Fifteen

[keaalu]

     Pabishka left her footstool fast asleep in the rumpled silks, his skinny wrists still tied to the bedposts and a silly blissed-out smile on his face. Two of her spa-girls would be along after a while to give him a bath, clean him up and get him some new clothes.

     She’d have to, ah, investigate his marital status. Such a pretty, biddable little spur was undoubtably already spoken for, but on the off chance he wasn’t… well, a medusi could never have too many husbands, and she was getting a little bored with her current three. Adding another – especially such a young, handsome one! – would shake things up and put that little frisson of excitement back into her family life.

     A glimpse of her reflection in the mirror-glass wall just past the end of the staff corridor made her smirk; her elegant makeup wasn’t quite so tidy as before, and her footstool had torn a long shred up one side of her skirt in his haste to get her clothes off her... but then, that just meant she’d turn more heads. As the old adage went, the only thing worse than having people talking about you was not having people talking about you.

     Seemed like Charm was finally beginning to understand the sentiment, too! She finally looked... well, comfortable, at least… with her little fan club. The whole polite, demure, nice look wasn’t really the look the medusi been angling for – she wanted something proud, haughty, maybe even a little arrogant, a sort of ‘I’m better than you, and I know it’ look – but this seemed to be working, oddly enough. Perhaps that was the way to take this whole thing, for now, anyway. The soft, fluffy, almost motherly attitude suited her, ah, ‘curves’. They could work on the snootier side later, once they’d finished perfecting her shape.

     “Pardon me, Mistress Pabishka?” A soft voice intruded on her thoughts. “How long before we can expect the first new models to be released?”

     “Hmm?” She glanced sideways to find one of the older spurs – she recognised him as the owner of an electricity conglomerate – watching her over the top of his glass. “Beg pardon?”

     “I said…” He took a leisurely sip of his sparkling blue floral wine. “…how long before we can expect the first release onto the market?”

     However long it takes my science team to successfully replicate her inner workings. “A little while yet. Some of her components are already microscopic, further reducing their size is proving… troublesome.” Well, it was technically true, right? Pabishka quirked a brow. “Why?”

     He dropped his gaze and actually smiled – a sort of hesitant, half-shy almost embarrassed smile. “Well, I wouldn’t mind investing a little money in the project,” he admitted. “For something so flat-faced, so… un-laima, she’s really quite pretty. Just her size that’s a problem. A little smaller, perhaps, and I’d be very happy to add her to my staff roster.” He nodded to himself. “She’d do well in public relations – polite, nicely spoken, sweet tempered...”

     “You think?”

     “Certainly.” He gave her a curious look. “You disagree? Where did you envision her working?”

     “To be honest, I’m not sure, any more.” Pabishka gazed up at her newest product and tried to see her with new eyes, from a buyer’s point of view; pretty? Charm wasn’t paying attention, her blue-eyed gaze distracted away somewhere else, and she wasn’t quite smiling... and maybe it was just the afterglow from the euphorigen Pabishka had taken, making her read things that weren’t there into her expression... but... there was something beguilingly elegant about the gentle face. Her colouring softened her outline, and the ornaments she wore made her look a fraction less bulky. A little more sprightly, even. Less heavy, and slow, and sluggish. Almost – fates preserve us – attractive.

     Eventually – after Pabishka had plucked a few arbitrary dates that sounded reasonable out of the air – the spur was satisfied with what he’d been told, bowed and took his leave. The medusi relaxed, visibly, and muttered something needlessly unpleasant at his departing back, then returned her attention to her merchandise.

     “Cha-… I mean, Celerity?”

     The big machine looked a little surprised at hearing her real name coming from her ‘owner’s lips, but quickly recovered. “Yes, ma’am?”

     “You’ve done all I need you to do for tonight. People are going to start heading away soon. Would you like to go home?” Pabishka offered.

     Concern flickered transiently but very clearly through the pale gaze. “Have-… have I upset you? I-I was trying to be-”

     “No, no, most definitely not.” Pabishka smiled, genuinely. “I’m very pleased.”

