Chapter 7: Chapter Six: Dissonant Shards can Still cut Deep

(Kairliina)

The esteemed listener is reminded that the Analogue Ruins podcast does not contain content warnings. Please stop listening immediately, and look to your own mental health if at any point you feel discomforted. No story is worth sacrificing your wellbeing.

Episode Six: Dissonant Shards Can Still Cut Deep.

(Moonsilver)

Sleep steals upon me like an assassin abseiling down to the courtyard of a sleeping citadel. My dreams are cacophonous and undeniable: I am buffeted on razor-winds among the tumult of wailing bodies, and my heart is light. I am ecstasy at the depths of the boiling blood-tide, I am riding the warmth of a moaning, needy girl in the depths of a dusty factory while somewhere nearby rifles rattle their song of the last days.

When her nails dig into my hips, when the fullness of her expands to fill me with shaft and sperm and "Yes, yes, yesssssss!", I know with sudden sharpness that unlike all the other visions, she exists outside my own mind.

Then lucidity seeps away into a vista of brown dust around jagged black rocks, where a scorching wind howls and howls and howls. A hundred suns fill the sky. The land burns, I burn, and I... I am happy here.

And I'm awake, unwilling eyes spreading apart for the light seeping through my living-room curtains. Two softly-sleeping dolls still sprawled against me.

"Well... I guess it was nice while it lasted. Pretending not to know the answer already. You know what you are. Time to act on it, dream-eater. Try not to fuck it up this time."

So I rise, unraveling my flesh and stitching it together again to disentangle without disturbing my dolls. Streamers and particulate chunks of displaced me, oozing around the contours of socketed limbs. These gentle constructs... I don't deserve them. But they're with me now. I'll have to look after them.

I wish there was someone I could appeal to for the strength I'll need to do that.

Breakfast is peace all around me and chaos inside. Haz and Showpiece are bubblier and more affectionate than ever, overjoyed as only dolls can be to have been chosen by a witch at last.

I stew quietly in guilt. I'm not really a witch, deep down. Not the kind of witch they think. Eventually I'll become what I'm become, and they'll be heartbroken. I suppose that's the fate of a doll, though, so I'll just have to try and make them happy while they're still mine.

Eventually I decide that training for three months just to get competitive makes me too afraid of what I'll miss. Death scares me. Missing out on the hedonism of this historic moment scares me more. So, motivated by a mix of wanderlust and a manic need to escape the silent spiral of my self-hatred, I gather my dolls and venture forth from Metronome House.

Red-pink skies ooze miasma over off-white edifices that keep threatening to turn see-through. Or is it that they become more reflective the more oblique an angle I look at them from? It's a fun puzzle, but it does keep leading me to lose track of our location. This is where we walk.

"Dolls, your witch is starting to suspect she's incapable of knowing how to get somewhere."

(Hazard)

"That's okay, mistress! As long as we're together, everything should work out fine!"

(Showpiece)

"We're through our first full day of service without terminating our existence. That puts us ahead of at least fifty percent of dolls."

(Moonsilver)

(Laughs)

"Oh. You're being serious."

(Showpiece)

"This one keeps forgetting you're new to witchdom. You've nailed the vibe so fast."

(Moonsilver)

"Thank you. That, uh... that helps to hear. Now if I could just figure out the vibes of navigation... oh fucking gods of death, I'm so stupid."

Extended, my hand beckons the air to split open. Split open into streamers of red, blue, and golden light. Split open into rivers of image, scent, and memory. For the most part it's gibberish, the City's innumerable essences crowding to overcome each other and emerge for a minute, or a day, or a year as nascent districts.

Wait. There. Stable sights: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre. Well, I've no interest in going to Paris, but it's a start.

"This way."

(Hazard)

"You're so cool, mistress!"

(Showpiece)

"Of course she is. She's our witch."

(Moonsilver)

My words smash apart on the rampart of my closed lips. Is this cowardice or kindness? Are those the same thing? Enough. Follow the trail.

The pathway I take brings us through a maze of fractal constructs, bismuth monoliths forming arrays like flower-blossoms. And the blossoms form the cores of upward-stretching towers, also bismuth monoliths, and as we walk the scale of those towers changes until it becomes clear they're just blossoms within even larger towers, and the cycle of visual delirium begins anew.

