chapter four because I have no self control
They put me in a soft bed.
Likely, it was the best they could offer, though feathers poked through the bedcovers, and everything stunk of lavender.
Priests came, and servants, and the body’s mother. All of them smelled bad. What use were the bedcurtains draping from the ceiling on ropes, if anyone could push past them to access me at their ease?
The mother covered graying hair in a white cowl. Atop this, she balanced a crown, spiked, and bloody with rubies. To duck through my curtains, she lowered this crown at me like a rutting deer.
“My boy was always weak,” she whispered, on one of these visits. Her wrinkled hand lowered to stroke at my cheek. If I shut my eyes, I could pretend it was Silicon-29.
The smell of armpits and lavender ruined it. At the second brush of her fingers, I rolled to face away. “So, you put me in an infirm body, with full intent.”
One refreshing aspect of this: no subterfuge required. They’d laid out their dead prince on the altar, praying for the Goddess of Resurrection to use him as a vessel. Very rarely did this work. From the history they spewed at me, I gathered it to be a once-a-century event. These ‘princes from another world’ paid key roles in their warfare – which made their offering of this body absurd!
I sat up with a huff, crunching feathers, and pushed back my stiff, embroidered covers – and why was everything embroidered! They’d dressed me in a tunic that, to their credit, flowed like water. No complaints about its silkiness. But these weedy white arms made Axel Gauthier look like a titan. Only my occasional squat over a bedpan (into which I released both types of waste materials) convinced me this was the body of man, and not a doll. In contrast to the stinking apes that attended to me, this body didn’t even generate a smell; plunging my nose into my armpit brought only the faint whiff of lavender.
“I’m going to be sick,” I muttered, after one too many sniffs.
For the remainder of that day, only servants bothered me. I stared at nothing until darkness fell, and my horrible human brain produced horrible human dreams. In my sleep, I sat in the Gauthier dining room. Silicon-29, at the head of the table, stirred his bowl of cornflakes, and gave instructions on how to stage the invasion.
Only, I couldn’t make out his words. Then I realized; he’d morphed into the squat, stripe-shelled noble from our last planet. And no matter how passionately he clacked his mouth-parts and spurted his chemicals, I couldn’t comprehend him.
“Please,” I said, leaning across my own breakfast. “Just tell me what to do!”
But he never did. I woke with water leaking from both eyes.
After a flavourless breakfast of spoon-fed broth, the priest I’d vomited on had the bright idea to bring a mirror. He swept back my bed curtains, issuing sunlight. After tying up the curtains, and ignoring how I hissed and covered my eyes, he trotted over to offer a hand mirror, gesturing and smiling. I matched his wordlessness, and snatched it.
Peering in the fogged, convex glass, I tilted my chin this way and that. “It’s like looking into the back of a spoon.”
The face that twisted about in mimicry of mine had strange eyes. Hopping from the bed, I ignored the priest’s huff of surprise, and moved to the grated window. Under a diamond-patterned wash of light, I continued my examination. The eyes were a dove-grey brimmed in red. White eyelashes overhung them. The eyebrows looked nearly transparent, while the hair floated in white waves, nearly too bright look at. This face wasn’t as young as I’d feared, but adulthood had failed to broaden its jaw, or texture its skin.
I tapped at glass as though I could change the image. “He looks like a pretty little flower.”
“Yes!” the priest agreed – a touch too heartily. A glance back confirmed that he was showing off those rotten teeth again.
“Ye–” He caught himself mid nod. Evidently, he’d expected something different. “Prince Edelgard’s beauty was a source of pride for our kingdom.”
“I’m assuming his eyesight was not a source of pride. Or his physical feats. Or. . . oh never mind.” Suddenly annoyed by the mirror in my hands, I thrust it at the priest. As he took it, his papery fingers brushed mine, and I suppressed a hiss.
What would Silicon-29 say? Something stern but warm, about how I’d wanted to be prince, and besides which, I couldn’t expect to be a 9-foot death machine on every plant.
No. I couldn’t be anything else, ever again.