     A tiny gratified smile flickered across the odd grey lips. “I-… you are?”

     Pabishka patted her leg. “Certainly. You’ve given very good account of yourself, haven’t embarrassed me, and – much as it astounds me to think about it – seem to be, ah, becoming popular.” She smiled, and claimed the big femme’s closest hand, almost possessively. “I’ll find you an escort to get you home, dear, so you can escape before the rush when everyone else gets kicked out, and, ah, we’ll see about a little treat for such a successful evening. Good work is always paid back in kind.” She squeezed Celerity’s fingers, and gave her fingertips a little kiss. “Remember that, love. Do well, make me proud, and I’ll make sure you’re well rewarded.”

     Celerity felt her optics flush brighter, pleased and embarrassed by the compliment. “Th-thank you, ma’am.”

     Otto didn’t look quite so gleeful. The lab director never enjoyed these stupid, barely-legal functions Pabishka put on – and not just because he was a stuffy old prude, either – and couldn’t help the wrinkled lip he wore while watching the exchange between the madame and the merchandise – or should that be her prey, now?

     “You sent the machine away?” he challenged, arms folded, when Pabishka finally drifted over with a self-satisfied smirk on her lips.

     Pabishka put on her best coy look. “Of course. Better to get her out now, before it’s turned into a mad scrum for the transports. Besides.” She smiled, and fluttered her eyelashes. “I wanted to, ah, reward her. For a good job. You don’t think she deserves a little treat?”

     Otto inclined his head, one small fleeting token towards being satisfied with her performance. “All right, fair enough. She did do better, this time,” he accepted, grudgingly. “You could wait until after the meeting before rewarding her for jumping through all the right hoops, though.”

     “Pfft. Never let it be said that I’m the harsher taskmaster,” Pabishka snorted. She leaned closer to the pretty, beaded little ruta that had appeared like a ghost at her side, and murmured something in his oversized ear; he nodded, obediently, and scuttled away, tail held high like a flag. “What does it matter if she’s gone back a tiny smidgen earlier than normal?”

     Otto watched the ruta depart, and narrowed his eyes. “What did you just tell him?”

     “Why does it matter?”

     “It matters in case I have to go apologise to some dignitary or another on your behalf again.”

     “Oh Otto, you always think the worst.” Pabishka rolled her eyes. “I just told him I wanted to reward Celerity for good behaviour, and he was to do it on my behalf. No foreign dignitaries involved.”

     “It’s a machine, Pabs.” Otto levelled a glare at her, bravely using her nickname; a satisfying but all-too-transitory look of irritation flickered through her face. “It doesn’t need rewarding.”

     Pabishka forced her sweetest of sycophantic smiles, and used the best, most pseudo-psychological language she could think up, to prove to Otto she wasn’t the idiot she knew he saw her as. “She may be a machine, and not particularly imaginative, but she appears to respond to similar stimuli to biological creatures,” she explained. “If she recognises that she will be rewarded for doing a good job, she may be more inclined to behave herself. Correct? It’s like training a pet animal. Sentient and not-so-sentient beings alike respond well to positive reinforcement.”

     “I understand all that,” the manager groused, exasperated. “I want to know what you told him to do. Reward her how.”

     She fanned herself, coyly, and batted her eyelashes. “I told him to go and pleasure her,” she said, with a smirk, hiding half of her face behind her fan. “If he can find out what turns her on.”

     Now it was the manager’s turn to blanch. “What? But that-… it-… you told him to pleasure her?” he blustered, spitting outrage. “You can’t treat the merchandise like that!”

     “Happy merchandise is obedient merchandise,” she cooed, waving her fan at him and bopping him lightly on the nose. “Why shouldn’t she be allowed when you let all the rest of you, ah… ‘staff’… indulge their primitive sides with no shame? And don’t try to deny it, I’ve seen – and enjoyed watching – them do it.”

     “You can reward the thing without attempting to bonk it!”

     Pabishka kissed him on the nose and smirked. “Ottovan, dear, you’re such a prude,” she teased. “Why does it matter?”

