This Work Is Part Of A Series (The Messenger Archive Book 2)

by DC Bastien

  [Ashroe: Maybe not... never. Just that... I like the will-they-won't-they. And then you've got all the fans happily jerking off onto their word processors at home.]

  [Sianor: Hm.]

  [Ashroe: You disagree?]

  [Sianor: No. It's just... when you're young, you want the Happily Ever After. Now? Now... I guess I want the Complicatedly On And On.]

  [Ashroe: Yes! Precisely. Life doesn't slam shut when you find your Prince or Princess Charming. You then have to meet the in-laws. You have to negotiate who does the dishes. You realise they snore, and they bite their fingernails, and they like the house hotter than you do.]

  [Sianor: And therein lies drama or comedy, more so than romance?]

  [Ashroe: The mundane can still be interesting. You just have to frame it right.]

  [Sianor: I'm tempted to write something, now. Something long-term established relationship. Where they've done the romance stuff, and now it's bickering.]

  [Ashroe: For our boys, there probably wouldn't be much difference. They're already well domesticated.]

  [Sianor: True. They do have years of history together, after all. I bet if they went to the Academy together that they shared rooms at least some of the time, did all the cranky housemate things then.]

  [Ashroe: Urge to write adorable back story rising.]

  [Sianor: Same here, but... maybe not for this? I think I like keeping it in sneaky comments.]

  [Ashroe: Yes, and don't forget they ultimately broke up. So if they did hook up when they were younger (also possible) then writing the split would be soul-destroying.]

  [Sianor: It hurts just thinking about it.]

  [Ashroe: Do you know why he left? I mean, obviously something happened. Has he told you what?]

  [Sianor: No. He keeps it close to his chest. I get flashes of things, like repressed memories. Little details. Little triggers. But never the whole story.]

  [Ashroe: Interesting. Ithon also isn't talking about it, but I bet the Judge knows, too.]

  [Sianor: That man knows everything!]

  [Ashroe: It's why we keep putting him on the bus.]

  [Sianor: You mean, keeping him off to one side?]

  [Ashroe: He's game-breaking. Like the uber-powerful wizard. You need to make things challenging, or else it destroys the story.]

  [Sianor: Not to mention having a large cast is challenging. I've never had such an ensemble before.]

  [Ashroe: I've had to resort to spreadsheets in the past. Especially if there's lots of them around a table, so you know who is sitting next to whom.]

  [Sianor: I feel for the creators. Balancing screen-time for all of them must be hard. They have timing constraints that we don't.]

  [Ashroe: Writing for television is a completely different kettle of fish. I think I'd find it hardest to know what my run-time would be. Imagining how long a scene would take on the screen.]

  [Sianor: I think I could do a screenplay, but I prefer novel-type. I like the climbing up in the head parts. When it's just dialogue, body-language and camera-angles it's harder to get subtle things across. Which is why we all end up dissecting hour-long episodes for weeks or months at a time.]

  [Ashroe: Yes, but you can still hint at things. You can put in really subtle visual clues, like having a prop visible in all scenes, or some scenes. Mind you, those often go unseen.]

  [Sianor: Except by the obsessive-compulsive.]

  [Ashroe: You say that like it's a bad thing.]

  [Sianor: It isn't. It's... dedicated.]

  [Sianor: I also freeze frame check things to make sure I get details right.]

  [Sianor: And look on endless wikis.]

  [Ashroe: So you should.]

  [Sianor: Why can't I get a job writing fanfic or knowing minutiae of TV shows?]

  [Ashroe: Well, you could try.]

  [Sianor: I just feel that my life would be more enriched if I could get paid for doing something I was a) good at and b) enjoyed.]

  [Ashroe: Well... write. Didn't you say you had an idea for something original?]

  [Sianor: Yeah, but it sucked.]

  [Ashroe: What was it about?]

  [Sianor: Time-travel. But time-travel is super hard to get right. And then there's all the paradoxes.]

