as a texan i cannot help but wonder what the hell happened to my state after the polycrisis
2030s: declare independence from crumbling federal government. your first act as an independent nation: declare war on Mexico. You quickly learn that the Polycrisis was mostly an American thing and Mexico's actually doing okay. Watch in horror as the Free Texan Army is ground down to a nub in the Davis mountains, constantly harassed by both better-organized and better-equipped Mexican soldiers and a strong network of irregulars using a combination of local geographical knowledge and high-tech drone ambush tactics. In response, you open a second front to the North and start invading former USAmerican territory.
2040s: The second front actually goes pretty well and you expand until you once again reach fierce resistance from both the Kingdom of Acadiana-Orleans in the northeast and Greater Dinetah in the northwest. Sue for peace, gaining northern territory but also forced to cede southwestern territory to create the new buffer state of the Rio Bravo Republic. Oh well, now you can focus on expanding your economy and-
2050s: so the oil wells have dried up and your agricultural sector has been ravaged by global warming. but enough of your technology and high-tech manufacturing sectors have survived that you're able to keep the lights on through sheer inertia.
2060s: Become a founding member of the Usonian Union despite half of your population says the UU is a globalist conspiracy to turn the USA into atheist communists and half of the population is buying Sunny Roosevelt sissy hypno ASMR (it's the same half in both cases). Your current state governor is Nimby Slim, whose top political priority is "the Muslims have built a secret base on the moon." When asked to send a representative to the Usonian neo-congress, he sent a Ram 3500.
i love the south. the ozarks and ouachitas, the piney woods, southeast texas, the mid-south, the lower delta, cajun country, the cumberland plateau, the deep south, new orleans, central appalachia, the smokies, the piedmont, the gulf coast, chesapeake bay, the south atlantic plain, the outer banks, the carolina beaches, the lowcountry, all of north florida… i just love it here and i love being from here. i love how diverse an area it is with so many different cultural identities and yet we all have solidarity due to common struggles and experiences. it has a lot of issues, and we as southerners have a lot of work to do, but i’ll never give up on us and our home.
Nothing became everything and nothing held any meaning nor had power over him and questions he would never know how to ask were answered. He was within a perfection. One tiny mote suspended within something so pure that to even imagine it would have been impossible for him before she came to be there with him. It wasn't just the physical pleasure; such sensations as he knew were never meant for him to have. It wasn't the ecstasy that flooded through him as he witnessed her own pleasure at their union. It wasn't the way her eyes held to his as her body became the entirety of his awareness. It was all these together bound up with the magical words she had spoken.
"I love you too."
He was born, formed full and created anew in those four syllables. The heart that he had forgotten that he had was flooded and joyous and so intense in its awakening that he knew he could never be the same again. Whatever he had been until now, that was broken. Shattered and lost like the stars spread through the evening sky.
"No! Stay! Please! Stay inside me!"
"Yes my love of course." He said because any word she spoke was sacred and anything she wanted of him he would do. "You are so beautiful. You are so incredible. Oh my love my love! I will be destroyed for this and I do not care."
"Destroyed? No! No. They can't do that!" She said as her legs around him kept them joined. He was dripping sweat upon her and she didn't seem to care. "I know this! For a fact! But I can't explain it just yet! I don't know how! Will you trust me in this? Can you trust me?"
"You gave me a name. Gave me back my heart and have woken me to love." He said softly, unable to look away and he would not have even if he could. "I will trust you until all things end."
.
They reenacted their passion and found ecstasy until it was far too late in the night to even attempt a proper sleep. She dozed off in his arms and he watched her sleep with a soft and deeply contented wonder. Staying with her was a perilous risk to undertake and the worry of what would happen if they were discovered never once touched him. Nothing that could be done to him would be terrible enough to make him regret one single second of this perfection that had come to him.
He didn't know if he'd forgotten such pleasure was possible or if it had not even been possible before she came to him. He knew that he hadn't felt any desire or any need or any of these things that he would now know to his soul. It was strange. So strange. To realize that a part of his body could be capable of this and yet the very notion had never occurred to him.
His skin tingled deliciously in every single place that it touched and knew hers. He could feel his blood moving smoothly, now content to return to its normal routine. He was aware, in a way that he couldn't ever recall, of being flesh. Of being something more than the body beneath his robes. Something much more than the limbs and flesh that walked uncountable days across the vast emptiness of the circuit. He was not a number. No mere assigned position in a korral.
He was Neno to, and for, his Rose. He was loved and he loved and in these moments he had everything he could ever possibly need.
*
It was the best night of her life and she didn't give a damn about the future or their supposedly historic task. Would time pass differently here,? Would they be returning, if they returned at all, having not aged while four decades slipped past in the 'real' world? It didn't matter. Not one tiny fucking little bit.
Making love to Neno had been the purest passion she had ever known. She knew, knew by his eyes, that he couldn't remember what sex even was, but his attentiveness, the intensity of his focus locked onto her and nothing else, had erased any need for the so-called 'skills' of a great lover. His instincts guided his body and his eyes and heart had turned every second into something so intimately erotic that she knew no other would ever be able to compare.
When he had looked into her eyes and whispered her name like a sacred mantra as he came within her she had known, and still knew, exactly what it meant to be real.
.
"Ninth of three?:
"Yes, Master?"
"You are now one of one. Duties remain as previously stated. March position whip hand trailing inner quadrant. Korral position cooking assistants. Shift your gear to the appropriate wagon before marching orders are sounded."
