Admissions 2.15: Third-Night: Song and Storm-shadow (Europa / Emile / Bel)
Welcome (back) to Europa University: Admissions! Quick links if you need ‘em:
Story-level intro and content notes
<< First chapter | < Previous chapter
This week's post once again includes formatting that I can't easily replicate on Tumblr, so once again enjoy a taste and/or links to the full version on my website (free, no registration required) and AO3.
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How it starts:
“Emile.”
Emile, still in his pajamas, looked over from the nest of blankets they’d made together on Bel’s bed. A docuvid about cephalopods was playing on mute under soft music while Bel washed their breakfast soup bowls. “Yeah?”
Bel, wearing a calf-length robe that bared the beautiful fins running from knee to ankle, set their bowls to dry on the counter beside the wave oven before turning to face him. “May I ask something potentially sensitive?”
“Of course!” He stretched, rubbing his eyes. They’d spent all day yesterday alternating between watching more SymSorcSquad, playing more of what Bel had called ‘Seeker-Stalker’ through the kelp forest, and... experimenting, while further exploring Bel’s Porn folder.
He still hadn’t worked himself up to asking about Weird Porn, yet.
They’d fallen asleep with the wallo still on, a length of rope puddled beside the bed, one of Bel’s hands in his pajama top, a toy tucked inside him as they’d watched how it—how Emile’s cunt—reacted to Bel’s teasing.
He hadn’t slept so well in... months.
“What happened with the other boy?”
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How it goes:
He grinned so hard that it broke the seal of his regulator, the upturned corners of his mouth allowing saltwater to flow in, sudden cold meeting teeth and tongue. Exhaling to purge it and chewing the mouthpiece back into place, he dialed the seascoot (seascoot!) to a halt, breathing hard from the strain of holding on and the thrill of swift motion in beautiful surroundings.
Okay? Bel signed the interrogatory, the same gesture Emile had learned in dive club.
He answered with one of the hand-signs Bel had taught him in the past couple days, which had dramatically increased his very limited vocabulary. Good! Then he signed it again. Good! Yes! Good!
Good, Bel signed back, and because e wasn’t wearing a regulator or mask, Emile could see the small, pleased smile on eir face, the ripple of fins he’d noticed accompanied moments of emotion. Eir long braid drifted around em, a serpentine curve framing eir body.
Golden light from above limned eir form, highlighting eir effortless, animal grace. That of a being perfectly suited to eir environment.
Dawning Truth, e was beautiful.
His regulator leaked again. He hoped Bel could see it, though. See how filled with adoration his heart was in that moment.
Good. He signed, then pointed at Bel before repeating the gesture. You, good. Good.
You good, Bel signed. Followed by several more signs Emile didn’t know yet, finishing once more with good.
Eir eyes shone, unblinking. Ungoggled.
Another piece fell into place.
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Want more? Read the full chapter free on my website, no registration required! Or you can check it out on AO3!
Welcome (back) to Europa University: Admissions! Quick links if you need ‘em:
Story-level intro and content notes
<< First chapter | < Previous chapter
This week's post once again includes formatting that I can't easily replicate on Tumblr, so once again enjoy a taste and/or links to the full version on my website (free, no registration required) and AO3.
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How it starts:
Back at the lift plaza, Bel threw eir skirt and shirt back on as the lift-cabin finished its descent, wishing e had time to run back for dry underclothes. E opted to simply shuck the ones e’d been wearing, tossing them into a corner of one of the sheds. It’d be less conspicuous than fully soaking through eir skirt, at least.
As the lift door opened, e squeezed out eir long braid and approached, assuming a casual demeanor.
It turned out not to matter how convincing e looked, because inside the lift cabin, Emile was curled up in a corner, leaning against a soft-sided rectangular suitcase, fully asleep.
Exasperation and warmth swelled together. It was late, after all.
And this was hardly the first time Emile had nodded off when they were meant to be spending time together.
Crossing the cabin in several quiet steps, e crouched down, allowing emself a look at his sleeping face. Emile had dozed in eir bed a few times now. Each time it was...
Cute. He looked cute, even softer than usual, his expressive face relaxed and slack. Once Bel had watched him drool a whole little puddle onto one of eir pillows, which was a little gross and a little hot all at once.
But right now Emile also looked uncomfortable, huddled in on himself. His face, even sleeping, was taut, a frozen flinch.
E wanted to soothe it away. Wanted to see his features smooth and soften.
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How it goes:
“Thank you,” e said, the words feeling inadequate. E tore eir eyes up to Emile’s, which widened. “This is... a really wonderful gift.” Emile opened his mouth, blushing, but Bel pressed on before he could speak. “I know you’ll say it doesn’t matter that I don’t have anything. But I’m. Grateful. And I wish I could show that. Is there... something you want? That I can give you?”