"I hate-love this place so much."

(Hazard)

"H-have we been here before, mistress?"

(Moonsilver)

I don't think so. Just remarking on my first impressions.

As we walk I realize that pathway we're walking upon is also a bismuth monolith and now all I can see are shifting angles and oily color-ripples and... it's strangely soothing. To lose my pinpoint sense of self in the chaotic sprawl of these shapes. I can't tell whether we pass through some sort of aperture or cross some kind of threshold.

The next time I reflect on my surroundings, we're in a madhouse reimagining of a space elevator. Branches split off, far too many, like over-rigid roots stretching to misshapen blobs and toruses and diamonds that all look vaguely like Earth's colors smeared over the wrong geometry. Our platform's hurtling down, down, down with blistering speed. Should I be worried? Is this dream logic speed or are we going to hit bottom at be reduced instantly to paste?

I'm not waiting to find out the answer. This situation makes me uncomfortable, that's reason enough to put a stop to it.

Spread your arms, let loose the unseen tendrils roiling inside you. If you can unravel matter, auras, and ideals, then you can unravel speed.

The platform rattles, shudders, throws sparks. Loose kinetic energy ripples into my form and sends flesh-strips ripping off. If the pain weren't quite so pleasurable I'd be on my knees vomiting, it feels so sickening. Standing her with quakes and snarl-groans of perverse ecstasy while silver blood splatters.

Slowly, slowly, we grind to a halt, and I begin to heal.

(Showpiece)

"Are, uh... are you okay?"

(Moonsilver)

"Well, now I'm horny again, but I want to at least get where we were trying to go before I pounce the two of you again. A celebrate fuck sounds spicy, right? Okay... just gotta..."

(Hazard)

"Uh, mistress?"

(Moonsilver)

"Yes, Haz, I see the second platform which is rapidly descending towards us, placed on this same track because fuck Moonsilver and the horse she road in on.

... I should get a horse..."

(Showpiece)

"Mistress, please focus!"

And I do, sifting auras. This time the answer comes quick: if I can unravel the streams of psychic energy under the surface-matter of creation to show me different places, and I can unravel the space between me and any space I know of... no, wait, that's not how it works. I need to have a piece of me there.

(Hazard)

"Mistress!"

(Moonsilver)

"I know, hun, I know!"

Need a way to put pieces of me there--wait! That girl, earlier, in my dream! I can't remember the location but I was there for a minute. Can't seem to reach that... but maybe... here! This sandy expanse, these carved stones!

The whistling, almost wailing hum of the second platform's descent is louder than sin. Seconds left. See myself standing there, feel the hot grains under foot, unravel the all-fabric between me and my vision--a bubblegum-pink tear in reality splits open. I tackle my dolls through and only my feet are smashed to pulp between the colliding platforms.

I lie there, pouting in annoyance while mangled flesh and fractured black-metal bones ooze back together and again become a shapely pair of feet.

"Can I get one clean win? Can Moonsilver be cool for one whole minute without the universe finding a way to piss in her eardrums?"

(Hazard)

"Th-this one thought that was really cool. It still thinks you're really cool, mistress."

(Moonsilver)

"Thank you, Haz. I appreciate. Okay..."

The landscape around us looks for all the world like an AI-generated recreation of the Valley of Kings, or something similar to that. The general outlines of the sandstone temples around us are solid, but the shapes look like frozen ooze and paintings made three-dimensional. Etchings blur drunkenly between hieroglyphics and some kind of script.

"This isn't going to cut it. If we enter Earth from this region we'll end up somewhere outside the Nile River Valley, or maybe in the Middle East. I don't speak any relevant languages for those regions, and while I'm sure we could find somebody who speaks English eventually, I really don't want to risk a language barrier on top of how obviously not-human the three of us are."

Once I finish dusting myself off, I lead the way further on. My whole head's starting to itch and my extremities grow numb, colder and colder. I'm pushing my limit of aura-sifting for the moment. How long will it take me to recover, anyway? I'm so new to this. So many answers and no more experienced practitioner to lean on.

