She tried to put on a placid display, but her total lack of enthusiasm betrayed her growing disappointment. This was supposed to be the big climax to her birth rotation! The one she mogged to be the best rotation of her life. Why did she feel so out of place?

  “We’re goin’ in,” Deyandra lifted a hammock and guided Githarie in. Ai-sha, when did she become the babysitter for Zholl and Zhon’s nakaz zug sister? Gurls gotta stick together though, that Deyandra knew. Lot of sketchy, scummy, creepy orc hetbois crawling around, and Githie was in a very vulnerable state.

  Here, this’ll ting ting us out.

  In the forest, a heartbeat. The pulse.

  Bam, bam, bam, bam.

  Down up down up, down up down up.

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.

  Githarie, instead of slipping under and following Deyandra deeper into the forest, instead climbed into the hammock. Ai-sha, glob.

  Strikes of syncopation clapped in between each beat of the pulse now, pulling as the pulse pushed, a warping of the spacetime that was repetitive as it was fascinating. By focusing on the repetition, Githarie found that she could soothe herself a bit, take a breath, and repeat.

  Boom, boom, boom, boom! The kicks dropped in now, a hard four on the floor. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Augh! What was this. She was okay with what was going on before, but these kicks seemed to slam into her head like wave sets. She furrowed her brow and tried to keep focusing on the beat alone.

  Deyandra leaned against the bamboo it was strung on, slid down to find that there was a little runner of it that formed a nice hard little perch for her butt, and sat down next to Gith, and crossed her legs.

  Ai-sha, this could take a while. She was getting a nice buzz from the trip now, still fully lucid and in control but able to marvel at the amplified beauty of Mother Reath and all her nature. She was really impressed with this venue! They had done so well here, in the forest stage. She really wanted to go deeper in. She really wanted to venture forth, but she had to gather her party.

  Bum pa bum pa bum, bum pa bum pa bum- the kicks went into breakbeat, which intrigued Githarie, and she welcomed it, it was certainly better than those hard kicks. As the lows began to fill, the kicks went deeper and deeper.

  She felt she was vibrating now, buzzing and breaking apart into those same molecules she saw in her hand, but oddly- she didn’t fear it. She didn’t even seem to mind. She was kind of excited about it! Swinging around in the hammock helped.

  A little bass beat slid into the compilation of digital music, and then slowly slid away. And then back again. Each time it slid out, a deep rumble rolled through the ground. Each time the base beat slid back in, it got a little louder, a little prouder, and then suddenly not. It felt like it should be there, but it wasn’t, it was all scooped up, desaturated and muted. Glaring in absence.

  Deyandra stood up, she could see Githarie was no longer breathing so fast, and that she was shaking her head left and right to the music. She brushed Gith’s arm.

  Brum, brum, bru-um. Brum, brum, bru-um. The base dropped back in as suddenly as it had vanished. Brum, brum, bru-um. Brum, brum, bru-um.

  “Eh, Gith, sha bub?”

  The moment she finished saying that another beat roared to life.

  Githarie wanted to know now what it would be like to transcend the body and enter the astral plane, project across the void and look at the stars up close without fear of harm, and she wondered- if she dissolved, did that make her a ghost? What would it be like to be a ghost? A haunting figment of the former self. A gul. Thinking about death did not fill her with dread anymore, but, instead, curiosity.

  All the different threads of electronic music were coming together now, the cogs clicking so carefully into place that it began to be impossible to distinguish one component from another, they had merged into a living machine of sound. A rush of sound.

  She was no gul. She was very much alive, actually- she had just turned sixteen! She had survived an entire revolution, maybe just one more, but just one more was always all that was needed. Still alive, after all! And like that, her second wind floated her back up to the party from the hammock.

  Now a splash of acid, beeping and booping up and down, and up and down in pitch. From a sine wave it sharpened amplitude, then tightened to narrower wavelength, before finally breaking out into a buzzing squiggle.

  She sat straight up. She looked to the left, then looked to the right. Then she looked through dilated pupils at Deyandra and said, “Woah.”

  “Sup.”

  “Yo.”