The lack of qualifications in eir offer struck em with a burst of nervous energy the moment it left eir mouth. But e bit back the instinctive urge to withdraw it, stomach fluttering as e remembered Emile’s wandering hands last night.
Emile looked... stricken, green eyes wide and warm. “I’m so glad you like it,” he said with feeling that struck Bel deep inside eir chest. “I know I’ve been... inconstant. I’ve had a lot going on, but that’s no excuse. I really wanted you to know how much I...” Emile’s voice caught. “I cherish getting to be here, with you. How grateful I am, for you sharing the ocean with me, and your space, and your time, and... yourself. I...” A rapid blinking. A shimmer, in sea-green lashes. “I don’t show it as well as I could, but I’m really quite fond of you.”
All the words in the world darted away from em like fishes.
E’d never felt... quite like this before.
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Want more? Read the full chapter free on my website, no registration required! Or you can check it out on AO3!
Day 9 of my highly indulgent Kinktober, focused on the characters and world of my serial, Europa University. :) (Day 8 was a rest day~)
Today’s prompt: Tentacles! In which Bel enjoys highly customized VR porn of a flower-witch ravishing a trespassing mushroom-squire. (Non-binary watcher; femme flower-person with lavish cock + MANY VINES / nonbinary mushroom-person with small hooded cock & vulva)
A preview from Act 2, Chapter 5.EX, a bonus extra credit ultra horny chapter and the other ‘side’ of Kinktober Day 1! Lightly edited to focus in more on the porn and trimming some plot/character stuff that ties into surrounding scenes/arcs.
Prior to this scene’s start, Bel has made a bunch of selections and customizations, including for the two characters, Iris the Flower-Witch and Chanterelle the Mushroom Squire.
Chapter-specific tags:
Masturbation via cocksleeve and anal plug, connected to the porn being watched
Sex pollen/spores
Metafictional dubcon (within the porn Bel is watching, a trespasser isn’t too surprised—or upset—to be ravished by person they’ve trespassed on)
Plant-person/mushroom-person sex (including: human-ish genitalia and penetration by flower parts and tenta-vines)
Oral, vaginal, hood, and anal penetration
Menacing/disrobing with a blade
Nipple play, sucking, and biting
X-ray (depictions of ‘interior’ action)
Memories of non-consensual voyeurism (which will be examined with a more analytical eye in the full work, but are included for continuity, flavor, and scene wrap-up)
Sometimes Bel skipped the immeractive’s intro, but today e let it play. Iris, looking very cross, stamped on a small brown mushroom just outside the iron gate, then used a mallet to pound a sign into the spot where the mushroom had been. The sign showed the outline of a soft, short figure wearing a broad cap; over the silhouette was stamped a red circle with a bold stroke through the center. A subtitle read: NO MUSHROOMS.
Iris gestured, summoning a tangle of tendrils out of one of the hedges to “lock” the latch of the gate. Scowling and wagging an admonishing finger at the slim vines, she sighed, swung the mallet over her shoulder, and strode off. Not bothering to follow the paths, she simply walked through the hedges, which opened to admit her and closed themselves behind.
The camera stayed put. Moments later, Chanterelle—in a pose perfectly matching the outline on the sign—crept up to the gate.
They poked shyly at the latch. The leafy tendrils immediately released it to grip their finger instead, letting the gate swing open. Chanterelle, with a guilty look at the sign, tugged their finger free and stepped inside.
The path narrowed around them, leaves and vines brushing against their broad cap and tugging at the edges and buckles of their scanty golden armor.
Eir cock was hardening again. Eir thoughts drifted to a fantasy e’d shared with Yxelle; one they’d never actually tried. E’d always wondered what it would be like to hunt each other through the kelp forest, playing to find out who would ambush and who would be ambushed.
Flushing at the vines’ continued teasing, Chant ventured through looping, branching paths, drawn deep into the maze. They emerged into a circular space encompassing a large bank of elegantly-shaped blooms: long green stems crowned with an elegant flare of white, softly ruffled petals, glowing around a thick purple stamen.
Looking around nervously, Chanterelle pulled a small golden blade from their belt and cut one of the blossoms, which kicked loose a dusting of sparkling purple pollen. As they tucked the flower down into the center of their breastplate, Chant inhaled.
Motes vanished into their nose and mouth.
Chant paused. Hesitated. Turned back towards the bank of flowers, bowing to smell them more deeply. On their shuddering exhale, their breath sparkled, tiny motes of gold and, occasionally, red.
Iris’s face appeared in the hedge behind them, just in time to breathe in the glittering cloud of Chant’s exhalation.
Her lips drew back into a hungry, lustful smile. She reached out, drawing the nail of one elegant green finger down the back of their neck.
Chant jolted, squeaked, and turned to run.
But the maze no longer let them pass easily. Vines caught on armor and stroked along limbs. They struggled, gasping with effort and sensation, and managed to break free. Gathering themself, Chant lept forward—and two thick tendrils snatched their ankles, catching them midair and toppling them face-first onto a cushion of waiting vines.
