Otter woke up with a sore back, a sore hip, and feeling the kind of sticky you only feel after some really messy sex. She was still riding that tired bliss, and thought there was no better feeling in the world, and how absolutely nothing could wreck it.

  And then Sunny started squealing in terror.

  Otter’s eyes shot open to the soft beginnings of daylight and the sight of Rua holding Sunny upside down by one foot. Unfortunately for Sunny, she was a little bit taller than Rua, and it wasn’t doing her any favours as her head bumped along the ground as Rua carried her in a purposely march towards the ocean.

  “Mama!” Sunny cried. “Mama, no, I promise I won’t do it again!”

  Rua made no response other than to quicken her stride.

  Otter rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She was going to have to get involved. Take a side. On one hand, Sunny hadn’t really done anything wrong. Peaking was wrong, but she was kind of stuck in a situation where she knew what exactly was going on since it was also happening in her head. Naturally, she’d be curious. And Otter did kind of owe her one after pitching that evil piece of metal from Sunny’s Vexurian that had a piece of her old mind in it.

  On the other, Rua wasn’t that sexually experienced. She probably felt embarrassed. And she was Otter’s girlfriend. And Otter had said she’d hold Sunny’s legs when the time came to throw her into the ocean. And Otter liked the idea of continuing to have sex with her girlfriend.

  Groaning, Otter stood up and chased after them.

  Apparently ‘throwing an unruly child into the nearest rge body of water’ wasn’t just a joke to Rua, it was a time-honoured tradition in the Siyan Isnds. It doubled as both a discipline method and a way to teach them how to swim and do it well, a skill considered nearly as important as walking.

  Or that was how Rua expined it as Otter helped her carrying the desperately thrashing Sunny to the beach before the two of them pitched her into it.

  Sunny let out a shriek as she hit the water, which seemed melodramatic even to Otter, seeing as both she and Rua had to get about waist deep in the cold ocean before they considered it deep enough to throw her safely.

  There was a lot of filing and sputtering from Sunny, and Rua watched the entire situation with a casual smirk on her face.

  “So… we good?” Otter asked. “We’re not gonna mess with her anymore, are we?”

  Rua gave her a ft look. “I was thinking of throwing you in next.”

  “What’d I do?”

  “My ass is killing me, that’s what you did.”

  “Yeah, I might’ve overdone it a bit. I’ll quit it with the spanking in the future.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Oh ho, so you did like it.”

  Rua blushed and looked away. “Maybe. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”

  Sunny paddled over to them until she was close enough she could settle her feet on the ground. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” Rua asked ftly.

  She looked away. “For spying.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t do anything else!”

  “Good. But that’s not what I meant.”

  Sunny’s eyes widened in panic, and she looked between the two of them, Rua, arms crossed and expression stern, and Otter, who wanted to just let her off already. She knew what Rua wanted. She’d had to apologize enough times for her various misdeeds over the years. She mouthed the answer at Sunny, who caught it.

  “And I won’t do it again,” she said.

  Rua cocked her head before nodding. Good thing they didn’t have actual children. That lie detection ability would make anyone younger and dumber’s life a nightmare.

  “Good,” she said after a moment’s pause. “Next. Your eyes. You’re Criobani.”

  “I can’t do anything about that,” Sunny said in a small voice.

  “Actually, you can. You’re a Fleshcrafter.”

  “Lifecrafter.”

  “So you’re apparently even more powerful than one of the most powerful Pact titles out there. Which is another problem for another day. Doesn’t matter. But you should be able to change the colour of your eyes.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Well, better figure it out quickly, or it’s back into the deep end.”

  Sunny shot Otter a look pleading for help, and Rua gave a disapproving frown. Otter held up her hands defensively.

  “Don’t either of you look at me, I’m not taking sides.”

  “She needs to figure out how to do this before we get into the city,” Rua said.

  “Well, can she at least do it on shore? It’s cold.”

  “This isn’t cold, you should see how it feels where it gets deep. And she needs to get used to this if she’s going to pretend to be Siyan. You’re going to need to get used to this, too.”

