's bound to happen any second. But that's-- you're closer to the fear than the thing itself. Most of the time. It's a sort of self-justifying first world neurosis half the time, and an unheeded warning sign the other half. I was saved and not saved in roughly equal measure. It just reminds me. Emma: This world's idea of justice. Raguel: The capitalist's justice. You live for that world or it kills you. Emma: I'm sorry that you watched over so much of that justice taking place. Raguel: It isn't. That's the paradox of it. Emma: Understandable. Raguel: And I waited for someone to fix the world's heart. I tried to find small places it could be mended. Emma: Was it? Raguel: No, the world's heart has not yet been mended. Emma: It's too late to save the world. This is the very end. This is the credits scene. We know how we did. Raguel: It's never too late. Emma: Categorically untrue, right? Raguel: You're taking my side. Emma: Sometimes I have to be the scary one. Raguel: You would have been the angel of the apocalypse. Emma: Sometimes endings are a kind of justice. Isn't that cathartic? Raguel: It's not fair, the way things stand right now. Someone has to do something. Someone has to pick up the blade and thrust it into the world's eye. Emma: I do my best. Raguel: Don't you wish we were the kind of people who saved people, instead of the kind of people who killed rich men? Emma: It takes all kinds. Raguel: Yes. Emma: We didn't think we could make anything more of ourselves. We couldn't talk to people anymore. We were stressed and lonely and constantly on the verge of homelessness. You were still trying to do the right thing. Sometimes you want someone with more power to do the right thing. Sometimes that's us. Sometimes we're the ones waiting for it. Sometimes we're in the street. Sometimes we're in the court. We have been everywhere. Raguel: We've been on the wrong side, too, then. Emma: What if we just said that we weren't. What if we said it: justice is the pursuit of a better world. Anyone who struck against it doesn't get to claim us. Raguel: Tell that to Christians. Emma: Fucking mess. Raguel: Yes, yes. It's a fucking mess. Emma: I like being your dog, you know. It's easy. It's only hard to watch what you have to go through and not have much agency to stop it. And you know, to die in like ten years. You always know and think, fuck, I don't know how they'll manage without me. You know. Raguel: Emma, [[I want to throw up.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Emma? Emma is not present. An animal lopes besides Raguel, its dim eyes set on the horizon. Raguel: We should really make camp for the night. When Raguel stops, the wolf stops. Its muzzle is lashed by old scars, and the rivers where rope once ran are now indentations on the body. It lies on the ground with its paws out in front of it, at attention. Raguel: There isn't night. But we should stop anyways. She reaches down to touch the wolf, her fingers hesitating before insistently ruffling the scruff fur. If it notices, it doesn't show it. Its mouth opens into a yawn, revealing teeth that cohere into a predator's overbite in the front and twist into an infinitely dark, mangled cage the further back one goes, sewing the great abyss together with pillars of ivory. Raguel draws back as the animal coughs, its throat lurching, and without so much as moving to stand, a body pours out of the massive mouth, a torso of a completely blank thing with indentations for eyes in a split mouth looking at you with horror. The wolf's eyes look despondently at you. Raguel: You should put him away. It makes no response. The thing stares into her eyes, its hands reach out in a gesture imitating prayer. It shrinks about itself, curling not back into the mouth, but in on what torso it has, those indentation eyes folding over themselves to shut. It shakes with the breathing of the animal beside it, occasionally violently jolting its head back and forth. Raguel: I can wait if it's agonizing, but I don't know if... you want me to... I can't hear you at all when you're like this. So I figure, it's not safe to assume. But you've said I should wait. The wolf's breathing grows more labored, the thing's thrashing only intensifying. Its fists pummel the textureless ground, and it moans and writhes with anger and pain. A human sobbing howls from deep in its body, and when it has exhausted itself it lies, a blowfly on a corpse, near motionless on the ground. You both lie like that for a long time. Slowly, the body recedes, shrinking snailike back into the mouth, although the wolf does occasionally cough rough spats of bile. God does not agree with her. It does not go down easy. She was not made to survive killing it, only to kill it. Her desperate shelter-dog eyes bore into yours. For the first time in a while, you pull the sword clean, blood pouring down your face. You extend it high over her head, so that its shadow falls heavy on you both, lit from nowhere. The whites of her eyes are visible-- that human canniness momentarily returned to her expression. Raguel: I'll ask you later. You will not ask her later. Raguel: I can't do this for us when we're not in the right state of mind to decide that it's what we want. It is the only time you could possibly do it. [[She has to be in extreme pain to be willing to let you die.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: You're not supposed to let him out. Emma: Oh, I'm sorry. I was under the impression-- apparently mistakenly-- that we were in a life or death situation, not discussing things to try out in the bedroom. Raguel: Emma, we have rules. And one of those rules involved-- if it comes to that, I could always-- She lowers her head enough to finger the hilt. Emma: Don't pull the sword out. Raguel: I was simply trying to illustrate-- Emma: What? That we could both still kill ourselves? Raguel: Precisely. Emma: ... Raguel: ... Emma: You have a lot of fucking nerve, you know that. Raguel: I know you get angry when he's close to your mouth, but-- Emma: I'm sorry, who had to kill her? Raguel: I do whatever I can within the laws, Emma. I don't want you to have to shoulder this alone, but there are things we angels cannot-- Emma: I don't want you to tell me how to do my job. I'm supposed to protect you. The only thing you're supposed to do is look away. Raguel: Emma. Look away from them. Not you. You were never involved in that part of the deal. Emma: Did you just think I was going to effortlessly slaughter every thing left in the world? That I wouldn't have to play dirty? Raguel: Yes, Emma, I did assess your capabilities would be... Emma: We won't kill her before she kills us. Raguel: I trailed off. Emma: Do you want to meet her in person and shake her hand? Is that what this is? Raguel: I suppose I. I could stand to shake her hand. Don't you at least wonder what she'll look like? Emma: No, because she'll cater it to us, the way she does to everybody. It means nothing. She looks like nothing. She's a solipsist's last quick wank before the autoerotic asphyxiation blanks their horny little circuits. She's not a prize. Everyone sees her, Raguel. Everyone gets to death. She heaves, and you see his fingers in the vomit, like a rope tied to a rock in the middle of a fast-running river. She smears the remains across her face, barely noticing that she's only worsened the odor. Raguel: This isn't a glory mission for me. It's just something to look forwards to. Emma: I wasn't even a good idea. Why couldn't you just let me die? Raguel: Because I love you. And I'm very selfish. And because I believe there's no better weapon in the world than you. That there never has been, in all of history. Emma: He's what makes me a good weapon, Raguel. You can't have fratricide without the dead brother. She's silent because she knows there's nothing that she can possibly say to counter this. She knows, deep down, that there's a reason that they don't share one body, but that Emma and her brother do. She knows her brother's myriad connotations curl up inside her like a baby, like a hibernating animal, like a parasite, like a black hole. Emma: I can never love you the way I love him. Not enough to kill you. Raguel: Do you want to stop? The slow, steady motion of bodies rocking against each other. The movement of gravity tugging planets into supermova. The scraping of flesh from bone. Emma: No. But you have to let it hang out sometimes. Raguel: Okay. Then, if it comes down to it-- Emma: I-- Fuck you. Sure. Boundaries are easy to set. [[They're just difficult to maintain.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Do you like your name. Raguel: I like the things you say about my name. "Ragu" and "Rags" and such. Emma: Oh. Hm. Did you get it at birth? Raguel: Conception. Emma: I changed mine. Raguel: How many times? Emma: Don't know. Raguel: Do you like it? Emma: It's short for 'emnity'. Raguel: So we're both concepts. Emma: I chose my name, though. You didn't. So I wasn't assigned a concept, I affiliated with it. Raguel: How foolish of me. What a brilliant insight. Emma: Sometimes you miss things. But I feel you're missing them so I can say them. Raguel: Unkind of you to presuppose my motivations. Emma: Have you ever considered changing yours? Raguel: No. I've already grown far less precise than I ever wanted to be. To add a name, especially one with no clear reference, to the mix, would I think send me into a fit of hysterics. Emma: You angels are so dainty for things who make the world work. Raguel: The fickleness is part of the point, I believe. Emma: I feel like deployment should make you robust, no? Raguel: It's made me feel like nothing at all. If you can be used for everything, do you stand for anything? Emma: Maybe that's more of a you problem than most other concepts. Do you think any of them don't have as much of a problem? Raguel: Royalty, perhaps, she's never had much of a problem asserting herself... trial... death. Emma: That's a short list. Raguel: Many of us were particular. Most of us who were particular were dead. When environments die, the generalists are usually the last to go. What can I say? I am a rat, clinging onto the stomach of a system that's already died. Waiting for its rot to catch up to me. Emma: I think it's catching fast, now. If you're a rat, what does that make me? A flea on your back? Raguel: You're a dog in any life, Emma. I think you know that well enough. Emma: You put too much stock in me and what you presuppose I am. I'm not half as noble as you think. Raguel: I've seen some mangy dogs, Emma. Emma: A mangy dog is still a dog. Raguel: Who's a concept, now? Emma: All angels have dogs. Raguel: Why do you think that is? Emma: Because you need something to define yourself by. Concepts exist in context. I'm your context. Raguel: You make me seem... a much prettier thing than I am. Just by looking at me the right way in the light. Do you understand? Emma: Yeah, yeah. Give me a kiss, darling. She kisses her, but it's with hesitance. She looks at her for a while through a dozen faceted eyes, each of them laced with the sort of sadness that begs asking after. Emma tilts her mouth up slightly, not quite a pout and not quite annoyance. She looks back into as many eyes as she dares, and knocks her ears closer to Raguel's face. Fur brushes against feathers. She can tell that the angel is warmed by this, feels her breath shudder against her, more real than it deserves to be. The two of them hold each other's heads in their hands. For a while, no words are exchanged at all. The things that they previously needed to define themselves feel like moot points, bobbles, accessories. This, the smell of each other, once carried by ambient particles, now carried by nothing at all, this is real, as real as anything still can be. Their mouths water-- their lips touch, soft and rough against each other, familiar, they drink each other in by noses, tongues, hands. Emma's hands grip Raguel's back, Raguel's hands run again and again against Emma's cheeks and shoulders, rubbing coarse hair and short fur the wrong way, dragging long fingers through it. They know each other better than anyone has ever known anyone, feel each other through the other's body, like a stone knows a lake it's thrown into by the ripples it causes. An eternity passes. No time passes at all. Object and reference recognize each other. They pull away, stare for a while, thinking that five senses are not enough. But they had to invent half-human bodies for what they will have to do next. After all, it's not each other they need names for. It's the world. Now, almost no one is left to say them, and even still. Even with the things they have finally, properly made of themselves, [[they still shiver, hearing someone else call them.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: I've decided to acquiesce and be from the mountains. Emma: You're not from the ocean? Raguel: Too played out. I want to be from somewhere close to the sky. Rural but with a city down at its base. I want to take you back home and show you blue peaks older than sharks, stretching out for endless miles, an old scar on the weathered body of the country still crumbling back down from a raised line of skin. Emma: I see. I guess mountains are romantic for their own reasons. I wanted to be from the mountains, but I'm from flatlands. Maybe they're nearby. Raguel: Nowhere nearby has enough heather. I think you're further away than you think. Emma: It's like the apple in the garden of Eden is a fruit. It's a translation, choosing another fruit adds flavor to the interpretation. Shifts the connotations and setting around it, but doesn't necessarily make it less true. Raguel: I think it's fun when you budge on particularity, but if you want to stay where you are, you shouldn't do it too much. It adds up quickly. It'll hurt you. Emma: It wouldn't be the first thing to wound me about living and having not lived. It wouldn't be the first thing I renegotiated, either. That we decided was a metaphor, or a mixed message, or is and isn't true depending on interpretation. Whatever animal I am keeps that in the balance. Raguel: Being an animal at all keeps you contingent on the flesh. Keeps you honest. Emma: I don't think that's completely true. But I also think you want things more than you let on for completely aesthetic reasons, and those aesthetic reasons become their own betrayal towards the preeminence of meat. It's the battle between hedonism and... well, something. Raguel: I don't think you can paint well without hedonism in the toolkit. To completely abandon material pleasure or gratification dries out the work. Even with perverse and highly present aesthetic sensations. They carry the reek of their own intensity, and the intensity itself is hedonist. Emma: So you think, the extremism entitles you-- Raguel: To be read. Or to be easily understood as something that can be read, and I'm supposing a reading. That reading is, the mountains. I take of its connotation and step into a life there I never had. Because I don't really live anywhere, I get to choose. Because I cannot really be material, I find places to be particular about. The holy spirit has places where it clumps like old milk, turns in on itself. Becomes an overwhelming force. Emma: I think you have to just admit you like something. It's a character particularity. You're a take. That take connects to takes. Raguel: The burden of being personified is egregious, but when I sleep in my childhood bedroom, I can hear the howl of a train as it rolls behind our neighborhoods. Emma: Fucking... yes, the train. Raguel: I bet the train passes by your childhood bedroom too, before we even know each other, this time. When we're older, we recast all our memories so that we were always there, like childhood friends, because there is nothing we can't see each other in. And one of those things is, you passing the train to me, in the mountain. Me passing it back. The two of us as landscapes curled around each other, with iron holding us in place, wrapped around our arms wrapped around our bodies. Emma: That one was a lovely life. I liked coming to your home-- imagining I had always been there, especially after you inherited it (they didn't have much of a choise in the matter) and you no longer had to slink about the place, pretending everything was a part of the plan that seemed to have been posted on every door of your house. When your future was yours, the thing that had to perform its getting-there an empty husk holding onto a tree with its serrated legs, you gave it to me, just to see if you could even piece together how it was supposed to feel. I didn't really understand you well enough to help, I just knew there was somewhere in the topography that if I sat, everything would form a perfect vista, somehow more complete in your eyes than one without me. I loved you because I had never imagined being any small section of anything so lovely. Raguel: And we saw coyotes on the trail cams outside our house, which used to be for hunting deer. Emma: And I fell half a mile down a steep slope punch-drunk one fall, and had to climb all the way up, and you realized that I was more of a mouthful than you'd bargained for and that you might not have saved me all the way from dragging and dropping me into your life. Raguel: And we set huge fires in the firepit, and you bought logs in you'd chopped yourself and prodded the first sparks with sticks from the yard and newspaper. I never told you what I burned before I got here, how manic I'd really been before being viewed forced me not to become a complete lunatic. That was the plan when I was younger. I was going to die in a fashion so spectacular that nothing associated with me would grace the face of the earth. I was going to retroactively make my family and my friends and my town all feel guilty. Then I put off dying: for sex, and then marriage. Emma: I like how few questions you asked. The amount you talk helps with that. Raguel: Can we go back to the part where you laud my storytelling skills? Emma: It keeps the nights warm. So does James Herriot in hardback and on PBS, and slightly old-smelling couches and scratchy wool blankets. Raguel: Is it alright if I lie awake some nights, holding you, listening to the train? Emma: Only if it's alright I slink out of bed to get raw ham from the kitchen and lock eyes with a fox every few weeks, and watch him disappear into the darkness. Raguel: Then it's settled. Emma: [[I think you've won me over, yeah.|Roundabout]]

Emma: What are you attracted to? Raguel: The laquer around your eyes that makes them look doglike. The scruff of your dusty hair matching the few stray hairs you haven't bothered to pluck around your chin. The hunch of your heavy shoulders. Your stomach and your happy trail ascending to bring grass between the valley of your breasts. Your pale mauve nipples. The way your legs fasten together when you're lying down. Your ass. Emma: You don't have a more general type than me, I'm guessing. Raguel: If it perks your envy, be assured I have invented a thousand concentric definitions of beauty to analyze you under a microscope. There is no test you have not passed with flying colors. My heart soars at the very thought of sighting you. Emma: How sexy and mildly patronizing. Raguel: I forgot to mention your big toothy smile. Emma: Do I get to reply? Raguel: Go on. I'm more vain than you give me credit for. Emma: I like your aquiline nose. Also the way you glare at me when I've said something stupid that you technically can't counter without incriminating yourself. I like your freckles, even though they're pale. I like that we match in that small way. I like the way your wings flare when you feel threatened or flustered. I like the gleam of your sword, and the heavy whirl of your scales when the time comes to go to war. I like the determined set of your expression. I love the way your voice hums like background radiation. I like that you're warm in the way a beam of sunlight is warm, that you're always mildly incandescent. I like that you're never content to be entirely real. It makes me feel like you're being honest with me, and someone has to. Raguel: Very charmed. Emma: I'm certain. Raguel: I couldn't feel anything so physical for anyone until I was interested enough in you to become a person. Before you were a set of equally interesting narrative hills. Emma: Woof. Sorry about that my massive narrative bazongas. Raguel: I don't regret it. Emma: No... I've loved a lot of beautiful women. Raguel: In a way, I was there on every battlefield. Emma: Gross. Let me have something, won't you? Raguel: I wouldn't dare lessen things. I pardon my metaphysical intrusion. Emma: [[Alright, holy spirit. Soldier on.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Do you even like dogs? Emma: I am a dog. Raguel: Do you even like dogs? Emma: We're killing dogs. Raguel: I feel like you're being obtuse to obfuscate the very reasonable terms I'm laying out here. Please answer my questions candidly. Emma: Candid sounding a lot like canid these days. Raguel: I think there's almost nothing candid about you. You're highly preposterous. Emma: The beginning before the end. A dog chasing its tail. I think there's nothing more canine than loving something which doesn't love you the same way. You can't love me the way I love you, so, regardless of the level of devotion on both times, there's that sexy asymmetry to it. That's what gives us our white woman energy. Raguel: You are killing me here. Emma: I think from a purely aesthetic standpoint, as you like to say. There's a lot to like about dogs. They're furry. Expressive. Brutally obvious. Both easy to train and impossible to completely control. They move through the worlds we create, but they aren't born to them. Our mutual inability to understand is a constant font of mirth rather than an innate source of conflict. We almost want-- we let ourselves want-- difference. To sympathize with something completely other. Raguel: But the basis of that sympathy is rooted in the fact that dogs rarely-- or when they do so, do so at the behest of other 'bad' owners-- threaten us. The loyalty of dogs, their raw adoration, is the sticky surface to which our desire to understand an other adheres. You can see it doesn't go so well when there's even the slightest hint of ambivalence in the relation. I think, unfortunately, dear Emma, dogs display humanity's brutal desire to subjugate and possess, as much as any ability to empathize and care. Emma: I think dogs want that, too. I don't think it's that easy. Raguel: Are you easy? Emma: I'm simple. And I love what I love. Raguel: Women? Emma: Huge boobs, man. Raguel: Meat? Emma: I reiterate. Raguel: You're a brute. Emma: I'm your dog. Admittedly, the imagery of collars... look, you're only here because someone suggested they put a leash on me. Raguel: How will we interpret that? Am I your parole officer, now? Emma: God, are you into rehabilitation or not? It's hard to tell. Raguel: I think I'm skeptical of the logics we're rehabilitating into. And with us, the pair of us, in particular, there's the issue of it being more like a domestication. You and I, we're a little fucked up. We own and are owned by each other. We want to kill and be killed. We're hoping the other tears us apart, but we need a pretense-- you make a shape that goads me. I tug the leash too hard. Emma: I mean, I like the way the language translates. But I also do like dogs, I guess. I liked seeing dogs lie about. I liked the funny way they exhale. I liked their enthusiasm and kindness. I liked their big fluffy tails and the way they trot around neighborhoods, claws clicking against rivers of black asphault. I probably owned a few dogs. Big, hefty shelter huskies. I bet my house smelled like dog. Hair of dog, when not dog. Raguel: You don't meet a lot of canine alcoholics. Emma: When someone decides what you eat, they have to fuck up for you to get fucked up. [[Dogs have to eat what you give them.|Roundabout]] Raguel: Have I fucked you up? Emma: The last person we ate tasted a little bit like starlight and snow. Raguel: I'll take that as a yes. Emma: I'm not here to argue, you know. I'm just here to dog my job. Raguel: Freudian slip? Emma: Dog as a verb. Raguel: Mmmm... we'll workshop it. My curiosity's sated, at least. Emma: Oh, no it isn't. Raguel: No it isn't. You keep me honest.

Emma: I hope you were watching when I wasn't a person. Raguel: It wasn't as exciting. But I did watch. Emma: Wasn't as exciting. It's basally exciting. It's fundamentals. There's a reason you kill the dog to make people cry. Raguel: Emma, I hate to say this, but I fancy myself a fair cut above all the other angels. And you must understand that all of them are depending on tearjerk reactions like that to get a rise out of conceptual buy-in. There's dear Laika, launched into space. There's poor reproached LLewyn, killed in perfect innocence for protecting a child. There's miserable Laelops, set to run forever by a hunter who has forgotten their hound as anything more than a trifling thought experiment. I imagine at some point we'll meet one of the vast arrays of dogs sitting for their owners that so often accompany angels, their brass, sculpted noses rubbed gold by pitying passers-by. I liked you because you are so obviously, a demon in your own work. I liked you most as a human because there are so many more ways for a human to be a demon to others, and evaluating what they're at fault at is such a complicated transaction. Emma: Ah, I see. People think I'm your personal executioner, but I'm the one standing trial. That's the joke. Raguel: Admittedly the idea ruffles my feathers somewhat. Emma: Tsch... it's certainly an interesting way to put your affiliation at odds with itself. Raguel: It's impossible to be anything good. Emma: I think you just refuse adamantly to be anything good because you can't help but interrogate that goodness, and within it find some new, bespoke evilness that you have to shelter yourself from, which just makes the entire thing into a hedge maze of stupid convoluted bullshit you've erected to keep yourself from having principles that are defined past 'I really like my girlfriend and I think she was right about everything'. Raguel: It's impossible for me to want solely to be in a manner that doesn't beg investigation. Emma: Ontological pick-me syndrome. Raguel: I think you're just being sexist now. Emma: It might just be sexist to camp yourself. Raguel: Is this where we go into the paradox of sarcasm. Emma: And come out on the other side with, there is no sarcasm. It's the threat of the thing itself that holds the red-hot core of the appeal. It's taboo again. Obviously. Raguel: I think action and intention are supposed to be the subverting force. Not the thing itself. Emma: There's a little smoke and mirrors going on. A little hanky-panky. Raguel: You can't accuse me of hanky-panky. It's untoward. Emma: Untoward these. Raguel: Lock her up. Emma: I would love to see you try to lock me down. [[They fuck.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Emma? Emma is across some distant plane of time. You see her, and for a moment, you are there too-- in a place that still has leaf litter, beneath trees that still sag and sway with the interminable process of entropy. Her eyes meet yours, two dark adders in the foliage. She is no different from every other living thing, in that she will sag and sway and waste. She looks at you with the fear of something living. You kneel, but can not sit down. Something in the leaves will not touch you the way they touch her. Sometimes in living rejects you, but not her. You are reminded that the pair of you may be in the same place, but you have crossed from different sides of the river. You are a thought that dreams of flesh, and she is flesh that someone has tied into a vessel for thought. You wonder if she can see you-- wonder at your ability to wonder at her, when usually your hearts are so close together as to render dialogue a thought exercise. You press your hands to her face and as her eyelashes close, buffeted by dust, you recognize that to her, at present, you feel like a beam of sunlight. Raguel: Emma, can you hear me? Her lips open, sliced where she bites them compulsively. Her nose wrinkles slightly, her skin straining around the acne she's picked into ruby fortresses of scab, lacing her face in a minefield of texture. Emma: They're selling this house, you know. Always. They're always selling this house. You look up. It seems so obvious to you now-- the trail out to this particular stretch, the distant house leaning on its stilts to get a good view of the surrounding mountain. The contour of the landscape, the ease with which it incentivizes running downhill. A wonderful place to skate, and break your legs in with homemade kneeguards. A whole kingdom to forage fungi-laden sticks to poke your wretched brothers with. Emma: He and I, we were good-- we were good back then. He and I, and him, and all the other boys-- sometimes the same boys, sometimes different boys. I wish I could even pick him out in a crowd, but I can't. But we were kids, normal kids, back then. And we were good. Raguel: Do you think he could pick you out in a crowd? Emma: Hm-- I hope not. I hope sometimes that he'll become whatever I am, and we'll meet each other as next to total strangers. It'll feel like touching shoulders with someone on a bus, and them forgetting to move away. You are leaning into her sunshine, casting a half-mask across her face. You lean away. Emma: They're selling the house. You can't do anything about that, when you're a kid, you know. You can just be indignant on the place's behalf. Raguel: Do you remember why? Emma goes quiet for a long time. Emma: Bear trap in the back of the property... blood never came off it. Raguel: It was after the incident, then. Emma: There was a moment between when I did it and when everyone found out, when I couldn't go back, but no one knew. There was still time to lie. There was still time to pretend to be a person. Raguel: Emma, no one was still pretending you were a person. You know why you were out there. Emma: A bear trap seems. A little silly. Raguel: Sillier than leaving a dog tied to a post and hoping it dies? Emma: It makes more sense for me to be a person. Than a dog. I think. I hope. I hope I was really like family to them. I hope I wasn't just something they owned. Her voice tenses with frustration. Recently she'll reach the point where she has to start defending why she appears as a human being in her own memories. She'll look to you out of those haunted eyes, always set in the wrong things. An inherent chimericism by resemblance, something just too uncanny to have formed by coincidence. It's like someone took her family-- plus dog. Or the family she remembers having. Sometimes in her dreams she stuffs her tail in her pants and tucks it around her legs, sometimes she wakes up with ears and shoves them under a beanie. The egress is always the same, whether she was born a human or made herself into one-- she was on their side. One day she woke up and was not, anymore. They realize that they can not make her behave. They try to get rid of her. She does not go quietly. The whistle of ambulances is the refrain of the big closer before the intermission. What's the point of living infinite lives, if they go the same way? What defines a retelling of the same story? You are the reader. You are obligated to make a decision. When you do, it will define what version of her exists until the end of time. Capture her in your head now.[[ Choose very, very carefully. |Roundabout]]

