Yasmin Benoit is a British aroace activist and model. She is arguably the biggest aspec activist in the Western world right now. Because she is a Black woman who makes a living modelling, she has faced a lot of sexualization, being told she doesn’t “look asexual.” In response to this, she started the hashtag #thisiswhatasexuallookslike, to prove that asexuality doesn’t have a specific look.
There is a long history of Black people being hypersexualized in media, and many people have the attitude that asexuality is a “white thing.” Within the asexual community, Black aces are very often overlooked, excluded, and erased. As minimal as ace representation is, there is even less Black asexual representation, and what little does exist is often ignored even in the asexual community. Black asexuals deserve to see themselves represented and their identities uplifted, so for @creatingblackcharacters’s Black History Month event, I did some drawings of some of my Black asexual characters; however small my audience may be, I hope that for any Black asexuals who may (now or in the future) be part of it, you can see this part of yourselves reflected in Aros Against Fate.
I wanted to draw *all* the Black asexual characters from Aros Against Fate but I ran out of time, so apologies to Taehogh, Mkera, Yna, Wnahé, Abhaonai, and Kjotar, who were further down on the list and didn’t get drawn in time.
[ID: a drawing of Lí, a dark-skinned Black teenager with curly red hair. They are wearing a dark blue sweater-vest with yellow stars and using forearm crutches. /end ID]
Lí (they/them) is a main character and greyromantic asexual.
[ID: a drawing of Daanah, a Black girl with long locs pulled up in a bun. She has golden-brown skin and glasses. /end ID]
Daanah (she/her) is a main character and alloromantic aegosexual.
[ID: a drawing of Fiitsãn, a Black boy with rosy dark brown skin and a big pink Afro. /end ID]
Fiitsãn (he/him) is a main character and lithsexual.
[ID: a drawing of Līs, a Black teenager with blue braids and golden-brown skin . /end ID]
Līs (he/they/she/xe/fae) is a main character and demisexual.
[ID: a drawing of Maaziariitna, a young woman-man with hairy blue skin and her hair in microbraids. /end ID]
Maaziariitna (she/he) is a main character and lesbian asexual.
[ID: a drawing of Fiyavu Ozast, a young Black woman with dark skin and silver hair. /end ID]
Fiyavu Ozast (she/her) is Rovian and Daanah’s older sister and aromantic greysexual.
[ID: a drawing of Juraji, a Black teenager with long black locs. /end ID]
Juraji (xe/xem) is Halek’s queerplatonic partner and demisexual.
[ID: a drawing of Saafeera, a dark-skinned black woman with a very short Afro. /end ID]
Saafeera is Rovian and Daanah’s mother and recipromantic recipro-demisexual and sex-repulsed.
Honorable mentions:
Taehogh (he/him), Halek, Lí, and Maaziariitna’s grandfather, aroaceflux.
Wnahé (they/she), one of Halek and Lí’s parents, asexual.
Kjotar (he/they), teammate of Kaelía, Līs, and Zhe’ārani, lithromantic and listed in my notes as “probably acespec.”
Abhaonai (he/him), teammate of Kaelía, Līs, and Zhe’ārani, alloromantic aceflux.
Yna (she/her), princess seeking to marry Jue and later Sei, frayromantic asexual.
Mkera (she/her), betrothed to Jue, asexual.
One of my major goals in Aros Against Fate is to celebrate aspec experiences, and Black aspecs are so often left out in conversations around aspec experience. Here I have specifically asexual characters as it was inspired by #thisiswhatasexuallookslike, but (as the title implies) aromanticism is huge in AAF, and Black aros (and aplatonics, and afamilials, and all Black aspecs) of course equally deserve to see themselves recognized and uplifted. I hope that one day we have a vast amount of diverse aspec characters in media much more mainstream than my little unpublished, unfinished, tumblr-and-google-docs story, and that Black aspec stories by Black aspec authors can gain traction within and outside of our community.
aka Halek spends roughly 7,000 words (!) in or on the way to Meelasugaado while being an emotional wreck
content notices: blood; grief; background war; dissociation; confined space; mention and discussion of police violence; mention/discussion of prison violence; mention/discussion of psychiatric violence; self-blame; internalized saneism; hallucinations; paranoia; panic; flashbacks; food; touching; mention/discussion of sexual violence; self-harm mention; suicidal ideation; voluntary medication; kissing and sex mentions; mania; falling from heights; tarantula; self-hatred; internalized victim-blaming; fetishization of transness; bar fight; memory loss; cancer mention; relationships: platonic, romantic, sexual, queerplatonic, familial, sensual; alcohol; mild injury. It's a long chapter, lol.
Maaziariitna wrapped Halek in his coat to hide the blood and brought him to the commercial airship hangar.
"I know someone," ffe said.
Halek didn't say anything. Or do anything. He just let ffer lead him along.
"This is Åswså," Maaziariitna said, introducing him to a Sarkja cargo pilot. "Åswså, this is my cousin Halek. He needs to get to Meelasugaado."
Åswså leaned on the side of ffes airship and raised ffes eyebrows. "Maaziariitna… You know I can't land in Wend-Ki. I can't even fly over Wend-Ki right now without risking being shot down."
Halek felt his shoulders cave even further inwards.
Maaziariitna put on the face that always got ffer whatever ffe wanted. "Please? He's in danger if he stays here… I know about your little information op… you two probably know some of the same people. My grandkether is Juni Ano, remember?"
Under the numbness, Halek felt a spike of alarm. Maaziariitna shouldn't be talking about that.
"Please?" Maaziariitna smiled with shiny teeth and deep dimples and wide eyes. "For me?"
Åswså sighed and looked at Halek. "Right, you, how are you with heights?"
Halek shrugged listlessly. Heights were fine.
"He's great with heights," said Maaziariitna. "He's just had a shock is all. He's great. Heights aren't a problem."
"Okay," said Åswså. "Well… I can go the way I used to and pass over Meelasugaado instead of Sisiba and Ubéne and drop you by parachute, as long as my copilot agrees…"
Halek had to hide in a big wooden crate deep in the cargo hold until after takeoff. It smelled like unripe fruit.
He had to think about the fruit smell or he was going to lose it.
He was going to lose it anyway.
It was dark and cramped and he was alone and he had to stay very quiet and he didn't know how long he would have to stay in here.
Though there wasn't much space, he flexed his arms, just to remind himself that he could. No straightjacket. No restraints of any kind. He was fine.
He'd turned off his insulin pump so it wouldn't beep and give him away. That scared him. If he had a medical crisis in here, no one would know until it was too late.
"Hey."
He flinched.
Fuck.
He hadn't been hearing actual voices in a long time. It was harder to ignore voices than dying-smoke-detector chirps and faraway ambulance sirens and faint music. He hated being alone.
"They were right when they said you were violent, JM3160. Look at you now. All that blood."
Shut up.
"Crazy, aren't you, talking to people who aren't even real. Should take another trip to the psych ward."
Stop it. Shut up.
"If you ever get out of prison, that is."
Shut up shut up shut up.
Halek felt very scared and very upset and very young. He longed for his mother, for Neesa, even Talí- someone who understood about hearing things and could help him get through this until the voice went away.
"I'm always here, JM3160. I'm not going away. Always watching, just like them."
Stop calling me that, he thought, and then was frustrated with himself for even conceding to argue with it. It was just his own mind. There was never any convincing his own mind to stop.
How long had he been in here?
"Not that long. Normal people would be fine."
He put his head between his knees. It would be ages until takeoff. If he could only fall asleep- but he wasn't going to fall asleep. It would be worse to wake up like this, anyway, even if he could.
"Are you trying to use up all the air already?"
He wasn't going to run out of air. Yes he was. No, the crate wasn't airtight, Åswså had assured him of that.
What if ffe had lied? What if it was airtight?
What if ffe had lied to Maaziariitna and was going to turn him in? They'd send him back, they'd send him back forever this time-
"You'd deserve it."
"Stop," he hissed under his breath, then clamped his hand over his mouth.
The voice laughed.
His hand tasted like blood.
Yainogh- Yainogh-aer's blood. He slammed it back down in horror.
"You should stick a lighter in there to purify it."
It was an accident. Accidents didn't count. The Ðíúharlaes couldn't consume blood but accidents didn't count as wrong. It didn't count.
Was the crate getting smaller? It felt like it was getting smaller. It couldn't be getting smaller, that wasn't physically possible. It felt like he had even less space than he'd started with.
He had to remember to stay quiet if he cried.
It was like he was back to being fourteen. One day he had just- he'd had it with the searches, and he had been so afraid of the way that guard was looking at him, and he'd snapped and he'd punched him and they'd-
"You deserved it. What else were they meant to do with you, JM3160?"
-and they hadn't told him how long it would be, and he'd been so utterly alone, and he remembered slamming his shoulders into the concrete walls of the dark cell just for some kind of stimulation and screaming and screaming, let me out let me out let me out-
Halek thought that was what had broken him, if the rest of it hadn't already, if he had to point to one specific incident that he'd never been the same since.
He was going to die in here.
He fell asleep after all, having eventually worn himself out with panic.
"Hey." Åswså shook his shoulder.
Halek yelped. After all that, waking up to a stranger touching him-
"We're in the air. You can get out of there now."
Halek let out a quiet, devastated "oh" as he remembered.
Yainogh-aer.
The flight to Meelasugaado was about three and a half days. As of last night, Halek had had enough insulin in his pump for two. He was trying to ration it manually and consequently feeling pretty crummy physically on top of his shell-shocked emotions.
He didn't have any of his medications with him, aside from what was left in his pump and a few painkillers he'd found in his pocket, which he had ended up cutting into quarters so he didn't go completely into withdrawal.
He wasn't going to suddenly progress to full-blown AIDS within such a short period, so the antiretrovirals didn't worry him too much. As long as he picked them up at the pharmacy he used in Meelasugaado, that would turn out okay.
The lithium was going to be a problem. It didn't have withdrawal but he could tell that the abrupt stop and the emotional trauma of, well, everything had thrown his emotional stability completely out the window and he was on the edge of a manic episode. Because he wasn't already in enough shit or something.
"Do you have something I can use to write?" He hardly more than mumbled, but Åswså miraculously heard him.
"He speaks!" ffe exclaimed.
He hadn't exactly felt like making small talk.
"Please," he said in a small voice.
"Yeah. Pen and notebook good?"
He nodded.
"'Kay." Ffe rummaged around and found them for him. "You can just tear out the page when you're done. Ignore whatever's in there already, it's just weather data and stuff, you probably can't read most of it anyway."
He nodded in thanks and took the notebook and pen back to where he'd been sitting.
Juraji-
On my way to Meelasugaado now. I don't know what kind of state I'll arrive in so I'm making you a list of things I'm going to need in case I can't communicate them effectively or don't know anymore.
pick up my prescriptions from the pharmacy. Make sure I take my insulin and the ARVs. Don't push about the lithium, it will make me feel better but I might not want it and I'll take it when I'm ready, will probably freak out if you push about it so just pick it up for when I want it. Also don't let me take too many painkillers too quickly, they're pretty strong so just remind me of that and I'm okay with you taking them away from me and give them out on a schedule if you have to.
I'm usually fine with you touching my hair but just be careful about it, I'm not in a good state right now at all and I get really sensitive to triggers when I'm already feeling fraught
Probably I will be very upset a lot, just be ready for that
Please tell Diihse: I might want to have sex but it's not a good idea. I'll think it will make me feel better but I will feel worse after so I'd like you to just tell me no for now please even if I really want it in the moment
Don't try to keep me anywhere. If I go out alone or run off it might be ill-judged but me feeling trapped will be so much worse for all of us
Something happened and I lost someone. I don't know if I'll want to talk about it. Let me talk if I want to but also don't push
As usual please don't ask about scars tattoos etc that I haven't talked about unless it's a wound in need of immediate attention in which case be gentle about any questions please
If you can avoid loud banging noises that would be great
I might get angry/annoyed more easily for a while
Don't worry too much if it seems like I'm seeing or hearing or feeling things that aren't there, I probably am but it's probably fine unless I'm getting really upset. Happens a lot but I'm worse at ignoring it and knowing it's not real when I'm manic. Also might get paranoid about being watched (more than usual). Just be sensitive about that I guess? It's normal but it sucks and you might be annoyed by it all. Sorry
Åswså checked the straps of his parachute. "Five minutes and then you'll jump. A minute in, you deploy the chute. The city will be to the west of you when you land. Okay?"