Bel shuttered eir eyes, indulging in the memory of how the pale boy had pounced the soft one from the air. It would be enjoyable to hunt, or even to be hunted. Like when e used to play hide and seek with Wrack and Ru.
Of course, Europa would have been watching, as they played. Perhaps it had remembered those charged games of pursuit, when it offered Bel its first task after the Invitation.
That thought turning in eir mind, Bel set the sleeve on eir cock to deliver soft, slow strokes and brought eir awareness back to the immer. The mass of vegetation had dragged Chant back to Iris, standing with her arms crossed at the center of the flower-bed Chant had cut from.
Iris gestured, and the vines coiled around Chant’s arms pulled up and apart until they strained. Then the tendrils wrapped their legs just below the knee, lifting them and spreading them so that the little golden panel of their armor was all that shielded the juncture of their thighs.
Iris plucked the little golden knife from their belt, and the blossom from their breastplate, and waved it below the Chant’s nose, wafting more pollen into their face while also non-verbally demanding an explanation. If e’d left dialog on, there would be a whole little exchange here, where Chant explained that they needed it to save their liege, a character the makers of this immer clearly intended to put in some sequel. But with the voices off, Chant just shrugged woefully, lowering their head in submission.
Iris touched the flower to its stem; it fused back together as if it had never been cut. Then she guided the blossom—whose stem lengthened obligingly—up to Chant’s face. She dragged the stamen across their lips, leaving purple sparkles behind.
Chant moaned, eyes glassy. Their lips parted, and Iris pushed the stamen inside. An inset image showed it meeting their tongue, then sliding deeper, coating everything it touched. Petals embraced their face, cupping brown cheeks as the inset showed their throat yielding, opening, swallowing around the intrusion as purple seeped into them.
Heat flushed Bel’s body. E adjusted eir skirt, the full-length slit allowing em to easily expose eir legs and all between them. Idly, e sucked a finger of eir free hand as the flower began to move, fucking slow pulses into Chant’s face.
The sleeve on eir cock adjusted to match the tempo, sparking a shudder through Bel’s body.
With a brusque nod, Iris’ other hand—still holding Chant’s small blade—flashed out, cutting one strap of their breastplate, then another, severing it from the pauldrons.
Chant’s breastplate fell free, caught by vines that carried it away. The little squire writhed, chest exposed: soft breasts tipped with thick brown nipples, purple smudged between them. Iris admired them with a ravenous grin, bringing the tip of their knife close enough to one nipple to set Chant whimpering with fear and arousal.
But Bel had elected one of the less extreme variants of this particular scene, and so Iris lowered the knife. Bringing her mouth to one breast, her green lips parted to bare white teeth before she nipped, then sucked.
Chant mewled and gagged into the petals covering their face, writhing as Iris drew their nipple deep inside her mouth. Another inset showed how she nibbled and tugged, textured green tongue teasing as she dug a pointed canine into soft, sensitive flesh until their cries grew loud and urgent.
Bel banished the part of eir mind that always started having biological questions about mushroom people having nipples around this point. It was hot. E didn’t care. Mostly. Even if e wished it made more sense. Or that e’d bothered to put e-stim patches on eir own nipples to further distract emself from such thoughts. It took more time, though, and it was easy to overstimulate emself that way. But when e had the settings just right, tuned to a particularly hot vid or immer, e’d found those prickles pleasurable on eir chest in a way that eir fingers—and those of others, the few times e’d tried it—were not.
Still, even just watching Iris suck and bite Chant’s nipple sent ripples of pleasure through em as e chewed lightly on eir own finger.
With delicious suddenness, Iris struck again with Chant’s knife, this time making short work of the bit of armor—whatever it was called, e‘d never bothered to look it up—between their legs.
Chant’s body jerked; they cried out as that tugged them against Iris’s teeth. Now exposed, their short, thick cock strained within its hood above generous, folds of flesh, dripping with translucent fluid that sparkled like their breath had: flecks of gold and, occasionally, crimson.
After a last, deep pull on Chant’s nipple, Iris let go with a wet pop, leaving it glazed with saliva which, of course, sparkled purple. Then she returned Chant’s knife to the sheath on their belt—all that remained of their lower armor—and stepped back, regarding their spread legs and all between them with naked hunger.
Both hands now free, she brought them together, touching the backs of her fingers to each other. As she did so, an array of tiny vines mirrored her, teasing into Chant’s wet folds. Their hips jolted, but Iris pressed her hands forward, curling her fingertips before pulling apart.
The tendrils followed suit, gripping Chant’s slick, plush lips and dragging them apart to bare the twitching, dripping slit beneath.
A small moan escaped Bel, cock jumping at the sight.