  A staccato of drum hits prepared the way for yet more nuanced eccentricities to grow and evolve through the melody. Githarie was aware that she was rotating her neck in a sideways figure eight pattern, and her face began to lift in a grin.

  “Yo, sha self, why so quiet, eh? Sha gonna lie in that hammock ‘til the rote passes? Not gonna lie, I’d be totally bub with that, I’d be happy to know that sha here safe and I’ll just go do my own thing-”

  “Lok - Tar - O - Dar”, an echoey vocal sample, auto-tuned to high holy hell, of that universal orcan battle prayer – we run to victory or death – emerged abruptly, and continued, “Lok Tar O Dar”, it grew gradually faster and faster, but in an uneven way, “Lok Tarodar, Lok Tarodar”, and pulled tighter and tighter into a polymeter, tight enough that it now was just ‘Lok Tar’ and now the first and last consonants were blending together to make the whole thing sound like an entire beat of its own:

  Loktar Loktar Loktar Loktar Loktar Loktar Loktar Loktar Loktar.

  Githarie cracked into a smile, “I’m fine, Dey! I’m-” she looked into the forest, leaving what she was going to say incomplete, “What, that- that sounds so good,” she looked back at Dey leaning forward so that she nearly tipped out of the hammock, her big moony dilated eyes locked into Dey’s with a fervor. “The music is SO good!” Warping through the sample, rolling through it slowly like a wave on each pulse of the beat, the polymeter now sounded like:

  Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar Odar.

  “Skai ya hai, let’s go then!” Deyandra pulled Githarie out of the hammock. We are so back!

  Enveloped in this natural cathedral of electronic sound, Deyandra and Githarie picked through the forest, ducking through secret branched entrances to little gardens with bamboo tunnels leading to burz nooks and niches and corners to, well, to do drugs.

  Deyandra popped out her ever-present vial.

  “Ugh. Dey, I think I’m all bubhosh.”

  “Nonsense, snaga.” Deyandra was truly a terrible influence, the pusher, “Here sha go. Get some pep in sha step.”

  Too drained and loopy to refuse, Gith took a snort. “Ff-” she spat, “-uck!”

  Deyandra pulled her up and now they finally found the inner core, the sanctum, the gathering of the techno-orcans. Dressed in gaudy piecemeal cyberpunk and post-catastrophic chic, they looked like ramshackle raiders, but with panache. The way they danced was totally different from stages before- gentle motions and gyrations, and bodies pressed close and tight together in intimacy instead of lust.

  Emptiness is form, and form is emptiness. It was in their seeming total oblivious absence to anything around them that grew the emanating energy. And as they danced, the cathedral of sound suddenly dropped out from a hymn of more and more, to a sparse and minimalistic, stripped-down slice of what came before, the spine of it, the crucial parts- just the pulse, and her partner, the syncopation. Just enough. No more.

  The emptiness was the invitation for Githarie and Deyandra to finally join the communion and dance. Dance. Dance! This is physical music. They were not even aware of how their bodies were moving, only that it was in synchrony with the heartbeat of the forest.

  It was light, happy, euphoric techno. And Githarie was flying now. Now she understood why magic mushrooms were awesome. It felt divine. It felt so deeply powerful- she had really come to respect its potency. Finally, she was having a good trip. She felt love. Compassion. She hoped everyone here dancing was having fun. And now she began to look around, she wanted to see all these beautiful faces, meet the souls behind them, bond and connect. Who were they? Who were these sweet angels with such lovely curation?

  Bum pa bum pa bum, bum pa bum pa bum. Bum pa bum pa bum, bum pa bum pa bum.

  Her eyes fell upon Zhak.

  Brum, brum, bru-um. Brum, brum, bru-um. Brum, brum, bru-um. Brum, brum, bru-um.

  Zhak!

  Papapapa-pap, papapapa-pap, papapapa-pap, papapapa-pap.

  And- Gruker?!

  Making out!

