She craned her stiff neck and saw one Shufen taking notes beside a cart of medical supplies, her head lolling against the flesh-colored privacy barrier.
"Y... You're awake," Shufen said, jerking to attention, her face lined with worry. "Do you remember applying to transfer to a different class after... You know?"
"How would I—" Mica stopped herself, chucked her feet over the lip of the bed and rubbed her temples. Her fingers grazed the huge piece of gauze taped to her left ear. "...I guess that makes sense," she said.
Shufen looked over her shoulder carefully, before slipping a thick postcard into the bedridden Mica's hands. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice choking. "I couldn't stop them."
Dear sister,
A warm welcome to 1-Tulip. Many condolences at the loss of your previous classmates.
As you know, Loyalty and Tradition are the pillars of the House Tian Lung. Hazing is but one of many rites much older than you and I, and believed to predate even the First Dharmayuddha. Although I would not call it a great honor, your selection was Necessary to alleviate certain Tensions within our ranks.
Name of selected party:
- Mica Malvern
Most common reasons cited:
- DESERTION (embarrassment to present party)
- Exactly 5 feet tall
By filling in this form, you help ensure the smooth carriage of Propriety.
Please put down a ? for any preferred activities in the list below, and an ? for any hard limits.
- Whipping with canes
- Painting of slurs and epithets on room, desk or personal effects (please note on the side any epithets that should NOT be used)
- Morbid or inauspicious gifts (this one was already ticked ?)
- Mild poisoning
- Chores (?)
- ...
- Being force fed a live fish
- Public masturbation
Propose a safeword:
Point of contact with any questions:
Esther Ng Junhua, 1-Tulip
Mica bolted to her feet, not realizing a blue butterfly was tucked into her wrist and wincing as an IV pole crashed into the bedside table behind her.
"I tried to tell them," Shufen sniveled. "That you saved my life. They said it was... Incidental."
"That's bullshit," Mica growled. The blood thumped in her bandaged ear. "Get this needle off of me."
"R... Right. I hope you're won't do anything rash."
The small girl stormed out of the booth in her gown, nurses and visitors instinctively parting until she saw a pair of familiar characters walking briskly in the direction of the cupola.
"President Lin!" Mica stamped her feet, not sure of what to say but wanting to see the manager of the place nevertheless.
Lin stopped and turned slowly in her kimono, like a door that hadn't been oiled in years.
"...Ah, there you are. I was just looking for some who'd seen them load the Epitaph onto the ship." She regarded Mica with a businesslike expression that belied her dark circles. "Care to join us?"
Beside her, the maid Akira curtsied with one hand, balancing a slotted gongfu tray on the other in a gruff display of 'we're not asking.'
They passed the sealed section where the engineers had plugged a gash in the hull with a stinking hillock of expanding foam. It wasn't the most proper thing to be tipping back tea on their feet, but Lin was clearly past decorum.
"Meimei... I understand your family were originally tea merchants, before the metals trade. Is there anything you recommend?"
Mica ducked her head bashfully. "Not so much tea merchants as a chain of stalls. Beneath you, of course—jiejie. Not quite gongfucha."
"No, go on. I'm curious."
Mica took a sip of the golden cup in her hands, the familiar nose of osmanthus. It was if nothing else the same style of oolong, but only one instrument in the symphony. She closed her eyes and found herself in an apron beneath the huge illuminated red ideograms of her surname, passing plastic cups into the calloused fingers of men as they huddled in the waste steam from a loitering Hardship.
The base would've been overnight-steeped Tie Guan Yin—floral, astringent and spicy—poured over a compote of bramble, Clitoria and chai masala. Fingers, swirls of purple ink lensed upwards through a white liquor and a thin cap of foamed cheese. If you were a dockworker or a miner coming off your shift in the Sagittarius Gap, everything numb and cold... Something like this would've blown your face off.
Lin smiled gently as she shouldered a tall, gilded door.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"...That's just like you, somehow."
Mica instinctively bowed as Lin guided her into the Student Council: a dusty rotunda ringed by accordion-tiers of oak benches. In the very center, that huge stone disc stood on its edge like a spun coin, covered in the same dirty tarp that had shielded it from the elements on the base crawler's back. The boffins had ground a square section away from the jade, revealing a grid of gold contacts that poured onto the instruments in ribbons of tea-colored Kapton.
"What're we looking at, Jura?" Lin clicked her heels.
"...It's like you said. The first of the Four Regalia." A bespectacled student in overalls touched a bloodied finger to the jade before a thin white halo coiled above her temples, flickering placidly. "It's emitting the parameters for the second waystation. One of the Bennies should have the jump planned in time for the Student Council. It's such a clear thread, we might as well space the rest of them before we go."
"Don't you dare joke about that." Mica scowled at her. "Fredda."
"Oh... Hi." The girl waved with a flat expression. Her eyes were drawn to Mica's ear. "...Dude, you look fucked up."