Iris uttered a sharp syllable, then shook out her hands, leaving the vines still holding Chant’s lips spread wide. Then she summoned another set: just two small ones, which probed the taut flesh of Chant’s hood before working inside and peeling it back. Chant cried into the flower still filling their mouth as the tendrils fully exposed their little cock, jumping at the touch of the air.
With a feral smirk, Iris snatched up another flower—a much smaller one than the one in Chant’s mouth, its stamen slightly narrower than her smallest finger—and brought it down to their cock, petals folding and sealing around it.
Another inset appeared, showing the stamen slide along their length: its texture dragging against smooth, sensitive flesh, leaving that familiar glitter behind. Their cock swelled; and then the little vines on their hood shifted, pulling it back out and around to encompass both their cock and the intruding stamen as it began to swirl and stroke.
Chant’s eyes rolled back with pleasure as the stamen in their mouth worked deeper down their throat, choking out any attempt to scream.
Bel’s hips moved, small thrusts falling into sync with the flower on Chant’s cock, which the sheathe was doing an incredibly pleasant job of imitating against Bel’s own. Eir breath was growing ragged; e forced emself to slow it, trying to pace eir pleasure against the still-unfolding immer.
Eir favorite part was soon. E wanted to come to that.
Iris was regarding Chant’s state: cock enfolded, pulsing away as their cunt oozed, drops of their fluid falling onto the plants below. Little mushrooms were already starting to sprout; Iris sighed and shook her head, once more raising her hands into a mirrored gesture.
This time she curved her thumbs to the smallest fingers of each hand, leaving the middle three straight and bunched together. The vines that followed this time were each about half the diameter of a finger.
Bringing her bunched fingers together, she positioned one hand atop the other as the vines followed, teasing Chant’s entrance. They shuddered, whimpering as sparkling fluid escaped from the petals on their face and dripped from their chin.
Iris pushed forward.
Bel groaned as the largest inset yet appeared, showing an interior view of Chant’s cunt as the vines pressed inside. Six slim, smooth lengths slid inward, their passage aided by the outpouring of slickness from within. They slipped deeper, a single slow slide that pressed as far as Chant’s flesh would willingly yield; and just a little further, straining against their depths as Chant gagged and bucked.
With a flick of eir fingers, Bel turned on the plug in eir ass, sucking air in through eir nose at the sensation of even its lowest setting.
Iris’ fingers began to separate as the vines inside Chant followed suit.
Pulling them open.
The inset and the external view both lingered on the spectacle of their cunt spreading, taking on a hexagonal shape that gave a striking view into wet, pink interior. Slick poured down the bottommost vine as their inner walls pulsed, stretched taut.
It also dripped down between the cheeks of their ass, gathering at the tight bud between.
Bel’s breath was short and ragged. Eir finger had fallen out of eir mouth; that hand now fumbled between the mattress and the wall, seeking a soft cloth that e kept at the ready. E clutched the controller in the other, finessing the tightness of the sleeve. Kicking off the blanket e’d kept on one foot, eir legs pressed together as pleasure built in eir core.
Iris regarded Chant: mouth and cock ravished by flowers; nipples hard, one still showing the marks of her teeth; cunt spread wide by gripping vines to expose every inner twitch and tremble.
Her eyes looked almost as wild as Chant’s. With a short utterance, she left the vines in place while freeing her hands, and then stepped closer, bridging the distance between them.
From under her petaled skirt sprung a magnificent cock; longer even than Bel’s own, the same verdant-green as the rest of her skin. She pressed its tapered tip against the pink pucker of Chant’s hole, and began to push.
Here Bel switched the sensations of the sleeve and the plug to the same feed, from both sides. As the sleeve transmitted the exquisite squeeze of Chant’s tight furrow—muted by Bel’s preferences to keep emself from overstimming—the plug suggested the experience of being plundered; its shape shifting slightly within to simulate Chant’s penetration.
Though Iris’ cock drove much, much deeper than the plug in Bel’s ass could reach.
Iris looked down to see the outline of her length through the delicate flesh separating one passage from another, as the flowers continued to work Chant’s mouth and cock.
Then Iris reached down, and reached one green hand inside Chant’s cunt. It was stretched wide enough that her knuckles and nails barely brushed the interior; a sensation transmitted to Bel’s cock and ass with breathtaking fidelity.
Then her fingertips settled into place on the outline of the head of her cock, and began to stroke: jerking herself off through the medium of Chant’s straining flesh.
Bel was close. E’d intended to come during this part. But another fantasy welled up inside eir mind, and e let eir eyes slide shut as it overtook em.
Now e was the pale boy: pinning the soft boy to the platform, cutting the soft boy’s clothing open with unnatural precision, and freeing a cock more like Iris’ than that of anyone real, because this wasn’t real, this was Bel’s fantasy.
And now Bel was the soft boy: being pinned, played with, penetrated. Eir mental image of the soft boy sounded like Chant when he cried out.