  “AH MY GOD!” Githarie squealed and slapped her cheeks with her hands with a wide, open mouth, which stayed open even after she stopped squealing. Deyandra followed her gaze - she could recognize it was Githarie’s younger brother, but she didn’t know Zhak very well, if any two orcans could be placed on opposite sides of the Rotheran social spectrum – gof to nurd – it would be Dey and Zhak. But, skai, Githarie knew it! She’d known it all along!

  Deyandra caught Gith before she could sprint over and ruin the moment.

  “Hey! Hey! Gith! Don’t sha ruin their moment.”

  “Ah! Zhak is GAY! Zhak is gay!”

  “Yeah? So? So what? What exactly does it matter.”

  “It totes matters.”

  “What are sha talking about. Whatsha care who he fucks?”

  “Ew, Dey!”

  “Ok, ok, what do you care who he dates?”

  “I mean. I just wanna lift him up! Get him stoked. He’s never once told anyone at all, not even me, I can’t believe he dinnae tell me! What the skai. That snaga, I’m gonna-”

  “Githarie, listen to shaself,” Deyandra facepalmed, “If he wanted to tellsha, he woulda toldsha. Don't out him if you don’t have his permission.”

  “Out what? I already know-”, Githarie pouted, “-and the real question is why he didn’t tell his older sister!”

  But as she thought about it, Deyandra made complete sense. And she thought better of being rash, and chose to respect Zhakkathan’s agency, instead of just making something happen upon him, like his gezzno glob sister interrupting the best kiss he’s ever had in his young life. For Zhak had spotted the entire thing from the corner of his eye – low-light vision – and resolved to get the hell out of there before Githarie found him.

  Githarie kept dancing. She felt herself sobering up a little bit too. No longer was she locked in the vices of a terrifying bad trip, but truly and fully free again. She always had been. She had been free to step out of the prison of her mind, the door was open, she only had to walk out. And she strode out! And now she was in the sunlight, and it was all thanks to-

  To-

  Dey?

  Deyandra had disappeared, satisfied with her bubhosh job of taking care of that whiney, annoying, clingy, needy, mucho mas noob con drogas, blow charity case, gay brother outing, weak, little bitch of a nakaz snaga zug.

  Githarie had really begun to grate on her after she had to stop her from rudely stepping past her bru’s boundaries. Deyandra hated nosy, bak gwa [八卦] snagas like Githarie who had nothing better to do with their lives than get into some other orcan’s business. Having made it past the peak of her trip, and having had much less, Deyandra was starting to settle into a groove, and didn’t want to waste any more precious tripping time coddling this naive brat. Unlike Gith, spoiled by her pham, Deyandra had to grow up in the school of hard knocks a long time ago. Much like how Zhak detested being around orcs without book smarts, Deyandra detested being around nakaz nurds without street smarts. Orcan life was too dangerous to let liabilities in. Vulnerability is always exploited. If Dey wasn’t careful it could mean getting rekdar, or rekt spinsum even worse than death.

  Besides, Dey had a job to do. She patted her satchel to make sure the goods were still there. Gotta respect the hustle. This was absolutely the perfect place to score some deals, and once she cleared her inventory she could relax. Then she could really party tang tang. She couldn’t wait to pop the molly that she had kept just for herself. This ghash coke would serve as the perfect pre-igniter. But she couldn’t cross that bridge until she’d finished moving the product. Thinking where she would find the most clientele, she muttered to herself, “punk stage”, and slipped away under cover of trees and ravers.

  But Githarie didn’t know any of that. She frantically sprinted around searching for Deyandra, but the Lioness was nowhere to be seen.

  So, then she sprinted around to look for Zhak, but he had disappeared too.

  “Huh?”

  And just like that, she walked right back into her prison.

  “Nuk-nuk. No. Where-”, cringing, now uncontrollable sobbing and weeping, because she really ought not to have taken those extra bumps from Deyandra.

  A very different looking sort of orcan had taken over the decks, she had not even noticed that it was a new set. They had made it to the halfway mark of the razza, and now finally the lost music of the Godlikes would play.

  A sliding screech of off-note violins trying to play off-putting riffs in off-pitch keys culminated in an imploding pop of silence before a nefarious skipping, palpitating breakbeat bassline seized the heartbeat pulse of the forest. The sky was still twilight, but it felt more dusk than dawn now.