Halek swallowed down the lump in his throat and nodded. He'd always wondered while using the carpet what it would be like to fall. There had been the incident with the Bridge, but he didn't remember that.
"Okay, now!" ffe said.
Halek found that his knees had locked up.
"You're missing the window," ffe said, and pushed him.
Halek was too startled and disoriented to scream.
For a brief moment, it was just like flying, except down.
He deployed the parachute. It was… weird. Kind of nice, to float. He could just hang here in the air forever, and that would be okay.
He was less content with crashing through the thick jungle canopy.
He let out several minutes of "ow ouch ouch fuck ow" as the branches smacked him and scratched him and pulled at his hair.
He added another plaintive "owwwww" when he hit the wet ground and the impact rattled up his leg.
The parachute landed on top of him.
He lay there for a while, smothered by the pile of nylon, and soaked in the comforting familiarity of the humid air. Getting up seemed like a lot of work that maybe wasn't worth it. He could just let the plants consume him.
"Gah!" He sat up with a start after an encounter with a curious tarantula reminded him that he really didn't like things crawling on him.
The tarantula had been flung about a metre away.
"Sorry," said Halek. Tears pricked at the back of his throat. "Sorry. I didn't mean to cause you any trouble. Um, here." He reached out and carefully nudged the spider into his cupped hand. "I'll just… I'll just put you on this vine here. Good? I didn't want anyone to get hurt…"
It only took him about a quarter of an hour of picking through the lush vegetation with his cane to find a road.
He scanned the shoulder of the road and contemplated how bumpy it looked, and then he contemplated how much his leg hurt already and how much more it would hurt by the time he made it to a bus stop if he walked the whole way, and he switched his cane for his wheelchair. Digging around in his pocket for the keychain reminded him of how there was blood all over his clothes and why. He sat and stared at the ground for a while until he felt like he could breathe again.
Diihse opened the door, and Halek fell on him.
Diihse patted his head as Halek cried into his strong shoulder.
"I'm sorry," said Halek, unable to let go of Diihse or articulate what he meant even to himself. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Doorbell guest friend here Halek blood cry surprise help what hurt sad why?" Diihse said, pulling Halek inside without letting go.
Halek took a moment to parse that, still clinging to Diihse’s shoulders. "I had to leave Rāmia. I didn't know where else to go. I'm sorry. Sorry. I needed to leave. I didn't have anywhere else-"
"Blood?" Diihse said again, and Halek remembered that he hadn't changed clothes since Yainogh-
-since Yainogh-
Yainogh-aer. Yainogh-aer now.
"It's not mine," said Halek, wanting to rip off his clothes and skin. It's not mine. How little that expressed. It wasn't his but it might as well have been. Family blood.
Diihse manoeuvred them into the living room and sat Halek down on the couch, carefully detaching Halek from himself.
"Halek," Diihse said, bending down to meet Halek's eyes. "Safe."
Diihse left the room, and Halek started violently rocking back and forth, gasping for air. Why had Diihse left him? It wasn't good for him to be alone.
Yainogh was dead. Dead dead dead dead dead. Yainogh-aer was dead. It hit him again, worse, now that he was safe. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Maybe he could have kept his brain in emergency mode and put this breakdown off for longer.
Diihse came back with Juraji, looked at Halek, and left again. Halek wished he would stay.
"Oh, love," breathed Juraji. Xe came to sit next to him.
Xe reached out to touch Halek's face, but he flinched.
"No," he said shakily, before xir hand could reach him.
"Okay." Juraji set xir hand down.
"I'm sorry," Halek said between gasps. He'd been clinging to Diihse moments ago, but now he couldn't even let Juraji touch him at all. He couldn't let people touch him.
"Don't be," said Juraji.
"Overwhelming," Halek said by way of explanation. He hadn't been touched by another person for days, other than Åswså shoving him out of the airship, hadn't felt like letting ffer and ffes co-pilot touch him, strangers he'd been pretty much trapped with. He got weird about touch sometimes. Too many memories and feelings.
Juraji studied him carefully. "Halek…" xe began cautiously. "Are you… okay?"
Halek burst into hysterical laughter.
"Sorry," said Juraji. "Bad question. You don't seem okay at all. What I meant was- Are you hurt? Whose blood is that?"
"Yainogh's," Halek said. Not-real and too-real at once. Involuntary hiccuping laugh-sobs hurt his chest. "Yainogh’s- Yainogh-aer's dead and I killed a cop! I'm so fucked. He's dead, my cousin is dead."
"But you're not hurt."
Halek shook his head, as if watching Yainogh-aer die hadn't felt almost like being shot in the chest again himself.
"Okay," said Juraji. "Do you want clean clothes?"
Halek nodded. He didn't want to keep being all covered in Yainogh-aer's blood.
Juraji stood up, but Halek grabbed xir wrist.
"Don't leave!" he said panickedly. "Don't leave me alone! I don't want to be alone! Please!"
"Okay," said Juraji, and sat back down. Juraji was always so kind to him, kinder than he deserved, especially now.
"I'm sorry," Halek said again, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his unzipped and too-warm coat, still giggling horribly. "I- I don't do well alone." Let me out let me out LETMEOUT. "I need you to stay. Please."
"I understand," xe said, though Halek didn't think that was really even possible.
Diihse returned, followed by his mother, and pressed a warm mug against Halek's hand.
Diihse's mother knelt down in front of Halek, taking in his hysterics and rocking and the blood on his clothes. "You're safe now," she said firmly. "You're safe here."
"Promise?" Halek said, his voice ever so small and shaky. He sounded like a child, like Aedrii-Nú.
"I promise."
"I can’t go back to jail," Halek said, hugging his knees. It just slipped out. He'd meant to stop at I can't go back. He hadn't meant to tell.
"Back?" Juraji asked, quiet enough that Halek could pretend he hadn't heard it if he wanted.
Halek nodded, avoiding xir eyes. Juraji deserved the truth. Juraji deserved- well, better than him, but xe deserved to at least know who xe'd chosen to love.
"You won't," said Diihse's mother. "You're safe."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Juraji asked him, still very quiet. "You don't have to."
Halek gritted his teeth and nodded again. "Just you. For now. Sorry."
Juraji nodded and looked at Diihse and his mother. "He needs clean clothes and something to eat," xe said firmly.
"Alright," said Diihse's mother. "Diihse, will you come with me and pick out some of your pyjamas for Halek?"
Diihse nodded and kissed Halek's forehead, and they left.
When Halek had sat in silence for a while, Juraji asked him if he actually wanted to talk about it.
"It's okay," xe said. "You don't need to tell me."
"I think I need you to ask me specific questions," Halek said. "I think… I think that will help. I don't… talk about it much."
It had been hard, with Maaziariitna, but at least he'd had a solid context of comforting ffer about ffes own experiences. This was harder to even make happen. He didn't know how to talk about it with Juraji.
"All right, love," Juraji said. "You tell me if it's too much, or you don't want to answer anything. When were you in jail? This wasn't… This wasn't something that happened while I knew you?"
"I was fourteen. 4068."
Juraji pursed xir lips.
"Sorry," said Halek. "I should have- I should have known better, I should have-"
"No, don't be sorry," said Juraji. "Don't. Just… Halek, you were so young. Fourteen? You should have been in school."
He knew that. He knew that. It was different to hear Juraji say it. "Just- keep going," he mumbled.
"How long were you there?" Juraji asked tentatively.
So long. Too long. "Only two cycles."
Juraji looked upset. "Why?"
"Vandalizing the walls of the military garrison and resisting arrest," Halek said. His hand drifted to his injured knee. "They shot me. Roo was with me when they found me. I had to protect Roo. She was just little. They were hurting me and they were hurting her and they decided I was violent for hitting back."
"That’s what happened to your knee? I thought you'd maybe been in an accident…"
Halek nodded. He didn't mention that they'd shot him in the chest too, that they'd have definitely left him to die and probably Roo as well if a neighbour hadn't called an ambulance. He'd upset Juraji enough.
"I think I know the answer to this," said Juraji, “but- they hurt you there?"
Halek sobbed a single, desperate wail.
"Yeah," said Juraji quietly. "I thought so. You poor thing… Come here."
Xe pulled Halek into an embrace, slowly and gently enough that Halek could pull away easily if he wanted to.
Halek drew in a shaking breath against xem. "I can't go back, Juraji. I don't think I'll survive it."
"You won't," said Juraji. "You'll stay with me, and I will not let anyone hurt you or take you away. I promise. On my life."
"I was supposed to protect Yainogh-aer," said Halek. "Now he's dead. I was right there and he's still dead."
Halek had told him to stop but he hadn't, and then they'd shot him, and then Misa screaming and cradling Yainogh's body, and no pulse and a hole straight through Yainogh-aer's skull, and he'd said something to Misa that he couldn't remember, and then his hand around the warm metal in Misa's coat and Misa telling him to aim between the eyes, and then-
"Halek. Look at me." Juraji pulled away slightly to put a finger under Halek's chin and meet his eyes. "I am one of the most powerful mages in the world. You are my best friend and my partner and there is not a single person in the world more important to me than you are, and that makes this personal. They will not touch you while I am here. Do you believe me?"
Slowly, Halek nodded. "I believe you."
"How did you know?" Halek asked. Ffwyn only came unasked when Halek really needed her.
"Elèrí told me."
Halek looked up, startled. "How do you know Elèrí?"
Ffwyn smiled slightly. "I'm older than most trees. I know a lot of people."
"Oh." Halek wasn't very satisfied by that answer, but he also didn't care that much right now, especially as something occured to him. "You can bring him back. I need you to bring him back."
Ffwyn startled. "What?"
"I need you to bring him back," Halek said excitedly. "Put him back together. Like the undead fairy queen. I know you're the knight in the story. You can bring Yainogh-aer back!"
Very cautiously, Ffwyn said, "I thought you prefered to think of that story as metaphorical. You said it brought you comfort to interpet it as about-"
"I can think more than one thing!" Halek snapped. He shoved at Ffwyn's chest. "You need to bring him back! You brought her back from just bits of bone, if I can get his whole body- You can just put him back-"
"Halek," said Ffwyn, in a very careful voice that Halek didn't like at all. "You have to know it doesn't work like that. The story you're talking about- The imporant part that you're forgetting is that fairy queens have regenerative power."
"Please!" He was crying now too. "Please, Ffwyn, please, you need to- I need- Please…"
"I'm sorry," said Ffwyn. "I'm so sorry, darling. It doesn't work like that. He's not of your world or mine anymore."
"You don't get it! You're immortal, you don't understand- He was only eighteen, he's dead, I need him back-"
"I know what it's like to lose people," said Ffwyn. "I know what it's like to think you could have saved them. We can still be felled by injury, and it might not have been common but I've cared for mortals before you. I have seen- many people die. I understand."
"But it's not fair," Halek cried.
"I know."
He covered his face. "I was supposed to protect him, Ffwyn!"
"I know," said Ffwyn. "You're so like me. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we can't save everyone. I'm sorry."
There was nothing else to be said.
"I killed someone," he said quietly. "I killed the person who killed Yainogh."
Ffwyn hummed.
"It's a big deal to me," Halek said. He didn't really feel like talking, but all the words, so many words, clawed at his brain, desperate to get out. "Looked her right in the eyes and shot her dead. I didn't know I was capable of that. I never wanted to find out."
"That's what happens in a war."