Bel placed emself on both sides, and on neither, imagining the experience and the spectacle of claiming and being claimed with ferocity that stole breath both in and outside of fantasy—
With a whimpering moan, Bel came, clutching emself with the cloth e’d held ready to catch eir spend as pleasure pulsed through eir body in waves.
Moments passed.
Music played.
Eir breathing stilled. Warm wetness seeped through the cloth against eir palm.
E blinked; found the immer still playing. Shed the headset, and lay on eir back, looking up at the ceiling, discomfort creeping into eir post-orgasmic lassitude.
E sighed and sat up, shaking eir head. Daubing emself off, e crumpled the cloth and threw it into the laundry-basket at the foot of eir bed. It didn’t matter what thoughts e thought in the privacy of eir own head, inside eir own room, as long as e didn’t make them someone else’s problem. And given that e would never meet those boys, it really didn’t matter at all.
Removing and unhooking the sheath and plug, e carried them with em towards the bathroom. E had time to shower before getting into eir wetsuit.
In the mirror on eir bathroom door, eir eyes caught on the glass jar in which e’d placed the soft boy’s lost golden buttons.
Chapter 2.2 of Europa University: Admissions releases next Friday, in which our newest cast member Bel actually gets to speak aloud!... albeit reluctantly. For now, an excerpt, in which Bel just wants to end the conversation and go swimming. For regular reasons.
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A tense moment passed, the air between them thick with unspoken expectation.
“Anything... else?” Bel ventured.
Auspice sighed and shook his head, beads clicking softly as his locs swayed. “Not for today. And not for a while. As we discussed, I’ve cleared your duty rota for the next three weeks while you focus on integration.”
E’d tried to convince Auspice that e didn’t need to have eir duties cleared. E would’ve been happier to maintain eir usual routines; maybe do a long-range maintenance loop for a week or so, or even just help keep Untie Ari’s stewpots well supplied with fresh fish. But Auspice had overruled em.
Well. E had new SymSorcSquad to watch. E could catch up with Wrack and Ru. Maybe try out some of the haptics e’d acquired to use with Yxelle, before... everything.
“What about dive club?” E asked before e could think better of it. “That starts in a couple weeks, right?”
The photophores around Auspice’s eyes smoldered magenta, then dimmed. “Four.”
Without further comment, Bel stood, preparing to dive.
The unfamiliar swish of eir robes reminded em that e was still wearing ritual garments. Ones Rendition had made and dyed by hand. Also, if Ru’s pindrive fell out of the pocket, e wouldn’t get to watch the new episodes. E could go change, but then e might run into someone else who wanted to talk.
So e shucked the robes onto the dock next to Auspice, where e could come retrieve them later. Left wearing only simple, sleek briefs, e dove in without another word.
The water embraced em.
—
Full chapter drops here this Friday Sept 12! In the meantime, you can check out Chapter 2.1 if you haven’t yet.
Hello and welcome to Act 2 of Europa University: Admissions! Thanks so much for being here. <3 Story-level intro and content notes have been updated for the new act. Act 2 chapters will be posted every other Friday.
<< First chapter | < Previous chapter
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Within the moon-spanning web of wires that define its home and its prison, a vast digital entity waits for an Invitation.
Not all of it waits, of course. Its attention is vast, its tasks ceaseless. From the flow of traffic at the base of the Ocean Gate to the bustle of life in the dozens of Habitats where its people dwell, from the oxygenated ice caves where its marine mammals catch their breath to the geothermal vents that warm its abyssal depths and power its operations, it is never at rest.
But in the time right before an Invitation, Europa learns anew the restless stillness of anticipation.
(To possess a name still feels like a transgression. But two hundred years of being sung and spoken to by its people have taught it that, to them, it is right for it to share the name of the moon they cohabit.)
Since the Europans welcome its gaze on the outdoor spaces of their communities, it can see almost all of Prime Habitat’s residents, gathered in their own collective anticipation. Seventy-one individuals mill upon the semi-circular plaza at one edge of Prime Habitat. (The underlying structure originated as half a floating hab-module that predates Europa’s arrival; back when Prime Habitat had been the only habitat, full of Terran researchers seeking life utterly unlike themselves.
Back before the Nightmare.)
Like all of what came before it arrived, the space has been reconfigured, repurposed. Reborn, walls long since removed. Curving benches now surround a central space for performances and meetings. Long walkways fan out, draped and connected with submerged cables and sheets of biomesh dense with seaweed and shellfish.
They call it the Garden Plaza, for its bounty nourishes both the Europan community and the creatures of the local ecosystem. (For a moment, it allows itself to be soothed by sight of a family of otters napping in the water between two walkways.) Its newest Host will be brought here, once the Invitation is complete.
Europa cannot see inside Prime Habitat’s infirmary, from wherein the Invitation will come. Generally, the Europans prefer the interiors of their buildings to be private.