     “Because it’s a machine!” he spluttered, backing off and straightening himself up, snootily. “It-… I mean, she… I-… whatever pseudo-gender it wants to call itself, herself, whatever, she has probably been designed and built to very exacting set of standards, to fulfil a purpose! And that’s to work! Not to… to indulge your stupid whims!”

     “Oh, pish. That she’s a machine? Indubitably. That she’s not particularly clever? I accept the point.” Pabishka levelled a very serious look at him. “That’s she’s also very much a woman, with a need to be loved and cared for, hidden under all those plates and cables?” She waved her fan, semi-threateningly. “With a need to be loved and cared for that I can use to my advantage? If you refuse to acknowledge that, then you yourself are not as astute as you like to consider.”

* * * * *
     As her evening had progressed, Wen had turned from her usual placid self into an uneasy mess of conflicting emotions. To start with, Juris had surprised her with a Very Important Question, earlier in the evening, which had left her so bubbling and excited that most of the rest of the night swept past as a blur. Glimpsing Celerity being led away early, though – it had more than taken the edge off her enthusiasm. Indeed, it left her feeling… flat. Deflated, almost, with all those probably-baseless concerns wrapping their fingers firmly around her sensibilities and squeezing the fizz out of her.

     Juris had tried valiantly to reassure her – she’ll be okay, she’s smart, I mean heck, she’s a machine, and an alien, what’s Pabs going to be able to do to her, hey? – but right now even his words weren’t having much sway. After all, his family was a noble, well-respected one, and his dam a medusi of semi-aristocratic birth, the spur probably didn’t realise just how sneaky other medusi (particularly those called Pabishka) could be. Her alien friend was so big, it was sometimes hard to remember how strangely vulnerable she was, too. Was she hurt? In trouble? Or worse, had Pabishka found some horrible new and unusual hoops to get her to jump through?

     What was perhaps most worrying was the rapidity with which Celerity was beginning to settle into her new life – too quickly, almost. As if she was not really even fighting it, any more, just letting herself believe the brainwashing Pabishka fed her. The constant insistence that she was better off here, where she was important and valued and had purpose, and that her family back home never respected her, were glad to be rid of her? Seemed to be sinking in. Wen’s earlier certainty that there was no way Pabishka’s technicians would have found a way to reprogram the big female was fading. ‘Reprogramming’ apparently didn’t require physically changing her code. Social reprogramming seemed to be working on the big mechanical female just as well as it did on the smaller biological ones.

     Wen was forced to cling to the slim hope that it was just to do with Mistress Eliška. That maybe… perhaps… hopefully? ...the big femme was just playing along with whatever the older laima was up to. She knew the senior scientist wasn’t working strictly with the best interests of Nuori-Deuchainn at heart, and the brief words they’d shared about Celerity implied that Eliška was working on trying to get her out.

     That knowledge was small consolation, right now. Seeing the giantess sent home early – at least, she hoped she’d been sent home, and not to some other “function” – had made all those straws she was grasping at strain even thinner, chilly fingers of concern wrapping around her spine and making her feathers bristle. It couldn’t possibly be a good sign.

     The Pit and compound was in darkness when she and her guard/escort finally got back, and heavy machinery was murmuring softly in the background, just audible under the quiet shufflings of the residents – perhaps a new installation? It gave Wen cause to pause and wonder why she’d not noticed it before.

     The guard acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary, if he even noticed it – just keyed open the massive door to the lift and waved her through the archway with its built-in sensors. “Need me to send any food down to you?” he offered. “I know they don’t tend to feed folk too well on these nights out. Usually just alcohol and drugs, ain’t it?”

     Wen forced a smile, feeling the unnerving prickle of a million phantom bugs over her skin as the sensor-lock checked her ident. “I’ve already eaten enough for now, thank you,” she said, quietly, declining the offer. It wasn’t strictly a lie, Juris had snagged a fancy hors d'œuvre or two for her, but her stomach gurgled awkwardly at the thought of food. “Seriously.” She forced a smile at his doubtful look. “I’m not feeling too good. Much more, and I won’t sleep.” Probably won’t sleep anyway.