  “Can’t we just be nd-loving Siyans? Or travel away from the Isnds? This pce seems to suck. Racism, soo-meng, the threat of a tropical summer…”

  “It’s my home.”

  “Yeah, a home that treats you like crap, from everything you’ve told me.”

  “Still home.”

  “You’re lucky you’re hot, I would not put up with this from a less attractive girlfriend.”

  Rua gave a small smile, but then refocused back on Sunny. “Those eyes are still looking green.”

  “I can’t figure it out,” she said in a weak voice.

  “Just… change the pigment.”

  “Oh, right,” Otter said. “This, I know. Blue eyes don’t actually have blue pigment in them. The colour you’re seeing is just light refracting off a lens and… Right, you guys don’t do my world’s science. I don’t know how your powers work, Sunny, but there’s this substance called menin in the front lens of your eyes. Just… move it out. Or change it.”

  Sunny squeezed her eyes shut, her whole face scrunched up in a way that made her look younger than her physical body suggested. A stark reminder that just because her body was mature, and she had the combined memories of two people in their twenties, didn’t necessarily mean that she herself was an adult.

  She made a frustrated noise, and began to practically vibrate in pce, which might’ve just been her shivering from the cold. Otter was definitely beginning to feel it herself.

  “Ding!” Sunny shouted, and opened her eyes.

  “Ding?” Otter asked with a touch of amusement.

  “I think I did it.”

  Rua stepped forward, grabbing Sunny’s head with both hands, forcing one eye as far open as she could manage. She inspected it carefully and grunted.

  “They’re not blue.”

  “What?” Sunny asked.

  Otter stepped in and gave it her own less intrusive investigation. “Gold, looks like. Kind of pretty. But definitely not blue.”

  “Well, Criobani don’t have gold eyes, so I’m good, right?”

  Rua sighed. “It’s good enough, I suppose. The hair’s a problem. No one has hair that colour or texture on the Isnds.”

  “She’s not changing her hair,” Otter said, shielding Sunny away from Rua. “Not unless she wants to.”

  “If mama says I have to–”

  “No, that’s not how this works. You’re imprinted on her, there’s no getting around that, but you still make your own decisions. She’s not the boss of you.”

  “She’s the boss of you.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s my girlfriend, that’s different.”

  “Oh. Right.” Sunny fidgeted in the water. “Can we go back to shore now?”

  They turned back, heading back to the retive warmth of nd. While the three cloaks Otter had conjured up te that night weren’t exactly clean after being slept on in the dirt, they were dry and served well as improvised towels.

  “I still think she should change her hair,” Rua grumbled.

  Otter gave Rua a light elbow. “Tell you what. You can comb that tangled mess for her and be as merciless as possible, then see if she wants to change it.”

  Sunny’s hands went to her hair, and Rua got a deadly gleam in her eye that was only sharpened when she pulled her brush from her belongings.

  Sunny pouted the entire ordeal at Otter, who couldn’t keep from ughing at the poor girl’s plight. While she did feel a little bad, the important thing for the moment was that Rua was enjoying herself. Otter could feel Rua’s anxiety through their link, and for the moment, she would do anything she could to help lessen the burden. She suspected Sunny was putting on a simir show.

  When the whole ordeal was over, they all got dressed and readied themselves for the final leg of their journey.

  “Bother,” Rua said, and then went fishing through her belongings before producing an eyepatch.

  “Where’d that come from?” Otter asked.

  “I’ve always had it,” she said in a tone Otter wasn’t sure how to describe other than ‘guarded.’

  “Is that to…?”

  “Disguise the fact that I’m a half-breed, despite everyone knowing? Yes. It’s considered… rude to walk about with my green eye exposed.”

  “Oh fuck that,” Otter growled, grabbing it from Rua’s hand.

  “I need that,” she said in a panicked tone.

  “Sunny, does she need it?”

  Sunny looked between them, looking like a deer caught between a wolf and a bear. She gave Rua an apologetic smile. “No.”