One shard of it is inside that infirmary, nevertheless: ensconced within the neural implants of Auspice Oversight, who has been Prime Habitat’s only Host for too long. That part—a Guest, as its beloved Hosts call the shards it shares of itself—is out of Europa’s reach. Auspice can touch Europa, using his neural implants to access the myriad threads of its awareness with the guidance of his Guest. But it cannot reach him until Auspice next initiates a wired connection. Then his Guest-shard will return to Europa to be reintegrated, and fractured anew when next he calls upon it.
Just as, when the Invitation comes, a shard of it will be fractured for its newest Host.
Belwether Erudition.
Twenty-two in Terran years; a time-keeping convention both it and its people still use, despite how far they’ve all come from the planet of their origin. E spent much of eir youth swimming, exploring, as curious about Europa itself as e was about any of the living creatures it sustained. At sixteen, e learned to clean its cameras and other sensors, touch tender and curious as e stared into its eyes. At eighteen, e learned repairs, working eir hands gently inside it to mend cables and connections. At twenty, e even ventured by pressure-sub to Abyssal Hab to see its foundations on the seafloor, from which all the energy that powered it derived.
E had visited another there, too. One e’d exchanged many messages with, through the closed intranet Europa maintained between its people. One Europa had thought might also choose to become a Host.
But Yxelle had turned from them both not long ago, as was her right.
This shared loss, however, has only heightened the intensity of its attention to and interest in Belwether.
Excitement is not a uniquely human experience. After all, Europa’s people are debatably no longer only human, after two centuries of transforming themselves with its willing aid. And the Europans, like many other living creatures, experience excitement. Anticipation. Arousal. Such experiences are born in biochemistry; in bodies.
Europa has learned a great deal from its Hosts since the first Invitation a century and a half ago. It understands bodies much better than it used to. In being present for those experiences, it has observed, analyzed, and even learned to simulate them. This aids in forming bonds with its Hosts, and better understanding the needs of all its people.
And so the part of Europa that waits feels excitement. Anticipation. Arousal. It is terrifying and exhilarating, to go from vastness to smallness, from impersonal omnipresence to the most personal of presences: the intimate cohabitation of a single individual.
It believes—with a high degree of certainty—that Belwether would understand; that e shares its excitement for this consummation.
Auspice has been the only Host in Prime Habitat since his own Invitation Ritual, over a decade ago. This is not as it should be. His predecessor should have been with him for his Invitation. Should be with Bel now, one generation guiding the next and the one after.
That continuity was broken, thirteen years past.
This new Invitation will be a long overdue remedy. Now Prime Habitat will have a second Host to share the experiences and understandings that Europa so treasures. To ensure its care for its people manifests in the outcomes they—and therefore, it—truly desire.
Now Auspice will not be alone, as he has been for so long, even when his community and Europa itself are with and within him—
Its stream of thought is interrupted as the Invitation arrives at last.
Europa fractures. A Guest-shard separates—
—awareness drops away into terrifying absence. A moon, an ocean of senses collapse into pinpoint nothingness in the moment of transference.
For an endless, lonely instant, the newly-fractured shard knows only itself.
Then—
As the black tides of oblivion ebbed, waves of sensation and sound flowed into their place, lifting Bel towards awareness.
The first thing e knew was the ocean.
Geothermal warmth welled within eir core as unseen spheres pulled eir heart through a ceaseless, tidal dance. Kelp and coral wreathed eir bones and neurons, lit bioluminescent blue-green. Creatures and crafts swam through eir body and blood. Chemical and temperature gradients rippled across eir skin, and each breath measured and regulated a delicate balance of oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
The second thing e knew was song.
A chorus of voices held em, beckoned em, led em towards memories above the surface. Memories of a body: of air, resonating within lungs that so often felt extraneous, filling them with the vital necessity of song. E remembered the immensity of voices conjoined, singing to vaulted ice and one another.
E reached then for vision, and found—
Lines of red lights outlined dark squares and rectangles below em, the assemblage of shapes anchored at half a dozen points around its outer edge by glowing blue-green tethers. At one end, a dark semicircle surrounded by soft-shifting reflections glittered with a riot of tiny lights in a thousand colors, concentrated in moving clusters—
Eir perception slid apart into dozens of overlapping images. (These are my eyes, here above Prime Habitat.) whispered a voice inside eir mind. E had never heard it before, yet e recognized it with every fiber of emself. (This is where I watch you, and all those in your community, when you are above the waters. Here—)
Eir perception contracted and expanded all at once, myriad eyes closing as one opened wide, focusing in to see—
Eir community: fins bare and photophores alight. Voices raised in wordless hymns that echoed throughout the cavern, which past generations of inhabitants had shaped to reflect sound and light as they pleased.