  Brim-br-brim-brim, bring-brim-bring brim-br-

  Like some sick and twisted malevolent force was shaping her fate to some sort of journey through hell itself, the euphoric, light techno was now- well, it was still techno. But Githarie did not know the name for it, and that only unnerved her more, although if she was a bit more astute, she’d realize that the answer was obvious.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The pulse now felt menacing, not like a heartbeat at all but the stamp of a march. But it was no boot stamp that made the sound, but something else altogether. An unplaceable sound. Inorganic. Unorcan. Elvan. Electrified, artificial, integrated, augmented- the bamboo became the bars of a cage, the flickering candles now looked like glowing eyes in the darkness.

  In the darkness - bind them. In the darkness - bind them.

  Brim-br-brim-brim, bring-brim-bring brim-br-

  Burzum ishi - krimpatul. Burzum ishi - Krimpatul. Burzum ishi - Krimpatul.

  Those words kept flashing through her head now, and she kept trying to keep calm and tell herself, what does that mean? That’s nothing. It’s fine. I really need not be scared of just a few words. But her heart somehow did not react, as if it was revolting at the ordeal.

  She was all alone now.

  Brim-br-brim-brim, bring-brim-bring brim-br-, the beat rolled ceaselessly on.

  The techno-orcans now no longer seemed friendly or inviting, but odd and robotic. The change in the vibe had invited a very different side of these well-versed techno-orcans.

  For how could there be light without darkness?

  In the darkness - bind them. Burzum ishi - krimpatul.

  She needed to get out of here.

  Brim-br-brim-brim, bring-brim-bring brim-br-,

  But then she tripped and fell. Those damn runners!

  Her orcan toughness had kept her sturdy, it was no more than just a bit of a shock, and she had hit soft earth and thankfully no candles, and with twilight still it was just a simple matter of picking herself up, dusting herself off, and moving forward.

  But she couldn’t.

  The dark techno had become a little less menacing for now. Neutral. But it was still mechanical, cold, and utterly foreign to the sensibilities of the warm and natural and friendly Githarie Thraxes. The next song faded in:

  You burn the ground to hold your position…

  She curled up into the fetal position, and a bustle of orcans were now coming into the forest, because for whatever reason dark techno was simply way more popular than light techno. If she was going to get into it, become that tough, gof orcan bitch, she had to be in it all the way. There was no halfway mark, no in-between, no medium, not on this journey that she was taking.

  …All the dreams and desires, I want some more.

  Red, Black,

  Green for the jackpot.

  Take you down.

  I want to take you-

  I want to take you down-

  I want to take you down with me…

  She tried to push herself deeper into the dirt to get away from the imagined elvans coming for her, to rip her body apart, corrupt her, inject her with spirits, or whatever kind of nightmare that this dark techno nuk-nuk was trying to convey.

  …We played to win but no one did…

  The music was getting really repetitive now, a static clicking. White noise.

  Where the skai sha hai was Lawrah?!

  …You were queen of present and future.

  I was king and cavalier.

  On our tour de force…

  Lawrah was far off over in the psytrance temple doing the zug-zug with Zholl.

  Previously, as they were having their snog, the truth was that they were both very well aware of Githarie pouting and yelling at them to lok leeroy over or get a lug, and they were both wishing the gezzno hai would take a hint. Once Gith left, Lawrah went straight to the psytrance stage, practically dragging Zholl with her.

  One of the problems with Lawrah Varoka, the model orcan gurl, was that she couldn’t stand to have that perfect image of her ruined, especially not her best friend for whom she so carefully cultivated it. Githarie was Lawrah’s one and only gurlfriend, a secret she kept from Githarie herself by referring to a mysterious “Artah Vhang”, her penpal from Syowa, the absolute furthest away from them they could get while still being in the sacred homeland of the Horde, the Land of Orca.