"I'm diagnosed with Combative Non-Recognition of Authority Disorder, did you know that?" said Halek. He was just rambling now, rambling very fast. "Did you know that? I never told you so you probably didn't. My therapist says that's a bullshit diagnosis that shouldn't even exist but she doesn't have the- hah, the authority, to get rid of it for me. They always said I was violent. I don't know, maybe they're right. I shot her right in the head. I don't want to be violent but I guess I am. I was always scared of that. I don't want to hurt anyone but- I had to protect the others, you know?"
"It's okay," said Ffwyn.
"Dance with me," said Halek desperately. "Make me dance with you. I need it to stop. My brain won't stop. Everything hurts."
"I will kill anyone who has ever brought you harm," Ffwyn said.
"I don't want that," Halek said. "I want you to make me dance with you. Please. You're the only one I trust to put me in a state like that and I need you to do it."
"I don't want you to use me to hurt yourself," said Ffwyn. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," said Halek. "I'm not hurting myself. I just want to feel nice and uncomplicated and safe for a bit. You make me feel safe, Ffwyn. Because I know you'll never hurt me. It's really nice to- to have someone powerful and they don't want to hurt me. And you call me by my name, my real name, and it works, because that's me, not my old name or- or some fucking number. And I forget that my knee hurts and that I let Yainogh-aer die and shot a woman point-blank in the head and people hurt me and I just feel safe with you."
"Okay," said Ffwyn. She raised his hand high and kissed his knuckles. "Dance with me, Haleksari."
Halek stared suspisciously at the salad. He hadn't been able to sit still long enough to watch Diihse make it and that made him half-convinced it was drugged.
"Salad," Diihse said, as if the problem were that Halek had never seen a salad before. "Vegetables leaves crunchy. Good lunch side meal eat."
"Did you put anything else in it?" said Halek.
"No."
"You didn't try to sneak my medication in?" Diihse had never lied to him before, but there was a first time for everything.
"Vegetables," Diihse repeated, slowly this time.
Halek could tell he was being a bother. He still couldn't shake the paranoia and the ghostly feeling of an unwanted syringe in his arm and make himself eat. He really didn't want to be a problem for Diihse.
When had just eating gotten so complicated?
"Don't forget to do your insulin," Juraji said as xe passed by, and Halek slammed his head into the placemat.
"Do you have a broom?" Halek asked. "I thought I'd do a bit of sweeping. Tidy things up, you know? Earn my keep? I think I made a lot of crumbs when I made a snack and I stepped on some and it made me think I should sweep."
Diihse's dad looked up from his book. "I thought you and Juraji were doing a puzzle?"
"We were. Couldn't focus. There's crumbs on my sock. Can I sweep? I don't want to be in the way though."
Ten minutes later the broom leaned against the counter, abandoned.
"Do you want to go swimming?" he asked Diihse.
"Yes!" said Diihse.
"Ugh," said Ãgbii, Diihse's twin sister. "But we were-"
"You can come," said Halek. "The more the merrier! Juraji can drive. Let's go. Do you have an extra bathing suit I can borrow? We should change before we go though, 'cause of the trans thing, right, people are kind of weird about that here."
He caught sight of the puckered scar on his chest while changing. In his ears, the gun went off again.
Halek talked through the movie. He found he had a lot to say about it and even more to say about barely-related anecdotes.
"Shhhh," said Diihse.
The break in his running commentary lasted almost five minutes before he could no longer restrain himself.
"In real life it doesn't work like that. For CPR you're not supposed to bend-"
A uniformed officer appeared in the movie.
Halek flinched violently, smacking the top of his head on Juraji's chin.
"Shit!" said Juraji. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't think it was that kind of mystery, I'm so sorry-"
Diihse smashed his thumb on the power button on the remote and the TV went dark.
If you hadn't resisted-
Everyone against the wall!
What're you gonna do, shoot me? Shoot me for celebrating the holidays?
"Halek, Halek, it's okay, you're okay-"
He slammed his elbow into Juraji's chest on instinct when xe tried to wrap xir arms back around him.
He was violent. He'd always known he'd hurt Juraji somehow. He didn't want to hurt Juraji. Maybe he secretly did?
He'd held Misa, trying to calm him down like Juraji had just tried to do for Halek. Held him and rocked him back and forth and murmured some nonsense in his ear over Yainogh-aer's body.
"It's okay," said Juraji. "I'm okay, love, it's okay. You're safe. You're safe, okay? Just me and you and Diihse here. It's okay. You're safe."
"I'm going out!" Halek called, and shut the door before anyone could stop him. He needed a distraction, and Diihse wouldn't even kiss him even though he was back on his antiretrovirals like Diihse had asked, which was fine, that was Diihse's prerogative, but if he was going to live he needed to lose himself.
He took a crowded streetcar downtown, humming tunelessly. Everyone else gave him annoyed looks. Joyless.
He found the brightest neon sign, so bright it blurred in his eyes and he couldn't even read what the place was called, and went in.
He had some fantastically colourful drinks. He didn't even like the taste of alcohol, but the colours tricked him every time.
"I'm trans," he told her, when they were dancing close enough that she was going to figure it out for herself soon. He had to shout, because the music was so loud. He could feel the beat in his ribs and he loved it. He could hardly make out anyone's voices even with his hearing aids turned on.
"Ooh." She stuck out her tongue as she smiled. "Sexy. I've never tried one of you before."
It felt a little weird, uncomfortable, the way she was talking about it, but he wanted to have fun and he was never going to see her again so he didn't really care.
"I lie to everyone who loves me," he felt compelled to say.
"You're so drunk." She laughed and put her hands on his chest. "It's a good thing I don't love you, then. No need to worry about any of that."
"One time I blew up a building."
She tugged on his hair to pull him down for a kiss. "Shut up already."
He didn't mean to punch her.
"Ow!" She shoved him away. "What the fuck!"
He looked down at his hand, blood on his knuckles. "I don't like-" he began.
She hit him back.
Halek had never been in a bar fight before. So many people got involved. It was exhilarating. He laughed with the adrenaline.
He liked that he was allowed to hit back.
The bouncer kicked him out.
Halek burst into tears unexpectedly. He hadn't felt them building up or anything.
"Look, kid," said the bouncer. "You've been drinking-"
"I'm not a kid," Halek choked out. He hadn't been a kid in a long time.
"Do you need to call someone?" the bouncer said. "There's a phone on the corner of the building. It's free to use. I really think you should call someone for a ride home."
He was shaking against the rain-damp wall. "Juraji. I need you to pick me up. I'm sorry. Sorry. I need you to come get me."
"'Course, love." Juraji's voice was thick with sleep. "Give me the address and I'll be right there, okay?"
Juraji put xir hand up to Halek's nose, sending tingling magic into his face. He hadn't even realized it was bleeding until Juraji fixed it.
"Did someone hurt you?" xe asked.
"I started it," Halek said. "It was my fault. I started a whole brawl. Not really on purpose. It just happened."
"Plug in your seatbelt," Juraji reminded him, because Halek hadn't bothered to. "Have you been drinking?"
"No," Halek lied.
"You have!" said Juraji. "I can smell the liquor!"
"So what?" said Halek sulkily. "I'm old enough."
"It's just not… something you'd usually do," said Juraji. "You don't like alcohol."
"Well, who I usually am, I don't like him," said Halek. "Who I usually am got Yainogh killed and shot someone dead point-blank and lies to everybody and Rovian doesn't want to be friends with him anymore and he's a lying loser coward and he sucks and his mother had cancer so he got himself shot and he got Roo hurt and he got locked up and probably raped but I don't even know because I don't fucking remember and put in solitary and straightjacketed and handcuffed and tazered and hurt and strapped down and sedated and couldn't do anything to stop any of it and everything I do makes everything worse and you won't let me kill him but I don't want to be him I'm so sick of being him you want me to take my meds but then I'll go back to being a massive fucking coward who hurts everybody I care about so I'd rather keep not caring about consequences and just doing what feels right instead of agonizing over everything and still getting it wrong and being so scared all the time." His heart was pounding too fast in his chest as his brain caught up to his mouth. Quietly, he admitted, "I didn't mean to tell you all that."
Juraji was looking at him with such pity. Halek wanted to claw his skin off and only barely restrained himself from trying to do so by sitting on his hand.
This was why he hadn't wanted to tell xem. Xe would see what he really was now. All open wounds and failure.
"I can pretend you didn't," said Juraji. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I can pretend I don’t know."
Halek let out an anguished wail. "But you do." He didn't want Juraji to see that he was broken, or know what had broken him.
Juraji pulled over and turned in xir seat. Xe reached out an arm. "C'mere, love."
Halek let Juraji hold him and sobbed.
"It doesn’t change anything," said Juraji. "It's okay. I won't tell anyone, and I won't treat you any differently, I promise. You don't have to take your medicine. It will still be there if you change your mind, and I think it's a good idea because I know from you telling me that it helps you feel better, but it's up to you, I promise. It's all always up to you. I won't talk about any of the things you said unless you bring it up first, okay? And I won't let anybody hurt you while you're with me, not ever, you're safe here as long as you need to stay and I'll come back with you when it's time. I promise none of the things that have happened to you are your fault. Yainogh was not your fault. There was nothing you could have done, and even if there had been it's still not your fault, because you did not kill him."
"I hate everything," Halek moaned. He hated himself. He hated the world. Hours ago he had loved the mania, felt so excited and full of life, but now he hated that too, the opposite of calm and in a bad way.
"That's okay," said Juraji. "I'm going to take you back to Diihse's and you can go to bed and get some rest."
"I'm not tired," Halek said, which wasn't precisely true. He was so tired, but he wasn't sleepy, and hadn't been in days. He hadn't slept for more than an hour in days. He didn't know how to explain that to Juraji. He didn't know if there were different words in Meelasugaadic for tired like he was, tired in his bones, and tired like wanting to sleep.
"Then you can read, or put something on the TV quietly so Diihse's family doesn't get woken up, or we can play a game," Juraji said. "Just- something restful, quieter, okay? Help you wind down a bit."
Halek knew he would not wind down for anything anytime soon, probably days more still, but he just nodded and let Juraji pull back onto the road. There was no quiet inside him, only a yawning void desperate to be filled.
"We usually cook that," Ãgbii said.
Halek shrugged and ate another handful of cereal out of the box. His mouth tasted really bad.
He had woken up after a fitful sleep with a hangover and blood crusted under his nose, and couldn't remember much of last night. The holes in his memory had scared him so much that he'd gone and taken his lithium before he could overthink it.
The mood effects probably wouldn't really take hold for a couple days. The dry and bad-tasting mouth effect had taken hold almost immediately.
Juraji wandered slowly into the kitchen. Xe kissed Ãgbii on the top of her head. "Good morning, sweetie." Looked over at Halek. "Morning, love."
"Thanks for picking me up last night," Halek said, guilty at the flash of memory. Crying on the public phone outside some nightclub.
"'Course." Juraji yawned. "What else was I gonna do, leave you?"
"Sorry," said Halek.
"No, it's okay," said Juraji, opening the fridge groggily. "Accepted that responsibility when I decided to be the first to get my driver's liscense out of all of us. Ãgbii, do you know if there's any of that fruit salad left?"
"Not sure."
"I saw it earlier," said Halek, desperate to be helpful. "Behind… Um, behind the yogurt…?"
Juraji might know what had happened last night, but Halek was afraid to ask. It couldn't have been good, to have needed to call xem like that.
"Okay." Juraji smoothed the papers down on the table. "These are all the floorplans you sent me. I brought them with me when the school closed."
They'd borrowed Diihse's colourful felt pens for this. Halek sketched in a few red lines. "Our information-" Talí's information, Jue's information- "says there's a secret emergency exit here and-" He leaned across the table- "here. There might be a third, but I can't remember and I don't have access to any of our records."
Juraji nodded. "Right. We're going to collapse those?"