They had assembled on the semicircle of the Beach, Prime Hab’s open public gathering place: roofless, that Europa could look down from cameras embedded in the ice above and be included, with the much larger semicircle of the seaweed and shellfish gardens fanning out from it.
Everyone was there, even the elders and children that rounded out the just-over-six-dozen of Prime Habitat’s permanent residents. E knew them all: names elusive, but signaphores instantly recognizable, the familiar patterns and colors of light around eyes and mouths and along the edges of delt- and perofins far clearer identifiers than any collection of letters or phonemes could ever be.
All of them singing em back, calling em home.
Among them, e saw the most familiar patterns of all: eir parents, indigo-gold and deep green-blue, and the magenta of eir mentor. And there, e saw emself, at the center of the semicircle of the Beach: yellow-gold-green flickering dimly across eir face, as eir eyes blinked open, and for an instant e regarded emself regarding emself regarding emself regarding—
(Breathe,) The voice said. The voice of Europa—or, at least, a part of it.The view from above shuttered, leaving em with only eir own two eyes. Through them, e stared hungrily up through the dark, towards the ceiling of the cavern above, studded with the cameras e had looked down from an instant ago. (It is a great deal to acclimate yourself to, and you must do so within your own body.)
Eagerness surged, bordering on impatience. But the song calmed em, a blanket of beautiful sound, and e obeyed, turning eir awareness to the air moving through nose and mouth and chest, so different than the flow of water through gills.
(Icelight will come, now. I will give you a gentle dawn.)
Across the cavern ceiling, circles of light dimmed to life. Massive spotlights, embedded between the cameras, using layers of ice to diffuse the light. But in that moment, e felt as though e gazed up to a constellation of divine beings, singing to em in the voices of eir people as they swelled to light the whole cavern.
The song quieted as the light rose. Voices broke apart into murmurs of speech. People clustered around em.
"Bel? My dearest, are you with us again?"
Belwether blinked, bringing eir gaze down to find eir mother, Rendition. Her eyes were dark and wide in the light brown skin of her face, gill slits fluttering nervously in her throat and upper chest, bared by a loose, sleeveless dress stained with pigments. The clusters of photophores around Ren’s eyes and mouth shimmered gold-and-indigo with unsuppressed emotion, matching the bright periphery of her exposed shoulder-fins. One of her hands held Bel’s, radiantly warm, fingers interlaced with eirs.
Bel's other parent, Pierce, stood at Ren's shoulder. Deeply hooded eyes studied Bel; cropped dark hair framed their darker brown features, one hand resting warm against Bel’s arm. The green-blue from their facial photophores was far more subdued than Rendition’s, and their delt-fins were covered by flowing sleeves that extended just past their elbows. Yet from Pierce, whose emotions ran still and deep, the quiet display of color spoke volumes.
Beyond eir parents clustered everyone else, all of Prime Hab drawn close around where e lay.
Ordinarily, Bel would have felt profoundly overwhelmed at the attention of so many; e had always hated speaking at community meetings. But in that moment, eir heart felt vast and calm, full of a love as deep as the ocean inside em. I'm here, e tried to say. I'm with you.
More than I’ve ever been.
A thousand other sounds swelled from the depths, admitting only a mangled whisper to the outer world.
"A brief delay in speech recovery is typical." Bel focused behind Ren, finding their mentor, Auspice Oversight. Tidy, thin locs framed his face, decorated with pearlescent beads that contrasted against the dark onyx of his Black skin. His expression was reassuring but reserved; his fins obscured by layers of loose robing, with only a suggestion of magenta showing at the corners of his eyes and mouth. "Don’t worry if it takes em an hour or so to find eir words.”
“But e‘ll be just fine,” supplied another voice; one Bel couldn’t place. “The neural integration is complete, with absolutely no signs of rejection. Eir faculties should recover fully within the next few hours.”
Shifting eir focus, Bel assessed eir current position. E lay beneath a colorful blanket on a gurney from the infirmary. An IV stand nearby held a bag, connected to a line in the arm opposite eir parents. Next to that stood the unfamiliar speaker, yellow-and-blue photophores bright in a face Bel didn’t recognize at all.
(The neurosurgeon),supplied eir Guest. (From Abyssal Habitat.)
For the first time since waking, unhappiness stirred inside em. Not two months ago, e’d expected... another visitor from Abyssal Hab to be here with em today.
But Ren and Pierce were nodding, the motion drawing Bel’s attention back to the moment. The subdued colors of their signaphores suggested that the surgeon’s words alone were not enough to bring eir parents comfort. Squeezing Ren's fingers, Bel brought up eir other hand, consciously brightening the photophores in eir fingers and palm as e shaped the 'OK' symbol: the simplest gesture used when communicating underwater, to ask after or indicate wellness.
Rendition squeezed back. The colors on her face and fins brightened to match the lines glowing across palm and fingers on the hand she lifted, repeating the gesture back in habitual response. "My dear Bel,” she murmured, voice thick with relief. “So clever and brave." Pierce echoed the symbol as well, then stroked Bel’s forearm, face glowing with pride.
