THE EDITED PHERES LOG (third times a charm)

[refiningspacetime]

=> PHERES: Abscond.

=> FLEETBOUND POST. [refiningSpacetime - FIN]
=> MARDUK: Call your guide. [FIN]
=> RICCIN: Retrieve the damsel in distress. [FIN]
=> HINNOM: Lead him home. [FIN]
=> FLEETBOUND POST. [activatingAggro- FIN]
=> SIPARA: Fetch your dumb moirail. [FIN]
=> PHERES: Wake up. [FIN]
 

SUMMARY: Taking drinks from strangers is generally a bad idea. Pheres needs to be picked up from a party, but life is hard when your moirail is out of town and all of your friends are terrible. Luckily, there's always Fleetbound!

WARNINGS: None! Except for Pheres being thoroughly depressing in Lead him home.

THIS HAS BEEN FINALLY EDITED. For like the third time. Due to POV-switching shenanigans, you may occasionally encounter weird shifts / incorrect verb pluralisation at points that I missed in switching from 3rd person to 2nd person POV. Sorry! :c

For the most part, though, typoes should be fixed and continuity is now more accurate!

ALSO:  Follow the story through the links above to ensure you're reading the correct, edited threads, please and thank youu

Comments

[obstructedantiquity]

If it was anyone else, then you'd just fucking leave them. The sun is up and that means it's entirely too damn late to be up, and besides that, the punchline to this sort of self-made disaster tends to be hilarious as fuck: the way that kids always come into Carnival limping after a long day of festivities, their faces burnt black and horns peeling like a testament to their own stupidity, is one of the main highlights of service.

But it's Pheres, your favorite hatepal's moirail, and these days, chances to fuck with Sipara are few and far between. The closer you get to Ascension, the more you're chained to Shepherd's crook like a beast in her herds. And even when Sipara deigns to be around - because she can't just sit her ass down, like a normal fucking troll - she's playing hard-to-get.

You've tried near everything, and she still acts like none of the shit you sling can even reach her.

It stopped being infuriating sweeps ago, and now it's just fucking awful. You know her buttons better than yours, but no matter how much you push, she just doesn't give a fuck.

But if there's one thing you know about your nubby-horned pitchpal, it's that the only thing she hates more than the Carnival is people fucking with her quadrants. Culling the last rustblood she was courting didn't do shit but send her squalling to Myrrha, so that's right out. But helping this new one...

Well, the way that Sipara's going to get her bulge in a knot over the idea of a Mirthful saving her moirail while her chump ass is indisposed is too delicious to pass by. Even though the sun is bright and your skin feels like peeling just thinking about it, the warm, vindictive satisfaction of knowing this'll get her attention is what finally gets you out the door.

The heat of the day hangs heavy on your shoulders as you make your way to the coordinates Pheres sent you, but lucky for you, the sunlight can't permeate the oiled cotton of the suncloak. It's expensive enough that it better: the only reason your hiveblock entrance even lets you out during the day is that you blew half a sweep's allowance on it.

(Messiahs forbid Imperial property get a fucking sunburn. You'd think that the medicullers were your lusus, for all the wicked shit they wax on about health and safety. But whatever: not like you've got shit else to spend it on.)

Everyone with the slightest bit of thoughtink in their pan is inside, asleep or trying, and so the only sound outside is the familiar contempt of Liyiji's pre-recorded voice, rasping through your speakers as he reads off directions: cross the street. Follow the block on straight. Go left. The only people outdoors are a bunch of worthless panrots: a few uncovered greenbloods, their skin damp with perspiration, two bluebloods huddled under a shared suncloak, a rust ducked awkwardly into the shadow of their lusus, their skin already reddening in the light. The city is quiet as a churchmouse, and with none of the usual sounds of voices and violence echoing through the streets, it makes the walk - meant to be a quick jaunt, no more than twenty or thirty minutes - feels like it's taking forever.

You're just considering turning around and going home when the green spire of the communal hivestem comes into view.

It's not as shitty as you'd expected, when Myrrha said Pheres was at some partyhive. Sure, the coords were located firmly in the algaeblood's series of lawnrings, but you pictured something real fucking low: saffrons and high yellows, olives that only just barely qualify. How else would a rustblood get into the party?

But while the surface of the hive is by no means new, it's durable, the skin of the fleshwalls mottled and light in places where the chrysalis looks renewed. All the ports have their glass tinted midblood dark, and the front stoop actually has an awning. It's nothing compared to your hiveblock - Church-owned and maintained by a steady flock of drones - but it's definitely green.

And a high fucking green to boot. The walls aren't even lathered in olive paint: it's all jade and teal, the sort of midbloods that're brushing toes with acceptability. Weird as fuck that he managed to score a way in, but maybe that's just what a big rack gets you.

(If he came in anon, you're fucking leaving.)

There's a muddy shape on the front stoop, a long splash of languid monochrome against the hive's green stonework. It's hard to tell at first if it's a troll or trash - but then the sun shifts and the lump shifts with it, a careful sprawl that keeps them under the awning's shade, and there's no mistaking the curly orange horns, or the flash of white at the tops.

You should probably holler, make sure he knows you're here. But you're kind of curious as to how wasted he is, so you walk up, careful and quiet as if you were coming up for Carnival's tithe, and you let your shadow fall over him instead.

It'll be interesting to see how long it'll take him to notice.