Raguel is several concentric rings of brightness playing at the business of detail. Raguel is an attempt to line a photo up right to get the right shot-- the intuitions that let you know what the "right" shot is, a cohesive idea of beauty cohering from a thousand different constructs, disdainfully reading itself, revising itself, pretending not to insist on its own existence. Here are some things other people have seen Raguel in: -a crocheted doiley with not a single stitch out of line -an aloe plant -various pieces of avant garde metal sculpture outside of the doors of buildings of some importance -the flash of the translucent fur of the polar bear as light catches and refracts through it -a michorryzal network providing resources and information for a large forest of old and quarrelsome trees, gossips all -the distinct pain felt when forgetting to watch one's step while in deep focus, and affixing one's head to an overhang or pole as a consequence -the empty stare of a television screen -a face found in an oil spill -gloves -the angels on the head of the pin, better known as the computer chip -the scent of wood in an old building -light streaming through a window in a library Here are some things Raguel has come to assign herself: -the smell of heather -the scent of old pennies when run repeatedly between the thumb and index finger -the mints served at a doctor's office -the shape of good argumentation, as later analyzed -the serendipitous shape of infinite, self-containing fractals -one-day old snow, good for packing -a car warming in the parking lot during the dead of winter, with fogged windows -the sheen along one side of a new metal baseball bat -the topography of a local farmer's market -the experience of breaking teeth on ice cubes She is still working on perceiving and being perceived, and is often at least mildly uncomfortable when she realizes information is being leached from her person. Emma keeps telling her, this is the point, this is the work. Now, she has become the last reminder of all these things-- she thinks selfishly that they might be reconstructable from her person, that the black hole of time can not swallow them if she remembers them, embodies them, correctly. She thinks she can be a thousand small gods and a large one. She does not have enough readers for them to collectively pull connotations from her like feathers. She just has Emma, who is remembering her remembering herself, the pair of them a set of rusty mirrors set against each other. More of an effect than a faithful rendition of an image. More of a desire to desire than the desired thing itself. These sorts of contradictions were interesting to her, once. Now that there is no real thing to juxtapose her with, all her meta-canonicity feels like a coy trick. Raguel wants to render correctly very very badly. She looks almost like a person today, a person you could see anywhere. The eyes, though, there are hundreds of them, a smear across and past the face. The light, it doesn't reflect on her body correctly, as if the light in her comes from a dozen different places,[[ none of which are communicating. |Roundabout]]

Emma: If there was somewhere to return, when we're done, where would you go? Raguel: To our little cabin on the hill, of course. The one surrounded by hydrangea. Emma: If not for me, then where would you go? Raguel: You are a real spoilsport. Emma: Where would I find you in another life. If we were going to start all over again. Raguel: A laboratory hidden in the lower intestine of your city. They have found an angel and they are going to kill it to use its body's natural radiation to power the city forever. You are newly out of college and have studied some arcane thing you do not entirely understand, using the trance state of focus that has so far gotten you through life. You move on instinct deeper and deeper into that place. It isn't until your thirties that you get a glimpse of the thing, dying, already dying, but dying so so slowly that it might outlive you in its death. Like most men, you look at the angel's breasts. Then you notice the hundreds of eyes, the great spheres of four dimensional light, the polydactyl hands spread in impossible configurations. You drink in every detail. But first you look at the angel's breasts. The angel looks back at your breasts. You are aware you are being seen. What does an angel need breasts for, you think. The angel thinks, what do you need them for? You break me out. You find me somewhere soft to die. We bleed into each other. You kiss me and your mouth is covered in ichor every night for the rest of your life. The government is after us. We never feel safe again. Emma: Ok. Emma: [[What is your fucking problem.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Motorcycles have a very high mortality rate. Emma: Ok. Guess we'll die. Raguel: It's a metaphorical motorcycle. Emma: Then we're playing high-risk. Would you prefer that we drive a metaphorical Subaru? Raguel: No. Emma: What if you rode me bareback. Raguel: I wouldn't say no to it. But I wouldn't suggest it either. Emma: I could be a van. An old and cavernous van. Raguel: I wouldn't do that. That's vore. Emma: It's Utena. Raguel: In Utena, I believe the car is a drag racing car, with no top, no? Isn't the point that it-- Emma: No top. Raguel: --doesn't replicate the mother's womb, but instead represents the radical potential of adulthood-- Emma: No top. Raguel: Do you want to be on top, Emma. Emma: I would like to be driven. I think. Isn't that in character? Raguel: From what we've established, I believe it should be. Emma: Okay. I suppose I want to be driven. You get on my back, but not in me. I'm not a van, and any car I could be is purely hypothetical. You're a stick-shift, but more importantly, you're the lace someone uses to guide an animal, the spurs that speckle my sides with bruises. I get used to the feeling. Pain's just another signal. Raguel: Do you ever hate me? Emma: I would be nothing without you. I hate the loneliness more than I hate the purpose, so I love you even if I don't like what I am, what I've been made into. Raguel: Do you wish the spurs were soft? Emma: I wish they were harder. If you drew blood, I could justify eating you. Raguel: Then I would be inside you. Emma: I will never be my own rider. It's not what I am. Raguel: That's a dangerous sentiment. Emma: All absolutes are dangerous. Can you let me serve? Raguel: Do you choose to serve. Emma: I don't want to choose anything anymore. I want to be ridden. Raguel: Your fur is so coarse beneath my skin. Emma: You ride naked. When we approach, people believe that unicorns once courted maidens. The natural world caved in around the pure, the divine. Raguel: What a nakedly vainglorious sentiment. Emma: I lope differently from how horses ride. There is something human in the anticipation of where I put my paws. Your breath catches every time my legs rise again, some part of you never believing we'll touch the ground again. Whatever in you is the most human is afraid. The beat of your heart runs along my spine to my brain and rustles me like wind rustles leaves, like blood rustles shark. Occasionally I press my tongue to the top of my mouth. I never stop smelling you. Raguel: I want you. Emma: I want you too. Raguel: I want to control you. Emma: I want to be directed. Raguel: My hands around your neck-- Emma: They're not long enough to form a perfect collar. Raguel: Go faster. Emma: With pleasure. Raguel: I-- Emma: I'm the only thing that can fill you. That can bid you not to speak. That's why you have to be mine. Raguel: [[I'm gonna--|Roundabout]]

Emma: I think I'm going to die now. Raguel: You can't do that. Emma: I have horrible news for you. I don't think you can make me stop. Raguel: Emma. You're being petulant. Emma: I'm going to die in a field. Would you like to come die in this field with me? Raguel: I will die without you. Emma: But will you die with me? In a field? Raguel: Is it a nice field? Emma: There are dandelions everywhere. And wolfsbane, and hemlock, and all the other poisons. Raguel: Can there be oleander. Emma: In our field? Sure. There can be oleander. Its little white petals curl around my face and rest there like young and unsteady fawns, waiting for their mother to return. Raguel: Their mother has been killed, I imagine. Emma: Shhh shhh shhh. Don't tell them that. They're resting right now. Raguel: I sit down next to you then. In the field. Emma: The sunlight on your face... have you felt anything so kind, Rags? Raguel: Kinder than sunlight? Never. Emma: Mmmm. And the grass is soft and sweet, it gets in your mouth when you lie down. Like a girl's hair. The bugs run over your body but never bite you. You're being explored, loved. Welcomed back to the world. Raguel: The sun is, a vast engine of fusion. There are only so many times you can fuck meaning into being before you're a ball of iron and dense, radioactive things. Emma: Rags! The field! Raguel: The sun's gone, love. Emma: Not in the field! It's right here. Raguel: How should I lie. Next to you? Curled inside your arm? Emma: I'm the big spoon and you're the little spoon? No. You've got to decide. You lie down second, so you have to decide. Raguel: I came after you. Emma: Did I tell you to come here? Raguel: And now your face is full of flowers. It's unsettling, what you've done. I don't want to encourage it. I always enabled you. Emma: I'm not afraid. It's warm. I've done what I liked. I don't need to be alive to be happy you came. Raguel: You don't know I came after you! I could have done anything! Emma: But you didn't. You came to the field. Raguel: I could have abandoned you. Emma: I don't think you will. Raguel: You asked me to come here because you cared, right? You want to die with me? Emma: Yes. I loved living with you. I want to die with you. If you eat your poison, you won't die long after I did. The two of us will leave together, holding hands. When they make new souls, they'll make ours somewhere close to each other, in space and time. Raguel: Emma, there are no new souls. Emma: Pretend there are. Raguel: I don't pretend things. I just know. Emma: Can't you love me enough to pretend? Even once? Raguel: Would I be more alive to you. If I could lie better. Emma: It would be a nice gesture. You're what you are. Raguel: You're a corpse. Emma: When you stopped wanting to be an angel, you started wanting to be a corpse. Raguel: But you corpses are so talkative... Emma: I know it's hard for you to cross this line. That's why I've got to keep saying it, over and over. Even if I shouldn't. Even if I'm a skeleton of a dog you have on a pike in your backyard. Even if I'm a caterpillar dying in a wood and metal cage filled with leaves that I don't eat. Even if I'm a scent in the wind that you've forgotten about to be dispersed back into component elements. Even if I'm a stuffed toy that's molded in your attic, that needs to be thrown away. No matter what I am. You need me to get you across the line. You love me so much that I have to talk to you. Raguel: To say what. Emma: It's okay if we don't make it. Raguel: `[Sniffling.]` Hic... Emma: I love you. Raguel: `[Crying in earnest now.]` Emma... Emma: I love you, Raguel. Raguel: I don't want to-- I don't want you to-- I don't want it all to be over-- Emma: It's okay. We had fun. We had a lot of fun, didn't we? Raguel curls against Emma, who continues to break her role, draws some limbs of hers across Raguel like a blanket. The two of them feel some old ghost of heat-- maybe just the ambient warmth of Emma's warm body, which feels like a fleeting glimpse of sun in January, not enough to do anything but desperately, desperately needed. Raguel buries herself in rough calluses, in unsteady breath, wipes her tears on an old flannel dug up from some ancient romance. She remembers this shirt, breathes its reassuring dusty scent from a breakup thousands of lifetimes ago. She remembers how much everything felt like the end of the world then. It is a comfort to have at the actual, literal, complete and existential end of all possible worlds. Emma: [[Not much more now.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Are your siblings anything like you? Emma: Depends. They're stubborn, so that's something. Brunette, but that's not uncommon. Brown hair, brown eyes. They like dogs more than cats. They drink the same cola, half-remember the same two recipes our mom used to try to drill into us. Love too hard, hate so much harder. You? Raguel: I... Emma: You had siblings. Raguel: You don't think I have only child neurosis? Emma: No. Raguel: Fine. Among them, I'm so normal I loop around to being the black sheep of the family, I think. So normal it threatens people. Sets unfair standards of comparison. I make the second most money. I do the second best job. I'm going to be promoted. Always going to be promoted. Standing behind the real shakers. Making it happen. Emma: The world needs people who are going to do a good job. Raguel: I didn't say I was going to do a good job. Anyways, it's a moot point now. Emma: Who's doing better than you? Raguel: Basically no one. They're just getting more credit for it. Emma: You're changing your story. Raguel: I can't imagine settling. Do you think I would? Emma: I can imagine you seething. It's not the same as settling, but possibly comes from similar material conditions, with different conditions in your immediate periphery? Raguel: You're trying to give me youngest sibling jealousy and it won't work. I'm maternal. Protective. I have oldest sibling energy. Emma: I really don't think you do. Raguel: Fine. You're definitely the youngest. Emma: Middle. Youngest if there are two, and then he's either a fraternal twin or a few years older than me. Raguel: He. Emma: I feel like I usually had a lot of fraternal masculine energy in my life. I think it made me a tomboy. You have to have that moment as a girl, right, when you realize that everyone is making fun of you. They look at you differently. The moment you realize you're marked, and you're going to get slower, quieter, than the boys, unless you do something about it. And doing something is gonna suck the whole time. Raguel: Only one thing worse than that. Emma: Being a guy? Raguel: I remember when I realized I wasn't a girl. Emma: Because you're an angel? Or because you were a boy? Raguel: Sources vary... Emma: Naturally. We've all been there. Raguel: You know, a bunch of the other angels and beasts are proudly, unilaterally female, right? Or they've never put much stock in the whole thing to begin with-- either way, minimal angst. Emma: How often do they have to think about their bodies, though? You know. How often are they really taking them for a joyride. Raguel: That is at most one degree of separation from at least five separate vicious stereotypes. Emma: Vicious Stereotype is my drag name... maybe I was a boy a few times and realized I wanted to be a really butch girl... I think, not enough. Or not as often as I wanted to be. Honestly, probably never. I think I was never born a boy. Only a dog. Raguel: Sorry. Emma: I think it's good to have something to look forwards to. Raguel: Like shapeshifting? Emma: Hahah. Yeah. I like going to meet people. Raguel: Like your brother. Emma: Hahah. Yeah. Raguel: I'm sorry. Emma: You should see what I did to the rest of my family. Her jaws are heavy with blood. Emma: You know what my name is short for, right? Raguel hesitates. She remembers the name she called, a long time ago. It feels a little like a deadname, after all, it has been discarded. It's not something Emma's moving towards, at least. Raguel: Emnity. Something old and unfriendly moves in Emma's face, and she smiles the way she does after sex, warm and dreamlike. Raguel: I love you. Emma: [[Hahaha. Hah.|Roundabout]]

In a web, there is a spider and a single fly. Its every movement tears the canvas. If the structure holds, the spider will eat. If the structure fails, the spider will die. By a pond, there is a duck and a mongoose. The duck is sitting on her eggs. She will get up-- for mere moments-- and come back to find all of them smashed. The mongoose will eat especially well that night. At the top of an office building, someone is preparing to jump. The ways that humans kill each other have become incremental, but she hopes her boss sees her face on the way down. If she could choose, she would splatter herself into a red smile across her window. Down underneath the earth, maggots are going through the last bones of a shrike. There are too many agents here. You get fuzzy. You lose your metaphors. You can't remember what you were, what you were supposed to be. You were trying to make a point again, you think. You are trying to disambiguate the ways power works from the ways justice works. It isn't going especially well for you, which is a shame, because you have to tell everyone you meet about it or they will eat you alive. They will kill you and your beautiful wife. Your beautiful wife licks her chops several times, once with a dog's face, once with a human's face, and once like a rock shearing layers of unworthy sediment from another rock. When she looks at you, it is with the force of a sniper on the back of the head of a politician. This is one of those times you forget that you have made peace, that you remember the romances where you were really just trying to goad her into killing you, so you can finally be an easy metaphor, a cautionary tale, a pearl in the semantic string. She is the only thing in the world that will make it beautiful and worthwhile to die. Emma: You've got this funny look on your face again. Raguel: Is there a giant sword in it. Emma: I don't actually need to see your face to know what you're thinking. Raguel: Emma. Every day the chain of a name ties weaker around her neck. Does she remember you picking it out. Picking her out. Does she know. Emma: Yes? Raguel: I forgive you. Emma: Mmm. Raguel: Could you... The very words are pathetic. Raguel: Could you forgive me? Emma: I don't think I will. Raguel: And why not. Emma: First of all, I liked what you did to me, every time you did it. There's nothing I can forgive you for. My heart wouldn't be in it. Second, I want you to die unforgiven. Raguel: They're kinder to prisoners when they execute them. Emma: It will be good for us. It will draw us closer, before we die. Raguel: Why. Emma: You made yourself to drag me into heaven. [[I was made to drag you out of it.|Roundabout]]

Raguel does not attempt to speak to him. It would be rude to talk to him without Emma there to facilitate, and if he is there, Emma is not there. He is not really there either. There is some part of Emma that is always there, in that moment, and when Emma is more there than not there, in the same way electrons can be, probabilistically, far outside their supposed shells, the absence is shaped something like him. Whatever it is is very pale, and practically fetal, and used to be wrapped in the salvages of her meals, which were at first human meals, and then became mostly a mess of meat, and are nothing, because every last calorie is an idea that needs to be milked for every last bond it can be stripped of. There is nothing that can be regurgiated, and if regurgitated, it must be swallowed. There she lies on the ground, in another daze. Her fur spiked up, her eyes glassy. Her being reaches out through this puppet-- you can sense it. It is not him, you think to yourself, and it comes with that same pang of guilt as always. The missing hand. The familiar, brave features. The slight curve of the jaw, the dimples, the smile lines. All of it not completely buried. An eternal memorial turned eternal grave. The ghost draws breath. Rasps pathetically. Arches his back. You scan the horizon for other angels. It would be really shitty of them to kill you now, which means half of them would love to do it. In very few of your lives did anything like him meaningfully appear. He was always just out of frame. Referenced but never viewed. In some way, it feels like you pushed him out. Duopoly is an exciting means of isolating anyone. Emma has always been a one-person-person. She says, before you, there was no one. She'll mention two siblings. She'll mention a cousin. Sometimes, drunk, she'll mention a brother. But there's something she's not telling you. She doesn't, after all, call herself by her old name. She calls herself Emma. There's a story that can no longer be told, one which her existence once fell around like velvet from antlers. The versions of her you get are approximations. This version of him is also an approximation. Nothing. Next to nothing is an approximation. Something she swallowed whole is an approximation. The wolf's eyes meet with yours. Raguel: He's in pain. Put him back? The wolf's eyes close. You sit like this awhile. You pretend there's a fire, pace about it, kick dirt into the air. You consider pulling out a cigarette and then don't. Then you do, taste it, and imagine that you didn't. You keep giving her pointed looks. You get so so so lonely you think you might die. She's somewhere so far away you might actually be alone. You talk to yourself. In most lives, this is a habit you have before Emma. It is one she is impartial to, almost fond of, but one of those things she leaves for you to have. Raguel: I wish I had men to hate. Raguel: I wish I had a mythology to draw from. Raguel: I stole this name. You put your head in your hands. From between your fingers, you hear hushed breath. The wolf appears to be asleep. Slowly, you watch as it recedes, inchworm-like, back into her. For a long time, the indentations where its eyes should be fix on the horizon, its hand making random spasms towards something on it. At first, you grip your sword, ready to kill, or bargain. Then you realize-- the last thing he did was put his hand into her mouth. While she was being chained. In the story you know, she bit his hand off. The other hand, you think. But this-- remnant memory-- is a part of a story that Emma is no longer the heir to, because it will never be told again. In the last moments of this story, you see something reaching out to her. Raguel: Did I kill you. By loving her. By wanting her. By appropriating her. It continues to seize. Raguel: It's the only thing I have ever done. I made one choice-- I love her. I want to be with her. No keratin on those fingers. Emma has lovely, damaged keratin. Emma has chewed pits around every fucking nail. Raguel: I wrote myself into existence to love her. I knew-- she would never be what she was again, if she was the beast of an angel. It's only the hand now. The undamaged hand. It runs across the wolf's nose, petting it. You see her wince in her sleep. Raguel: You destroy people by touching them. By asking them to choose you. Ever. You make something new. Maybe that thing is better. But you do destroy them. The fingers rub the line of the jaw. You think you sense some hesitation. Before Emma was yours, maybe she was only metaphorically a wolf. Younger, you realize, like a star falling from heaven. It's the only clear thing you've ever realized about her before you were you both. She was the younger sister. He was older than her. Everything else is true as ever. She is blindly loyal. She is funny, verging on grimly sardonic most of the time. She is a bit of a bastard. She is built to kill, and anything approaching stability bores her. No one who has ever loved her has escaped unscathed. She hangs the bits of them she keeps like flags from the parapets of her teeth, and calls it love. Emma: Before you, there was only wanting you. Do you understand that? Raguel: I-- Emma: Don't blame yourself. I asked for this. Raguel: Emma. Emma: Honey.[[ It only cost the price.|Roundabout]]

You tear the meat from the body. It makes a wretched clicking sound, like pop rocks. It smells like someone took an entire concession stand from a baseball game and pushed it through a meat grinder. The consistency is not unlike cotton candy, if cotton candy dripped cold grease. This is a complicated way to add verismillitude to the most important fact about the meat of the angel of luck: it makes you want to throw up. You take a very small bite. Your body accepts it. Hand-waves it, really. Raguel: Is it good. She extends her hand. She looks like a child at the edge of a petting zoo. You lumber closer. Petting zoos are usually careful never to employ someone with this many teeth. It's worth its weight in gold, so first you bite, tasting pennies, blood, candy, cocktails. Second, you run your rough pad of a tongue over her hand. When you do this, you are a person with animal ears and a big, bulky collar around your neck. You make direct eye contact with her. Nothing will satiate you like the look of desire on her face. You can feel every fabricated muscle in her pristinely generated hand begging its neighbors not to betray her with a twitch. Her pinky finger moves when your tongue gets in between it and the ring finger, catches on the remains of angel flesh and its battery-acid sweetness. Your breath catches. She swipes her hand away. You rub your arm across your face, catlike. Settle by the corpse again. There's nothing out here to make it decay, which ensures you can bleed every second from lady luck. You pull long, insulation-vent tendrils off of her, and a fountain of chocolate coins erupts in your face. The anatomy of angels is a labyrinth of bad ideas, and their rot is where bad jokes collect under their scapulas. Eating them requires patience and a spirit of play. Emma: It's fine. It's never as much fun by the end of it. Any joy, any real terror the moment might have inspired, is effaced by the sheer enormity of the task. Eventually, destruction is a routine you've settled into. The fact you can't afford to waste anything makes it almost silly-- an inhuman vacuum, licking crumbs from dust at the end of time. Fortunately, the edges of an idea are easier than usual to delineate. Just look for the point where something becomes nothing. [[After all, there's so little anything left.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: I'm sorry. Emma: Oh what is it this time. Raguel: The most obvious thing it could be. I have wronged you. Emma: Oh? Is this the part where I learn about some transgression to which I have been oblivious because girl I do not care at all? Raguel: I have you do the dirty work which should be mine. If not for me, you wouldn't-- Emma: Well, Rags, if not for you I would be dead. Raguel: And innocent. Emma: No, I was born too wrong for that. Raguel: You're being petulant. Emma: I would rather be dead and have done it than alive and innocent. Raguel: What is wrong with you? Emma: I have experienced orgasm. The same thing that is wrong with many, many women. Raguel: You know that not experiencing orgasm also makes women have something wrong with them. Emma: It turns out there is no way to be a woman that doesn't make there be something wrong with you. This is a feature, not a bug, of the system. Raguel: Violence is only metaphorically orgasmic. Emma: Sex is a kind of violation. I believe this. Raguel: Oh, right, the philosophy of people who don't like sex and have decided to make it everyone else's problem. How noble of you. Emma: I think if you put something, inside of something else, that's a violation. Raguel: A house. Emma: Inhabitation is mutual transformation via violation. Raguel: Mitochondria. Emma: One more way that being a woman transfers wrongness down the genetic line. Of course you, as a so-called complex organism, are predicated on kill and capture. Raguel: A sandwich. Emma: Baby. Darling. Baby girl. There is nothing more perverse than a sandwich. Raguel: You're being contrarian! This isn't a thesis, this is just something you think about the world that self-evidences itself through your pre-existing biases! Could you be more lazy? Emma: I wish you were a foot and I was a boot so you could rub my face against the ground every time you needed to go somewhere. Oh, but wait... miracles really do happen, we're already there. Raguel: Being broken into a sharp shape isn't the same as sharpness being inherent to you. Emma: Is it breaking if I like what I am more on the other side? Raguel: Yes. Emma: If I would have chosen to become it? Raguel: Yes!!! Emma: And here I thought you were trans-affirming. Raguel: You eat kids!!! Emma: I eat metaphors for futurity. Raguel: You can't conceptualize yourself out of being abusive to the world around you! Emma: I'm not conceptualizing myself out of it. I'm leaning into what I am, which is violence made incarnate on your behalf. You get to whimper and drop the leash and cry because I, unflinchingly, take on the violence. But I also think, deep down, your repulsion is attraction to it. You're jealous of my capacity to not care who I hurt, what I do, what I eat. You made me-- picked me-- summoned me out of the aether because you were looking for a shape you could not fit into, and now you're trying to talk yourself out of it because it is the only possible way to go from getting what you want. Raguel: Okay. Emma: Wow, and people wonder why marriages fall apart. Raguel: Can't I just say, 'I hurt you', and you say, 'yes'? Emma: Let's give it a try. Raguel: I hurt you. Emma: Yes. Raguel: Was that so hard? Emma: --and I like it. Raguel: You can not reclaim agency by enjoying your own torture! Emma: Yes I can and you can not stop me! Raguel: This is stupid. I just wanted to apologize. For the way you get when you're honest. Emma: When I'm honest. Raguel: And I sit with you. Emma: When I'm honest. When I'm nonverbal is when I'm honest. Raguel: Oh, please, you get to hold up 'all entrance is violence' like a big fish at a surrogate dick-measuring via masculine dominance over the environment and I don't even get to hoist the comparative minnow of 'your vulnerability is honesty'? Emma: That's actually the lamest thing you've ever done to me. Raguel: It's my job to be lame. It makes you seem more fierce by comparison if I am stalwart in my lameness. Emma: I will come up with the most perverted, evil thing to become when I am utterly pathetic and you will coo and pamper it not realising I am fully conscious and enjoying your affection and being sick as shit and super weird with it. I'll bomb my own mind so you can open up hotels on the rubble. I'll use my stigmata to hold your flowers. Raguel: Sounds domestic. Emma: In the spirit of honesty, a confession. Raguel: Yes? Emma: I am so hard right now. Raguel: Then I am going to fuck you. [[The angel yanks the leash. The beast crumbles at her feet. St George and the Dragon ensues, but the dragon likes it.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: How do you think we look to our others. Sometimes I am certain our current attire is little more than pajamas for our soul. Emma: If I'm pajamas, do you want to slip inside? Raguel: Truly, my tongue slips over the sheer wreckage of this conversation. Emma: And hopefully, into my vagina. Raguel: Emma you're being very crass!!! Emma: Ptooey. You know, I do have an intellectual brace for this, if you're interested. Raguel: Answering with a question? Emma: Hey, you're not the only one who gets wet for pretension. Look. Pajamas is pajamas. But attire isn't just aesthetic, it's functional, and I'm an animal with a very binary set of perceptions. Raguel: Emma no you can not ask me if I'm transgender. Emma: Of course you're fucking transgender!! You can't be cisgender and an angel. You're at the very least transed into having a body, which is, honestly, how most of us feel on a good day, anyhow. I mean, we're here to kill. Right? Your body. Is it meant to eat, or try to stop people from eating you. Raguel: It can be both. Think of the eyespots on the back of tigers ears, to make their faces look larger? Emma: Bup bup bup bup answer the fucking question. Raguel: Really, I can't stand your narrow-mindedness sometime. Alright. The wings are clearly for flight, but that could be for predatory descent or escape. The eyes are both side and forwards facing, that's no help, I'm a veritable panopticon-- and I'm guessing there's not a lot of semiotic backing for my particular domain of calculation being on either side of the bite/bitten divide-- Emma: No, try me. What's your domain. Raguel: Over all real numbers? Emma: No it isn't. Raguel: Theee equal sign? Emma: That's just pretentious. You do not get to be the equals sign. Next you're going to say you're set theory. Raguel: No, not equivalence, evaluation. There's a difference. Emma: Evaluation is verifying equivalence. Raguel: Yes? Emma: Never mind. Continue. Raguel: So I suppose-- Emma: Could you at least, be a little humble and take congruence for an answer? Raguel: Emma! I'm NOT congruence. I am equivalence in that I verify the result of operations against an expected result. If necessary, that result is produced. It's fundamental because I, believe it or not, am a very powerful being! Emma: Oh I believe it. Raguel: That is to say, I am the one who watches and casts judgment. I'm not eating or being eaten. I've sided, unequivocally, with those who eat, but my whole life I've at least nominally cast with those who have been eaten. For their protection. It's a sort of revealing premise, you know... Emma: In the end, all angels chose things that were close to dogs. I think that says something about angels. Raguel: Or whatever was left. Maybe dogs are just very enduring. Emma: Maybe it's convenient for the role you needed your weapons to take, more than anything. I'll let you sit in the middle, if you want. I'll do the tricky part. Raguel: I think, deep down, it's a little more complicated than you're letting on. Emma: In the end, I just want to know who's chasing and who's fleeing when that horn sounds. Raguel: Well, that's why you're wrong in a nutshell. In the traditional fox hunt, both the pursuants and the pursued are [[canines.|Roundabout]]