Breath, Protactinium. Deep breaths, now. Panic tingled down my spine, but I kept my gasping to a minimum.
To grow, and consume, and spread. That was our life. But now, they’d locked me into a body that could only decay.
“Did he at least have anything for his eyes?” I asked the priest.
“His eyes! He’s lacking melanin.”
The priest’s mouth wormed around, before settling on the same word: “Pardon?”
“Albinism! It’s a congenital disorder. Where are my eyeglasses? Oh.” My gaze fell to the mirror in his hand. “What am I saying. You can’t even make reflective glass properly. And here I am, thinking you’re able to correct astigmatism.” I ended with a laugh that the priest could join in on, if he wanted. He declined to.
The priest left shortly after – to my relief, as he still carried the acid whiff of vomit. Daily bathing, it seemed, was not the norm.
Alone, I paced the small room. I tried to sit on a garishly painted chest, but leapt up as it creaked. Opposite me, a tapestry dominated a wall, overwhelming with its reds and greens. I half-expected it to shift like the mosaics as I stepped closer, but it remained static. A set of armoured knights charged on stallions. Quasi-men met them with bared teeth, all sporting sections of a human body. Some had serpent tails instead of legs, while others sprouted horns above twisted features. The figure that most caught my attention reared near the back, flaring eight chitinous legs, and holding a spear to be thrown. He was half man, and half spider. I ran a hand along the threads, tracing his corded arms, and shiny black abdomen. What a vastly superior body!
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Ahh!” I spun to see a woman in the room. Instinctively, I reached for memories to identify her, directing tentacles I no longer possessed.
The lack of any response sickened me.
She stepped closer, and I realized why I hadn’t heard her enter. Her movements were soundless, with a warrior’s discipline of form. “You really don’t know me. Do you?”
She peered through hooded eyes that turned up at the corners, like a cat’s. Axel would’ve buckled his knees, felled by the pout of her lips, and the cling of her red gown, but my body had the good sense to remain unaffected.
Scooting past, I crawled back into my bed and deposited myself on the pillows. “The Goddess of the Resurrection didn’t see fit to provide me with his memories.” I then pulled up my blanket and waited for her to leave.
Stone screeched as she dragged a chair to my bedside. Absurdly, a finger poked at my back. “We’re on day two of you lying here, being spoon fed. Aren’t you embarrassed?”
I heard a deep inhalation. “Edelgard–”
“Not my name. I’m not pretending to be him, yes? My name is Proc –” I choked. Despite it no longer mattering, old instincts caught me about the throat.
“Prock?” She frowned. “That’s hardly a suitable name. You really won’t go by Edelgard?” My silence served as her answer. “Then why not something sensible, like Proculo?”
That seemed an easy out. “Sure.”
“Alright. Prince Proculo.” She smiled with such a shyness that I found myself smiling back. Perhaps it was lucky of me, to have already found an ally.
“You’re right. I need to get up.” I threw back the covers, bouncing off the bed. “I suppose I’ll need to leave this room eventually. Show me around?”
There wasn’t much purpose to a tour, or to my life in general, but my muscles twitched in need of motion.
The woman gasped so loudly that I glanced at her in alarm. She had hands clasped beneath her chin, and moist eyes. “I’d be so happy to. Yes.”
Squinting, I memorized this expression, so that I could pair it with ‘happiness’ in the future. Her red-gold hair made for near-translucent eyebrows, but otherwise, she twisted all the muscles of her face in blessedly readable dramatics.
At the door, I hesitated. “Sleep clothes are no different from day clothes. Yes?”
The woman scrunched her brow. Having risen, she now towered over me. “Sleep clothes?”
No wonder everyone smelled. “Never mind.” Still, I stood at the doorway. In this room, my poor vision could easily be overcome. Outside, in the world of blurs and shadows, I’d be helpless.
“I’ll lead the way,” said the woman, brushing past me. Her breast grazed my shoulder – something that seemed deliberate. “Since I’m the guide, and all.”
My flood of relief almost shamed me. Indecision had knotted my shoulders, the frantic need to plot, but to what end! Now, everything loosened. I could simply follow her.