  [Ashroe: So work on it. Buy a notebook. Use different coloured pens. String.]

  [Sianor: I would look a bit nuts if I opened up a book in public and had bits of string dangling from it.]

  [Ashroe: So what? People wear ridiculous shoes and skirts and let their children scream and curse. A bit of string isn't going to end the world.]

  [Sianor: I'll... think about it.]

  [Ashroe: You can always brainstorm with me, you know.]

  [Sianor: Thanks :) Part of the problem is... I don't even know my characters' genders!]

  [Ashroe: Hmm. Why not?]

  [Sianor: They say it doesn't matter. They say I shouldn't think of them any differently depending on their reproductive organs.]

  [Ashroe: Sounds rather progressive and feminist to me.]

  [Sianor: Sounds freaking weird, is what it sounds. Sometimes I get the strangest of ideas, and I don't think they'd come across well, but they just... stick inside my head.]

  [Ashroe: Like a record repeating. Oh, sorry. Old-timer analogy.]

  [Sianor: I still understand the concept. Although I'm not one of these hipsters. I like being able to download a track I buy almost instantly.]

  [Ashroe: Gah, I remember going to the supermarket and listening on the headphones at snippets of tracks, trying to decide what to spend your hard-won pennies on.]

  [Sianor: Do you have records?]

  [Ashroe: Oh, god, no. A bit before my time. I remember older relatives having them, but I've been tape and CD all the way. At least until you could buy mp3s. Now I don't see the point in cluttering up my house with things I'm just going to rip to the laptop anyway.]

  [Sianor: I owned some CDs. I would - I admit - download things back before you could buy them so easily. Not because I wanted to destroy the industry...]

  [Ashroe: They took a long time to catch up to customers' needs. I don't think piracy is the way to go, but yeah... I'll grab a show after it's aired. I need to, if I want to keep up. And they don't provide me a legal way to keep up to date with America.]

  [Sianor: But you'd pay for it?]

  [Ashroe: Hell, yes! I buy them on DVD anyway when they come out. Not because I want the physical goods, or because I want the extras, but because I want to bump up their popularity and sales. I just... I just wish they'd realise that other countries exist.]

  [Sianor: I guess it's licensing rights.]

  [Ashroe: I'm not educated enough to understand, but probably. Hey, maybe you could go into that business. Barter and negotiate contracts so I can see my shows on the same day or the day after you do?]

  [Sianor: Wow, that would be cool. I just don't think I have the cut-throat nature to be a salesperson.]

  [Ashroe: I had a brief stint in a shop. I hated it. It was okay for the camaraderie, but when your boss is pushing you to finalise a sale... ugh. I hate pushy salespeople trying to sell to me, so I really don't want to be that person.]

  [Sianor: What were you selling?]

  [Ashroe: Candles. I mean, there were other things, but mostly candles. People buy them in the droves. It must be a really lucrative business.]

  [Sianor: Really?]

  [Ashroe: Female friend, birthday, leaving, Christmas, pregnant, not sure what to buy? Candle.]

  [Sianor: No one's ever bought me one.]

  [Ashroe: I think when you hit a certain, invisible wall, it turns into candles for girls and ties and socks for men. I'd rather have chocolates, because I'm particular about scents. If it's a nice one, sure, but when do I ever burn them? I'll tell you: never.]

  [Sianor: Maybe you should.]

  [Ashroe: Possibly they are, in fact, insurance against the coming apocalypse, the post-nuclear dystopia where fossil fuels and nuclear power is all gone, and we either sleep at night or burn Long Wa
lk On A Foggy October Night.]

  [Sianor: What would that even smell like?]

  [Ashroe: I don't know, mostly of fucking candle wax. Although it would smell completely different from Lazy Night Swinging On The Porch. We don't even have swings on our porches! We don't even have porches!]

  [Sianor: How many candles do you have?]

  [Ashroe: Too many. If I lit them all, then I would probably accidentally summon Satan. Or the elder god of beeswax and Sea Frets.]