"...I take it you two have met." Lin stepped between them.
The President cleared her throat and paced the disc in circles, her fingers girded behind her back. Circumnavigating it. Her eyes traced the few portions of the jade disc not shrouded in tarp.
"Not to put too fine a point on it," she cleared her throat. "My honored parents permitted me to pursue the Succession on the condition that we reported any alterations to the Imperial Censor." She looked pointedly at Mica. "Meimei... is there a possibility that He never possessed the Network Gene?"
Mica felt her stomach turn at the question. She lowered her head and answered carefully:
"...Why are you asking me, jiejie?"
Lin frowned. "Because you saw it. The Jura here claims that she left most of her notes in the fighting. You can tell me here; as you're well aware, we're at no risk of talking to the Censor as it stands."
"I did rifle through them." Mica admitted. "And that might be true."
"...No," Fredda stopped them, turning away from her laptop. "Given that He can Elevate," she pointed up to her flickering halo, "I think this interpretation is unlikely. Rather, the Emperor may have been some kind of disgraced or fallen noble. The Houses as we know them didn't really exist before his tenure—it's even possible His 'Grace' could be a half-blood or bastard."
Lin grumbled. "Fredda, I should wash your mouth out with soap."
"Any other ideas, prez?" Fredda raised her voice angrily.
"Context. We must be missing some other secluded verses. It's known that the Censor took a chainsaw to the scripture after He became unable to speak." Lin crossed her legs over one of the benches and bowed slightly as Akira brought her a steaming cup of tea. "Well, whatever you do—it is absolutely imperative this doesn't spill to Vineta. If any of those Torches go snooping around, tell me immediately."
...That weird girl. Mica balled her fists. There was something between her and the President, wasn't there?
"Why are we even afraid of her?" she grumbled. "It seems like everyone's scared of her, but she's always alone. I heard you were her schoolmate, maybe you'd know."
"...That's right. It feels like a lifetime ago now." Lin looked up at the cupola wistfully. "I could be mistaken, since I'm not privy to Vestan matters, but look at how the older Torches act: they don't really respect her intelligence; they're just trying to ingratiate themselves to the last living child of a fairly prominent lord."
Fredda raised a finger. "Now that you mention it, didn't that family have a... minor disagreement over the inheritance a couple years back?"
Lin nodded. "Her older brother used to be first in line, yes. They say she rubbed out all the younger siblings first and then him, didn't pull any punches—something like 500,000 dead?"
"Nooo waaay." Fredda said in monotone. "Everyone in those urban centers just decided to fall over on their own. It's not like the internal bleeding from reaction lasers takes a couple days to kill you."
A chill ran down Mica's spine at their casual description of violence. But that was natural, wasn't it? It was the right of nobility to assert what was theirs.
Maybe not for the girl she'd seen walk away from the hospital just now.
Mica clicked her tongue. "...Jibai a. That can't be right. She looked like shit after she came back from the VTOL mission. How does someone like that kill even one person?"
"You tell me, meimei. We don't badmouth those Torches for nothing." Lin looked Mica up and down, her eyes drawn to the clasp of her hospital gown. "I'd suggest you change into something more appropriate if you intend to watch from the benches... unless, of course, you wanted something from me?"
Mica grimaced. The quote-unquote 'form' from her class was still burning a hole in her pocket, the scent of funerary flowers still fresh in her mind. She looked up and down the stands and made sure nobody else from her House was watching before tucking the letter into Lin's palms.
A resigned look passed over Lin's face as she skimmed over the litany.
"...Meimei a." Lin gripped her junior's shoulder adamantly. "It can't be helped. I recommend you just tolerate it—let the sky show you were faultless. You know in your heart you did nothing wrong."
Bullshit, Mica thought. But not entirely. That was the rub: they had enough of a point that the very reason she'd come here was at stake. Tears welled up in her eyes as she grasped Lin's cold fingers in hers, begging for some kind of solace. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm right.
"What does it matter what's in my heart!" Mica cried. "I came here to fix my parents' face and instead I've dragged it through the mud! I had one job, jiejie!"
Lin shook her head blankly. "None of this matters. It is possible for a just man to have no honor at all."
"That's easy enough for you to say!" Mica clenched her teeth. "Your family has had a pretty solid place at the King's Seat for centuries! Your hands might be tied now, but you didn't have to do any of this!"
"...What are you really afraid of, meimei?" Lin stared back as if Mica was having a fit of the vapors. "Do you not want to be bullied?"
"W...Well," Mica tented her fingers bashfully. She remembered the smell of dust in the unpowered section, remembered breaking her nose that day. "It would be nice to avoid it..."
The President's gaze drifted over to the hunched Fredda, where it lingered long enough to make the poor boffin squirm in her chair. 'W-What?'
"I can arrange something, meimei. But I don't know if you'll prefer it."