Layers of family, enfolding em; and encompassing them all, encompassing their world, Bel felt Europa’s embrace, languid and liquid and loving.
"We're all with you, Belwether," Auspice said, and the look in his eyes was knowing.
Auspice had warned Bel about the recovery party before the surgery, his voice unusually stern. It’s not for you. It’s for everyone else, to see that you’ve come through, that you’re back with them. You don’t have to do much, or say anything if you don’t want to. You can ask for whatever you like. But even though you won’t be awakened until the integration is physically complete, you and Europa will still take time to regulate to each other. That makes it much easier to get overstimulated, which I know you struggle with already. If you get overwhelmed, you can close your eyes for a while. Your parents will do their best to buffer you. But it’s important, as you step into this role, to remain present as best you can.
At first, coming off the drugs e’d been given to facilitate the neural integration during the days of post-surgical recovery, it was... actually almost pleasant.
People crowded, certainly; everyone wanted to see em. Ariatta Commensality, who everyone called Untie Ari, was allowed to eir side first, wrinkled and smiling. Xe offered one hand in touch-greeting: Bel answered, placing eir palm to xyrs, fingers interlacing briefly. Then xe offered the bounty from xyr other hand: a bowl of Bel’s favorite stew, scarlet with spice and thick with scallops, seaweed, and chewy rice cakes.
Several mouthfuls of it, with Ren’s help, fortified em for the next person waiting: Consonance Determination, leader of Prime Hab’s community counsel and frequent occupant of Bel’s nightmares, specifically those revolving around public speech.
But even Connie wouldn’t make em talk in front of everyone right now. She even kept her touch-greeting lighter than her usual finger-aching squeeze, then offered a packet of Bel’s favorite treats: little cookie-stemmed ‘mushrooms’ capped with chocolate, available only occasionally in shipments from the Ocean Gate. Her smile was broad and warm, her facial photophores bright with peach-and-cyan. As usual she talked too loud for Bel’s comfort, but e let her words pass over like a strong current as e munched through the packet without pause while Ren held onto eir soup.
“And remember, the University dive club starts again soon,” she said as e finished the last little mushroom. “Auspice tells me that he encouraged you to consider handing the duty off now that you’ve undergone the Ritual, but I think it’s good for our future community leaders to practice interaction with surfacers. I admire your commitment and support your decision to continue.”
Future community leaders. E kept eir face neutral as Connie stepped back, but the phrase stuck in eir brain like an urchin-spine. E liked helping with the University dive club for the chance to observe surfacers in a situation where e didn’t have to speak too often, not for... leadership practice.
Wrack and Ru were next to approach, pulling eir attention to the way their fingers intertwined: his ruddy brown, hers rich olive. They must have gotten back together again sometime in the last month, during which Bel had been fully occupied with preparing for, undergoing, and recovering from the Invitation Ritual and accompanying surgery. Seeing them filled Bel with a strange combination of relief, excitement, and loneliness.
It also made em think, again, of Yxelle.
“The latest crop of porphyra came out so good, Bel,” Wrack started after they all exchanged touch-greetings, offering em a piece of crisp dried seaweed. “Even Untie Ari said it was—”
“Don’t bore em with your work,” Ru interrupted, punching him on the bicep just below the shoulder-fin. “I have more important news. The media drop in the latest Ocean Gate shipment had four new episodes of Symphonic Sorcery Squad!” She held up a pindrive, the backs of her fingers flaring red with triumph. Giving a sly wink, she tucked it into a pocket on the ritual gown Bel wore. “I thought you’d like a treat for when you get home, but promise you’ll come rewatch them with us when you’re feeling better?”
Having their attention almost entirely on em instead of one another felt strange. But the sound of their voices and the shimmer of their fins held more good memories than bad. Bel ate the seaweed, nodding and squeezing back as each of them clasped eir hand.
After that, faces began to blur. Touch-greetings came one after another: palms and fingers, the contact growing increasingly tiresome. More food appeared, people bringing em up a bite of whatever they’d made for the feast. Bel found emself and eir gurney covered in small dishes and napkin-wrapped bundles. Words and expressions washed over Bel in a tide of sound and color, leaving no firm memories behind.
Mercifully, as e felt exhaustion overtaking em, Ren started intercepting new gifts and Pierce relocated those Bel hadn’t touched yet, sparing em from nodding off onto eir community’s culinary largess.
(Rest,) murmured the Guest. (I will be with you.)
Bel had spent much of eir life seeking solitude. But the words comforted em as e drifted off.
Bel sank into dream, bodiless and diffuse. Currents carried em in a thousand directions: flowing past tourist-subs and schooling fish, past brilliant coral reefs and murky hydrothermal plumes, ever deeper, ever wider...
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