  [Sianor: I'm laughing so much it hurts now. Is the elder god all dripping and portentous?]

  [Ashroe: You bet. He makes squelching noises when he walks, and you can never get it out of the carpet.]

  [Sianor: Do you buy candles for people?]

  [Ashroe: Sometimes, but ironically.]

  [Sianor: Uh-huh.]

  [Ashroe: Well, I figure they buy it for me because they like them, and so they'll enjoy them.]

  [Sianor: What if they think the same thing?]

  [Ashroe: I think I just died inside.]

  [Sianor: Oops?]

  [Ashroe: Sometimes I wonder if I should just wrap them up and give them to someone else, but then I wouldn't know who gave me what, and I'm sure to have some relative or co-worker who memorises these things and goes 'Oh, I got you that one, too, did you like it?' And then I will go bright red and say yes and get more.]

  [Sianor: Maybe you need to stage a candle revolution.]

  [Ashroe: And single-handedly undermine the whole social convention? But what useless and vaguely feminine gift will we get for one another then? Scented tampons?]

  [Sianor: STOP IT!]

  [Ashroe: It would have to be vagina-safe scent. And seriously, what would that even be good for? You're going to smell of girl either way, and if anyone is going close to it when you're on the rag... they'll probably get kicked in the head and deserve whatever they can smell.]

  [Sianor: How about... uh... books?]

  [Ashroe: You're assuming people read.]

  [Sianor: People read! Right?]

  [Ashroe: Some people. And I think it's hard to buy a book for someone else, especially if they don't share your own taste. I wouldn't know what romance or historical drama book to buy for someone else. And if I went for a popular one, chances are high they'd already read it.]

  [Sianor: So... candles will remain the female currency?]

  [Ashroe: Until we can find some other translatable and inoffensive gift, I think we're stuck with them. Morning Regrets Following A Night Of Fun On Crushed Satin Sheets.]

  [Sianor: You made that one up.]

  [Ashroe: Oh, but did I?]

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Mission: Incarceration

  Noises. Rough noises. Noises that dragged like rusty metal over a jagged surface, screeching and groaning and tearing at themselves. The kind of noise that caught in the back of your throat when you breathed them in, that scratched down your throat and made you gag, that swirled in your belly and made you want to vomit. The thought made her curl up, tighter, her insides heaving, but there was nothing to come out.

  It was dark. Dark, or her eyes weren't working. Probably dark. Saidhe blinked into the air, and tried to move. Her head was splitting, and it felt strange and sharp-tingly, but when she tried to raise a hand to see why, she realised that they were cuffed behind her. She was lying on one arm, which had gone numb from the position, and her feet were chained up, too. There seemed to be some slack, though, and she struggled until she was sitting upright, legs straight out before her, arms still meeting in the small of her back.

  "Saidhe? Are you alright?"

  "Y-yeah," she croaked, past a larynx that no longer wanted to work. Her lips were cracked and dry, so she ran her tongue over them. "How long was I out?"

  "A few hours," Loap said. His normally staid voice was a touch higher than usual. "We're on a ship. I think we broke orbit almost instantly."

  "Great." Her eyes were slowly acclimatising to the dark, now, and she could make out the edges of the room. Three walls, and a barred front of the cell. The cuffs and manacles were chained through a post, giving her a limited range of movement. Sadly she wasn't limber enough to slide her wrists under her feet, so the best she could do was shuffle backwards until she could sit propped up against the wall.

  "They must not be planning to keep us here for long," Loap thought aloud.

  "How can you tell?"

  "There's no facilities. No... ablutions, or food, or water."

  "Well, they could just be planning on starving us, and making us foul our cells," she groused. "Hose us off when the smell gets too bad."

  "I am choosing not to believe that."

  "I don't blame you." A sigh, and she looked to the hook the chains passed through, but it was too high up the wall for her to reach and unscrew. If it would even give. She couldn't climb up with her arms behind her back, and the metal links looked heavy and unforgiving. The join was a heavy lock, the mechanism hidden to prevent picking. It looked... pretty damn secure.