"Yeah. Should be fine with just explosives, though, we shouldn't need you to take care of them. Most likely-" Halek pulled out a blue pen, the colour of xir magic, to represent Juraji- "You'll be coming in through here with me, at the top. Most nobles and officials are usually in-" gold pen- "this area, and that's who we want to confront."
Halek woke up kicking at the tight fabric with tears in his eyes and phantom touches on his skin.
It was just the sheets, having gotten all tangled around him. Just the sheets. No straps, no straightjacket.
"Hey, love." Juraji set xir little handheld video game console down and reached over.
Halek was familiar with Juraji's insomnia. It wasn't surprising to find xem still awake on their shared floor mattress. Diihse was asleep in the single bed on his other side.
"What’s up?" Juraji asked, just loud enough for Halek to hear.
"Besides you?" The joke helped him shake off the chill a little.
Juraji cracked a brief smile. "I think you were having a nightmare."
"Yeah." Halek propped himself up on his elbow. "Think so."
"Want to talk about it?"
"I don't really remember," said Halek. He sighed frustratedly and sat up. "My body just feels all wrong."
"Dysphoria?"
"Everything. I can feel hands on me, feel people watching me. I know they're not real."
Juraji made a sympathetic noise.
"I feel like it doesn't even belong to me, like I can't trust it, like it will never feel right."
Juraji turned xir body to be facing him. "Do you want to know what you look like when my mind is fully opened, with my mage-sense?"
"Sure," Halek said, subdued.
"Can I touch you?"
Halek nodded.
Juraji leaned forward and cupped a cool hand around the back of his neck.
Halek leaned forward too, closing the gap between them so their foreheads met.
A soft blue glow emanated from Juraji's dark skin. "I feel every electron in your body. A brilliant universe of stars. When I touch you, we are one song made of a trillion trillion tiny vibrations." Xe smiled faintly. "I wish you could see yourself the way I do. You are just as wonderful to me with every other sense."
"I wish I wasn’t so weird,” Halek said, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. He never felt truly settled in himself. "Do you think I'm too invested in the flesh?"
Juraji pulled xir head back, the glow fading. "Not at all! It’s your flesh. I'm very invested in my flesh. Because I live here."
"It's just…" Halek traced a finger over his other arm. "We say the spirit is higher than the flesh. Relationships of the spirit are higher than relationships of the flesh. We should pursue spiritual things over physical things. But my body is really important to me, physical intimacy and touching are really important parts of my relationships…"
"No, that makes sense, it's part of you," Juraji said. "It's like… the whole outside part of you. I don't believe they’re really separate, the flesh and the spirit… pleasures of one can be pleasures of the other, and harm to one can be harm to the other. For what it's worth, I think your flesh and your spirit are both lovely. No one could ever replace you."
Juraji had to cover them with an illusion to get into Moghrlai Gurodstadit.
Halek looked down at the uniform xe'd conjured up. "I'm going to puke."
"You've become the thing you hate most," said the voice.
Can you actually just shut up, Halek thought.
"It's just until we get to your house," said Juraji. "I changed your face, too. Just in case."
Halek examined his empty hand. It very much did not look like it belonged to him. The brown of his skin was way too light, the fingers too long and slender, the nails too unbitten. Morbidly curious, he extended his other arm slightly and found that he appeared to have a right hand, something that had never been the case before and that felt entirely disconnected from him. "Hmph."
"Is it okay?" said Juraji. "I've only been here once, when you brought me to meet your family last year. I'm not very familiar with-"
"It's fine." Halek closed his (real) fist and let his other arm drop. "Hurts to walk without my cane. Even with the brace. We'll have to go slowly so I don't pop my hip and fall."
Rāmian soldiers did not use wheelchairs or walking sticks, and changing their appearances was enough work for Juraji to maintain without having to alter Halek's gait too.
"I need you to look at me and tell me if I've gotten anything wrong," said Juraji. "Nicely."
Halek grimaced and looked up.
Looking back at him was- someone else. Nothing like Juraji at all, apart from the height. A fully-uniformed Rāmian soldier.
Without meaning to, he took a half-step back.
"Convincing?"
"Yeah." A little too convincing, maybe.
"Good."
"Wait," said Halek. He cautiously touched the name patch on xir chest. "That can't be your name. That's just Juraji in Rāmiloq characters. Well- As close as you can get. Jarajē. It's not a Rāmiloq name."
He'd shown xem how to write their names in all the languages he knew once, and xe'd shown him how to write them in all the languages xe knew.
"Oh."
Halek braced himself and looked back down at his own chest. "Everything else is basically perfect, but Halāq is also not a Rāmiloq name."
"Oh." Juraji's shoulders slumped.
"It's okay, we can fix it," said Halek. "It's not a big deal, and you don't speak the language. There's, um- The Younger Empress when we were born was Haishionā. Or maybe she was the Elder Empress by then… I don't remember, she didn't last very long. And- Jaision is a pretty common name with most age groups, I think. The examples in word problems at school were always called stuff like Jaision. They do stuff with prophecies, too, but I'm not Senci and I don't really know how it works, and there are still trends. Rāmiloq names are gender-neutral so we can just grab whatever and it shouldn't be questioned."
Juraji cleared off a patch of dirt on the forest floor with xir foot. "Can you write those for me?"
"Yeah. We'll need family names too so-" Halek took a stick and scratched out two names. "I just got these from books so I hope they don't have connotations that will cause problems."
Rāmiloq had a lot of class stuff baked into it. He wasn't sure how much was connected to family names. They needed to be unremarkable.
Juraji did xir best to copy the names onto the illusory uniforms.
"Good," said Halek, although if one looked too close the characters might look a little wrong. It was good enough for a casual observer, and a very good impression for someone who didn't actually know that alphabet and had to just copy the words as pictures.
The ghost of a smile flitted across Juraji's face.
"I'll have to do the talking," Halek said grimly. Hopefully very little talking, to avoid both his panic and his local accent showing through.
Juraji nodded.
"If we can get into the city without being seen, no one should question us as we move through it," said Halek nervously. "Patrols around the perimeter are groups of six but inside the city a pair shouldn't be noticeable. If we get the timing right we should be fine."
Halek hadn't expected to be so scared coming home. What if they blamed him for what had happened at Ykseis? They should, but he didn't want his family to hate him.
They stood in the back yard of his house. Their front door was being watched, but their back neighbours weren't, as far as Halek and Juraji had been able to tell.
"Drop the illusion before we go in," said Halek. He didn't want to scare anyone.
Juraji flexed xir hands and the illusion disintegrated in a shower of blue sparks.
Halek scratched at the back of his neck and tried to reassure himself that there was nothing really there. Just- his mind playing tricks on him again. No cause for concern.
"Come on," he said, lowering his hand to find his key. He'd had it in his pocket when- when he'd left. The blood hadn't washed out of the coat, but he still had the key. "They'll remember you, except my aunt Saujei because she doesn't remember anyone and maybe Aedrii-Nú because she's little and it's been a year and maybe my grandfather because he's losing his memory. Well, and, you met one of my dads, and the others might not know you-" Rambling again. Delaying.
"Halek." Juraji put a hand on his arm. "I'm not worried. You can just introduce me again. I've been working on my Ðíúharlaesoghk. Maybe I'll be able to talk to them directly this time."
"Okay."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Halek said rotely. He wiggled his key in the lock. This door always stuck.
Tepaan-Bríné and Talí were in the kitchen when Halek pushed the door open, cutting vegetables and putting them into a big pot. Aedrii-Nú was sitting on the floor, not helping.
Talí saw them, but just sort of blinked and shook their head and looked back at the tubers. Halek guessed they maybe thought they were hallucinating.
Aedrii-Nú screamed and burst into tears, which stung, but given the context of when she'd last seen him Halek understood, and Tepaan-Bríné was finally roused from his focus.
"I'm home," Halek said awkwardly.
Halek's room was the same. It felt so dissonant, alien, to have everything identical to how he'd left it before the party.
It felt dangerous.
His neck itched.
"Juraji." He took a step back out the door, pushing xem with him. "I think the room's bugged."
"…Are you sure?" Juraji asked gently. "It would be pretty hard to get in past all your family to plant anything."
Halek was jittering all over. "I think I'm bugged."
"Halek."
"They could have," said Halek. "They could have put something under my skin when-"
"I can check," said Juraji. "It's okay. I can use my magic and I check you and I can check your room and I can get rid of anything I find. Okay?"
"Okay." That was good. That would tell him if his instincts were right or if it was really a delusion. "Thank you. For doing that. And for taking me seriously."
Juraji nodded and squeezed past him into his bedroom. "Give me a few minutes and I'll have this sorted out."
Xe spun in a slow circle, examining Halek's room, then after a long moment, xe spread xir arms and an electric blue film settled like dust over everything.
The hairs on Halek's arms stood on end with the static. He chewed his lip in silence.
The blue slowly faded away. "Nothing," said Juraji.
"Okay." Halek tried to believe Juraji. He stepped back in and closed the door. "Can you check me now?"
Juraji sat down on Halek's bed. "Yep. C'mere."
Halek sat next to xem. He couldn't enjoy being back on his own bed until he knew. "You can do my head first. It would have been easy to put something in with- the tattoo."
Juraji raised xir eyebrows. "The tattoo?"
"On my neck," Halek said uncomfortably. "It's, um. My number. From- I didn't put it there myself. Anyway. And I have a little one behind my ear, actually, for stability, I don't know if it really helps but that was the idea. There shouldn't be anything in my head and neck except the ink and my earring."
"Okay."
Halek took off his glasses so they wouldn't interfere.
"Is it okay if I touch you?" Juraji asked. "The contact will make it easier to look precisely."
Halek closed his eyes and nodded.
"Okay. Stop me if you need to." Juraji's hands settled on Halek's face.
He shivered.
"All good?"
"Your hands are cold," Halek answered honestly.
"Bad circulation," said Juraji. "It's genetic. My mother's hands were never warm."
"I'm good. Keep going."
"You might feel a bit of a shock," said Juraji, and Halek's skin flooded with static electricity.
It's okay. It's just Juraji.
"Hmm."
"What is it?" Halek asked anxiously. "Did you find something?"
"None of what you were thinking," said Juraji. "But you have cataracts developing."
"What?" Halek said, thrown off balance.
"You know. In your eyes. You should see someone about that."
Things had been blurrier, lately. He'd thought he just needed new glasses.
That was an extra complication he really didn't need right now. Eyes were delicate. Juraji couldn't fix them, or xe'd have said so.
"Fuck," he said.
"Mhm. I'm going to put my hands in your hair now to get a better look at your scalp, if that's okay, love."
"Okay." Nonetheless, he felt himself get tenser when Juraji's fingers wove into his roots, and stay tense until xir hands moved down to his neck.
"I can probably get rid of this, you know, if you don't like it," xe said as xir fingers traced the ink.
He wanted to say yes. Oh, how he wanted to say yes. But- "You can't," he said. It hurt to say. "Not yet. Until things change… If I'm caught and they see I've gotten rid of it, it will count against me, even if they can't prove anything else…"
"Okay," said Juraji. "Right. That part's done."
Halek opened his eyes and settled his glasses back on. He tugged off his shirt, then, feeling a little nauseous, started unbuttoning his pants. "Do the rest now."
"Hey." Juraji held out a hand. "You don't have to take all your clothes off at once. If it's more comfortable for you to do it in sections-"
"Oh." Halek dropped his hand, embarrassed he hadn't thought of that. Of course he didn't have to strip down completely. Of course Juraji wouldn't require that of him to do a search. "Right. Yeah."
He had a creeping suspicion that Juraji knew, even though Halek didn't remember telling xem, even though he'd never told anyone. Maybe it was just his paranoia, or maybe he'd said something during the gaps in his memory in Meelasugaado, or maybe Juraji had just figured it out on xir own.
"I've got some more tattoos," he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. "Obviously. And then my pump and I have a copper IUD. That's all that should be there."
"Okay. Gonna touch you now. Same thing with the mild shock."
Halek nodded.