Our footsteps clapped against the stone. Torches flickered along the walls, but did little to displace the cold dampness. “My name is Florine,” she said, after a time. “Since you didn’t ask.”
I nodded. What I didn’t say was, if you were one of us, I’d call you Flourine-19.
Blurred figures appeared in the hall ahead of us. They ducked against the wall, bowing their heads. Servants, most like. I suppressed a chummy nod; that had been my life, before Axel Gauthier.
Florine took no note of them, though she raised her chin as we passed. “So, Prince Proculo. Tell me about yourself. Who is this, speaking from the mouth of my Edelgard?”
“Ahh. . . I was a warrior. Much larger than this. I fought in many battles.”
“Oh?” She half-turned to me. “A burly warrior? Did you win?”
“No. I mean, yes, in the early battles. But our numbers were too small when they discovered us. We couldn’t do anything against their full force.
“I’m sorry.” Her hand crept up my bicep, and I fought the urge to jerk away. “Really, that’s us with the demon lord’s army. They invade our land and breed like rats. It’s filthy.”
“Hhmm,” I grunted. Her fingers kneaded back and forth, twisting at my shirt sleeve. For the sake of maintaining this fresh alliance, I ignored it. “They really were hostile to us. Even after we lost – we very reasonably asked for ships to leave on, and food to support our bodies, and you know what they did? Thy ripped out our messenger, and strung him up like a hunting trophy! Just. . . completely unnecessary! After that, we –”
“You make his voice so nasal. Speak slower, and more carefully.” Florine’s grip on my arm tightened as she led me through branches of the hall. Hazy tapestries passed on either side.
“Ah.” My head still buzzed with old outrage. It was good that she’d interrupted; I was sharing too much. “But if I’m not pretending to be Edelgard, then why speak like him?”
“If you go around jabbering like a child, you’ll taint his legacy.” More twisting fingers. Our next turn took us into a tight set of spiral stairs. We separated to ascend in single file. As we did, she called down to me. “I don’t want people to change how they remember him.”
“His legacy keeps him immortal.” I nodded in understanding. “I don’t care about that, though.”
Florine looked back at me with such sharpness that I froze. We remained like that a moment, before she returned to mounting the steps, her pointed shoes tapping a furious beat.
Damage had been caused. But before I could repair it, the clomp of an approaching man halted us. “My lady, forgive me,” he said in a gruff tone. Then with more surprise: “My prince.”
Florine’s answer was sharp. “May we pass?”
With murmured contrition, he pressed himself to the wall. Florine hardly bothered to twist, despite how her shoulders side-swept him. I stepped through next, and. . . oh! In the tight stairwell, the guard’s broad chest pressed briefly against mine. I inhaled something low and musky, my eyes passing over a bristling chin, and then I was past, the arteries in my neck skittering with my heart.
Realization hit like a stone between my eyes. The contrast in how this body reacted to Florine, versus the guard. . .
“Useless body. Doesn’t even want to produce offspring.” My low mutter drew a look from Florine.
Of course, those who didn’t reproduce still had their use. Thallium-201 had proved that, when he launched our asteroid. But horror underlaid that thought. If I couldn’t defeat a peer in a mating brawl and metamorphize into a female. . . if I couldn’t split into hundreds of fragments, each carrying a portion of my memories and ensuring my immortality. . . then what, I would just live, and die, and be gone?
The fear bubbling down my spine made me want to sit down and weep.
“We’re here,” Florine said.
A cold wind blew the tears from my eyes. Florine grabbed my hand, pulling me through a stone aperture, into the open air of the battlements, where I blinked at the empty expanse of blue.
She didn’t relinquish me. “Come on.” Florine laughed as she tugged me to the edge. The rough cobblestones threatened to trip me, and I bared my teeth in concentration. “This is the most important stop in your tour. Look at all this.” With a sweep of her red sleeve, she gestured at the hazy mush of green and brown. “Your kingdom.”
“I. . . see it.” Even to my ears, I sounded unconvincing. The wind carried the stink of human and animal waste, though, so I could assume that a population lay beneath.