When I find auras of forests and ordered Americana, I pursue them right away. We pass through another rift onto a shady avenue, and I know we're on the right track.

Three things stand out to me: one, it's an intersection. Two, each road has a pattern of intensifying environment. The road we're on leads to surreal recreations of urban high-rises, tenements and skyscrapers fused as though some strange kind of singularity pulled them together and melted them into one big building-blob. The avenue crossing it leads to increasingly quaint homes with boats in the driveway and docks stretching perpendicular to the ground where jetskis hang on chains.

Thing three: there are columns of soldiers in uniforms that make me deeply uncomfortable, jogging along beside tanks and weird armored things that look sort of like trucks but with tank tracks for the back two thirds of the vehicle. They're pushing up the Americana avenue perpendicular to the way we want to go.

And given how many smashed jaws, burned-off faces, exposed spinal columns and gutted torsos I see, I'm pretty sure these are either ghosts or the undead. Every vehicle bears the emblem of a black shield with its broken pieces connected by violet fire. The flames above the shield take the shape of a skull's leering eyes and empty nasal pit. At the bottom of the insignia, the crossed impressions of a sword with a crossguard and a broad curving blade, and a curve-bladed spear whose shapes don't quite look like Earthly craftsmanship.

While I'm studying this and deciding which part of fight-or-flight to act on, a figure in an elaborate cap and big overcoat marches up to us and inclines his head. The whole right side of his face is exposed bone and sharp-tipped sigils. Green fire fills the fleshless socket, creating translucent shapes of wrinkled flesh and a peering neon pupil.

My dolls take sheltered behind me, peering out around either shoulder, which puts me in a more confrontational mood than I already was.

(Oberst Koch)

"Good morning, Lady Witch! I apologize for the inconvenience. I am Oberst Wilber Koch, 2nd Armored Regiment of the Shattered Shield Division. We keep seeming to run into people trying to pass across our line of march. Moment mal--have we not encountered each other before? I believe you passed through our ranks in that rather whimsical hotel hallway, didn't you?

(Moonsilver)

"Look, I'm no history buff, but I have a memory. Please explain to me why you're using Nazi tanks."

(Oberst Koch)

"Familiarity. And please do not call the tanks Nazis. They are sensitive creatures not responsible for the deeds of the men who operated them, and this is a very poor time to cause them to breakdown. You can call me a Nazi. That's justified."

(Moonsilver)

"I'm about to call you shredded meat."

(Oberst Koch)

"Understood and well-deserved. I will not resist."

(Beat)

(Moonsilver)

"Alright, were you actually a Nazi or did you just fight in the German Army during World War Two?"

(Oberst Koch)

"With all respect, ma'am, there's no distinction. Since you ask, I was Wehrmacht, regular army, but I'd prefer not to run through the Clean Wehrmacht Myth and the table analogy unless we really must. Whether I was a loyalist to the Nazi Part in a direct sense--and I confess I cannot remember--is immaterial. I fought and died fulfilling the strategies of the Third Reich, therefore, I am a Nazi. Now, my men and I are urgently needed at the front. So if you are going to destroy me, I ask only that you do so immediately."

(Moonsilver)

"Not so fast. Whose front?"

(Leutnant Koch)

"Our commanders, much as they will claim otherwise from trauma, are clean of the guilt which stains myself and my command. So, again with all respect, I must refuse to answer. I will not betray their trust."

(Moonsilver)

"Right."

Retreat behind your eyes, witch. You are the depths of the sea. If words avail nothing, stir the currents in the abyss and see what you churn up. Standing silent across from the phantasmagorical pillar of a ghost-soldier who froze to death one starving night in Stalingrad, become these chill-knife tendrils creeping out over the dead. Drink your fill. Let power glean what speech cannot.

Sifting, and sifting, and sifting. I can find no hatred among these dead. Regret, yes. An endless, crushing, eternal regret. They flee from it and they carry it with them. Do they march to atonement or a final damnation?