  Certainly, Lawrah had plenty of bois to hang with. Way too many. It tapped into a deep insecurity about her identity. Imposter syndrome. She had toed the edge already celebrating Githarie’s birth-rote – certainly the Tusk had lit up with the fiyah and she wished that she and Zholl could have took the shrooms in private – but there was no way that she was going to let Githarie know how much she likes psytrance. What serious consequences could have resulted from that passing of knowledge is a mystery, but Lawrah was irrationally afraid of it anyway.

  Besides, she was definitely going to skai Zholl. No, that doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? She was definitely going to fuck Zholl. She’d decided it well before this rotation. It wasn’t like their very first flirtations all happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  Zholl was just stoked to get laid.

  They danced and danced in the psytrance tent. Guttural orcish vocal melodies and samples upon samples of orcan gurls chanting lost mantras, they built up with each other as well as they fractured into harmonious dissonance, but always as if each pitch and note were divinely placed where it was meant to be. It was wild that as far as Lawrah could tell, they were sticking with only using vocal samples. But then, reliably, the trance tempo beats steadily rolled their way through the disembodied chorus, voices started disappearing one by one or clashing in synchronicity with phrase repeats, morphing into a round.

  “Whu-oah!”

  While Githarie was having a demon ride through the infernal abyss of a bad trip, Lawrah was having a grand old time. Beautiful diamonds and sapphires and rubies of energy began to coalesce where the rays of the bonfire lights cut through the pentagram ley line double slits and rippled through reality like shedding scales of a reptilian. She didn’t feel scared by this entity though, it was friendly. It was gentle and warm. It wanted to tell her something. But she was way too cooked to get it.

  “What? What?” It was impossible for them to share the same visuals, it was an ineffable thing, these trips, and so all that they could really share were vibes. What Zholl saw was: Lawrah’s tits. They might have been pulsing or breathing or- Zholl didn’t know- vibrating? Whatever. It didn’t matter. Tits were tits. And tits were the tits. Tits were bubhosh zug-zug. There was only one other competitor to tits. But when Lawrah started sweeping her gaze in awe, Zholl instantly wanted to feel what she was feeling, have what she was having. What was it? What? What?

  Lawrah looked back at him, having completely forgot what she was trying to think about the moment before, the instant Zholl said “What?” He smirked quizzically now and said softly, “-what?”

  So, they just started snogging again. But now their bodies were pressed tightly together- too obscene, even for Zholl, to let Githarie see. They were both sweating profusely, under the effect of the sugar-shroom combo. Zholl grinded up to Lawrah in time to the drums, and it was making him so excited it felt unbearable. He was so stoked. Don’t get frothy now. Better be there when the swell hits.

  Like they both had the same thought at the same time, once the music had faded into a mysterious droning, they dashed forward, holding hands, behind the small podium raised for the deejay looking for some sort of nook or cranny. But the great big fence walled off all exits. Almost. There was a secret porthole behind the stage, seemingly unnoticed as the revelers were all swaying and reaching out to the deejay, who promptly caked a gurl in the third row perched on her boo’s shoulders. She hollered with joy, devoured what she could, and then started yeeting chunks of it stuck on her arms and shoulders into the accepting maws of those around her. Festival vibes, razza ting ting.

  Zholl pushed it open and found the secret behind-stage area – not the backstage green room that lay ninety degrees off from here to a basic tent stocked with the needed sundries – no it’s different from the backstage, this was the behind-stage where the back of the temple gate opened out into the bit of clearing left squeezed between the edge where the Lions got bored of chainsawing, and where the far side of the clearing swooped in, leaving a little corner – a nook, you could say – of cleared bamboo that was neatly tucked away behind the temple. It was just as easy to enter or leave the nook, but this approach went directly through one of the pentagram bonfires, pathing around the fiyah, and so anyone looking to perv would just be met with the glare of the ghash.

  The temple nook was where all the cliques who didn’t want the trail of moochers trying to bum a hit, which inevitably followed every time they lit one up. They huddled in clusters all about, refusing to be in the fringes, making it a bit of a maze to find a good spot to shag.

  Then of course, there were all the other couples who had the exact same idea as them, having found their own shag spot on the outside fence to do the zug-zug. It almost became confrontational how exhibitionist they got, almost as if to shoo the assholes milling about away from their lovefest.

