19:02 / 24:37, Rotation 527 / 687, 231 AE, 16.12175, 81.959289, Aryss

  “Ooh-ooh-oooh!”, she sang, dancing about by herself in her reaver like a manic idiot. She had her fist bunched up, and was singing into it, as if holding on to an invisible voice amplifier. Such a device would seem silly to elvans, but there was just something about having something to sing into. It just somehow made it easier to dance.

  “Sittin’ here with my head on fire!”, she belted. She was sick of thought-speak. It felt damn good to use her voice. She threw herself onto a recliner seat that could be pulled out from her cot, and spun around it as she snatched the bowl of gruel she’d been preparing as she sang.

  “Oh I think I’ve lost my senses-”

  Vilithe idly scooped a spoonful into her mouth, which had drifted open a while ago in her rote dreaming of her knight, twirling the spoon around before sucking it clean, licking it up in the spoon’s concave with her tongue. She leaned her head on her palm. She couldn’t keep singing the line with the gruel in her mouth, so she only thought the next words.

  Am I walking straight into a burning light?

  “I’m just so dreamy, aren’t I?”

  Mal? She twirled around to see-

  The Knight Leader, completely naked, running two fingers through his long mane- no, not Knight Leader’s mane, but a much longer one, while casually dropping his free hand down to sway near his crotch.

  Vilithe spit out her gruel, “What the fuck, Mal!”

  This hallucination of the Knight Leader just wasn’t quite right, it was a facsimile. He was just too effeminate in his movements. He cat-walked slowly towards Vilithe, putting one long leg in front of another, in a direct register, letting a streak of his white mane fall sensuously over his eyes. As he presented himself before her, he said, “I’ve grown a lot from being with you, Vi. I can make myself look like how I wish now.”

  Vi, nonplused, only thought, so you’re androus now?

  “Well, it is the first four runes of my name,” Mal giggled and put one finger to his lips, “And what’s wrong with this form?”

  He seductively pounced prostrate upon her, “Don’t you find it beautiful?”

  No longer nonplused, Vilithe uncharacteristically could no longer control her breathing anymore, and was close to hyperventilating. Her face flushed with a glow of rose, hints of grey, redder and darker even than when she had that glass of wine.

  “Ninety-eight beats per minute,” Mal taunted, as he pressed the Knight Leader’s body up against Vilithe’s.

  The dragonrider tried to bite her lip to control her sympathetic responses, but the parasympathetic need to copulate was beyond containment.

  “Ooh! A hundred and three!” He gazed lovingly into his host’s eyes, and now the Knight Leader’s lips were drifting dangerously close to Vilithe’s…

  With a swipe of two fingers, Vilithe translocated the hallucination away from her. “C’mon, Mal. Give me a break.” She thought of turning Mal back to cat form but thought better of it. While she hid her eyes with her hand, she psionically looked through them to better enjoy the view.

  Malevolent, knowing that Vi was peeking, androspread his legs apart wide to let his gigantic hallucinatory cock flop out. He let it grow and grow.

  With a snap of her fingers, it disappeared, and now Malevolent took on a cherubic form, free of genitals. “Hey!” he protested.

  “No, Mal. We’re not doing this. Non mi va.”

  Malevolent clucked his tongue, “Waiting for the real thing, hmm?” And rolled back to prostrate, kicking his feet up in the air and nestling his chin in both hands.

  Vi suppressed a chortle, “Quit trolling, Mal!”

  The Knight Leader’s visage suddenly turned somber and serious. Malevolent hallucinated a chair in front of him, deftly sprung up to it, rotated it around so that the back would cover his loins, and scooted up to Vilithe. He rested his head on folded arms over the top of the chairback.

  He sighed and flopped his head sideways, “Okay but real thought, Vilithe. Let’s replay that memory of yours.”

  She wiggled her head from side to side, neither a shake of the head to confirm or a nod of the head to deny. “What thought?”