The dead march. This is. They wear their own sins openly in the spectral auras of sickly yellow-green hanging above their helms. Villages torched, civilians slaughtered. In life many of these men preached the gospel of Aryan primacy. In death their own words echo back at them. Annihilation's there if it becomes too much. The waiting escape. They could give up at any time.

And what then? The battles they would have fought will be fought by the living instead. People will die who should live, people who are, as the Leutnant intones, clean of such guilt as his. An irony: to do better by others, we often have to be better to ourselves, whether we deserve to be punished or not.

Now then, witch. Emerge from the depths of yourself, and render your verdict.

"I've decided to let your unit pass unmolested. Do not make me regret this, dead man. I promise you that I can, in fact, do worse to you than you're already doing to yourselves."

(Leutnant Koch)

"Understood, ma'am, and thank you."

His salute is brisk, simple, and irrationally reassuring: closed fingers to his brow, elbow bent out in the military standard. He about-faces as briskly as when he first approached, takes a slightly-superhuman leap to the top of a passing tank's turret, and waves to us one last time as the steel beast trundles slowly towards the lands of the living.

(Moonsilver)

"Strange to say, I never realized how slow these old tanks are."

(Hazard)

"That's actually kind of fast for a King Tiger. And I think it's driving slower than it could? The way it's moving looks smoother than the real--I mean, the human-world versions."

(Showpiece)

"Yeah, the transmission's not screaming in continual agony either."

(Moonsilver)

"Why am I not surprised that you two are full of tank facts?"

Whatever banter we might've shared over that, it's lost in the landing of a small winged form just a few feet from me.

"Hannah! Hi, wow, didn't expect to see you today. I'd have thought you, Carrie, and that other succubus... what's it, Marian?... would've been off to Earth."

(Hannah)

"I'd thought so too, but I haven't heard from them since the Wall! I've been following these ghost-soldiers because, well, I just wanted to know what they're up to... hey. Moonsilver. (Sharpens tone.) How do you know about the other succubus?"

(Moonsilver)

"I... oh gods, I don't know. I think I just pulled that information from nowhere?... oh, wow. Merovingia's really not popular."

(Hannah)

"She's unpopular with a small number of unhappy people."

(Moonsilver)

"Every aura I'm drinking--"

(Hannah)

"You what?"

You are reading story Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted at novel35.com

(Moonsilver)

"--feels like... like a dream I can't quite remember. If I could just go back to last night..." (Sigh) "Okay. Hannah. I've fought this as long as I could. And under ideal circumstances I'd want to tease it out for another few months, maybe a full year of nice indulgent slow-burn. But let's be frank, it's never been subtle. I mean, I-I've started having surreal dreams, I'm pretty sure I materialized somewhere to have sex with a trans girl I've never met, and... uh..."

(Sighs)

I turn to my dolls.

"Hazard. Showpiece. I'm so sorry. I'm not a witch, okay? I'm a succubus cosplaying as a witch to avoid dealing with herself. I can't lie to the two of you anymore."

(Showpiece)

"You know you can be a demon and a witch, right?"

(Hazard)

"Yeah!"

(Moonsilver)

"... what?"

(Showpiece)

"You don't have to pick one! Who says you have to pick one?"

(Moonsilver)

"You... you don't feel like I've lied to you? Used you? Tricked you into throwing your service away under false pretenses?"

(Hazard)

"Mistress, this one loves you. So please keep that in mind when it says that in the day we've known each other so far, you have spent almost all of your time being horny, and basically none of your time scheming. This one feels like she knew already."

(Hannah)

"I really don't think any of us are subtle, Moonsilver. To tell you the truth, I think I knew it from the second you and Carrie got into it about succubi back at Westhavelland. It was like there was this part of you that you couldn't allow anyone to know existed. I've seen that kind of bottling-up before. It's, um... I used to do it too."

(Moonsilver)

"Oh. Is that why you've been so forgiving?"

(Hannah)

"Partly. Partly, I had a hunch you weren't in the same boat as girls like Morrigu. She was cocky, you know? Self-assured like someone who's never been beat down. You always came across as... armored. And partly? Partly, I just don't want to spend my life tallying rights and wrongs, keeping track of who owes me what recompense. Eternity's too long for it. Like... Amaranth... we're going to see whole civilizations rise and fall. We get to have everything.