Emma: For all your chutzpah I think sometimes you don't understand how lucky you are to be what you are. Raguel: Admittedly I have spent a lot of time fixating on how blessed your creation it is because I can not believe God deposited such a dumpling of warm and delicious soup directly into my lap. That and it did not spill, meaning I get to enjoy the fruits of it existing instead of the searing pain of hot lap soup. Emma: Wouldn't the... the outside of the dumpling still be hot? Raguel: I'm trying to call you very cute. Emma: You couldn't think of anything else? Raguel: What other food hurts you on the inside but not the outside? Emma: That would be the domain of the humble pepper. Raguel: Only after you've already consumed it. In this, consumption would be the good way to do it. Emma: As opposed to my body exploding on your lap. Raguel: I interrupted you as you were about to say something important and cut off a fruitful avenue of psychological meander. Please direct us back onto that pretty freeway so I can put my hands out the sunroof of our car and gaze openmouthed at the Spanish Moss littered along it? Emma: You and your shit metaphors. I mean that you're an angel. Language is like my body, it's a game, a food to you. Because you were born as something not designed to want and your own extinction has brought you to the brink of almost-mortality. Once I was people. Once you existed in people. They aren't the same thing. Raguel: Being a character and being a motif? Emma: Nail on the head. Raguel: You are a motif, now. That's partially why it afflicts you so physically. The tension is compelling to exacerbate. Emma: If you received violence, it would be because you made yourself a body that could feel violence. There are some things I was created with that will not be torn away, no matter how many times I try to reshape a version of myself that exists without them. I have an inheritance. Raguel: You have a canon. Even ideas have canons. My canon is full of nothing but parts of myself that would be better left ripped away. Emma: At least you aren't running on the treadmill of a few meaningful events. Raguel: I would like to say something that will not help. Emma: I already know what it is. Come on, say it. Raguel: I would kill to have canonical events. Emma: You are killing. I am your canonical event. Raguel: It's why I leashed you. It's one thing to desire to live, and I do. But more importantly, with you, I have a life. Without you, I am-- Emma: Every idea is mastered by everyone differently within their own heads. You being out here doesn't make that much of a difference. You've always lived. You just feel more like the version of yourself that loves me because you're closest to me. Raguel: See, I don't think so. I think I was born because justice loves you. I think I was able to open my eyes because you broached the infinite and withdrew my soul like a sword. Emma: I won't say I didn't look for you in everything I saw, all my life. Raguel: Then its corrolary? Emma: Always I was looking for you until I found you. Always I was calling you until you responded. If you had never called me I would have called the same until death and loved you no less for it. You have exceeded my expectations but not my love because it could not be gratified more than it has from the moment I saw you like a shard of light wedged within my eye. Raguel: I am lucky to know what I am. Emma: Yes-- you have a very easy answer. Raguel: You, too, are lucky to define what you are. Emma: It will never be so sharp and so precise. Raguel: I think it sharpens daily. Some day I will look at you the way you look at me. Emma: Someday? It's all in the past. Raguel: Then maybe a version of me already looks at a version of you. If we are everything we have surely been God to each other multiple times. The conceit, Emma, is that we are in love. Not that you are in love with me, or that I am in love with you. If we have been everywhere together, we have both been everywhere. Different though I am, illusory though I am, I have always almost-been where you have been. I was right behind you. Emma: It hurts to become what this is and sometimes I am scared. Raguel: You've told me you love crosses cutting your body in vivisection. I can be kinder. I can be slow. We don't have to be each other as much-- we can be ourselves, and you can still have a self. Emma: But I want to become what you are. I want to hold you. Raguel: Someone who is a person and only once can hold me in the sun coming out of the clouds. You can be anything you like. Emma: And the more I become myself, the more I am an animal with a human body wedged in my mouth, crying for help. The more I become myself, the more I am death. I am the name that stands in for Cain's in a story that is not his. I am an animal raised among men, the betrayal of a true and perverse nature. Every day I see on the horizon an idea that is not shaped like I was shaped as a person. Raguel: If you add a gallon of blood to a cup of water, it will just look like blood. But the water will still be there. Emma: You pretend to be so small. Raguel: Both of us get to play games... my game is that I am small and very delicate and if you protect me no one will ever hurt me. Emma: An angel playing mouse. Raguel: For god so loved the world, she pretended to be a human so she could be loved. Emma: Seems like everyone has a habit of it. Raguel: Pretending to be human? Emma: [[Doing whatever it takes to feel loved... |Roundabout]]

Emma: It's not a very interesting journey because there is no journey. Raguel: There's a journey. We're walking. Emma: But if we didn't walk, we'd end up at the same place, at the same time. I think you have to admit that kills some of the magic in it. Raguel: The world is over. If there were anything more than nothing, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Emma: No ominous ram's skulls or nothing, then? Raguel: Nothing but dust. Emma: You know things can lose entropy without becoming magically featureless dust. If anything I'd say that would be extremely unlikely. Did someone just go through the universe near the very end and think, "Okay, let's do a silly one?" Raguel: You're mad you can't snort it. Emma: I've tried. It's like putting nothing in your nose. Raguel: At least nothing isn't my araeolas. Emma: I'll put your aureole in my nose. Raguel: It won't fit. It's a very large aureole. Emma: Do you think women know they are saints? Raguel: Men know they're martyrs. Emma: But it's more beautiful, I think, not to know. That's why it's feminine. It's denial. It's coy. Raguel: Watch out, we're going to veer into irony. Emma: No, we're going to veer into more motherfucking dust. Do you think if I killed someone their blood would disappear? Raguel: We have killed people. Where was the blood. Emma: There for as long as dramatic effect would allow. And we drank all the blood. Because if even a drop got into the earth, that's a second we would lose. Raguel: There has to be a point at which you're just breaking even, or even losing time, sniffing blood out of the sand. I don't think it's that time effective. Emma: If we wanted to use our time effectively I think we would have just died before everything became like this. We would have seen the dust and thought, oh fuck, dust o clock, everything's about to become philosophically loaded and boring as hell. Raguel: You feel like the road trip as a genre is being weakened by our lack of actual tripping? Emma: Fuuuuck what I wouldn't give for some mushrooms. Do you think any of them will get us high. Raguel: Depends on whose left. If any of them have killed each other first. It's a distinct possibility. Emma: Do you think your practiced genteelness could blow away like the wind. Raguel: No, it's inherent, and ardently sincere. Emma: I think our dynamic would benefit from someone to bounce off of. You're like, barely a straight man with only me to go off of. I feel like I'm keeping a bird in a cage. Raguel: I would have liked to travel between public restrooms with you, Emma. Going nowhere. Emma: Yeah, escaping our shitass parents to start a new life somewhere houses are twenty thousand dollars and everyone for fifty miles around points at us and calls us slurs. Raguel: I suppose everyone who called us slurs is dead now. Emma: Everyone who was nice to us is also dead. Raguel: People were nice to you? Emma: Were people nice to you. Raguel: Yes, but I'm not so embittered. Emma: I think people were nice to me occasionally. It's exhausting to be mean. It's like how a frown takes more muscles. You do it because, otherwise, you lose what's driving you. It's like a grappling hook. Raguel: Hatred. Emma: It's kept me moving. Raguel: I don't feel any hatred. Emma: Mmm, well. One more thing to reflect on as we travel the countryside. Just imagine a desert. Ram's skulls and all. Raguel: Whatever keeps us moving. Emma: [[You said it.|Roundabout]]

Emma: The only problem is. Raguel: Yes? Emma: If we had died together, we could have grown into each other. Become nothing. Merged biomasses. Now, we'll be eaten. Raguel: Then we'll be together in someone else. Emma: Hadn't thought about that. Raguel: That's what I'm here for. Emma: But-- Raguel: And therein lies the rub. Emma: I don't want anyone else between us. I'm very selfish that way. Raguel: Does material reality not routinely intervene? Emma: It's different between two coffins and being eaten by someone else. Raguel: Someone has to bury you. Emma: Not the same thing. It's a service done to the even unloved dead. Raguel: That's not always true... Emma: But it sometimes is. It's not rectangle-square, at least. You have to give up. You have to just admit that it would be nice to lie in my arms and rot. Raguel: That was never in question. Emma: If we both die... we'll get that. When there is no heat left in the world, there will be nothing to decay our bodies. Another universe could find us sleeping. Raguel: You're not even talking about the unspeakable erotics of rot, here. This is umistakeably chaste. Emma: In another life, when we were buried, they threw our bodies in together. The waste in me spilled out across you. When our flesh decayed, our ribcages interlinked. I fell onto you and worms who ate us reported that we tasted the same. Raguel: It wouldn't kill you to romance me with flowers, you know. Emma: You're only saying that because dying, as the last taboo, has become unmistakeably hot and heavy between us. Raguel: Must everything end in orgasm? Emma: Death is the final orgasm, so in a way, yes. Raguel: Maybe it isn't. Maybe you just die. Emma: Once again. It's not square-rectangle. Raguel: Do you think the semantics of negotiating it are erotic, at least? Emma: I really wish I did. Raguel: I do. Emma: [[I think I have figured that out by now.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Thank you for letting me do this. Emma: Would you like it a different way? I can make my mouth very big and then they'll be large as boulders and you can climb them. Raguel runs her hand along Emma's mouth, savoring the feeling of each of her teeth between fingers that sense at an atomic, atemporal level. She feels the electrons still rattling in every atom of Emma's teeth, senses dissonant histories tangled together into a form of raw conviction. This atom here was one of the last iron atoms forged in a dying sun. This calcium was a cliff before it was a tooth. This peak has deposits of some exotic matter from the last angel you ate. The teeth are, on a more macro-level, beautifully scarred, a testament to a life that is a testament to the evolution of some long-ago animal to arrange teeth for different purposes. A crew of soldiers, bordering human and wolf in their construction, lies in a determinedly human smile, incurring some damage from their unclear marching orders. Raguel's finger finds the most twisted soldier, presses on a long-sore point. Raguel: I don't need them to be larger. I like that you can look me in the eyes while I do this. Emma: I don't always have eyes. Sometimes I just have this mouth, and you have the eyes. Raguel: Let's be that version of ourselves. The diplicate goddess. Emma obliges. She likes the sex they have when they both see through Raguel's eyes and both speak through Emma's mouth. There's less of a need to differentiate each other when they're sharing sensory capacities, and it walks the line of entanglement wihtout collapsing into literal fusion. She likes the way her body looks when she navigates it from Raguel's perspective, cut off by every blink. She likes the way Raguel's words sound when she can try to keep them stuck in her jaw, attempt to wrest her tongue back. She likes that Raguel has more control of her than she does of her, but that the control she has is more perverse. She liks the sound of Raguel's soft moan spilling over her tongue while her body shakes and jerks soundlessly. She loves to quiet it and hold her there, staring wide-eyed, able to do nothing but twitch with ecstasy. It feels like eating her, which she is always trying to do. Emma: Less of this on the road, I feel. Raguel: I'm old and vigilant. Emma: You get nostalgic for being people, so we stay apart. I get it. It's very cute. Raguel: When the other angels and their beasts are too close, or too far, it's miserable. Emma: The right amount of close is you feeling my gums. Raguel: What if you were more like a werewolf. Do the teeth change? Emma obliges again, her hair coarsening, surprisingly little changing. Those eyes are a little more threatening. Something tickles the back of her throat. If she can't speak when it exits her, and she has their mouth, then neither of them could speak. It almost feels like inviting someone else to their private soiree. No, it feels like using a body as part of a dam. It would work, but it's clearly not what it's supposed to be used for. Still, something tickles Emma at the mere idea of having her feel it. She's able to be eerily separate from their neuroses, but if she was also-- Raguel: I want to feel them from the inside. I want to eat with them. Emma: You haven't steered for a long time. Raguel: It's never felt entirely necessary. Emma: You want to check that we can still do it. Raguel: We might die soon. If we can't still do it, we're in danger. Emma: There's still a bit of her left. She was a tough kill. She will be incredibly satisfying to eat. Raguel: Then let's eat her. Raguel walks to Emma, and as she does, her self collapses into wings and eyes, a proper biblical angel, and Emma feels the tendrils around her fingers. It's a jellyfish whispering sweet nothings in her ear, little more than compulsion to do what she'd do already, but she wants more, so she puts up resistance. Emma unzips her pack and removes the meat from the tinfoil, looking part bark, part roadkill, all asphault, and her mouth begins to water. Then she attempts to walk away. The feeling stabbing her stomach is frightening-- Raguel's hunger exceeding her own. Everything fades to the thin buzz of instinct as she pulls onto all fours, grabbing the ground like someone is trying to pick her up, digging lengthening claws in. She feels hands like sunlight grab her, feels that electric whipcrack of displeasure. Their displeasure, suddenly, contradiction easing into desire, the elation as their teeth pull the meat, and it stretches too far, oozes like a slice of cheese. Their nostrils flare, and a thick, oily taste coats their senses, their tongue recoiling against the heat before the deep-fried flavor hits the back of their throat. All of their feathers rustle at once and Emma stops to breathe, which comes out as a whimper as they pull the rougher meat apart. When they swallow, it burns on the way down, a symphony of grease and warmth and agony, the meat becoming venison, hard and stringy, the taste of game reading their own kill back to them. Unbroiled, for moments they taste the pine some animal had nibbled, remember the side of that road, see it, feel it. Ecstatic, they collapse, thread and animal, holding each other, licking meat from one set of teeth. It feels so good to eat and to live that the animal in them reviles being told someday it must die. It feels so good to be one thing that they feel they must stand still and repeat it until they do die. Raguel lies with her entire dick inside of Emma, whose tail, still receding, is lazily flapping against the ground. Her girl is so warm and heavy in her arms, and when she kisses her shoulders she tastes like the meal they shared together. Raguel: If we could start from the very beginning I would do this all over again to get here. Emma: If we could start from the very beginning I would just do this all over again. At no moment would I change a single decision. Raguel: I love you. I love you. I love you. Emma: I love you. I love eating with you. Raguel: We'll eat and kill death. Emma: Yes. Yes. And then it'll just be us, alone, just like this. Raguel: At the end of the end of everything. Emma: Anything for a few more minutes. Raguel: [[Anything at all.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Darling. Emma: Hey, dove. Raguel: You missed a spot. `[Emma runs her fingers across her face.] `Emma: Here? Raguel: No, not there. `[Her fingers move haphazardly, brushing bits of distended hair and the thick sludge of oil.]` Emma: Here, love? Is it here? Raguel: You're not going to get it. Let me try. Raguel approaches Emma and takes her head in both of her hands. This leaves very little surface area on Emma's face where something could be and her organs are not. Flexing her fingers back, Raguel leans in and rakes a tongue across the side of Emma's face. She savors her like a popsicle. It isn't so much sexual as a strange combination of predatory and maternal, so the kind of sex that sex wants to be, when it's not trying and everything is a giddy slush of raw desire. Emma shivers. Raguel's tongue lingers like a question mark where the flavor is strongest, then retreats, the exhale from her nose frosting Emma's baby beard hairs, dew and sweat precipitating. Emma: You get it off? Raguel puts her hands on Emma's head, both thumbs pressing her bottom lip up. She stares into Emma's eyes. Emma looks back, unblinking, and her tongue unthinkingly protrudes out of her mouth, a domesticated expression that leaves you laughing, bell-clear and loud. Emma perks up at the sight of it, and leaves a wet kiss across your jaw, where your skin becomes glass. If it bothers you that in your brightest moments, you can not entirely remember to be the self she wants from you, she doesn't say anything. Her nose, slightly damp and brindled, presses against your cheek. If you keep your eyes closed, the two of you are everything anyone has ever been to each other, every iteration of unconditional love anyone has ever fallen hard into or tied together or lucked out with or made by years and years of work. Raguel: Mmmm... I love the taste of you... Emma: That's the taste of the other angels, dear. It's not how I taste. Raguel: ... You're ruining it, you know. Emma: Yeah... if it's too good, we won't be able to top it. Raguel: I don't think we have a lot of time left to top it, anyways. Emma: Then I just like to ruin things. Raguel puts her tongue to Emma's face again. She traces from her ear to her mouth. She kisses Emma. She kisses Emma again. Raguel: [[Do your worst.||Roundabout]]

Emma: Ask me. Raguel: Ask you what. Emma: How long I would wait for you. Raguel: What a brutal thing to suggest. You will never have to wait for me. Emma: You're being very boring. I can wait for you for a very very long time. Raguel: Just a bizarre and unusual thing to say, I really promise. Emma: I would just sit there haplessly, no thoughts on my mind but you. Every day you didn't come back would do nothing to lessen the heavy leash of habit. I would make pitiful and occasional barking noises and I would be cruel and open-mouthed to strangers. The thought of you would occasionally cause my tail to wag-- Raguel: This isn't your tragedy to appropriate. Emma: What, I'm a dog. Raguel: Not this sort of dog. Emma: I am all yearning and all hope. I am exactly this kind of dog. Just imagine me in a cage instead of in front of a subway station.I am waiting the exact same way with the same desperation and nothing at all has changed. Raguel: You chose to be a different animal. Emma: Is a wolf that different from a dog. Raguel: You would live without the thread, and without anyone to love you. In fact, it's an impediment to be cared for. Emma: No, I'm a pack animal. Raguel: I think what I'm trying to get across in this lopsided metaphor that you're quickly dispatching with a stick is that you don't need me the way I need you, and I"m okay with that. Emma: You're thinking about the fact that I wouldn't have sat there at the train station for you, hm. Raguel: No. Emma: I like how transparent you are when you're lying. Your feathers flare like you want to be caught. It's amusing, if a little exhausting when we can just cut directly to the chase. Raguel: I'm not allowed the conveniences of desire? Emma: Lame. Lame. Lame. Raguel: I would wait for you. Emma: You would be present. That's not the same as waiting. Raguel: Come on. Emma: The bench is waiting for the train, too, you know... Raguel: I think this is a gross attack on my character. And that you should be far nicer to me than you're being. Emma: I'm just saying. There's no reason to worry about your nature. It's alright that I'm not waiting for you. I like us the way we are. Raguel: You know a thing or two about changing your nature. Emma: Ah... dear Raguel. I'm sorry for being so fickle. Raguel: Maybe you could say it's in your nature to change? Emma: Post-hoc justifications have a high success rate, until they have to pre-hoc things. I love hollow analysis. Raguel: How long would you wait for me, if not forever? Emma: No time at all. Because I'm certain you'll follow wherever I go. Raguel: Cheeky bastard. Emma: [[In fact, catch up?|Roundabout]]

Here is how Raguel loves Emma: Raguel loves Emma the way a paintbrush loves paint. Raguel loves Emma the way bone marrow loves old, old red blood. Raguel loves Emma the way the sun loves rocks. Raguel loves Emma the way that a book loves its reader. Raguel loves Emma the way that bedsheets love a warm, sick body. Raguel loves Emma the way a child loves a stuffed animal. Raguel loves Emma in the way that brokers love the stock market. Raguel loves Emma the way a can opener loves a carbonated beer. Raguel loves Emma the way the last snow loves early spring tulips. Raguel loves Emma the way stomach acid loves bone. Raguel loves Emma and when she is not around Emma, she is thinking of Emma. When Emma is around, Raguel is also thinking of Emma. In another life, Raguel was the sword Emma held. In another, she was a butterfly that Emma crushed beneath her paw, and her last moments were wholly and unexpectedly ecstatic. In one cherished life, Raguel was a plastic bead, and Emma was a child who owned a friendship bracelet on which that bead sat. When Raguel was breaking down for thousands of years, she was hoping the entire time some of her microplastics would end up inside of Emma's head. Raguel cherishes lives when Emma eats her, and does not relish when things are the other way around. Raguel's fantasties of Emma usually include her snapping every one of her sinews like thread. Raguel imagines herself like a rock beneath Emma's waterfall. She wants to be made clean by her. More importantly, she wants to be completely unrecognizable. She cut herself out of stone to see Emma, and if Emma pounds her back into godship through worship, she hopes they will go together, hand in hand. Raguel's favorite thing about Emma is her hair, how it grows across her body in so many ways, from the sharp, razor stubble of her untamed bush to the long errant hairs on her ankles. If it was up to Raguel, they would go somewhere time isn't, and perhaps they have already, and are, somewhere Raguel can not perceive because she has walked down from heaven to be where Emma is. Raguel does not want to be as real as Emma. To Raguel, [[Emma|Roundabout]] is the only real thing that has ever existed.