  “Noted.”

  The eyepatch was simple cloth. One quick yank, and the band snapped. She threw the remains into their smouldering firepit.

  “Great,” Rua said, her voice numb. “First time back in a year, and this is the impression I’m going to make.”

  “That you don’t give a flying fuck about their stupid shit?” Otter said. Huh. She was angry. That didn’t happen often. “Literally anyone says anything about it, any snide remark, I will… I don’t know what I’ll do. But no one talks shit about my girlfriend, not without repercussions.”

  “I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “I’m not protecting you,” Otter growled. “You can do that just fine on your own. I’m fucking avenging you when you’re being too dumb to protect yourself.”

  “They’re going to eat you alive,” Rua said with a disbelieving shake of her head.

  “Babe, little dove, strawberry milk tit of my life, I absolutely swear to you… if anyone’s getting eaten, it’s going to be you, by me, and I will be doing it with a smile on my face. If you don’t want me fighting your battles for you, then you better start fighting them yourself.”

  Rua looked down at the eyepatch smouldering in the fire. It wasn’t exactly burning alight, but it was hardly salvageable.

  “Fine,” she said.

  They broke camp, and headed out. The journey wasn’t that far, maybe an hour’s walk away before the unmistakable garbage smell of a port city began to assault Otter’s nose. She pretended not to notice only for Rua’s sake, who had spent the time telling Otter how wonderful Ri Oa was, with houses grown from coral lumber, people who were fierce and brave, and traditions that proved them culturally superior to the rest of the Isnds.

  The walls surrounding the city were a riot of colours formed of bright blues, pinks, yellows, reds, and oranges. Coral could grow quite fast and rge in the area surrounding the Isnds, and the Isnders used it for construction and decoration, only using timber when they wanted to be ‘cheap.’

  Apparently most of the houses inside the city would be simple wood, but would be highlighted with coral for spshes of colour. Only the very rich had houses constructed entirely from the stuff. When Otter asked Rua if one such house was hers, she got a proud look to her, but changed the subject.

  “I’ve been working on a cover story.”

  “Why do I need a cover story?”

  “You both do.”

  “Of course we do.”

  “It’s simple. You and Sunny are sisters. When the Criobani invaded the Isnds, your family fled with you to the Jiridion Belt. When they were driven off, they tried to return, but you were shipwrecked on Ashborne’s isnd during a freak storm. You were stuck there for years – you’re uncertain how many, better to be vague to avoid facts that can be scrutinized over – using the cabin for shelter and surviving off the nd.”

  “Okay, but why do we need a cover story?”

  “Because you’re penoa,” Rua said, as if that expined everything.

  “Mama, she doesn’t know,” Sunny said.

  “She… right. I forget sometimes she doesn’t know basic things.” Rua sighed. “We can’t have you running around saying you’re from another world. And the fact that you’re penoa is going to get out fairly quickly. Suffice to say… when the Criobani invaded, one of the things they did was… there was a genocide. Around eighty percent of the penoa were killed by a disease the Criobani unleashed. It only affected them. They did it deliberately.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “They have odd ideas about what’s… natural.”

  “Your world is just as fucked up as mine, I see. Wait, is this why you’ve been hinting about me enjoying the Isnds? You’re not expecting me to fuck my way across the pce and help repopute your people?”

  Rua arched an eyebrow at her. “Is that really going to be a problem for you?”

  “I mean, no, but I’m not down for anonymous sex. I might be poly, but I have standards.”

  “We’ll work on that. But it’s whatever you’re comfortable with. It’s seen as a duty for penoa, but no one forces the issue. When we first drove the Criobani off, there were talks of breeding camps before that quickly got quashed.”

  “Fucking Jua,” Sunny muttered.

  “None of that talk when we get into the city,” Rua said.

  “What happened to the men?” Otter asked. “They not pulling their weight or something?”

  “Men are an anomaly in the Isnds,” Sunny said. “Only maybe five percent of babies are boys. Twenty-five are penoa. The rest are women.”