  "They were all Sianar. There were more of them. I don't know if anyone else was hurt, but there was a bit of an... uproar. When we were taken. There was a fire-fight."

  "Oh, god. I hope no one died."

  "One of the Sianar was wounded. She was carried in by two others. I did not see any injured Roq. It... it was all over very quickly, and then we were put in here."

  "Are you tied up?"

  "Yes. And I cannot free myself, I have checked."

  "Me either. And my head hurts."

  "You were bleeding quite badly when they brought us aboard. Are you... alright?"

  "It's hard to tell. I'm too tied up to feel for the damage. It hurts, and I feel kind of dizzy, but... other than that?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "Why?"

  "For getting you into this mess."

  "Loap, how do you reckon this is your fault?" She couldn't see him, but she still turned towards his voice, squinting into the darkness, willing him to hear the expression on her face. "You're not responsible for this."

  "Aren't I? We were with my people..."

  "Yes. Who we accidentally endangered, it seems."

  "...yes."

  "I didn't mean that in a: 'it's all your fault the Roq were in danger' way. I mean it in a... look. They agreed to take us in. Don't you think they'd want to offer shelter from Sianar oppression? Even if it meant risking their own safety? Isn't that what you'd do?"

  "Yes," he admitted, still reluctantly. "But I lost my temper, and I let my guard down."

  "You didn't smack my head into the wall, that brute did that. You tried to protect me, like I tried to protect you. Let's just call it quits, okay? And focus on finding a way out of here."

  "Alright," he agreed.

  "What do we know?"

  "Not much. I listened when they brought us here, but they said very little. I think they were trying to keep us as in the dark - metaphorically as well as literally - as possible."

  "Has anyone come to see us since we got here? Asked anything?"

  "No. It's been utterly silent. Only the noises of the ship."

  "Could you identify anything by listening?"

  "We sat in a Whale-line for a while, and then I assume we hitched on. I tried to keep a track of time, but it was difficult. I don't know how long we've been flying for, so we could be anywhere."

  "Well... when we de-couple from the Whale we can try to time then to landing, and we'll know how far away we are from the migration paths."

  "Unless they have one under their control, like the Bankers did."

  Oh. Shit. Saidhe had forgotten that. "Uhm. Yes."

  "I am sorry. I realise I am... being pessimistic. It is just..." He sighed, heavily. "Nothing."

  "Hale Loap, we might well die on this ship, or wherever we're going. If you don't want to talk to me now..."

  "It's just... I wanted to believe things were different. I did. I thought that, maybe, we could finally move beyond our issues. I'm the last true Hale, the
zenith of zeniths. When I pass, there will be no more offshoots of my genetic history. I'm the end. The terminus."

  "And you think this means that there's no hope?"

  "Not that there is no hope, just that... either it will take longer than I feared, or it might not happen at all."

  "Now listen to me," she said, turning into her Older Sister mode. "The actions of a few are not the actions of a whole damn race. So these guys are idiots. Does that mean all Sianar are? You yourself saw Roq attack Kre. Hell, one of them shot you. Does that mean all Roq are evil?"

  "No! It's... it's not that simple."

  "Isn't it? You can't judge a whole people based on the actions of a few. You can't judge the Sianar by Kre, and you can't judge them by these brutes. You judge everyone as you find them."

  "...yes, Saidhe."

  "I'm serious."

  "I know you are. I... appreciate it. I suppose it is just the stress causing my outlook to dim."

  "Because you're such a positive little trooper, normally," she snarked. Because he was anything but. "It's going to be okay. It is."

  "If you insist."

  "I do."

  The silence after that was a little on the uncomfortable side.

  ***

  [Sianor: Tell me. You have seen. The episode.]

  [Ashroe: I have.]

  [Sianor: And? I want your opinion before I say anything.]

  [Ashroe: No fair! Wait, how about we both write our things, then say: 3-2-1 and post simultaneously?]