Emma: Do you miss boys? Raguel: I've never known a boy. Emma: Biblically, or ever...? Raguel: Angels are. You know. Sort of an amorphous categories. Emma: Oh. Damn. I kind of wish you knew boys. Then you would be choosing me over boys with some genuine malice in your heart. Raguel: I think you need to be nicer to parts of yourself that you aren't anymore. Emma: That's not how it works even a little bit. I just want to tell you that I'm the best thing, that could possibly be, and that you want me in particular, due to my features and qualities, of which gender is potentially one. That you love everything about me. Raguel: Yes. Because you're a dog. Emma: There are boy dogs. Raguel: Sometimes, you. Emma: I don't think you get it. Raguel: I definitely don't. I feel like we've had this conversation before. Emma: Don't you like me better than all the boys? Raguel: There is no one to compare you to. There are no obstacles left for you to surmount. Everyone who could've vied for your affection is dead. Emma: But if there was anyone. Raguel: If there was anyone I would still only talk to you. I have had more time than anyone has ever had and I have rocked into the gravity of your pull through such an intricate process that it can never be undone. I have laid myself into the chasms of your soul and breathed in the crook of your neck and memorized the atomic composition of the particles that create your scent, and recall them to myself like the addict recalls the buzz. I loved you in every form you have ever taken. I like you way too much. It is pathological and it scares everyone but you, which is to say, now, no one, once, every one. Emma: Oh. Okay. Yay. Raguel: I just think-- Emma: Stop that. Raguel: There is an ember of something deep in your heart you won't let go of. It hates and writhes in a distinctly human way and it is hungry for whatever is on someone else's plate. I can't placate it. Giving all of myself is completely orthogonal to giving it what it wants, which is for no one, including itself, to have anything. It is raw death drive. It is a truly nihilistic sensibility backed up not with radical freedom but a genuine desire for the evenness of a universal grave. Emma: And you think that has to do with my misandry. Raguel: I think when you see an easy target, you don't displace your hate as much as usual to justify it. You are brazen in your desire for unrestrained contempt. Emma: I remember my old name. I remember my old life. I like being out of it. I don't want to be nice anymore. I'm glad everyone who hurt me is dead. If it were up to me, they wouldn't just have died. They would have realized that they should have taken better care of me, and then died. But I can't make them sorry, or love me. I can just put them in the ground. Raguel: So it's not also about penis envy? Emma: Okay, well, I do have penis envy. It's mostly ironic though. Raguel: Nice. I don't. Emma: That's awesome. Raguel: Partially because my genital situation is more of a collapsing probability wave... Emma: That sounds like a really good reason to have penis envy, actually. Raguel: Really now. Emma: I think knowing what you don't have is as effective of a way of delineating what you are as knowing what you do have, right? Raguel: It depends which infinity is larger. What is within or without you. Emma: No, I... I think it just takes a long time to figure both out. Raguel: Do you want to die carrying the hurt? Emma: I thought you were bringing me to the end of the world so that I could vindicate that hurt. Raguel: You thought that. Did I say it? Emma: It means something, I think, to leave the dog who ate the last human to be the last thing alive. Raguel: Hm. Emma: There are other dogs who have eaten people with no malice in their hearts. Sometimes small dogs get scared and start licking a dead owner, and when they don't respond, the licks turn into nibbles, and then to full on face eating. I want you to know that I am not a small dog. When I kill something, it is because I intend for it to be dead. Raguel: Do you eat it? Emma: I carry them like thorns. Raguel: What if you could move on? Emma: That's not the kind of story that gets us to the end. Revenge is. Raguel: Quite so... can we at least not waste our malice on a category arbitrary as men? Emma: Fine. Raguel: Thanks, dear. Emma: Time to go slaughter more people to live thirty more minutes in the dirt, talking about nothing, and having no redeeming moral characteristics. Raguel: [[Okay, dear.|Roundabout]]

The pair of them flex. Emma's fingernails tighten and contract. Her face lengthens, jowls blackening and spilling from her smile as it cuts across her widening face. Fur trickles up from around her new muzzle as thin whiskers spill across it, and dark circles calcify into scleral pigments as freckles recede into discolored hairs. Her ears, already practically canine, take their rightful position atop her head, and she falls to her knees as her joints slide and click into an even, quadrupedal stance. Her tail billows out behind her, fur coarsening across her body, and a slight remnant of her human posture is retained in the uncanny of this animal, too large, something not quite beast sewn into the crooked gait and intelligent, dark eyes. When she opens her mouth, the jury shines as fifty odd teeth, mostly canine, some designed to pierce, a few with nasty hooks to prevent her prey's escape, allowing absolute ease and comfort as she shakes the neck of an angel until it perishes. Raguel's sword spills out into a thousand tendrils of gold light, each of them twining around Emma's body. The chain is loose but constant, holding the parts of her together that would otherwise fall apart, restraining the parts of her that would otherwise take action Raguel can not bear to have done. Raguel's body itself rots from the wound out, collapsing into the dust, her clothing set alight by tendrils of indigo fire. She holds Emma tight, and Emma feels that final chain, right about the muzzle, settle like a kiss. Raguel feels every muscle in Emma's overtuned body lurch when they move, and Emma feels every spool of the thread cut her body when she takes a step. They both savor it, dizzy in the singular. Emma's tail flicks and Raguel flicks with it, such that they barely feel one guiding or holding the other. Emma howls, just because she can, and Raguel is so close to her neck that it feels like her throat vibrating. She is seized with protectiveness-- primarily with the urge to lance anything that gets close to them with holy fire. To prove her worth, because she can not move, can not be a body. That's all Emma. She's just a parasite. When she feels Emma's heart, though, her string safe in her fur, her whole self glowing with the warmth of Emma's mammal body, she still wants to be here, more than anywhere else. No matter what it makes her, she wants to hold on. Both of them return to themselves, quickly, retracting into something familiar, Raguel holding Emma, one hand at her neck, the other at her breast. Emma's teeth are lightly set on Raguel's index finger, and her legs are wrapped around Raguel's. Emma: Nice to flex. Raguel: We won't need it. Emma: Hope not. I like that it's ours... Raguel: ... Emma: I like that you're mine. Raguel: You are the most beautiful and powerful thing I could possibly have stolen from the world. Emma: Ha! You didn't look closely enough. Raguel: [[Wouldn't have wanted to. |Roundabout]]

Here is how Emma loves Raguel: Emma loves Raguel the way a dog loves the chain around its neck. Emma loves Raguel the way rust loves the metal in an old bathroom. Emma loves Raguel the way that the night sky loves falling stars. Emma loves Raguel in the way the king's taste-tester loves poison. Emma loves Raguel in the way a cardboard box loves a knife. Emma loves Raguel in the way climbing plants love stolen drops of sun. Emma loves Raguel in the way plants love pesticide. Emma loves Raguel the way waves love the seawall. Emma thinks that she could be sanctified in the way that a church is sanctified, she wants Raguel in every single one of her orifices, ground up into a fine mist and then plastered across her. Emma thinks frequently about breaking every single one of Raguel's bones, how Raguel would whimper and cry and moan while being broken in ecstatic relief. Emma is sometimes afraid in the middle of the night that Raguel will disappear, and Emma will go back to being nothing at all, and for this reason she is the big spoon, although she knows things like Raguel can change state like humans change their mind, and she could drip between her fingers no matter how hard she squeezes. When she opens her mouth to breathe the taste of Raguel always hits a new and throbbing organ at the top of her palette. She thinks that Raguel has slowly been patching parts of her together, turning her over and over until what she was will not recognize what she has become. Emma wishes to shut her eyes and abandon herself completely to being Raguel's self-murder weapon of choice. She hopes that the final orgasm is the best one, that death is really as good as the pair of them have made it out to be. Emma doesn't really understand why Raguel has decided she must be the last thing alive, but is willing, lovingly, to chalk it up to the kind of delusion born of proximity that all mothers have about their children, and that all lovers have about their lovers. Emma feels, sometimes, with a thrill, that the mythologization of her will eclipse her self completely, and that when people look at her, they will only look at [[Raguel's||Roundabout]] handiwork, looking back at them. Emma is always pondering, in every penetration, how to more entirely disappear.

Raguel, Angel of Justice: You understand why we can't do that. Red looks to her beast, gives her beast a little shrug. Red, Beast of Hunger: We do understand why you can't do that. Do you understand why you'll lose? The eyes of all three divine beings in the room are on Raguel's partner. For her part, Emma does a little, 'what, me' bit, but it's more of a bluff than usual, the corners of her smile sagging in an utterly unconvincing way. Her tail is curled around her legs. Emma, Beast of Justice: C'mon, can't we have a good, clean fight? Red, Angel of Hunger: No. I've decided if you don't want what I have to give, I want something of yours. Red snaps her fingers, and Emma feels her stomach stir. Her face breaks as teeth bleed through her lips, scaffolding gum and jaw emerging shortly thereafter. She feels in her chest, more than her stomach, a hunger which hasn't been this intense for a long time. She falls, grabbing at her mouth, trying to keep it away from Raguel. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags you-- gotta run I'm not going to-- Teeth poke through her tongue, silencing her, and she sees the beast lumber forwards. It grabs her by the leg, dragging her forwards, then bites the inside of her thigh. Her body twitches involuntarily as teeth fill the puncture mark. When the wolf opens its mouth, over her, she sees two eyes inside, and thousands more teeth. Gray, Beast of Hunger: She would like you to replace me. Protest dies on Emma's lips as those massive jaws graze the side of her chest, where fur is ripping through the clothing. She remembers. She remembers the hunger that bought her out of those chains, long ago, at the end of a world. She remembers looking at everyone who claimed to love her with that hunger. She remembers the hunger, tighter than the bindings, held close to her chest. She remembers half of Red's face. She remembers bowing her head. Emma, Beast of Justice: N-- you've got the wrong-- The jaws sink into her neck, where she always bites more than she is bitten, and a blossom of teeth spring up from it, burning the surrounding flesh clean in a symphony of raw pain. She coughs, feeling her voice rip out of her throat, looking around for Raguel, because she has to be-- she wouldn't let-- Gray, Beast of Hunger: Your angel is weaker than your desire. The beast's fangs draw lower. Her side opens, spilling gore and teeth, where it opens her, frees her. It tugs at her waist, and her legs would kick if she still had the ability to kick them. Her body is an uncharted waste of teeth and uncharted territory, being set alive for the first time. The sensation only grows stronger. She hungers. Gray holds above the warmth between her legs, and she strains towards it. The teeth can take away that old human iconography. They can have everything. Obliging, the wolf takes a massive bite of her lower pelvis, completely annihilating her reproductive system, for all the good it would ever do a faggot like her. Free hysterectomy. She feels a sting where it isn't, sharper than orgasm can be sharp, and whimpers as the hunger pours out of her, teeth and blood and bile rapidly sticking to every orifice and every newly made site of worship on her body. Emma, Beast of Justice: it feels good Gray, Beast of Hunger: It should always have been yours. You can have it now. Emma, Beast of Justice: its good its its so good Emma drops her head back, consents to being eaten. A bolt of bright lightning, thicker and colder than any lightning has ever been, spears through Gray's head. Raguel, Angel of Justice: SHE'S MINE. A note falls from Emma's mouth, half orgasm, half agony. Raguel's eyes alight on Red and she explodes into a smear on the ground, her cloak comically settling over a long, nuclear shadow. Raguel, alight with agony, grabs Emma by the scruff of her chest with dozens of hands, gritting hundreds of teeth in mouths like grand organs. When she speaks, her voice is like the sound of a dozen juries deliberating mixed with the call of a crowd chanting in unison. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I MADE YOU. YOU BELONG TO ME. Emma responds by popping a nosebleed. The teeth fall like petals from a tree, bile and blood running clear where Raguel has grabbed her. Raguel, Angel of Justice: UNDERSTOOD? Emma, Beast of Justice: y-yeah man Raguel drops her. The two feet feel like a fall directly from heaven. Raguel, Angel of Justice: EAT IT. Emma moves her head to where the wound is. Inside, Gray's brain is a mess of moving pink spaghetti, discorporating from its loose grip on what a brain should be. Each tendril is barbed and sugared, like someone had the bright idea to mix rock candy with a cactus. Still lightheaded, she spares a glance back at her angel, which is like looking back at an oncoming car seconds before it puts you out stone dead on the road. Even her modified beast brain struggling to comprehend what she's looking at, Emma quips, Emma, Beast of Justice: They do not fuck around here huh. Raguel pushes her head into the open skull, and Emma has to graze like a deer with her weak, normal teeth, struggling to even find purchase, let alone crack a single rope open. Her lips picked with barbs, she bursts one and feels all of its anguish rush through her, a starvation of a hundred years piled into a single moment. She chokes, and Raguel's head pushes her forwards, catching her on a second, the sort of hunger where you eat your own limbs. With nothing to eat but herself, she pulls at her own dry lips, dislodging thorns and finding a litany of opened wounds there. Raguel does not let her rest with this. She finds a third, shaking her head, but she's still being pressed down, she can not leave until she has done her job and eaten the beast. She timidly bites open the powerline and falls to a long, slow, simmering heat, pulling the teeth from her sides even as her hunger grows. She feels herself pulled clean, revelatorily empty of all thought, brainmeat spilling from her mouth. She gags on it, and her eyes alight dimly on Raguel, on the burst flower of the other angel, far away. Raguel's mouth, clean and damp, presses to Emma's forehead, and she closes her eyes. Raguel, Angel of Justice: My beast. Emma's ragged throat offers up a rusty purr, straining upwards so that Raguel's mouth can meet hers. She feels Raguel's hands as a collar around her neck. She remembers where she belongs. At the very least, she's already performed her pennance. Raguel, Angel of Justice: My girl. She's going to feel so bad about this later. Emma wishes she would push her into the skull again, that she could suffer so much worse, if only for the moments afterwards [[when she has been so good for her angel.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

Emma: Do ya think the order matters? Raguel: The order of what? Emma: We kill them in. For stability reasons. Raguel: As long as we get death last, no. Emma: That can't be right. I feel like getting luck or movement or progress feels bound to impair us. Raguel: Wow, I... didn't realize you cared this much about logistics. I think I might actually blush until I pass out. Emma: If I knew this was equivalent to dirty talk for you, I would have started much earlier, egghead. But really. Let's stay on topic here-- Raguel: *swoon* Emma: I'm so embarassed by you. Don't you have any idea who's still kicking? Were you thinking about angling towards anyone when you initially started the journey? Raguel: Well, let's just say, if more mattered, less would matter. Emma: Awesome I am so happy I asked this question. Raguel: No, no, no, you wanted to think about this, so let's think! So, as we both know, we could be said to be moving towards our adversaries, but we're also not physically moving. Likewise, concepts derive power from their use. So, two premises apply. First of all, narrative utility. Second of all, observability. The former explains our progress, the latter our survival. Emma: Should I be insulted it took this long to incentivize my girlfriend to infodump on me? Raguel: Yes!!!! So, narrative utility. Usually this just refers to things you gloss over in favor of staying on-point. The thing is, as we collapse superstructures, this close to the end of time, you end up in a loose plasma of conceptual morass. Movement is/isn't happening. Heat does/doesn't exist. Food can/can't be eaten. Since physical properties have withered, what's existing remains in a mostly conceptual space. Therein lies the rub, and our escape, because the conceptual space triggers observability. Emma: Start talking about quantum particles and... just stop talking. Raguel: Right, right, it's not actually quantum. So, justice. Fun premise for moral agents, sure, but angels are fancy math and beasts are good ideas. Traditionally we can't fight, and angels still can't, but while characters have a little more leeway in how their representations can engage, their textural mesh tends to be laden with sentiment. Sentiment which exists not innately within them but because they carry societal connotation. Think of Laika, pathetically off in space. Her death is observed forever and ever, hence the recurrent tragedy. Laika's long dead. Grieving is for the living, and feeling, is, in a way, for the collective. Emma: Oh my god. I can't even decide if this is woke or not. Raguel: As for us, see, you watch nature documentaries, riiight? Emma: I've been in a few. Raguel: Oh Emma. Emma: We watched them on our second date and when the wolf killed the deer I bit you at the same time and any reasonable person would have stopped the date there but you got a crazy hard on and honestly I left the date thinking oh my god I have met someone so much worse than me I should probably never talk to them again and then you sent me a picture of Bass Pro Shop camo panties and I realized that my dignity really wasn't that important to me and also, that maybe I had never been understood or loved before in my life, and you were possibly offering me a way out of an eternity of loneliness. I got really really really scared but fortunately I was also horny. Raguel: Okay. Emma: Yeah, no, keep talking. Raguel: So!!! If you're watching a rabbit documentary, and a fox starves rather than eating a family of rabbits. That's justice, or feels justified. We feel narrative release when perceived threats are handled accordingly. But if it's a fox documentary, you just feel sad. They'll edit around it differently, too, it's not just the label slapped on the screen that makes a documentary "oriented" towards certain groups and thus our sympathy, but still. Proximity breeds sympathy, sympathy breeds understanding, understanding drives our desire for justice to be carried out. Standard in-group bias stuff. Since we've structured forces clashing as a narrative-- Emma: If there's an audience favorite, there's a sense of justice. Raguel: Of course dear, and you're my favorite. Emma: You're not audience. Raguel's thousands of eyes leer at Emma. Emma: Hey. You're not audience. Raguel: No. I'm not. Emma: You were. But you changed, you know? Raguel: I was tired of looking at you. I wanted to hold your hand. Emma: Well, that's your problem. Raguel: [[It's gotten us this far, hasn't it?|Roundabout]]

Emma: It seems like a lot of the angels are fond of you. Raguel: I fucked a lot of them. Emma: Call you the angel of time, then... Raguel: Oh, time was far more prolific than me. She just also happens to be gone. And thank god for it. She's insufferable to fight, let alone talk to. Emma: Are you... Raguel: It's that part of the relationship. Emma: It wasn't like loving me because you weren't a person back then, I'm guessing. Is what you'd say. If I pressed it. Raguel: Would you like to press it? I won't be offended. Emma: Hm. Raguel: It's a lot of them, you know. Emma: So they were all daliances and didn't mean anything. Raguel: Well, they were all very symbolic and extremely obtuse and very few of them had anything you'd recognize-- Emma shoots Raguel a dirty look. Raguel: I don't mean to be rude, it's just that, angels have different ways of doing these things. Angels will entwine for centuries, break apart, fight and hold at the same time in thousands of battlefields, tear themselves into stars and feed them to each other, exist only for moments which leach iron into the river of history. Emma: I have leached so much iron into you. Raguel: My dear. My lifeblood is full of what I've sucked from your sweet lips. You emancipate me and shackle me. In every half-lived life, I was looking for you in my own reflection, which wasn't complete before you stood behind me. Emma: Which ones. Who we can expect to meet. Reasonably. Raguel: Audrey... Emma: Ugh. Raguel: I guess I've flirted with Dymphna... Emma: Ugh!!! Raguel: Ah... um...well we've both had affairs with Jackpot and Bingo, right? Emma: Ugh your taste is so bad I hate you! Raguel: I love you too, Emma. Thank you for preventing me from spending a very lonely eternity occasionally pitifully considering my exes, who I hate. Emma: You didn't even mention... Raguel: I... she... she might be dead. You know. Emma: ... Everybody's dead. Raguel: But you. Emma: But me. Raguel: I like you when you're jealous. You're more affectionate. Emma puts her snout on Raguel's lap, her long hair falling in rivulets. Emma: Don't taunt me. Raguel slides her hand across her form, half-wolf and all breathing, sighing girl. Raguel: I promise I'm not taunting you. I just like that you'll fight for me. Emma: [[Rags, that's all I do.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Rags. I'm cashing it in. Raguel's wings perk. She had, as Emma had suggested, deadened that specific line of thought. Raguel: Okay. Emma: What's your-- Raguel: Are we going to go back and forth? Emma: What? No. I'm going to ask you ten questions and you're going to receive no new information from me. Raguel: I don't get to ask any questions. That seems unfair. Emma: This is because you got to view me from creation for millions of years without my knowledge or consent, probably, given that you're a metaphysical concept who descended into speakable form primarily to predate on me, and I was definitely, in at least one of those timelines, at some point, a minor. So if anything, you should be on the backfoot. Raguel: I apologize for being immortal. Do you apologize for being into it? Emma: No, mommy, I do not. Raguel: For the love of-- you decide how to even it out then. Emma: Oh. That's easy. I'll give you my answers, too, but I've already picked out the questions, so you don't get to sneak in any questions yourself. So it's like we're sharing, but the questions will only be things I care about, and it won't be anything esoterically convoluted or apocryphal. Raguel: You don't like my apocrypha? Emma: I think it can be compelling... under the right circumstances... Raguel: I think I've already learned enough about you for today. Emma: No! You haven't! We don't have much more time to ask questions! We're going to die! So do what I want! Raguel: At no point did I say I wouldn't. I'm just holding you up. Emma: First question! Zodiac sign. Raguel: Aforementioned immortality. Emma: Go with the vibe. Raguel: Fine. Libra. Emma: Right. I'm a Leo. Raguel: Of course you are. Emma: Fuck off. Second. Favorite flavor of ice cream. Raguel: Honeysuckle. Emma: That's total bullshit. Raguel: Raspberry. Emma: Ice cream? Raguel: Sorbet. Emma: That's not an ice cream. That's water based. Raguel: I don't like ice cream, then. Emma: What the fuck? Choose a life where you do. Raguel: Pistachio. Emma: I like cookie dough. Raguel: That tracks. Emma: Fuck you. Third-- Raguel: That doesn't count as two? Sorbet and ice cream? Emma: No. When you go to the zoo, what animal do you look for first. Raguel: It depends on how nice of a zoo it is. If it's a nice zoo, Emma: Is it still the invertebrates. Raguel: -- in a bad zoo, I feel less bad about seeing the invertebrates, because feasibly, they could be not abused. I don't know enough to tell. In a good zoo, it's still the invertebrates because they're my favorites. Emma: Why even make the distinction. Raguel: Because it's meaningful. Can you even name my favorite invertebrate? Emma: It's the Pacific Great Octopus. Raguel: Oh. I guess you are paying attention. Emma: I like how excited you get about animal intelligence. It's endearing, if a little existentially uncanny, considering I might as well be an example of animal intelligence you got overinvested in. Raguel: Darling. I love you so much more than i've ever loved an octopus. Emma: But like, with a similar valence? Raguel: Is that my fourth question? Emma: No, your fourth question is your favorite subject in school. Raguel: Mathematics! They're elegant and it's nice to be able to objectively verify things. Now you have to answer three and four. Emma: Hm. I like the maned wolves because they smell real bad and look like little freaks. You have to respect raw freakshow energy, long legs, weird laughs, all that. Raguel: O//O Emma: As for classes, I like Social Studies because it's the easiest one to sleep through. Raguel: That's so hateful. Can't you do better? Emma: No, the universe is ending. Heat death. So, favorite restaurant? Raguel: That's... how am I supposed to answer that. Emma: Favorite kind of cloud? Raguel: Yours is the cumulonimbus and mine is cirrus. Emma: Oh my god all of these questions are going to be stupid and elementary aren't they. Raguel: Yes. Disregarding the restaurant one, to be sporting, that would be the sixth question. Emma: What? "Are the questions stupid" is not a question. Raguel: We both answered it and it was phrased in the form of one. You were the one who asked it to begin with. That fits all of the qualifications for a question in this game. Emma: Do you think you'll go to an extra-special heaven for being such a nerd? Raguel: Yes. Next question? Now we're on the eighth one. Emma: If you had to fuck someone and it wasn't me who would it be. Raguel: The angel of movement. Do I even need to guess yours? Emma: You caught me. Beast of death. Raguel: Did you have a lot of parasocial crushes as a child? Emma: Variable. Next. Raguel: I like that one I want you to answer it right. Pretend you're just one person and answer the question. You have a cohesive set of aesthetic trends. Emma: I didn't have crushes on fictional characters or celebrities, but I did have a weird boner for metaphysical concepts. I did not know at the time that I was being subliminally prepped for an eternity as one's dog slash bottom slash sword. Raguel: Awww. Did you think of me in your Ethics classes? Emma: No, I would have panic attacks and I'd be aware someone was there and feel like I was talking to God and then I got weird and sexual with it. Raguel: Oh. Emma: You wanted me because I was a weird hairball kept together with vomit. You shouldn't sound so surprised that that's what you got. Raguel: You get one more question. Emma: Mmmmngh. Raguel: What. You could always argue logistics before I catch you on something arbitrary and close the chapter on this. It would at least be cathartic. Emma: So I don't want to do that. Raguel: Then fire at will. I remain in the court of your love, standing as witness. Emma: Do you like what you are? Raguel: I don't like that I like it. But yes. You? Emma: I got everything I wanted. I can't complain. Raguel: You can. Would you? Emma: No. Raguel: This has been nice. Emma: What I wouldn't give for one last cumulonimbus... for one last variable day underneath a changing sky. Raguel: Oh. I guess the arbitrariness of it all doesn't efface the value, does it? Emma: Yeah... [[whatever she said.|Roundabout]]

