Storytime!
Ian and I have been doing a side thread in Magical Steampunk Gypsies detailing the first meeting of Marcus and Suvoi, seven years before the current storyline. They're both trying to steal these plans for magic suppressants from a drug megacorp, and once they've made their daring escape with the plans, they're attacked by a Crimson Hand-employed freelancer who tries to steal their hard-won spoils. They knock his ship out of the air and bring him aboard. Turns out he's just trying to save enough money to retire and find his two daughters, who he left alone in the Ratways almost ten years ago. He's a reasonably nice guy, not to mention a passable pilot and a very good shot. Everybody, meet Enderos Thorn.
Kaly takes them back to her hidey hole in the basement of a hookah bar/brothel on the Promenade, a crowded strip mall and open air market in the Ratways. Despite Suvoi's repeated insistence that they're walking into a trap, they follow the girl inside, where they find a gangly young man who introduces himself as Teris, Enderos Thorn's transgender eldest child. As the hookah brothel floods with Crimson Hand mercenaries, the Thorn family, along with Marcus and Suvoi, make a spectacular escape that involves ziplines, hookers, electrocution, and the spur-of-the-moment theft of a Crimson Hand drop tank. Marcus leaps overboard to fetch the Composer, and the Thorn children confront their father about his whereabouts for the past ten years while Kaly evades fire, wrestling with the controls. They also fill him in on their backstory, including a bad experience with a gang of hired thugs that led to Teris's guilt over his failure to protect his younger sister and his subsequent gender change. That was why Kaly broke into the research facility; to steal the hormones Teris needed to make the switch. Teris aptly sums up the narrative with, "Now she's got skills and I'm a dude." Next on the docket - a spontaneous break-in at the Crimson Hand base in order to switch out the clunky (not to mention bugged) drop tank for Thorn's personal gunship, followed by some hiding out in the Grey while things quiet down.
So there's those guys. I'm really enjoying their group dynamic, because Kaly's all serious and badass and Teris is floppy and mildly sarcastic and Thorn's just shaking his head, all world-weary, and going what have I gotten myself into. It's a good time.
And continuing with our theme of crippling guilt, I did a doodle page of younger Verdigris and little fabrant Chiara on the back of a recital program the other day.
I wrote an excerpt for this scene quite a while ago cuz I needed something that would flesh out Verdigris's backstory and personality in as few words as possible, so Chiara (Ashes's older sister) became Verdy's reason to quit the Morfstarn.
“No, Chiara, you mustn’t bite,” she said, taking the four-year-old by the
shoulders. “It will be over in just a moment.”
The girl’s teeth had grown needle-sharp since her second round of
chemical alteration, and she bared them at Verdigris now, emitting a low,
furious snarl. The heavy, curling ram’s horns on her head made her neck look
spindly, like a dandelion stem. She snapped at Verdigris’s arm, strings of
saliva flying from her teeth.
“Enough,” said Bastian, pulling on a long black glove made of thick, supple
leather. “Hold her down. I’ve seen enough.” He picked up a syringe full of a bright blue liquid that glowed with
internal luminescence. “Verdigris?
Hold her!”
But Verdigris had looked into the child’s eyes and seen the
emptiness there, the animal absence of conscious thought. Chiara was lost, and
Verdigris knew it well. They’d pushed too far. They’d broken her. She released
the girl’s arms and stepped aside, knowing that she could never take back this
choice. “No,” she said.
Chiara screamed, a high, feral howl, and sprang off the waist-high
stone table. Bastian swore and brought the syringe to bear, like a weapon, but
the tiny blonde girl’s leap carried her far enough to latch onto Bastian’s
lapels, evading the syringe. She clung to the front of his bloodstained grey
coat, snarling into his face with those awful teeth. Verdigris stood frozen
beside the table, unable to stop herself from watching as Chiara angled her
head and ripped out Bastian’s throat in one sharp yank. She rode the gurgling
corpse to the floor and landed lightly on its chest, perched on all fours,
wearing Bastian’s blood like a mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes, black
and hollow, showed no sign of recognition, though she looked Verdigris full in
the face.
Sinking down against the edge of the table, Verdigris hugged her
knees to her chest as Chiara scampered out through the open door. A scream rang
the length of the hallway, then another, then many, and Verdigris sat and
stared at the spreading pool of crimson under Bastian’s body.
Back to real things now. Oh, by the way, we had a proper blizzard here over the weekend. Like, a foot of snow overnight. And then we went romping in the Natural Lands where the snow had accumulated to our knees and there were sixteen-foot drifts just lying around. It was way too epic. We tromped around and visited the windmill and looked at the stars and got very cold and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Commander Kip
Bees?
Normal is overrated!