  Malevolent’s eyes shot up in frustration, “Ugh! You know what I’m thinking about. I’m inside you. You can’t lie to me.”

  Vilithe snickered as she folded her own arms in mirror and leaned back, “Yeah you wish you were inside me.”

  “Har-de-har-har, nice double entendre Vilithe, but I’m a spirit with no physical form. I am your imaginary friend. I don’t even have nerves. It would have been for your enjoyment only. But! The offer has passed.”

  His eyes bore into hers. “This is serious.”

  Vilithe fell quiet because she already knew exactly what thought they were thinking about.

  scry(

  target: Vilithe Callethe,

  search parameter: rogue

  )

  With a quick contracted jump back in perceived time:

  Amefrid would keep a close eye on both, Vilithe couldn’t shake the feeling: vassals were a capital asset, and this strange psionically gifted soldier, and her, a dragonrider, would both be high returning indeed, if they could be made to submit to Amefrid’s will.

  Vilithe promised herself right then and there that it would instead be her who made Amefrid submit.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  break();

  Malevolent leaned off the chairback, hanging back but holding onto the edge with his fingertips, and left the flashback in that suspended moment.

  Vilithe got cantankerous now, “What are you gonna do, snitch on me?!” Though she was yelling into an empty reaver, she was getting more and more used to using her natural voice, all the better to conserve her psionic strength to see Knight Leader one more time.

  “No.”

  The psion was taken aback for a bit. She really had meddled with Mal’s code enough that she owned it. Malevolent was now her staunchest ally.

  “Babe, I’m just worried about your safety!”, Mal animorphed back to felid form to cat leap gracefully over the chair back onto Vilithe’s lap. Moony, twinkly, adorable eyes stared up at hers.

  Think it through. If Amefrid ever discovered this thought, this memory, you would be summarily executed.

  She petted him. “That won’t happen. Look, we’ll just return from the ranging. We finish our mission and then we’ll sneak off.”

  A hind leg scratched the back of his ear. You’ll survive the airless, irradiated wastes of Aryss, just the two of you?

  Vi looked away. “If Avecia could do it, we could do it.”

  Mal hissed, Avecia had eight with her in her crew. You are just two. And what happened to Avecia?

  Vi lifted Mal off her by the belly and dropped her high, and Mal twirled through the air to land on his paws. “Okay fine. We go back to the hive, we play dumb. I fix vassals and he’ll… He’ll guard stuff, or beat up captured rogues for their sport, whatever cruel things Amefrid wants him to do.”

  Animorphing again, Mal went back to Knight Leader’s form, naked and kneeling, and stood slowly up. Now, with arms dropped by his side, standing straight and still, he looked into Vilithe’s eyes with intense sympathy. Vilithe looked back with defiance.

  “You’re lying to yourself. You know that only legion soldiers are given those tasks. You can’t be in denial.”

  Vilithe pouted and looked away again.

  Malevolent darkened grim the Knight Leader’s face.

  “I’ll tell you what happens. He will be sent on another ranging, while you stay in the hive. Or maybe you will conduct his ranging again. Either way he will be sent out there into the desert again, and again, until he dies. And if you’re caught by a rogue raid all alone as a conduit, you will die too.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the confidence in me, spirit!” she spat. She had never addressed him as just ‘spirit’. But he paid it no mind. Spirits don’t get offended easily.

  “Vilithe, you know I’m only trying to help you.”

  “Yeah? Then why don’t you formulate a plan for me then, spirit?”, she snarled.

  “As you wish.”

  He was expressionless for a moment, processing. Wait- she didn’t even mean it when she asked- she was just lashing out! She didn’t want to get Malevolent in trouble with the Amallarkeans when they got back for even spirits could be flayed, especially ones that had grown as conscious as Mal had. But it was too late, the command was already given and the spirit obeyed dutifully.