Juraji was very gentle. Almost too gentle, fingertips ghosting across Halek's skin.
"I don't want you to have to compromise your principles for me," Halek blurted, partly because it had been weighing on him and partly because he couldn't bear to sit in silence during this.
"What do you mean?" Juraji asked, thumb slowing slightly as it skimmed over one of Halek's forearm tattoos.
"The pacifism stuff. I know it's important to you. I don't want you to have to sacrifice all that work for the rebellion, or to protect me." He didn't want Juraji to be contaminated by his violent nature.
"Yeah?" said Juraji. "I'm not worried about that. I'm really good with my magic. I don't expect to need to actually hurt anyone, and I don't have any qualms about property damage." Xe paused. "And, if it comes down to it, in a self-defence situation, or if you were in danger, I would protect you however I could. I can protect you better than anybody else in the world, and probably even without really hurting anyone, but I would if I really had to."
"Okay."
Xe grinned. "I'm your 'secret weapon', remember?"
"Yeah," said Halek. His voice felt small. "I just- care about you a lot more now than when I asked you to be that."
"I know, love," said Juraji. "I like it, anyway. Makes me feel important."
"You're important anyway," said Halek. He didn't want Juraji to think he only valued xem for what xe could do.
"It's okay," said Juraji. "Really."
"Okay."
Two of xir fingers settled on a pair of little bumps on Halek's side. "This scar is an odd-"
"It'sfromataser," Halek said, all very fast. It wasn't an unknown. They weren't surgical marks he hadn't been aware of that could be an insertion point for a tracker. "Don't want to talk about it."
"Oh," said Juraji. Then, darker, angrier: "Oh. I see. Does the electricity from my magic bother you?"
"It's just pins and needles."
"Okay." Juraji's hands moved further down his back. "Are you sure about the rest of this?"
"I need proof that I'm wrong."
He lay face-down and cried for a bit after that. Juraji hadn't found anything. He was still scared, still half-convinced there had to be something, but xe hadn't found anything.
He'd asked for a minute alone, and Juraji had said xe'd wanted to talk to Tepaan-Bríné (or Úsírae or Réswn or Ínaenow) about xir recent diagnosis of narcissism anyway because it was reassuring to find middle-aged adults with the same diagnosis with their life fairly together, so Halek had the space to finally let everything out. The past… days, tendays, years, had been a lot.
The dying fire alarm wasn't real, which unfortunately meant Halek couldn't cover his ears to escape the beeping. He had to admit that that did make him cry harder because it just would not stop.
There was a knock on the door. Probably Juraji.
"Come in," he called, not lifting his face off the pillow. They needed to sort out the floor bed.
"Hey," Míúren said.
Halek jumped, trying to hide that he'd been crying.
"I just wanted to check on you," she said. "We haven't had a chance to talk in private since you got home."
"Oh." Halek sat up and hoped his eyes weren't too red.
"Do you want to talk? We've been able to talk to your siblings and Aedrii-Nú about what happened at Ykseis and how they're doing with everything going on right now, but not you yet."
He hugged himself. "I don't want to worry you."
"Halek." Míúren sighed. "I'm always worried about you. That's how it is when you're a parent, especially now."
Especially me, Halek thought. He was such a mess. He was trying so hard not to be, and he was still such a mess.
"But you might get sick again if you worry about me too much," he mumbled. Cancer feeds on stress, he'd heard his uncle Jirit say to Juni once when they hadn't known he was listening. With all this stuff with Halek, I'm worried for her health. The voice liked to repeat it back to him whenever he was going through something.
"Oh," Míúren said softly. "Have you been carrying that around for a long time?"
Halek nodded and crumpled back into tears.
"I'm-" He hiccuped- "I'm sorry…"
She moved from her wheelchair to sit next to him on the bed, rubbing his back. "Halek, Halek, it's okay. I'm okay. I won't tell you the cancer won't come back, because no one can promise that, and I won't tell you that I'm not afraid it might, but the chances are low. I've been cancer-free for years, and the surgery removed everything and then some, and the medications keep the chances of a resurgence down to almost nothing, and if it does come back it will not be your fault. I didn't get sick from worrying about you, I got sick from my genetics and sheer bad luck."
"I know," Halek sobbed. "In- In my brain, intellectually, I know. B-But I'm scared… in my feelings it's my fault and I'm going to make it come back if I upset you out too much… I made you sick just by being pregnant with me, I made you sick by stressing you out…"
"Listen." Míúren squeezed his shoulders. "You are not responsible for my health. You never have been, and you never will be. My health is up to me, it's up to my doctors, it's up to my genes and the environment, it's up to the Kether-"
"I don't believe in-"
"Chance, then," said Míúren. "But it's not up to you, okay? I'm responsible for looking after you, not the other way around, because I am your mother and you are a teenager."
"I'm basically an adult," Halek said. "I should be able to look after myself."
"Nevertheless." Míúren gave him a be serious look. "Have you ever met any adult who can actually look after themself entirely on their own? Because I haven't."
"I know," said Halek, suddenly full of an entirely different shame. "Sorry. I know."
"I want to look after you," said Míúren. "I want to help you look after yourself. Adult or not. I love you, and I want to see you succeed, whatever success means for you. I don't want you to feel like you can't talk to me when you're having trouble because it might worry me. Of course it will worry me, but I'm okay with that and I can manage the stress it might cause me." She smiled at him. "I've been managing my stress more than twice as long as you've been alive. I promise I can take it."
"Do you really want to know how I'm doing?" Halek asked, looking at his knees. "It's not good."
"I do."
"I watched Yainogh-aer die, and the others, and I thought I was going to die too, and I killed someone." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I don't remember all the details, but I remember how scared I was. I thought we all might die."
Míúren nodded. "Talí told me how brave you were. They also thought you might not make it out, but you took that risk so that they would."
"Maybe," Halek said. Maybe he'd been brave. Or maybe more people would have survived if he hadn't fought back, given in to his violence. He would never know. "Things were really bad for a while in Meelasugaado. I would've let myself die if Juraji hadn't been really vigilant about me eating and taking my insulin. It's not an emergency anymore, but things are still… bad. Even though Juraji checked with xir magic I'm still convinced that there's a bug- like, a tracking device, a listening device, a mind-reading device, something- in my room or in me, and every time I close my eyes I see Yainogh-aer lying there in a puddle of blood with a hole in his head, and I'm so scared that's going to happen to everyone else I love too because I can't protect them, and- and the beeping won't fucking stop!" He gasped in a deep breath. "And it's just so lonely to live like this, to have so many different things I can't tell so many different people, because it's not safe or because they won't understand, to not be able to relate to normal teenagers who go to school and don't have to keep it secret or they have normal jobs and who have fun and who don't wake up panicked in the middle of the night and who aren't psychotic or bipolar or traumatized or scared all the time and who don't have to worry about being locked away again and who get to just live…"
"I know," said Míúren. "I'm so sorry you didn't get to have a good adolescence. I wish we could have protected you better."
"I wish I'd protected Yainogh-aer."
"Why should they care?" Halek said. "All we're doing is standing. They don't care that we're displeased."
"No," said Juni. "They don't. It's a twenty-four-hour warning that all the people standing today will be turning them out of the city tomorrow if they don't leave on their own."
"They won't," Halek said.
"No," said Juni. "I don't think so. But on the chance they do withdraw, or even a few individual soldiers desert and run away, we think it's worth it, because although we outnumber them by orders of magnitude and I believe we will win tomorrow, they have a lot more guns and a lot of us are probably going to die in the process."
So many people had died at Ykseis and they'd been no threat at all. "I just-"
"Then don't come, Haleksari." Ze gave him a stern look. "Our work alone has not been enough to drive them away. We have been organizing this for most of the time you've been gone. Twenty-one of the twenty-three units in the city agreed to be present as the closest thing they will have to actual security and emergency medics, and you were not her to vote on it, but by all means, stay home. I will be taking Juraji regardless."
"Obviously I'm coming," Halek said irritably. It was unfair of hir to judge him for fleeing, as if he hadn't- (a desperate urge to hide flooded him). Juni had been on the run for years while Míúren had been growing up. Halek had been gone for what, half a cycle?
"I'm coming too," Talí said.
Halek flinched.
He hated that he couldn't hear people coming up behind him.
"You didn't even tell me this was happening," Talí said accusa, swearingtorily. "I thought you agreed to trust me."
"I wasn't here until yesterday," Halek said. "I didn't know. How would I have told you?"
And, no, he hadn't told them after Juni had told him, because he'd watched Yainogh-aer die, because he had nightmares about watching Talí die, because their deal had explicitly not involved Talí being in the field.
Juni sighed and pinched the bridge of hir nose.
"I would go anyway," Talí said. "Everyone is. I want to be there as one of you."
"It's-" Halek began. Too dangerous.
Juni shushed him. "Talí. Do you understand what that means? If you are dressed like us, there as one of us, people will be relying on you, and you will be more of a target, and your life might become very difficult if they identify you later, and if anyone asks you must deny it."
"Yes," said Talí. "I was there at Ykseis. I was responsible for Roo and Aedrii-Nú." They swallowed visibly. "I watched him die too."
"Okay," said Juni.
Halek must have looked sour, because Juni turned to him and said, "Halek, you were hardly sixteen when I invited you to join us. Talí is able to understand what they are committing to, just as you were."
Talí gaped at him. "It's been that long? You're such a fucking hypocrite!"
"It was different," said Halek. "I wasn't a kid anymore." He hadn't been a kid for a long time by then.
"Nonsense," said Juni. "Yes, you were. You are. You were a kid who needed a way to fight back, and Talí already knows far more than they should."
That was his fault. Talí shouldn't know anything about QD.
"They deserve the same chance you got."
It was hot to be dressed like this, all in black and as covered up as possible.
He didn't complain. Juni was annoyed with him already, and there were more important problems, and he didn't actually need to be wearing a scarf for this to work because he was wearing a mask already and his hair was long enough to cover the tattoo on his neck but he was wearing one anyway so it was kind of his fault.
"Where's the baby?" he asked Ailít.
"With eir grandmother," Ailít signed, probably meaning Maidallis, since Saafeera was here. They wouldn't use names.
"Doing well?"
She nodded. "Ey's still a harsh eater. I've started pumping instead. Ey's cooing and moving eir limbs around more now."
"And you?"
Ailít laughed. It was a good sound to hear. He hadn't heard her laugh in a long time.
"Tired," she signed. "I hardly know what day it is. I'd love to sleep through the night. Eir grandmothers have taken eir overnight a few times, but I'm too anxious then to sleep well."
"Are you doing things for yourself?" Halek signed.
"I've taken up Rāmiq paper-folding," signed Ailít. "There's no room in my brain for reading anymore, but the baby's asleep a lot, so we have a lot of little colourful paper birds now. I thought I might put them up on a string."
Beside him, Talí tapped his elbow. "She's here."
"Okay." He gave Juraji a nod, and xe dropped the cover.
Dozens of clusters of people now converged around the mayor. Little islands became a big crowd behind her, with Halek and the others along the edge and scattered strategically throughout. There were more real press here than Halek had expected, with big cameras and vests proclaiming their affiliations that he hoped they didn't think were certain to protect them.
She set down a small stepladder in front of the garrison's outer wall and climbed up with a megaphone in her hand.
"I WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE GENERAL," she said.
More polite in her language than Halek would be, but that was the kind of language a politician used.
It was only when she said it again in Rāmiloq that he caught up to the fact that she was prioritizing Ðíúharlaesoghk. She was the first Ðíúharlaes mayor of Moghrlai Gurodstadit in Halek's lifetime, but in official public addresses Rāmiloq was always the first language used, because it had to be.
"AS, DESPITE OUR MEETING EARLIER THIS CYCLE, THERE HAS BEEN NO INDICATION OF THE RESTRICTIONS ON THIS CITY'S CITIZENS BEING LIFTED OR OF THE MILITARY PRESENCE BEING LESSENED-"
Juraji gasped.