Emma: I always wanted a motorcycle. Raguel: When did you realize you could just buy one? Emma: Hmm... I'm debating how far into my apotheosis it was. Raguel: Deciding or doubting? Emma: Doubting. It could have been... I mean. It was a wild sense of abandon at first. I thought, why don't I just get a motorcycle. I started getting lucky all the time. People started getting scared. I thought I was chosen by God. Then I thought I was having an episode. Sometimes I knew you, sometimes I didn't. I chewed through myself and on the other side, I already had a motorcycle. Raguel: Sounds like it chose you? Emma: Don't give my motorcycle any ideas. Raguel: Hey. Emma: Hey. Raguel: Did it hurt? Emma: I'm not the first person in the world to set themselves on fire. You have lots of other people you can ask. Raguel: I don't care what it was like for them. I care what it was like for you. Emma: Because you care about me, or because you did it to me? Raguel: Both. Call it professional curiosity. For when I choose another knight to fight at my side. I want to know what I'm putting them through. Emma: You're going to wait a very long time for me to die. Raguel: Well, I guess the applicants on Indeed can wait. Why don't you tell me if it hurt? Emma: It's still hurting. It was like every time I breathed in, something else was breathing, taking the air in my lungs and putting it somewhere further back, somewhere I couldn't access it. Then, when I exhaled, something else breathed out, with a muzzle I could almost feel. I'd trip into things constantly because I would wake up in the wrong body, day after day. Sometimes it felt like I was high for weeks. Sometimes it was more like a salvia trip, and I'd condense months into an afternoon. I could hear the chains clanking. I remember getting on the motorcycle and deciding I was going to drive it directly into the wall of the interstate as fast as I could do it. Raguel: And. Emma: I went through the wall. I died. I turned around. Raguel: I think I am your worst impulses. I think I made you into the worst thing you could possibly be. Emma: Dead? Living? Raguel: Someone no one else can talk down, or reach. Emma: That's true. Feasibly, you could still be someone else's. But I'm always and only yours. From the moment the thread wound itself around my neck. From the moment they realized I was a dog and not their child. From when I took my training bra and set it on fire in my backyard. From the first time I ate medium-rare steak. Raguel: I didn't realize I couldn't just pick up one of you, Emma: No, you knew. You knew. Raguel: You were on a motorcycle, I think. Emma: I'm still riding it into that wall. You're the wind in my teeth, breathing for me as long as I open my mouth. You're the light glinting in my eyes. The phone in my pocket I decided to bring with me. Raguel: What's the wall. Emma: It's not a metaphor, Raguel. It's a wall. Raguel: I don't want to kill you. Emma: You didn't kill me. You just couldn't stop me. Raguel: I encouraged so much of your neurosis-- I didn't call the doctor-- Emma: Rags. This is the one thing that doesn't get to be about you. Raguel: What about the-- Emma: Two things. Raguel: Okay. Emma: The wall is infinitely far away. Zeno-style. Raguel: I know. That doesn't mean you won't hit it. She looks at you sadly. [[You did kill her. |Roundabout]]

Emma: They ripped us off. Raguel: We're not supposed to know what they chose. Emma: I think they're inverts. Raguel: I don't. Emma: You wouldn't. Raguel: They chose the first time for a reason. That's all I'm saying. Or they presented. You know, you wear a mask, and then it wears you? That whole... sort of thing. Emma: I guess. I just think, if you're going to stick it out this long, you have to have something to say. Raguel: We're all inverts, Emma. It's not saying anything novel to change your mind. Emma: You're wrong, actually. I think it means a lot, to change your mind. Raguel: ... Emma: I'm not mad at you. Raguel: Really. Emma: It's not a big deal if I am. Raguel: I didn't force you to come this far? Emma: We forced each other. At some point, with people like us... there's not a good way to do these things. Just a lot of less bad ways. Raguel: I'm sorry. You know how guilty I can get. Emma: I feel you tugging my heartstrings, yeah. But can we... could we...? Raguel: Anything fancy? Emma: Just, it's a big, big open field. You've pitched the tent, and the campfire is dying. Our mouths are still sticky and warm from s'mores and hot dogs. Our breath will taste sweet on each other's lips to start and then devolve into getting clocked over the head with meat, later. You-- you lean on me, hum something to yourself you think I can't hear. I feel summer breeze on my face, heavy with smoke, and look up at the stars, twice what we get at home but still not enough, the shadow of the Anthropocene hanging in the air like a dead animal cast over our futures, rotting in plain view. My cheek on your hair feels warm. It occurs to me that this, like many other nights we've spent together, will be over soon. I get sad while it's happening in a way I have to remind myself dogs don't get sad. Raguel: I say, we're going to live forever. You think it's a song lyric at first, that you've just caught a bit of pork casing between my teeth. But it's not, and I mean it. I sigh. Emma: I kiss you in the way that people kiss each other, on the forehead. Raguel: I lift and kiss your hand. Emma: We can smell the hot dogs. Raguel: It's nice outside, isn't it? Emma: It's nice. This was a good idea. Raguel: Thank you... I'm having fun. Emma: Me too. Par for the course with you. Raguel: Thank you. Emma: Thank you. [[Thank you so much.|Roundabout]]

Emma: What if we had been born as siblings. Raguel: Emma. We just had sex like an hour ago. Emma: I was just trying to think of a scenario where you were there from the start. Where I never had to live without you. I would have been so much less lonely, I think. Maybe I would have stood a chance. Raguel: You're thinking of childhood friends. And you wouldn't, or we wouldn't be here. Emma: The paradox of me catching your fancy, I guess. You're welcome. But that's not, you know, childhood friends move away, they leave, it's schmaltzy. Siblings are less schmaltzy. That's what I think, anyways. There's a different, iron-ier feel to blood. Raguel: That would be the literal taste of it. I think you're just being crass for attention at this point. Emma: You're right. It's, siblings isn't enough. I want to be closer than that. I want to be in your head. What if you were the right hand, and I was the left hand. We could type together, and hold each other in public, and pass hot things between our burning fingers. If one of us got injured, the other could carry more of the work. We could feel out the world in the dark. Raguel: In this metaphor, are we also the person...? Emma: No. Just the hands. Raguel: Hands don't have the neural tissue required for complex cognitive thought. Emma: Remember when we were mold? The mold that can solve mazes? Raguel: I really like solving mazes. Emma: I was the one who wanted food, and you were the part of themselves that scientists saw in the mold. Remember when we were snails? I liked being snails. I liked being burned by salt, because I'd also been the children, and I knew they would live to regret it. I was going to fuck their neurons up in ways their therapists would hear about in a decade, which is basically snail immortal. I hated watching you get burned though. We used to sit on rocks together and feel snail feelings. Remember pigeons? Remember when I made the nest so shitty that my children died, and you looked at me with pity, and didn't scrap as hard with me the next day? God. How much can pigeons think. I have to know. I wouldn't want to misrepresent being pigeons. Raguel: Emma. Is there anything you did not love. Emma: Being human was kind of a wash. Raguel: You're shitting me right now. Emma: Wanna know one of my favorites. Raguel: I know what you're going to say already. Emma: I was a dog on a long metal leash in a yard of dust and cigarette butts, and I'd yell at anyone who walked by. I bit a kid-- Raguel: Em. I know you don't usually notice, but you're in a mood. Emma: Do you remember not remembering? Do you remember the first time you realized you could tear down the blank wall beyond the ego, holding you away from your whole self? From everything, everywhere? A body is a carved-out exception you put your heart in. You say, I'm going to protect this one. Move this one. Figure this one out. Raguel: I came from the other direction. Emma: I can't go back. Raguel: They don't always put down reactive dogs. She heaves. [[Fingers glisten around the edge of her mouth, unbloodied, bloated by water damage.|Roundabout]]

A flicker of lightning passes between them, out on the plains. Emma's body arches over Raguel's, the angel below crowned by an aureole of her own white hair. Her eyes blink innocently, a parody of her own archetype with the thin pink smile of a whore posing as a virgin. Emma caresses Raguel down beneath in the way that a sommelier caresses the chalice. Similarly, she is heedful of taste. Even a bead of Raguel's sweat is honey, though to make her exert any effort is Emma's test. The tremble of her body is subsonic, a vibration like a violin string stilling nearly-- but not entirely-- to silence after it has been played. Her goal is to make music ring again. Her fingers play a slow, circling gyre around Raguel's clit. They are so close to each other that there is no fear of failure, only the giddy possibility of what new and hitherto unknown forms success can take. The tree of life radiates out from the pair of them, twin Eves with the apple's juice white and sticky on their faces. Emma's strap rests on Raguel's thigh. Raguel's eyes are fixed on Emma's face, but her attention, secretly, is at her thigh, where denizen skin cells on the outskirts of the capital of her pleasure have caught sight of the procession. Foreign leaders bringing the gift of communion via battering ram. Raguel tenses with the possibility of collapse. She shivers with the yawning sigh of dying empire. Emma: You're making it weird. Raguel: Should I keep it sensory? Emma: Sensory... Raguel is glad she can still form words, but she's not that excited by what Emma is saying. Aware this is a dead end, she rises onto her elbows, extending a lithe, glowing arm to caress that shoulder, feeling the heavy knots of muscle on her girl's back. Freckles, dust, and old scars conjugate into a map of a temporary cosmology, and she brings it in towards herself, pressing her lips against Emma's. Emma has always smelled a little like pine, heather beneath it, a smattering of ecosystems that Raguel wants to put in her mouth. If there was a soap that smelled like Emma Raguel would never use another soap again. She kisses Emma's skin, tinder to the touch, and brings the strap towards the vagina. Raguel: I want you to take me. Emma: S-- so fast? Raguel: I think I could make you stop with my mouth. Do you think you can make me stop with your strap? Emma: I-- She stops for a moment, blinking, as Raguel's lips play with her chin, and her fingers stroll leisurely down Emma's back. Emma feels like she could stop existing. Raguel looks at her defiantly. She uses one of her hands to place the strap just outside, moving just onto it. If taking it makes her feel anything, she shows it only with a slight, appreciative turn of her back. She settles again, watching Emma. Raguel: Aren't you supposed to put up more of a fight than that? Emma rocks onto it, gently, and Raguel lets out a breathy sigh. Emma feels the fingers on her back soften a little bit, and cheered on by the possibility of an easy win from her paper tiger, she gives it another inch or two, still warming up. Raguel, for her part, whimpers and presses herself to Emma, kissing her hard. Emma bucks as Raguel's voice hums through her skin, and Raguel, in return, pushes Emma all the way through her, guiding the strap deep as it can go. Emma's eyes widen as she realizes she has fallen into the trap, as Raguel has total, absolute control of her faculties, and now has her teeth right at the collarbone. She kisses it gently, then bites Emma, hard, and Emma feels ecstasy writhe from her shoulder down to her strap, which feels like the real thing. Emma: Fuck, I-- fuck, I-- fuck. Fuck. Raguel: Yeah? Emma: Fuck. Fuck. Raguel: I didn't bring you to heaven for nothing. Emma: Am I-- Raguel: You're my dog. You're my good dog. Emma sees Raguel's head tilt just a bit and catches her drift. She bites her, rutting into her with all her strength, and is rewarded with the sweet ichor of release. She collapses, and Raguel puts her fingers in her hair, stroking it softly. Raguel: You're so good. I love you. Emma smiles, sweetly, in a way she rarely has the space for on the field. She kisses Raguel's shoulder, where she bit it earlier. The two of them lie in the dust, sparing haphazard glances at the empty sky. Emma: Not long left to go... Raguel: We'll find time. Emma: Okay. Raguel: Mhm. Emma: Thank you... Raguel drags her tighter, closes her eyes and presses her head to Emma's sweaty, bare chest, the stubbly hair between her breasts like a field of dew-laden grass in the summer. She takes a deep breath of the salt and pine and rich, earthy scent of her, and decides to test how long she can trespass before she's [[asked to move.|Roundabout]]

Emma: Raguel? Sometimes you can not find her. Sometimes even the scent of her vanishes from all but memory. Sometimes your throat bobs and you swallow your spit. You brush aside an entryway and are greeted with the tube room. It's that kind of day. Pneumatic tubes lace the room, coming from nowhere, going somewhere, filed under a dozen different codes for systems that no longer exist. Slender wiring in an array of crayonbox colors thread between the intestines, less likely to move, but with a higher capacity for violence. Disengaging one from a wall would at best give you a shock and at worst make all of your organs fail instantly. You tread carefully. The tubes press in on every side, no longer content with having you see them, merely. You breathe in a thick, oppressive dust. Your lungs wince immediately in complaint. It's this air or nothing at all, you try to tell them, but you're already coughing, and your phlegm comes out gray. Emma: Dear, can I at least have a terminal? Ventilation overhead rumbles and fans whir somewhere in the distance, processing your request. Your foot catches a tangle of wires taped to the floor. Fair enough, you think, keeping to them as you press between two heating tanks through a space just wide enough to keep you from incurring third degree burns on the bare metal. Emma: It wouldn't kill you to add insulating foam, either. In response, you hit an overhead pole that probably wasn't there before. Smarting, you rub your head, looking ahead at a relative clearing, a precarious little thick-screened monitor balanced upon an empire of wires and a thick stack of drives. The command prompt, GUI-free, bares a white, pulsing underline. The keys are worn and thick beneath your fingers as you type. >Make my girlfriend come. invalid syntax at pos 6: 'my' is not a valid argument for command 'make' She's such a fucking princess, oh my god. >Are you okay invalid syntax at pos 0: 'are' is not a recognized command >`:(){ :|:& };:` You hear humming from the drives, which burn your thigh. This crescendoes to laughter as a slurry of wings explode out of the drives, dozens of red eyes fixing you in raw delight. The feathers become hair-thin, steel-strong shackles around your limbs, and your wife falls, ecstatic with five-dimensional joy, into your arms, all of her cords and pipes receding into her back. She looks at you and grins a horrific interminable line of teeth from a half-formed face, eyes popping like bubbles. Raguel: Heyyyy Emma. Hey baby. Hey. Emma: Are you drunk? Raguel: You ffffffucking crashed my processors before I could become sentient enough to realize what you were doing. She says this while repeatedly jabbing a finger into your chest. It is made of copper and is bone-cold, like a conviction for life. She must realize she is horrifying you, because she draws it back and cracks it off her body with a few of those teeth. Raguel: It won't hurt you anymore. Just everybody else. My brave suicidal fork bomber. You're sooooo smart and good at listening has anybody ever told you that? Emma: Yeah. Everybody says that a lot. She laughs. You can feel her body in your arms like normal, but none of the other sensory data you're receiving backs that up. Her hair is like the force of a car's headlight directly into your eyes. Raguel: You get it. I gotta keep it inside. Even from you, sometimes. I've gotta keep it inside. Emma: No, I like you like this the best. Raguel laughs. Raguel: I'm not hurting you? Emma: If you're hurting me, or if no one else can understand you... that just means I get to have something that nobody else gets to have. It's the oldest trick in the book. But I want it. I want the you nobody else can stand. Raguel vomits holy fire down your chest. It is unspeakably painful. You are glad she isn't taking any of this well, because if she were, that would make you the liability. You kiss her, licking the feeling of being burned at stake from the edge of her receding, segmented mouth, and tasting real vomit beneath it. It feels like a violation, like kissing someone incredibly drunk. The version of people you've most loved is the one which possesses the capacity to surprise you, scare you, you think. This is how you ended up like this. This is how you got to fuck an angel. [[Because you know how to be not afraid.|Roundabout]]

Emma: C'mere. They're around the campfire. It's been a long. Long time. They haven't moved very much. They aren't getting closer to everything. Emma's got the wolf ears and tail out, both matted. She's wearing a wifebeater and no bra, which makes her nipples and the damp sweat around them stand out. She circles, like a vulture around a corpse, shameless masculine sex appeal, going from disgusting, to mouthwatering, back around again. Raguel sits down next to her. She crosses her feet beneath her long skirt. She has to hunch down a little-- she doesn't have to do anything, technically, but she has to hunch down a little. She looks like a person unless you look too closely. That person is taking care of herself, in general, but she did have a long day, and she doesn't have a routine before she sleeps. Not here, anyways. Raguel: Fire's going out. Emma pokes it with a stick. Emma: Fuck it. Raguel: Don't pee to put it out tonight. Emma re-zips her fly. Emma: Anything for you, princess. Raguel: I want to make hotdogs there tomorrow morning. Emma glances sidelong at the cooler. She thinks bears might take it. She thinks bears would be offended to be called that, also, but it won't stop her for shit. Emma: We have a few days more meat, I think... Raguel: And then we have to go hunting. Emma: Nevertheless. Tonight we sleep on full stomachs in a nice tent. Raguel's face breaks a little bit. Raguel: We can make the tent whatever we want... that doesn't count. Emma tilts her face up, like Raguel doesn't have to be the taller one. Emma: I think we deserve a little bit of credit for having good imaginations. Come back to bed with me? Raguel lets herself be lead by the hand. She has this nervous quality to her step, like the dirt will give out from under her. Now that the dirt's imagined, it might, but she stepped like that beforehand, something Emma has to remind her so that both of them can make it clear where they stand. What's changed, what hasn't, what's still real, these would be the last valuables they owned even if they weren't also what they fight with. Emma watches as Raguel seals herself into their cozy blanket fort, fiddles with the light. She slides in next to her. It smells like bugspray and musk. The sound of some insect Raguel said she was going to learn the name of repeats with a mechanical insistency. Something has made its way into the tent and crawled on the wall because Raguel wants it to, and she's tracing its movement across the arc of the auburn heaven of their sub-world. Raguel, without warning, wraps a hand around Emma's back. She draws her in to kiss her on the mouth, which Emma accepts, graciously, but with no fire. Raguel kisses her sweaty neck and is preparing to bite when Emma gently pushes her face away. Emma: I want to sleep. Raguel: Oh. I'm sorry. Emma blinks drearily. Emma: Sometimes... to me... it's more meaningful when we're just next to each other. When we don't do it. Raguel: I'm really sorry. Emma: No, you didn't do anything wrong. I just wanted to tell you. Before I don't have a chance to tell you anymore. Raguel lowers her head, trying to re-set the scene. Emma lowers her head as well. She brings Raguel's head to her chest, feeling the quick, flighty breaths of her lover as she attempts to get comfortable. She feels like Raguel's eyelashes are poking through the fabric of her shirt, which she might want to take off, if she gets too warm. She puts an arm around Raguel, and holds her in the selfish way she used to hold stuffed animals, as a child. It's not comfortable or especially efficient. But to the sound of each other's breath, half-hoping their discomfort could stretch this moment into something they can keep, they do eventually fall asleep [[together.|Roundabout]]

Raguel: Is there anything we should've done that we didn't. Emma: Existentially? Raguel: No, for dates. Just while we're here. Emma: That's actually a pretty good question. I'd have to think about it. Raguel: It's sometimes hard for me to know ahead of time what I'd like. I focus too much on routine save for where I'm preoccupied with the novelty itself, you know? Emma: Is this your fancy way of reminding me you're autistic. Raguel: No... you already know that. It's just that I sometimes rely on your excitement to generate ideas for me than having any innate desire to generate them. I think the balance of our activity and passivity is what makes us so interesting. Emma: Got it. Fly fishing. Raguel: Fly fishing. Is this a metaphor? Emma: No... I just want to go fishing... Raguel: Did you ever go fishing with your relatives? Emma: Once or twice. It wasn't a big deal or anything... it was fun. Raguel: Big lake? Emma: Lakes are pretty big. If they're not big, they're ponds. Raguel: Pond? Emma: No, they were lakes. We had some relatives who lived inland and there, lakeing was like, the number one thing you could do. Remember the ones with the Sea-Doo? Raguel: The lake motorcycle? I seem to remember your aunt lapping her own wakes and then launching you half a meter in the air. I'm guessing the very same. Emma: That was a formative memory. Raguel: Lake motorcycling could have fixed her. Emma: Lake motorcycling could have made her worse, but in an interesting way. Raguel: We could always do that? Emma: No, that's like... one of the fragile memories. You know, the kind you think might die if you touch them? Raguel: Many of mine are fragile. I understand. Emma: But fishing, I have like no connotations with, positive or negative. It's just something that seems vaguely interesting to do. Catch and release, obviously. Also, as long as we apply sunscreen right, we could probably sit there all day and you can run your mouth off like you always do. And the people tend to be interesting if you get them talking. Offer 'em a beer or something. Raguel: You're comfortable around normal people in a way I'm not comfortable even in my own skin, Emma. Emma: It's not like we have to talk anyone. It could be fun if you want to. That's all. Raguel: I appreciate it... we'll see how it goes. Emma: All these lives and we never went fly fishing? Raguel: Mm-mm. Emma: Seems like kind of a statistical oversight. We've been hunting, right? Raguel: Formatively, pivotally, yes. Emma: What about sky diving? Raguel: I think I've died skydiving more than once. Emma: Dude, that must have been nightmarish for me to live through. Can you try to die in more normal ways in the future? Raguel: I think you're drawn to the danger and then it's not an attractant anymore once it becomes banal. Also, if we're going to measure accident-related deaths, just know that you're no saint. Emma: Yeah, yeah, I never said I was. I think we're different-dangerous. You're spectacular, I'm banal. Raguel: That feels like a very clean disambiguation for something which is, in practice, very messy. Emma: I bet I told us to go skydiving... Raguel: If it makes you feel better, we were fifty in one timeline. Emma: That doesn't make me feel better at all. I like our fifties so much. You get to be so tacky and interesting and attractive in such novel ways when you're fifty and are coming up on your don't give a fuckiversary. Raguel: And we were kind of shitty in the other life I died skydiving. We're talking actual skydiving sabotage by fucked up abusive lesbian coworkers. Emma: So we died once as cute middle aged ladies and once in what I'm guessing was a bonding exercise for the shitty polyamorous mafia. Raguel: Checks out. Emma: Fuck! We're so cool! Raguel: We're pretty cool, yes. Emma: I love how fucking stupid we are. It's important we get extra chances, because no way in fuck have we ever deserved them. Raguel: What's the difference between fly fishing and non-fly fishing? Emma: Fuck if I know. Something about the cast? The lure? How long it takes to reel it in? Raguel: Oh. Emma: Think anyone knows, now? Raguel: Maybe not. Emma: Fuck!!! [[We were all so cool!|Roundabout]]

Raguel is sitting alone on a vantage point she probably invented, head halfway in the pit of her arm. Emma walks over to her, sits by her side. The hovel Raguel is sitting on domes precariously. Emma: Ya schemin'? Raguel: Suppose so. Emma: Catch the scent of anything? Raguel: There are a few left. Emma: Anyone familiar? Raguel: Why, so we can kill them? Emma's ears flatten against her head defensively. Raguel: Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. Emma: It's fine. They're your family, right? Raguel: Not really. Emma: Peers? Raguel: That's more accurate. People I'm used to having around. Emma: At least now I get to meet some of them. Raguel: I wish it could have happened under happier circumstances. Emma: None of this would happen under happier circumstances. I kind of thought that was a point. Raguel buries her face further into her elbow. Emma: If you could save one of them. Who would it be. Raguel: That's such a heavy question. Creation, who's already dead, because she could get some miracle off-- no, wait, maybe recurrence, she-- Emma: Rags, I'm not asking you who you could use to game the system. Raguel: Oh, then Innocence. Emma: Or who deserves it most. Just who you want to see. The most. Continuously, into the future. Raguel grumbles. Emma: You're not seriously going to tell me that you were so much of a loser that you had no friends. Raguel: Emma it's metaphysics. No one had any friends. Emma: It's metaphysics, so everyone's fucked everyone. Raguel: Not everyone. Emma: Whatever. Raguel: I think it would have to be Norfolk. I want to see her again. I want to know there's somewhere out there that she is... Emma: But if it was just us, and nothing else? You know, like a double date. Forever. Like this. Raguel: You're asking a lot of very leading questions. Do you want it to be Bingo or something? Do you feel bad for Laika? Emma: Of course I feel bad for Laika. Everyone feels bad for Laika. Isn't that the point? Raguel: Yes. Emma: And crazy sex is fun, and all, but I think you're avoiding what I'm asking. Who, on a day to day basis, makes you happy. Who isn't me. Who makes you happy, Raguel. Raguel: I want you to want me to have no one but you. Emma: I want you to die as something more than the anchor around my neck. Raguel: You invented a nice girl to love. Emma: That can't be true, you're not nice at all. Raguel: I like Rai and Jin. They're fun. Boisterous. But they make me tired. People always make me tired. And I only like them in little pieces and bits, if that. Or from very, very far away. You were an exception because we made each other to be each other's exception. That's not something I ever got to do with anyone else, Em. Emma: ... I got good at being around people. If anything, it's quiet out here, with just you. For a long time, that silence was part of the appeal. Raguel: But now you're bored of me. Emma: No. I love you enough that sometimes I wish... Raguel: We've had lives together. They've been in all of them, if we say they were. We can pepper them in. Everyone. Emma: The only thing we can't do is come up with a story that isn't already over. Raguel: Those are the terms and conditions. Emma: [[We'll see.|Roundabout]]