     “Well, it’d be no trouble, but so long as you’re sure, miss.” The guard touched his brow, respectfully, and keyed open the lock on the cargo lift. “Sleep well.”

     Once she emerged from the tunnel from the lift at the bottom of the Pit, finally Wen realised what the new rumbling sound was – it was coming from Celerity herself. That was odd. Unusual. Not quite right either. As she’d been at great pains to explain, so no-one worried that she’d ceased functioning when she went dormant, when charging her systems and defragmenting her cortex Celerity was pretty much silent… but right now her cooling fans were whirring softly inside her, with the sultry, exotic purr of some highly-satisfied big cat.

     That gave Wen cause to hesitate – the big femme said her fans usually only kicked in when she was hot, which meant exertion, or stress. And yet Celerity was curled contentedly on her big new pad of memory foam in her own new little alcove at the base of the Pit, with her arms folded under her chin and a silly, pleased expression on her face – she certainly didn’t look that stressed.

     Wen approached cautiously. “Heyyy, girly…” She patted the sensitive area under her friend’s large eyes, trying to stir her back to wakefulness. “Wakey wakey, Lara. All ok in there? I have some news to share with you.”

     “…hmm...?” Celerity sounded half-asleep, when she finally responded – a sort of heavy, contented drowsiness.

     …contented?

     Oh, fantastic. What had Pabishka done this time...? “Lara?” Her good news was just going to have to wait until she’d got to the bottom of this little incident, Wen decided. “What’s up with you, eh?”

     Celerity finally flickered her optics and relit her lenses, and smiled a sleepy, satisfied smile at seeing who her visitor was. She freed a finger to give Wen a gentle, teasing little poke. “Nothing’s ‘up’. Is a femme not allowed to be happy?”

     Wen managed to find a smile for her from somewhere. “Of course,” she agreed. “And I’m glad you are. I was just worried when Pabishka sent you home early, that’s all.” Although her big friend sure didn’t look it, she had to ask; “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

     Thankfully, Celerity shook her head. “I had a visitor,” she explained, in that dreamy-sleepy voice, shifting herself into a seated position and letting her friend climb to her shoulder, maintaining that oddly lulling engine-noise. “Sent by Pabishka. He told me she said I did well and was due a reward for good behaviour.”

     Wen straightened a kink in her friend’s aerials, and listened as the purr stuttered and the giant gave a little noise of pleasure. Things were adding together in a way she didn’t like one tiny bit –surely she wasn’t actually meaning what it sounded like she meant? “Now now,” she half-scolded, trying to sound amused instead of deeply worried. “Rewards for good behaviour are what you give children, not smart women for enjoying themselves at a party.”

     “It was just a bit of polish,” Celerity demurred, almost defensively – so that must be what that odd, semi-sweet smell in the air was. “I’d started to look a little scruffy.”

     What had she even been doing to get scruffy? “…I hadn’t noticed.”

     “You were too busy with Juris to notice.”

     Was that a trace of hurt in the femme’s gentle voice? “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to think I was crowding you,” Wen replied, choosing her words carefully. “Besides, you had plenty of people to talk to, and I don’t very often get to see Juris. Am I not allowed to speak to my friends?”

     Celerity mumbled something unintelligible and sort-of-apologetic, then added, quietly; “that didn’t occur to me. I just… didn’t think you wanted to help me, any more.” He eyes were still dim, but it was a sombre hue, now, her gaze fixed on her hands.

     All-too-familiar a picture was beginning to come clear. “Pabishka tell you that?”

     “Not in so many words. More sort of… implied it. Left me to fill the blanks myself.”

     Wen sighed, softly. She always felt it made her as bad as Pabishka, making accusations about the woman behind her back, but reassured herself with the knowledge that unlike the laima, her accusations were usually true. “Try not to give the things she says too much importance,” she counselled, gently. “She might not be too smart when it comes to science, but she’s… wily. Very clever at persuading people to do what she wants, think how she wants. She uses these little tricks to keep doubts in your mind, because while you have doubts, you’re easier to manipulate. It’s easier to make sure she’s the only one you trust.”