"Hm?" said Halek.
"Nothing," xe said quickly. "Don't worry about it."
Halek craned his neck to try to get a better view. Unlike Juraji, he wasn't really tall enough to see much below her head from here, with all the people in front of him.
Ailít, a little closer than him since they'd spread out, found his gaze and tapped her chest, then signed "Laser."
"Does she know?" said Talí.
Halek began to respond when the speakers on the outer wall interrupted him.
"RSWAIT-DHÀ BÉNÍMÉÁ," the speakers blared. "PER SECTION THREE OF THE WARTIME POWERS ACT 4073, YOU ARE COMMITTING TREASON. CEASE AND TURN YOURSELF IN AT ONCE OR YOU WILL BE EXECUTED WITHOUT TRIAL. THIS CROWD HAS FIVE MINUTES TO DISPERSE BEFORE THE FULL FORCE OF THE LAW IS BROUGHT AGAINST YOU. CONSIDER THIS YOUR ONLY WARNING."
"She knows," said Juni.
Mayor Rwsait-dhà was undeterred. "YOU HAVE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO WITHDRAW FROM THE MUNICIPALITY OF GREATER MOGHRLAI GURODSTADIT. RETREAT WITH GRACE OR SUFFER THE HUMILIATION OF BEING KICKED OUT BY THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS WHO HATE YOU AND WANT YOU GONE."
Halek laughed nervously at the abrupt drop in professionalism.
"They would," said Halek. He was trying to brace himself. If that happened, he didn't want to lose it. People would need him functional. "They'll do it later anyway, probably."
Juni raised hir eyebrows at Talí's words.
"You called her a corporate sellout last year for giving up on the noise pollution thing," they explained.
"In calmer times, you must critique everything your leaders do, whether you like them overall or not. In times of crisis, you take the allies you've got. Times have changed," said Juni, and no one could argue with that. "Béníméà knows the risk she is taking and that this will be the last act of her mayoralty and very possibly of her life. She has decided, as many before her have and many after her will, that some things are more important than her life. You accepted the risk in coming with us today, Talí; she has done the same, albeit with a more certain outcome."
"Oh," said Talí in a small voice.
Halek squeezed their shoulder.
"She knows how popular she is," said Juni. "If they make an example of her, they make her a martyr, and that will be a mistake, and she knows that."
For a woman who knew she was probably about to die, Mayor Rwsait-dhà looked very sure of herself. Warnings given and recieved, she did not move from her stepladder.
Halek looked at his watch and tried to focus on the tick of the second hand to the exclusion of his mounting panic. The five minutes were nearly up.
There was nothing he would be able to do to stop it. He would never get through the crowd in time, and he had to stay with the inexperienced Talí and Juraji, and if this was the fate Mayor Rwsait-dhà had chosen and accepted for herself then that was how it had to be.
"She's so brave," said Talí.
Halek was tired of everyone having to be so brave.
He wasn't brave. He didn't want to see it happen.
The shot rang out exactly at the five-minute mark.
Halek felt his racing heart skip a beat as he flinched. Having expected it, he just barely managed not to throw himself and Talí to the ground and into other people's feet.
There was screaming. Not his.
It was happening again.
He should have pushed back harder on Talí coming. Why hadn't they listened to him? He'd known this was a bad idea, that the army wouldn't withdraw, that they shouldn't have given warning.
Juni pulled him close with one hand and Talí with the other.
"Wait, wait," Juraji said. "I've got it. I wasn't-" A choked sound- "I wasn't fast enough, I'm always slow, but I've got it now. Halek, can you hear me? Do you see? I've got it."
"Oh," said Juni. "Oh, good work."
"Halek?" Juraji asked again.
Talí tucked themself against Halek's side, forcing their way into his field of vision. "Look up," they said.
He didn't want to. He didn't want to see. He was hardly hanging onto the edge of keeping it together, and if he saw he would go over that edge entirely. There were going to be more people who needed help, and he wouldn't be able to help them, and he would become another person who needed help and it would divert attention from other people who needed it more.
"You can't see her from here," Juni said. "Your partner has created some sort of barrier between us and the garrison. There will be no more casualties. Juraji, how long can you hold that for?"
"As long as you need me to."
Halek glanced up towards xem. Everyone else would believe xem. He was the only one who ever knew xem well enough to tell that xe wasn't sure.
They needed to move.
He said as much.
"Hm," said Juraji. "I think I need to stay here to keep this up. Like- right here. I can't move."
Xir extended hands were rigid, harsh blue tracery on xir dark skin matching the colour of the translucent barrier. It occurred to Halek that this was probably the most magic xe had ever done at one time, and that maybe xe had just about found the limit of xir supposedly unlimited power.
"Okay," said Juni. "Well, as long as that's up, we're safe, so everyone else can escape and we'll be fine until you can drop it."
That was when the gas hit.
Talí started coughing first, and most violently.
Halek's eyes stung as he dropped his cane and caught them.
"Juraji-" he began, then cut himself off as he realized that Juraji would not be able to both maintain the barrier- gas-permeable as it apparently was- and pull the gas out of Talí's lungs.
"I'm sorry," Juraji choked. "I was thinking about-" Xe coughed- "bullets and soldiers. Solid things."
Talí's hacking wracked their whole body.
"I've got you," Halek said. "I've got you, Talí-" cough- "it's going to be okay-" He was trying to convince himself as much as them.
"Your scarf." Juni pulled it off his neck and poured water on it.
"H-Halek-k-kchhhh." Talí gripped his wrist. "Oxygen."
Right. Right. He didn't have Juraji's scope, but his own magic wasn't useless here. He should have thought of that.
Juni wrapped Halek's damp scarf around Talí's face, over their mask, as Halek gathered his magic.
It was hard to focus. Usually he used his own breathing to help find it, channel it, but it felt like he too was suffocating.
Slowly, desperately, he managed to bring a cloud of his own violet magic over Talí's mouth and nose. Crowding out the tear gas with oxygen, pushing it into Talí's lungs.
He was getting really dizzy now. His eyes burned and his throat burned and his lungs burned and pushing more oxygen into Talí's vicinity was probably removing some from his own and he was quite possibly going to die but at least Talí might make it.
How many other people in the crowd had Long PNIV, or asthma, or some other lung problem? It was so common here. Pretty much everyone had been infected at some point in the past two decades of pandemic. The gas was going to kill people too.
Talí was still coughing, but not as incessantly, not as violently.
Halek tried to stand up with them and had to sit back down as he almost passed out.
He hoped someone was helping Juraji so xe could keep the barrier up. He'd lost track of Juni. Maybe they were together. He'd lost track of everyone but Talí.
"Hey." Someone tilted his face up and pulled down his mask.
He tried to tell them to stop, but he was coughing too hard and he couldn't see through the burning and watering of his eyes.
They put the metal rim of a water bottle against his lips. "Drink."
Their voice was muffled, like it was coming through several layers of fabric.
He drank. Lukewarm metallic water had never felt so good.
They pulled it away and pushed his mask back into place before he was ready. "Don't panic. I'm going to rinse your eyes."
This began to feel like a very familiar script.
Halek nodded and pulled off his glasses.
It stung even worse for a moment, but then, as he blinked the droplets out of his eyes and slid his glasses back on, he could just about see again.
"Thank you," he said hoarsely.
"Thank you," they said. "You taught me how to do that."
They tipped Talí's head up, either not noticing or not mentioning the purple of Halek's magic around their mouth. "Stay still, dear, I'm going to help you with your eyes."
Talí nodded.
"I did?" He squinted and tried to come up with a name for the masked person before him. They weren't with QD, or at least they weren't dressed like it.
"At a workshop last year," they said. "Don't worry, I'm just really good with faces. I remember, I thought, if someone as young as you could get involved, could teach others to get involved too, why couldn't I?"
Talí was still coughing.
"I need to take my sibling home," said Halek.
"No, stay," Talí croaked.
He ignored them. "Can you do something for me? There's a library a couple blocks away. They should have a first aid kit behind the desk with some proper respirators."
"It's been closed for a while," said his helper. "Ever since-"
"Break the window on the door," Halek said. "Cover your hand when you reach in- don't make yourself into another patient or leave more evidence than you have to."
They nodded and left.
Now that he could see again and the gas was settling, he was able to locate Juraji and Ailít together.
"I need to take them home!" he shouted.
Ailít gave him a thumbs up.
Juraji nodded, electricity arcing across xir skin, just as bright red blood began to pour out of one of xir nostrils.
Halek hesitated, torn between calling out Juraji's dangerously self-sacrificing attitude and getting Talí somewhere safer. In the end he picked Talí.
Once they were further away, in a place where the air was clear enough for Talí to take off the scarf and mask for a minute, they were able to use their rescue inhaler. The effect was even more immediate and noticeable than Halek's oxygen had been.
As their coughing calmed down, Talí burst into tears.
"You're safe now," Halek said. "It's okay."
"I'm so useless," Talí said angrily. "You were right. I shouldn't have come."
"No," Halek said awkwardly. He wished he could feel vindicated. "You're not useless, Talí. What you've been doing with Jue has been invaluable."
"All I did was make you leave instead of helping Juraji!" they cried.
Halek patted their back stiffly. "It's okay. Let's go home."
back to “tips for writing a character with [x] personality disorder?” -> “how to make your VILLAINS EXTRA EVIL MANIPULATIVE BORDERLINE NARCISSIST SOCIOPATHS” / “how to write a character with [different disorder entirely]” and generally a lot of people being ableist shitheads about NPD in particular here on tumblr
so
we’re doing this again, updated for the current/next draft
Characters In And Around Aros Against Fate Who Have Personality Disorders (And Are Not Evil Monstrous Villains Nor The Primary Antagonists):
As a disabled person myself, representation- specifically in my favourite genre of fantasy, specifically for my age demographic of teen/young adult- is very important to me. I don’t think I’ve seen a single character with a canon personality disorder in any book I’ve ever read, which doesn’t mean that there are none out there but does speak to how few there are at all and how I’m sure even fewer of those are written as fully-realized, sympathetic characters rather than demonized, stereotyped caricatures, and my presumption is that if there are any well-written characters with personality disorders they appear only in adult contemporary novels ABOUT living with that personality disorder (or in memoirs). All marginalized people deserve to have their experiences authentically represented in all genres for all age groups, in reflection of themselves and the world around them, and this includes people with personality disorders. (And, to grossly simplify and paraphrase a recent Ncuti Gatwa interview: diverse casts make for better and more interesting art.)
The world of Aros Against Fate is a big one, with an epic-fantasy-scale cast, which makes it a natural place to represent different experiences; among so many characters, it’s only realistic that some of them will have personality disorders. The large cast also gives space for multiple examples of each PD, helping avoid stereotyping and painting a community as a monolith. It is also, in a lot of ways, a story about disability, and doing right by my community means including all sorts of different disabilities, even ones that are heavily stigmatized even by other disabled people and even ones that are harder to find accurate information on writing.
To my peers with personality disorders: I appreciate and cherish you, and I hope to be a drop in the bucket of making you feel seen, and I hope one day there will be so much representation available that I don’t even matter.
Genderqueer* characters in and around Aros Against Fate (mostly Empires Always Fall) because we need more genderqueer characters forever and ever
*used here as an umbrella term rather than as a specific identity, though some characters in this list do specifically identify as genderqueer as (part of) their gender identity
Halek (he/him, other pronouns if you’re close, does not favour she/her): A main character and a rebel. Vaguely-multigender genderqueer trans man (does not explicitly label the other genders).
Jue (ze/hir): A main character and the teenaged Younger Emperor of Rāmia. Jue is either a cis boy using neopronouns- which I would consider to fall broadly under the umbrella of genderqueer anyway- or ze is genderqueer-as-in-not-binary, or maybe ze’s not sure which. (As I write this I am coming to the end of this draft and starting to get into prep work for the next so lots of things have the opportunity to shift. I think I might go with hir not being sure and maybe identifying as genderqueer because of how broad it is, as was once the case for me.)