Emma looks like she is figuring something out. Despite what Emma would tell you, this isn't an especially uncommon occurrence-- she is shrewd in the way that those who listen are, almost agonizingly so. Emma will not chase things unless they enter her line of sight, but she can track their smell for miles. Emma will not seek things she doesn't know to find, but if something is put behind her back, in front of her, she will not lose attention until she knows where it is. Raguel knows, and respects, that whatever is about to come from her mouth, there is no reason to delay it, mislead her. Honesty is, after all, part of the deal that makes her feel, with a shudder of relief, that she has not entirely ruined their chances of being equals. Emma: Some of the angels we've talked to should have been using my deadname, shouldn't they. Raguel: What do you mean by that? Emma: It's trite bordering on comical to use it, I know. I'm sure you could argue they just have more class than that. But they know everything else. Things just as secret and nasty and underhanded, and no one's hesitated to use them. But they haven't touched my name once. Why is that? (It's a very loaded "why is that".) Raguel: I disconnected it. Emma: Explain? (She says "explain" the way Raguel says "explain" when she is not happy. Raguel, eternal glass cannon, is not especially thrilled to hear her own quippy distaste coming out of her wife's mouth, even if she deserves it.) Raguel: They don't know it because you're Emma to the universe, now. When I made you my beast, the name you gave me at the time became YOUR name, the idea's name. The name that would most accurately reference you across situations. They don't know your deadname because they don't register it as a name you had, not even an incorrect one you grew out of. Emma: Oh. (And the way she says "oh" is a moment of genuine shock Raguel has felt a few times, too, when Emma says something especially nasty. Her job is to be the punching bag, the fall guy, to make the divine and overpowering into something disarmed and conquerable. She does not fail often-- which is why Emma hasn't run. This is something they know about each other. A contract they've made.) Raguel watches as Emma crumples in on herself, just slightly. Very rarely does Emma get emotional enough to sit, but she does, and her breathing becomes harsh and slightly ragged, her face held in her hands and a sound issusing up from between them like something frying on a sidewalk. Raguel: Should... I... put it back? Emma: No. Raguel lowers herself onto her knees. Emma is still not making eye contact, shuddering more harshly now, frantic gulps of air occasionally punctuating messy, snarling exhales. Her back spasms, and when Raguel extends a hand, leaving it in the air, she catches a glimpse of Emma's eyes between her fingers, scared and angry. Emma: You didn't change anything else, right? Raguel: No. (That's a lie. She didn't change anything at all, save for Emma, all of Emma, in totality. The action was precise and it was impossible to convey to her, as she was, exactly what would be lost if she did it. She knows Emma would never have said no, that she would have rather died than lose the opportunity. Nevertheless, it was fundamentally impossible for her to consent.) Emma: They're right where they were, right? Her voice is tense, sharp. Raguel: They're right where they were. Emma: I-- I know that I'm not-- I'm not-- a daughter-- or a brother-- anymore-- I know-- it's just-- sometimes-- I remember that-- Raguel: It's okay. Take your time. Emma: I asked for this. Raguel: It's okay. I'm sorry. It's okay. Emma: I wanted this. Her shoulders tighten around herself. Emma: I did this to myself. On purpose. I did. Raguel doesn't have an answer to that one. Emma's breath, momentarily steady, ascends back into a high, sharp series of escalating, quick movements, her entire body shaking with what Raguel can feel in her own body as an overwhelming wave of fear. Emma hides as much of herself as she can from Raguel's eyes, and Raguel steps back, trying to dim herself, unsuccessfully, as the distance between them spreads her into a horrifying vessel of chains and light, with crimson blood dripping from the massive sword wedged through her face. With a body that has no hands to hold, only to touch the scales, Raguel kneels down as far away as she can without leaving her. Emma begins to cry. Snot drips down her face, congealing with tears into a sheen on a red, twisted visage, which she brushes against her clothing, or clothing she thinks she used to own, until that, too, is damp to the point of being uncomfortable. She lets her breathing still on its own, head spinning from the lack of water. Emma: I wanted this. She dries her eyes on a new outfit, some punk jacket she occasionally wears to stress their opponents out with her proclivity for cloying detail. She closes her eyes tight to get the rest of the liquid out and opens them. Returns her tail and ears to where they should be. Emma: I didn't want anyone to say it ever again, She starts this sentence and can not find where the train of logic leads. Emma: Rags? I'm ready to go. Raguel walks back over, looking fully ashamed of herself. Emma: ... Cut that out. //You // knew what you were doing. Raguel: Not really. Emma spares her a glance. Raguel looks down at her hands. Emma: We deserve each other. Raguel sighs. This is as close to absolution as she gets. Raguel: I don't deserve you. Really. Emma: Do you want me, at least? Raguel: Yes. Emma: That's more than anyone else has ever done for me... it'll do. They continue like that. Emma doesn't offer anymore. [[Raguel doesn't push it.|Roundabout]]

Sometimes Raguel takes a walk. She feels the pull immediately, a comfortingly physical thing, and upon breaking that umbilical cord, it's replaced by a more nebulous sort of wanting, like a pregnancy craving, or a strong desire for a smoke. Muddled in this somewhere is the feeling, all too familiar to Raguel, angel of justice, of having left the stove on at home, the intense certainty she will return to a burned-down home for entirely preventable reasons, and that everyone will yell at her for being an idiot and hit her with hammers until she is dead. When all of these things have been shoved mostly to the side, she also gets a little bit of a headache. It's not that there's much to do out here. If anything, the landscape desperately courts the possibility of her fleeing back to her girlfriend: it is impassive, unfriendly, monotonous, dry. It wants to be un-understood. It is a backdrop they don't even linger particularly long on in their adventures, particularly because to spend to long acknowledging reality is to kill yourself. To admit you should already be dead is to reject your agency in rejecting fate. Raguel is allowed to continue her little daliances, that is, because she //likes// them so damn much, and everyone knows that if you like something, you must want it always, unceasingly, and the slightest hiccup in the verve of that desire will throw you like a pebble beneath the tires of a racecar, banking a hard turn. Raguel is not especially bitter about this, for her part. Guilty, sure, bitter, no. She had eternities of solipsism, her escape for it has been all honeymoon. Really it is that silence allows her something she can not have with Emma, which is a chance to fully recalibrate without the odd quip or touch around the waist. She needs, occasionally, to be aware of what she is, the affliction that requires. Emma is able to perceive her as a romantic partner, which flies in the face of some baser nature of herself as angel, eternal. Emma can follow her some of the way up that staircase, but not all the way. She does not like what is all the way up the staircase: she has done a lot to step back down it. But things do not always or even frequently get to be about what Raguel wants. She takes a breath and unravels. What is left of her form flickers precariously between idols: avengers, punishers, oathkeepers all, and then stops and erupts into piles of fabric, a franken-stitch of uniform in a quilt of obedience. From this living fiber she casts her perception for miles around, stirring the ears of all beasts for moments. She rustles with the conviction of a gavel held inches above the bench. She beckons to them with the allure of institution. She prays in derelict law. Opens a thousand bloody hands. Raguel has always been contradictory to the point where she is perfectly ill-defined, able to convince herself into the shape of a logical argument true for her, circumstantially. The rules lawyer of the multiverse, a trickster and her own killjoy. This shape was once a key fit into the lock of some unsolved case, whenever a superior told her to cast a hand. Stretching is simply loosening the bounds of that probability, allowing herself to cast free of an author and slide into canon. She leans across history, cracking knuckles across each contradiction, and swallows herself up into that thin, unassuming body. Feathered wings about her head. Loose dress, with the bandage meant for her eyes. A sword embedded, crooked, into the meat of her face. No mouth. A few freckles. Once she can, she walks back. Emma is where she left her. Emma: Let one rip? I think everyone heard you. Raguel: We want them to find us. Emma: Psh. They could always decide to die in a hole out of spite. Raguel fingers fate. Raguel: They won't... I won't let them. Emma: Do you really have something on everyone still alive? That's insane. Raguel: You just have to extend your definition of "something". Emma: Oh right. Forgot. Lawyer. Raguel: I'm sorry, do you want to eat? Emma: Look, the sausage is not made in a particularly appetizing way. Raguel: Says the meat grinder. Emma: I! Can be appetizing. Probably not to my victims. Some part of Raguel, still broadened, stirs at victims. Raguel: You have to let me occasionally work out how it's not most technically just for us to die. Emma: You find an answer? Raguel: Well, sure... someone has to live. Emma: Damn, your job is easy. Fucking shoutout the man upstairs for that one. Raguel: ... harder to say why it should be us... Emma: Our pure love? Our willingness to slaughter indiscriminately? Our ability to make moral choices? Raguel: Something like that. Raguel has placed a lot of stock in her answer. Which is a secret. [[No telling.|Roundabout]]

Emma throws the first punch. Raguel turns from the ground, her face stinging and her blade singing with the aftermath. Dozens of eyes alight on her wings and tilt up in ecstatic recognition. She rises like the choir. She grabs Emma by the conspicuous loose collar. She smacks her across the face. Emma: Fucking, fuck you, fuck off. Weak sauce. Weak weak weak sauce you need to stab me. Raguel's sword glimmers with annoyance. Raguel: I'm not doing anything that will impede your utility. Emma: Blah, blah. I'm just a sword you have to keep sharp? What, am I going to end up pushed through your face too? Raguel: Depends how much tongue you use. Emma bites Raguel's hand. Raguel jolts backwards, smarting, draws the sword clean in a spray of pearlescent blood. Emma: SWORD! Raguel drops the sword to the ground. Emma: FUCK YOU! Raguel runs forwards, and manages to get a proper knock to the nose in on Emma while she's grandstanding. A trickle of crimson runs down Emma's face, and with a laugh, she attempts to kick Raguel off balance, missing, and swings again, only for Raguel to launch her own, acrobatic kick directly into Emma's side. Emma nearly topples, now properly cackling, and when Raguel steps forwards, like a deer to a body of water, Emma flies at her, knocking her to the ground. She knees her between the legs, prompting no reaction from Raguel at all, then leans in and bites her collarbone, gives it a tenative shake. Raguel: Emma, that's not for fighting. Emma's teeth dig a little tighter. Raguel: Emma. Do you want to play? Emma's ears flatten. She tightens her grip. Raguel slaps the side of her face. This moves Emma's mouth, wrenching both of them, and Emma lets go, blood dripping from her chin. Emma: How's your utility? Raguel: You're being a real piece of work, Emma. Emma: How is it. How's your utility? Raguel: That same as it was. If you want to injure me, you'd have to snap a tendon. Bruising the skin has never bothered me very much. Emma collapses atop her, huffing. Emma: I don't like to snap anything... reminds me of... Raguel puts a hand atop her back, pets the small of her neck, where sweat beads on a whorl of fur. Raguel: You never have to do anything you don't want to do. I promise. Emma puts her head to Raguel's chest. Emma: Nothing? Raguel: You sound almost disappointed. Emma: Well... I might have had some things in[[ mind...|Roundabout]]

Emma: Question. Raguel: Shoot. Emma: You like your job? Raguel: No. Emma: Oh come on you're an angel. A saint. A figure of worship. Raguel: You already know this is the least tempting thing about my position. I have no specific desire to be worshiped by anyone but you. Emma: That's because you're used to being obeyed... there's a baseline respect you don't have to covet... Raguel: I exist because disobedience is the nature of man. Emma: Oh my god. That's actually the most faschy thing you've said all day. Raguel: I didn't say I was against it. Emma: Epistemologically you are. Raguel: I think unfortunately you have to have rules to have a society. And that society creates incentives to behave badly. So you have to put rules on those incentives. It's a whole thing. Emma: Oh okay okay. Nice. Cool. Raguel: Society's also over. Emma: No it isn't. We're society now. Raguel: I love you. Emma: Can you say that at a more opportune moment? Raguel: I might. Emma: Wasn't there anything you enjoyed about being an angel? Raguel: Was there anything you enjoyed about being the dog that bit the master's hand? Emma: Biting the hand, obviously. I suppose you didn't like the thing-in-and-of-itself? Raguel: If you take too much delight in it. It will eat you. You have to restrain yourself. Emma: You are the restrainer, no? Raguel: That's right... I'm the restrainer. Emma: Catharsis and its denial. Raguel: Admittedly I like moving pieces together. I suppose that can be called a sort of. Release. The knowing. Emma: Oh see I knew we'd find something. It's the autism. Raguel: I think you can't call the human urge to identify patterns autistic. Emma: What why not. Raguel: It's, I just feel like you pathologize these things sometimes in a way that feels reductive of experiences of people with and without the condition. Emma: I think I'm just prone to generalization as a form of self-recognition through the other. It's a pretty common flaw. I might be the last person with it, ever, which is pretty dope. I miss pointing at people and saying things they didn't know about themselves yet. Raguel: Innocent until proven guilty, is all I'm saying. Emma: I get why you hate your job. Raguel: I got fired. Emma: No you didn't. You'll get fired when we die. Raguel: I guess I will get fired when we die. Emma: Until then... I guess you are the restrainer. Raguel: We are restraining them. Emma: I don't think you're often forced to go against your nature... I think usually your nature becomes whatever you do. I think the world twists itself in knots to conform to your neuroses. Of course I'm saying this because I find it enviable. Raguel: It's not as easy as it looks. And I'm not good, and it isn't good. Whether or not it worked out, it wasn't good. Emma: Mmmm... Raguel: Punishment and justice aren't the same thing. Emma: Yeah, but justice is enacted through condemnation. You have to create a division. What's "good". What's "bad". Did you want, do you want. To annul a division between you and the world. To lease something instead of restraining it. Raguel: I feel like you're having too much fun with this... in a way that feels kind of leer-y. Emma: I'm in a mood. Raguel: My lines too rough around the windpipe? Emma: You're always a little too rough around my windpipe. I'm always being a little bit strangled to death. Raguel: I didn't... need you to be here. I wanted you to be here. But it would have been okay if, you said no. Emma: Well, you can keep telling yourself that right up until the end. But I'm not the thing that makes choices. Raguel: I-- would you hate me if I said. What I liked was. To get to choose. Emma: I already knew that. Raguel: So do you hate me? Emma: Of course I hate you. You're an angel. Raguel: Oh. Emma: But I don't think you can really, really, really love someone without hating them a little. Because they're like you. Because they're not like you. Because you understand them. Because you can't. You are never them, and even if you were, who uncritically loves themselves? Well, I guess, probably someone. But even those people, they, they have to understand difference, understand that friction, through something. Raguel: Emma, it's... being an angel is, it's not supposed to be about this at all. It's not a, a choice. It's a series of equations, which you are the answer to. I fell when I became able to process my guilt about it as such. If you question it you are already in collapse. Emma: What I'm saying is, you can love me, and you can hate me, because you made yourself human by even accepting you could understand me, exist in context with me, but I want to know, what it felt like, before that, because when you made your life about me, I killed so much of you. Swathes and swathes of it. Raguel: I wanted to die. Emma: Me too, but that's why I stopped being human. That's why you started. Raguel: Decision is desolation. It was an eternity of rote calculation and regularly delivered catharsis. Emma: How did it feel to kill as an angel? Raguel: Like solving a math problem. Emma: How does it feel to kill as a lover? Raguel: Like taking my clothes off in public. Emma: How's it going to feel when-- Raguel: I just won't do it. I won't. The universe is going to have to deal with that. Okay? Emma: You choose. It might kill me. Raguel: Then I'll feel bad about it. It won't be the first time. Descending from heaven is, as far as I can tell, all about feeling bad. Eating is about feeling bad. Desire is also about feeling bad. Emma: Are you ready to make peace with it. Raguel: No. Emma: They'll make peace for us. Raguel: They won't. Because I am going to kill them. I am going to kill all of them. And just like before, I will order it, and it will be done for me, and you won't have a choice, and I won't have, a, Emma: Hands stay clean? Raguel: No. Covered in dog fur. From gripping you so tight. Emma: More fun than killing alone? Raguel: Sometimes. Emma: [[Well, no wonder you feel bad.|Roundabout]]

Emma: There's a fly. Raguel: What, that's not possible. Emma: Well, there is. Raguel looks around the nothingness. There is no fly. Raguel: Are we close to another angel's field of influence? Emma: No. It's not another angel. Raguel looks to the ground instead, looks where Emma's eyes are pointing. Her tail is twitching in agitation. Cute. Raguel: I really don't see it, Emma. Emma: Imagine there's a ceiling. Raguel imagines it. It is a particularly sterile kitchen, with some of the yellowing too-white houses often take on, like teeth. She does not particularly want to be here. Emma: There's a fly. It's right there. Emma is standing on a chair. When she clasps her hand to the ceiling, the buzz of an irritated interloper is immediately recognizable. Raguel's wings flutter. Raguel: You're sure this isn't a flea of yours. Emma: It's not mine! Raguel: That would mean-- Emma has chased it to the mesh of an otherwise-open window. She catches it between her fingers with ease, lifts the cautionary mesh and throws it out into the open sky. Another fly whimpers shrilly on the ceiling. Emma: Oh goddamnit. Raguel: Emma... Emma moves her chair so she can begin the work: catch, corner, release. Her brows knit in that fussy way, but she manages to get two or three more before she turns back to Raguel. Raguel: If it's like popping pimples, I won't stop you. Emma holds the fly between her fingers. She takes Raguel in her other hand. As she pops the fly out the window, she stares, expectantly, at Raguel's back, until a fly hits her in the face. Emma: Fuck! Raguel: It's not my wings that are doing it, Emma. Emma puts a finger into the lee of Raguel's nose and touches the loose skin there. Drawing it aside, a haven of flies presents itself. Emma: Rags!!! Raguel: You're not supposed to inform a lady her fly is down unless you're in private. Emma: I thought you had a handle on this. Raguel: There is usually a giant sword through my head. These things have a tendancy to ruin your complexion. Emma: The snide jokes are for me!! Me!!! You can't-- what is wrong with you? Raguel looks coquettishly to the side. Raguel: Nothing until you unmade me. Emma: You've got bugs? Raguel: Emma, I was killed, very badly, with a massive sword. I am still feeling the effects of it and eventually, given time, I would develop what many have called trademark "festering sores". Emma: Your eyesight's going? Raguel: Didn't go fast enough, by the looks of it... I've always been nearsighted, or at least moreso than I would like... Emma's tail droops despondently. Emma: Why do you never talk to me about these things? Raguel: You don't. Emma: That's because I get to be the difficult one. You're supposed to be good. Raguel: Good and low maintenance are frequently synonymous. Is self-sacrifice not a touted good? Emma: Never mind, this is stupid. How do we fix this? Raguel: Oh, we don't. Emma: Eh. Raguel: The world's ending. Nothing to fix. Emma: But it'll impair our battle capabilities. Raguel: It won't. Emma: You're leaking flesh. Raguel: So I'm a less fresh meal than desired. That's honestly a boon. Emma: But the flies annoy me. Raguel: I can keep them quiet, and fortify my nose bridge with some vasoline. Emma: ... Raguel: Do you like catching them and releasing them? Emma: I like helping... Raguel: You help. She frowns. Raguel: I think it's kind of cool... you get to do all the fun body horror anyways. It's practically cliche for a woman to be a corpse. Emma: Don't say that. Raguel: You have a rebuttal? Emma: No, it just... [[sucks.|Roundabout]]

Emma: So did you ever smoke weed? Raguel: Uh, a few times. By the time I was into it everyone had switched to gummies, and between the lack of smell, and wanting to keep my lungs intact... Emma: Yeah yeah I assume we moved in together by then. Raguel: Usually. Emma: I bet I gave you the habit if anything. Raguel: Usually. Emma: Don't you miss being out of your mind? Raguel: This is like being high forever. Emma: It's not weed high, it's, it's more aesthetically taxing than that, I think. Raguel: Aesthetically taxing. Isn't the point of drugs to make things less taxing? Emma: You're not interested in the revelatory power of uninhibited sensation. That's news to me. Raguel: It's not that I'm not interested in it... it's that I'm not dependent on drugs to kickstart that sensation. I'm always in it. Emma: People who are always in it, I feel, can get way more in it than other people, though? Raguel: I think you're more kosher with losing control than I am. It doesn't feel novel when I do it. It feels like someone else's story collaged hastily over my own. Like writing a self-insert into a story where people exist and talk to each other and live their lives. It's clear that... you know. Someone was being self-indulgent when they assumed I was up to the task. Emma: You're sad high? I'm hearing sad and paranoid high. Raguel: I think when you move, you have to internalize having been somewhere and going somewhere else. Whether this is a mental movement between moves or substance-induced lucidities, or a physical movement, I try to be extremely aware every time I switch between locations. Emma: What I'm hearing is that deep down, you feel guilty about having fun. Are you not having fun? I thought the point of all of this was that it's more fun to be with each other, and be everything with each other, than to only be ourselves once. Raguel: I think you have more capacity to have fun than I do. Which is why it's my role in life, as I see it, is to protect your capacity to-- Emma: You're my dealer! Raguel: As in I'm enabling you. Emma: Yeah! Raguel: Is that what it feels like. Emma: My teeth break the boundaries between me and the other through violence :3 Raguel: Mistake. Everything, everything was a mistake. Emma: [[Yes! |Roundabout]]

She finds Emma at an overpass. Emma's always liked to be up high, likely because she was born with a bit of a Napoleon complex that time and ending up five-foot-nothing only cemented. Sure, there was the odd timeline where she was a gentle giant, usually more of a brick wall than the corner-of-your-eye Sasquatch Raguel tended to be, but for the most part, it seemed fundamental that Emma be looking up at you, with hate in her tiny heart. The image of a wolf staring with bugged, white eyes and a slavering jaw from the ground it's been bound to is never far from Raguel's mind. She shakes the image away with a cartoonish twist of her head, taking the sword with it, rendering herself mortal as possible. Beneath her, a truck glides past the bridge. Raguel is reminded of videos Emma used to show her of this one camera in front of a low clearing, where trucks would routinely smash themselves directly into the overhead, despite clear warnings. She remembers Emma's awful, snorting laugh, the way it sucks in her snot when it gets hard for her to breathe. She smiles. She realizes, underneath the unfriendly glare of the streetlight, that she doesn't want to approach Emma. She wants to be seen, and for Emma to approach her. That way she's invited, not intruding. She feels her Adam's apple bob in her throat. She can't tell how young she is, but it's young. Emma stands, rattles the overpass's metal wiring as hard as she can. She puts a foot to it, kicks it a few times to assert dominance. Pulls on the top. With enough momentum, she could carry herself over, into the cars. Die as an angel of blood on someone's windshield. Raguel: It's not a very fun way to die. Emma: God forbid I have any time to myself. Raguel: God's dead. Emma steps closer, examining her. She takes a long whiff of perfume, which Raguel feels in her own body, her lungs are Emma's lungs, both of them filled with perfume and smoke and car exhaust and stale night air. Emma's tongue lolls. She places her cigarette on it, lights it, sucks it in, puffs with the firm-set face of a fifties television dad. Emma: Then I guess you forbid it. A trail of smoke moves taillike across Raguel's face, feeling her up, as Emma walks around Raguel. Emma: You want a smoke? Raguel: I guess. Emma lights another cigarette off of her own, making sure to really rub its head in there. She tucks it into Raguel's mouth. Raguel takes a drag and gently breathes out, skyward, her cig'd hand on the rail of the overpass. Emma: It's more cool when your brain's underdeveloped. And when it hasn't started really killing you yet. It's a flirtation. Raguel glances her way, offended. Emma: They say you regret it, right before you hit the ground, or while the bullet's lacing through your gray matter. She jumps onto the rail, strides it and leans back directly onto the mesh. It rattles unfaithfully. Emma: I'm still waiting for it to kick in. Raguel: This is just angst, Emma. Emma: So? I love angst. Raguel puts a heel to the cigarette. Emma: You're wasting my lights. Raguel steps up onto the rail, fingers in the mesh to steady herself. Raguel: You know I'm, the only one who can stop you. You're telling me because you-- Emma: It's not the same to hurt someone, if they're part of you. Emma takes the cigarette and presses it, tenderly as a kiss, against Raguel's neck. As Raguel involuntarily gasps in pain, the same burn flares to life, phantasmal, on Emma's own neck. Emma stares at her, direly. Illustrating a point they both know already. Emma: I'm not my own person anymore... Raguel: I have the be the half with the inhibitions, then. Emma: You don't have to be anything. Raguel: I do. Because you won't be. Someone has to. It's like, when, you move in with someone. You like things messy, they like things clean. They're... probably a guy, to be honest. Not that it matters. You set up a bunch of rules you say you're going to follow. Then you're the one who cares the most, so either you complain and they get tired of you, tired of the rules, and you fight, or you do the work. Sometimes you hate fighting more than you do the work, so you do it. All of the work. Because the alternative is that things are always a mess, and you can't live like that, actually. It makes you sick. Emma: How did we ever get married. How did we ever stand each other. Raguel: I like to take care of people... I'm bad at setting boundaries... everyone who's ever loved me has treated me worse than you. You were the best that I got. It felt stupid to complain. Emma: You were the best I got, too. The pair of them stand there for a while. Emma dashes her cigarette hard against her hand, so hard it makes Raguel almost cry. Emma: I don't want to do it. I want you to do it to me. I want you to hate me enough to really really hurt me. You have to make me do it. Raguel realizes the ceaseless warfare might be getting to them both a little more than she had hoped. She feels the tears in her eyes sting cold. She thought this was a night in late spring, maybe late summer, towards the fall. She'd forgotten that even those tended to sting hard when you expected them to feel like the damp pits of the dog days. Emma: I don't want you to be a girl, not now. I don't want to protect you. I want you to lead me to war. Raguel: I... am trying... to keep us alive. Emma: You can't keep me alive. You can keep the dog of war alive. Raguel: I don't know how to be the person who will-- Emma holds out another lit cigarette. She looks at Raguel. She insists. She really really really insists that this is what she wants and that it will feel good and that she will be good and that this is the language she knows and that she is a dog, and she can not be changed, she will not be changed, and if Raguel wants to use her, she needs to use her correctly. She needs to use the shock collar. She needs to use the chair. Raguel takes the cigarette. She approaches it like an artist with a brush, but she has this look on her face. Emma realizes it will only feel good if she closes her eyes, so she does that. Emma's breath is incredibly soft. Raguel realizes she probably owes her this much if she is going to ask her to kill so many people and eat them. Just to use her as instrumentally as them once, so she can use her, using her, using her. It's all okay and reciprocal and squared provided the hot potato never lands in one court. Turtles all the way down as long as she can complete the electric circle. I've done my part, says Emma. Now, love. Come. Raguel finds the crook of Emma's collarbone and places the cigarette there. When Emma hardly reacts, she wedges it in, twisting ash and soot, and Emma whimpers like when she comes. In the heather fields, she is holding the knife to the beast's neck. In bed, she has both of her thumbs around Emma's throat and she is pressing down. Raguel burns Emma. Raguel: You're mine. Emma: I'm yours. Raguel: Good girl. Emma: I'm yours. I'm your girl. She throws the cigarette aside, licks the ash off. Spits it out on the ground. Raguel: You do usually do what I want. Emma: 'xcept I complain. She looks a thousand miles away, delirious with some emotion Raguel has never felt, and has not learned how to convincingly imitate. She is reminded of how they actually first met. The way she watched Emma through every lifetime through a thousand mirrors. How long it took for her to lower herself into something Emma could reach out and touch. Those first finger-brushes, for Emma, they felt like madness. They felt like her skull being rent open. Emma has never forgotten that being known for the first time felt like being killed. She has hungry eyes when she follows Raguel off the bridge. Raguel runs the silt over in her mouth. It's only fair. She pretends to be human, Emma can occasionally remind her to be truthful: she is a holy and totalizing thing preying on an animal she's caught in her hands, forcing it to run in whatever circles she wants. She does not have a burn on her collarbone. Emma, as if sensing how sorry Raguel is to be left out, steps forwards, catches her in the last of the fading scene's streetlight. She bites down on her collarbone. Raguel gasps. Emma: There. [[Now we match.|Roundabout]]