Florine sighed and leaned over the parapet, her slender chin propped in her hands. “I have so many memories here. With Edelgard. We were, well. . .” She laughed and moved from the wall, once again invading my space. “We were lovers,” she breathed.
I was only half listening. By narrowing my eyes and compressing the lens of my cornea, I could somewhat sharpen the landscape. “I don’t think that’s true. This body prefers men.”
Florine slapped me hard across the face. At first, I didn’t understand what happened, only that my head was now facing a new direction. “What –” I said, and then her hands bunched in my tunic, shoving me toward the parapet. The stone hit my back, then I was lifted up, and over.
Here she held me, balanced on a precipice. “He loved me.” The shaking of her hands translated into an unsteady grip. “He made love to me. I will not have your filthy words tarnish his legacy.”
I began to tilt backward.
“Stop!” The breeze brushed through my hair, and I shivered at the nothingness beneath me. “It was a joke! This body loves women, loves them!”
Another shove left me teetering, with only my legs keeping me from death. “I meant, it loves you, specifically! That’s what I meant to say!”
I found myself yanked back by the legs. My tailbone struck the stone walkway and I yelped, scuttling until my back hit a wall.
“Do you mean it. . . that your body still loves me? That. . . you’ll honour our betrothal?” Her eyes glinted as she leaned over me. I’d had enemy mandibles poised above me with a similar shine.
I hadn’t said all that, but still I nodded. “Sure! Because, we, ah. . . . must respect his body! And you know it better than I! Correct?” There was a pause where she did nothing but bulge her eyes at me, so I added: “If that’s not correct, I can say something else.”
“Okay,” I said, sinking back into the stones.
“Even if you’re not him. . . I want to protect what’s left of him.”
“Then, I should announce our betrothal?”
She threw her body on top of mine and I squawked, finding myself unable to scramble away. I tensed for violence, but she only wrapped arms around my shoulders and compressed me. Rather than biting, she nuzzled her mouth into the crook of my neck. It left a wetness that could’ve been tears or saliva. “Edel. I’m so happy. So happy. Aren’t you happy?”
“So happy,” I cried. “Why, If I had a plasma rifle, I’d discharge it right between your eyes!”
She pulled back to blink at me wetly. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Florine’s guided tour had evidently consisted of a single stop, as she led me back to my room afterward, clinging to my arm and hopping with glee. Most of her talk related to preparations to come: the celebratory feast, which minstrels her mother might hire, who should and should not be invited, the number of children she wished to bear, and so on. I nodded, with the plastered smile I’d worn often as Axel Gauthier. When she released me into my room I stumbled, overcome by dizziness.
Once I was sure she’d left, I fell into a chair, its seat stiff with embroidered flowers, and stared into the flame of a beeswax candle. “What a horrible, nasty world. What a stupid world.”
I moved my eyes to the tapestry, hoping to soothe myself with the spider-taur’s chitin – but at this distance, it remained an unfocused smear. “AUGHHH!” I smacked the candle to the ground, where it rolled, sputtering out. “Just – excellent! Nonfunctional eyes, on top of it all! Nonfunctional eyes, forever! You stupid, horrible goddess. You couldn’t at least give me glasses?”
A clatter broke me from my ranting. On the chest, atop drips of dried candlewax, something silver glinted.
My hand shook as I reached for it. Its shape clarified into spectacles, silver-framed, with round lenses. I slid them on, and the room sharpened into diamond precision.
“Oh!” I jumped to my feet, rushing to the window. With my fingers curled into the grate, I laughed and laughed. Three rings of palisade walls swept across the valley, the closest enclosing a bustling city beneath the castle. I could see the tiny dots of men on horses, and peddlers with carts. Breathless, I fed on it all, tracking the tiny forms of children at play, and the swoop of a hawk beneath clouds.
What had the goddess said? That she’d grant me a gift – and I’d asked for the ability to summon! The spectacles pinching at my nose proved the truth of her claim.“And next. . .” My fingers curled so tight against the grate that they grew white and bloodless. I was envisioning something else sweeping across the sky. “Next. . . I bring our fleet.”