Out here? It's pretty easy to forgive what you did."

(Moonsilver)

"Thank you."

This unheralded yearning in my belly... it's not lust. I'm not aroused, yet I do feel a desire for closeness with Hannah.

"Um... I don't want to spoil the moment, but... I picked up some really unpleasant things about... Merovingia?"

(Hannah)

"You should stop drinking that knowledge. Just because it's out in the ether doesn't mean she wanted it to be, y'know?"

(Moonsilver)

"Oh. That's fair... I'm sorry."

(Hannah)

"It's okay. Instincts get the better of us sometimes. And look, I don't expect you to like Mero when you meet her. Just... give her a chance, okay? Same as I've given you? She's been through a lot, same as the rest of us."

(Moonsilver)

"Okay. I will. I promise."

(Beat)

"So... uh... I've embraced myself. I'm not feeling any dissonance. Moonsilver the succubus, here she is. So..."

The skin under my fingers is smooth, unbroken by horns. No tail emerges at the seam of my spine below the small of my back, and no wings sprout behind my shoulders.

"So, shouldn't I have a true form?"

(Hannah)

"Do you know what you want it to look like?"

(Moonsilver)

"Oh. I guess I hadn't thought about that yet, no."

(Hannah)

"Mero tells me that lots of succubi change into a kind of generic form first. Basically just a reflexive body based around the first things they think of when they think 'succubus.' I can feel you mean it when you say that you're one of us, and shapeshifting... shapeshifting is a second kind of breathing to a succubus. You don't even think about it, you just become what you want."

(Moonsilver)

"I think maybe that's the problem. I think I want that moment to be something big."

(Hannah)

"Yeah, it can be like that. If that's what you want, then you have to be patient with yourself. Acting against your true desires will poison your heart. Doing that is what turns our kind..."

(Moonsilver)

"Cruel, manipulative and murderous?"

(Hannah)

"Yeah."

(Moonsilver)

The conversation's corpse decays in the slow seconds between us. My dolls busy themselves tidying up hallucinatory litter from the sidewalks of this dimension that'll probably cease to exist the millisecond we leave it behind.

(Hannah)

"So... should I call you Amaranth or Moonsilver?"

(Moonsilver)

"I think... Amaranth isn't an untrue name. That's a human way to frame things, and... we both know how well I handle human frameworks. But it's... it's true in the sense that a succubus is still herself when she's not wearing her favorite forms, when she's disguised, because her desire to pass safely among unfriendly beings is also true to her. Trading dominance for safety isn't a failure for... for our kind?"

(Hannah)

"So, as a sister succubus, I should call you Moonsilver?"

(Moonsilver)

"Yeah. A sister succubus..."

(Hannah)

"Okay! So, Moonsilver--where'd you get a gun?"

(Moonsilver)

"Oh, fuck, I forgot I had this thing! Uh, it's a long story. Tried to fight a hunter to save a vampire, got my ass kicked, but a cute human trans man bailed me out and hey, on that note, is it normal to fall in love with people instantly?"

(Hannah)

"For succubi? Yeah, I think so. It's our blessing and our curse."

(Moonsilver)

"Be gentle, my love, for my heart is a fortress without gates or sentries. Step softly. I will yet be strong for you."

(Hannah)

"Yeah, exactly!!! So, do you know how to use that? The gun?"

(Moonsilver)

"Oh, please tell me you can teach me! I know exactly enough about guns to know that it is not as simple as point-and-shoot and I don't want to knock my eye out with the recoil or, like, piss this quasi-sentient gun off enough that it betrays me like the Ring betrayed Isildur."

(Hannah)

"The Lord of the Rings? Oh, cinders... Moonsilver, you're such a dork."

(Moonsilver)

"Yeah, I, uh... yeah."

(Hannah)

"It's cute."

New discovery: succubi are not resistant to other succubi. Succubi are incredibly weak to other succubi. I have never before been turned on so fast that I feel like I'm going to evaporate.

(Moonsilver, sounding strangled)

"Thank you... so... about the g-gun?"