     “…and you think I shouldn’t trust her at all,” Celerity observed, flatly.

     “Not even an inch.” Wen smiled, gently. “The way she’s treated you already, you need me to tell you that?”

     “But she’s been being nice to me, recently.” Celerity’s protests were feeble, though. She knew she was just making excuses for herself. “Said it-… this… it was just a little reward. Nothing else. As-… as ‘good work gets bonuses’. You know?”

     “Well, judging by the fact you’re purring, I’m guessing your visitor didn’t hurt you, at all,” Wen deadpanned, reluctantly trying to lighten the mood. “Must have been some darn good polish.”

     “I… I guess? I just… I mean, I didn’t realise,” the big female said, carefully, “that touching me there… would elicit such an, um…” Her eyes brightened in a sort of blush. “…pleasant response.”

     Perched on Celerity’s big shoulder, Wen could feel the sweet, satisfied thrumm of the femme’s engines vibrating up through her, like some vicarious thrill – low but pervasive, powerful like distant thunder. Listening to her purr and knowing why she was purring added a strange, almost erotic allure to the sound – one that instantly made her feel simultaneously nauseated, angry and guilty. Nauseated that Pabishka could even think of doing it to such an emotionally-precarious woman in the first place. Angry at the laima’s outrageous behaviour – and at herself, too, that she should be so churlish, wanting to deny her friend such a simple pleasure. And guilty, because it was such an undeniably pleasant, erotic sound to hear, and fired up her own rather neglected libido.

     A cold nauseous chill spread its fingers up her back, forcing Wen to have to work hard to disguise her dismay. She’d known the time would come, of course…! There was hardly a woman in the entire complex that the medusi had not yet marked as ‘tymin’, in that sly, inimitable way of hers, and now it seemed the big alien was on the list. Sexual conquest. You are my property. I will use you as I see fit.

     “Where’s ‘there’, sweetheart?” she wondered, anyway.

     Celerity’s hand meandered first across her chest, then hesitantly down across her abdomen, coming to rest between her legs. “I don’t even have anything there,” she commented, in that odd embarrassed-confused-pleased voice. “At least, I didn’t think I did. I’m-… not so sure, any more.”

     Wen was quiet, for a moment. “It sounds almost,” she commented, carefully, “like he had sex with you.”

     “That is silly.” Now was Celerity’s turn to scold. “I’m not engineered with that in mind. Certainly not with other species. You’re just looking for scandal, Wen, and it’s not fair.”

     “You already admitted you let him touch you wherever he wanted to, and I think you know it was more than just a bit of polishing,” Wen pointed out, gently. “And that he paid particular attention to what would be erogenous zones on a fessine. And that it made you feel… dare I say it? Aroused.”

     At first, Celerity remained quiet except for her rumbling engines – which were now pitched at less of a purr and more of a sawing growl of threat. Whether she was insulted or hurt or just embarrassed, Wen wasn’t sure. “I didn’t take you for someone interested in gossip,” she said, at last. “Do you want me to be unhappy, is that it? Am I only tolerable when I’m at a low point, when you can be sympathetic, make yourself feel better for being noble and generous?”

     Okay, so she was mostly hurt, Wen decided. “Lara… I don’t want you to be sad, and I certainly don’t want to use you to improve my mood. I just… don’t want you thinking it’s nothing, because it won’t be the last time Pabishka uses this as a way of gaining your obedience.” She stroked the stiff aerials, soothingly, and listened as the purr mellowed, again, the angry crackles fading out. “I’m just worried about you, love. I know all Pabishka’s wiles. I don’t want you getting hurt because she’s been tricking you into things you don’t really want.”

     “It’s not as if that’s really difficult,” Celerity admitted, leaning very slightly into the soothing touch. “I don’t know what I want, any more.”

     “To go home, surely. Back to your friends. Your family… your lover.” Wen smoothed one of the kinks out of the delicate silver stems. “From everything you’ve said? I bet he misses you.”

     Celerity made a little grumbly disappointed noise, and moved her head away.