Sei (she/her to others, they/them to themself): A main character and a princess of Rāmia. Agender on the inside but they don’t want to live as zauzo (Feka third gender/gender category) and being a princess specifically is very important to them so they are okay with everyone else thinking of them as a woman even though they don’t think of themself as one (especially since most of the time they need to be explicitly reminded that other people see things differently than them at all, so they don’t really feel dysphoric about how other people see them; often it feels to them as if everyone knows they’re not really a girl but is playing along, or they forget that “princess” really is linked to “girl” for most people.) Functionally, their gender kind of is “Princess.” Sometimes they describe it as being a woman on the outside but no gender on the inside. It’s a little complicated to explain but Sei is an agender princess and both those words are entirely correct.
Kaelía (she/it): A main character and an Initiate at the Temple of Corysecli. Demigirl.
Zhe’ārani (she/her) for intimates/Ši Arroakhai Kjú (they/them) for everyone else: A main character and an Initiate at the Temple of Corysecli. She’s a girl in a transmasculine way.
Līs/Līsandyr/Līsyka (he/him -> they/he -> they/she -> they/he/she/xe/fae): Zhe’ārani’s friend and Kaelía’s best friend, and another Initiate at the Temple of Corysecli. Undertakes some exploration in the background throughout the course of the trilogy, and goes from identifying (using our terms) as a boy to a demiboy to a demigirl to multigender (demiboy + demigirl + genderless + libraxenic (spacegender; xe does explicitly connect xir gender to outer space even if xe doesn’t use that specific term and as the author I’m saying that xe’s a little bit spacegender)).
Qatriong (she/her to most people, then he/him to most people, always she/he to herself): Zhe’ārani’s best friend and another Initiate at the Temple of Corysecli. Bigender girlboy; initially keeps the boy part private (except for Zhe’ārani), and later when she has to go into hiding and switches how he presents keeps the girl part private, both times because she needs something just for himself and that is a secret that won’t get her killed.
Talí (they/any): Halek’s sibling. Agender kolgirl (“kolgirl” being a mix of/somewhere in between “girl” and the Beri third gender “kolman”).
Abhaonai (she/he): An Initiate at the Temple of Corysecli. Bigender manwoman.
Kjotar (he/they): An Initiate at the Temple of Corysecli. (Probably) A boy but very loosely so.
Miwaanii-Shémelús (gives he/him if asked but he's very apathetic about it): This is multiple people who share the same name and pronouns and all of them pretty much identify as “genderqueer quoiromantic male” (Se-Naskans consider gender to also include sex and orientation as not necessarily the same thing but inherently closely linked).
Ffeira (they/them): One of Ausse’s best friends & companions. Mixed-gender (one of the five Norve gender roles; in Ffeira’s case I think they truly are pretty much androgynous in identity.)
Kéchawaedrii-Orl (ze/hir): Head of Daanah’s religion. Holy-genderless (one of the five Norve gender roles).
Reymud (ze/hir): Divine Scribe. Holy-genderless.
Qeirana (ze/hir at work, he/him at home): A Norvic Senci Scholar who ends up working with Daanah. Holy-genderless in hir role as a scholar and a man in his personal life (in a way that both are true to who ze is in different ways).
Kwsnà (it/its): Halek’s therapist.
Logē (they/them): Divine Soldier at the Temple of Corysecli.
Onarys (they/he): Queng Consort of Rāmia annd Jue’s uncle’s spouse.
Attendant Ngeh (he/she): Door attendant at the palace. Bigender manwoman.
Ātia Jo (she/they): A Wend-Ki’an spy in the Rāmian government. Genderflux, genderqueer woman.
Eleyk (ey/em): Baby that Daanah and Rovian’s family is fostering for a neighbour. Norve children are assigned the gender of “child,” so Eleyk is not exactly any gender in eir own identity or expression (being, you know, a baby) but ey does not fit into the binary.
Fiya (ey/em): Ailít and Fiyavu Ozast’s (Daanah and Rovian’s sister’s) baby, born during Empires Always Fall. Same situation as Eleyk, with eir gender being explicitly and only “child.”
Juraji (xe/xem): Halek’s queerplatonic partner. Nonbinary with a strong sense of gender distinct from man/woman.
Veisau (ze/hir): Yna’s half-kester- Sei’s new kester-in-law- and a high commander in the Beri military. Kolman.
Representative Swkatsh (ae/aer): the elected representative of Ðíúharlaeslai in the imperial government.
Awlanír (they/them): Rovian’s manager.
Heishun (they/them): Sei’s sibling. Zauzo.
Jēn-Tajanē (they/he/she): Sei’s sibling. Genderqueer and loud about not being simply slotted into the zauzo “other” category but having both a more expansive and more specific gender than that.
Āvolú (they/them) for intimates or Toagh Rrušā Ndi (they/them) for everyone else: Zhe’ārani’s friend from home. Voidgender + neutrois + contigender + astrumgender.
Keha (they/them): Fiitsãn’s friend and possibly crush, whose story role for the upcoming draft I’m not quite sure of yet. May have accompanied Mkera from Kelos and become friends with Fiitsãn or might just be an old school friend.
Amidi (they/them): Halek’s neighbour and friend.
Ektanai (they/it): Halek’s good friend and former cellmate at the Moghrlai Gurodstadit Juvenile Confinement Centre and, by luck, also ends up being one of Rovian’s cellmates when she gets arrested late in (the next draft of) Empires Always Fall.
Lawmí (they/she): Ektanai’s current cellmate and becomes one of Rovian’s cellmates.
Åswså (ffe/ffer): Pilot Maaziariitna knows. Firegender.
The Historian (she/her to most, she/he to her wife): the official (and immortal) historian of the Rāmian empire. Her gender straddles the line between “masculine cis woman” and “transmasculine.”
Itheo (she/they): Halek’s friend, one of the other international students at his school in Meelasugaado.
Depa (it/its): Lieutenant of the Temple of Corysecli stationed in Moghrlai Gurodstadit, from Gētnyx’s cohort. Its gender is simply “Lieutenant of the Temple of Corysecli.” Where Kaelía first encountered it/its pronouns.
Halek was in a state of panic before he was fully awake. His body knew the feeling of shackles on his wrists.
“Soldiers or spies?”
“My money’s on spies. Soldiers aren’t deployed by hitchhiking.”
His arms were raised above him. They’d duct-taped his wrists together so his right arm didn’t slide out of the cuffs.
He couldn’t breathe. He was fourteen and being handcuffed and his little sister was being beaten and a gunshot shattered his knee, and roughly taken through intake for the prison, and strip-searched and tazed and beaten again, and straightjacketed and locked away all alone in the dark, and sixteen and strapped down to a bed in the psych ward being injected with a sedative as he screamed and begged, and-
Juraji woke up next to him. “Fuck!”
Juraji was here and Juraji was real and Halek desperately tried to hold onto that. He tried to lean towards xem, but they were too far apart to touch.
“Not a spy.” The woman who had agreed to take them back to Rāmia stood before him. She flicked a finger at Halek. “This one’s too recognizable. It’s a shame about that scar, you have quite a pretty face otherwise.”
Tears spilled down Halek’s face. Eyes and hands and pain. He was doing a terrible job holding together.
“Damn, kid, I was just teasing,” she said. “Aren’t you a pathetic little thing.”
Halek found himself unable to speak past the lump in his throat.
“And yet.” She kicked him in the knee, not all that hard, and his leg crumpled. “Bad knee. Not a soldier either.”
He cried out in pain. There was a terrible ripping, popping feeling in his shoulder as it took his weight.
Distantly, he saw blue sparks arc between Juraji’s fingers, suspended above xem, but the magic couldn’t seem to leave xir body.
The cuffs would be trimagorium, then. Of course.
“So my guess-” The woman pointed at Juraji. “Weapon of mass destruction-”
“Fuck off,” Juraji said.
She ignored him and pointed back at Halek. “And the handler or some sort of guide or not very effective guard of said weapon of mass destruction.”
Halek tried and failed to get his hurt leg back under him. For the time being, he was going to have to live with the pain of most of his weight hanging off a dislocated shoulder.
He had never properly dislocated his shoulder before. It was a new pain and helped ground him in the present.
The present was bad enough without his mind slipping in and out of the past.
“Better make sure the cuffs are tight on that one.” She gestured to Juraji, moving back to the front of the ship as the pilot called for her.
Somebody else reached up to tug at Juraji’s cuffs. Halek was having trouble being aware of how many people were actually on thiso ship.
Juraji grabbed the hand tugging at xir cuffs with xir electric hands. The man screamed.
“Hey!” The woman spun around and ran back.
Juraji’s face was drenched in sweat, but xe kept hold of the man’s wrist as he wailed. Blue light arced between them.
The woman pointed a gun at xem.
“You won’t shoot me,” Juraji said, far too confidently for Halek’s liking. Yainogh hadn’t thought that soldier would shoot him, either.
“Oh?” The woman cocked her gun. “Why not?”
“We’re on an airship,” said Juraji. “If you miss or the bullet goes through me it will pierce the hull and cause problems. Maybe even the balloon. And I’m a more valuable captive alive.” Xe tightened xir grip and the sparks became more violent. “So what you’re going to do is unchain us, or at least unchain him, and land.” Xir whole body was visibly shaking by now.
“You can’t hold on forever,” said the woman, obviously noticing the same thing.
“Do you think your friend can outlast me?” There was a hysterical edge to Juraji’s voice that worried Halek. “Do you want to test that theory?”
Despite the obvious toll it was taking on xem, Halek would still bet on Juraji. Xe’d had years to adjust to this magic, even if whatever was happening with it now was so clearly wrong.
The man screamed again, and their captor obviously came to a similar conclusion.
She unchained Halek and he collapsed.
He was in so much pain. He didn’t know where his cane was. He didn’t know if he could stand up even with its help.
“Now drop him,” said the woman.
Juraji wisely did not give up their only leverage, though xir brown eyes were starting to burn blue. “Let me down.”
“I’m not touching you.”
“Give me the key and I’ll drop him.”
“You’re a valuable captive, like you said, and I won’t have you and all that power loose on the ship. If we crash from up here everyone dies.”
“Drop the gun, then, and I’ll drop him.”
Halek had pushed himself into an awkward sitting position. He prepared to lunge for the gun. They didn’t have a lot of options.
Their captor dropped the gun. Juraji dropped the man and visibly slumped against the chains. There were no more sparks, just a slight burning smell.
Halek grabbed the gun as soon as it hit the floor and pointed it at the woman.
“You’re kidding me,” she said. “Your friend had a point about being on an airship.”
“I’ll shoot,” said Halek. “I’ve done it before.”
“That’s true,” Juraji said, voice hoarse.
“I’ll do it,” Halek insisted. “I’m crazy. Ask anyone.”
Everyone thought he was dangerous. Violent. That was why they’d shot him.
“You,” said the woman after a long pause, “are a horrifically reckless person to entrust with such important cargo.”
Halek knew she was talking about Juraji. It upset him.
He waved the gun.
“Giving a teenager an atom bomb,” she muttered, but she unlocked Juraji’s manacles.
Xe fell on her, hands around her neck, bringing them both to the floor.
“You little shit!” she said.
Juraji bashed her head against the ground.
Halek knew desperation. Panic. The way it fogged your brain until there was nothing left but now and need.
He dragged himself over to Juraji as xe slammed the woman’s head on the floor again and wrapped his good arm around xir shoulders. “She’ll die if you keep doing that.”
“I don’t care!”
“You will,” said Halek. “You have to stop. Please.”
Juraji slowly removed xir hands. She was unconscious, or most of the way there.
“Land the ship,” xe yelled.
“Can’t,” said the pilot curtly.
“Excuse me?” said Juraji.
“There’s nowhere to land. It’s all marsh down there. Not enough solid ground for the ship.”
“Then open the door,” said Juraji.