  Running counterclockwise they quickly found a mossy, earthy spot.

  He threw her to the ground. They were in the throes of passion now and the orcan nature came out. She did not mind, and it did not even hurt her. She kicked his leg hard so that he would tumble down atop her, and they continued their frenzied snogging. She liked it when their tusks rubbed together, the feel of the friction of bone against bone was somehow pleasing to her.

  He was just stoked to get laid.

  The shrooms had really hit them both, but with their bigger frames, not quite as intensely as it hit Githarie. But the kop ting ting of zug-zug made it mad hard to bad trip. The ambient glow of the bonfire, cast like an ephemeral ember that drifted over them like the fuzzy comfort of a tight hug, illuminating everything with no hurt, no burn or sting, it- it made her horny. Wow. She was still getting even higher. Lawrah was enjoying herself tremendously, listening to her favorite music while making love to her crush! How much better could it get? At a mid-semester break kickoff party with all her people, the village of Rothera. She closed her eyes and just focused on the music now, filled with infinite gratitude just to be alive on this strange rock, spinning in the void.

  The psytrance soared over the fences, vibrating along the bamboo poles all lined up together, and in fact it was somewhat more pleasant to listen to it from here. She had no idea it was possible to feel this happy, it felt so strong and alien that she started to feel a little uneasy about it. Almost guilty, like she wasn’t supposed to feel this happy, that it was forbidden. She really didn’t expect it to be this damn intense. She wished she was more used to this so she could embrace it and fully enjoy it, but it just kept coming, unrelenting, and it was on their stumbling journey through the temple nook that just an ever so nakaz bit of anxiety had to cluster around one idea- that this was too good. This was too good to be true. It couldn’t last forever. It had to come to an end at some point. And now she was worried about what might go wrong, that would steal this moment that she so badly wanted- to last forever. The loss of something infinite. It would be an easy portal to the plane of bad trip, but she had a cuteboi cock to skai sha hai right now, so it remained shut.

  She threw up her head and rolled it to and fro, cracked her neck which sent a jolt of frisson down her back, and then drifted her fluttering eyelids back up at Zholl. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

  Zholl rolled up her halter top and began to fondle her breasts and suck her teats, which made Lawrah moan.

  He threw up her dress and yanked her panties down.

  “Zholl, remember to pull out, ok?”

  “Mog.”

  And then they did the zug-zug.

  Happy sweet sixteen, Githarie Thraxes.

  She felt a little bad that she just spent all her time pushing and plying and hadn’t helped a lick with the setup here.

  It sounded like a TR-909. But they did not have a real TR-909, it was just a reverse engineered copy.

  It sounded like a TR-303. It was not a TR-303, it was an emulator on the shared universal magick machine that they were using to make the music. They had plugins that could allow them to switch between different modalities and play with versions of different synthesizers. They were never quite as good as the real thing though. Still, it mattered not, because what did matter was whether the sound worked. And the sound would always work if the rules were followed. It was a very robust pattern.

  You know I smoke a lot of grass, and I popped a lotta pills. But I’ve never done nothing that my spirit couldn’t kill. – Blind Melon

  The elvans absolutely loved techno too. It was sometimes all they listened to in a big porgy - the celebration, held separately for vassals and clanners, for well completed jobs. It was to celebrate success, yes, but also favor from the God Empress. And when it came to zug-zug, they got significantly more scandalous than an orcan razza usually did. After all, they would likely all already be naked.

  Cross the void.

  Should there ever be another chance to take it she would start with just a teensy nibble.

  Quite a few ravers shot an annoyed look at her.

  She’d adopted a Lawrah mannerism in that moment.

  Real talk.

  Real talk!

  ‘Bak gwa’, orcish for ‘nosy’, ‘gossipy’, ‘getting into other orcan’s business’.

  This was very much because her business was the dealing of narcotics. She very much hated it when people got into her business- even worse when line stepping fools would try to get in on it.

  She would find no clientele there for she would only discover too late that the Rothera punk scene was all straight edge. Dey did not listen to punk, she preferred technical, virtuosic instrumentality- why she went to the clearing first.