     “Lara?” This dramatic flip-flop from that long-cherished dream of going home to the man she loved to a strange uneasy denial worried her. “What’s Pabishka been telling you?”

     “It-... it’s nothing she said, specifically... it’s just-...” Celerity studied her fingers.

     “It’s okay, Lara. I won’t be hurt. What did she imply?”

     “That you won’t want to be my friend when I’m not a lost cause, any more. When I’ve found my feet and can take care of myself again, you’ll drop me and find someone more important to cling to.” She gave her a shamefaced look, as though guilty for believing Pabishka’s propaganda in favour of her friend. “That you’ll say anything to keep me vulnerable, reliant on you.”

     “How is reminding you that you have a family to go home to keeping you vulnerable?” Wen struggled to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

     “I don’t know. Maybe just because it’s keeping me depressed, damping my enthusiasm. Reminding me what I can’t have. That if I can learn to forget them, I can maybe become more independent, and stronger for it.”

     “Aw, Lara.” Wen tried to give the big femme a hug. “That wasn’t my intention at all. It’s really making you that unhappy?”

     “Not that unhappy,” Celerity lied, although both knew she was lying. She lifted her big hand and scratched gently at the ruff of bristly hair-feathers at Wen’s cheek. “I’m just… starting to wonder if it’s worth holding out for a, a rescue, or a release or whatever… that might never come. Worth killing my sanity with all this wishing when it’s better just to learn to live with my new lot in life. You know?” She sighed, softly. “I just… they’ll probably have forgotten about me, anyway. I just want to know if I can be happy, here.”

     “Lara, I promise. I don’t want you to not enjoy yourself,” Wen reassured, disappointed at how she was coming across, and saddened by the way she’d single-handedly managed to kill the single good mood she’d seen the giantess ever have. “And I don’t want you to be some self-pitying, self-flagellating old misery while you’re stuck here. I just don’t want you to lose yourself, either. I don’t want to think about you being twisted into that sorry, confused parody of yourself that Pabs wants you to become, because she doesn’t care about you, just what she can get from you.” She stroked her antennae, firmly, and listened as the purr subtly picked back up. “You’re a sweet, kind, decent woman, and you not only deserve to get back home, but I’ll make sure you do.”

     Her words – perhaps thankfully, Wen later considered – were what Celerity needed to hear. At last, the large blue optics dimmed out altogether, and the purring of her fans softened as she lay back down and got herself comfortable again. Wen settled down on the mattress, sitting with her back propped against her friend’s chest; spontaneously, Celerity stretched an arm around her.

     “…that ruta who came along to see me? He sort of reminded me of Dack,” the big femme confessed, drowsily, already partway into dormancy, systems closing down. “I-I mean… not physically, of course, but… he’d got a nice voice, you know? Like him. Rich and deep and nice.”

     “And there’s you thinking they’ll just forget about you,” Wen chastised, gently. “Someone who obviously loves her family, and thinks about them all the time.”

     “We’ve not been together very long,” Celerity corrected. “I-I mean… him and me. Not as partners, anyway. We’ve worked together for a long time, but… I never dared tell him until recently.”

     “Tell him... what? That you loved him?”

     Celerity gave a single nod. “He’s a flier. He’s tall and slim and beautiful and-...” A second of hesitation. “D-doesn’t have the greatest past. Our world’s only just beginning to recover from thousands of years of civil war, and he was on the opposing side to mine. And-… he had a bit of a reputation for not liking people like me.” Her voice had gradually shrunk to a reluctant little husk.

     “You mean police officers?”

     “…non-fliers.” Another of those glum little sighs. “Thought being tied to the ground made us slow, sluggish. Stupid. Inferior. Something to be pitied.” It hurt to think about – her judicial, fair-sparked mech being so openly cold and prejudiced. “I guess… hope… it was just… propaganda. From the war. You know.”

     “Well, something obviously changed,” Wen observed, with a smile. “Maybe it was meeting you that did it. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was.”