"Yes, Master." He said and he was certain that he must have shown his confusion and astonishment. He was to be in the inner auxiliary ring but wasn't having his weapons removed. He was uncertain if the true nature of his relationship with Rose was suspected but the Trade Master was no fool. In any sense of the term.
He was being rewarded and that was so unheard of that nobody else would realize this. There was neither reward nor any real punishment for those on the march. You obeyed orders and did not question, or even entertain questions, as to the reason. The Great Circle was as it was and those in the caravans did as the trek demanded. He was a caravanner. There was no other place he could be. No other thing he could be. He had been made for this. It was all that he knew.
Until now.
He moved quickly to the third korral and took his gear from wagon #37. He hurried over to service wagon #P11 and stowed his things in an available side box. Nobody asked him what he was doing or the reasons for it. Curiosity over such matters was pointless. Nobody did anything but that they had been ordered.
It was a gray morning. They were on the Wisterbeg Plateau. Rain was likely. He donned his poncho and added grease to his boots before donning his harness and slinging his rifle across his back. If necessary he would still fight. He had not been relieved of his defensive responsibilities. Bandits were slightly more active in the region. He verified his ammunition and then hurried up the south trace of the assembling wagons. He needed to let Rose know that their position in the order had been adjusted.
"You! Guard! Yes you! I want to talk to you!"
.
She recognized that snooty, arrogant, self-righteously smug tone of voice before she could even make out words. Park had perfected being a bastard to the point that he was unmistakable. The only puzzle was why he was this far back in the line. It was almost whistle time so why was he so close to the rear of the caravan, and who was he reaming out?
Even as she darted around a yoked pair of oxen, even before she made out words, she knew.
Oh fuck.
Of course.
"You ignorant nothing! Real? You're dead! You aren't real and never will be again! Real? You pathetic, stupid and misreable...this is..."
She cut off Park's words with the only violent means she was capable of that would not fail and would incapacitate him immediately.
She kicked him in the balls. Hard. From behind, and she connected perfectly.
As her 'boss' dropped like he'd been poleaxed and curled into a ball she saw Neno. Her beloved Neno, with a sorrow and horror upon his face and in his eyes that made her wish that she had actually clubbed Park in his thick fucking skull hard enough to shut his arrogant fucking mouth forever. That hadn't been the case though. She looked around. Only Neno stood frozen and aware.
"Trust me! I love you! Trust me!" She said and reached out to touch Neno's chest. He nodded and stepped back so she crouched down over her gasping, retching, 'boss'. "Asshole! Yes that was me! You fucking bastard! You jealous arrogant impotent child! You lecture us about influencing or altering things here and you're doing this? Who the fuck do you think you are?"
She crouched lower and used her forearm to pin his face to the ground. She wanted him to remember this as a physical memory and not just words. She leaned into it and Park squealed.
"Listen and listen very closely. Very very very fucking closely." She growled into his ear. He was squirming and whining like the child in a fifty year old man's body that he was. "Why do you think they carry guns here? And what do you think a gun does here in Purgatory? I'll tell you what it does! Are you listening? Are you listening?"
"You're mad! You...you savage!"
"If you die out here on the circuit what you do is you return to the start of the Great Circle! You don't go home! You don't go to Heaven! You go to The Gathering!" She said and put more pressure, more pain, more emphasis, on Park's head. "And you're a genius without a speck of common sense or decency but I'll still tell you just what that means! So you can think about it. The Gathering is over six million days travel behind us! That's about 16,500 years! And if you die? You're going there and you'll go alone! Just you! And you will be on your own with no friends and no value and you WILL be looking at one hundred and sixty five centuries worth of walking to reach the way out!"
She ignored the smell of puke. The good doctor was getting a much stronger dose of the odor since she had his face firmly in it. She was utterly disgusted with the man and with herself for overlooking all of his personality flaws to admire his intellect. He was a petty and vile man and she had seen him as a sort of hero. No more.
"Not only did you fuck up. Not only were you wrong about the dimensions and nature of this place, you are lacking any sort of awareness!" She said and gave one final grind with her arm before leaning back. "You aren't in charge here. You aren't important here. In fact you're worthless. A liability. So if you think your safety is guaranteed because you're oh so fucking smart? You could end up being here a very, very long time."
"I'll tell..."
"Please do. Because the caravan has only agreed to protect you from outside threats." She said as she stood. "I'm not an outside threat. And there is no precedent. Think about that. Use that big fucking brain and actually think."
.
His heart beat madly and a fear that was almost panic had him trembling as he stood dumbstruck, watching this absolutely incomprehensible violence. The man, his Rose's team master, had been filled with hate and contempt and had said things that were both unfair and which made no sense. He didn't know why this man would have such hate for him. He had seen how this other treated Rose. Always with a clear absence of respect or concern. What reason did the man have to even care what...
The man had said he was dead. He clearly wasn't. How could he be? No person ever died. They just began the journey...began...
When had he begun? He had always been here but then how was there a beginning? Why was Rose so furious? Something...something within him said that the man was almost right. But only almost. He hadn't been real. Not in any true way. Until Rose came to him and saw him and named him. If the man was wrong about that, then clearly he was no Trade Master. He wasn't infallible.
"Neno?"
His awareness returned. She was there before him. Rose. His everything. His eternity. "Yes?"
"Are you okay?"
"You are here so yes." He said and ignored everything and saw only her eyes.