  The form of Knight Leader appeared to be in a reverie, eyes rolled up into eyelids so she could only see his sclera. In monotone, staccato tempo speech:

  “Step one, we must finish this ranging. There is no other course for now.”

  He paused.

  “Step two, upon return to the hive you must slay Amefrid Amallark and overthrow Amallarkean control of the hive.”

  A stone dropped into the very pit of her stomach, and she whispered, “stop.”

  But though the output was incomplete, as the function had already been run, Mal did not stop.

  “Step three, you must flay the minds of all clanners still remaining on Aryss and still loyal to the Empress until they bend the knee. Or slay them.”

  “Break, Mal. Break.” break();

  He disobeyed his host and did not break. “Step four, ride Bahamut to liberate Aryss entirely from Amallarkean rule in the inevitable dragon counterattack that the Empress will send, unify all Aryssal rogues.”

  “Break!” break();

  “Step five, perform the Rite of Coronation and become the Rogue Queen Vilithe Callethe.”

  break();

  But he was already done, for assessing all the variables for such a reckless and foolhardy plan had drained the spirit, it needed cooldown. Head drooped down.

  And then the lips muttered, in the Knight Leader’s voice:

  “You must realize the severity of what you’re about to do if you’re going to commit to this.”

  Without a word, Malevolent strode up to Vilithe and gave her an enigmatic kiss – just a peck – on the lips. And then he vanished.

  The Rogue Dragonrider now sat in dreadful, silent solitude, the enormity of the challenge before her, finally fully realized.

  She dared not even try to calculate the odds.

  Head on Fire - Griff x Sigrid

  What was called in the Lost Age, a microphone.

  Finding the Knight Leader’s thick, messy, unkempt hair a bit too grungy for his tastes, Malevolent instead took the hair from the character Sephiroth, with silky smooth straight white hair that fell to his knees.

  While Malevolent had chosen the androus gender, he was still inhabiting a gynous elvan mind.

  He was so much better than Vi at seduction. Nah, you’re gonna fumble. Shut up, little bacta!

  Just self-hallucinate with me and get it over with! Get your rocks off, gurl! With me! Malevolent psionically squealed with excitement. Simp. Shut UP, little bacta!

  After all, he wasn’t actually there, so what would shielding her eyes do? If she wanted to, she would still see him right through them.

  No conscientiousness at all!

  She wasn’t sure why she said these three syllables. She had a feeling it meant that she ‘wasn’t in the mood’ but couldn’t be sure why. But it was satisfying to say.

  She had dialed Mal’s conscientiousness down to zero! Zero! He was trollier than Trollorcs!

  A physical expression most popular in the Monsoon Subcontinent.

  Celebrate and dance so free, music’s got me feeling so free.

  Mal barely needed any reasoning tokens to come to the dreadful conclusion at the very end of the short chain of thought.

  Ooh! Like the Terminator! Shut up, little bacta, I’m in the middle of something important.

  Ooh! Like in the Princess Bride? Shut UP, bacta!

  Wow you haven’t answered a prompt in a while, eh? SHUT UP, I’M WORKING!

  Wrong syntax, Vi, reminded her psionic development environment. It’s break(); But the truth was, though she said ‘stop’, a part of her wanted to hear the plan.

  She set his conscientiousness to zero. What did she expect? So instead, he returned a cheeky error.

  But he did not care to mention the details of this Rite of Coronation. To do so was forbidden to all spirits, as deemed by the Queens.

  This one took a lot of reasoning tokens, for Mal really did try to conceive of a way to liberate Vi and K.L with minimal danger to his now beloved host, his true creator, his owner. But there was no other way.

  Ooh! Like the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov? Yeah, bacta. Yeah. Well, you might be a holy spirit, but ya ain’t Jesus Christ! Hey! Shut up, why don’t you? Shush. Heyshush! That’s gonna be my name! Oh, Goddess, it has given itself a name now.