     Celerity made a funny snorting noise through her vents, but her fans stuttered; sounded as if she was embarrassed. “I was just in the right place at the right time,” she demurred. “He’d just endured a period of sustained psychological abuse, I was just a convenient big shape to prop him up until we got him to a medic-”

     “Hey, hey, remember that discussion we had about allowing yourself to take a compliment every now and then?” Wen scolded, affectionately. “If you were just a ‘convenient big shape’, you wouldn’t still be together, and in love. Give yourself a little credit, eh?”

     Celerity mumbled something soft and barely intelligible.

     “Is that why it took you a while to tell him?” Wen wondered, gently. “His history?”

     The bigger female took a while to find her thoughts. “Partly. I mean-... I wasn’t scared, but-... I didn’t want to back him into a corner. I knew-… I mean, I thought… that he wasn’t interested, because-… well, I’m a big femme, right? Not-… not the way Pabishka means it, but I’m still bigger than most mechs, and a lot find it my size intimidating. So what with my size, and my lack of wings, and the side I’d fought for, I figured-… didn’t really have a lot going for me. A-and after all that, I just… wasn’t brave enough to say what I felt. I dropped hints, and assumed he never saw them. Ignored them, because he wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to say anything outright in case I was too forwards – unnerved him, disgusted him, made him move away.” She sighed, softly. “Being close to him as a friend but never speaking from my heart was more important than telling him, and losing him.”

     “Even though telling him could have brought you together?”

     She smiled, although it was a weak, wistful, sad little expression. “I’m not that brave,” she mumbled. “I didn’t want to lose him just because of my own selfishness.”

     “Aw, Lara.” Wen had to resist a chuckle. “How is it selfish to tell someone you love them?”

     “It is when you’re convinced they’re not interested. I was just... imposing on him. He had more important things to worry about, like his brother going missing, a-and... he didn’t need me pushing my way into his life.”

     “Well there was obviously some chemistry there or else the two of you wouldn’t be together now, eh? Come on, Lara. Sweetheart.” Wen sighed, and let her voice take a subtle stern edge. “You’ve got to stop trying to turn every good thing you do into ‘just a coincidence’. That’s how you’ll stay strong, by knowing you always have been. Not... blindly swallowing up all that propaganda Pabs is feeding you. Eh?”

     Celerity remained quiet for a second or two, and when she finally spoke up, her voice was glum. “...sounds awfully like you’re still angry with me.”

     Wen sighed and patted her aerials, tiredly. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you.” She drew a deep breath to steady her nerves. To her increasing shame, and in spite of her concern, she did kind of want to give the big female a shake for being such a gullible doormat. “It’s Pabishka who infuriates me, for what she’s doing to you right now. It’s not fair, Lara. You shouldn’t feel like you have to put up with it.”

     The two women sat together in a slightly awkward silence for a little while longer; upsetting Celerity hadn’t been Wen’s plan, but if it helped the big female retain a little perspective on Pabishka? Perhaps it was… just about forgivable. After all, for Celerity to be trying hard to forget something so deeply ingrained in her psyche, so vitally important to who she was? Worried the small female very deeply. Pabishka had succeeded at worming her way under her plating, most definitely. Like some nasty little worm, a psychological parasite. The medusi would keep on burrowing and bribing and lying until she’d won the alien’s trust and allegiance, then slowly mould the gentle, naïve soul into something she wanted. Something which would end up just as twisted as Pabishka herself was.

     At last, Celerity broke the silence. “You said you had some news?” Her voice crawled with static distortions, like a badly-tuned radio.

     Wen forced a smile through her worries, and stroked her friend’s antennae. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

     “…sure?” The big fingers clumsily petted their way down her side, gently.

     “You’re not going to be able to process it if I do tell you I’m engaged,” Wen teased, accepting the invitation and snuggling closer. “Go to sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

     Exactly as she’d predicted, Celerity didn’t respond to the tidbit. At least she was smiling, very slightly, those big lips curving subtly upwards.

     Wen sighed, and relaxed back against the broad chest, allowing the soft white noise from her friend’s air-handling system lull her to sleep. Her last conscious thought, before she finally slipped into a muddled dreamland, was that if it was a fight Pabishka wanted? A fight she was most definitely going to get.