  “And that’d be why polyamory developed so readily in your society,” Otter said.

  “No, ‘polyamory’ as you call it came to be because it makes sense,” Rua said. “The other countries are the weird ones. One partner? For your entire life? Madness. Except Nguaria. We think they have simir practices.”

  “Think?”

  Rua shrugged. “No one goes there and comes back, and Nguarians rarely go out into the world, so it’s anyone’s guess. But the one time I saw a Nguarian, she had two women with her that she was definitely romantic with.”

  “Well, if my life as a breeder in the Siyan Isnds ever starts to look stale, we can always head there next.”

  Finally they reached the gate. Two guards stood at the entrance, and there was a loose line queued up which they joined. Of the two guards, one was a short, dark woman in leathers, the other a tall, pale one, with blonde hair and a full suit of steel armor.

  “We’re not skipping to the front?” Otter asked. “You’re a princess, or council seat or whatever. Doesn’t that bump you to the front of the line?”

  Rua shrugged. “I’m in no hurry.”

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  The wait wasn’t particurly long, and the guards stood at attention as soon as they realized exactly who Rua was. They were polite, cordial, and made the process of getting into the city as painless as possible. Right up until they began to walk away.

  One of the two guards, the short woman, spat at their feet as they walked by. Rua ignored it, but Otter balled up her fist.

  Sunny beat her to it.

  Sunny wasn’t built for strength, at least not on the surface. And while Otter wasn’t exactly sure what her stats were – she was going to have to ask about that – the fist that Sunny unched sent the guard’s head rocking to the side and blood and teeth flying from her mouth.

  “That’s Seat Hyleah you just disrespected, and the Burden of Shadows,” Sunny growled. “And my mama.”

  The other guard shifted her spear, as if unsure on whether or not she should use it. Rua for her part just sighed.

  “I apologize for her behaviour,” she said, and then turned and walked off.

  Sunny and Otter followed up on the rear, both of them barely suppressing giggles.

  “Bastard Seat of Hyleah,” the injured guard called after them. “Burden of the Siyan Isnds!”

  Otter spun on her heel, summoning a Thread of the Scourge. The golden wire shed out, catching the downed guard by the arm and looping about in a knot, and she tugged as hard as she could. The guard, already woozy from the head trauma, didn’t offer any resistance as she was yanked forward and directly into Otter’s own fist.

  She didn’t do as much damage as Sunny, but the woman was once again knocked from her feet, more blood spshing the dirt road leading into the city. The guard tried to rise, but Otter stomped one foot down on her sternum to hold her in pce.

  They were starting to collect onlookers, people both intently focused on the violence around them while simultaneously trying to appear small.

  “Rua Hyleah is off-limits to your prejudice from now on,” Otter said as loudly as she could. “Spread the word. Or I start turning people into fucking pinatas.”

  The guard underneath her struggled, saying something that came out as a gurgle and not entirely intelligible, but was likely some kind of insult.

  So, Otter fulfilled her promise. She made an example.

  The other end of her wire looped up to a support beam for a house nearby, and the woman was suspended from her arm. She gave a sharp cry and hissed out pain from her lips, as if that was the worst she was to receive.

  Otter wasn’t particurly brutal about what came next, but she wanted to leave a sharp reminder to the people at rge so she wouldn’t have to do this again. Sunny held the woman’s legs to prevent kicking while Otter got to work. Five punches to the ribs while the woman hung there was all she got, even if part of Otter wanted to do more. She wasn’t normally so quick to anger, but the whole situation just pissed her off.

  “In case anyone needs to know what a fucking pinata is,” Otter yelled, and then gestured to the guard, “that is a pinata. Next volunteer pinata gets beat until candy comes out.”

  Otter stormed off, Sunny following her like an angry shadow.

  “Are you pleased with yourselves?” Rua asked.

  “No,” they both answered, echoing off one another.

  “You can’t fight everyone.”

  Otter shook her head. “For you, I can certainly try.”

  DorenWinslowe