  Zhak and Gruker had held hands, dashing deep into the forest perimeter, to lay in a hammock together and talk. Zhak ultimately didn’t like loud music, he didn’t understand why orcans felt they were connecting like that when they couldn’t even talk to each other. He was too cerebral. As it turned out, they talked and talked about the Demigods and Documents campaign, for the two had only clued each other in with signals sent from roleplaying. Zhak, roleplaying a non-player character latina lawyer kween from Brooklyn who helped disenfranchised youth in pro bono cases, had struck up a campaign romance with Gruker, one of the player characters who picked lawyer class, but had otherwise just power gamed the rules and mechanics to get his lawyer as rich as possible. Gruker asked if Zhak would come out, but Zhak refused to answer, changing the topic. He knew his Dad too well. Zholl, Zhon, Mom, Githarie, they would all be behind him. But not Dad. And letting anyone else know, well… it was just too much of a risk. The Thraxes were not a discreet family.

  Viol - Gesaffelstein

  Dark techno.

  It was dark techno.

  The obvious answer that Githarie was not astute enough to grasp.

  Tour de Force - Covenant

  [攬炒]

  If she had been a little more aware, she would have realized that Deyandra seemed a little bit lonely too, didn’t she? But no zug-zug. Neither Lawrah nor Deyandra swung that way. Unfortunately, they just weren’t sure about the other’s sexuality and were wary about something not fully understood by their young zug brains. Homophobia – even for successfully passing and fully transitioned Lawrah – was, for some weird reason, still latent in Da Kultur. If only there was some sort of alliance that they could all join, but alas, the Horde Master saw how identity politics tore the Morquarrans asunder and tried to minimize it for his new Horde. So, he elected to go for the nakaz snaga hai copout- Don’t ask, don’t tell.

  Who did not exist. A fictional conjuration of her mind.

  They all wanted to get into her pants because of a disgusting little rumor that she couldn’t get pregnant.

  There was a little bit of moisture in the air, the light refracted through the prisms of some dewy condensed droplets that had begun to drizzle upon the festival, casting tiny rainbow novas and haloes. They only coalesced and rippled throughout all of reality because Lawrah was tripping her face off.

  Orcans understood a grouping of traits from the essence that could be channeled through their divine bodies had a common origin- ‘reptiles’. Camouflage skin, electromagnetic field perception, indeed troll regeneration itself – which atul had, that was like the orcan seatbelt – all had reptilian origin.

  You need to go find your best friend who is not having a good time.

  He already had- a fistful of shrooms, but a crucial difference was that he sneakily let Zhon have a little bit more, and when it all came out of the wash, it meant he was actually on a lesser dose than Lawrah. Plus, he had hooked up with Deyandra – it got complicated, it was a situationship, if you could call it that, even though they were on their eighth luna of- this- whatever it is, at least, on-and-off but if you counted only the on then Zholl surmised maybe no more than three lunas? Two. – and so, it got mad awk between them. So, he couldn’t get any coke from her! He had to get Lawrah to ferry it to him. Githarie was right, he was a fuckboi, and he was definitely going to break Lawrah’s heart.

  What the reptilian entity was trying to tell her.

  What was called a ‘sugar flip’ in the Lost Age.

  More often than not, drugs.

  The cool orcs, who felt they had the duruk but did not, for their heads just a little too far up their own anus. They stood about huddled in little circles, judging and signifying their belonging to the group with vapid in-jokes. These orcs were all assholes, but they would hang here in the nook for the entire razza. They really had nothing better to do but try and find the most exclusive area of the party.

  The assholes would find who they deemed were ugly couples, or perhaps follow the scent of drama, and show up to snark, it was awful.

  Still alive, after all.

  Lawrah had read many books too, and one of them was Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by the Godlike Hunter S. Thompson. She loved it. She didn’t gesh all of it, but she loved it.

  We’d like to mark here Lawrah expressly refusing permission.

  Let’s leave our hosts some privacy here! If you’re looking to scry some smut, sha know where to gimb it, sha perv!