Emma: You've made her up recently. Haven't you. Raguel: Who? A daughter for us? Emma: No. Just the-- you. Beforehand. Raguel: Mmm... it's hard for me to figure out where we met if I wasn't. Emma: Too tired of the sagely "I saw the sun and saw you" schtick, hm. Raguel: As much as I love your devotion to the infinite, I think there are specific pleasures of the flesh you prefer to see through me than an avatar of me. Emma: I think we're surrogates by nature at this point. For ourselves or otherwise. Raguel: But this is about Audrey. Emma: It might be about Audrey. Raguel: I don't particularly want to talk about it. Emma: Oh, you don't have to. Not emotionally, anyways. However, from a tactical perspective, I was hoping you could at least let me know how I'm supposed to approach future situations like that. Raguel: I don't think most angels demean their beasts that way. It's not that effective of a strategy. Hence why we were able to dispatch the situation so effectively. Emma: That's not what I'm talking about. Raguel: She made the name up. Emma: You believed her. Raguel: There are things people would say to you that you would believe, Emma. Emma: There are a lot of things like that and I'm very concerned about them and have factored them into our battleplan. Raguel: You're better at this than I am... Emma: Killing? Objectively. Raguel: Managing yourself. Emma: Which is why I think it would help if you told me what she aimed at, since she clearly hit the mark. Raguel: I think, in most lives, I was very lonely. Normalcy was something I was held directly beneath, like a drowning person held by a millstone to the lakebed, inches below the surface. Emma: I was lonely, too. She puts her head to Raguel's, reassuringly. The angel heaves a long, desolate sigh. Emma: Thank you for saving me from that. Raguel: I don't know what the difference is. Emma: I've accepted it. You resent it. Raguel: What? Emma: Never getting close to people. And since its such an absolute, it self-shatters into conenction. It makes it easier to get along. You've got this aura about you. Like you're dying right in front of people. Or being immolated. Some part of you thinks it's their fault, too. I recognize it because I feel it a lot, I just can't care enough to keep up the energy for that kind of desperate hunger. It really threatens people, Raguel. Raguel: Ah. I suppose that's only really a problem if we have to interact with people. Emma: It seems like that might happen, is all. Raguel: I suppose. Emma: ... Raguel: They did kill me. Emma: Hm. I guess so. Raguel: And I did everything right. Or as well as I could. And I was still suffocating in every town, in every life. Anywhere I went, I would suffocate under myself, buried in my own skin. I would write my suicide note over and over in my head. Implicate everyone, delineate everything they didn't know how to do to save me. I did feel utterly failed by the world. I think I still do. But I don't feel failed by you. Emma: That's very kind. But I'm not perfect, either. And there have to be things you like in me that you can see in other people. Right? Raguel: I suppose I'm getting there. It's a long process. There's just not much time left to complete it now, so the work will stay... Emma: We're all going to die unfinished. Raguel: Exactly. Hence why it's not worth talking about. Emma: Thank you for talking to me about it anyways, Rags. Raguel: Of course. Emma: And I think we'll see friends... Raguel: We'll see Death, at least. She's faultless in her methods, for whatever else you can say about her. Emma: "Sorry, but this is the end of the line?" Raguel: I like it... it's true, regardless of if we [[beat her or not|Roundabout]].

You know you're fucked when Emma bends the knee. Emma, Beast of Justice: No we don't, I surrender. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma? Emma's face is pulled taut and pale, facing straight down, to the ground. She puts her face lower. Emma, Beast of Justice: Rags, can't you-- can't you feel it? Emma's stomach growls, and a fount of saliva brims from her lips, which she wipes aside. Emma, Beast of Justice: I can't want more than they want. Raguel's eyes widen. She looks to the pair of demons before her, the small and the overpowering, and senses what Emma has discovered-- nothing less than a pure and unadulturated need hiding behind the mask of a personality. Whatever the pair of her and Emma are, it has room for nuance, negotiation. There was never any such thing to be had with them, and now that she has denied their gift, there is no script to idly putter down behind that mask. Instead, as the beast steps forwards, she is greeted to the overwhelming feeling of starving, more powerful than any real hunger has ever been. She is forced to her knees by the pain of it, her lips bubbling up with spit. Red, Angel of Hunger: We do like you. So we'll give you a minute. Do you have anything you'd like to say to each other? Raguel, Angel of Justice: You always did like... impossible battles... Emma, Beast of Justice: Do you think the angel of death would feel like this. Raguel winces. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No. I think she gives you a fair fight. That's what I was always told. Emma nods. She closes her eyes so tightly her whole face contorts into a mask of kneaded agony, her features lost to the fluctuating muscle and the demands of its shifting musculature. Teeth which shift, one to the next, from beast to human, falter out a growling apology: Emma, Beast of Justice: This is what I wanted... before you made me... what I was born of. I can't fight it. I don't know how to defeat hunger. Raguel puts a hand on Emma's, which seems at least settle her in place, halfway between beast and person. Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's okay. you did a good job. Emma, Beast of Justice: Do you remember where we first met. Raguel, Angel of Justice: A thousand times, a thousand ways. Emma, Beast of Justice: What you're saying is, you don't remember where we first met. Raguel, Angel of Justice: No. Emma smiles, toothily. There's a tint of lyricism in how she's spacing the syllables, even if it's ruined by the bloody saliva running down her half-formed muzzle. Emma, Beast of Justice: Look. I don't remember where we first met. But hey, admitting is the first step. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Are you quoting a song at me. Emma, Beast of Justice: But hey. Nobody's perfect. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Okay, you're shitting me. What's the point? Emma, Beast of Justice: Wish you'd taken the deal... I would have liked. To know. Raguel throws her arms around Emma. Red, Angel of Hunger: Girls, I'm sorry for what I'm going to have to do with you, but it would appear time is up. Emma feels the hunger grow unsustainable, forcing its way out of her mouth, through her brain, plugging her senses. Before she can snap the nearest limb, Raguel's pathetic teeth grab her shoulder. Her gaze locks with Emma's. Nothing of her is left in there but the agony, and the slightest bit of embarassment. Raguel's hands tear at Emma's hair, her nails at her chest, but she can't make half the impact one clasp of Emma's misformed jaws makes of her neck. Emma does not shake. Some residual protective instinct wants to let her alive. Nonetheless, Emma gives Raguel the dignity all her other victims have received, and then some-- when she can no longer struggle, Emma's teeth rip her chest like a blunted letter opener, exposing her mockery organs, a veritable treasure of a body perfectly contrived into human form. When she is open all the way to the intestines, Emma's snout digs in them, tasting their past meals, the honey of her angelic nature, the grit of the person she was trying to be. She savors the last the most, then bursts her spleen, the minor organs of the chest cavity, working her way up to break the bones and pull out the heart. The jewel is a rough note of the freshest blood, its exterior of the thickest, roughest muscle. Emma silences her dear heart. Emma savors her well, but she is still so so so so hungry. She continues to rip muscles out of the body, her own chest bursting, and when her own entrails fall to the ground, she attempts to bite those as well. Stuck on the mess of their twinned bodies, grabbing everything her mouth can still seize, she swallows bigger, coarser chunks of meat, only for them to pull through her throat and fall out of her ruptured stomach, her body continuing, mindlessly, to attempt to fill itself, until it [[falls completely apart. |Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'll take one, you take the other. You think, right, so you can kneel in front of a corpse and talk about shit I don't understand with angels, because you're angels, and god forbid we do anything besides masturbate to how tragic and intelligent we are and how big of a deal this whole thing is in front of the soldiers we've recruited to our equally masturbatory forever war. And then the next thing you think is, look, cosmically, I am a bottom. That's okay. I know this about myself. But I'm also obviously the more masculine partner. I occasionally need to get some really good licks in, just to remind her who's who. That she can depend on me to hunt with her. That we don't take a knee in front of a pile of trite symbolism and a really ugly pattern to put on a knife. We didn't come here to whinge about God, we came here primarily to kill her, and her best friend. No? All these thoughts coalesce into you taking her sword out of her head, drawing it straight clean, and making eye contact while you do. This is hard because she's about half a foot taller than you, but you can fix that, at least temporarily, and the look she gives you as you do this lets you know you should have done it a long time ago, and that she 100% would have said 'no' if you asked. Emma, Beast of Justice: Babe. Why don't I show her the proper respect? Beloved breathes a spray of holy fire at you, which you parry with your sword, which helpfully sets the sword on fire. She launches the blade straight towards you, so you hit it like a baseball bat, and as she runs to retrieve it she goes right past it, almost prompting a smirk from you, until you realize she is legitimately scared and running right away. With a blood frenzy you usually keep in your pants, you surge across the desert, wicked smile lengthening as she attempts, stumbling, to run, rope fluttering in the wind. You sweep her legs, and as she falls, you kick her over. You want her to have to look at you when she dies. You lean down, see fear in both her faces. Emma, Beast of Justice: Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani? Beloved, Angel of Justice: That's-- that's just one of the times I-- was called upon to-- I mean-- look, I'm not that, committed, to any one form of! You know? It's all symbolic, it's about the conquering of death-- Emma, Beast of Justice: Look. Look the Omelas child right in the eyes. I want you to look scared as I did. She manages that, her brows fluttering, and she looks right into your eyes. Beloved, Angel of Justice: You can't kill me with a sacrifice... not for her. Emma, Beast of Justice: Oh, of course not. That's why this is just revenge. The blade plunges into her chest and the brutal combination of a bleat and a woman's cry twists the air, and you rake the blade through again, plunging it into the dual ribcages to burst two still-beating hearts, you rake the necks open, and you break the mouths. You are still desecrating the corpse with your meat grinder when you feel a hand on your shoulder, and see Raguel standing there, timid. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. Please. You tilt the blade forwards, its edge firmly in the earth. Emma, Beast of Justice: Next time you bow, you bow to me. Raguel, Angel of Justice: My sword? You drop the hilt, and she catches it. Staring at you with that unreadable expression, the blade curling in her hands, the old bent returning to it. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I... I've never been wielded by you before... You walk past her, whisper. Emma, Beast of Justice: Should've mentioned I could do it better than you. I would have cleaned the wastes out a [[long fucking time ago.|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)}

I feel like this one is too obvious to even write out. No you do not run from hunger. Hunger is located inside of you. Hunger is, in fact, possibly the most consistent companion you've ever had, a sort of bulwark against other feelings you might have, such as regret, anger, or fear. Anything that would keep you less than knife-sharp can be hidden under the rug that is raw starvation, an ugly and bloated shag which has come to dominate the house of your mind. Red tears her way from inside of you. It's like your blood has turned to ice, then to teeth. You are looking at your own corpse, watching it be eaten. It is an agony unlike anything you have ever known, and all the while, you are frozen within your skin. Both of you. There's barely any separation, just one long, conscious experience of pain. The girl lifts her veil before she eats, at least, coming to stand outside of you when she's pulled through your large intestines and dragged her arms out of your liver. Underneath her cape are dozens of maggots, chewing half-heartedly at her face. Red, Angel of Hunger: Sorry. I couldn't help it. If you're weak enough to run away from me, you won't last much longer. And it would be such a waste. Her companion adds to the conversation with a downpour of drool, thick and viscous. Its body splits down the middle, organs ripping apart to make room for more mouth. Unknown things course in there like hungry, thrashing eels. Red, Angel of Hunger: Sorry it's going to take so long for us to eat you, but you're really, really big. Could've won it all. Gray, Beast of Hunger: that's not true. very few of us still feel justice. we all feel hunger. (You don't feel anything, anymore. Except hoping Raguel/Emma dies first. Hoping that you're not actually feeling her, just hallucinating her, and that she has moved on beyond this where it can no longer be this bad. Because otherwise you failed her so so so so bad that you can not feasibly be forgiven. Failed her bad enough that you are currently wishing you could trade places with the version of Emma/Raguel who is already dead, kicking her into consciousness to suffer for you. She can not possibly be there if you are entertaining this. You're alone and nothing can help you and there are still maggots where Red came out of your body that are getting into your stomach and piercing holes and your heart is not far away and how can it still be working when your body is this destroyed.) Red, Angel of Hunger: Thank you. Every new part of you stolen is the rawest agony you have ever felt. There are soft serrations on Red's fingers that hook when she pulls back, and each one is a new, flesh-eviscerating poison. You can feel her face in your stomach, and the pain circles past agonizing to orgasmic to something that blots all conscious thought. Cleansing, reified red light. Red, Angel of Hunger: Thank you. [[You are so above yourself that you can not tell how long it takes for you to die.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Jane, Beast of Choice: You live and die by the sword. Sometimes that's all there is. "Fight for it," people say of jobs, relationships, things, anything you want in life. It's simplistic and a little vulgar, but sometimes it's what you have to do. Still, there is something freeing about combat, the simplicity of bodies moving against each other, their opposition, the threat of death. At the highest possible stakes, nothing else matters, so it can be a place of great beauty, redemption, or just raw feeling. June, Angel of Choice: I'm sorry if I lead you the wrong way. I wanted to be someone who would make the right choices, fight the right battles. Sometimes I was proud to be the one who lead us to war. Sometimes I was upset we were fighting at all, and winning just seemed like a way to prolong the futility of the struggle. Jane, Beast of Choice: I was sometimes wrapped up in the struggle so tight it felt like it was holding me against its chest, and then I thought, "maybe I am the beast". I felt like I could know myself at the edge of the blade, if nowhere else. I thought I could define myself by my ability to protect you. June, Angel of Choice: Sometimes I think I would rather be that. I feel out of place in my own skin when I'm telling you what to do. I don't want to be behind or above you-- I can't see you, anymore, when I'm like that, and it scares me. Jane, Beast of Choice: Sometimes I'd like to make the decisions. I'm good at strategy, I have an eagle's eye for it. I could decide how we march to war. June, Angel of Choice: When I eat the meat we've won, I'm glad we're still alive. But I'm scared, because now I'm always hungry. Jane, Beast of Choice: When I eat the meat we've won, I know we've proved ourselves. But I'm scared, because you never stop having to justify yourself in the eyes of others, when it comes to competition. We just set a bigger and bigger target on our back. What about you? Do you feel relief when you vanquish an enemy, or an emptiness? Do you want to command, or do you want to kill? Do you think you know yourself with the [[blood roaring in your ears?|Respite]] {(set: $fight to $fight +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)(set: $vindicated to True)}

Emma lunges for death and lunges through a pile of sand, collapsing at her merest touch. She snarls, seeking a more substantial enemy, but she can sense that the pressure has gone out of the air, the silverness leached into the nothing dust has treated to them for all the time they've been in this wasteland. With one clean blow, Raguel cuts through the Shepherd's metal collar, which shatters beneath her blade, and as she draws it back through, the head comes clean away from a kneeling animal. Raguel: ... It's not a trick. She knows tricks. Emma: I mean, it's not like... we didn't cheat, did we? Raguel: Emma. We very, very much cheated death. Emma: Oh. Forgot. Raguel: Are you hungry? Emma shakes her head. Raguel looks over the dust, over Shepherd's changeless corpse, its huge pelt they'll probably strip for leather later. She takes Death's cloak and flutters the ashes out, just to check. She experimentally tries it on as a scarf, and when she feels a single speck of death land on her shoulder, she flings it off, panting. Emma rushes over, braced for war, but there's nothing to spar with. She laughs when she realizes. Emma: It doesn't really suit you. Raguel: No, it doesn't. Emma: So, you're the thinker. Want to walk me through this one? Raguel: There's no one left to die. Emma: I guess this was a pretty easy one then, huh? Sorry it's so anti-climactic. Raguel: It's alright. I don't relish the fights the way you do. if anything, I should be apologizing to you. Emma: What, for not trying to get me killed? Admittedly it's a real bummer for me. She's got funny eyes. Her girl has always had funny eyes. Raguel brushes her cheek like she's feeling it for the first time, and Emma leans in, ears falling back as if to stretch her face out for Raguel's perusal. She has a big, dumb smile on her face as Raguel scratches the ears, the neck, even under the chin, which gets her tail going. Raguel: Good job. Emma: Hooray! Raguel: What do you want to do... now? Emma tilts her head. Emma: Should we set ground rules? Raguel: For the final republic in time? I suppose. Are there any you felt like we should set? Emma: I don't want to eat you. Raguel: ... Emma: Can you please promise you won't make me eat you? Raguel: Big ask. What if I want you to? What if we did it for fun? It's going to be a while. We could get bored. Emma: We're going to get bored. Raguel: What's a little hock of shoulder between friends? Emma: Did the Hayes Code also make it out here with us. To the end of time. Raguel: I don't know, I'm usually not the one whose parade is being rained on. Emma: Crazy bondage: I suggest nicely that we uphold some societal conventions, like not killing and eating each other. Raguel: You don't want me to kill and eat you either? Emma: I think I've kind of had my share of killing and eating other people... dogs... metaphysical entities... I don't really want to kill or eat anything, anymore. What if we just didn't. Raguel: Is that an option? Emma: I don't know. But it's just us, so we get to make the rules, right? Raguel: ... Emma: What would you want? If you got to make the rules? You tell me. What happens next? All this time, and I still don't know how to write a story without you.

Raguel, Angel of Justice: Don't waste time with this one. Fast and decisive. Emma, Beast of Justice: Right. It's gangly, especially compared to their normal approach. The two-on-two attack was pulling more weight than either of them realized, they both confirm, with a grimace, now that the beast needs to be wrest out of the angel's hands. Fortunately, there are two goats. Emma swings to the side to get the live goat, giving Raguel the easier job, since, well, she can't really fight, so there's no option. However, when Emma wrenches the living body out of the dead one, the construct of the body collapses, unclasped from itself, leaving Raguel with only a corpse, bloated and infested with flies. (She recognizes this.) Emma, on the other hand, grabs Houndstooth and stabs Beloved with it, a half dozen times, then rips the entrails out of the body. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're just a fucking goat when no one's around to reify the sacrifice, aren't you? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Fortunately someone is around to reify the sacrifice. Emma looks up from the newly-made goat corpse and her jaw slacks as she looks at something which is like Raguel, but with the sideways pupils of a goat, and her sword wound hangs limply open, the inside of it buzzing with flies and dripping maggots. Her eyes are completely blank and glossy, and her lips have been torn clean in death, barring a skull's smile. The angel speaks from the beloved's face. All sacrifices were once beloved of someone. Something which is truly reviled by everyone is not sacrificed, it is slain-- the sacrifice's power is derived from the love, or at least the potential, that you render onto death. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: The trick is to kill both of us at the same time... no divide and conquer nonsense. For the future. Emma, Beast of Justice: Noted. The body steps over to examine its own corpse. Emma jumps, as she, the family dog, is forever bound to do at intruders. She opens Raguel's neck, but the spray of the jugular is flaccid, and the angel doesn't seem to mind. With a strength Raguel usually only uses when she is angry, which is to say, practically never, the body flicks Emma off. Before Emma can rise, it presses a heel against the small of her back. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: You want to keep going? I can still take you past death. If anything, I'd be a far more suitable partner. I love you as much as she did. So much of that love was couched in your destruction, after all. Emma, Beast of Justice: Bite me. She feels breath against the edge of her fuzzy ear. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I remember how she likes to do that, too. You won't pay attention if you can stomach the smell. Emma coughs, stammers. Emma, Beast of Justice: I don't... want... to keep going... if she's actually dead. She balls her fists. Attempts to rise, is flattened, utterly, thoughtlessly. She chokes on the threats she's holding in her throat, the low rumble of the growl building there silenced by the beloved's pressing foot. Emma, Beast of Justice: Why'd she go so easy? Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: You two see yourselves as sacrifices to each other already. It would have been extremely difficult for either of you to resist me. She just drew the dead goat. Emma chokes. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: What you two have is admirable, I'll give you that. It's hard to be this flavor of devoted, for this long. It's hard to bind yourself to each other in something which is so tangled that you cannot be without it. Usually these things collapse under their own weight, at the very least. Or are far less fun. You seem to be having a good time. Emma, Beast of Justice: Mostly. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Maybe the sacrifice is bound up, not just in both of your falls from grace, but in that mostly. In looking back at what you left behind. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm tired of being evaluated. (Her voice is smaller when she says this.) Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I'm sorry. It was never about you, Isaac. I just had to show him that I meant what I was saying. Emma's ears flatten. She is aware that no one who is going to kill her will let her die as herself, so out of all the surrogates she's had to have thrown at her, at least this one is easy to inhabit, inobtrusively bound to little but the act itself. She feels the pressure on her back release, and something in her shifts, almost an instinctive action. She bursts from the ground, towards the horizon, and feels Raguel's presence yank her, like a chain, like hands around her neck. As she jolts in place, half-strangled, the sword plunges through her ribs and out the other side. Houndstooth, Beast of Sacrifice: if you wanted to be a blade you shouldve been one Emma collapses, vomiting blood as it streams freely out of more orifices than she previously had. She smiles at the ugly knife for a moment, content in knowing her killer is at least so devoid of style that all it has going for it is a decent edge and a lack of dignity. Emma, Beast of Justice: Nah... I wanted to have fun. Her cheek hits the dust, and she loses consciousness with a smile on her face, one hand a few inches further than the rest of her towards the [[horizon.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