“What?” said Halek.
“I thought Pretty over there was supposed to be the crazy one.”
“What?” Halek said again.
“Would you prefer ‘Scar’? Or ‘the one who got kicked in the leg and cried’?”
“I would prefer none of those!”
“Well, I don’t know your name, so. Get over it.”
“Do you know how to fly an airship?” Juraji asked him, loud enough for the pilot to hear.
“How the fuck would I know how to fly an airship.”
“We’re clever. I’m sure we can figure it out.”
The pilot glanced back briefly at her incapacitated colleagues. “Whatever. If you want to turn yourselves into mush, that’s your prerogative." She pushed a button that opened the door.
They landed roughly, but did not turn into mush.
They did, indeed, land in a marsh. Halek’s pants were soaked through very quickly.
Juraji took Halek’s wrists. They were raw. “I can help you with these. And your shoulder. Do my best to bring down any swelling in your knee, at least.”
“Wait.” Halek grabbed Juraji’s hand as xe started to move it. “You’re all blistered.” He dropped Juraji’s hand to check xir forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“Just let me fix your shoulder at least, love, and then you can fuss about me,” said Juraji. “Easier to fix a fresher injury.”
“Why…?” Halek gestured vaguely.
“It’s like short-circuiting a battery,” said Juraji. “I pushed the magic out but it had nowhere to go so it went right back into me. Not good. Basically electrocuted myself.”
“Did you know this would happen?”
“Seeing as I’ve never been chained up with trimagorium before,” said Juraji, “no.”
“But you kept going.”
“I made you a promise, Halek,” said Juraji. “I promised you were safe with me. I promised no one would get their hands on you again because I would protect you.” Xe wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I broke my promise.”
me and my lists. okay. you all know about me and my lists by now lol
since it's Face Equality Week (finished this JUST IN TIME YAY), this is A List TM of characters with facial differences in Aros Against Fate (mostly in book 1, Empires Always Fall, because that's what I'm currently working on and have all/most of the necessary supporting characters made for)
Halek (he/him): a main character. Halek has a big scar on his face from falling into a sharp corner as a young child and has cystic acne.
Rovian (she/her): a main character. Rovian has a unilateral complete cleft lip (and a cleft palate) and a purplish birthmark on almost half of her face.
Sei (she/her or o-mē/o-mēn): a main character. Sei has Fragile X Syndrome.
Kaelía* (she/it or o-nai/o-nain): a main character. Kaelía has burn scars on the side of its face and neck/around, below, and on its ear (*subject to change due to her more antiheroic nature) and, visible close-up, dermatillomania scars and wounds (hiiii dermatillomania twins with me lol).
Zhe'ārani (she/her) or Ši Arrokhai Kjú (they/them or o-nai/o-nain): main character. Zhe’ārani has vitiligo and achondroplasia.
Jue (ze/hir or o-hā/o-hān): Main character. Jue has Down Syndrome, a burn scar on hir forehead, and a faint scar from a surgically-closed cleft lip.
Āvolú (they/them): supporting character (Zhe’ārani’s friend). Āvolú has severe burn scars and skin grafts on most of their body, including their face.
Aedrii-Nú (she/her): supporting character (Halek’s little cousin who lives with him). Aedrii-Nú has Treacher-Collins Syndrome and a fairly recent scar from a closed cleft lip, as well as a tracheostomy tube. (If readers ever see her mother Délas on the page directly, which doesn’t happen in this draft and I don’t have a plan for in the next draft but might occur when she comes to pick Aedrii-Nú up at some point, Délas also has Treacher-Collins Syndrome.)
Taidan (he/him): minor supporting character (Halek’s mother’s boyfriend, host of a rebel radio station). Taidan has Crouzon Syndrome.
Maidallis (she/her): supporting character (Rovian’s mother). Maidallis has a cleft lip (and palate).
Rokhesh (he/him): supporting character (Zhe’ārani’s father and Rovian’s biological father). Rokhesh has a burn scar around his mouth and nose and had part of the outside of his nose amputated.
Saafeera* (she/her): supporting character (Rovian’s mother). *Saafeera has burn scars in various places on her body and I’m still deciding exactly the angle of the explosion relative to her; especially if I get rid of Kaelía’s burns Saafeera will have some on the side of her face, and regardless probably in some spots on the back of her neck and head.
Nesyue (she/her or o-nai/o-nain): supporting character (Kaelía’s sister). Nesyue has Treacher-Collins Syndrome. (In the original draft this was meant to be a bonding point between her and Aedrii-Nú as their relationship developed but they no longer spend time living together or probably even meet in this draft. Alas.)
Guodei (she/her or ai-nai/ai-nain): supporting character (Kaelía’s sister). Guodei has a ~three-lined scar on one cheek.
Līs (he/they/she/xe/fae or o-nai/o-nain): supporting character (Kaelía and Zhe’ārani’s close friend). Līs has a scar on his face from an incident with a tree branch.
Miwaanii-Shémelús (all of them; there’s at least three of them in there but they all use the same name and vague pronouns) (he/him but honestly it’s whatever): supporting character (main character Daanah’s… partner…? of some sort). Miwaanii-Shémelús has dermatillomania scars and nystagmus (and likely some degree of strabismus when he takes his glasses off).
Juraji (xe/xem): supporting character (Halek’s queerplatonic partner). Juraji has Bell’s palsy.
Diihse (he/him): supporting character (Halek’s close friend). Diihse has Down Syndrome and hemifacial microsomia with a prosthetic eye.
Ãgbii (she/her): minor supporting character (Halek’s friend/part of the group as Diihse’s twin sister and Juraji’s girlfriend). Ãgbii has Down Syndrome and a scar from a surgically-closed cleft lip.
Niimféo-Elús (she/her): supporting character (Halek’s grandmother who lives with him). Niimféo-Elús has some facial paralysis from a stroke.
Chiishé-Faindh (he/him): supporting character (Halek’s uncle who lives with him, Aedrii-Nú’s father). Chiishé-Faindh has Down Syndrome and a cleft lip.
Misa (he/him): supporting character (Halek’s cousin and friend). Misa has chemical burns on and around his eyes from a workplace accident.
Qatriong (she/her or o-nai/o-nain): supporting character (Zhe’ārani and Kaelía’s close friend). After [spoiler], Qatriong has some facial paralysis.
Ailít (she/her): supporting character (Rovian and Halek’s friend, Rovian’s sister’s partner). Ailít has Waardenburg Syndrome.
Fiya (ey/em): minor supporting character (Rovian’s newborn nibling). Fiya has a large birthmark on eir face in a similar position to Rovian’s (possibly mirrored) and Waardenburg Syndrome.
Suinak (she/her or o-pā/o-pān): supporting character (candidate to be betrothed to Jue or Sei, later part of Sei and Yna’s court). Suinak has vitiligo and acne scars.
Mkera (she/her or o-mē/o-mēn): supporting character (candidate to be betrothed to Jue). Mkera has hyperpigmentation spots, including on her face.
Jiremau (she/her or o-mē/o-mēn): supporting character (candidate to be betrothed to Jue or Sei, later part of Sei and Yna’s court). Jiremau has occulocutaneos albinism.
Ynesalinau/Yna (she/her or o-mē/o-mēn): supporting character (candidate to be betrothed to Jue or Sei, later Sei’s wife). Yna has a prominent underbite.
Méríw (he/they/she): supporting character (Rovian’s friend and coworker). Méríw has facial tumours, alopecia areata, and vitiligo.
Fiitsãn (he/him or ū-rū/ū-rūn): supporting character (Jue’s best friend). Fiitsãn has a scar roughly the size of a quarter (though not an even, round shape) on the side of his forehead from hitting his head hard on a window in a bus crash.
Trais (ze/hir or she/her): minor supporting character (Daanah’s colleague). Trais has alopecia areata.
Ngionah (she/her or ē-ziu/ē-ziun): supporting character (Jue’s guard). Ngionah has alopecia universalis.
Linoxa (she/her or iao-rū/iao-rūn): possible minor supporting character (Fiitsãn’s sister). Linoxa has a severe overbite and ptosis, and possibly other facial differences.
Qaidiao (he/him or ē-mē/ē-mēn): supporting character (Sei’s father, Jue’s uncle). Qaidiao has Fragile X Syndrome.
Jaision (she/her or o-mē/o-mēn): supporting character (Sei’s sister). Jaision has Fragile X Syndrome.
Jēn-Tajanē (she/they/he or iao-mē/iao-mēn): supporting character (Sei’s sibling). Jēn-Tajanē has Fragile X Syndrome.
[The Gharan doctor] (she/her): minor supporting character (Zhe’ārani’s doctor). She has a “Glasgow/Chelsea Smile” (which is a kind of scar around the mouth that kind of looks like a very wide grin).
[The waiter in the restaurant in Moghrlai Gurodstadit] (unknown): one-off character. Has Down Syndrome (remarked upon internally by Jue because ze has never seen someone else with Down Syndrome in real life before (which is bad! Raiqiongshē et al are shitty ableist parental figures! Which is a Big Thing in-text)).
Jue (ze/hir or o-hā/o-hān): aroace, romance repulsed, sex repulsed, nonpartnering, likely demisensual, touch averse with most people. Main character in book 1
Halek (he/him+): platoniromantic, romance ambivalent, partnering. Main character in book 1 and probably 3
Daanah (she/her): aegosexual, nonaesthetic. Main character in books 1, 2, and 3
Zhe’ārani (she/her) or Ši Arroakhai Kjú (they/them): aromantic, romance indifferent-leaning-averse and occasionally repulsed, loveless, nonpartnering. Main character in books 1, 2, and 3
Rovian (she/her): greyromantic, burstromantic, demisexual, partnering. Main character in books 1 and 2
Sei (they/them, she/her or o-mē/o-mēn): frayromantic, aplvague. Main character in books 2 and 3
Kaelía (she/it or o-nai/o-nain): demiromantic, demisexual, demiplatonic, demisensual, demifamilial, etc. Main character in books 2 and 3
Talí (they/them+): greyromantic, cupioromantic, asexual, aplatonic, cupioplatonic, (theoretically) favourable. Halek's sibling, Daanah's best friend, and Jue's new friend
Fiitsãn (he/him or o-rū/o-rūn): lithsexual. Jue's best friend
Miwaanii-Shémelús (main one present in AAF) (he/him): quoiromantic, plato-repulsed, nonpartnering. Some kind of queerplatonic situationship thing going on with Daanah
Miwaanii-Shémelús (the rest of them) (he/him): quoiromantic. Two of them are minor characters Daanah ends up meeting
Līs (he/they/she/xe/fae or o-nai/o-nain): demisexual, sex averse. Kaelía's and Zhe’ārani's close friend
Qatriong (she/he or o-nai/o-nain): acoromantic, caedsexual, romance repulsed, sex repulsed, loveless. Zhe’ārani's best friend
Guodei (she/her or ai-nai/ai-nain): aromantic, aplatonic, experiences no emotional attraction, romance repulsed, sex repulsed, touch repulsed. Kaelía's sister, Kaelía and Zhe’ārani's cohort-sister
Retmiq (he/him or o-nai/o-nain): nebularomantic, romance favourable. Kaelía and Zhe’ārani's cohort-brother
Abhaonai (he/she or o-nai/o-nain): aceflux. Kaelía and Zhe’ārani's cohort-sisterbrother
Nesyue (she/her or o-nai/o-nain): acespec. Kaelía and Zhe’ārani's cohort-sister
Kjotar (he/they or ia-nai/ia-nain): lithromantic, acespec. Kaelía and Zhe’ārani's cohort-brother
Gētnyx (she/her or ei-nai/ei-nain): aroace. Head of Kaelía’s Temple and a major antagonist.
Fiyavu Ozast (she/her): aroace. Daanah and Rovian’s sister
And tbh probably a lot of other side characters too that I made more recently and/or haven’t thought much about and/or need to make to fill out the edges of the next draft.