How can I put into words the sheer sensuality of the next few hours? How can I express what it feels like to have Hannah press against my back, to feel her arms wrap gently around mine, to feel her breath on my ear as she murmurs little corrections about stance, breathing, and of course, finger placement?

Since I have no spare rounds at the moment, she teaches me to reload with the bullets that are already in the cylinder. She locates the safety and shows it to me. Her claws trace tickling trails on the backs of my hands as she guides me to the ejection rod and the action, running me through the rhythms of inserting one shining bullet at a time. We close the cylinder together.

And then...

(Hannah)

"Squeeze, don't pull. There's a good girl."

I have never been praised. I've been called inspiring, driven, beautiful, powerful. My mother has said a million empty words about how much potential I have and how glorious I could be. But I have never been praised.

Until today, with the soft warm breaths of a sister-succubus caressing my ear.

The recoil is an afterthought. I barely care about the puff of dust rising well to the right of my chosen target, a tacky impressionist lawn-ornament combining a gnome, a rooster, and ceramic daffodils.

Somehow, this will be the most shameless thing I've ever said:

(Moonsilver)

"Would you hold on to me for just a few shots more? Until I get the hang of it?"

(Hannah)

"My pleasure."

(Moonsilver)

It's quiet, just a kind breeze ruffling the pseudo-leaves of the delirium-trees lining the avenue. Somewhere far away at the end of the now-empty road, the manifestation of a lake glitters in the sunlight of a sun I can't see anywhere in the sky. This could be a dream. We could be a dream.

And Hannah holds me, sharing in every elated breath and shudder of ballistic-born force down my arms, until a minute and six more shots have passed.

(Hannah)

"Sorry, Moonsilver, would you open the cylinder for me? I wanna see something."

(Moonsilver)

I thumb the release and hold the revolver so Hannah can get a look. She peers at the stamped brass circle of each casing.

(Hannah)

"Hey... that's weird... you fired seven shots. There are only six bullets here, which, I mean, standard, but seven shots, and none of these have striker marks. Go ahead and close that up, just keep shooting for a while."

(Moonsilver)

And I do, emptying shot after shot. My aim gradually gets better. The revolver has excellent sights, or so Hannah's told me, nice and easy to read, and soon I only need a few seconds to reacquire after a miss or switch targets after a hit.

Nine shots. Twelve. Fifteen. Up and up and up. At thirty, Hannah pats my shoulder.

(Hannah)

"I think that'll do. Your hunter-gun has infinite ammo."

(Moonsilver)

"Huh. I guess it does."

(Hannah)

"We can figure out why that is later. For now, we should get moving. Earth shouldn't be too far off, and since we've met up, we might as well go together--"

(Tandra)

"I hope the two of you are quite satisfied with the racket you've made."

(Moonsilver)

A familiar phantasm of ragged black cloth and a long-outdated gown stands behind us, folded hands lost in the depths of frilly sleeves.

"Oh. Hi, Tandra. Hanna, this is Tandra, another witch of Metronome House. Tandra, this is Hannah, a fellow succubus. With much better manners than you."

(Tandra)

"There's no point in being well-mannered. Anyone at all could've follow the thunder of that wretched contraption."

(Carrie)

"Yes. Anyone at all."

(Moonsilver)

My senses draw my eyes, first, to the kin among the newcomers: a tall succubus in a purple gown with folded-steel skin and serpentine-slit eyes glowing with green blazes. Four horns like mace-flanges branching out from her head with the angling of antlers, a mane of jade fire for her hair and a trail of it running down her back to ignite the glowing double-edged spearhead at the tip of her massive dragon-like tail. And four huge wings, of course, the upper pair even bigger.

And beside her?

The thought flickers through my mind that I knew this moment was coming, really. It's been inevitable since the night two years ago when I knocked us all from our orbits. I didn't expect it to be so soon, but here we are: a shapely blond woman with lips as darkly red as pooling blood, big blue eyes in a pale delicate face, and an elegant black gown.

"Ah. It's been a while. Hello, Carrie."

You can find story with these keywords: Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted, Read Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted, Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted novel, Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted book, Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted story, Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted full, Analogue Ruins of a Girl I Once Gutted Latest Chapter