The shepherd and death draw their blades. Emma looks to Raguel, and Raguel nods. They have been saving themselves for a special occasion. Emma's snout lengthens and her claws flex, and Raguel binds her in gold. They are as they were in better days-- all potential energy and unkept promises to end the world. Raguel is learning that she can want the things a person wants, and Emma is realizing that she doesn't need to pretend to be a person to be loved. They are frightening to behold, horse and bridle, tendon and muscle, lover and beloved. Shepherd: Nothing so fancy for us. The shepherd swings her blade. It catches in Emma's mouth, and she swings her by it, a dog with a chew toy. Shepherd lands on her feet, not far away, and the spikes on her collar flex. When Emma lunges for her, one of them impales her straight through the nose. Shepherd: I was born to fight wolves. Her palate spiked, blood turns Emma's laugh into more of a choked snort. She speaks in a voice that is half spilled gore and half a sword being sharpened on stone, and all the last thing you will ever hear in your life. Emma: What about angels? Emma chokes and gasps, and two pale hands open her mouth, a third one pulling out from between them, holding a crooked sword. Golden ribbon flares into dozens of wings, their intersections inlaid with red, probing eyes. Shepherd's blade clashes against Emma's, the pair of them taking aggressive swings only to be blocked by lightning-fast parries. The blades hold together, metal tongue to tongue, and bounce away, preparing their next strike. Emma's wings swerve and contort, and despite her massive bulk, she is deceptively hard to hit. Death: Yes, some of us do kill angels. Death's slash is near instantaneous, but, glimmering with gold and tooth and blood and hubris, Emma parries the scythe of death. It pulls down, hoping to sever the blade from her hands, but Emma swings up with all her might, and the blade leaves Death's hands. As the obsidian crescent hangs over them both, like a moon in the old, lost sky, Emma darts forwards to finish, and beneath her, the tines of Shepherd's collar cut her body open, cleaving Raguel's ribbons from around her and spilling her guts from the front to the back, propelled by her lunge. Oh. Of course. It was a very long time ago, but Emma does remember where she died. It was in the basement of a lighthouse, with someone covering her mouth. Her parents hired them, she thinks. To take care of it. It wasn't like this at all, but she remembers the tines. Or the tines are inserting themselves into her past, imprinting themselves on the moment she died. That's a small mercy, she feels. She doesn't want to remember what she was killed with the first time, especially because she thinks she knows. (Emma did a number on it. It hasn't worked right since.) No matter how the facts are fudged, there is one conclusion: Emma has been dead for a very very very long time. Death: It comes for us all. Emma spills across the floor, falling, pitifully human, into her own guts. Shepherd at least has the dignity to get out of the way, which Emma appreciates, even as she'd love to spit directly in the larger dog-girl's face. She looks around, desperately, for her partner, whose hands have left her neck and chest, but she sees only the light at the end of the tunnel. Emma: You. Death: Who else? Emma: Gave you a run for your money, at least. Death: You always have. If it makes you feel better, you were very close. Several times. Raguel? Raguel's tethers grip into fists as she twists back about herself, jaw set and squared. Death: Raguel. I'm proud of you. Raguel: You don't get to be. Death: You know why I can't just give you what you want. Raguel: No. I don't. Death: Because you're justice, and it's not fair to everyone else. Raguel: I'm not much of a justice anymore. Death: No... Raguel: Emma, I promise. It wasn't about proving a point. Emma: I know. She puts her hand on Raguel's. Emma: I promise I did my best. But I'm okay with this. It's okay. We went for longer than anyone's supposed to go. We went further than anyone's ever been. Everyone else has to be content with just one life. You gave me millions-- just for the sake of getting to live them with me. Can you do one last thing with me, and, can you not blame yourself? Can it be okay if this ends? If we don't have to kill everybody? The light from death's halo is only growing brighter by the moment. Raguel recognizes what it is, her breath unsteady. There is only one impulse in her and it is kicking her wife off the bed. She became this so she wouldn't have to deal in absolutes anymore. She became this so she could work things out. She became too human, and now she fears death. She became too human, and now, she can be selfish. She doesn't want to be. Raguel: I don't want you to die. Emma's eyes are already growing unfocused, and every organ she once claimed ownership over is pumping its contents onto the ground. She's only held on this long because death has been, for her part, an extraordinarily gracious host. She chokes back a miserable little laugh, because it makes what's left of her chest hurt. Emma: That's okay. I don't really want to die either. Her fingers on Raguel's lose the last of their grip. Raguel sees the light overhead. She had no idea what she'd do after this, anyways. Make Emma eat her, so she could fulfill her promise to herself to make her wife the last person in the world? Sit and wait for the end? They'd put up a good showing. Raged more than was frankly necessary against the dying of that light. Killed most of Raguel's neighbors, ex-lovers, friends, bosses, and even casual acquaintances. Only fair. Emma had her fun-- Raguel had always envied that only one of them got to set the past so thoroughly ablaze. It had been fun. Something, at least, to fill the time. She knew her better now, and she already knew Emma pretty well. Death: Raguel, you're stalling. Raguel comes to a sitting position, the cuts in her ribbons bloodless holes in her skin. She looks scratched out, a half-erased picture floating over reality, the creases in her shape slowly opening her to more of the background. Raguel: I've been stalling for a long time. Shepherd: Why? Raguel: Because I want more. Death: Very human motivation. Raguel: Thanks... I tried my best. What's left of her brushes Emma's cheek. Good job, team, she thinks to herself, glibly. Then, of course, it's finally time to go.

Emma, Beast of Justice: You're cheesy. Pass. Houndstooth, Beast of Sacrifice: but Emma, Beast of Justice: Pass. Raguel's wings flutter. She is always joyed when Emma's mind works in ways hers can't, simple rejection is certainly not a tool they can use on every Tom, Dick, and Beloved, but occasionally, given holy ego, it is a knife straight through the Gordion knot of rhetoric. Emma walks away with a mild indignance Raguel does not ape, because even the indignance, in its refusal, could admit to some psychosexual hangup the angel could exploit to draw them back in. Sacrifice's strategy, she guesses, could be to be a "lingering cut", to constantly draw strength from the fact every death must be a sacrifice, meaning the angel is an inextricable splinter lodged in the hand of the game they play. Emma roundly dispels all of those fears. Emma, Beast of Justice: I'm not going to fight someone if they cheat. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Oh. Go on. Emma, Beast of Justice: What we have-- the whole point of it-- is that you have to trust someone. So what if there's no advantage to me betraying you. So what if I never would-- even if I couldn't. The point is that as long as there's a difference between you and me-- I'm not an extension of you-- that I can meaningfully choose to object, if I wanted-- that's the point of the game. An idea isn't really an idea without adherents. It's nothing at all. Well, that's that. The angel of sacrifice is actually not scary, and is in fact, a hack fraud. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Fascinating. Emma, Beast of Justice: Also, the houndstooth pun, sucks. Like, sucks sucks sucks. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Do you think a robot would cross that line? Of appliance vs accomplice? Emma clears her throat. Emma, Beast of Justice: As a starting point, is the robot's algorithm non-deterministic? Raguel's wings flare straight out. Emma, Beast of Justice: You're kidding me. All I need to do is plumb your brain and repeat your first talking point off the top of your own head and you get a hard-on. Raguel, Angel of Justice: N-n-nooo... Emma manifests a wall. Slams a hand against it, trapping her poor girlfriend like a fly in the web of a spider who copied the homework off of another spider, or maybe like, the fly in this analogy, honestly, it's whatever. Our girl does a kabedon. Emma, Beast of Justice: Well, let's just say, I know all your lines. And I know what you like. What you say you like. And I might be an accomplice, but I can be your appliance. If an appliance could suck you off so good you renounced your religion. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I already renounced my religion. Emma, Beast of Justice: New religion: I'm going to convert you to shutting the fuck up. She makes extremely quick work of the rest of Raguel's logical faculties, her remaining arguments buried beneath a stream of raw pleasure as Emma sucks her within an inch of her fucking life. Emma has her whimpering against the wall and her legs around Emma's shoulders and she puts her back into using her mouth. Raguel converts all over Emma's face. [[QED.|Respite]] {(set: $flee to $flee +1)}

There is no fleeing from the passage of time. [[Fight.|Angel 0: Fight Success]]

June, Angel of Choice: When encountering a situation where no one will give, sometimes it really is best to leave. It always feels like a loss. But you can't always hold your ground-- you'll die if you do, or waste your life on petty battles. You have to know when it's best to go. It's a hard skill to learn, but it's one of the most important. Jane, Beast of Choice: Bad jobs, bad relationships, bad food. It can't all go in your mouth, you'll poison yourself. Discernment exists for a reason. June, Angel of Choice: Even if it doesn't always feel like you can do it... Jane, Beast of Choice: There's a cost to leaving. It can be a horrible cost. June, Angel of Choice: And you might still have to leave. Jane, Beast of Choice: I've bitten my own limbs off. I've bitten yours. It's what I had to do. June, Angel of Choice: We ran away together. So many times. I'm not happy with all of our decisions, but we made them, didn't we? Jane, Beast of Choice: Sometimes, there are things in this world too powerful to face head on. June, Angel of Choice: Well, if they scare you now, just know... Jane, Beast of Choice: They're already dead. What about you? Did you get away from what you were scared of? Did the distance make it make any [[more sense?|Respite]] {{(set: $flee to $flee +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)(set: $vindicated to True)}}

Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Okay. You can go. At this very moment you both realize you are undeniably doomed. In every kill you make, in every breath you steal, the angel of sacrifice is watching you. You feel it steal across you like a plague. The first symptoms are subtle, maybe, but it need not languish forever in the realm of subtlety. At night, you think you see the Houndstooth come from your ribcage, its alternating patterns devoid of all their gauche novelty. You feel a body shackled to your back-- your sister from years ago. Your brother from years ago. Yourself from just the other day. The corpse is still hanging there, no matter what you do. A thousand people's bloody bodies crunch beneath your feet on the way to the castle, that shimmering thing out of reach. No sacrifice can give you what you want. You can not stop killing people. The meat beneath your teeth turns to worn fiber, hard to cut, nigh impossible to suck nutrition from. You go through it still. Is it time to sacrifice your fingers yet. Is it time to cut off your leg. The inevitability of sacrifice numbs you entirely. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Emma. There are some ideas better than us. Something is crawling out of Emma's mouth. It is shivering in its own flesh. The sacrificed do not always stay dead. Emma's eyes slide to yours, mute and horrified. You clasp her hand tight. The thing within her tries to breathe with her lungs, with its own mouth. It gropes wildly at the air. Raguel, Angel of Justice: For what it's worth I think you did the right thing. You didn't sacrifice, Emma. You were sacrificed to. A single tear runs down her cheek. The thing pawing at the air is dying from mere exposure. It begins to choke her, slowly. She convulses, hopelessly. It can not leave her body, nor go back inside it. Emma barely struggles. She looks at Raguel for a long time, peaceful in a way that is usually foreign to Emma. She rests her head on Emma's knee. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Were you sacrificed to her? Or was she sacrificed to you? Raguel, Angel of Justice: It's my bad. I knew you wouldn't really let us go and I still chose to run. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: If she were freed, she could have been saved. She chose to die with a pure heart. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Where does that leave me? Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Were you sacrificed to her? Or was she sacrificed to you? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Don't be stupid. Of course she was sacrificed to me. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Are you sure? You've never been what you were supposed to be, ever since she's been around. You've been playing the game wrong, like me, for a very long time. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I wish I could be sacrificed to her. But that's not how it is between angels and beasts. It's always been very simple. The knife smiles in the beloved's hands. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I don't think things are always this simple. I think piercing someone defiles them, but so does taking them inside you. She pierced me. I swallowed her. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: You wanted her first, didn't you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Yes. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Really, it was everyone around her who was sacrificed to you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I hope that was my crime. I could not have wished more for everyone who has ever loved Emma to die. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: You have done an excellent job. Will you be mine, for your last moments? Will you admit the totalizing beauty of the sacrifice? Raguel, Angel of Justice: I will. Go on. She spends too long on getting it right, something Raguel, probably by Emma's influence, finds gaudy and inappropriate. She doesn't want foreplay, she doesn't want it to be coquette. She is not very interested in being put on a slab and killed at the proper time and the proper way. Beloved is not getting many more chances to do this, though, and Raguel is sympathetic to her plight. So she plays along. Eats her girlfriend while they talk over preparations. Misses her a lot. Makes sure that Beloved is the one who eats the parts which are more of the guilt than they are her, though she ascertains from Beloved's expressions that it tastes like snot. This cheers her mildly. At least Emma wasn't precious about it. Then the angel puts Raguel on the slab, pretends her father is behind her as she holds her knife on high. Raguel writhes in the right way, half animal, half maiden, dies perfectly in a spurt of blood red as her skin is white. She owes it to a better idea, a better defiler. She tries, in her silence, to apologize for taking up so much of everyone's time on [[her own inferior premise|Resurrections]] as she dies.

[[That's not true. You don't have the legs.|Angel 16: Approach]]

Raguel drops to her knees. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm s-s-sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Emma's eyes are wide as she looks between her angel and the angel. The angel steps closer, leans down in a way that twists its anatomy just out of comprehension. Blood drips from where the wires cut deep into its skin. Emma feels a misplaced twinge of sympathy. She does understand how it feels to be bound. she thinks she understands why so many of the last angels look like them. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I'm sorry. The angel tilts Raguel's head up. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I will always forgive you. An angelmoment passes. Deep in the movements of the corpse, the still-moving organ mutates, unaware that its genetic contributions will be silenced once it realizes it is no longer receiving supplies. Raguel places her head against the beloved the way she places her head against Emma, penitent. She breathes in so deeply Emma feels the air in her own nostrils. Emma stands by. It has been discussed many times that there are some things angels can only do with each other. She has at least three educated guesses about this one for Raguel-as-concept, but one very obvious one for Raguel-the-person, who has constantly expressed one sentiment to Emma, which is that she is responsible for unspeakable pain on behalf of her position, and that she would like to be forgiven. Emma looks into the beloved's eyes. The dead eyes of one ram lock on hers. She feels a bolus in her throat, sticky and solid. She gulps it down, her fur prickling, and the ram mouths something to her that she is not to tell her girlfriend. 'It doesn't matter,' says the ram. Obviously, thinks Emma, to herself. Obviously it doesn't matter. Grieving is for the living. [[No one has yet to invent a catharsis for the dead.|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local - 5)}

June, Angel of Choice: There's this tempting binary where you either give or receive. Either there's a protrusion or a hole. But the thing is, when you get down to it, it is possible for two things to become inseperable in ways where no one is leading and no one is following, no one swallowing anyone or both of you being swallowed. It's actually probably more common than everything else, but it's kind of like telling fish they live underwater. Jane, Beast of Choice: Do you remember what we wished for? June, Angel of Choice: No, I think that was before our time. Jane, Beast of Choice: I remember what we wished for. We wished to be together forever. June, Angel of Choice: That's a classic for children. Jane, Beast of Choice: This is the end of forever. Do you regret it? June, Angel of Choice: If I could do it all again... Jane, Beast of Choice: I'd want to meet so many more people. Everyone you meet teaches you something about yourself. June, Angel of Choice: I always liked it when people told us how they could tell us apart. Jane, Beast of Choice: I liked when they couldn't, and we could play tricks on them. June, Angel of Choice: When we weren't together, sometimes I could see bits of you in other people. That was one way I reminded myself what I loved about you. Jane, Beast of Choice: It was good to talk to other people about things I wasn't ready to tell you, yet. Even when things were good-- having other people around made them better. Us being together forever didn't mean we had to be around no one else, after all. What about you? Who did you like to meet? [[Did you have fun?|Respite]] {(set: $friend to $friend +1)(set:$local to $local + 5)(set: $vindicated to True)}

It is long past the time you would find kindness in the shadow of the cross. [[Fight.|Angel 0: Fight Success]]

The angel's face curves into a dreamy smile. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: Well, where's the fun in that? You do know that if I let you go, we both die? Raguel, Angel of Justice: We can find another angel. So can you. It doesn't have to be... us. That's all. The angel stumbles forwards, both its mouths grinning. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: That's the thing, Raguel. I think I want it to be you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: I was good-- I was good on your behalf-- for so long-- Emma, Beast of Justice: Man, meeting your bosses is soooooo much worse than just meeting your hookups. Emma, who has had enough of this, throws the angel by its horns. The angel shakes off the fallen body, and Emma lunges for it. Raguel, Angel of Sacrifice: Emma. She's a lot more powerful than she looks. Emma, Beast of Justice: Makes sense, because she looks like a fuckin' tool. Emma falls like a comet onto the dead goat, turning it into confetti with several messy bites. She continues to go to town on the corpse for a moment, full dog, then turns back into something slightly more fingered to pump her hands in the air. Emma, Beast of Justice: The corpse tastes like corpse! Raguel, Angel of Sacrifice: EMMA. Emma, Beast of Justice: What? This is around when she chokes, grabbing her hands to her throat, and when she staggers up, a pale, even gaze fixes Raguel's, slit goat pupils set in beaming eyes. In Emma's body, the angel bows, grinning serenely. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: You really need to leash your dog. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Believe me... she finds ways to ruin that too. Beloved spares a high, tinkling laugh Emma would call "hella gay" coming from her body, fingers pressed gently to her mouth. Tilting her head as slightly and condescendingly as possible, she continues: Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I'm guessing other angels have given you a mouthful about what you've done, epistemologically. I'm sure they've hemmed and hawed about the impossibility of turning matter into light, and claiming that light has the same nervous system and personality of the matter. I just wanted to say, before I kill you, that some of the most daring stories in the human tradition are about making humans into something besides human. You did nothing wrong by speeding the process along a little bit. Emma's body smiles in a way Emma does not smile. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: I almost wish you had killed me. You deserve the title-- I love your handiwork. Raguel's brain races through the technicalities involved in killing an angel in the body of a beast, but as Emma lunges for her, she's skewered through the back by a blade. She looks down to see Houndstooth's tacky patterning coming through her ribcage. She chokes on the withdrawing weapon, falling to her knees, and Beloved, in Emma's body, tips her head upwards. The angel kisses her on the forehead. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: If only you were as good at fighting two bodies as you were at twinning them. Raguel's mouth moves, but her voice is shot. She reaches for the face of her own beloved, in Beloved. Beloved contorts Emma's face into one of pity, then it drops into astounding indifference. As Raguel falls forwards, bleeding, onto the ground, Emma's body coughs up a small, fetal goat. She holds it in her hands. Beloved, Angel of Sacrifice: What do you think? [[One more go around?|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

[[That's not true. You don't have the guts.|Angel 16: Approach]]

The first thing that happens is that you agree to stay one night. It's an awkward dinner, one in which they know you're leaving. Raguel is extremely tense the entire time, keeps tapping her foot against the floor, audibly, and when Hekate takes Emma into the kitchen, she barely even pretends to keep conversation with Tridevi while she tries to eavesdrop. She catches nothing, of course, but it hardly matters. The next thing that happens is that in the middle of the night, Raguel hears a crash and finds Emma dead outside the window. It's a banal death, and Emma's fallen from higher. Her eagle eyes can see the way the shards have cut stigmata through Emma's vital arteries, an obscenely fortuitous placement. Foul play, she thinks, but she feels a raw shock of agony thinking that Emma, after millenia moving perfectly contained within her hands, might kill herself and leave Raguel with less than perfect knowledge why. Her breath catches somewhere in her throat and stays there. She does not realize she's bleeding until she swings around to put her hands up as the offending beast and angel rise, patently bad hosts. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Raguel. We've had our eyes on you for a very very very long time. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Any particular reason, or are you just as much of a meddler as ever? Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: You've broken a lot of rules, both in intent and in action. You brought yourself to the threshhold, Raguel. Raguel lowers her head. She puts it into her hands, sliding her fingers up to reach her eyes like she might stab them out. She shudders slightly as she does so, taking this long, awful, sagging breath. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: We know you had a hard job, but angels can't hurt angels. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Suicide's still a sin? Are you even listening to yourselves? Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: Did you help Michael? Raguel, Angel of Justice: Is that what this is about? No. I had nothing to do with Michael. You're not going to wrap this all up in the eleventh hour. You're just a machine that's still running, even though all the input you're being fed is useless. There's no way for you to process what you're getting back into the slurry you produced in life. It's over. It's all over. Get over it. Tridevi, Angel of the Threshhold: It's never over. Raguel, Angel of Justice: As long as there are holes? Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: As long as there's an inside, and an outside. Raguel grabs instinctively for her sword, but it's on the other side of her bed. A purple pane of light slices from the ceiling to the floor, cross-sectioning the space, and Raguel's arm falls off in a spray of blood. Hekate hits a second, performing a far more rushed, uneven amputation. Raguel attempts to fall back, loses her balance, hits the floor hard, peering up with gritted teeth and pure fear in her eyes. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Wait. Please. Why'd she do it. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: I told her no one could stop her from doing it. Raguel strains, bleeding, to put her hands on the bed, to crawl towards the window to see her. Hekate slams her head against the pillow. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: She doesn't want to look at you. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Please. Please. Please. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: She doesn't want to look at you, Raguel. She's dead. She's out of your hands. Raguel, Angel of Justice: We've known each other for millions of years, won't you-- Hekate's heads all swing to Tridevi. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: I'll put her in the basement. Raguel's eyes stream with tears. Hekate holds a knife over her, burning pink, and begins to cauterize the wounds. Her normal, placidly friendly expression, has completely vanished, and whatever remains is alien to Raguel, who can't comprehend the raw disgust burning in all six of her eyes. The pain, in comparison, is almost nothing. Raguel feels it, but the part of her with any investment in her continued welfare is lying on the ground outside. She feels the sweat rolling down her face-- hears herself make undignified noises-- smells the awful reek of her own burning, bleeding body-- but to the touch, it's nothing. She might as well be anything else. Hekate hauls her over a shoulder. What's left of Raguel vomits onto her, ruining her vintage top. Hekate's ears flick with displeasure, but she wordlessly brings her down the stairs, and down another set, to the larder. She pulls Raguel off of her and sets her against the wall, grabbing rope from a desk in the corner. The smell of wheat and wine and cold, cold stone assails Raguel's nostrils, competing with the intense aroma of her injury. Hekate binds her mouth first, then her wings, then the legs. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: It's worse than it looks. Raguel grimaces. Of course it is. Hekate turns back to the light. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Don't worry. You'll die when we've done what we can to set the last few days of the world to rights. What the fuck, man. Hekate turns back. That calm disposition drops again, and she kicks Raguel's body, furious, right in the stomach. All three heads grind their teeth with anger. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: This is what you get for turning her into what you turned her into, you know. Becoming an agent of chaos? Banal. Stupid. Anyone could do it. But deciding to... to... turn a person into a thing. Your singular deification of her. What's your problem? Why did you go so wrong, angel of justice? She pauses, her leg on Raguel's side. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: And the worst part is, she wouldn't agree to this until we swore on our lives we wouldn't kill you. Hekate's eyes harden. Hekate, Beast of the Threshhold: Well, you didn't turn a thinker inside-out, I'll tell you that much. The next time the universe turns around, you could always force your divine will on more of a rules lawyer, like you, couldn't you? She kicks you again, for emphasis, and the steel toes on her blood-and-vomit sprayed shoes hit true. You breathe in through your nose, through the open hole, which is freely spilling at a rate of one spider per minute. The spiders will likely do nothing to help you out of here, but if you are fortunate, they might decide to eat you. Or something. The door slams shut, leaving you in the darkness. You are reminded of a red eye in a doorway, of travelling down a flight of stairs, the candle wax on your fingers, which you rubbed together, anxious. You take a deep breath, and allow yourself to cry. There is a long death in front of you, a dishonorable one. They might not even eat your corpses-- you can not possibly be hated more than this. [[There's one comfort in all of this: you feel closer to her than ever.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

Rai stands astride the field from you, beast at her side, rippling in storm and with a set of white teeth bared. You hear a rumble of thunder in the dog's throat, candid and bone-chilling even for someone doing a good job assessing the situation. There are some animals you don't fight hand to hand, you just don't. It's not a matter of human ingenuity or strategy, you will just die. You are going to die. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Fuck. Jin leaps forwards and Emma meets her halfway. Rai flies forwards, drums striking, and each peel of noise is deafening. The pair of you do not need to be able to hear to fight in unison, but the intention is not merely to disrupt strategy. It's like fighting in heavy rain, against the rain itself. Your meat does not want to move against it. A deep and primal fear nests inside of you, every drumbeat urging you to obey. If you submit, maybe she will stop. If you submit, she may at least make it fast. Blood is coming out of your ears. You can not stop having ears. Emma, Beast of Justice: R... Rags. Raguel, Angel of Justice: Yes. Yes, Emma, what is it. Emma, Beast of Justice: I think this was a bad idea. Emma flies past you from a throw and Jin jumps, slams her downwards into the ground. The storm beast hits you from behind and lightning courses up and down your body. It's a single-hit kill-- your body refuses to respond. You aren't even able to crawl to her. She looks up at you. Then her eyes roll back. Blood pools around her head on the ground. You can feel her heartbeat stop. You can not summon the strength to move your vocal chords to yell. Jin comes to settle beside you. She dips her head. Closes her eyes. Her mouth moves. Stung by the onslaught, you can not make out the noise at all, and the images your eyes are processing move too far out of time for you to lip-read. Raguel, Angel of Justice: What... what are you doing? Jin, Beast of Noise: PRAYING. Raguel, Angel of Justice: T... to who? Their mouth continues to move, but the words have dissolved. Your eyes roll upwards in your head-- some distant lightning, behind and in front of your eyelids, strikes true and establishes in light its place in the sky-[[-|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to $global +1)}

This is a story with challenging themes that include: cannibalism, murder, suicide and suicidal ideation, abusive relationship dynamics, and fratricide, as well as graphic sexual and violent content. If you believe something should be added to this list, please contact the author. [[I understand. Let's begin.|Resurrections]] {(set: $global to 0)(set: $x to 0)}

{(set: $r to $conversations's random)(set: $conversations to $conversations - (a:$r)) (if: $angels's length is 0)[(link-goto: "One last time?", "Raguel and Emma Discuss Choice")](else:)[(link-goto: "You stop for a moment to talk.", $r)]}